Behind Grey Eyes

No one knows what it's like,

To be the bad man, to be the sad man,

Behind grey eyes.

'They don't know; they don't understand. They would 'never' understand. They live in their happy little home with their happy little families, never to understand what it feels like to be the bad guy, to be the enemy. To be regarded with hate and contempt. To be ... alone.'

Draco Malfoy sat quietly on the handrail of his veranda. His cold grey eyes betraying nothing as they gaze out towards the gloomy landscape of the Mansion ... his fathers' Mansion. He has nothing. No possessions, no feelings, no one. Nothing ...

'Potter has everything. He has a family, friends, people who care for him. People who would do anything for him, even die for him. I have no one. Father would sooner renounce his family than show anything remotely close to feelings for me. Why?'

Draco stood up from the rail where he had been sitting.

'He has Granger and Weasley. I could have had him if he hadn't met the gangly Weasley first. He could have been mine, 'my' possession ... 'my' friend ... my ... savior. But no, Potter had to choose the Mudblood and the weasel. Weasley the vagabond. What does he have that I don't. And Granger, Mudblood Granger. Know-it-all Granger ... Granger ... '

Draco looked up, his lighter eyes contrasting sharply with the darkened sky. His eyes had always been his proudest asset. Lighter than his fathers' cruel ones that never showed any emotion other than hate, but darker than his mother's bluish ones, always full of disdain directed towards him. No, He was wrong. He did have something. Something that was solely his, something that no one could 'ever' take away from him.

And no one knows what it's like,

To be hated, to be faded,

To telling only lies.

'What do people see when they look at me? What do they feel when I taunt them, make them feel like they are not worthy, that they deserve to die? Hate? Disgust? ... Do I deserve to die?'

Draco leaned back on his wall, with a sigh he slid down and put his arm around his legs, hugging them.

'A hug. What is a hug? How does it feel like to be hugged, to be cared for? To care for anyone? I have never cared for anyone in my entire life. Except maybe, for .... no! Mother never cared for me, I don't even exist to her. Only as a tool for publicity, to gain a reputation as a perfect family. Perfect ... nothing is perfect.'

'Does perfect mean being someone who their parents want them to be? Does it mean having the perfect body and complexion? Father always said that I had inherited his good looks, but my attitude needed an adjustment. If I behaved more like him, would that make me perfect? If I became the person they want me to be, would they hate me less? Would I become less invisible?'

Draco closed his eyes. When he opened them again, they shone with a new light, a light of determination. With one final look at the sky, Draco stood and walked into his room, shutting the door behind him, one last time.

But my dreams they aren't as empty,

As my conscious seems to be,

I have hours, only lonely,

My love is vengeance,

That's never free,

'Everyone has dreams. Potter dreams the was born a normal boy with a normal family. Granger dreams of being the best student in Hogwarts history, even the Weasel has dreams. Dreams of being richer, more renowned, like the Malfoy family. Do I have dreams? Are my dreams like everyone else's? In my dream, does my family love me? Do I have friends? Do I feel? Yes. I wish dreams were reality, and I don't have to be who I am. In my dreams, I am loved. I do have a family that loves me, friends that care for me. Someone for me to love, anyone ...'

'I'm just a shell. An empty shell of nothingness. A puppet whose strings are being held by a heartless monster that calls himself Father. In my dreams, I matter, I'm somebody. Nobody makes me do what I don't want to do or be what I don't want to be. Where I don't have to be alone anymore. Dreams, where that person will return these feelings and say that they feel for me too. But dreams are just dreams.'

Draco Malfoy sat on his bed, looking down at the vial in his hand and the red contents that fill it. Red. The color of blood, the color of ... death. Death is forever.

'Forever, is an awfully long time.'

No one knows what its like,

To feel these feelings,

Like I do, and I blame you!,

'Why do I have these feelings? I was brought up to be without feelings. What is it about you that makes me feel like this? How can you make me feel this way and act the way that you do? Superiority. That's what you think yourself as. You were always one step ahead of me no matter what I did. You were one of the reasons Father treats me so. Why do you have to be so good? Why do things come natural to you, whereas I have to give my all only to be left in the shadows? I have so many questions to ask you but no time to ask them.'

Draco Malfoy stood from his bed and walked to his trunk - his father's trunk, not his. From the inside he pulled out a piece of parchment, a quill and a bottle of ink.

'You always stood out. People could recognize you with that hair a mile away. So different from others, yet respected nonetheless. Was it you demeanor? Your intelligence? What was it? Why don't I have it? Father always said a Malfoy should not develop feelings for anything not born a Pureblood. Malfoys should not lower themselves to their standards. What would he know? He throws away his pride and kneels down to a half-breed who would be no one if it wasn't for us. Us? Purebloods. What is it about pureblood that make us better than the rest of them? Are we better? No.'

Draco laid the parchment on the bed and began to write. He wrote what he felt. He wrote what he was thinking. He wrote his final letter to the cruel world.

' Am I better than you? Yes. You make me have these feelings. You make me care. You change me, yet you care not for me. I would have given you everything, yet you stay with those raggedy friends of yours, that Weasley who doesn't have a knut to his name, and that - it doesn't matter anymore, everything's finally going to end. An end to the beginning of eternity.'

No one bites back as hard,

On their anger,

None of my pain woe,

Can show through,

'Mother, I hate you. Yet I cannot. I love you. Yet I would be lying if I said so. No son can ever truly hate his Mother. You brought me into this world full of hate and pain and left me to fend for myself, I cannot forgive you for that. Do you really hate me? Does the sight of me really anger you? Does my suffering please you? I hope you will live a happier life once this is over.'

Draco looked up from the parchment. His gaze fell upon the roaring flames of his fireplace. Fire. So beautiful, yet, so dangerous and unpredictable. Like a Malfoy.

'I feel nothing, Mother. Not anger, not hate, not pain. You taught me that. A Malfoy shall show no pain. That's what you and Father always said. I have shown no pain. Will you be proud of that? Will you think better of me once I'm gone? Will you finally acknowledge that I was your son? A son who was born from darkness, lived in darkness and will spend eternity in darkness ... alone.'

No one knows what its like,

To be mistreated, to be defeated,

Behind grey eyes,

Draco stopped his writing and thought about his father, the senior Malfoy. The most feared follower of He-Who - no, Voldemort. The man he has pledge his whole life to please, to live up to. The man who never looked at his son in another light but as a failure, a disgrace to the name Malfoy.

'A son. Father's son. The unwanted son. Was I just a mistake? Was I just another 'thing' conceived to be a mindless pawn for Voldemort? I have tried my best to please you, to make you proud. But it was never enough. Nothing I have ever done in my life was ever good enough for you. Why? Was I such a disappointment that you had to treat me as such? The pain you inflicted was never the same. It always got worse. It always hurt. No matter how much I tried to hide it, deep down, I hurt.'

A single tear splashed on the parchment, marring the writings on it. Draco Malfoy touched his wet cheek in wonder; never had he shed a single tear before in his life.

'Why do we cry? What is the point of crying? Is it because of feelings? Father never cries. Malfoy's never cry. Does this make me less of a Malfoy? If I wasn't born a Malfoy, would have my life been different? Would have I been spared this pain and anguish? These scars that mar my body are reminders of my reality. I wish they would just fade. I wish I would fade.'

No one knows how to say,

That they're sorry and don't worry,

I'm not telling lies,

Draco Malfoy opened the cover of the vial and looked at its red contents in awe. So beautiful, and yet, so deadly. One drop. That's all it took to fall into a dreamless slumber for one night. One vial. The key to an eternal slumber.

'Will Father look back on this day and feel regret? Will he think about the things he could have done differently? Will he feel sorry he that never loved me? Will he remember me when he grows old? As the son he never loved. The son who lost his way and ended up lost in the darkness.'

That was when Draco Malfoy drank the entire content of vial in his hand, the final drink he would ever have. He slowly lay down on his bed, pouring the final words of his heart onto the parchment at hand.

'What will Father think when he reads this letter? Will he call out my name in sorrow? Will he feel sad? Will he visit my grave where my empty body dwells? Will he cry for my lost soul?'

As Draco Malfoy's eyes slowly closed, the final words in his letter were yet not finished. He called out to the person he had finally expressed his feelings for. In one phrase he had said it all, everything he very wanted, everything his heart yearned for, everything ...

'I loved you, H...'

No one knows what its like,

To be the bad man, to be the sad man,

Behind grey eyes.

As his eyes dimmed, he slowly slipped into a world where there was no black or white. Where good and evil is just a distant memory. Where sadness and pain doesn't exist. A world where five words are more than just a longing. Five words that could have been the difference between life and death. Five words ...

'You make me proud, son.'

And with that, Draco Malfoy, the boy hated by all, closed his eyes one last time. With him, he took the only possession he had that ever belonged solely to him, to be his for an eternity more. His possession. To be gazed upon by the world no longer. The secrets held within them remain secrets. Dark secrets hidden, behind grey eyes.

~Fin~