Human On Your Pedestal

Human On Your Pedestal

Draco Malfoy sat staring intently before him, but seeing nothing.

He was shirtless, sitting in his soft cotton pajama bottoms. He was not god, not even anything close and although he did have an expensive taste, he couldn't argue with comfort when he felt it.

The lawn chair he sat on was colored a fading white, pathetically brittle and that creaking with every movement he made. He didn't hear it though; he was too busy listening to what was going on inside his head.

His skin was not perfect; it was not magically and irrevocably pale. It was tanned to a bronze hue, just like everyone else's in the sweltering heat of mid-summer. But the man took no notice. He did not care about his skin color; he didn't care about how his gray eyes were flecked with silver, or even how his salient chin mirrored his father's exactly.

What he did care about, he could not say.

It might have been money, and it might be power.

He had both those two things since he was born, but they were such fickle things. Both were illusive; tasted but never swallowed. He could chase it; he could run like his father. That man had always been on top of things, a true leader. But in the end, he would only be a shadow of his father.

Malfoys were always people of such great power, thought to be untouchable and even undefeatable. Did he, the most recent addition to the Malfoy lineage, taste like power? Did it ooze out of his every pore, and glue eyes to his lithe form wherever he went?

Everyone else seemed to think that.

He wouldn't complain. In fact, he rather enjoyed it.

He couldn't care less whether he deserved the attention or not. Such things in his life were taken, no questions asked, and milked for all it was worth. For all the doubts and insecurities he had before, he came out of the race, content. Quite possibly happy even; but he wouldn't be able to tell the difference anyway.

The Slytherin took a fag out of his pocket.

Lethargically, he raised it to his slightly bruises lips. They were chapped, adorned with small lacerations not of his doing. But then again, why do you care about the state of his lips? His opened mouth revealed a row of unnaturally straight teeth, tinged yellow from his smoking habit.

Perfection was also deceptive, he mused, but then again the lies were all so much easier to swallow.

A tap of his ebony wand and a muted inhalation later, it was rearing to go.

And so he smoked, a subtraction of his longevity, wrapped into an unmarred symmetric white rolling sheet. The nicotine relaxed him from it's own addiction induced stress, and he sighed watching the smoke rise to the sky. It was nearly dawn, he realized, studying the splashes of orange, pink and midnight blue.

Was this the point where he found it aesthetically pleasing? Or was he supposed to condemn the beauty of nature for beings weaker than himself?

He did neither, opting to take another long drag of his cigarette. There were countless ways to dig yourself into a hole in this modern day world.

He chose the hedonistic one.

A minute come was a minute gone at any rate; and so he watched the birds awaking and listened to them chirp, albeit detachedly. Did he like the small and fluffy creatures? Would he cast an Unforgivable curse on them? Maybe he would like them in some deep dark corner of his hidden soul.

He coughed suddenly, a loud whooping sound, seeming to rattle from somewhere in his throat.

Actions did have their repercussions, of course.

And he was an outcome of an action wasn't he?

It was like he was an echo of a mistake. Another trinket passed down from the Malfoy ancestry. He was the byproduct of one mistake after another, and yet look at where he was: on top. He didn't need to be Golden Boy of course, it was rather clichéd and he supposed he wouldn't have liked being a hero in the end.

No, he didn't need to be the Golden Boy. Not at all. But he needed the second best thing.

Having the Golden Boy.

He heard a voice, calling from deep inside the house.

"Draco," It sounded hoarse, a bit questioning, but also certain. As if there was no glimmer of a doubt that Draco wouldn't heed to the voice. Draco, yes Draco, not Malfoy; the blonde did have his own personality after all, and wasn't simply a reflection of his father or his father's fathers, and etcetera.

For a moment, he wondered about Lucius. They hadn't talked in years, and neither really missed the other that much. Draco could wonder for hours on end how his life could have been different; but never did.

Was he heartless? Was he abused as a child and made to hate his father?

No. There was just an empty to hole where that affection should have been. And there was no point to go chasing a misplaced past; at least not to him.

Such thoughts, perhaps he should pour himself a vodka?

Absentmindedly, he flicked the finished fag somewhere onto the lawn. Would it start a bush fire? Would he even notice? His bare feet padding noiselessly into the familiar house, he headed towards his and Harry's room.

What do you do when you have everything?

Throw it away, of course.

~Finis~