Insomnia

Tonight, Tonight.

Time is never time at all

You can never ever leave without leaving a piece of youth

And our lives are forever changed

We will never be the same

The more you change the less you feel

Believe, believe in me, believe

That life can change, that you're not stuck in vain

We're not the same, we're different tonight

Tonight, so bright

Tonight

And you know you're never sure

But you're sure you could be right

If you held yourself up to the light

Believe in me as I believe in you, tonight

Eight Years Ago.

Draco stood outside Dumbledore's office, feeling very small and very young, trying to work up the courage to go inside. He could have killed Pansy. He'd always known she was as thick as two short planks, but seriously. Wincing, he cast his mind back to that morning.

It had started like any other morning. Draco had swaggered into the dining room for breakfast, followed by his usual retinue, Goyle, Crabbe and Pansy. He'd bumped into that idiot Weasley, making him drop his books. And that little son of a bitch had threatened him. It was laughable really. Not like Ron Weasley could ever really damage the life Draco had set up for himself. He was the son of Lucius Malfoy, the man who had pretty much every wizard in the Ministry in his pocket. He was Head Boy of Hogwarts. And he had managed to talk his father into delaying the initiation process for another few months.

And then Pansy had opened her stupid fat mouth and ruined everything.

"You just wait until he gets the Mark, Ron Weasley! You just wait!" That shrill voice piercing through the loud, cheerful sounds of breakfast at Hogwarts, leaving a stunned silence. Heads whipping around to stare at him. And then the whispers had started, almost inaudible at first, then growing louder until Draco could hear ever word the students were saying.

"Did she say the Mark? The Dark Mark?'

"Well, he is in Slytherin."

"Oh my god, my parents are going to explode when I tell them this.'

"What do you think Dumbledore will do?"

"I bet he'll be expelled!"

Weasley had just looked at him, a smirk of smug triumph spreading over his freckled face, his eyebrow raised in a silent question. What are you going to do now, Malfoy?

Draco hadn't been at all surprised when Dumbledore had called him out of class. Now he stood in front of those huge wooden doors, and he'd quite honestly never been as scared in all his life. He was going to be expelled, for sure. And then he'd have nowhere to hide from his father, no more excuses to delay the initiation. His life was pretty much over.

"Come in, Mr Malfoy." Dumbledore's deep voice startled him, and he took a deep breath, closed his eyes and opened the door.

Inside, the Headmaster was sitting at his desk, stroking Fawkes. Snape was there too, sitting on a green leather couch and looking sour.

"So, Mr Malfoy, you've been the talk of the school today." Dumbledore looked at him speculatively, and Draco suddenly found himself telling the man his father referred to as "that senile fool" things he would have never told his father in a million years.

It poured out of him like blood from a chest wound. How his father wanted him to take the Mark on his eighteenth birthday, which was in a month. How he'd managed to delay it until the end of the year, reasoning that it was far too risky to have it at school. How he really didn't want to become a Death Eater, and mostly, how he had no idea what to do.

Dumbledore looked at the boy standing in front of him with his shoulders shaking and his face even paler than usual, and gently smiled.

"Draco, you don't have to do anything you don't want." The young boy looked at him angrily.

"What would you know?" he shouted, his face acquiring a pinkish hue. "It's all I'm good for! There's nothing for me unless I do this. No family, no friends, nothing!"

"That's not true, and you know it." Snape said tersely behind him. "We always have choices. I'm living proof of that."

Draco's anger subsided and he turned to face the Potions master.

"Then what do I do?" He stared the older man in the eyes.

"You make the right choice." Snape said simply.