My Father

My Father

My father.

I have grown to despise those two words.

Those two words are the reason I am in Slytherin. The reason that I have all the enemies I do. The reason that I was almost a Death Eater. The reason that I lost the person I ever loved.

I remember when I was only a boy. I admired my father. If my father were to jump off a bridge buck-naked, believe me, so would of I. But, as I grew older, the admiration stopped.

I learned to never misbehave while I was a child, for if I did, I would pay dearly for it. My father would always threaten if he saw that malicious glint in my eye. "Don't make me get the belt," he would always say, sounding almost murderous.

The years before I went to school, I was beat at least once a week. My poor mother tried to stop my father at first. I remember seeing my mother weeping for the first time. I had gone over the Malfoy Manor boundaries, a most terrible crime to my father. She had wept for me. My father was rough that time. He seemed to enjoy punishing me, and he always made mother watch. She would protest, but my father seemed to only enjoy it more when she did.

After a while, my mother stopped. There was no protesting from her. Sometimes she never even spared me a glance. I knew my father had worn her down, just as he planned to do to me.

No one ever felt pity for me. Not a soul. That was until I met her.

I was twelve when I first saw her. She was like all the others that had come before her in her family, flaming red hair and a tremendous amount of freckles. Father tried to take her too.

In my second year he tried to kill her. He gave her that diary. My father denies it all to the public, but in private he gloats about it and only wishes that he had succeeded in killing her.

My third year I really had nothing to do with her at all. I had not contact with her until my fourth year and her third. Right at the end of the Triwizard Tournament, I found her crying at the outskirts of the Quidditch field. I tried to comfort her, but I was a fool. I am a Malfoy and she is a Weasley. She pushed me away.

My fifth year was when we actually became closer. She was the one who found me in the library that one time.

I had gone into the library to think. My father, at home, was growing more impatient that I was not doing my proper "training" to become a Death Eater.

I sat back near the farthest bookshelf all the way in the back, my face in my hands. I wasn't crying, I hadn't cried in years, but I felt terrible. I hadn't slept or eaten in days. I was hoping to die soon, to relieve this pain that I was constantly feeling.

"Draco?" I heard a soft whisper. I looked up. It was her. "Are you okay?" she asked, walking over to me slowly.

"I'm fine," I croaked, not sounding "fine" at all.

"Okay," she said starting to walk back. I stood up. I did not know why I stood up, but I did. She stopped walking backwards.

For a brief moment we both stood there staring at each other. I walked towards her slowly. She trembled when we were only inches apart. I would have trembled too if I had the strength. It all happened very slowly, there was no rush. I kissed her softly. I moved my hands to her back, and I felt her kiss back.

I was kissing Ginny Weasley.

You could say that kiss was the kiss of life because days afterwards I started to eat again. Slowly, I got meat back on my bones. The owls from my father did not bother me anymore, just as long as I had Ginny. Everything went great, until my seventh year.

He took her too.

My father along with a cluster of Death Eaters launched an attack at Hogwarts during the Yule Ball in my seventh year.

I was dancing with Ginny, whom I had still not told father about, when I heard her mumble something.

"What was that?" I asked.

"Draco, I think I lo-" I never got to hear what Ginny said. The doors of Hogwarts had flown open and there stood my father and his "friends" draped in black cloaks.

Immediately students started to panic. The Death Eaters attacked. I lost Ginny in the crowd.

I made my way in and out of the group of students trying to find Ginny. People fell to the ground. They were killing everyone, one by one.

The teachers tried to take control of the situation, but they too met death. I started to run. I had to find Ginny.

I saw my father through the crowd. He smiled at me. I could only stare at him, disgusted. He would pay.

I grabbed my wand, which I kept with me at all times, and walked over to my father.

"Stop!" I commanded. My father stared at me, I must have seemed insane to him. "Stop," I repeated.

"Draco," he drawled. "You cannot stop me I-" I could not take it any longer. I have tolerated my father for seventeen years. Now it was just too much. I screamed at the top of my lungs,

"AVADA KEDARVA!" My father fell to the floor with a thud. I stared at him in shock.

I had killed my father.

Eventually, the scene was solved. Many had died. I was one of the few alive. The Death Eaters had killed most of the people whom I had seen alive just a few minutes before.

They had killed students as if it was a hobby. I searched for Ginny. I had to find her. I had to know she was okay. I had to hear her voice.

I found her.

She was lying on the floor in the corner near where my father had been earlier.

"Ginny," I whispered and shook her body gently. She did not respond. Tears came to my eyes. My vision blurred and I continued to call her name.

My father's body was right next to hers. It hit me. Ginny had been my father's last victim until I had killed him.

My father took her from me. My father killed the only person I loved. I was all alone. My father did this.

My father. Lucius Malfoy.