The Hero's Burden

I will never understand you. Never. We have been together since the end of the war, ten long years ago, and in this time, you have always been a mystery. Even when you were close to death, and I had saved you, I still didn't understand.

After everything I did for you, you still shunned me as if I was the cause of all your problems. Perhaps I was. It was, after all, my fault that your father had gone to Azkaban, my fault that you fell in love with me, my fault that you rejected the dark side. I know you regretted that the most. You had been fighting with the dark since you were a child; then you fell for me, and you forsook that, even though you thought you had no chance with me, everyone's sodding hero.

But I am no longer a hero. The one person I care for refuses to let me in. I do not deserve the title of hero; I renounce it, just as I beg myself to renounce the feelings I have for you. But this never works, renouncing my love for you. I never thought I would feel love in my life. I had never been shown any before, and all I seemed to feel was hate. Everyone I loved had died except you. Even though now, it feels as if the "you" I loved is dead, too.

Where did I go wrong, Draco, my love? Why do you shove me to the side? I love you; I need you! I've tried to give you everything, but you give me nothing. Am I really nothing to you? I knew that being together was going to be hard, for both of us, for what we were. I never thought you would make it harder.

I think of what I saw from the few couples like us, when I was growing up in the Muggle world. Maybe my idea of what our love should be like is wrong, terribly warped by what I saw in my youth, and this is the way the couples were behind closed doors, but I know in my heart this cannot be right. It cannot be right for one partner to be so cold towards the other. It cannot be right for one partner to feel so used, so hurt, so broken by the other. It cannot be right when one partner is dying for a sign that the other still loves them as much as they do.

I know I am not alone in this awful feeling. I know that hundreds, thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people are going through this, all wanting the same thing, hoping that they will get it, willing themselves to stay strong when the time is right to ask for what we want. We want what we deserve. We want what we need. We want to know the truth.

When are you going to be honest with me, Draco Malfoy?