Obsession

Obsession.

I am not gay.

Not even a little bit. I have a girlfriend, thank you very much, and she can tell you I am definitely straight. I am not attracted to men.

So it doesn't mean anything.

It's just a little obsession.

I've always had them. They don't last long and as long as I never do anything about it, there's nothing wrong with it. Someone will attract my attention and I...I can't stop thinking about them. I'll watch them, learn their every move and tone, find out every detail of their life and dream a thousand dreams of how I'll catch them and claim them...and then, just as suddenly as it came, it will be gone.

I suppose you could call it a crush, except Malfoy's do not have crushes. We have encounters, affairs and romances and sometimes even love, but we do not have crushes.

Obsessions are considered sufficiently noble. Except that whilst all my encounters have been conducted with the fairer sex, all my obsessions are with my own kind.

I would never tell anyone, of course. Could you imagine what it would do to my reputation? To my family name?

My father would never forgive me.

This latest one doesn't mean anything. Just because it's stronger than anything else I've ever felt doesn't mean anything. It's not real. It's just hormones and frustration and teenage confusion.

But I can't stop watching him.

I know his body almost as well as I know my own. I know every curve, every gesture, every play of muscle beneath smooth skin and I have never even touched him.

Well, not the way I want to.

They used to talk about me. I knew the rumours, knew the looks. Though I hate to admit it, my looks veer towards feminine. I know I could be considered...pretty. So of course people wondered. But all that stopped when I started going out with Pansy.

And now...now it's my last year at school and she's still trying to get me into bed. Don't get me wrong, I'm no blushing novice, fumbling at first kisses, but yes, I'm still a virgin. Technically. Not from lack of trying on Pansy's behalf - in fact, I rather wish that she was a little less eager. It takes some of the fun out it when she's throwing herself at me constantly. Has she no dignity? - but still, I haven't taken that final step. I don't really know why. I think about it often enough but when I'm there with her...I just don't want to. Perhaps I should get a new girlfriend.

It's got nothing to do with the fact that when I'm with her, all I can think of is him.

Sometimes, a depression settles on me out of nowhere, and I wonder why I'm so messed up. I must be, to have these obsessions and desires and such a screwed-up way of dealing with them.

I've made him hate me, and the irony is I did it by mistake.

Plenty of people hate me and to be honest, I rather like it. It takes a lot of hard work to be that obnoxious and cruel, and when I stalk through the corridors the looks of fear and loathing give me quite a buzz. After all, hate is born of fear, and to be feared is to have power.

I am powerful.

I am the unquestioned prince of my house, and even though most of them don't like me, they all fear me and so they all follow me. In that, I know my father is proud.

But I wonder...I wonder what it is like to be followed out of love. Like Potter. I still hate the damn Boy Who Lived, but it doesn't stop me wondering what it would be like to be him. He has been feared and hated over the years, yet he has that little group who love him beyond all things and would never abandon him.

I would like to have that. I am not so greedy as to want a group. I just want one person.

But my little obsession has already given himself to Potter.

I was never nice to him, but I never singled him out the way I did Potter and his two shadows. To be honest, I never really noticed him. He was just another Gryffindor, just another golden fool to half-heartedly mock. And so, one day when I was trying to wind Potter and his weasel up, I made a comment about St. Mungo's.

I noticed him then.

He would have killed me, given half a chance.

I didn't know. If I had known, I never would have said it. His pain wasn't worth it, you see. I am only that cruel if I have reason to be, and I had no reason to want to hurt him that much.

Now, the thought of hurting him is painful in itself.

He has noticed me, which is worrying. None of the others ever noticed me, and at first I feared that if he noticed, so would others. But no-one has.

I meet his gaze occasionally, though I have learnt to be subtle, and his eyes are full of fear and confusion. After all that he has changed, he still fears me.

Oh, and he has changed. I'll never forget how he and the Weasley brat escaped from us in our fifth year. I felt nothing for him then, nothing but anger that he had outsmarted me and surprise that he had managed it. He had always been weak and scared, a somewhat overweight boy who couldn't do anything right. Yet he escaped and later, my father told me exactly what had happened in the Ministry. What he had done.

A true Gryffindor, after all.

And when he came back the next year...

I don't know what he did all summer, but it was as if the round-faced boy had melted away and suddenly, a man stood in his place. Physically, the only difference was that he was fitter, from some kind of sport, and had finally changed the pudding-bowl haircut. But when you looked at him now, you saw confidence. This was a man who been in battle and had fought as best he could. His magic came on in leaps and bounds, proving McGonagall right, and he became a duellist to be reckoned with. He even stopped cowering whenever he was near Snape. He was still terrified, you could see it in him, but he was controlling it. Fighting it.

He'd become strong.

And I noticed.

The snob in me is disgusted. If a Malfoy is going to desire a male, he should at least have the taste to desire the most handsome. Even in the throes of my obsession, I know that he is plain. And boring. And no-one would ever want him.

Except that I do.

My little obsessions have never lasted longer than a month, but I have been watching him for over a year. Before, all I wanted was physical contact. My obsessions were based on pure lust, and I can deal with that. Everyone has the occasional fantasy, don't they? But with him...oh, God, I want to know him. I want to be talk to him. I want...I just want to be in his company.

I don't want to face what that means.

I lay awake at night and think about what could be. I know his habits; I know that twice a week he goes alone to the Herbology greenhouses to care for the plants. He likes plants. Professor Sprout doesn't mind; it gives her some spare time and she trusts him, so she leaves him to it. He will work there for a few hours, utterly alone. Once you're in the Greenhouses, no-one can see you from the castle. No-one else goes there in the evenings. I could follow him, I could slip inside and I could...

I know what I could do. I don't know what I would do.

Part of me wants to find out. Part of me wants to go down to those greenhouses, to the warmth and the darkness, and just see what happens. To actually act on my feelings for once. And if he really hates me, well...at least I'd know. At least I'd have tried, instead of living this sham of a life.

The rest of me is terrified.

But I can't stop thinking about it. About him.

I'm obsessed.