Concrete Angel

READ THIS!!: I had to change the word 'she' to 'he' in this song because it fits better. My apologies to Martina McBride and whoever wrote the song.

He walks to school with the lunch he packed....

Draco awoke on the morning of September first to a beautiful, peaceful morning outside his window. As he opened his pale, slate-colored eyes, the sun greeted him with winking light as it peeked over the horizon, casting pink, orange and purple over the sky and clouds. He stretched in the lazy morning warmth, and the sleeve of his green silk pajamas inched back a little, revealing a large, violet bruise just above his wrist.

He ignored this and got out of bed. He walked over to his expensive wardrobe, opened the door, and picked out his favorite green sweater and a pair of black slacks. He'd change into his sharp, finely-made school robes on the train. He laid these on a random expensive leather chair in his room and made his way into his own private bathroom to make ready for the journey to Kings Cross, and then to Hogwarts.

After he'd showered and changed, and made sure every fine, silver hair was in place, he had a house-elf pack his trunk as he made his way downstairs to greet his loving mother.

"Good morning, Draco," she said softly to him as he sat at the dining table. She laid in front of him a large plate with smiley face pancakes. No doubt she was trying to cheer him up after last night. He smiled his most winning smile at her and her eyes filled with tears as she hugged him tightly. Good thing his father wasn't awake or he'd have thrashed Draco for making his mother cry, because Lucius Malfoy hated tears. They were weakness. So when he was beating his son, if his son shed a tear, he beat him harder.

Draco ate, quietly talking with his mother about his plans for school this year. He left out all the taunting and teasing he was itching to do; his mother wanted him to be polite. A door opened and his father strode into the room.

"Good morning, love," he said, casually brushing aside his wife's kiss on the cheek. Draco immediatley clapped his hand for another house-elf to clear away the food on the table; his father hated waiting. "Draco, are you ready to leave for the train station?"

"Yes, father," Draco replied quickly, his eyes downcast. He hurriedly went upstairs to fetch his trunk and cloak, shoved some gold into his leather satchel for the lunch trolley on the train, and nearly ran downstairs, because his father hated waiting.

The three of them walked out into daylight and set off in their expensive Malfoy carraige in silence.

Nobody knows what he's holding back.....

Hermione kissed her mother and father good-bye and boarded the train with Harry and Ron. They laughed and talked about their summer holiday as the train whistled and pulled out of the station. Scenes of villages, farms, and wild countryside passed by their window as they planned their adventures for the school year. Around noon the trolley came around and they bought a bunch of candy. Hermione ate a fat Cauldron Cake as she bemusedly watched her boys singe off their eyebrows in about a million games of Exploding Snap. It was very nice to be back, and she was having alot of fun just being with her friends again. But something bothered her...it nagged at the back of her mind....she was dreading something, but she wasn't sure what...and then it revealed itself to her, in all it's blonde glory.

The compartment door slid open and Draco Malfoy sauntered in, flanked by his thugs, Crabbe and Goyle. He wore his usual sneer and he looked rich and smarmy as he always did. But something was different...something was wrong with him, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it.

"Well well, if it isn't Potty and the Weasel. Oh and look," he said sarcastically, turning his handsome, pointed face toward Hermione, " it's the Bucktoothed Beaver, the Mudblood Granger."

After a small spat with Harry and Ron ( the same Ron who almost killed Malfoy, again ), the three Slimy Slytherins left them in peace once more. They went back to enjoying themselves, but even as they pulled in at Hogsmeade station, even as they watched the Sorting, ate the feast, and meandered up to their dormitories, Hermione still felt something wrong in him, and in spite of herself, she was worried.

Wearing the same clothes he wore yesterday, he hides the bruises with the linen and lace....

Draco picked his favorite dress robes as he made his way to Hogsmeade station to catch the train home for Christmas. He wanted very much to see his mother, but dreaded meeting his father.

The bruises up and down his arms and legs were fading, and what remained was hidden by the green silk and ruffles.

He arrived at the manor in a carraige driven by his father's buddy, Macnair. Though he had seen Macnair do evil, evil things, Draco had always liked the man better than he liked his father. Macnair had always treated Draco with the air of an Uncle surveying his favorite nephew, and Draco could tell that if Macnair wasn't so fearful of Lucius Malfoy, he probably would have rescued Draco and Narcissa both.

Once home, there was a huge Christmas party that Draco enjoyed despite himself. All of his Slytherin friends and their Death Eater parents were there. He spent the night talking and joking with Pansy Parkinson, Blaise Zabini and Malcom Baddock. Crabbe and Goyle (and their fathers) were pigging out at the buffet table. Draco went back to his guests and their conversation, wondering internally when it would come.

The teacher wonders but she doesn't ask....

It's hard to see the pain behind the mask...

Minerva McGonagall sat at her desk, shuffling and grading papers by candle light. This was how she spent Christmas Holiday. She graded an essay on How To Transfigure a Chocolate into a Gold Coin by Neville Longbottom. He had lots of spelling mistakes...and he kept forgetting steps...apparently his coins still contained caffeine because after he ate them...well, lets not go into that. She shifted her attention to other papers...a B+ for Ron Weasley, a B- for Potter, and an A+ with additional extra credit and references by Miss Granger, as usual. Minerva then came to a neatly written essay with full marks that wasn't extraordinary but gave her a chill just the same as her eyes scanned the name through her spectacles....

......Draco Malfoy.....

She recalled looking at him as he'd handed the essay in. He was as arrogant looking as ever, but there was something quite wrong, she could tell. She quickly scribbled an 'A' in red ink and moved on to Pansy Parkinson's C- worhty paper.

Bearing the burden of a secret storm, sometimes he wishes he was never born.

Somebody cries in the middle of the night...

The neighbors hear but they turn out the light...

The Innkeeper in the village just outside of Malfoy Manor was washing up and closing when he heard it.

In the distance, a muffled scream rang out. It chilled the old Innkeeper to the bone, but he heard nothing after that, so he simply meandered up to his safe, warm bed.

A fragile soul caught in the hands of fate....

Just then, a house-elf came bopping up.

"Master Malfoy, sir!" she squeaked. "Master Malfoy Senior wishes to see you in the library! He's impatient, too sir," she added. Even the house-elves felt sorry for him. But he had no time to dwell on this, for he was in the Dance Hall and his father was about a ga-zillion miles away in the library. He muttered his apologies to his startled guests and took off at full speed.

Apparently full speed wasn't enough.

Still panting from the run to the library, he took his beating in a rush of mild surprise and great suffering. This beating was way worse than any he'd ever received. Lucius grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and slammed him hard into the wall, knocking several books off of a nearby shelf.

"You're late, boy! I sent for you ten minutes ago! What would you have done if it was a true emergency?!"

Draco tried to apologize for being late, but he couldn't breathe. His father kneed him in the stomach, knocking all wind from his lungs. Lucius then slapped his son across the face. It stung like hell because he wore rings. Draco felt the hot blood run down his face as another blow briused his eye. He was whipped around and thrown to the floor and kicked hard in the ribs repeatedly by an expensive boot. He heard the sickening crack as his ribs were broken one by one. His father was now whipping him with a sharp silver belt buckle, creating large gashes up and down his back. He made no effort at stopping it. It was time, and he knew it. He just wished it would end sooner...the pain was so unbearable. He had one last, fleeting thought about his poor mother before everything went black and Draco Malfoy was no more.

When morning comes, it'll be too late.

A statue stands in a shaded place.....

An angel boy with an upturned face....

Narcissa Malfoy wore a black veil to screen her tears. She sat alone on a low stone wall in a sea of snow. Rows of headstones and nothing but quiet sobs and the wind's whisper cast an eerie peace on the place. His casket sat open at his newly made headstone, a beautifully done likeness of himself, with wings and slightly blue-crystal eyes, looking skyward.

Her husband stood a little ways away, hands behind his back, his face and eyes expressionless. A few of her adult friends were standing about; she could see Macnair sniffling and blinking back tears.

His schoolmates stood in a line at his side, waiting solomnly for their turn to say good-bye.

A name is written on a polished rock....

A broken heart that the world forgot.

Hermione, looking down at the beautiful face of her worst enemy, cried. She had never known all that he had hidden. It was so sad, and perhaps he could have been a better person if it weren't so. She wished it had never been so.

But wishes like that don't come true.

She laid her choice flower on his chest. A white peace lily. He was too young for it, and it was before his time. She walked silently away, her tears freezing on her face, the snow falling softy in her mass of hair. She spotted his mother. She seemed so sad. Hesitating, she walked right past Lucius Malfoy and sat down beside Narcissa. Draco's mother looked up, startled, and then a darkened look of gratitude filled her eyes, along with fresh tears that neither of them made an effort to stop from falling. They did not have to speak the understanding, they just sat there, crying together, the wife of a Death Eater and a Muggle-born witch of sixteen.

Their bond lasted long afterward, throughout Narcissa's rough marraige, until she was beaten to death as well and Lucius still went free because everyone was still afraid of him. But Hermione never forgot that beautiful young man in the green silk lined casket that was lowered into the ground that December. He haunted her dreams until the day of her death, and she visited that statue every Christmas, every time with a fresh white peace lily. And, in spite of herself, she felt a pitying love for that face on the statue.

The Concrete Angel.

Through the wind, and the rain, he stands hard as a stone,

In a world that he can't rise above,

but his dreams give him wings

and he flies to a place

where he's loved...

Concrete Angel.