Fallen

~Fallen~

Fifteen long years and I never knew him more than the rest of the world. I, who was always with him and one of the many 'followers' he acquired by his certain cruel charm and wondrous scowl, never saw a face different from what he revealed to others. I had never seen it until this very day.

I am Pansy Parkinson, and I am just as cold-hearted and cruel as any Slytherin you will ever meet. I hate the words 'good' and 'fair' and woe will be the day you find me complimenting a Gryffindor. I care only about myself, as all true Slytherins do; I'd even sell out a fellow Slytherin to save my own skin. Vanity is everything to me, and will attack any who dare show greater appearance than my self. I care for no one, and no one cares for me.

At least, that's what I thought before today.

It was the beginning of any other Friday morning in this dreadful school we call Hogwarts. It was clouded and gloomy this morning and still is; a typical day in the brittle season of winter. Classes end today, and then we're all on our winter break. I was planning to go on home and spend the holidays with my respectable pureblood family and our pureblood friends, but now I am not so sure. I might have to see him there as well.

Anyway, I had dressed and gone to breakfast as usual, putting in a few insults on some Ravenclaws as I made my way to the Great Hall. As I took my regular seat with my friends, he walked in. It was like the world would stop for all Slytherins. He was practically our leader, our hero and our ruler. In a way, he was a Slytherin's Harry Potter.

All perfect black robes and slicked blonde hair, Draco Malfoy strode his way over to our table, the usual scowl on his pale-pointed face and his gray-eyes full of malice and hate for the world. Everyone at our table stopped eating, as usual, and we all watched him as he sat down between Crabbe and Goyle, as usual. No one moved to continue their meal until he started his, as usual, and no one spoke to him until he spoke up himself, as usual. And no one in the other houses noticed any of this, as usual.

Once he took his first bite and said a bored 'good morning' to everyone, we all relaxed and proceeded with our conversations and so forth. Once in a while I would lean across the table and engage him in conversation, but otherwise we kept to our own friends. I mean, sure, he took me to the Yule Ball, but that didn't mean we were in love now does it?

After breakfast we went through our classes; nothing special or new happened, considering it was our last lesson before the merciful winter break. No one really paid attention other than that Mudblood Granger, shooting her hand up every few seconds to straighten facts out and make certain her notes were absolutely accurate. If I hadn't been so bored I would have thrown her an insult or two; it would have done to lighten my day.

So the rest of the lessons just went through with a strange stupor hanging over everyone.

That night, after classes, I didn't feel up to dinner; lately I had gotten more bored and jaded with the school and its people, and I didn't want to spend my last day at school stuffed in a room filled with laughing, jolly and positively disgusting humans. No, I'd be able to spend a quiet, peaceful evening in an empty dorm room. Just because I'm a Slytherin it doesn't mean I don't have perks as well.

Well, that evening while everyone was leaving for the Great Hall, Blaise asked me to make sure Draco came to dinner. He was lagging behind in his dorm and Blaise seemed to want to talk with everyone about something considering our rising parents, the Death Eaters, and he needed the most important member to be present. I mean, who else matters as long as the heir to Lucius Malfoy is there?

But as I sat in my dorm room reading a book, (yes, I do read. I'm not completely air-headed.), I never heard the boys' dorm door open or close. This dissatisfied me. It was essential that Draco be at dinner to meet Blaise and I could always here that stupid door open and close.

So as the minutes began ticking by at an alarming rate, I decided I had to go and get Draco myself.

Now, this was giving me quite some courageous credit great enough to make even those Gryffindors happy; no one, and I mean no one, wants to enter Draco Malfoy's dorm without permission. He wasn't the most intelligent in our house or the most good-looking, (although in the right light and the right wardrobe he could make your heart throb all the way to your throat), and he sure wasn't the kindest or most friendly person around, but he was intimidating.

But a Death Eater meeting was a Death Eater meeting, and I would have dragged Draco out by his feet if I was pushed that far.

So, throwing down my book, I left my room and walked to the door across the hall. Frustrated, I had just lifted my fist to bang on the door when I stopped short. What *was* Draco doing in his room for all this time? What did Mr. Cruel and Debonair do when no one else was around? Heaven strike me down and Hell incinerates me to ashes if I knew. I had known Draco all my life and still had no idea if he was the same person when people weren't around.

So, thinking on a quieter approach than bombarding the door, I eased it open and stepped in.

"Draco?" I called in my softest, kindest voice that I had always owned yet never used before. "Draco, you're supposed to meet Blaise in the-,"

But where Draco was supposed to meet Blaise, he never knew, for I had stopped talking the moment I saw Draco.

It was like time froze for me. Time froze and if I dared to even breathe, everything before me would shatter into the wind.

Draco sat on his bed directly across from the door. The hangings were thrown open and his bed was perfectly made; I even had the time to register that his sheets were made from silk and satin, not the regular cotton sheets as everyone else. Only Draco.

And him, despite all the harsh words he cloaked himself in, despite all the taunting jokes he has hidden behind, despite all his blank brutality and void venom, was there before me stripped down to only his soul shining through those gray eyes.

He was leaning against his headboard, knees drawn up and his elbows resting lazily on them. He wasn't wearing his usual high quality robes, but a plain black shirt and black trousers. The darkness of his clothing made his skin look even paler and his hair appear like white flames that surrounded his head in a sort of halo. Like an angel, so bright against the darkness.

His head was hung low, but when I called his name he had looked up slowly, and the look on his face made me catch my breath.

Never had a human looked so miserable, disheartened or depressing as Draco did in that moment. He looked the exact opposite of the façade he donned in front everyone in the world; everyone and me. Outside of this moment h was composed, in control, a winner. But in that moment, he was conquered, defeated and crushed. Draco Malfoy was broken.

For a while neither of us said anything; he didn't even attempt to hide the way he was feeling. It was odd, like watching the most guarded man in the universe suddenly wear his heart in his sleeve. He was exposed, and I had no idea how to react.

"Pansy," he said, not in his usual drawl but in a soft and calm voice relevant to the one I had just used. Suddenly, time was thrown back into revolution, and I gasped a little at the unexpected feeling of cold traveling up my spine. I unconsciously stepped into the room more and closed the door behind me.

"Draco," I repeated, trying to find my voice somewhere in my stomach, "I just came in here to-...to tell...I didn't mean--you never came out...--I was in my room--Blaise told me..." His expression never changed as I stumbled over my words, making it that much harder for me to talk to him.

Never in my life did I ever think I could fall in love. I mean, I was just like any other girl and wanted a man all my own, but I always thought it would be this strange and awkward relationship probably fixed up with my parents so that I married someone with pureblood. And to tell the truth, I never really saw Draco as anyone I could care about more than a spur of the second crush and a momentary breath-taker. Otherwise, he was just another face in the crowd.

But now, at the very moment, I knew what it felt like to flush all over and feel like your head was in the clouds. I knew what it was like to float away, and the only thing holding me down was a pair of icy gray eyes. I knew what it was like to stagger over words because you didn't want to sound stupid. I knew because I did all those things. I knew because I felt them.

I knew because I, Pansy Parkinson, was in love.

I was in love with this youth who I had known all my life but had only seen truly this very moment, fifteen years later. And I accepted everything he was. Every flaw and every asset.

"Pansy," Draco said again, and I actually blushed as he said my name, though I hid my star struck eyes with defiance.

"Yes?" I replied. Draco straightened his legs out in front of him and patted the placed beside him.

"Come sit here with me."

It wasn't the first time we sat on his bed together; we had been doing that since we were in diapers. But this would be the first time since I had seen him for who he was; the first time since I had fallen for him.

I walked over and sat next to him, my head automatically finding his shoulder and his arm snaking around my waist. Never before did either of us find it an intimate reaction, but my heart certainly skipped as he drew me close.

Draco's breath was deep and steady, the exact opposite of my own rapid and shallow one. "Pansy, do you ever feel like we're all wasting our time?" he asked me. I didn't know how to answer.

"What do you mean?" I questioned, only wanting to hear his voice again. Somewhere, deep inside of me, I kicked myself for being so pathetic.

"I mean, do you ever feel like we're all wasting our time? Do you think we're on the wrong side?"

I quickly sat up and stared at him.

"What are you trying to say?" I demanded, losing, for a moment, my infatuation of him. But when he turned to look at me, I melted once more.

"Do you hate what we all are?" he said, boring his eyes into mine. "Do you hate what we'll always be?"

"I still don't understand. What would we always be?"

And then he saw it. He saw it on my face and I hated myself for being so obvious. For a moment his jaw tensed and his eyes widened only slightly. Then he turned away from me with almost the air of annoyance and slid from the bed, and for a moment I thought he was going to storm out of there and leave me to my embarrassment; but I found out that angels aren't as pitiless as that.

When he turned back to me his face was just as mercilessly defeated as before, but there was a spark in his eyes that gave my heart a jump. He held out his hand to me and I took it.

Staring into my eyes as he pulled me to stand in front of him he said, "We'll always be wrong."

And in that second before his lips met mine, I knew I would love Draco Malfoy no matter what.

But that kiss drowned out any lingering doubts that could have surfaced. It was my first kiss but I knew it would be the most memorable. Though both our eyes were closed, I could feel one of his hands hold the small of my back and the other become tangled in my hair. I snaked my own around his neck and fell completely into the bliss that was Draco. Once again, time froze.

And then he pulled away just the smallest bit and looked down at me with what I knew was the absolute calm of someone like me; someone in love.

"Draco I-," I started to say, but he cut me off with a whisper.

"Don't say anything," he told me quietly and kissed me gently. "Just this once, I don't want to be wrong."

At first I didn't know what he meant, but then I didn't care as his lips were on mine once more. For who knew how long we were caught in the essence of one another, oblivious to the world around us. Then, just as sudden as it began, it ended.

Draco pulled away from me and held me at arm's length, staring at the ground. For one horrifying moment I thought that he regretted ever touching me and that he would suddenly flee from the room and abandon me to shiver in his absence. But when he looked up, and I soon wished he had indeed fled.

The determination in his eyes made me step back from him, but I stayed, knowing in my heart that I had to hear whatever it was he needed to say.

"I will always hate being what I am," he said to me, barely moving his lips. In his words wake, I dared to reply, just to know that I could still speak.

"And what is it that you are?" I whispered. His grip tightened slightly.

"Wrong."

I only stared as he continued to slowly break my heart.

"Pansy, you can't love me. There is no time for this compared to what will happen very soon, and if ever we were to show our faith to the Dark Lord, it is to crush this before it ever happens. I don't want you to care for me, I don't want you to like me and I don't want you to love me." His eyes closed for a minute, shutting off my view of the entire misery consuming him. "I will always hate myself because I will always be wrong," he went on saying. "I was wrong to go against Potter, I was wrong to ever think of trying to become his friend. I was wrong in following my father's footsteps, and I was wrong for swearing to him that I would one day be a Death Eater after him. And I am wrong--," he opened his eyes to look at me, and everything had gone from them except for an endless void of nothing, "--I am wrong to want to love you."

People say pain is when you are faced with a mortal wound, or when you are inches away from death. They say pain is life slowly being ripped away, and all you can feel is a dull, numb cold encasing your body. They say pain is when your best friend leaves you behind to die in your own battles, or when your own parents don't want to believe you. Those people are morons. Pain is when the boy you grew up with, the boy you have been faithful to for all your life, the boy you fell in love with before ever knowing you did, says in plain black and white that it is a mistake to love you in turn.

Pain hurts like hell.

So now I lay here in my room, having dashed from Draco's dorm in hopes to shed my tears away from his eyes. Who makes me cry like this? Like a weak and idiotic Hufflepuff? Or some emotionally challenged Ravenclaw? Or even a blind and arrogant Gryffindor? Who can make me never want to be outside of these fabric walls around my bed and make me struggle just to keep my magic from escaping and raging havoc? Who other than the most beautiful of creatures engulfed by blackness, the debonair demon of the heavens him self.

And the worst part is, he's outside my bedroom door, just standing there. He's staring at it, but he won't do anything; just stand there until everyone comes back from dinner. He will not knock; he will not come in and by tomorrow, tonight would have never happened. He will make himself forget. I guess he is right, everything he does will always be wrong.

But now I know what the answer is to his question. Do you hate who we are? Yes, I hate what I am. I hate what I am because I will always love him, and never be loved in return.

They say that even a rose has thorns, just as love has pain; but that the pain is what makes love wonderful and glorious, as do the thorns make the rose just that much more admirable.

What a bunch of morons.

Fin.