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Notes: Hmmm. First person is hard.


Something Good

By Kick Flaw

       

Hmmm. I'm awake. Well, half-awake, considering I have yet to open my eyes. Maybe I can still catch another hour of sleep. I turn onto my side, enjoying the warm twist of the sheets and blankets around my body. So comfy, like a little hibernation nest I could hide in endlessly. I love sleep. It's such a wonderful state to be in. Sleep, sleep, sleep.

Reaching out, I search for the form that should be in bed next to me. Sleep is even better when it's cuddled up with the love of your life, I always say.

Hey, love of my life? Where are you?

Blearily, my eyes slide open, only to snap shut again as the morning light stabs them vindictively. I slam a pillow over my head. Bugger, who opened the god-awful windows?! Especially, on a morning when the apartment is facing East! Must be a Monday. Any other day of the week, it's south. Sodding building has a taste for antagonizing me. Maybe I'll spell it pink today. Sounds like a good way to occupy the time. I'll have to avoid Mrs. Marshberry's wrath though. She still hasn't forgiven me for the time I enchanted all her stairs so that when you went up a floor, you ended up down one and vice versa. Hysterical.

I'm such a demon.

Still. The windows open manually, which means someone else is to blame for disrupting my peace. Through the pillow, I can hear the muffled sound of water running. Ah, must be the one who's not in bed with me. He's a morning person.

I stretch to my fullest, feeling the arch of muscles from my wrists to my calves and reveling in it. The pillow slips off my head and onto the carpeted floor without protest. I suppose I could venture opening my eyes again, if only for the sake of knowing what time it is that the love of my life felt he had to be awake for.

Seven o'clock?! Is he crazy?! That bastard, he should be snuggling with me now! I think I'm going to cry.

No. Actually not. But it's always fun to say that. Settling back, I smirk and fold my arms behind my head as I contemplate the ceiling and the past. Temper tantrums must be a left over remnant of my childhood.

//Perhaps I had a wicked childhood//

My, was I a little prat when I was a kid. I blame it on my mother. She may not have really known I existed, but she always made sure I had everything and anything a little wizard-boy could dream of. I distinctly remember having three nursemaids quit in one week because of my demanding attitude. Demanding to put it lightly. But mother always insisted, and father never could resist her.

Father did his fair share too, you know. When he wasn't lecturing me on the duty of upholding the family honour and the importance of social niceties he was telling me I was the greatest thing since broomsticks. Made for great self-esteem and poor self-control. Believe it or not, he's a fairly nice guy when you're on his good side. I didn't recognize how tough it was to get there until he found out about my relationship with Mr. Boy Who Lived. I'm glad I got away with just being thrown out. At least he didn't disinherit me. I think I really would have cried.

I really, really, really like having money.

Either way, I lived a charmed life (not counting the lessons in the dark- arts every Thursday) until I went to Hogwarts.

Then the rest of the world was exposed to me. And, oh, I was a demon.

//Perhaps I had a miserable youth//

My first memory of Hogwarts is the moment when I came to the shocking realization that the world did not revolve around me. Hmmm, that would be the train station, when a random Ravenclaw fifth year bumped into me and didn't immediately bow down in apology. In fact, she didn't even stop. Then there was the infamous train-car confrontation, where I came to understand that not only did the world not revolve around me, half of it didn't even like me. Quite a shock, I tell you.

I spent that night silently pondering the new information. Of course I decided to disregard it in the end, but it opened me up to a whole string of revelations throughout my youth. I did get back at that Ravenclaw however. I wonder if she ever figured out how to de-web her appendages. Heh.

Harry. Well, I tried to get back at Harry. It became a miserable sort of quest on my part. Draco Malfoy's search for new and innovative ways to humiliate himself trying to humiliate Harry Potter. Ah, the good old days. I'm still disgusted to think of how much time I put into that. I wasted all my demonic abilities in tale telling and eavesdropping when I could have been bleaching Mrs. Norris' fur.

Bah.

//But somewhere in my wicked, miserable past

There must've been a moment of truth//

Really, I don't know how anyone put up with me. I was a miserable, selfish, spoiled, vindictive little git. That is not to say I didn't have my good traits. I was clever -top of my class in both Potions and Arithmancy (Eat that Hermione Granger). And I had taste: Elegant, graceful, diplomatic taste. I was a master of logic -Not many twelve-year olds could sidestep Professor McGonagall like I could. I was generous, if you were on my good side (sound familiar?).

But none of those were outstanding enough to outweigh the bad.

And I still don't understand how it all happened. How or why or when he decided I had what he wanted. I don't know what he saw in me that made him dig through the illusions I'd put up to protect myself from reality. I didn't * want * to live in a world where I wasn't adored like the sun. But there must have been something inside of me, some truth that he recognized.

He did it so slowly too. Carefully, methodically unwrapping me from the silken chains I'd created to block him and his integrity out. I remember the exact instant I conceived of life without my censored vision. It was in the communal showers. Greg was standing next to me as we washed off after one of Madame Hooch's rigorous flying lessons. I happened to glance over, and I saw a dark bruise swelling on his side from his unfortunate collision with a tower that could never decide where it wanted to be. It was so ugly, so wrong, so real. I remember noticing for the first time the scars he'd gotten over the years, the imperfections in his flesh.

When I looked down at myself, I realized that I didn't have any. Every shape and line of my body was perfect. My skin was glowingly pale and clear. My shining hair fell exactly right no matter how I'd mussed it. My cuticles never chaffed, my lips never chapped, and my eyes were never bloodshot. Most importantly, I'd never bruised. Whenever I acquired an injury, it was a cut. A simple, fascinatingly beautiful cut that spilt scarlet blood. And even that was perfect.

I guess you never realize how imperfect perfection can be until you see it in yourself.

The next time he cornered me, which he'd taken to doing often, I provoked him to a fistfight. Before then, we'd never been reduced to violence, mainly because I believed it was far too vulgar for someone as elegant as I was. He punched me.

I bruised.

I like to think that's when I came into existence. At the curled fist of Harry Potter.

But why or how still eludes me.

//For here you are, standing there//

Hmmm, not that it really matters. I'm here now, the windows are open and the bed is getting cold. The water just shut off in the bathroom adjoined to our bedroom. I can hear the metallic chink as the love of my life pulls a towel off the rack and his hushed breath as he dries off and changes into his day-clothes. Probably a pair of loose muggle-jeans and one of the Weasley sweaters. Ugh. I would burn all his clothes if they didn't mean so much to him.

With a burst of steam the door opens and he emerges, still toweling his dark hair. I love the way he looks after a shower. All the little hairs in his eyebrows are rumpled from their curve and spike out in short angles against his skin. It makes him look adorably messy. I love to slide my thumbs along them and smooth them into place.

He drops the towel and runs his fingers through his hair, stopping as he catches sight of me watching him. Deliberately, I roll over onto my side again and prop myself up on my elbow, arching an eyebrow.

He smiles.

What was I going to chide him about again?

//Loving me//

"Good day, Draco." He says softly.

I grimace, and then I smile, and then I grimace again. I can't decide how to react to that, so I settle for: "Too bloody early to be day."

He ignores my petulance; instead striding over to the bed and planting a firm kiss on my lips. I move into it, but he pulls back and sits up, putting a hand on my chest to push me back into the bed. "Gah. Brush your teeth before you kiss me again." He teases.

I swat at him playfully. "Too early to brush my teeth."

"Too early for kissing then. Besides, we have to get ready for Ron's birthday party, remember? Get up."

I forgot about that. Not that I mind. Ron is a fairly enjoyable guy to be around now that he's forgiven me. Then again Hermione will be there, and I don't care how long she's been dating Ron or how long Harry's claimed to be in love with me, she still can't forgive. Personally, I think she's just jealous because I topped her in Arithmancy. "Do we have to?"

"Yup." He stands, preparing to head into the living room. But I grab the back of his shirt before he can go and yank him into the bed with me, curling around his body.

"Mmm. Don't you want to snuggle for a little first?" I ask seductively. I hope.

Harry seems tempted, but he shakes his head. "You have to get up, Draco. It starts at nine." Damn his determination. Disentangling himself, he stands again, heading off without me.

"What, no breakfast in bed?"

"Get up, shower, brush your sodding teeth, change and come into the kitchen. Then we'll discuss breakfast."

"Damn you."

"Love you too."

That shuts me up.

//Whether or not you should//

I'll never understand it. I get up, I shower, I brush my teeth, and I change, but I hardly realize I'm doing it. Everything always blurs after he says that to me. A fuzzy sort of dizziness stills my comprehension.

I'm so wrong for him. I'm Draco Malfoy, son of Voldemort's right hand man, vindictive, dark-hearted, spoiled, rich-boy wizard. He's Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived, glowing-with-good, muggle-raised Mr. Marvelous.

So what does he see in me?

And why does he ask the same question of me?

I hardly deserve it.

//So, somewhere in my youth or childhood

I must have done something good//

I figure I must've done something, anything, one good thing, somewhere along the line. I must've redeemed myself with the most minute of substance. There's no way I could be this lucky just by being me.

Ah hell. Who cares? I have him, a nice bed to cuddle in, a large inheritance, an apartment that changes direction weekly, and the intelligence to appreciate it. Whatever I did, it must've been something great, something amazing, and something so outstanding it changed the course of my life. Who am I to doubt it?

I'm going to go see about breakfast.

And I'm going to disregard it when he tells me the great thing I did was simply being me.


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