All the Words in My Life

.Conscience and cowardice are

really the same things.

Black; completely. A man made of the essence of night, his skin was the moon. Those
dark, deep, endless eyes stared right through him.Right through him.

The only thing that really kept him center were those eyes. The coldness his back was
pressed up against could have been the floor, the wall, the ceiling. His feet could be
pressed against hard air, for all he knew or gave a shit. But those eyes were right.
They were dead center, and they were afraid.

And if those hard eyes were afraid, he wondered what his own must look like. Too
young to be perfect in hiding it all. Too scared to get a grip.

That was his responsibility. It was another weight that came with his name. For he
was not to show weakness, to show that this did hurt. It was a duty, another little
namesake. His Father forced it in tight, shoved it down, until it was so much apart of
him it was like breath.

However, he thought perhaps there were allowances. That sometimes it would be

okay, because life could get real hard sometimes. And if some time was any time,
then right about now would be one of those times.

The slender and metal-bone fingers slowly uncurled from around his arm, the panting
mouths slowed their breath.

He couldn't help but think that this was it. It was over. In these small moments that
drew on, rolling like a snowball does and gaining speed and volume, he was plowed.
Knocked down, down, down, and it was cold and there wasn't any getting up from a
hit like that.

His world was coming down around his ears, and he was young and stupid, and he
thought this was one of those moments. Where everything changes, and there is just
no going back from here.

.One has to pay dearly for immortality; one has to

die several times while one is still alive.

There was no where to go but home, and he was scared of this too.

What was his Father going to say? Going to do? He had failed, and it was really that
simple. Failed. One word that summed up the total of months of calculations and
planning. One word that stated every single emotion that flowed from his heart and
filled every vein, organ, limb.

The Man of Black had told him they had to run. He had tried to take him far away, to
hide somewhere and rebuild some semblance of a life somewhere else.

Draco Malfoy may have pegged himself stupid (just two words, two bloody words that
I couldn't say) but he knew what that all meant. He was evil to one side and a failure
to the other, and when he ran there would be no coming back. There would be no
rebuilding. It would be grappling for the last shreds of all that he had left, until the
papers printed the story and the locals caught on and they would be off again. This
was further proved when the Man of Black had lifted his wand off the table and
snapped it in two.

('We're not magic anymore, Draco. We can't have this life right now.' 'Right now?' And
there had been a grim line for lips, and a haunted expression, and doubt in his eyes,
and Draco had known.)

He had taken off, despite the people that were bound to be looking for him right now.
Despite what some may think, the Malfoy Manor had love. It might not have been the
kind some are used to, but love his parents he did. If he hadn't, he didn't think he
would have found himself in this mess to begin with.

That was his reasoning for bursting through the front doors, some clock ticking away
in his head that let him know he couldn't stay long.

He didn't think the world could do that. Could go vertigo, spin out of control, tunnel
down into a quill point in front of his eyes before exploding into a million different
sparks of pain. All at once. All over the place, all inside his head.

A knot wedged itself inside his throat, and he tried to swallow around it. Then acid
rose up, burning his chest and his throat. He puked inside his mouth, tried to swallow
it back down around that knot, but it rose again. Draco doubled over, his body
lurching as he heaved. Water and chicken soup hit the floor, splashing, spattering his
mud caked boots. His nose started running and he felt snot making its way down his
face, heat smothering his cheeks and around his eyes. He stood bent over, an arm
wrapped around his stomach and his right hand resting on his knee. The force of his
heaving was powerful, and he closed his eyes as he felt blood vessels popping in his
face. Later he would find little red lines like spider webs crawling up from his
cheekbones and to his brow, but he wouldn't care. Just as much as he didn't care
now.

His Fathers head was severed; cords, veins, blood, the tip of his fucking spine. His
face was unrecognizable; a bloody, mashed in mess of flesh, bones, and blood.
Patches of platinum showed through the red in his long hair.
Draco straightened himself, his body still lurching with heaves but nothing in his
stomach to come out. His arm remained wrapped around his stomach, tears were
pouring with the snot down his face. He sniffed, and a sob escaped his throat, and it
was all he could do not to fall to his knees. He wiped an arm along the mess on his
face, taking cautious steps to where his Fathers corpse lay.

Warm and pale fingers brushed against cold and hard ones, and through the silence of
the Manor, a sob rebounded off the walls to echo back in unhearing eardrums.

('Dad. Oh, Merlin. Oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit. Fuck!')

And later, at the sight of his Mother, Draco would hit his knees. His clothes would be
soaked with blood when he touched his forehead to her shoulder, and it would take
him hours to stop the sobbing as he begged between them for forgiveness.

.Experience is simply the name

we give our mistakes.

He kind of thinks life is about moments. Small, insignificant little moments where it's
just the clicking of a clock, the drip from the tap that never seems to stop no matter
how much you turn it off. The stupid little moments where it's just the creaking of an
old house and the sound vodka makes when you tip the bottle.

Then there's the big moments. Those whole defining moments, where everything
changes and you're forced to change with it. It may be good, some achievement of
greatness. It may be bad, some tragedy that wakes you in the middle of the night to
your own screaming. But it's defining either way, because when the glory or first
strike of horror has past, you shift. Something vital inside you, it clicks and rearranges
and the world is seen just a little differently. You think a little differently. You feel a
whole lot differently.

Life is just a whole shit load of moments. Ones you'll never remember, ones you only
remember because the people in them died, and ones that changed and shaped you.

And Draco realized he hated those big moments. Then he realized he kind of hated
the small, boring ones too. Then he thought if he didn't like any of these moments,
why, in the name of Salazar, was he even bothering?

Mundane. A mundane existence for a joke of a Malfoy.

But he liked vodka, and he liked to draw patterns on the table with the water that
dripped off the outside of the bottle. He liked to put together puzzles when he didn't
want to go back to sleep. He liked to try and count how many times the fan turned
when he laid on the hard cot at night. He liked to bite down hard on his right index
knuckle, hard enough to break skin, whenever he thought of anything he didn't want
to think about anymore.

And, most of all, he liked to stare at the Man of Black and wonder what the greasy
bastard had in him that Draco couldn't find. He liked to throw his empty bottle at him
when he chastised him for getting piss drunk again. He liked to plot his demise for
doing what Draco could not, and for it still not being enough. Not nearly. Not by half.

.An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of

being called an idea at all.

Let it not be said that he hadn't tried.

One year, nearly to the day, and Draco Malfoy walked right into the Ministry of Magic.

His face hurt badly when a guard jumped on his back and slammed it into the floor.
Another kicked his temple, a knee dug into the small of his back, and when they lifted
him up, a fist came out of nowhere and his jaw cracked like it was snapped in half.

He could still remember the explosion of pain that shot up from his jaw to his brain,
the hot red that had flashed in his vision. When he blinked a few times, when he
realized he couldn't close his mouth, there was Weasley shaking out his fist.

It hadn't gone as smoothly as he thought it would. The Man of Black had told him as
much. But Draco had found something stupid, silly, foolish. Something he hadn't felt
in a long time. Hope. He had wanted nothing more than revenge for the murder of his
parents. It didn't help that he was drunk during the thought and carrying-out process.
He had thought he would be an excellent addition to their side. He knew how
Voldemort operated after all. It had been a year since what he dubbed 'The Incident',
and he figured it may be okay to come back now.

He was willing to offer his assistance. Instead, he got three years in Azkaban for
accessory to murder and assisting trespassing. They say he got off easy.

He thought this was owning up. And he thought this was the end of his road, because
Azkaban was packed with Deatheaters and he had failed them all.

But they had also killed his parents, and he found out during those three years what
anger can do to a man and just how strong it could make him.
.Ambition is the last
refuge of the failure.

There was a shadow in front of his cell -- and when he thought that, he didn't mean
an actual shadow. It was a woman, short with a slight frame. Her clothes were baggy
and proved that she either knew she was too thin or the weight had been coming off
recently. Black smudges were under her eyes, nicely complimenting the tired look of
brown. Her cheeks seemed hollowed in, the skin pulled too tight against her bones.
She was pale and sickly looking, he thought. Even her wild hair seemed dull.

A shadow. A shadow of the girl he used to know. And fuck, he thought. How bad has it
gotten out there? How much time has left, how many things have changed, and does
absolutely nothing stay the same?

If she had it would have given him something. He wasn't sure what the something
would be, but it would have been more than this horrid empty feel in the pit of his
stomach. Nothing stays the same, it seems. Life is a constant revolving door, ruining
peoples lives left and right.

Yeah. He couldn't put himself down as the optimistic type.

She didn't say a word to him, just glared tiredly as he stood. He stared right back at
her, and if he were a different sort of man then he might have lowered his gaze. He
might have been shamed with the past. However, Draco Malfoy was not that man. She
may have lost her old and senile Headmaster that day, but he had lost his parents
because he wasn't the one who did it.

And how vicious was Voldemort to kill his most loyal followers because of something
like that? Dumbledore had still ended up dead, had he not? Unless there had been
another reason, but Draco never paid too much attention to that avenue of thought.
Half of him thought he was trying to find some excuse so he didn't have to shoulder
all that blame that was his and his alone. Besides, he knew he would never know. Just
as they would never know anything ever, ever again. They were dead. Dead, dead,
buried, dead. And that was enough of an answer, wasn't it?

He thought a lot of people didn't know what freedom smelt like. To actually be locked
up, away. Captured, kept, imprisoned. To be set free, and be able to put a smell to it.
He figured those that did probably have all different sorts of ideas on what its scent
was.

To Draco, it was the coming of spring. Where the few patches of snow was slosh
beneath his feet, the day was warmer than you expect. Where the wind smelt fresh
and clean, but there was still that undertone of coldness. And there, floating in the air,
was the smell of strawberries.
He would find later that it had been Granger's shampoo -- and it would only be rarely
that he didn't stand next to her and think 'freedom' at least once.

.The best weapon against an enemy

is another enemy.

It took awhile for the staring to stop.

Not that there weren't a few dedicated souls that would glare, sneer, make rude
gestures whenever he walked by. They didn't like him, but that was okay because he
didn't like many of them either. Never in his twenty years of life had everyone ever
liked Draco Malfoy. In fact, hardly anyone at all. So he was used to it, and it felt
perfectly alright.

He wasn't an official Auror, because none of them trusted him and most of them hated
him. He still attended the meetings and he still went out on missions. He could
understand the distrust. He personally was a little frightened of himself when they
went on missions. He was blood thirsty.

He thought Potter understood a little. Potter seemed to understand. He didn't say

much to him, but Draco figured that was the point. That was about as friendly as two
old enemies got. But Potters parents were killed by the same man as Draco's. There
was some sort of common ground there that neither ever wanted to acknowledge but
did anyway.

Granger didn't get it. Not really. But Draco thought she tried, because that was
Granger. That was something that hadn't changed. Supporter of the underdogs, lover
of the losers, fighter of the weak. He scoffed and glared at her every time he thought
it.

The first mission he went on, he had been scared at first. Surrounded by people he
felt for sure would do him in at the nearest possibility -- and that was his own side.
Then he had come face to face with a man he was raised around. Gregory Goyle
Senior. There had been shock written all across the older mans round face, and Draco
had been shocked as well. How had it come to this? And when Goyle whispered
'traitor', Draco saw images of that night in his mind, and he was able say the words he
couldn't four years ago.

The whispered word, accusation, truth, haunted him in his dreams. Followed him like
a disease. (Traitor, traitor, traitor) Floated in his thoughts, bounced off the walls of his
skull. But when that flash of green had lit up his vision, Draco had been filled with a
sick sort of satisfaction. He didn't talk about it -- but he didn't regret it either.

He was officially a murderer. However -- it was for a good cause, right? So, somehow,
that made it better right? He wasn't a murderer, he was a...hero? A warrior?
A...a...an...

The lines were blurred. He couldn't tell the difference much anymore. He tried not to
think about it.

.Do you really think it is weakness that yields to temptation?

I tell you that there are terrible temptations which it requires
strength and courage to yield to.

The meeting had been canceled but no one had bothered to inform him. He had been
sitting at the table for nearly three quarters of an hour, knowing he looked like a prat
but not knowing what else to do.

He had been here four months, and if the loyalty he gave them wasn't enough, he
couldn't do anything else. He simply had nothing else to give. Loyalty never got him
very far in the past, and he was nearly afraid of the word as much as he was afraid of
himself. He gave as much as he could when they gave none in return.

He looked up from the table surface when he saw a shadow move across the wood. It
was all strawberries when she pushed the cup of coffee towards him. He took a
tentative sip and looked up in surprise when he realized it was how he liked it.

She sat herself down uninvited. Silence reigned. Then she started whispering about all
the things he had missed in the past four years. Things that had he been around he
still would not have known. He supposed she needed someone to talk to, and he
couldn't imagine why him. Someone unbiased, perhaps. Someone who, even if they
opened up their mouth about it, would not be believed. Someone who didn't seem like
they gave a fuck enough to even bother telling anyone else. Someone who simply
didn't have anyone else to tell.

When she was done, his coffee was gone and the room was silent. She was looking at
him expectantly and he had no idea what to say. So he told her how much he hated
Voldemort. He told her how much he didn't care anymore, because no one deserved
to die like that. When she asked him what he meant, ('Die like what? Die how,
Malfoy?') he told her how he found his parents. No details, just exactly that. I found
my dead parents the night I left.

She started to cry.

Draco stood up to leave, because he didn't need that. He didn't need some
overemotional wannabe savior of the world crying over him. But when he walked past
her, he smelt strawberries, and he thought perhaps Granger needed that too. Needed
to know the scent of freedom, even if it's from ones self or past. And he thought
maybe, going on that, a whole lot of people knew their own scent of freedom.

He stopped and he turned, and his finger touched her shoulder before he pulled his
hand back.

She looked up at him, tearstained and beautiful. He paused before he walked away.

He skipped the next meeting just out of spite for them not telling him the cancellation.
Potter informed him they would ship him off to Voldemort if he pulled that shit again.
Draco wished him luck on finally being able to find him and skipped the next meeting
out of spite again. When he came back in, everyone was under the impression he had
gotten ammonia. He played along, and it wasn't until later that day that he caught
Granger's shy gaze and knew how he had mysteriously fallen ill.

.Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone

suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter.

This is the time she usually catches him. Secretly, he purposely takes a long time to
pack up his things after every meeting. To her, he pretends he's just a slow packer. He
knows though that this is the only time it doesn't seem too strange -- though the
whole damn thing is rather strange anyway. The first time it had happened, everyone
had left while he was still looking over the plan. She had been in the doorway, staring
at her feet. And he had never left with the crowd again.

It was usually once a week. More if it was a harsh time, less if it was dull. Sometimes
it was mundane conversation, laced with gossip and bullocks that neither one of them
wanted to hear about. Other times, she broke down and he would shift uncomfortably
in his chair. But she always brought him coffee, and now he thought of it as the best
he ever had. He liked the way she made it -- and that was the excuse he used in his
mind every time he wondered just what the hell it was he was doing.

This time she takes his hand, and it's small and fragile in his. The conversation halts,
he slowly swallows the coffee down his throat, and she pulls away. Her warmth stays.

.He who cannot give anything away

cannot feel anything either.

They're arguing again. It happens often enough -- they both have volatile
personalities. They also share the facts that their opinionated, intelligent and
argumentative. Everything seems to be happening quickly lately and both are
extremely stressed from their jobs. They have fought every day this week, but it isn't
until today that anyone says anything about it.
She calls him a pompous bastard (and he takes hard offense, because fuck, he is a
literal bastard), he calls her a sniveling cunt (and he's about to be hexed) when
Weasley blew into the room. Draco had just turned towards the opening door when a
fist connected with his eye. Draco could let the first one go from all those years ago,
but twice? And just as retribution was coming, Potter busted into the room. Grabbing
his screaming best mate, he hauled him out of the room. Draco got one, two steps
towards the furious redhead before his path was blocked.

A small hand laid flat against his chest, a soft voice pleaded with him to stop. He
looked down, gray catching wide doe eyes, and from the corner of his eye he watched
her hand come up to his face. Her fingertips lightly brushed across his cheekbone, and
he found he didn't really mind her muttered words of sympathy. And as he sat down
and let her heal him, his lips twitched into a smirk he hadn't felt on his lips in a long
time.

He thought maybe payback could wait.

.He who fights with monsters might take care

lest he thereby become a monster.

Bodies littered the field; people walked like zombies through the corpses.

Harry Potter was screaming on the ground, several Aurors crowded around him to
escort him to St. Mungos. Ron Weasley was dead, and his sister was holding his head
to her chest and rocking. The people that weren't crying over loved ones, rejoicing
with the ones who survived, or the ones who laid injured, were counting the bodies of
the dead. The fog that came with hundreds of spells and curses was beginning to
clear. Neville Longbottom stood looking satanic -- covered in blood, grinning like a
maniac. Some were crying in relief, some in pain.

Draco Malfoy was currently kicking the shit out of the corpse of one Lord Voldemort.
Tears ran hot down his face, blood was spattered all over his body. It stained him, his
hair sticking up wildly and sweat drying on his face. He was cursing, screaming out
obscenities. (Fuck you! You half-blood, murdering, piece of fucking shit! I fucking hate
you! I hate you! FUCK, SHIT, BITCH, ASS, CUNT, FUCKER, WHORE!) He dropped
down, his knees sinking into the soft earth and the mud splashing up in his face. His
fists pounded down, and took pleasure in the cracking sounds of bones beneath his
hands. He felt numb, exhausted.

He slowed, and there were hands on his shoulders. They pulled him back and he fell
on his backside into the mud. Someone was on his lap, their arms cradling his head to
her breasts. He sobbed, clutching handfuls of her shirt and pulling her hard against his
chest and face.
This is freedom, he thought. Strawberries and freedom.

.War has always been the grand sagacity of every spirit which has
grown too inward and too profound; its curative power
lies even in the wounds one receives.

She was drinking vodka.

Her one best friend was dead, and St. Mungo's informed them that Harry Potter was
being tested for insanity.

And she was drinking vodka.

And he knew all to well where that led.

He put his hand on her back, and whispered in her ear. Told her to let him bring her
home. She turned around on the stool and grabbed the back of his neck.

Her mouth was soft and wet, the kiss was drunk and sloppy. She tasted like vodka,
and his heart hammered hard in his chest before he pulled away. He told her it
shouldn't be like this, but he didn't think she heard. She's in his arms now, and she's
sobbing in his neck, and she's begging him not to leave.

He leads her home and takes off her shoes when he puts her in bed. Hermione starts
to cry again, pleading with him to stay. He doesn't take his shoes off when he lays
down beside her, wrapping his arm around her shaking form while he whispers that he
wont.

He thinks he doesn't want to anyway.

.There is always some madness in love. But there

is also always some reason in madness.

It's been three months, and he comes with her when she wants to visit Weasley. He
goes with her when she visits Potter as well. Potter, the hero of the wizarding world,
who has a 'special situation' and a private room in St. Mungos. He's better then he
was in the beginning though, and that's hope, isn't it? And that's all Hermione needs
it, because that's the kind of person she is.

He still has his own flat, but Draco stays with her most nights. He sleeps on the couch
unless it was a hard day. He doesn't mind it, and there's a small part of him that
wants his scent to stick in her brain like hers does in his.

It's morning, and the sun comes in rays through the window of her small kitchen. Her
pajamas are little penguins when she sets a cup of coffee in front of him and he gives
her a sleepy smile. She sits down across from him and he pulls the cartoon section
out of the paper and hands it to her without looking up.

When she whispers her thanks he looks up at her, because the tone held something
more in it than some simple thank you. He finds her with that intense stare that she's
been prone to give him lately, and he feels his sock clad feet twitch on the tiled floor.

Suddenly he's standing and she's standing too, and he's leaning across the table. He
grabs her arms and pulls her so she's leaning over, feeling his stomach hit his coffee
cup. It spills and it's nearly like fire against his skin as it soaks through his shirt. He
can't find it within himself to actually care, because his hand is cupping her cheek and
she's leaning in.

It's slow and tentative, mere brushing of lips against lips. He breathes out and she
breathes in. He claims her lips fully, and she lets out a tiny squeal that has him
smiling. He thinks her hands are shaking when she places them on his neck, and he
thinks his probably are too.

He doesn't bother thinking how it got to this, because honestly he just doesn't want
to. All that matters is that it has.

Her mouth is soft and tastes like coffee and toothpaste when she grants him access.
His heart is pounding so hard that it nearly hurts, and when they pull out of the kiss,
she holds him tight when he tries moving back.

She tells him he smells like winter, and he can't help but laugh a little when he tells
her she smells like strawberries. He moves around the table and pulls her to him to
kiss her properly, wrapping his arm tightly around her as the coffee from his shirt
seeps through her pajamas.

He thinks this is growing up.