After 1/1
After
Fandom: Harry Potter
Paring: preslash Harry/Draco implied
Rating: PG-13
Words: 1,100
Warnings: mentions of the war and it's consequences
Disclaimer: If I owned HP there would have been more slash in the books, alas I don't.
written for hc_bingo prompt “loss of identity”
Summary: Draco. That's my name. Everybody knows who I am. I'm famous, but not in a good way. I'm the boy-who-fucked-up. I'm Deatheater scum. I'm the biggest git in Hogwards. Only that I'm not. Not anymore...
Draco. That's my name. Everybody knows who I am. I'm famous, but not in a good way. I'm the Boy-Who-Fucked-Up. I'm 'Deatheater scum' and I'm the biggest git in Hogwards. Only that I'm not. Not anymore. All of these names were correct once when I was still Draco Lucius Malfoy, Deatheater-in-training extraordinaire.
Now I am none of those things... well maybe the fucked-up one. I don't want to whine about how I lost everything because I know nobody cares. Everybody lost in this war. Even the Dar- Voldemort lost, especially Voldemort lost and so did Harry Potter. He is the new and old hero. He's had his revival and people are throwing themselves at him like he was the next coming. Maybe he is. But what I understand now after being too busy with my own business for the last decade or so, is that Potter lost maybe more than most. I can see it in his eyes when he sits at the Deatheater trials - mine included - giving statement after depressing statement.
I know I should feel sorry for the Wizarding World but the only person I can make myself feel sorry for is Harry Potter. What irony, don't you think? I know about a dozen people who would laugh at me right now and I know several dozen who actually do. The satisfaction of people about the fall of the self-proclaimed mighty has always been a big one. All those powerless, scared, unimportant pieces of the puzzle feel entitled to this satisfaction in a way that their non-existent roles in a mighty battle of power doesn't really explain.
Funnily enough, the big names, the people who actually put themselves out there and fought on the forefront of the war, the Potters and Weasleys, the Longbottoms and Grangers of this world are not the ones sneering. Of course they all have harsh words and harmful testimonies to put forward but in the end they do not judge as harshly as those who hadn't even been there because amongst the curtain of blood and grief, there is little black and white left for them to see.
They all lost friends and family and I don't know if Crabbe counts as either but his death still haunts me and I am only waiting for my father's sentence to be carried out leaving him the empty shell of Lucius Abraxas Malfoy once the Dementors are through with him. I can't say that he is unjustly sentenced because he fought and he killed and I know that he did what they claim him to have done but he's still my father and I will grief for him when the time comes.
Until then I shall grief for myself because they let me go. I am off the hook due to being underage when being recruited under threat of harm to myself and my family. I am off the hook because Potter and his friends testified that I did not give the Boy-Who-Lived away when captured and that I did not kill Dumbledore even when I had the chance.
I am free and it is worse than Askaban because I am nothing. People look at me with those eyes that tell everybody that I don't have the right to be here, that I should rot away in a cell or worse. All the respect that fear and reputation once brought a Malfoy now turned into loathing, into disregard and cruelty and I get it. Maybe that's the worst part.
They don't recognize me as anything but scum But I don't recognize myself anymore either. I lost my identity and I don't know what to do with myself now that I have nothing: no parents, no heritage, no school, no master. I'm alone and it's scary as hell because I don't even know what I am good in other than being Lucius Malfoy's son, other than groveling for my life.
“Malfoy!”
I snap around as someone shouts my name and I ready myself for a punch or maybe a hex because it wouldn't be the first time that someone took the opportunity since my parole entails the restriction of my magic regarding any offensive magic making personal protection difficult. I freeze when I see Potter walking towards me.
“Potter,” I greet him stiffly because I don't know how to deal with him when there isn't a whole courtroom of people between us.
“I didn't expect to see you here. I thought your trial was wrapped up.” He sounds nearly amiable and it makes me highly uncomfortable because we've never been like that before and starting now that I was part of the machinery that got countless of his friends killed seems so very wrong.
“It is. I'm being witness at most of the trials though, so I attend them all.”
Potter's head tilts sideways in a thoughtful expression that a few years ago I would have made fun of as 'dog like' but I am too tired to be spiteful.
“That must be uncomfortable for you.”
“Yes... But it's not like I have anything better to do these days.”
Potter nods and as the door to the courtroom opens I find myself startled when we walk in together as if we were just two acquaintances having a chat.
“I'm sorry about your dad.”
“You testified against him,” I note but it's with a sad shrug and none of the harshness I once felt and I see his eyebrows furrow into a frown of compassion rather than defensiveness.
“Yes. But I was hoping the Ministry would no longer use the Dementors after they worked for Voldemort during the war.”
I can't help a small smile because this is so Potter. He always thinks with a sense of righteousness that is foreign to most.
“They are too useful to get rid of them.”
We reach the front of the courtroom and I can already feel the eyes of a dozen people boring into the back of my skull as I shift uncomfortably from one foot to the other.
“Sit with me?”
My attention snaps back to Potter and I know that I probably look completely ridiculous wide-eyed as I am. “Why?”
“Why not?”
His grin is cheeky and I simply nod sitting down next to him with a stiff back, very aware of the little rush of whisper as people notice the Boy-Who-Lived and the Malfoy-Boy sit down together at a Deatheater trial. I don't know why Potter does it or what he is gunning for but for the first time in weeks I feel something other than loosing myself.
*