Struggle (PG; Draco)
Title: Struggle
Date/Challenge: 13 - better have none than plural faith at 30_hath
Character/Pairing: Draco Malfoy
Rating: PG
Word Count: 317
Author's Note: Another implausible Seventh Year AU but I'd really like to see Draco just walk away from it all and never look back. This goes along with the story I wrote for _ashestobeauty_ last year. Where is that?
It was a new moon night when Draco decided he didn’t believe in magic anymore. Sure, he could still feel the power in his wand when he held it, but it didn’t mean anything. All his life, his father had told him he was special because of his heritage. This supposed heritage had ripped everything from him, leaving him with nothing but the clothes on his back and his wand.
The other side wasn’t much better. Snape had told him the whole story, or what he claimed was the whole story, over a dinner of cold beans and slightly wilted greens. He hadn’t asked to be told although it was helpful that he did. So, he owed his freedom to the very people who had made sure his father had paid for his sins. Wonderful.
For a while, he considered playing both sides of the fence much like Snape did. Now that he was completely away from apex, he could see the sides more clearly. While things weren’t black and white, the shades of gray set them apart. How easy it would have been to let himself sink into a lifestyle that allowed him more freedom than he’d ever had before. With the freedom came a dead soul. He could see that clearly, too. While he firmly believed that Snape had a soul, it didn’t seem to be doing him much good.
He debated leaving his wand behind him when he left but decided that would be foolish. Since he had no real means of supporting himself, he needed it to sustain him until he found what this new life was really like. For now, he would accept magic only as far as it could take him before he threw it off forever. Surely there was more to life than this struggle. It seemed better to not care anymore than to find one side to stand behind.
Date/Challenge: 13 - better have none than plural faith at 30_hath
Character/Pairing: Draco Malfoy
Rating: PG
Word Count: 317
Author's Note: Another implausible Seventh Year AU but I'd really like to see Draco just walk away from it all and never look back. This goes along with the story I wrote for _ashestobeauty_ last year. Where is that?
It was a new moon night when Draco decided he didn’t believe in magic anymore. Sure, he could still feel the power in his wand when he held it, but it didn’t mean anything. All his life, his father had told him he was special because of his heritage. This supposed heritage had ripped everything from him, leaving him with nothing but the clothes on his back and his wand.
The other side wasn’t much better. Snape had told him the whole story, or what he claimed was the whole story, over a dinner of cold beans and slightly wilted greens. He hadn’t asked to be told although it was helpful that he did. So, he owed his freedom to the very people who had made sure his father had paid for his sins. Wonderful.
For a while, he considered playing both sides of the fence much like Snape did. Now that he was completely away from apex, he could see the sides more clearly. While things weren’t black and white, the shades of gray set them apart. How easy it would have been to let himself sink into a lifestyle that allowed him more freedom than he’d ever had before. With the freedom came a dead soul. He could see that clearly, too. While he firmly believed that Snape had a soul, it didn’t seem to be doing him much good.
He debated leaving his wand behind him when he left but decided that would be foolish. Since he had no real means of supporting himself, he needed it to sustain him until he found what this new life was really like. For now, he would accept magic only as far as it could take him before he threw it off forever. Surely there was more to life than this struggle. It seemed better to not care anymore than to find one side to stand behind.