Don't Move (dm.hp)

S E V E N

short chappie but i'm updated again tonight/tomorrow morning. love you guys with all my heart!!
•••

For a week, Draco had been sucked into a whirlpool of depression. He couldn't sleep, couldn't eat, couldn't leave his bed. The memories of his father, of Tom Riddle, of the things he had seen and the things he had done... These memories haunted him. He had repressed those memories the best he could for quite some time, but after Harry's confession they all came rushing back with brutal force. If he wasn't laying in bed, staring hopelessly at the ceiling, he was curled in a ball sobbing, crying out for help, covering his ears to block out the screams that now existed only in his mind. Tom Riddle's face was burned into the back of his eyelids. The once devastatingly handsome face that had been warped over time into the stuff of nightmares, the ugliness of his soul reflected through his appearance. Some say he had suffered horrendous burns, responsible for the twisted features and snake-like mannerisms. Others say that somehow, he had been literally been shot in the nose, the bullet ripped through the bridge of it, the fact that his head had turned at the last moment saving him from death. Maybe he had simply chosen to look that way, paid a visit to a plastic surgeon with the hope of frightening people even further. Nobody truly knew how or why he had went through such a drastic physical change. When Draco was younger, he had came up with the theory that doing evil things made you ugly, so that people could tell the bad guys from the good guys.

That theory died however, when Draco became the one who did evil things. Not as evil as Tom, nowhere even close to that, but evil nonetheless. Draco still had a face that drew people in, made them want to be vulnerable with him. A wolf in sheep's clothing. Nowadays, Draco felt more like a lamb that had been thrown to the wolves and was forced to grow fangs in order to survive.

Every time he pictured Harry's face, he cried. His father had torn apart the man's family. He had ripped away everything Harry loved. Yet somehow, Harry saw through the dark storm clouds that surrounded Draco. He saw the sunlight that fought to shine through them. For some reason that made Draco even more disgusted with himself. He didn't deserve that. He didn't deserve redemption, or kindness, or forgiveness. The only reason he wasn't rotting in a cell next to his father was because he was a snitch, a rat. He was a coward who had thrown others under the bus to save his own ass. Admittedly, the names of the people he gave up deserved everything coming to them, but Draco had broken the number one rule. He knew that if the news made its way back to Riddle, he was a dead man walking.

•••

It had now been nearly a month since Draco had seen Harry. A new officer, a gangly ginger who went by the name of Weasley, had taken his place. Draco didn't care for him much. He had informed Draco that he wasn't a permanent replacement, that Harry was on leave for personal matters. Draco didn't have to ask what those personal matters were. He knew that being around him had broken Harry.

He knew that Harry wanted to hate him, that he was conflicted, torn between loyalty and the desire to avenge his parents, and his moral compass telling him that Draco was different from the rest.

Draco didn't feel different from the rest, though. He felt dirty and tainted. He would never be pure again. He would never be an innocent. He would never be able to look Harry in the eyes again without feeling a pang of regret.