Only Time

Only Time
Chapter 1 - The diary
07-15-95
    Some people
pass through life claiming that nothing happens.  God, with certainty I am
not one of those.
    You already had the
sensation of that.  You already knew that from day to day your life changed
drastically.  Every day was new, scary, and different.  This flux is
what I now feel.  How did you keep your thoughts straight?  How did
you manage?
    Looking outside looks a bit
strange. After all, no one goes through all those years of hatred and
animosity to wake up one beautiful day, finding that it was all really love! 
History having been summarized, in the end that\'s really how everything began .
. .
    I remember it as if it were
just hours ago.  I was just ending my first year at Hogwarts, summer had
passed and I was ready to begin my second year.  I had a long summer of \'doing
nothing,\' it was finally coming to an end and I was bored senseless.  I had
read all of  the summer assignments twice, kicked around a couple of
wrinkly house elves, and practiced for the upcomming Quiddich season.  It
was only after having exhausted all other possibilities that I decided to
venture though my ancestral home.  I had never paid it much attention, it
was just the place I lived. Granted, it was better than any other home I\'d
ever been in, but it was just a house.  You have to understand that our
mansion is huge and full of traps.  My dad lovingly calls them our articles
of security. . . I call them great places to get rid of nasty, smelly house
elves.  We had had large decreases in the
number of them due to these articles.  The fact that they were deadly and
or painful only added to their intr, an, and I was not about to let them stop me
from exploring.  Usually I am restricted to my rooms, the living spaces,
and the library . . . how utterly confining!  It was upon that realization
that I decided to try to pass, unnoticed, through some of those articles . . .
this was difficult to do since my parents had eyes and ears EVERYWHERE!" 


    It seemed too easy.  I had already made it to the main
hall without bumping into any house elves or ghosts of the family.
    The draperies were closed
so as to avoid curious looks and prying eyes.  I carefully entered the dark
dining room.  As far as I could tell there was nothing and no one there. 
Then I noticed something odd.  The table had no place settings and it would
soon be time for afternoon tea. And upon it enter in the room of be, I heard some coming murmurs of the main office. And taken of curiosity, I approached me. After all, I was prohibited of enter, but not of listen in the
door.
    The voices were indistinct,
but one thing jumped out of the conversation after a few minutes, a name. . .
Harry Potter.  Harry Potter, the simpering git that refused my friendship
only to take up with that disgusting excuse for a pureblood, Weasel and that
bucktoothed Mudblood.  Revolting! 
It\'s not that I offered several times, after a Malfoy is only turned down once.
.. Ever. That exasperating one earns fame by something that happened to him when
he was barely a year old, and only survived out of pure luck!  That Harry
Potter! Argh!  But what I heard disturbed me.  From what it sounds
like, there is danger waiting for Harry Potter when he returns to Hogwarts. 
Without any uncertanty I didn\'t like him, unfortunate as it was to hear that
someone didn\'t want him dead.  Injured a little, perhaps.  But not
dead.
    As much as it disgusted me,
I had to do something.  But what could I do?  Run to Harry\'s muggle
dwelling and tell him?  Yeah, right... and face Lucius?  No thank you
very much!  Maybe I could go to Weasel.  I could do that, but as I
have very nice robes that I would like to keep that way I
would not be stepping inside his hovel.  It was then that I decided Dobby
would go in my stead.  

        Who can say
        where the road goes
        where the day flows

        only time


    And today they think that
dobby had the big idea to save Harry Potter!  By merlin!  He is a
house elf!  House elves do not think for themselves, they simply follow
orders.  And thats what dobby did, he followed MY orders.  He notified
that damned Potter and didn\'t deliver MY name!  and in the end everything
worked out fine, well, almost everything.  The Big One Potter, Dumbledore\'s
golden boy, saved the day and freed my house elf.  I cant believe it! 
Someone tries to help and look what happens!  My father nearly had a heart
attack when he freed dobby without knowing it.

        And who can say
        if your love grows
        as your heart chose

        only time


    My third year descended, and
nothing that exceptional happened.  I was rapidly becoming a truly great
seeker, and I had the best broom that existed, the Nimbus 2001.  It was
clear to everyone that it was a damned  sight better than that outdated
chunk of wood Potter was flying.   I found
that Potter tended to occupy my thought a disproportionate amount of time that
year.  It is truly impressive how someone so small can be so damned
exasperating. ywayyway, back to the brooms.  The House Cup was already
in the bag at this point . . . that is until that damned broom arrived.  I
couldn\'t see a way out of it, and I decided to deal with things in true
Slytherin style.  I had been going easy on the little wanker until now, but
I would be damned if he snaked that cup out from under my nose.  I called
Crabbe and Goyle, my body guards as Potter likes to call them.  Now, mind
you, they are truly good friends, exceptionally stupid, but good friends
nonetheless.  It was with their divine, lumbering presence that the \'marvelous\'
idea of us going on to the field as dementors struck me.  It was public
knowledge that Potter couldn\'t handle their presence, and I would do anything to
win.
    It is unnecessary to say
that it was the execution of this brilliant idea that screwed us.  Crabbe
and Goyle no more looked like they were gliding than I was a mudblood.  It
was atrocious, really.  It fooled Potter, though.  He nearly scarred
us to death, launching that Patronus at us. Correction, he nearly scared
Crabbe and Goyle to death. . . Malfoys, after all, are not frightened by such
things.  We are made of tougher stuff.  We
don\'t let our emotions show at such paltry fare as a Patronus.


        Who can say
        why your heart sighs
        as your love flies

        only time

    Emotion?  That day I found out that I didn\'t have many,
if any.  I had to remind myself of that almost constantly throughout the
next few days.  I caught myself thinking of those large green eyes. 
They followed me wherever I went over the next few days.  Those eyes showed
so much
emotion; they were so different from my own cold blue eyes.  I could admit,
to myself of course, that it was impressive that his eyes had caught my
attention. 
    It was a beautiful, terrible day when they stopped following
me.  Despite that, it was extremely difficult to ignore Potter.  I
felt a deep need for him to notice me.  I thought it was a simple obsession,
but in time, I found myself roundly misled by that thought.
    This year ended, as usual,
and I returned to the manor.  I find myself lost in thought. . .thoughts
centered on a certain boy with horrible glasses, constantly mussed hair, and
beautiful green eyes.


        And who can say
        why your heart cries
        when your love lies

        only time

    I passed the summer thinking
of him and praying to see him, even for one short minute, before we would arrive
back at hogwarts.  Yes, I prayed!  did it mean that I was a heathen?  
By Merlin!  In my family traditions are imp important, and should be
passed down exactly.  And where do we find ourselves?  Yes, at
the Quidditch World Cup.  I was accompanied by my family, and he by the
family rag.  I mean the Weasley\'s.  It went as it normally did, we
meet each other, we insult each other, then we go our opposite ways.  What?
You thought that I would be civil, because this is what I had prayed for? He
is my enemy after all! Someone that I love hate and that I hate to love... wait a minute,
where did this come from? Argh! The rest of the year went along.  We had
the Triwizard tournament, Harry, of course, was one of the chans ans and, in the
end, left as the champion of the tournament.  I can\'t say that I respect
the way he was able to pull it off, after all he helped everyone in all the
tests and still arrived at the end.  Disgusting, really, that his good will
should pay off.  When he returned with Diggory\'s body, claiming that the
Dark Lord had returned, I was stunned to say the least. 
    It all turned out like a
rerun of a familiar song on Wizzard\'s Wireless.  Potter returned from
certain doom, the only bad part was that he was being accused of the
Hufflepuff\'s murder.  That all cleared, as it always does with Potter. 
Being a logical person, I knew that my parents, the parent\'s of my house mates,
and Professor Snape had been there to see it all. . . that they were all, or
nearly all, Death Eater\'s.  The Dark Lord had returned, and they were all
prostulatizing themselves to him, again.  How revolting.  My parent\'s,
purebloods, were kissing the feet of a filthy mudblood. 
Voldemort was no better than Granger, after all.  It should have been a
pureblood leading them.  Truly disgusting that they should grovel at his
robe hems. 
    It wasn\'t until I saw Harry on the Hogwarts Express that I
saw how truly disgusting it was that Voldemort had returned.  Those eyes,
before so alive, now opaque.  How disgusting. 
    Then I approached him, and
despite wanting to comfort him, I did the only thing that I could: I took
advantage of the fragile moment of my enemy. Crabbe, Goyle, and I attacked him. 
It was a low thing to do, I admit.  Nothing less would have sufficed for a
Malfoy 
        Who can say
        when the roads meet
        that love might be
  &n&nbs     in your heart

        And who can say
        when the day sleeps
        if the night keeps
        all your heart


    When I got closer to him,
the pain I saw in those eyes was tremendous.  It was the first time in my
life I have ever regretted something I have said.  I wanted to tell him
that every time I\'d cursed him, dropped stray ingredients into his potions, or
insulted him, I was in fact saying "I love you."  The realization
of this made me sick to my stomach, and I wanted nothing more than to share that
discomfort with Potter.  However, I didn\'t. I\'m not a \'noble\', right,
Griffyndor, but a Slytherin.  We don\'t make ridiculous declarations of love
in the middle of train walkways.  It was while I was lost in my thoughts
that Harry reached me.
        Night keeps all your heart

    &;&nb;   Who can say
        if your love grows
        as your heart chose

        only time

        And who can say
        where the road goes
        where the day flows

        only time
    This is how it went for me,
uncovering that I actually loved Harry Potter.  Even though I knew I\'d
never have that love repaid.
        Who knows - only time


Draco I. Malfoy