Young Loveless

Author's Note: Hello, all! This is my first time at publishing anything I've written. When a girl is on an extended Spring Break, the mind runs wild with an abundance of ideas, most of which scream, "WRITE ME!" Needless to say, I'm rather excited at the prospect of getting many reviews and comments. The more the merrier! All criticism will be taken with a grain of salt, thank you very much.

Disclaimer: I did not create, nor can I make any claims to the ownership of the characters in the following story. They belong strictly to J. K. Rowling and publishers. The plot, however, has been roving around in my head for quite some time now.

Summary: Do not bite the bait of pleasure till you know there is no hook beneath it; for deception is a cruel act. It often has many players on different stages that corrode the heart. I do not love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz, or an arrow of carnations that propagates fire. I love you as one loves certain dark things, secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

Young Loveless

Draco Malfoy looked at the piece of parchment once more before tossing it on his desk with the enclosed lists of reading material. He was very surprised to even be considered for the position of Head Boy, though he was certainly appreciative of the appointment. Inwardly, he knew that it was an act of generosity by Professor McGonagall, though he would never reveal he knew the true reason behind her kindness.

Of course Granger was going to be Head Girl; she had it in spades since she first set foot in the Great Hall. She had the grades, the attitude, and those nauseating Gryffindor attributes, after all. And it helped that she never was considered to be a part of Voldemort’s famed Inner Circle. He shivered as he thought about the last time he had been in the presence of the Dark Lord. His father had brought him along the eve before what was said to be the first - and last - battle of the great war between Dark and Light.

It was the night Draco was set to take the Dark Mark.

Looking back on his life was not something enjoyable for Draco. While others may gaze upon photographs with a sense of nostalgia and the urge to reminisce with old friends, the urge just was not there for him. In fact, he had no photographs.

He also had no friends.

The loss of everything familiar was something else Draco had an aversion to thinking about. His entire family, save for a few distant cousins he had never met, was either dead or in Azkaban, serving a fate that was already worse than death itself. His father was due to take the Kiss in 137 days. His mother was slowly going insane, much like her sister had before her. Yes, Bellatrix was much better off now, suffering the most deadly Unforgivable at the hand of Harry Potter himself. Not that Draco wasn’t grateful in a strange, sordid way.

That was another thing you would never hear Draco Malfoy admit.

The Golden Bloody Trio saved his life. No, scratch that. They gave him a life to live. To make his. He could screw up if he wished, prosper if he liked, and no one could say anything to sway his opinion of anything under the sun. He could even do something completely out of character and…

He smiled slowly, his usual Slytherin smirk softening into a genuine appearance of happiness. Draco opened the center drawer of his desk and removed a piece of monogrammed parchment. He smoothed it out on the surface of the expensive wood and thought for a moment before picking up his quill and dipping it into a bottle of emerald-colored ink.

Granger,

Congratulations. I trust that we will have a rather, shall I say, eventful year ahead of us. No doubt you have worried yourself silly with thoughts of complete and total bloodshed upon our arrival at Hogwarts. If you haven’t, then it’s only a matter of time before you will. Sharing quarters with one another may seem inconvenient and unnatural, but let’s assuage those ideas right now. You have my solemn promise that no harsh words will cross your path on my behalf this year. Call it a truce. A wizard’s oath, if you will. I suppose I will see you in two week’s time.

We only have one year left. Let’s make it memorable, shall we?

~DM~


He scanned his letter almost gleefully. What he was about to do was downright unheard of. It was sinful. It was deliciously so, now that he thought about it. Draco Malfoy was being positively civil to a girl he had spent nearly half his lifetime loathing. He knew she hated him as well, at least in the past. Though he had helped the Defenders of the Light considerably during the recent war at the end of last term, there was that whole “Mudblood” thing that he had to take into consideration.

No matter.

With a quick set of directions given to his large Eagle Owl, Artemis, the letter was on its way. It was his life, after all. If he wanted to begin his last year in school by befriending others and making up for lost time with those he had hurt in the past, who was there to stop him?