Title: Paper Bag

Author: Romie

Archive: Anywhere. I'd appreciate an e-mail so that I can visit your site if I haven't seen it yet.

Rating: PG for disturbing thoughts

Pairing: prelude to Harry/Draco

Spoilers: None

Disclaimers: not mine. Rowling's. That said, anybody's pretty much free to steal from anything I've done, as long is it generates something cool.  Also, this series was largely inspired by Fiona Apple's album, When the Pawn, which has also generated the titles so far.

Warnings: This series features a same-sex, or slash, relationship.  If you find this sort of thing objectionable, then don't read it.

Summary: contemplations. Draco's POV. Sequel to Love Ridden.

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My father says that I was born hungry.  I don't know how true that is; he was always prone to embellishment.  Despite what they'd tell you, (that mysterious, overbearing "They,") my father was not a liar - not exactly.  He simply ornamented the truth to make it more beautiful.  And who is to say that isn't a more perfect representation of reality?  My father was a poet.  His words were honest to the *present*, if not always solidly tied to facts of the past.

 

(O God.  I've slipped into it.  I talk about him in past tense, as though he isn't still alive.  As if he isn't still my father.  It's easier to think that way.  It makes my actions feel like less of a betrayal when I don't think of him out there, waiting for me to join him.  With every passing moment that I don't show up, he feels a little more pain, a little more confusion.  Another twist of the stiletto lodged between his ribs.  He must know I'm still alive, still at Hogwarts.  He has to.  I'm certain at least four of my fellow students report back to the Dark Lord regularly, and those are only the ones I know about.  I wish I could give them a message for him, for my father, to explain a little.  On the other hand, there's nothing I can say - I wouldn't even know where to begin - so it's probably for the best that they won't talk to me any more.)

 

My father says that I was born hungry.  I don't know how true that is, but I *do* know that my first memory is of trying to eat my mother's jewelry.  It sounds ridiculous now, but I was only two at the time.  She used to wear this huge ruby pendant my father gave her, as big as a crab apple.  I probably remember it as larger than it was - than it *is* - because I was so much smaller then.  (She doesn't wear it anymore - not that I've seen, at least.  She hasn't for years.  I wonder what happened to it.)

 

I was fascinated by it.  She used to carry me around from room to room, and the ruby hung directly in my line of sight.  It was so beautiful, the color so deep and clear . . . like the most perfect fruit ever made.  So one day, while she was distracted, (talking with the house elves, I think,) I grabbed it and popped it into my mouth.  She fished it out almost immediately, and yelled at me for the first time in my young life.  I cried for hours, I think.

 

She apologized immediately, concern writ large across her forehead.  Later that day, my father gave me a jewel of my own - a large, low-grade star sapphire.  I still use it as a paperweight.  When bedtime came, my mother read me books about geology, and I've been given gems on every birthday since then.  I have quite a collection at home, proudly displayed on my bedside table.

 

I've never had the heart to tell them they missed the point.  I wasn't crying over the lost ruby; I was crying over lost illusion.  The ruby *looked* delicious, fire and blood in capsule form, but once I had it in my mouth, it was just a cold, inert stone.  When my mother pulled it out, it cut my tongue.

 

My father says that I was born hungry.  I don't know how true that is, but he means it as a compliment.  To him, hunger is the same as drive.  It's a knowledge of my own entitlement, a ruthless calling to take what I need, regardless of what others think.  Hunger is empowerment and ambition.  He's proud of my hunger; it's what makes me his son.

 

I wonder what he'd be so proud if he knew how I think about it.  If he knew of the constant gnawing loneliness.  The emptiness I carry in my belly where there should be stars.  I doubt he's ever considered what would happen if my hunger could not be sated.  (If he did, I imagine he thought of it as a positive - a push to perfection, a shove away from stagnation.)  My poor father.  It would never occur to him that there are some things that cannot be taken, only given.

 

I've been watching Harry Potter for years now.  It started before I even knew who he was.  (That is, I *always* knew who Harry Potter was, but I didn't recognize him at Madam Malkin's robe shop.  After all, no one in the wizarding world had seen him for over ten years.)  Despite his beaten-up, oversized muggle clothes, ridiculous hair, and cello-taped glasses, it was obvious he came from a powerful wizarding family.  I was a bit thrown that I couldn't place him immediately; he exuded such *presence* so casually that I felt certain I would have remembered seeing him before, even as a face in the crowd.  (And the London wizarding world is considerably smaller than one might imagine.  Everybody meets everybody, eventually.)

 

When I found out who he was, it made more sense.  He honestly doesn't see it.  He doesn't realize.  Harry doesn't realize.  He still thinks he's ordinary.  It's absurd.  As if to prove it, he deliberately surrounds himself with people who are beneath him.  (I'm not being cruel, merely pragmatic.  Without his friendship, Hermione Granger might still lead the class, but everyone would have stopped speaking to her long ago, (assuming they'd ever started).  Ron Weasley presents a bit more of an enigma; Potter's been too instrumental in shaping his personality.  It's impossible to say how he would have turned out otherwise.)

 

I've had a lot of time to think about it, and I've decided that Harry needs the fiction.  He has to believe he's normal, or he runs the risk of realizing just how unusual he is, and the profound implications of that fact.  I suppose it could be a product of his childhood, but I believe his uniqueness is more inherent - an almost messianic mandate.  He could rule the world if he wanted to - wizard *or* muggle.

 

Unfortunately, (or not,) as I've said, he needs to believe he's normal.  That means playing the underdog against some powerful, cultured archrival.

 

Which is where I come in.  I started playing the part years before I understood what I was doing; I even acquired a matched pair of henchmen to flank me like bookends.  (They don't talk to me now, either.  Vince doesn't even go to school here anymore.  I don't usually miss them.)  You see, Voldemort wasn't good enough for Harry - he needed a more immediate rival.  I fit the bill.  I don't even remember choosing to be his enemy; I don't know why anyone would.

 

The only explanation I can find is that he created me.  That powerful charisma grabbed hold of me and twisted, smashed me flat and deformed me until I became what he wanted.  The sort of clever villain you see in pantomimes, all black cape and oily mustache.  The brand that always loses to the Hero and slinks home, humiliated, to return with another scheme next week.

 

We're all his puppets.  (I say that fondly, and with profound admiration.)  He wanted a rival, so he made me.  He wanted a best friend, so he made Weasley.  He wanted a brainy sidekick, so he made Granger.  We spin around his sun in elliptical orbits while he smiles and pretends he's not God.

 

I'm both the luckiest and the unluckiest of the three.  I'm obviously the most underprivileged, but I'm also the only one without a blindfold.  As long as I act the part, I can think whatever I want.  He's done with me.  Granger and Weasley he tweaks every day - editing, refining, cultivating.  His eleven-year-old mind created *me* full blown, and then moved on.

 

I'm seventeen and a half now.  He has yet to give me any depth, so I've had to create my own.  I can't let him see: I *mustn't*.  He's not ready to deal with what that means, with what it requires of him.  In all the ways that count, he's still a little boy.  If I ever told him . . . he wouldn't understand.  He'd believe he did, but he wouldn't really.  He'd choose not to.  It's easier that way.  Hate is always simpler than Love.  (How well I've come to understand that.)

 

My father says I was born hungry.  I don't know how true that is, but I've forgotten what it feels like to be filled.

 

Yesterday, I thought I saw a dove, but when I grabbed it, it was just a paper bag.