Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark violation is intended.
Added note/disclaimer: I also use quotes from other places. If you find a quote that wasn't cited, please notify me.
Additional Notes/Warning Labels:
1. This one has self-harm in it (eating disorder is one of the major ones, so if you might be triggered by that, don't read)
2. DO NOT TAKE SERIOUSLY! There is no offense meant!
3. This is an angst fic (obviously!)
4. This is a SLASH, YAOI, whatever you want to call it (boy/boy) HP / DM
5. I'm still American, don't mind my Americanisms.
6. I own Acheron and the plot
8. Character Death (No I'm not telling you who! You'll find out who in the story!)
9. As Sylvia Plath said, "I write only because/There is a voice within me/That will not be still."
Note Added 19.05.07: This is now being edited. If I make any changes that effect the overall story, I'll inform you in the next note here. - Keir
"We never taste happiness in perfection"
Perfection
It's a sad thing, really, that we all strive for the perfection we can never reach. Even the stars themselves struggle in their attempts of outshining the sun in the night sky.
I never found it easy to be me. I was always struggling to be good enough, but I never quite made it. Not that it matters now, I suppose, but I know that things aren't supposed to be this way.
I know it wasn't supposed to end this way. I wanted my happily ever after, but I guess I'll never get it.
It's funny, how we all think that in the end, everything will be better… I used to think that Potter would defeat Voldemort and my father would regain his sanity and tell me he was proud of me.
It didn't happen that way. Potter did defeat Voldemort after all, but my father died in the battle to keep Voldemort. A needless death in a senseless war, I suppose. My mother lost her mind. She wasn't supposed to lose her mind.
We were gone, dead before we'd ever managed to do anything. Or almost dead, because like everyone in the world, we all have skeletons in our closet. Our skeleton just happened to be a living and breathing human being.
Of course, he was older than I was – about sixteen years older than me. My parents' first child. The brother that was disowned and disinherited because he ran off with a Muggle. Not a Muggle-born or a Halfblood, but a Muggle.
He was disowned two years after my birth. In my father's words – I was a son and thus, the name would live on despite my brother's attempt at destroying it.
I didn't find out about my brother until I was seventeen and on the run. Dumbledore was dead and I had nowhere to go. I'd failed the Dark Lord and as a failure that was not an initiated Death Eater yet, I'd been given a death sentence.
I ran to the Muggle world and it was sheer coincidence, sheer luck that I ran into the brother I'd never known. He took me into his home and taught me to live like a Muggle.
It's been a year since then. Voldemort's dead. I'm eighteen years old and my brother dragged me out into the Wizarding World once again. He shipped me off to Hogwarts once it reopened so I could complete the Seventh Year.
Of course, I've got too many problems now. I've brought them all upon myself too.
It's about perfection… it's about control.
I can't control my life. My name controls my life, my reputation…
Once, my Father, Lucius controlled my life. He oversaw what I was becoming. He decided how I'd act, how I'd talk… how to walk, how to react…
Then when my Father was gone, thrown in jail, my Mother took over. She controlled me. I was never anything more than a puppet to be discarded and passed on to the next person in line, waiting for their turn at controlling me through fear, pain… and my brother, who controlled me with love.
I think he really did love me. He wanted what was best for me – for me to be happy, but I couldn't be happy.
The reason…
I'd lost control of everything when I tried to be perfect and I couldn't be perfect and I didn't know why.
Maybe it was that I saw what happened to my mother… to my father…
My father who ruled us as a dictator. My mother, who became his lifeless puppet, trying so hard to be perfect. Trying so hard to keep the name, to keep her honor…
Then the news came…
Lucius had fallen for the Dark.
x-x-x-x-x-x
She lost her mind
Someone kicked her into the back of the line
She lost her head
When they called and they said that they thought he
was dead
x-x-x-x-x-x
– Pierre Corneille.
A/N: I think it's a bit difficult to read – maybe it's just me. This thing isn't all in Draco's PoV… you'll see…
All right... quotes. I haven't a clue on how many quotes there are, aside from the chapter quotes, so just bear with me.
Citation/Disclaimer(s)/Reference:
1. The lyrics at the bottom were a bit random, I guess. They're from "Dreaming of Screaming" by System of a Down.
For those of you who reviewed before I did some changes – very little changes to the actual context of the chapter and more to the warning labels, here you are:
SwayPippin
gaija
Thanks for taking the time to review!
P.S.: This was edited, but I'm having it re-edited because there were some slight changes. This and the next chapter, which is being posted up right now as well, are both being re-edited. I'll post this story up, and fix everything when Arwen gets back to me. She's kinda busy, and I got tired of waiting.
P.P.S.: This story will be twenty-one chapters long not counting this "prelude" sort of thing and the prologue or the Epilogue. However, I'll tell you this right now, you don't have to read the Epilogue to get the ending. This is a really strange story and I won't mind if you don't like it. It was a story that was very difficult to write. I doubt I do its subjects any justices. Ah, well, I'm just starting out in writing these things.
All right, drop me a line, if you will.
Frankly, I do not care if you review or not. This is for my entertainment mostly. And yours, if you want it to do be. If you review, know that it will be read and appreciated it, as so long as it has something that contains your thoughts (nothing right down mean), constructive constructive criticism, and anything that is not petty or demeaning to me. We are all human beings here, unless there are aliens using the internet from outer space we have not yet heard from, so let us treat each other with the respect all human beings deserve.
Keir