trouble sleeping

Born into something of a heartless home, excluding the soft, warm fingers of his mother.

So he knows nothing but cold.

"You're Draco Malfoy?"

It's the first day of school, and they're making friends. He nods, his eyes as innocent as can be when they are greedy.

"I'm Daphne Greengrass. Oldest child. Have you got siblings?"

"No."

"I've got a younger sister, her name is Astoria."

"Oh."

"I hope I get sorted into Slytherin."

"Yeah, me too."

"The whole lot of you Malfoy's have been in there, huh?"

"Yeah."

"Must be tough, living up to a name like that. You look like you belong, though."

"Oh."

They didn't hit it off in the beginning. They were an anomaly, but being atypical from the very start, it didn't hurt them. They were pieces of a different puzzle. She talked a lot – especially about his family. He didn't like her much at first. She talked about his family too much, the way they went about things. He didn't pay attention to what she said often. He liked her sister's name, though.

But she talked too much about his family – too much for him to like her.

It's a few years later – five, to be exact – and everything's changing. He's been chosen, he has a job to do, and it's important.

Stress makes him want to scream and tear his hair out, fingers scratching at the roots of pale blonde hair.

"Draco, you can't."

He's standing in front of the Prefect's bathroom sinks, eyes locked on his own reflection in the dim, sickly light of 5:26 in the morning.

"Shut up, Pansy," he snarls, "Just shut up. You don't understand, you never will."

He turns around so abruptly he scares the girl. She jumps back slightly.

"Go."

Dark shadows hang under his eyes – a duller grey than ever – and his skin is as insipid as the shirt on his back.

"No." she snaps back, "I won't. You're acting like I can't help you – I can, I promise."

Tears prick at her eyes when he lets out a mirthless laugh; his breath slaps her across the face.

"You think you get it, Pansy," he says quietly, though not gentle in the least, "But you don't know fuck about any of this."

She's so close to him, she kisses him – or at least presses her lips where a kiss should be. Draco's stiff and unwavering, his eyes hard, and Pansy insists further.

It doesn't work. He pulls away. They still stand fairly close, and Pansy forces her eyes closed tightly; tears seep from the creases, and smears her eyeliner.

"Please, Draco," she whispers. "I love you."

Pitiful.

He doesn't reply.

Her long arms, shaking and uncertain, wrap their way around Draco's shoulders, looping around his neck and warily pulling him back, and their lips against each other in a sloppy clash. It's movement, and warmth, passion and love, anomalous and uncomfortable, he hates it, he wants it.

Ambivalence has always been a trait buried deep inside of him.

Her hands begin unbuttoning his shirt, loosening his tie in blurs. He doesn't particularly realise that his hand is sneaking its way up her skirt without direction, and it's not embossed in his mind how or when they ended up on the floor – it's a bit ridiculous, really.

"I love you, Draco," she whispers into his skin, and he if she's noticed he doesn't love her.

She obviously hasn't, otherwise it wouldn't have been okay to fuck him on the bathroom floor, under an abnormal silence, apart from heavy breathing and whispering. It wouldn't have been okay for her skin to touch his in a gentle ripple; for them to share something she never thought they would. Something quite errant.

For it being his first fuck, surprisingly, it holds the least bit of enchantment possible. He wouldn't call it 'making love' even if he were threatened point-blank.

She loved him, and he didn't love her.

He leaves her in a heap in the bathroom, whimpering in the moonlight.

"This was a mistake." he says, so far under his breath it could have been an exhale. "I don't have time for this."

He rushes back to the dorm, quite unaware of his actions, but he's on the pretence of needing to get to bed, otherwise he'll have trouble sleeping.

It was true, anyways.

Three months later, late at night.

He had failed. Horribly. He runs down the staircase before his aunt can catch him, through the halls with heavy footsteps. He had cried like a child, the strain bearing down on his shoulders at the worst possible moment, he had lowered his responsibility. His family was going to pay; they were going to suffer and die – all because of him. He leans against a window pathetically, his brain pounding against his skull, which seemed abnormally thin now.

"Draco?" a small voice comes out from behind a pillar. A girl crept from the shadows, long brown hair cascading down her back.

"Get in bed, Astoria – go back to your sister in the common room or – er – just go." he says, his voice even broken and doleful, stumbling over words like tall fences.

"What's going on?"

"Get back in bed."

She studies his face carefully like an excavated fracture, ancient art.

"Please, Astoria," he says, "Just go back to the common room, or something."

She sees an expression on his aristocratic face that she's never seen before. So she agrees, though not fully aware of her surroundings.

The last thing he sees of her is her hair bouncing behind her, catching pale light through the corridor windows, before Bellatrix finds him.

It's done, it's all done. He feels anvils lift from his chest and back – air flows through him, refreshing and new. It hasn't quite solved it all though, because he's here, sitting in the Great Hall with the dead and the injured, and he feels eyes on him, burning, staring. Perhaps he shouldn't be here; after all, he was a Death Eater.

You were the enemy. You don't belong.

He wants to thank Potter – he's free – but he doesn't.

Eyes are still searing into his spine, branding the back of his head with hate, and he runs out of the Great Hall, unexpectedly panting; anxiety gets the best of him. It always does.

He doesn't know exactly where he is in the castle; it's in such a wrecked state. He collapses against ruin, a bloodstained tapestry in the dark.

Footsteps come down the hall lightly, and Astoria's face comes out of the dark.

"I never did realize how lonely the dark could be," she says matter-of-factly, the tone of voice somewhat ruined by look she's giving him, how he's everything. "I guess I've never really been in it."

"Why are you here?" he asks, his voice sitting somewhere in between a whine and a growl.

Wind courses through the hallway, leaking out of crumbling walls, and she pulls her sweater a little tighter around her as she walks closer. Her hair is a mess, she's bruised and her lip is bleeding.

"You did the right thing today."

"They still look at me like I'm a bloody murderer."

"As long as you know you aren't, it doesn't matter."

He straightens up, and looks at her, full in the eyes. He's never realized how green they are, until now. She takes him by the hand.

"I know you're not."

He sighs deeply.

"Okay."

"You're welcome." she says quietly, and kisses him on the cheek, before turning to walk away, disappearing in the dark.

"Thank you." he calls out, smiling for the first time in what seems to be years, and somewhere in the black, she smiles too.

He has to thank Potter – he's free.

He doesn't know what the hell she's doing or thinking. He doesn't know why she's in love with him – there's nothing special or outstanding about him. A horrible past and a clean bloodline. In his mind, he knows she should have regrets.

He straightens his robes in the mirror, and he barely remembers the last time he had worn dress robes. Lucius comes by and places a hand on his shoulder, meaning to be fatherly, failing miserably.

"Don't be tense."

"I'm not, Father."

"Ah, yes – good."

"Yes, good."

Lucius exits the room as quickly as he entered, and Draco is left alone again, to face his thoughts.

Astoria is making a mistake.

You're that mistake. Be happy.

He straightens up one more time, and goes to splash water on his face.

He's had trouble sleeping.

A/N: Herrro everybody. This was a beast to write, man. It is what it is, though, just an odd mix of thoughts and parentheses forming together to make a collection of Draco. This was also written for ReillyJade's 'A First Time For Everything: Challenge', and I had 'First Time' 'First Taste of Freedom' and 'First Time at/in a Wedding'. Anyways, R&R please! :) and I don't own Harry Potter, yadda yadda.