This is really odd and it does have strong elements of slash and angst so read no further if that's not your cup of tea, it will not be held against you. LOL. Reviewers are always one of the coolest things at ff.net. Constructive criticism is just as great. ***

It was a beautiful tree. It looked like something from a painting.

It was a giant, stretching out into oblivion and it was all alone. Traces of snow dusted the stretched out branches of the tree. It hadn't snowed for a while though. It had a double edge result, the beautiful, lush green and the pure crystal effect of the snow.

All in all, it was breathtaking. If I squinted I could see the beginnings of the sun coming out over the mountains. Just a hint of fiery orange, but other then that it was dark.

Not so dark that I couldn't see the most beautiful thing of all. Hundreds of glass icicle birds hanging, no gliding in the trees like Christmas tree ornaments. Beautiful, every feature in them engraved with painstaking care.

Their gilded wings outstretched and every feather etched in a hauntingly memorable type of beauty.

Someone had loved these birds, someone had crafted them out of their own hands, treasuring as if they were like their own child.

It seemed even more precious because of that. Because it was me who knew about it, nothing exceptionally special about me, so it was odd that this image would be in my dreams.

I was wrapped up in mum's Christmas presents, a maroon sweater, a red scarf and regular black corduroys with a brand new rip in the knee. Stupid, clumsy me had tripped on my own shoelace and tumbled down the stairs and got tangled up in myself, and ended up with a new bruise and another piece of gypped clothing.

But still I don't let my problems infect this dream. I don't want the birds to be tainted with my problems.

It seems this dream is the only thing that gets me through the days.

This dream held back the things weighing down my soul when I was awake, it held back Harry's overwhelmingly growing God complex, and Hermione's biting comments of self superiority, sometimes made only to remind me that I'm nothing.

I don't kid myself of anything; though sometimes it's nice to pretend that I'm not going to become a lowly bottom worker at the ministry, curtsey of a father who thinks of me very little. I don't get into really bad trouble, I'm not the youngest, my grades aren't exceptionally wonderful or horribly below average.

So I think this dream is my mind's way of coping with the life before me. With Harry being my best friend and always listening to me, but all the while never wanting to lower himself to really understand what I'm talking about. And I can't blame him.

And still my life in general doesn't get any better, Draco's always there, inhaling my never completely concealed weaknesses like a drug. His evident amusement at my shabby mental and physical state, and the fact that I'm losing grip with what's my reality, something I can't so readily accept. Sometimes I think he knows me better then anyone else, his eyes are always on me, observing and watching. He can sense me breaking down inside I think.

Snape is coming down on me even harder, making me repeat the ingredients to potions over and over out loud for the class, while Harry shoots me sympathetic glances, already discussing the next potions essay with Hermonie.

So this is my dream. A place of beauty and coldness, glass birds captured in frozen splendor, perched on outstretched branches, and there's even something in the way they were made that tells me something else. They look like they about to fly away.

There's wistfulness inside myself to join them.

I shiver, it's just a dream I know, but sometimes I can almost sense the line that separates it from being reality.

"Cold?" Asks a smooth voice behind me.

I turn, startled. Draco Malfoy standing right there, is he really here, or is it just my dream?

Malfoy looks like he has taken a long climb, his hair is tousled and his cheeks are ruddy, making the pallid appearance of his skin even more sharper, his breath comes out in cold puffs, looking not unlike smoke coming out of a burning furnace. But still he looks impeccable, beautiful even. And even more untouchable and aloof.

"Well are you going to speak to me or are you just going to stand there like a dumb git?" He asks, stamping his foot.

I watch him take in the site around him, the rising sun, burning across the horizon, lighting up every glass bird in the tree, rainbow reflections shimmering on his face, his eyes travel up the majesty of the tree, then finally they are back on me, capturing me under a steady, gray eyed gaze studying me and capturing me under his wide-eyed stare. Like I'm the most interesting object in this dream of beauty.

I bite my lip hard, and I feel a short moment of pain, and I feel the line of fantasy and reality in my dream obscuring and retreating even further.

"Annihilare!" Draco says, whipping his wand out and aiming at one of the birds on the tree.

There's a sound of glass shattering and I see the bird exploding from some invisible power. I shield my face too late from the flying glass, and I can feel blood seeping through a cut on my cheek, I cover it with my hand and I feel the blood moving through the cracks between my fingers, and trickling down my wrist as Draco repeats the ageless invocation aiming his wand at every bird and they break apart like cheap petty toys for children. It breaks something inside of me to see my one solace in defaced fragments.

I cry out, and I'm grabbing him by the forearms, furious, trying to wrestle the wand from him. I know that it isn't one of the brightest things I could do. But I'm reacting on pure fury now, it's all that's left inside of me.

I pummel him to the ground, sitting on top of his waist and strangely he isn't even trying to fight back.

His gray eyes are wide inside his pale face, watching me, and he looks utterly fascinated.

I can't help myself, I punch him hard, across the face, and my fist hurts. He says nothing, but a few seconds later his long, slender fingers are interrupting a small river of blood that is dribbling from his nose, trailing down to the perfect curve of his lip. I watch in spite of myself.

His fingers are slicked red, and he puts them in his mouth and licks the blood off, I can see his throat working, swallowing.

Fuck.

"What are you doing here?" I ask, and curse myself as soon as the sentence comes out my mouth. I sound like I'm on the verge of bursting out in tears.

"How the hell am I supposed to know? Do you think I choose this?" This sentence is carefully chosen, his mouth has moved to form those words, but his eyes show no recollection of it.

Helpless. I can feel the stinging in my eyes as I try not to cry. My hands ball into fists, I can feel my fingernails cutting into my palms, creating bloody half-moons.

"Why- why did you do that to those birds?"

"They were only glass." This is said with a shrug; strange how dignified Malfoy can look beneath me and with a bloody nose.

"They were mine." I say and I can feel the desperation creeping in my voice. The birds are gone, how am I ever going to sleep now?

"If you really want to know why I did it, I'll tell you. I wanted to destroy something beautiful. I wanted to know that I did it. To be able to look into utter destruction and desecration and to know that you did it is one of the most sensational feelings you can ever know Ron." His eyes are on my face, carefully gauging my reaction.

A thoughtless act of violence.

I'm silent. I think about the birds, they are jagged imperfections now. Wingless, faceless creatures.

I'm still thinking this when Draco's hands are wrapping around my neck and pulling my face down to his. His lips meet mine and I do not protest.

He kisses me brutally, his tongue ravishing mine bloody senseless. He's cupping my chin, with a soft hand, teasing my lips open with an easy trick of his mouth.

Our blood, a shallow cut on my cheek and a threading stream of blood on Draco's face, is mingling together, swirling around in a beautiful imbalance, something has started and I know with sudden comprehension that it will not stop.

He stops suddenly, pulling away, and looking up at me, in one quick motion, he's on top, forcing me into the ground, rubbing his hardness against my own and small sounds are escaping from my mouth.

Draco's face is bloody, his face floating between ecstasy and pain.

"I want to know everything about you." He says, watching me, leaning over me, and our noses are touching, and his fingers have somehow ended up tangled in my hair. Our lips are swollen from the cold and from our unhindered kisses.

I can't say anything. I'm a burning, inarticulate thing. Wanting what he can give me.

And his lips capture mine again, gently though, like a promise.

I wake up with a gasp. I'm sitting straight up and clutching sheets with my fists and the knuckles are white and rimmed with red.

I'm trying to control my unsteady breathing, while looking around me. Gryffindors dorm.

Harry is sound asleep in a bed across from me, his face turned away from my direction.

My hand reaches up to touch my face and my cheek is still bleeding.