familiar ; draco malfoy

PROLOGUE

There was once a boy I'd known, one with a pale face and very deep-set eyes, though I'd realized at first glance he was no boy at all. A small man from the moment he could stand on his own two feet, my old friend was never a child that laughed much. Once I had caught his lips twitch in what I hoped would resemble a grin, but it took the shape of a characteristic scowl that made his entire face seem almost villain-like. Even though I was no good at telling jokes, I cannot recall a single moment where I'd seen him laugh or even smirk in a way so empty, there was surely no humor behind it.

My friend was a bully to everyone but me, though I knew very well that he didn't really like me much, and never made an effort to ask about my day. Yet I knew about his from the shade of his very pale eyes, I knew he never cried, and I knew that I was just as much of a pain to him as any other child.

He came to my house often because his mother made him. Narcissa thought we were great friends, though nobody else agreed, but we both knew Draco didn't show affection well. Sometimes I thought we were the only two that understood him, because I could see through his poker face that he was at peace when we were together.

My house was by the lake; a small lake at best, but back then to me it seemed like the larges body of water that hid so many treasures. I was too afraid to swim in it, and Draco said it was too dirty to do so, but to me the green water seemed so calm and warm.

„Don't you wish you could turn into a fish?" I once asked him when our mothers were drinking tea, and I played with his hair as he swatted my hand away.

„No," he sneered, rolling his eyes at me and moving to sit even further away.

I propped myself up on my elbows and smiled at him, blowing bubbles with my gum, and he sighed in annoyance each time a bubble popped. He stared straight ahead at the wall in front of him, looking like he wanted to be anywhere but there.

„I don't want to necessarily be a fish, but I'd just like to breathe underwater and see what's in there," I said, popping another bubble.

He adverted his eyes back to me, staring at my mouth as it popped another bubble.

„You need to stop that, or I'll push you in and you'll see what it's like underwater" he muttered, but I popped another balloon and he stood up to leave.

„Alright, alright, I'll stop, I'm sorry," I said, pulling at his shirt sleeve to get him to sit back down. He tore his hand away from mine and sat back down, staring straight ahead with a blank expression once more. I knew he didn't really like to spend time with me, but he had to. His mother always made him, and his father told him to be nice to me.

Not many people really liked him, I don't really remember weather he had any friends at all, I was not even sure if I was one of his. But he was my only friend, and no one really saw why beyond our parents being friends.

„Do you want to go for a walk?" I asked, having little to no interest in our mothers' conversation. He said nothing and just stood up, stalking away speedily. I caught up to him, matching his fast strides, and continued  to talk.

"You know, I think I'd be a good swimmer," I said.

"You don't know how to swim?" Draco scoffed.

"No. Can you teach me?"

"As if," Draco scoffed.

Nobody really understood how I could stand to be around him, or how I never once said a bad thing behind his back. But I was always very good at reading people, and could always see through his blank stare that there was pain behind his coldness.

His father, a man I never really liked, was someone I avoided all of my childhood. He made my stomach feel uneasy and my insides squirm, but I never once shied away from his intense gaze. I knew that my friend only wanted to be his father's spitting image, only wanted to be good enough to hold his family name. I knew him as the most loyal man I'd ever met, one that held everything his father wanted him to be above anything he might have ever desired.

He was a man before he could be a boy. A man that, as I saw him now, almost eleven years later, seemed like a ghost of everything he had the potential to be. I know he didn't know me; didn't know who I was, or that he'd known me once. I knew they'd erased his memories, I knew that they were molding him to fit his family name.

His childhood spat out the villain everyone else wanted to see.