If Love Is Sweet, What Is This, Draco Malfoy?

FIRST OFF:

this chapter is LOOOOOOOOOOOONG
second: this chapter is sucky :( as in sadddd :'S
oh well, the story must go on

I sighed as Draco scowled at the floor while we walked. When we were younger he would seem cute when he did that. Now it was plain annoying. My mind wondered back to the dreaded news this morning

I skipped downstairs, happy that the school year was approaching us. Of course, that meant Draco’s annual damned Christmas ball was occurring, and I was forced to go. But I would see all my old friends in school – Kat Tinge, Daphne Greengrass, Hailey Moone, Faye Werther and Selena Lautner. As I approached the living room, my mother shot up
“Maia, finally you’re awake!” she snapped. My eyes glanced at the wall clock. It was 10am! That was a record for me!
“…Good morning to you too” I said slowly. She narrowed her eyes
“You and Draco are going to go shopping for new school supplies. Conversation over” she said swiftly. My eyes jumped to the sulking Draco lounging on the sofa.
“What?” I asked faintly
“You heard me Maia; and you say excuse me. In these past few days all of your manners have drained away. It’s disgusting” she spat, before going into the kitchen. I was frozen with shock.
“Shopping? With Malfoy?” I asked faintly
“It’s not a party for me either, so shut up Mist” Draco spat. What the hell was his problem? I ignored the fact that he was here, and pursued my mother.
“Mother what do you mean I’m going shopping with Draco?” I asked, as I saw my mother in the kitchen.
“I mean you are going with him whether you like it or not. You two are so distant now and can never get on. And you hurt his feeling at the party” she slipped in. I glared at her. Since when did she care about anyone’s feelings?
“So this is an apology for hurting his feelings?” I spat. “It’s just gonna separate us more. We hate being around each other as it is” I proved
“Well it’s childish, acting like immature brats. And it’s mostly your fault anyway, winding him up over the slightest things. You need to learn to behave like a woman”
You mean like a slave
“He’s not going to want to” I said stubbornly
“Actually, he’s agreed to go with you very politely. Even though you don’t deserve it” she snapped, and I glared at a spot on the floor, before leaving.

“I need to go get a new broom. The ‘Spark 6000’ model is in today, and I want one. I’ll see you in an hour” I told him, and he gave me a disgusted look. “Oh just go and die” I spat, suddenly angry that he couldn’t act normal for one second, and he took off. I exhaled sharply. He could be so stupid sometimes. He read Quidditch magazines, he played Quidditch, he knew half the stuff in the store and it was him that would get first notice of a new broomstick coming in. There was no ‘Spark 6000’. Did it not occur to him that I didn’t have any interest in Quidditch at all? And I wasn’t Draco. I didn’t just buy something because it looked shiny or something. Besides, we weren’t planning on shopping together anyway, so it didn’t matter if I lied to him. We had planned to meet up again in the Leaky Cauldron after an hour, and if he came looking for me, he’d just think I’d gone to some other shop. I walked straight out of the shop and then cut past all of them until I reached Diagon Alley, and then hurried through a passage there. I managed to get to the right spot and looked around the deserted park for any sign of wizard life. I was about to turn around when I felt someone put their arms around me and whisper in my ear
“Hey” he whispered, and I grinned. The reason for coming here had arrived. I spun around and kissed Taylor lovingly. I didn’t know how I could fall any more in love with him after being so madly in love in the first place, bust somehow I managed to.
“Hi” I said, grinning, and took his hand before leading him towards the dark trees.

***
Draco’s View

I sulked as I walked with Maia, and heard her sigh. If she knew what I knew, she would be sighing in a very different way right now. I continued to stare at the ground, until she started speaking.
“I need to go get a new broom. The ‘Spark 6000’ model is in today, and I want one. I’ll see you in an hour” she told me, and I gave her a faked disgusted look. “Oh just go die” she spat, and I walked off, hurt. How stupid did she think I was? I read Quidditch magazines and was a Quidditch player myself. If anyone was to know about a new broom it would be me. She just made that name up on the spot. She was not going to get a new broom. She was going somewhere else, and I knew why she’d lied to me. It was so that she could go and make out with Taylor.

God I would love to just throw one punch at that git. I hated him bitterly, which made me more pathetic. It’s because he did something I couldn’t. He got the girl I wanted. She wouldn’t look at me twice. I had had a good feeling about that dance, before he’d marched in with his big built muscles and Quidditch stories to last a lifetime. I kicked a piece of trash that was getting shoved around by groups of last minute Christmas shoppers. I supposed that Maia would go to my Christmas party with that worm. I wanted to tell her about how I felt. But I knew I couldn’t. I longed to hold her in my arms like Taylor held her, to receive a loving kiss when she thought no-one was looking.

I felt like my heart was being ripped into tiny pieces and thrown away like it was disposable. I clenched my jaw together. I wasn’t going to cry just because I couldn’t get one girl. But that was my luck. I can have all the girls in the world, all the money in the world and all the good looks in the world, but I couldn’t have the one thing I wanted more than anything else. I hardly ever shed a tear, and never ever before for a girl, even when my mother went to hospital. I was taught by my father to tough it out. And yet Maia made me feel so weak.

I smiled sadly as I remembered this morning when I caught my house elf trying to throw my sheets in the linen bin, and ordered him to go and punish himself. How dare he throw away the one thing that I had left of Maia? The scent of her on my sheets, her presence.

I had sabotaged my one chance to even have a friendship between us. I suppose it was right for her to go off with another guy. It killed me every time she walked out of that door, saying to her mother that she would be with her friends. An unnecessary lie. I knew where she would be, and that was enough. So what if I didn’t rat her out? It didn’t make the fact that another guy would be all over her from being true. She was always a reserved girl, and never went out with any one guy. She had only had a few boyfriends before. Once when she was thirteen. That lasted for 2 years, and another swooning relationship after that that had to end when he had to move to some far off continent.

I decided to go back home through the fireplace in the Leaky Cauldron until it was time for Maia to leave her date. I said my house name clearly, and trudged up the stairs, ignoring everyone. It was like I was dying inside, and my eyes became blurry before I blinked it back. It was better for her to kill me now rather than leave me like this. It was my fault, I was a jerk and now I’d lost her for sure. When I opened my room door, I had to bite on my lip to keep the tears from falling. When I got inside finally, I crept into my bed, and put my head in my hands. Why did she have to pick him and not me? Why wasn’t I enough for her? Sure I could be a jerk but I was nice too sometimes, and she knew that more than anyone else. I was only ever nice to her, no-one else. My jaw tightened as I tried to stop my second tear from falling. I couldn’t do anything about the first that had rolled down my cheek. I clenched the sheets on my bed and screwed them up in my hands, sitting cross legged, and then sniffed quietly.

I reached over and rubbed my face with a tissue, feeling like a little boy again. And opened the locked chest underneath my bed, before pulling out a crumpled picture. It was one of Maia, with me next to her. Every time I was upset or pissed off, I would look at this picture and it would make everything ok, as if Maia was here with me. I smiled, seeing her happy and single in this picture. This was the only picture I ever had of me and Maia together, and it was taken when we were very small. I smiled seeing my hand around her waist. Her body seemed so rigid as I tried to touch her in any way. Even at such a young age we hated each other.

I replaced the picture back into the chest, and felt another tear fall down me as I realised Maia was in love. There was a spark in her eye she often had when she looked at her second to recent boyfriend, the one that moved. She loved Taylor, truthfully and honestly. I knew she would never look at another guy as long as Taylor walked the face of this planet. I blinked back the rest of my tears, my heart heavy and hammering as the seconds passed.

As time passed, my yearning for Maia lengthened. It felt like someone was pulling a black cloak of dread over me. Like I didn’t know what was going to happen but I had a bad feeling in my gut. My heart felt like someone had looped a belt around it and was pulling it tighter together. My breathing felt constricted as I clutched my chest with my hands, desperately trying to get rid of the pain. I crawled under my duvet and screamed into the pillow, the soft material muffling my cries. I moved around quickly underneath the quilt, my breathing becoming raking. It hurt too much to do anything except cry in pain. All thoughts on my mind were of Maia. My eyes watered and I let myself cry freely as I punched the headboard, cracking and splintering the wood. My fist started bleeding as the wood smashed my hand, but I could barely concentrate on that.

My father had used the ‘Crucio’ spell on me many times before, and every single time hurt like hell, but there was not one sound coming from me. Even the first time he cast it upon me for the simplest of things, this pain did not compare. I moaned and gagged, trying to stop it from taking over my body completely.
“Master are you ok? I heard-” I heard a small elfin voice say, but I just screamed louder into the pillow, my throat hoarse. The elf squealed as she saw me in pain, even though the duvet masked the worst of it, and disappeared. My face was going red as I sat up on the bed and tried breathing deeply, but started spluttering and chocking as the pain deepened.

I had spent the past 16 years of my life, devoting it to Maia. And it was because I failed so often to please her that I turned to being a jerk to her instead.

I heard two pairs of feet running up the stairs, but carried on muffling my voice by shrieking into the pillow.
“Draco?” I heard the panicked voice of my mother say. The door handle turned and she was about to come in when I screamed
“DON’T” I screamed, trying to choke back a sob.
“Draco what’s going on? The house elf said it heard you screaming. What’s wrong?” she asked, hesitating at the door
“Move Narcissa, I’ll just blast the door open” I heard my father say, and I pulled the quilt over me quickly before curling up into a ball and shaking. I had never felt this way before. Was love even supposed to be this bad? Sure I was big headed and knew if I were ever to be rejected I would not take it well, but this was extreme. I had seen Maia go through breakups. And she was a girl. All she did was cry and act depressed for about a week. She had never acted up like this. Because I was there next to her. Even though I was a jerk, I would help her through the hard times. She never understood why and it would stay that way forever.

Just then, the door blast into splinters, and I heard two pairs of feet coming into the room, followed by the light, scared patting of my elf’s foot. The cover was ripped off my by my father, and my mother gasped.
“Draco? My baby! What’s wrong?” mother asked, close to tears, but I kept shaking, a few tears rolling down my eyes. Even my dad was stunned. My cell phone rang then, but I ignored it. It kept ringing until eventually, my father got so pissed off he answered it himself
“Who the hell is this?” he asked, accidently pressing loudspeaker.
“Mr. Malfoy? This is Maia” I heard the angel’s voice say, and I tightened, no longer shaking. My parent’s eyes were still on me. ‘Maia’ I mouthed. My father thrust the phone at me, but I recoiled from it “I was just wondering if you knew where Draco was. It’s been one and a half hours since I saw him. Could you just tell him I’m coming back the manor now, if he’s there?” Maia asked, sounding annoyed. I heard her giggling slightly and whispered something along the lines of ‘stop it, its Mr. Malfoy… Taylor!’ which we were probably not supposed to hear. Taylor was probably caressing her as she spoke.
“Yes I will. He’s here. Did you want to speak to him?” my father asked, and I shook my head violently.
“Um… no that’s ok Mr. Malfoy. I’ll probably see him in a few minutes anyway. Bye” I heard her sweet voice say, before the line went quiet. She had put the phone down.

My heart sunk deeper, as I slowly started shaking again, my tears raining down.
“Draco baby talk to me. What’s wrong?” Narcissa asked, smoothing my hair as she wiped my tears away with a tissue
“Go” I whispered, the screaming at the tip of my tongue.
“Draco-” my father started, but I whined and then fell flat on my bed, clenching my pillow as another wave of screaming over came me, the pillow barely muffling the sound. Even my father looked scared, and my mother was crying hysterically now
“Draco baby just look at me for a second” she said, and I slowly dragged my self up. Looking in her eyes, I could see mine reflected back. They were that of a man burning alive, while watching their loved ones receiving the same treatment. It was a look I had never adopted before. One only few wizards had ever handled. It was the look of a man set to die.

My mother was frozen as she stared at me, horrified. “Draco” she whispered, her hand smoothing my cheek softly. More tears fell down my face, and she got up quietly before leaving with Lucas following behind her. I fell back onto my bed and curled up into a ball, shaking as I fell asleep, letting all my feelings wash over me. Eventually, I heard the soft click of my bedroom door closing.