You probably think I deserved it.

You probably think I deserved what you did.

You probably thought of it as a solution to multiple problems. Closure. First, of course, you’d get your revenge. I manipulated you. I betrayed you. You thought we had something special and I destroyed it. Second, you’d save another poor man from suffering the way I made you suffer. 

You probably thought I deserved it.

You were probably smiling while you wrote those degrading words, while you picked those private photographs, when you posted them. Were you considering how much damage you would do, how much pain you would inflict, with just a few simple messages? 

I bet you thought I deserved the anguish. Earned it.

I earned the scarring conversation with my family regarding what you had done, when I had to ask whether or not I would need a lawyer. I earned the look of utter disappointment and disgust from my father when I had to tell him the mistake I made which allowed your actions to even take place. I earned the embarrassment, the shame, the panic of considering how this experience, how these photos, could affect my future. You accomplished your goal: I did earn it. I earned the pain and suffering for the mistakes that I made. 

I deserved it.

But just like you made your decision to send the messages, I made a decision to send some of my own. Over the course of a few months, you watched your future fall to pieces in front of your eyes. Do you think you deserved it? Do you think you earned it?

Is it my fault?

I’m sure you’re happy to know that I still struggle with that question. Did I bring it on myself? The report, the interviews, the trial. All the re-lived suffering. Is it just my own punishment for ruining your life?

But… did I ruin your life?

The thought originated in your mind to post the degrading messages and photographs. It was your hands that wrote the words and your hands that took the photographs. It was your hands that sent them off. It was your idea to do what you did.

Therefore, it is you who deserves the consequences of what you did.

And it is also you who can decide how you react to these consequences. Continue to believe I ruined your life, destroyed your career, ended all hope of your future goals being accomplished. Continue living with this misery and hatred and bitterness.

Or, instead, you could try to look inward and attempt to understand why you did what you did. Why did you think so poorly of someone you didn’t know? Why did you become so fixated on them, even without seeing or interacting with them? Why was your instinctive reaction to cause harm instead of prevent it? Answer these difficult questions for yourself and lift the weight of this misery from your shoulders. Understand why you acted the way you did. Prevent yourself from thinking this way in the future.

You deserve your consequences. But you deserve help and improvement and happiness just as much. Learn from these mistakes and let yourself feel the remorse of your wrongdoing. Go through the labor of accepting your faults and learning to correct them.

You deserve the consequences of what you did. But you also deserve the opportunity to feel remorse, learn from your actions, and grow into a better person.

ily @i-shitpost

It’s Only Ever Been You

bclatrix:

Drarry | 2.8k | E

A slow burn slithers down my throat and settles, deep and warm in my chest. Theo was the one who was slick enough to get the bottles of Firewhiskey, but I was the one who was slick enough to have nicked one for myself. My head and mind whirl rapidly and I lay back on my bed. I strip down to my pants, floating the discarded clothes away with a lazy wave of my hand. My eyes are closed, but a small thump tells me they landed in their destination: the hamper. Private quarters for the Eighth-year students was definitely an appreciated privilege. My mind swims through the day, maybe in an attempt to discover how I could’ve possibly gotten myself into my current situation.

Of course, it all began with Granger and Pansy (who, by some terrible strike of doom, have become near-inseparable partners in crime) who organized a party for the Eights, as they call us, in the Room of Requirement. After watching the Ravenclaw-Hufflepuff match (Hufflepuff blasted Ravenclaw to next week, impressively), we all headed to dinner, stirred up and antsy for the night yet to begin.

After the feast, all the Eights (a surprisingly well-meshed group at this late time in the year) gradually found their way up to the Room. The party itself was lovely, if I’m perfectly honest. The drinks were warm and comforting or crisp and sweet, both favourites of mine, and seeing my drunk classmates play cliche games was entertainment of the best sort. They’d decided to play spin-the-bottle. I watched mindlessly as the bottle spun, bodies crossed to the middle for the kiss (some chaste and sweet, some more feisty which only ramped up when the rest of the group urged the pairs on with heckling and praise).

If I’m honest, I wasn’t really paying attention to the game. I was sitting, like a stupid sentimental fool, happily thinking about how far I’d come, my family had come, since the end of the war. Things weren’t always so nice; early on the Malfoy name was synonymous with dirt. But with Lucius (I stopped calling him Father after he begged me to take the Mark, to right his mistake, to appease our Master… you can understand why) Kissed by a Dementor, soulless in Azkaban, Mother and I were free to partner up and strike the field with well-timed donations, apologies, and genuine sorrow and remorse. The remorse was hell. Is hell. I still have nightmares, but that’s not what we’re going to talk about here.

I knew everyone was watching me before I looked. The bottle was pointing towards me. I hadn’t even paid attention to who had spun it. I looked around in alarm, trying to deduce who it was, when Potter crept towards the center of the circle, those jungle-green eyes blazing intensely into mine. I recall a sudden feeling of immense heat building in my chest and settling in my groin as I instinctually mirrored his actions, even though my mind was in a blank panic.

His eyes burned into mine for a moment before he smirked, almost evilly, if you ask me, and just grabbed me! He just grabbed me by my neck and waist and pulled me to him in a quick, strong movement that made me gasp. His grip was strong but he was impossibly gentle as he leaned in and just barely brushed his lips against mine, a quick tease before pressing more firmly. He slipped his warm, velvety soft tongue against my bottom lip and I gasped again. He took the advantage, in this game we always seem to play (though in decidedly different circumstances this time), and stuck his tongue in my mouth! And honestly, I could never truly be blamed for the sounds I made when he pulled at my hair and held me closer, exploring my mouth with enthusiasm as I melted into him. Because who would or could do anything else at all when the pursuer was Harry Potter?! Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived Twice, the Savior, the Golden Boy, the Chosen One, the fittest bloke in the whole of Britain. The boy whose attention I’d craved since I’d first laid my eyes on him. And he was kissing me. Like that!

All too soon, a gentle push on my chest broke me from the fantasy and I opened my eyes to see his mischievous darkened ones gazing into mine. Whooping sounds could be heard around us but it seemed I was stuck in a bubble, a perfect bubble of time with Harry James Potter, the most gorgeous, perfect creature to ever fucking grace the planet. Who was staring at me like I was something he wanted to devour.

Again, the moment ended too fast and we were guided back to our seats in the circle. The rest of the party passed in a complete flurry as nothing I thought of could even attempt to keep me from focusing on that divine kiss with Potter. Eventually I teetered out of the room, back to my quarters, where I should have just drank a sobriety potion and gone to sleep. Unfortunately, I didn’t.

read the rest on ao3 ;)

nodgart:

Also there’s this!