The Tragic Tale of the Boy Who Lived and the Boy Who Wanted to Die [ON HIATUS]

The next few weeks were miserable. It wasn’t so much that the bandages were physically getting in the way of his work (other than Potions), but it was more that every time he looked at his right arm, he was reminded of the fact that his father was using him for personal gain. It wasn’t the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last, but it still hurt just the same.

Potions, which was once his favourite class, quickly became one of the worst. Partly because of the fact he had to now see Potter (who now shot Draco inquiring looks every time the two of them were in a room together, as if he was trying to make sense of something) in two classes, but mostly because Snape reminded him so much of his father. Normally this didn’t bother him much, but now it just made him angry.

He was, like Lucius, cold, cruel, and intimidating, but also, like Lucius, had certain positive aspects. He did favour the Slytherins, and let them get away with a lot in his class. This didn’t change the fact that he still saw his father every time he looked at Snape. He had taken to sitting in the very back of the Potions room, as far from Snape as he could get.

Snape was currently being particularly cruel, because of some rumour that he had been the boggart of Neville Longbottom. During his own lesson on boggarts, Draco had asked Professor Lupin to sit out. He said no, but Draco managed to avoid facing it by hiding in the back.
Everybody had been too focused on the boggart to notice him. In his opinion, it was better that way. That way, nobody would ask any questions. Draco hated questions.

Draco spent most of his free time reading, mostly because he wasn’t really in a social mood, and also because with his arm, there was very little Quidditch practice he could do. He did go to the early practices to watch, since both Blaise and Ginny made it onto the team, but Flint wasn't very happy that Slytherin's best seeker got hurt, so he eventually stopped going.

The plus side to this is he was now top of almost every class. He easily beat all the other Slytherins in his year, along with many of the Hufflepuffs, Gryffindors, and Ravenclaws. The only student in their year who had better grades was Granger. Of course, it was usually like this, but only this time he was a lot closer to achieving his goal of beating her.

He noticed himself straying more and more from his friends, but when he did force himself to put the books down and go talk with them, he found no joy in their conversations. Ginny was very busy with schoolwork and her other friends, Crabbe and Goyle were always hanging out with other people (not that Draco cared much for them anyways), Blaise’s jokes just weren’t as funny anymore, and all Pansy and Daphne wanted to talk about was his arm. Theo was alright, but he, like Draco, mostly kept to himself. That was something Draco liked about Theo, was that he was quiet, and respectful of other people, unlike his other friends.

Blaise apparently hadn’t told either of the girls that his arm was actually okay, because all they did was fawn over it. He had told Theo the day he got back from the hospital wing, and Theo agreed it was stupid.

“I can’t believe they didn’t fire him over that! Look at your arm, it’s practically useless!” said Daphne on Halloween night.

“Yeah, yeah.” replied Draco absentmindedly. They had all just gotten back from Hogsmead, and Draco wanted to eat some of the candy he’d gotten. He opened a Chocolate Frog first.

“Draco, there’ll be plenty of time to eat at the feast later, let’s do something fun! The two of us haven’t played chess at all this year, and Blaise is, no offence, pretty bad at it.” Theo pulled out his old Wizard’s Chess set, and Draco had no choice but to play. Draco and Theo loved playing chess together, and Draco usually won. He, as per usual, obliterated Theo, but the victory didn’t really feel like a victory.

He hadn’t felt as if he’d won at all, like he’d just done something as unimportant as getting a glass of water. He sat back down onto the common room couch, feeling as though he had never left. He picked up a book he’d bought in Hogsmeade, and read until it was time for the feast.

The feast was amazing, like always. It was the happiest Draco had been at all that year. He talked with his friends, and ate the food. It was great, and then it was over. It was far too ephemeral, in Draco’s opinion. He remembered the previous Halloween; it was just as fun as this one. Maybe even better than this one, considering Potter hadn’t been at the previous one.

For whatever reason, Draco found himself glancing towards the Gryffindor table more than usual. He saw nothing suspicious, everybody seemed perfectly normal. Potter was sitting with Weasley and Granger, like at every normal meal. He told himself to stop doing it, but he couldn’t.

He walked back to the Slytherin common room with his friends, and noticed Ginny was looking a bit upset. Then he remembered the end of last year’s Halloween feast, and how that cat had been attacked by the Heir of Slytherin. By Ginny.

He suddenly felt very bad for having had so much fun at the feast. Ginny was probably haunted still by what she’d done unintentionally a year prior. Something Draco could've helped her to fix, but didn’t. She was probably mad at him for not having done anything, and that would be why she had been so busy all the time. She wasn’t actually busy, just ignoring Draco.

Draco tried not to let that bother him as he sat down on his bed. He had hardly gotten his pyjamas on when Snape called all the Slytherins into the common room.

“Sirius Black has been spotted here, in the castle. Due to this we will be spending the night in the Great Hall. Please follow me.” He said it in such an indifferent tone, that he may have been talking about something as uninteresting as the weather. Draco found himself amazed by this, how could he be so calm with an escaped convict in the school?

Draco still wasn’t very worried about Black, since they were related, and Black had probably worked with his father. He set up his sleeping bag near his friends, once they made it to the Great Hall. As he laid down, he noticed that he was just across from Potter. Great, thought Draco, now I have to put up with him while I try to sleep.

Sleeping, it turned out, seemed to be impossible. It was already hard to sleep with the stupid arm sling, but combined with being on the floor and the generally excited atmosphere, it was extremely difficult. Not to mention, his brain did not want to go to sleep. It kept rattling off every reason why Ginny Weasley was most likely angry at him.

Every time he turned over, he could feel the bandages around his arm shift uncomfortably. It was about 4 in the morning before he decided to get them off. It seemed like everybody else was asleep, including the staff. He sat up, careful not to make a sound. At first he tried to unwrap them by hand, but it didn’t work.

He picked up his wand, but didn’t dare light it. He would have benefitted from the extra lighting, but he didn’t want to wake anybody who was asleep. He pointed his wand towards his sling, and whispered,

“Diffindo!” A dull pink light shot out the end of his wand, however, because of the poor visibility, he missed. He tried his hardest not to make a sound as his forearm split open. He scrambled to stop the bleeding, but there was nothing to stop it with. He frantically cast the charm again, and this time succeeded, finally getting rid of the bandage that he had been so desperate to get rid of for two months.

The sense of triumph for short lived, however, because his arm was still bleeding rather badly. It also hurt a lot, almost like when Buckbeak attacked him. He couldn’t go to Madame Pomfrey, because she probably wouldn’t be very pleased to see her bandaging work cut into pieces like that.

Now that Draco thought about it, cutting those bandages was a pretty stupid thing to do. Sure, now he could sleep more comfortably, but there was no way he was going to be able to explain this to Madame Pomfrey, or his dad. With a sinking feeling in his stomach, he realised that his father would probably find out about this. He was not going to be happy. Draco could practically see the anger on his face, and it scared him.

He carefully picked up the now-blood stained bandage and tried to wrap it back like Madame Pomfrey had it, but he just couldn’t do it. He was now fighting back tears; if he couldn’t fix this, then his father would be furious. Theo would’ve fixed it by now, but he was currently sleeping in the sleeping bag next to Draco. His brain was thinking of excuses to tell her: that it ripped on a branch, that he accidentally ripped it in his sleep, just something to take the blame off him.

Every time he got close to wrapping his arm back up, the bandage fell off. Silent tears were pouring down his face; he couldn’t do it. His arm was still bleeding, and there was now a rather large puddle of blood surrounding him. He vanished it with a wave of his wand, and went back to trying to fix the bandages. He could mend cuts easily, but it just didn’t seem worth his energy right now.

Finally, after many failed attempts, he got the bandages to stay. He cleared up the rest of the blood, and finally healed the cut. It stung, but it no longer bled. He could faintly see where the cut had been, but it being so dark, it was hard. He laid back on his sleeping bag, ready to fall asleep, when he noticed a pair of bright green eyes staring at him.

Potter held eye contact only for a brief moment, before closing his eyes as if he hadn’t seen anything, but Draco knew from the look in his eyes that he had seen everything. And that thought scared him more than anything his father could ever do.