Innocent
Draco-Innocent
Did some things you can't speak of
But at night you live it all again
You wouldn't be shattered on the floor now
If only you had seen what you know now then
Wasn't it easier in your firefly-catchin' days?
And everything out of reach
Someone bigger brought down to you
Wasn't it beautiful runnin' wild 'til you fell asleep
Before the monsters caught up to you?
Death Dream-Frightened Rabbit
White noise
I don't know if there's breathing or not
Butterflied arms tell me that this one has flown
Blood seems black against the skin of your porcelain back
A still life is the last I will see of you
A painting of a panic attack
He died in his sleep last night
You died in his sleep last night
Hogwarts, 1998-1999
Draco gasped as he clutched at his throat. He was drowning. He was drowning in blood. It took him several seconds to come to and realize where he was.
My name is Draco Malfoy
I’m eighteen years old
I’m okay
His skin was slick with sweat and his sheets were tangled up in his legs. Hogwarts. He was in his 8th year dorm at Hogwarts. When the Wizengamot had declared he would return to Hogwarts to finish his education he had thought he was hallucinating. Draco was sure he would be joining his father in Azkaban.
One year at Hogwarts and as long as he abided by the parol, he would walk free. It had felt like hope when they had taken off his restraints and rushed him to the school. That sliver of hope was dashed when he saw her across the Great Hall. Draco thought he would be sick. He wanted to run away like the coward he was.
As her amber eyes met his across the hall he pushed the bile in his throat down. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it drowned out every other thought in his head. He needed to get out of here before he started having another blasted panic attack. Hermione Granger’s face was impassive and her eyes flickered away quickly. He couldn’t do this. This almost felt crueler than Azkaban.
His occlumency walls went up and he receded to the back of his mind, trying to shut off any flow of emotions. Draco had to get through this. He got through sixth year, albeit almost drugged out of his mind, he could do this. He would make it. Draco looked around him, for anyone even remotely friendly. There was no one.
He wanted to be angry, furious with his friends for not returning, but he couldn’t blame them. If he hadn’t been dragged, you wouldn’t have been able to pay him enough money to return to this crumbling, war torn and ill-repaired school. The ghosts that lived within the castle were real, but his memories were what truly haunted him.
Theo hadn’t ever taken the mark, in fact he was one of the gentlest blokes Draco had ever known. But his father had dragged him into some incriminating shit seventh year and Theo had been delegated a similar punishment as Draco just without the school sentence. Pansy and Blaise were free to go and now resided in Italy. He hoped they’d visit Theo at Nott Manor.
Draco wasn’t an idiot, he knew his light punishment was because Saint Potter and Granger had testified for him. Draco hadn’t been allowed in the courtroom for it and honestly he was glad for it. He just hated that he had to face Granger now in these hallways and classrooms. Before he had seen her at the final battle, Draco was sure she had died. He didn’t see her die, but he did.
For weeks the memory played on a loop every time he closed his eyes. Her open mouth screams that had made no sound because he couldn’t hear anything over the ringing in his ears. Blood that was so dark it seemed black against the small of her porcelain back. The way his skin was butterflied open and his arm shoved to mix with her blood. Punishment, they had said.
It was his punishment for failing to identify them for his blood to mix with the dirty mudbloods. All he could think of the entire time was of how he had failed her. He never liked her, he had even been a prejudiced little shit to her for the majority of their schooling, but he never wanted her to die. She had called for help and he hadn’t come. All he could do was echo in her head of his apologies, hoping it would fill her mind.
A still life shot of her body laying, crumbled on the ground and covered in blood was the last thing he had seen of her. He didn’t know if she was breathing or not. If she was dead or not. But whether she walked away alive from the manor he knew that parts of them had both died there that day. Their blood intertwined, drying into a stain that no magic could remove from the wooden floorboards.
xXx
The year went by painfully slow and each day, Draco slunk more and more into himself. Every night she died in his sleep until eventually he was dying alongside her. His arms flayed open as they held hands in the pool of blood ever growing beneath them.
Every night when he woke he was choking on his imaginary blood, drowning. Draco would then pull himself out of bed and sneak away to visit the astronomy tower. He’d sit on the ledge and contemplate how far the fall truly was. Would he survive it? He’d hope not. If Dumbledore had just been pushed, would the old wizard still have lived to tell everyone that Draco Malfoy had tried and failed to kill him?
Maybe they could’ve faked his death. Made it look like he had fallen to his end but in reality the old headmaster was alive. But that hadn’t been the way of reality. Snape had killed Dumbledore, and then Snape had died too, both of them leaving Draco completely alone to deal with his sins.
It would be easier, he thought, to let his hand slip off the rock and fall into the ether. He was already alone, no one would question why he did it and eventually the few people who might mourn him would just remember the horrid things he’d done and think that this had been the best case scenario for him.
How could he have been so stupid? If only he could have shaken his past self and yelled all the things that he knew now maybe he wouldn’t be here now. An absolute husk of a soul that couldn’t even bear his own memories without shattering into pieces. It was tempting to return to his habits from sixth year. He had thought about it probably a thousand times at this point but he couldn’t.
He hadn’t stepped off the ledge of the astronomy tower just yet, but if he fell back into the potions he took his sixth year then he’d be swallowed whole, never to be seen again. He’d rather his life end quickly, like the snap of a finger rather than slowly waste away, out of his mind.
xXx
Draco had done his research and concluded he had the muggle condition post traumatic stress disorder. It linked insomnia and night terrors as well as a litany of other side effects to his current condition. The more he read, the more he found that the wizarding world was sorely lacking in the mental health field, not that any therapist would want to service him anyways.
He had been convinced that the farther they got from the end of the war, the more the nightmares would lighten up but that wasn’t proving to be the case. In fact, the less and less sleep he got, the worse the nightmares seemed to get. Draco would see things that weren’t there, hallucinations of a snake slithering down the hallway, a dead body sitting in the corner, Voldemort standing at the end of a long corridor. He didn’t need potions to destroy his mind, he was deteriorating all on his own.
It was one of the first days back from the winter hols that Draco finally broke. He’d essentially sat for weeks on end in the cold, empty castle with nothing to do but struggle to read one of the books from the Hogwarts library. He wasn’t allowed to leave the school grounds and he couldn’t take any visitors either.
Draco had hated being surrounded by so many students, especially with how many dirty looks and hexes that got sent his way, but being alone in the eerie hallways was a new form of torture. The Sunday before their classes started back up, Draco awoke in his bed with his usual gasp and tears streaming down his face.
All the returning eighth year students had been assigned private rooms and Draco was the happiest for it now as he lurched over his bed and heaved up what little was in his stomach. She had died again. He had died again. They kept dying over and over and over every night. He couldn’t handle it. He hadn’t seen her since she left for break with the rest of the students.
Draco didn’t think as he vanished his sick and slipped a shirt on over his sweat soaked torso. His heart pounded as his fist hit Granger's door frantically. It wasn’t long until the witch herself was opening the door and peering at Draco sleepily. His chest was heaving as he took her in. Alive. She was alive.
“Malfoy? What’s going on? Are you ok, you look awful?” the witch said with suddenly wide eyes as she took in his disheveled appearance and tear stained cheeks.
“Y-your alive” he croaked out, not giving a shit of how insane he must look. His reputation was in tatters and his pride wasn’t worth losing the small comfort he gained from seeing her standing in front of him.
Concern graced her features, “Malfoy, you’re worrying me” Granger said softly, her amber eyes lit.
“I just-just had to see you alive. That you made it out” he stuttered out, he was so so tired. Draco just wanted to rest without seeing death and anguish every night. This couldn’t be the rest of his life.
Hermione seemed to immediately register what he was talking about and her lip immediately started to wobble.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry” was all he could get out before he choked on a sob. It seemed like neither knew what was happening when Hermione pulled Draco into her room, leading him to the four poster bed. She crawled into the bed beside him, her own tears blurring her vision.
“It’s ok Draco. Sleep” they were the last words he heard before utter exhaustion pulled him under.
For the first time in years, Draco was not plagued by nightmares.