XLI
A singular infinity lingered on my lips, tongue-tied and confused.. when I continued to watch her. Y/n had been given an entire week off, so long as she kept to the confines of her dorm and caught up on homework when she had the energy. And every single evening, after dinner I would go to her, bringing with me a selection of foods I thought she might like.
Seldom and rare it's granted that another student would have unrestricted access to another's dorm, but something must of prompted the professor's in to considering my need to care for her. Maybe it was the force in which I wailed with when I saw her lifeless eyes.
I felt like her stare had impaled me, pushing the fearfulness in to my bones. I never wish to see her so helpless again, she's too strong and brave, seeing her as less than was shattering.
Today's selection of pickings I had confiscated for her consisted of pizza slices of all kinds, berry crumble, pumpkin soup, grapes, rolls and fucking chicken nuggets. Curse the world to fire if y/n doesn't get her bloody chicken nuggets. Of course I had to sneak most of it out, I was told to bring a meal, not everything I thought she might possibly like.
Her energy had been depleted greatly, and she was in and out of disorientation inbetween random periods of alertness; sometimes nodding off and jerking awake gulping for air. Now I had seen the bad side to Amortentia I vowed to never use it in my life. And frankly the only reason I hadn't shopped Higgs to the teachers was at y/n's discretion of not wanting her peers to be reprimanded for prohibited gatherings.
And I also didn't want to provoke him any further either, after all I was lucky that he thought the whole dark mark and threat was just an act to scare him; plus he hadn't blabbed on me for punching him in to another force field yet, to my knowledge.
Y/n's dorm mates, who she shared a sleeping space with had offered their grace of bunking in with some of their other friends to allow her more peace. Perfectly fine by me, to just be alone with her was a opportunity not to be squandered.
"Y/n," I called softly, nudging the door with the axis of my shoulder. "I've brought you nugget things.."
Her head nodded between her shoulders as she tried to fight the exhaustion still wrecking her body. It was as if she was dosed to the heavens on opiates or heroin, in earnest, I still don't believe that it was just sleeping draught he'd mixed the Amortentia with.
"Darling girl?" She shuddered as the aluminium platter hit the oak desk. "Hey, sorry. I tried to wake you gently when I came in."
Her arms flung out, extending at the elbow, a non-verbal expression that meant 'hold me, now.'
Obliging I kicked off my shoes and peeled away my waistcoat, gently clambering up the bed to invite her in to my embrace. Her cheek was warm against me, with a muffled sigh of comfort sounding out from her. It was the sound that confirmed everything was okay now, she felt safe again.
"Aren't you going to get up and eat anything?"
"In a bit, I want to know about your day first."
My day, it was strange to have someone interested in my day before. Especially since my day had been as mundane and as boring as a day could be. "Well, professor Babbling had what I can only describe as a mental breakdown in ancient runes class."
"Oh no, over what this time?" Y/n chuckled to herself before shuffling in to a better listening position. "I really don't know, she was babbling nonsense."
"Oh that was clever, I like what you did there.."
"I know, I'm very smart." Her sarcastic eyeroll was enough to extract a sigh from me. "You are smart, just insufferably conceited."
I pulled her close, close enough so that she couldn't escape my clutches; resting my face on the top of her head. "You know my mum reckons that the top of your head always smells like you and it never really changes."
"What does mine smell of then?"
"Bad decisions and nice tits." She whirled on me, landing two palms heavily against my ribs. I expected to be scolded but what followed was far more amusing. With the straightest face ever she asked.. "Oh, what do tits smell of?"
"Your tits?"
"Mhm."
"Paradise."
Following an enormous snort, y/n flung herself on to her back to cackle uncontrollably. It was nice to hear her getting back to her normal self again. She'd been so flat and unresponsive the last few days it was almost like she wasn't here at all. Her flounce was so powerful that it knocked my wand right off the side of the bed.
So bending to pick it up off the floor I felt her jerk me back. "Leave it there, I'll pick it up later."
"What? Don't be ridiculous.."
Her reaction was so dramatic that I knew instantly something wasn't right, so I shrugged her off. "I'm getting my wand y/n, stop being weird."
"No. Don't."
Her nails clung in to my sleeve as she attempted to pull me back again, this time more aggressively. "What the hell is your problem all of a sudden?"
It felt like rain clouds had filtered down right through the stone walls of the castle and in to this very room in an instant. And in that moment I wasn't sure what I was about to find hidden under this bed, but I was certain I wasn't going to like it.
I was correct, because beneath the bed and hidden was a box full of cold, hard food that I had been bringing for days, and she had been just stashing away so to seem like she had eaten it; when in reality she'd barely touched any of it. And then there was the bottles, so many empty alcohol bottles. Just by taking off the lids and smelling them I was able to identify the bitter aroma.
"Oh my god, are you actually fucking joking me right now?"
"It's not as bad as it looks," y/n tried to bargain with me as I rifled around, pulling out the empty garbage. "You were bringing too much food and I didn't know what to do with it all."
"Y/n.. this is literally fucking all of it. How long did you think you would be able to keep it from going bad and rotting?! It's going to start to smell.."
"It's charmed, it's fine.."
"It isn't fine! So what have you been doing just not eating and drinking instead?" I wondered how long it would take for the cracks to start showing, nobody can be as upbeat and care-free as her without at least a few skeletons in their closet. "I should of realised before.. you've got a serious problem. You almost fucking died because of your insatiable desire to get fucked up and then you just continue, but behind everyone's backs?"
"Merlin calm down, didn't know I was dating a knock off version of my father. I do have my own life you know, that doesn't require approval from you. You've known me a few months and we've been together for what, not even one? Are you going to just start telling me what to do all of a sudden?"
"Uh, the only knock off version of your father here is you. And soon enough you'll be dead just like him if you keep doing shit like this and taking risks. It's not healthy and it's not normal."
The silence pierced the air, as soon as the words left my mouth I realised how poisonous they were. But I couldn't take them back, because her face had already shifted in to one of hurt.
"That was too far, I'm sorry."
"Yeah it was. But since we're already on the subject why don't I take my shot too hm... you tell me that if I continue living this way that I'm going to end up dead, well so are you."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning that you refuse to take off any of your clothes around me, and I already figured out why a long time ago.."
It forced me to suck in an abnormally sharp breath, it made me dizzy, and I shuddered in to my crouching position. "You cut yourself Malfoy, it's so blatantly obvious. Now if you want to hide it and keep it a secret then that's fine, I won't ever push you but please don't make judgements on my coping strategies because that makes you a hypocrite."
We idled in our argument, trying to process what the other had just hurled at each other. "I don't cut myself, that's offensively absurd?"
"Really, so you're going to just stand there and deny it?"
"I'm not lying y/n, and besides that's a bit rich coming from you?"
"I didn't lie, I just didn't tell you."
"It's the same fucking thing!" I heard my own voice raise to a startling level. "I've been coming back and forth here thinking you were still messed up from whatever shit you took Friday but all along you've just been still high, drunk, whatever you are and lying to me about it. Do you even remember when you last ate? Or have you been off your face the entire time I've known you? How deep does this even go?"
"You're making this a really big deal when it doesn't have to be."
"Y/n.. this is a big deal. There's no logical reason why you should be doing this at the level you are?"
"It's just alcohol, you drink too get a grip for merlin's sake!"
I was speechless and dumbfounded, this didn't feel like the y/n that had walked up to me that fateful night. Or the same one that I held whilst falling asleep and that stung more than I thought it ever would. "I suppose whatever you've been taking from Pomfrey has something to do with all of this as well then? Some sort of junkie replacement for when you're withdrawing is it? The ministry would love to find out they even offer such services in a bloody school."
"No Draco," she whined, pressing her palm in to her face. "I go to Pomfrey for medicine yes but it's because I have a-" She stalled slightly, like she was thinking about her answer. "A bloody deficiency. Like vitamins and stuff."
"Really? Because you've never brought it up before."
"Yes. It's hardly a brilliant conversation starter is it?"
I lazily kicked the rubbish back beneath the bed and took a seat, so y/n draped herself over my shoulders and snuck a tactical kiss in to the crook of my neck. "I really don't want to argue, I swear that most of the empty bottles have been there a while."
"I don't have the energy to argue either but regardless, drinking that much is going to ruin your life. I cannot just sit and watch something like that happen."
"I'll slow down on the partying, keep it to group events. Okay?" Somehow she managed to sweet talk me, to my detriment because now in hindsight.. Much of what happened after might have been avoided. "Fine, you just really fucking scared me the other night. And poor Lovegood, she was balling her eyes out she thought her friend was done for."
"I don't have 'friends,' you know this. It complicates life."
"Well that isn't how Lovegood feels, so maybe you should consider that."
Her arms lassoed me, pulling me back down against her grotesquely multicoloured sheets; her following down on top to throw a leg over and sloth grab me. "Was I right?" She asked bluntly, now I was trapped in her embrace. "Why you don't ever show any of your body. Am I right? I won't tell anyone but I need to know."
"No, you're not." My guts twisted in knots, a little bit of sickly bile crawling up the back of my tongue as I readied the lie about to roll off of it. I am a hypocrite, the worst kind. "I've got a birthmark I'm self conscious of."
Y/n had never been so categorically confused as she tilted her head up to look at me. "That's it??"
"Yes?"
"You know I literally wouldn't care don't you? You could have a third nipple and like, that would actually be quite cool. Draco, I don't care about a silly birthmark." Her fingertips run up the buttons of my shirt, tweaking at them one by one. "I promise, I just want to feel your body and not layers of fabric when I'm laying with you."
Continuing her journey downward, I allowed it but I was still petrified. And she looked even more confused as she peeled open the cotton, revealing my chest and stomach. "There's nothing there?"
"It's not on my torso that's why."
"Oh." Feeling her soft hand brush down the centre of my ribs had my heart quiver, and never more so than when she gently laid her lips below my collarbone. "Is this okay? Just this, if you really don't want me to see it yet?"
Yes, yes, a million times yes. I was euphoric on the inside, covered in goose bumps on the outside; just the human skin on skin contact after so long hiding it away was like releasing a lifetime of longing and yearning in one breath.
"This is fine, it's nice to actually feel your touch."
A smirk graced her face as she sat upright, followed by her pulling her hoodie up and away from her revealing her lovely, lovely, beautiful boobs. And she positioned herself over me before leveraging in a way that we were pressed chest to chest, one of her thighs clamped between mine and she made stern eye contact before latching her mouth on to my neck.
I may or may not have grasped on to her shoulder blades a little harder than I intended to, and that made her stomach roll against mine as she arched in to my grip. Blades of my hair fell down over my brow as my head twitched against the pillow, welcoming the pain of her subtle sucking and nipping at my pulse point.
From bickering to horny. Okay, I'll take that.
"It literally took you 0.2 seconds to get hard," y/n smiled against my jaw, sliding yet another kiss up to the spot below my ear. "I don't know what the hell you expected when you've got your tits rubbing all over me."
"You truly love my tits, don't you?"
"Oh y/n, you have no fucking idea.."
She reached back for my hand and brought it around, thrusting it up against her chest roughly as her pelvis came across to straddle atop of my own.
I think I could get past our little agreement, since I can barely remember what it was about anymore.