That Split Second | D.M

After the mysterious meeting where more than a few of us learned some home truths, the cocktail of guilt and confusing feelings was abundant. Not one single thing in this entire world has been wholly truthful from the start. You live your days believing one thing so deeply and so blindly, when in reality you're the only one not in on the joke. 

I mean, Potter could spin on his heel right now and tell me that I'm not even a Malfoy and I was adopted from a leper colony, and I'd have grounds to believe him to an extent. 

Though for some sick reason, when Potter and I both attempted to follow the trail of chaos, the office door drew shut with a loud clunk. Holding solidly stiff when Potter attempted to yank it open with his hand. 

"That's weird," he mumbled thoughtlessly, still tugging at the brass knob. My response was no help either. "Yeah no shit Scarhead, use your wand or something the hinges must be rusted."

Taking out his dusty, crusty, peasant wand, he took a few steps back with me joining. Yet the Alohamora charm did nothing to budge the wood. So again he tried, and then again before trailing back up and pulling back on the doorknob once more with all his might, which frankly was never much to begin with. 

"Looks like you're trapped Potter, I suppose I'll just stride on out. Y'know being a ghost and all that."

  HMPH! 

"Uh, what? I don't understand," I panicked. So I tried again but the door was solid, and considering I'm invisible, I was solid too for some reason... well, again anyhow and no amount of bashing a palm against it was going to change the fact. This whole thing is just turning into some sick psychological warfare between me and death. 

He's portrayed in The Tales Of Beedle The Bard as an ominous, all powerful, sentient being. But realistically he's sadistic with a taste for sarcasm and metaphorical torture. 

Harry bust into a fit of laughter, as to be expected since he would have heard me mutter every single curse word in the English language as my noggin whipped straight back off the oak frame. 

"Laugh all you want Potter, but you're stuck in here too until somebody notices that you're missing in action. Clearly there's an intricate set of charms on this door that they know better than to teach to a school full of morons."

"Including yourself?" Harry smarmed. I just had to take a quick second to steady my sanity before replying, or I might have tried to tear his soul out of his body via his nostrils. "Obviously you turd," I grit through clenched teeth, slowly. "Despite trying to ignore the fact for the last seven years, I am aware that we attended the same school at the same place. And believe me, I wished almost every single day that it wasn't the case, but alas, there you were and here you are... still getting on my fucking nerves anyway."

A few more hearty bangs of my palm only rattled the structure, but did nothing to make it release. We were charmed inside, even me, who had no problem just drifting in through physical matter but now all of a sudden seems to have lost that ability again. At this point death is just picking and choosing for me, and any attempts at rectifying my banishment were useless. 

What's the point of it all if nothing I do makes a difference? 

What is it going to take to prove that I can be someone deserving of closure? 

What does my soul need in order to rest?

Because I'm running out of both ideas and options.

I paced back and found myself slumping to the ground, head resting back against the glass of a potion cabinet full of bottled memories and trinkets. I'd really like to just bash my head back into it right about now just so I could focus on anything but Potter roaming the room like the moron he is, with not a single care in the world. 

Clearly the boy has endured so much that he's got some rare form of brain injury from constant trauma, yet he's still just entirely oblivious and chilled, even though he quite literally saved the world. It baffles thy, and always has.

"Can you stop pacing in circles like a freak by any chance? You're making me dizzy," I snapped. Harry stopped, but only to reply before continuing more aggressively. "Do ghosts get dizzy then, Malfoy?"

"Hilarious. Don't you think I'm well overdue an owed thank you? I pretty much pulled the ace card and changed the course of fate for everything. Don't rush to acknowledge that though, it's not like I haven't got plenty of fucking time." 

Now that I had time to think about it, my temple felt slightly tender from the collision with the door. It nagged and ached a little, just enough to keep my attention on the fact and also on the fact that theoretically speaking, that should not or would not happen to me. 

After fiddling with one of the sconces on the wall, Potter lit a flame with the tip of his wand and went around each one individually, handing over the gift of fire and brightening the surprisingly tight and pokey room. 

I'd always imagined Dumbledore's, which is now McGonagall's office to be absolutely enormous on the inside. Would it not be one of the perks of being a head teacher? Mind you, I'm drawing assumptions as though it's not literally certain that it's full of secret chambers and tunnels and merlin knows what else. Perhaps I'm just trying to think of anything else than what I need to.

Harry sliding down the cabinet opposite to also sit prompted me into accepting that this intervention, as well as countless others, needs to happen and always has done. He took the initiative first.

"Dying isn't that bad at all is it? I found it very peaceful personally, though staying dead probably isn't as enlightening?" Potter asked. I glared for what felt like a lifetime, then gave in. "You're wrong actually, it's very enlightening. It's the worst part about it all. You come face to face with who and what you really are on this side, death is just a maze of one way mirrors. Nothing more."

"I see." 

He seemed genuinely lost on what to say to try and provide a sense of comfort, even for his life long arch nemesis. As I previously mentioned, he's always been courteous. Then his hand dove into his trouser pocket, shuffling around like he may have been digging for gold; and when his fingertips must have landed on whatever he was looking for, he rested back again, but his eyes rolled over to where I was slumped. 

"Well, actually, now I really do see. You look like utter shit, Malfoy. No offence."

"You can genuinely see me? Like with your eyes?" An outstretched arm waving, he followed it with his gaze. Fuck, he can actually hear me and see me, Harry cuntface Potter. "How? Are you secretly a psychic or something? Surely not."

His bushy brow arched, dragging back the urge to respond with something out of pocket. "Not a psychic Malfoy, no. But if I told you how, then I'd have to kill you all over again. But does how really matter at the minute anyway? We do have bigger problems like the fact that we're trapped in here like a pair of idiots."

"Speak for yourself," I scowled, growing weary of Potters willingness to just hold a civil conversation with me. The fact that he could see me covered in bruises, scars, burns and more didn't sit right either, because he looks just fine now. He's healed, whereas my injuries are eternal. "I only see one idiot present. Here's a clue, a really big clue... It's not me."

"Why do you hate me so much, Malfoy? Like honestly, what did I do to you to make you despise me so viscerally and mercilessly. I just need to know the reason for you going out of your way to make my life ten times harder than it already was?" 

The question demanded my attention, but still all intelligent sense fought against the truth. "Well.. Father said that-"

He cut me off quickly, side swiping what I was about to admit as incredulous. "No. Not your father, Malfoy. You. Why did you hate me? What did I ever do to you?"

The only sounds in the office were that of an annoying grandfather clock ticking away, potions bottles rattling and fizzing in the distance and a hard rain that battered the stain glass windows. The storm that had crept its way over the Highlands now poured down droplets. 

Nature was cleansing itself, and so was I. "Nothing, Potter. Life wasn't all that great for me either unless you've forgotten?! I was scared!"

"You knew what you were doing, you just didn't get away with it and now you're riding some sort of victim complex." It's unusual to ever witness Potter anything less than apathetic, but the gravel in his voice as he made himself clear gave way to all the things he's wanted to say to me for a long time. "I've been scared my entire life, from the day I was able to comprehend what was around me. And that was before I even got to Hogwarts and found out what I was really in for."

"You get to be the chosen one, a hero, someone that everyone respects and celebrates," I snapped back, voice croaking and cracking as the pain begged to be let out, crawling up the back of my throat. "But, me? I was only ever going to get to be a Malfoy, and I still wasn't very good at that either!"

We both sat for a few seconds, blinking in contemplation. "And that's why I was so jealous of you Potter. I never hated you. I wanted to be you. I wanted to be anyone but myself."

Guilt spread across his expression, realising that he had just pried out information that had been buried in a treasure chest beneath my ribcage, a place that was off limits to most. In my heart. And I wished more than anything on earth that someone would finally come back and release me from this situation, because it seems that despite my eager and confident drive to rectify past mistakes, I may just have bitten off way more than I could ever chew. And I managed to do it all in the small space of seven years. 

"That's your problem Malfoy, you find comfort in your misery. Honestly, it makes me sad for you. Even now, you can't just own up to the shitty things you did. To all of us. Me, Hermione, Ron, half of the teaching staff and basically anyone who didn't fit into your mental projection of them. Even y/n."

"Don't put her name in your mouth, that's the one thing that you do not get to use against me. And I don't need your pity either!" 

Harry's wand settled on the floor with a clunk as he fussed with his scruffy hair. Getting himself truly comfortable to deliver some ruthless statements. 

"Well... what else do you have?"

Our stares met like lasers, only the old sounds of ebony creaking and the straggle of pixie feet scurrying through the walls to distract. The silence that buried itself amongst those noises was sharp and heavy. Until the chosen one spoke again. "Did you ever imagine I'd be the last person you'd see before you died?"

I scoffed arrogantly, rolling my eyes to enact just how sheerly repugnant the question was in itself. And people say I've got an ego problem. "Funnily enough, no. But if I could of foreseen it then I'd of baked a cake and thrown myself a little farewell party. Finally I'd be free of you."

Even though nothing about what I said was supposed to be amusing, Potter still chuckled quietly with sarcasm anyway. "You were born to succeed dude, and you did, to an extent. Just not in the way you should have. You could have still had it all even after all of this was over, but you chose hatred, whereas the rest of us didn't have the privilege of choosing. You're still choosing it even now."

"It wasn't that simple," I mumbled, feeling myself shrinking in doubt. "So what was it like then? Just tell me? I mean the worst has already happened, what do you have to lose? Just make me understand why after everything, I feel like I could find it inside of myself to forgive you if I thought that you really did just make a web of mistakes that you got stuck inside of."

My head snapped back up, intrigued by the way he described my downfall. It was exactly like that, a sticky web that I had begun to spin. But by the time I realised I was the prey that was caught in the trap, it was game over. A puny insect just waiting to have the life sucked out of it by the fangs of some larger predator, tethered hopelessly by my own complexity. 

"It's the sort of thing you explain in a therapists office with flashcards and dolls, Potter. But if you want a less graphic summary then basically there was a hard rain coming, and I wanted to be under the right kind of umbrella. I thought I would be protected."

"The death eater kind of umbrella the right one then is it?" Harry retorted, but I wouldn't take the bait. "No. The one with my family underneath it, with the only two people in the world who actually gave a shit about me beyond a name and a bank balance." 

He seemed to accept my response, nodding softly and casting McGonagall's biscuit jar over to himself. Oh he is playing a dangerous game now, you don't fuck with neither Theo or McGonagall's biscuits. It's basic Hogwarts survival knowledge. 

Yet he helped himself to one anyway, even offering the jar over to me before my blank deadpan frown made him realise that even if I wanted one, it'd drop right the way through me and back onto the floor whole. 

I'm starting to get really angry about the food thing. It's rapidly starting to climb up the list of things that I'm bitter about it.

"Look, honestly? Hate was the antidote to the loneliness. Because even though you have no parents, I only had mine. And it works for a while when you're still a kid and need nothing more than their nurture and attention, but when life starts to get hard and shit starts to get a bit too real, you find yourself in a deficit," I admitted. 

"There's only so much self harm one can partake in before that doesn't fill the void anymore either. So I did the only other thing I knew, project onto others be it with words or spells."

"Was it worth it in the end?" He asked, swallowing the half a biscuit in his gob. "Does any of that shit even matter where you are now? In limbo, purgatory? The bullying, the threats, the real life danger you put people in on a daily basis, do you stand by any of it?"

A few minutes passed by, even long enough for Harry to get back up and put the biscuits away before he lost an arm for daring to help himself. And when he traipsed over to confront once again whilst leaning himself back on a desk, I found myself choking out the words rather than saying them. 

"No. Not at all. I was a very immature, very loathsome person. But I'm not him anymore, in fact I don't even know who that person is. He was just a mask."

"So you're not really an evil prick who sees no value in anyone beside himself?"

"Nah," I smirked to myself, attention grounded to the floor as I disassociated a little. "Just pretending, Potter. Always pretending."

He also accepted that as gospel with a subtle nod of his head, and then promptly went to fidgeting with some of the Head Mistress' quills. It's like the boy wants to be transfigured into a houseplant. 

"Well, pretending did more harm than good, to all of us, especially you."

"Yeah, I know. Not a second goes by where I'm not sorry. I wish I could take everything back. I'm sorry, so, so, so fucking sorry." The pot of ink tipped over and rolled across the desk and right over the top of Minerva's papers, smothering them with ink. Both of us stiffened up in fright at the realisation. 

"Ah, shit. Hopefully it wasn't anything important," Potter fawned. "Well, I forgive you anyway. I guess."

I could not believe my ghostly fucking eyes when just on beat, the office door clunked loudly and then proceeded to swing its way open with a slow creak. Absolutely nothing or nobody was stood in front of it, having disarmed the charm. It just miraculously unlocked itself. The audacity of the thing, if I didn't have better sense then I'd say that a force much bigger than magic was at work here. But right this moment was not the time to ponder.

Getting up I tried to bolt to exit with nothing else to say, but was called back briefly again by Potter who's hands were stained navy blue right down to the bone; even his beige sweater had taken a fair portion for itself. 

"You know, going on recounts and testimonies by others... apparently y/n tread you right through the mud and not in a good way toward the end, no offence to her I mean it's not really my business; just blatant curiousity. But a lot of secrets and lies? How did it all still come to be this way? I thought Draco Malfoy doesn't do romance. Just senseless self indulgence."

"Draco Malfoy fell for her, Potter. She mattered more to me than the truth. And if I didn't have her then the truth was redundant. So that's exactly why I lied to Bellatrix and the Dark Lord when the snatchers acquired you. Sometimes a lie is better than the truth, even if the consequences are severe. So I took the consequences instead."

Sharing another half assed nod, since men have no clue how to communicate in any other way, only one more question rolled off of Harry Potter's tongue with a concerned inflection. "What consequences, Draco?"

I nodded no, reluctant to respond. That's all he gets from me for now, some wounds are too deep to poke. "Later Scarhead. I've got more bridges to rebuild."

The halls were eerily silent. Considering that people had begun to return there wasn't a peep from a soul for miles, setting that gut wrenching instinct off again. But cruising down a floor or two without a purpose of where I was even going, that sickening sensation dropped like an anchor. 

Y/n wasn't in the infirmary anymore, only trails of bloody mucus and water. Students had been cast into a lockdown, sent to their dorms and likely terrified that something big had come back for them again.

And those who were in the office for the abrupt group declaration, well most of, since I got imprisoned with Potter were scattering in a frenzy. "We've got to find her, why would she just disappear?!" My mother panicked, fearing the worst; but crouched at the trails of fluid. "That girl has just gone into labour."

Regulus almost toppled clean over, McGonagall stopped what she was doing and shrieked, Fred just sort of froze, Pomfrey gasped loudly as she realised what my mother had identified was evidence of a pregnant girls waters breaking; and with Potter catching up behind me to recoup, the only thing left was for me to silently ascend to a freak out but I couldn't pick a reaction to go with. 

All I felt was utter dread, because it's a little early, and now she's taken herself off and gone missing.

Or at least that's the preferable option, because the others don't bare thinking about.