Self Destructive Thoughts
Draco’s head was a mess of thoughts rushing him and leaving him breathless. He was absolutely terrified to return to Hogwarts after all that had happened. His trial had put him on probation with the condition that he returned for a proper final year of schooling. But if it had been up to Draco then he would have chosen Azkaban over facing the classmates he’d betrayed. Always the coward. His mind hissed and he didn’t bother to quiet it, not when he knew that little voice was right. He’d told his mother as much, and yet here he was. He knew there was nothing she could do about it, she was just as much a war criminal as he was, but it didn’t stop the bitterness that still flooded his body.
He leaned against the coolness of the window pane, letting it seep through him and push the thoughts from his mind. Pansy and Blaise, his only two friends who hadn’t been sent to Azkaban or been killed, sat across from him. They’d gotten together over the summer and Pansy had mellowed out some, at least she’d stopped following him around like a lost puppy begging for scraps. During his time as a death eater, her feelings for Draco had faded completely, and Draco was glad of it. It had always been hard for him to be around her knowing he could never return how she felt for him.
Pansy snapped in his face and Draco jolted. “What?” He hissed, glaring at her.
“Don’t go there.” She ordered, crossing her arms and leaning back.
“Go where?”
“Into your own head.”
“What are you talking about?” Draco asked, a little annoyed.
“You got that look on your face, like you were sinking into your own self destructive thoughts.” Pansy replied with a shrug. “We don’t need you feeling bad for yourself before we even get to the school. Besides you don’t even know what it will be like yet.”
“Yes I do.” He muttered.
“No. You don’t.” She snapped back. “You know Potter gave information on every single death eater he met and that certainly includes you, and yet here you are, so he must have tried for lenience on your behalf.”
“Or...” Draco drawled, “He could have argued for me to be locked up in Azkaban forever and the Wizengamot simply ignored him.”
“I doubt it.” Pansy said and turned back to Blaise, resting her head in the crook of his neck and closing her eyes. A clear sign that the conversation was finished.
So Draco contented himself with thinking about who else might be returning to Hogwarts for this Eighth Year of sorts.
He’d seen Potter, Longbottom, Granger and Weasley on Platform 9¾ and of course Pansy and Blaise were returning, but he couldn’t dredge up any other faces from the recesses of his mind. The entire time between leaving him and his mother’s little apartment with the flock of aurors and reaching the compartment he was sitting in now was a blur of faces and limbs and jeers.
The response to seeing Draco and his mother had not been kind in the train station, so he knew it wouldn’t be kind at Hogwarts, not when the carnage and loss had been so great.
He sighed and thumped his head back against the glass, closing his eyes and surrendering to a nightmare filled sleep.