He spends another morning on the cold bathroom floor, hunched over the toilet, nothing more than a rerunof the day before, and the day before that, and the day before that for the last seven months.
His throat and stomach ache, as always, and there are tears streaming down his pale cheeks.
The flowers are not sweet, they never have been, and the bitterness of them on his tongue makes him cough and spit.
He will never get used to the pain, but he tells himself the opposite, he tells himself that it will be easier, that one day he will be fine and that it will all be worth it.
Draco has hope.
He has hope as he carefully stands up because pain takes over his extremities from bending over in the same position for so long.
He has hope when he pulls the chain, washes his hands and rinses his mouth.
He has hope when he comes out of the bathroom to face his roommates, and he dresses for the day.
And this boy, this boy who is slowly dying at the hands of flowers that bloom inside his body, has hope when he walks into the Great Hall and has to face the cause of his illness, the bearer of his disgrace. He cannot help but search for the other’s gaze, and when the emerald eyes collide with his own liquid silver, he can feel the sting of new flowers that begin to grow in his lungs.
"Draco, please eat something," says a girl with short black hair and pretty green eyes, but not as pretty as Harry's. And Draco forces himself to eat little pieces of green apple before retiring under Pansy's worried look.
He walks through the corridors of the old castle looking like another ghost and presses his chest painfully when with each step he allows his mind to wander to Harry. Today is Saturday, a day off, and Draco enters to the Room of Requirement to sit in front of the stupid cabinet he has to repair while the now yellow light from the sun filters through one of the large windows.
His chest hurts again, and he is already tired of the pain, so he tries to calm his breathing.
Inhale. Exhale.
The light coming through the windows falls on his face, warm on his skin, as if he were by a fire. Draco enjoys it.
He's alone in the room and alone in the heat, letting himself struggle to breathe in peace.
He sighs, sounding a kind of gasp, and looks out the window. There are little golden lines extending through the glass, Draco knows it is the magic stored in the place and smiles.
Suddenly a petal catches in his throat, makes him choke and gasp for air. He picks it up and drops it in his hand, pretty and pink and full of saliva.
How difficult love can be.
He walks quickly through the corridor, his chest hurts and his throat burns, his eyes are full of tears and when he reaches the bathroom he throws away his vest because it is drowning him. He gasps, and starts coughing, hard, feeling the flowers scraping his throat. A mixture of blood and petals ends up in the white washbasin and he can barely hear Myrtle's wailing for him. He fumbles for the cold water knob and manages to turn it as far as it will go, as he bends and wets himself to remove the blood from his face almost violently.
The red roses move over the pottery, collect around the drain and block the flow of water.
He watches his reflection in the mirror, and finally the realization of what he did hits him and the look Harry gave him in the great hall is reproduced over and over in his mind. He almost killed a student.
"Shit." He curses to himself, then he starts to sob.
"Shit, shit, shit, shit."
"I know what you did, Malfoy. You hexed her, didn't you?"
He straightens up quickly, sees him through the mirror and turns quickly, raising his wand, it's an impulse, and without saying anything, an expansive force comes out of the tip of it.
An exchange of spells begins, and with each attempt to attack Harry, he feels a pang in his chest, annoying him, punishing him.
Draco sighs leaning against the door, this has to stop now.
"Cruci-!", he feels a soft petal sticking in his throat, cutting off his breath, as if the disease itself prevented the damage he was trying to do to the cause of all his ills.
"Sectusempra!", Draco doesn't recognise the spell, he doesn't know what it will do to him, he doesn't know what damage it will do and he doesn't have the time to raise a shield or step aside.
It hurts.
When his body hits the ground, it hurts.
When he feel the blood draining from his chest, it hurts.
When he feel his lungs struggle to expel the flowers growing in them, it hurts.
And Draco cries, because it hurts even more than his father's and his aunt's punishments, it hurts as if his heart had finally broken. It hurts...
And then it stops hurting, and everything goes away.
He feels heat hitting his face, warm on his skin as if he were by a fire, and his eyes get heavy when he tries to open them, but he succeeds.
Draco finds himself in a bed overlooking the window. The sun is high and bright in the sky, and an arm is wrapped around his waist and he finally feels at peace and nothing hurts.
The last thing he hears is the chirping of birds before he falls asleep again.
Draco has hope.