i
In the end, it happens when he least expects it.
It’s a nice evening, really, the autumn chill only just starting to creep into the cracks of the castle walls, the leaves on the trees outside turning orange and red and yellow as the world undergoes yet another change, slowly and with no concerns for human problems of any kind, and he’s alone.
He’s got his cloak wrapped around himself to shield against the breeze that’s ghosting through the castle’s hallways, in that part of Hogwarts where reconstruction hasn’t been a priority yet, and where he often finds some peace and quiet.
But not today, apparently.
He doesn’t notice it at first, because with half a mind he’s still trying to work out a solution for that last Arithmacy equation, because he’s forgotten his Potion’s book in the classroom and he really needs to do some reading for the next project, because his left thumb is still aching faintly and writing really is a pain, and then, when a stronger gust of wind wafts around the corner, there’s suddenly footsteps and muffled laughter and the brush of robes, and Draco’s mind has a split-second to think ‘oh, fuck’ before he forcefully shuts down on it, because he’s stopped caring, and he’s oh so very tired of this.
His body locks up for another moment after, swept up in the all-encompassing urge to flee and get away, but really, he should know better by now, should know that it’s easier to let it happen, to ignore the pain and threats, the stares and hexes thrown his way; it’s simpler to pretend it’s happening to someone else, because then it doesn’t hurt as much. Or at least, that’s what Draco tells himself, and he needs to believe it. He really tries.
But in the end, he’s still a Slytherin, and Slytherins have neither ever been particularly good at bravery, nor been able to lie to themselves for long, because while they are excellent liars, they also have a certain knack for self-preservation, and you learn early on that lying to yourself just won’t get you anywhere. It’s better to acknowledge the weakness (but only to yourself) and work out a way around it rather to let it simmer and stew and hope for the best. Because as history has shown all too clearly, the best just doesn’t happen to Slytherins—or at least not to Draco Malfoy. So, while it might be beneficial to some part of him, the one that still has feelings and a strong will to live, the other part just serves to prove to himself over and over again that Draco is really shit at deceiving himself, at pretending to be fine, to really not care, and so it’s today that it happens, the thing that was bound to happen anyway; his masks finally crack and slip and he can admit to himself that he really fucking wishes that he could be done with this. Just—done.
Because it hurts. So very, very much. And Draco doesn’t think it’s going to stop anytime soon.
Not unless something rather drastic happens, at least. Which is precisely why he doesn’t expect it when it does. Malfoys don’t usually get what they wish for, after all.
Where there was only Draco and rubble and dust (and a beheaded knight’s armor or two) just moments before, the hallway’s now crawling with Gryffindors and Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs, and hell, probably even the odd Slytherin. And they all have made it their personal mission to make Draco’s life hell ever since the Wizengamot’s decision to be so lenient with his sentence.
In the end, it’s basically this: Draco’s taken a near-midnight stroll through abandoned hallways, as he’s won’t to do these days because he really can’t sleep when he’s not absolutely exhausted, and then he’s turned around a corner and there they were.
It always starts quicker than he can really react to, and so it’s not long until his screams drown in their raucous laughter, and there are enough Muffliatos cast that he’s sure he won’t be heard anyway. And even if, it’s not as though there’s a single soul here at Hogwarts (or anywhere else in the world) who would actually care if they heard, let alone be bothered enough to actively try to put a stop to it or some such thing, so really, he’s long since stopped trying to hold in these screams.
Has long since stopped caring about his reputation here at Hogwarts; and pride is something he only remembers as a vague concept, especially when his body is writhing under the Cruciatus Curse and there’s students of almost all years flocked around him, watching on gleefully as yet another one of them finally gets their turn. Not all of them choose to use Crucio, mind. Some are content with the odd Stinging Hex, or maybe a Slashing Spell or a Flagrate if they’re feeling particularly cruel and want to write out just what they think of him.
(He doesn’t think about how he’d hoped that that kind of thing would stop after the Carrows, after Beatrix and Greyback and Voldemort, and all these other horrors. Doesn’t want to think about how he’d hoped for a break, a light at the end of the tunnel, maybe, only to be dragged down into the darkness all over again.)
He’s learned the hard way that after the initial pain fades and the shock starts wearing off it’s usually more painful to have to heal a bitten-through lip or tongue in addition to everything else, rather than to just let it happen in the first place, just because he’s been too stubborn and tried to stop himself from screaming. A hoarse voice is easier to be explained away than the inability to speak properly, or a bloody mouth.
It’s not as though anyone other than those present will know about that particular failing of his anyway, and he rather doubts they’re stupid enough to incriminate themselves by prancing around about Draco Malfoy’s inexistent dignity while being Crucio’d, so he’s stopped trying to hold it in. Draco firmly believes (has to believe, because he doesn’t think he could bear the other option) that they really aren’t that stupid, because if they were, McGonagall surely would have put a stop to it by now. She is the Headmistress after all, and though she and Draco have never been overly fond of each other, he knows that she’s of the decent sort, the one who’d put fairness above her own aversion to him. He wouldn’t be here otherwise, would he?
Then again, fairness has been yet another rather difficult concept lately—surely every single one of those student would contend under Veritaserum that what they’re doing to him is only fair—hell, even Draco would be hard-pressed to deny it. It’s not as though he doesn’t think he deserves it, after all; he knows full well that he does, it’s just that he’s becoming really damned tired of it. Of having to wake up every day just to heal and hide and Glamour bruises and fractures and curse marks from the day before; of waking up in pain and knowing that this day will be no different from the one before, or the one before, or the one before. Of the whispers and shouts and rumors and hateful things said behind his back rather than just to his face—and all those that are said to his face, and honestly, those aren’t much better, most days.
It’s a futile attempt of foolish children to teach him a lesson when he’s long since learned it, but it’s not like he can just up and tell them so, maybe even put a stop to it. He’d really rather study for his NEWTs, which are the sole reason why he’s even here anymore.
He’s started out just wanting to make it out of this alive, but he’s begun wondering whether it’s really still worth it. Or whether maybe it’d just be easier to do as everyone obviously wants him to, and give up.
(But Malfoys don’t give up.)
(Not without a fight.)
It’s Paulo Garmetti, he thinks, the one to trip him up in the end. Literally. Figuratively.
He’s not from one of the families who’s lost the most during this War, but he does hold a grudge like a king. His mother’s a Muggleborn, Draco thinks, and it was her sister who was one of—
He doesn’t want to think about it. Any of it.
His breathing is ragged, his legs shaking from where he’s just been released from a particularly nasty version of the Leg-Locker Curse, his back burning with fading Stinging Hexes, and his hand’s clenched tight around the Ministry-administered wand (one of the conditions imposed on him in order to be able return to Hogwarts for a so called Eight Year). But it’s not as though he’d be able to actually use it in order to defend himself; there’s a monitoring spell placed on it, one that shrieks like a monkey whenever he tries to use it outside of classes or when not in the presence or at least close proximity of a professor. So it’s technically useless to hold on to it, but while he’s being honest with himself he can admit that it’s still kind of a comfort; it gives the illusion of a fallback-plan, of stability and strength, or at least a semblance of it; a fraction of his old bravado.
But he’s on his feet, at least, and he’s trying to stumble away from the gaggle of students, his throat sore and body weak from singed nerve endings and white-hot pain still blazing through him with every movement, and then he’s there, Paulo Garmetti, a grin in his face, a nasty slur on his lips and his foot outstretched. A shove to his back from an anonymous hand, and Draco’s precarious balance is lost; he only just manages to catch himself on his hands rather than his face as he stumbles and falls, and then he tries to roll over onto his back and get up again, to not linger in this position of submission and weakness any longer than necessary, but Paulo Garmetti’s boot is already there, catching him in the face, and then he’s choking.
He stays down, black spots dancing in his vision as he tries to drag in a breath past the pounding pain but only manages to swallow blood, bitter and metallic, and oh so familiar.
(His mind flashes back to a train in Sixth Year, his own boot on Potter’s nose, and he suddenly feels sorry for having broken the fragile bone—it really does hurt like a bitch.)
There’s a shuffle among the students, then, a whispered conversation, some shouts and protest, gleeful snickering. Draco wonders what they’ve thought up for him now—and whether it’ll finally be enough to kill him. He thinks, strangely detached, numb in all the places where the pain’s got that bit too much, that he wouldn’t really care either way. It’d be a decision made for him, one that he doesn’t have to make for himself, can’t make for himself, because he’s too much a Slytherin, too much a Malfoy, to seriously contemplate it, but still, sometimes he wonders.
“I really don’t think we should—” someone says, and Draco thinks it might be Zacharias Smith, the Hufflepuff. He almost laughs at the thought of the better nature of a Hufflepuff finally winning out, and then he does, because he bloody well doesn’t have to lose anything anymore, and Zacharias Smith has been in on this from the beginning and has never seemed to worry about his better nature before, so this must be something really fucking good if it terrifies him enough to make his voice quiver and actually remember his House’s supposed qualities.
“Oh, fuck off,” Garmetti snarls, “he deserves this, and you know it.”
And Draco blinks open his eyes past the puffiness that comes from a broken nose, and he sees that Garmetti’s drawn his wand and there’s a mad glint in his eyes, and then he says “Sectumsempra!” and Draco closes his eyes again, not quite smiling, but also not quite not, and then the curse hits him, and that’s another kind of pain he’s all too familiar with, though he thinks that he really liked it better when it was Potter at the other end of the wand, and then he thinks, “oh,” because it really hurts a fucking lot, and then he doesn’t think much more, because there is Potter, or is it, and then there’s blackness reaching out with spindly fingers, crowding in on his vision and consciousness until they fully get a hold of him and then there’s not much of anything anymore.
(He remembers the cold, tiled floor, icy water mixing with warm blood, Potter’s pale and horrified face, his green, green eyes wide and terrified; the sudden relief that maybe he won’t have to do this, that he’ll get a way out of this mess without even having to ask for it; and then Snape’s face looms over his, and he’s absolutely furious, and Draco knows that it won’t be that easy.)
(But maybe now, when he’s alone and the whole of Wizarding Britain despises him and Snape isn’t here anymore, maybe now it’ll be that easy.)
(It’s not.)
(Because of course it isn’t.)