~I only own the plot of this story~
(Draco)
Bile began to rise like bubbling tar in Draco Malfoy's throat. It was sour and hot, and the sticky feel of it caused him to retch. His breathing sped up and he started to tremble, struggling to keep control over his body, which had become frail from months of neglect. The task the Dark Lord has assigned him had truly had an effect on his mind, body and soul. He ground his teeth together in an attempt to release the stress which weighed against his chest like many bricks, and winced at the bitter sound and feel the action produced. The crippling tremors that flowed through him caused his throat to tighten and head to twitch in frustration and irritation.
He began to back out of the Great Hall, each slow, light step making a slight echo against the cold stone floor as his feet hit the ground. The scene before him, on top of the many other crippling thoughts and emotions that had been plaguing his cracking mind for the past few months, became too much to bear. A frantic heart pounded against his chest as it pumped perfectly pure blood through his veins and arteries, and his already quick breathing went up another notch on the dial – he was almost at hyperventilation now – and he spun around.
The Katie Bell girl was back at Hogwarts after a long stint in St. Mungo's – courtesy of him, Draco Malfoy, and the cursed necklace intended to kill Albus Dumbledore. Seeing her sympathetic and worried friends crowd around and question her caused a cocktail of emotions to surface which he, a Malfoy, should never have to feel – shame, guilt and resentment. The events of that fateful day flooded his mind, and he breathed a slow, raspy – and thankfully, he thought (for no true Malfoy should show signs of weakness in front of others) – tearless sob.
He shot an angsty look at the young Hufflepuff who glanced up at him from her breakfast, a genuinely concerned and very Hufflepuffesque expression on her pretty, dark face, and in a split second decision he broke into a no-holds-barred sprint through the grand doors of the cathedral-like room, which caused his body to jolt with the shock of each powerful stride he took.
His surroundings began to blur as tears prickled in his pewter grey eyes (the result of generations of careful breeding), and he staggered accidentally into a group of several shocked Ravenclaws, each of whom promptly shouted cat-calls of disgust after him as he ran on without apologizing. Their insults fell on deaf ears – he was too wrapped up in his problems to hear them.
At last he came upon the staircase he had been hunting for, and stopped for several seconds at the base of it. He ran his slender, pale fingers through the shock of blonde hair that had become a sort of trademark of his family, wiped the tears from under his eyes and off of his face with an immaculately clean, white shirt-sleeve cuff, and calmly began to ascend the staircase, the perfect picture of composure.
The only give-away of the angst fuelled battle raging inside him was his vice-like grip on the ornate banister, and glistening puffy eyes gave any observers of the crumbling boy-man a small clue into just how distraught Draco – the king of calm and apathy – was.
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God, I'd forgotten how short and terrible this chapter is. Please don't be put off by it, the story really does get better! D:
My love goes out to all who review/constructively criticise this chapter!