WARNING: SEMI-GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF GORE
Draco stared lifelessly at the ceiling fan, listening to it hum. He squinted against the glare of headlights shining through the window blinds as the light danced momentarily across his ceiling. A brief lapse of light in his omnipresent darkness.
A pale hand dared to rest on his abdomen, a frail thumb dragging shaky, shaky circles around his navel.
He had an egg.
In there.
Inside of him.
He had an egg.
He'd been aware he was part veela. He had, like any witch or wizard with veela blood in their veins, come into his inheritance on his eighteenth birthday.
But that had been the War. That had been bleeding and screaming and running and hiding. That had been lying and hurting and ducking and obeying. That had been his first and last prayer, the death of his hope, of his light, of his innocence. That had been starving and thinking and dreaming and thinking and drowning and thinking and thinking.
And regret.
That had been the War.
It had been nine years since then. He was twenty-seven, and the War was still with him, still on him. It was like the smoke from his cigarettes, the way it clung to his clothes. People could tell, they could see it. See he was dying. Slowly killing himself with every drag.
The War was with him, still on him, but not in him. Because in him, he had an egg.
He had run off to live with the Muggles. And he was a bloody good one, because no one knew him, and no one wanted to. He was polite, but distant, so when he smoked, and when he drank, and when he raged and threw things and burned things, it was okay, because Muggles did it all the time, and as long as he cleaned up his mess and appeared apologetic by the next day, when he lied and promised to never do it again, his neighbors laughed and smiled and turned away. Because that's what it was to be a Muggle.
No. Not really.
That's what it was to be a human.
They didn't care. The superego, the part of them that knew they should, did. It's what made them inquire after his health, his job. Was he eating okay? God, he looked awfully thin. Getting any sun? My, how pale. Was he done with that drinking business? That smoking? You know that stuff will kill you.
Not faster than an Avada Kedavra. No, this was a slow burning. A gradual torture. The kind he deserved. Self inflicted. And common. Oh, so very common. He would die like anyone else, because he was just like everyone else.
When he saw the homeless by the bar, when he saw the poor children selling themselves for their next meal, part of him ached, but a larger part of him wanted another drag, because he was only human.
Only, he wasn't. Not really.
He was a veela. He only ate things in their most natural state—fruits, uncooked vegetables.
But he couldn't eat meat. He'd tried, but it was repulsive, and he thought maybe he had turned vegan, but the urge to have meat was there.
And once he fucked up. It was a dog, a mangy thing. A stray. No home, no owners. It dug through his trash, making a mess worse than the raccoons, and how pathetic?
It had reminded him of himself, and he'd snapped, and next thing he knew, there was hot blood running from his mouth, and distantly he could hear screaming, hear the animal shriek and wail for help.
For mercy.
And Merlin, the meat was divine, and his stomach growled like never before, but the dog kept kicking, looking at him with wide, terror-stricken eyes, and he'd dropped it, watched it whimper and scramble off, limping as more blood gushed from the wound where he'd bitten right beneath its ribs.
The bite was large. There was no way his mouth was that large, but he could still taste the copper on his tongue, feel it sliding down his throat as he swallowed once more.
Draco didn't eat meat anymore. He didn't eat much, really. He was skeletal, and Muggles were fond of baggy clothing, and he had taken to them just as well. They hid him. Hid his figure, his scars, his sins.
He was just another one of them.
And only when the dog stopped coming around and begging for food did the Muggles leaves their comfortable homes, wondering where the tattered creature had gone. Only after days did they leave out food for it, having just learnt that none had ever fed it because they simply assumed another would. But now, in such a crisis when their consciences were heaviest, they banned together and everyone left out food.
Except Draco, because he knew it was likely dead, and the Muggles disgusted him.
But he wasn't any better. Not really.
He'd killed it, after all. They had all encouraged it, by starving the creature, forcing it to resort to digging out of dumpsters like Draco's for food, but he'd been the one to take the final step by killing it.
He was only human.
Except he wasn't. He was a veela.
But Draco couldn't even sprout his wings. The Healer had initially said there was nothing inhibiting them, that he should be able, but he shouldn't try, because Mr. Malfoy, you're frightfully malnourished. Your body would not be able to withstand them.
But after prodding his wand at Draco's navel, he found the ovum of Draco's egg, and realized Draco couldn't release his wings because the veela magic was focused elsewhere. His body was so weakened, all the magic was draining away to keep the egg alive, because by himself, Draco couldn't. Draco would have killed it.
Not that there was anything to kill. It wasn't living. It wasn't fertilized, because Draco wasn't having sex, and hadn't been for years. The Healer had said his anus was now a cloaca, an organ found in all birds, male or female. It served as both an excretory opening, and a passage to his internal sex organs, either testes or ovaries.
Draco was a male. He had a fully functioning penis and testes, so, naturally, his cloaca had the sex organs he was missing—ovaries.
But it wasn't fertilized. It would never fully develop into maturity—if would simply be an egg. He was laying eggs because it was his 'mating season,' because the War was still plaguing his mind, but day by day, drink by drink, and drag by drag, it became easier to ignore, and he had done something right, something that sparked his dry, desolate ovaries into action.
The Healer had asked. Have you changed your diet, Mr. Malfoy? You're still underweight, dangerously so, so it must have been recent. I would encourage this change, Mr. Malfoy, because-
And Draco had pursed his lips, because he was betting it was the first meat he'd eaten since he was eighteen. That bloody dog.
It felt like alchemy. The law of equivalent exchange. He took a bite of a dog, and in return, it gave him an egg. Probably his only egg, considering it would be his only meat, but still.
He wondered about if he'd eaten the whole dog. Wondered about what would have happened then.
And, staring at his fan, he wondered if that would have even mattered. What if it had given him the egg, and Draco had fertilized it? What if, after eating the meat, he'd felt confident—no, disillusioned enough to seek out a shag? What if some Muggle was inebriated enough that they weren't disgusted by his body, be it his bony figure or his scars, and fertilized the egg?
He would have taken a dog's life, and gotten another in return?
A human life, from a dog's?
That couldn't be. Dogs weren't equivalent to a human's life.
But it wouldn't be a human. Not really.
The child would be veela.
Draco wasn't human, he was veela, but he wasn't any better than the bloody dog, and wasn't that interesting? They were one and the same, except Draco had attacked it. He'd shown mercy, but had he really?
Seven years. Seven years since Draco had seen another wizard, save for his discreet, back-alley sort of Healer, but Draco still carried around his wand. He could have killed the dog before he attacked it.
He could have healed it before letting it go.
But he'd let it run off, because he wasn't worth the magic, and nor was the dog, but the dog was like him, and he was the dog.
They deserved to suffer. To scar. To die slowly, each breath bringing them closer to release.
But was that his choice? Not really.
Draco jerked, and the free hand, the one not over his navel, arched through the air.
He threw the whiskey against the wall of his flat, watching it shatter with a sort of detached fascination, fixation, because whiskey wasn't usually his choice of liquor. It made him wallow, and think, and do stupid things, like burn off his hair, or smash the windows because he felt claustrophobic in the dark.
But this time... No, this time he wanted to go out.
Draco groaned, forcing himself up from his unmade bed like the dead trying to rise from a grave, because his shoulders, pointed and protruding, raised higher than his neck, than his chest, and he had to lean forward to really move forward. He didn't know if he was just drunk or if this was just his life now. The Healer was right. He was weak. Too weak to get up from bed, to put down the bottle instead of throwing it.
Too weak to lay his egg, his unfertilized egg, without scarring himself, damaging his bone structure. Nothing permanent, of course, but Draco didn't have the money to pay for any treatments.
He wasn't sure if he deserved any, but the whiskey and the familiar melancholy clinging to him like smoke, like fumes, like something toxic, something less toxic than him but just as fatal, convinced him he was sure of one thing. He was going out tonight. He had a dog to find.
He had the little sense to pull on a jacket. He didn't zip it up, because the sun hadn't even risen yet, no one was going to see his sickly self, and he couldn't feel it, anyway.
He didn't know whether that was just the alcohol, either.
But he stalked the neighborhood, hands in his pockets. He began to get twitchy as the fresh night air sobered him, and he pulled out a cigarette.
He also pulled out a lighter, because he couldn't even use his wand for such a menial task, anymore. He was too weak, and he didn't have the conviction to cast spells. All his thoughts were too muddled, and he was indecisive. Painfully so. He didn't know what he wanted, especially not what he needed. He acted compulsively, not impulsively, because in his own way, he did rationalize his actions. And rarely was it the right action, and he knew it wasn't, but at least it was a decision, and that's where the indecision came in.
Minutes, hours, days later.
He didn't know. But he had spat out his cigarette a while ago, and he was feeling the cold enough to have zipped his jacket, and the sun was just barely in the sky when Draco found the dog.
Flies swarmed its carcass, the wound green and black and festering. Inflamed. The surrounding fur, ratty and dark, was caked with dried blood and maggots, which had gleefully wormed their way into the tender flesh of the dog's stomach, where Draco could now, very easily, see tens, hundreds of holes where they had burrowed in deep.
And then the dog began to scream, and Draco jumped, because how was it still alive?
It was a fighter, it seemed, because it wailed, a familiar, pathetic excuse of its previous ones, but it was impressive anyway, because the dog couldn't walk, couldn't even move, but it could smell another predator, worse than the flies, the maggots, or the coyotes that often prowled, because it was him, and Draco was the one who had done this, cause this in the first place, so he was worth screaming over.
But he wasn't. Not really.
Draco stared at the dog, listened to it scream until it began to remind him of screams he only heard in his nightmares, and occasionally when the silence was too loud and he had to turn on the telly, or the wireless. He listened to the dog, and then he approached, and it began to tremble, and he scooped up the dog. He ignored the bugs that fell, that wriggled against his jacket and hands, and held the dog close as he trudged back home.
The dog wailed the whole way, until he jerked it a little too hard and it abruptly cut off, either unconscious or actually dead this time.
When Draco got home, he shoved everything else off his kitchen table. He turned on the light, and shrugged off his jacket.
And then he went to wash his hands.
And then he drank a large glass of water.
Because what was he supposed to do? He could barely use his wand for an accio, the simplest of spells, let alone for a complex healing or cleansing spell.
And Draco didn't have a computer, but he could vaguely remember treating wounds for other Death Eaters during the Battle, and maybe, if he could just use enough magic...
Draco took his wand from his pocket as he placed the glass in the sink, and leveled the wood at the motionless canine.
He cast a scourgify, but nothing happened.
He tried again.
And again.
And nothing happened, and Draco stared, half waiting for maybe a delayed response, but when none came, he frowned.
He still felt complacent. Like saving the dog didn't matter.
It didn't. Not really.
But it should. He wanted it to, kind of. To see if he could do it. Not that he deserved it. Not that the dog did. But could Draco do it? Step out of himself, away from Draco Malfoy, the Death Eater, the Victim, the Scarred, the Scared, the Worthless, the Muggle, and step, even if only momentarily, into Draco the Wizard?
He wanted to. Not kind of, but he really wanted to.
And he tried again.
And nothing happened.
And Draco felt frustrated. The kind of frustration when he forgot to buy another cigarette pack, or when he didn't have enough money for even that, because he hadn't been working steadily for a while, and the odd jobs here and there weren't coming in because he looked as pathetic as he was. He couldn't even hide it anymore, he was so bad, and that was the frustration. The frustration at being so pathetic, but not worth getting better. He deserved it all.
That was what he told himself, anyway. He had known for a while, a nagging sort of feeling in the back of his head, that he only told himself he didn't deserve to get better because he couldn't.
But Draco was frustrated, because he kind of really wanted to fix this dog.
Because he wasn't worth anymore than the dog. He was a dog. Inferior, attacked, scarred, scared, worthless. A dog. And he couldn't fix himself, not really, not yet, but he could maybe do this. It was another one of his messes, wasn't it? He could clean this up. And if he cleaned up the dog, and cleaned up the wounds, and fixed the dog, he could maybe fix himself. Fix himself enough to get through the next months, so when he was forced to deliver the cold, lifeless egg from his unwilling body, he wouldn't kill himself trying.
Because Draco was like the dog, in that he was survivor, despite wishing with almost all of his being to just be done with everything and die.
Because that part of almost that couldn't make it completely wanted to live. For things to get better.
Draco stepped up to the table where he sat down, bypassed the oozing bite-wound, and looked to the tunneling in the dog's abdomen, where he began pressing into the skin around it and, one by one, forcing out the botfly larvae. The white maggots squirmed and squiggled, and Draco found it oddly rewarding to squish them beneath his thumb. He felt like he was cleansing the animal, killing all of its regrets, its sins, one by one. It was a misplaced feeling, considering this was all his fault, but Draco knew he wasn't a good person. He wasn't even a person, but a thing. An animal.
And he was cleaning up his mess.
What had to be hours later, after squeezing and re-squeezing, just to make sure, Draco finished deworming the dog, and then dragged it into his bathroom, where he proceeded to fill the tub with warm water. Draco stripped, and didn't want any of the dog's infection to rub off on him, but knew that his clothes would only get in the way.
This is where he proceeded to clean it. Some part of him knew not to use his cheap, filmy soap on the dog, but Draco didn't have the luxury of shampoo. Couldn't bother with it, especially not when his hair was so limp and choppy after the burning fiasco last month. Body soap would have to do, and so he began to scrub.
He found more larvae behind the ears, where he proceeded to kill them, and made sure to scrub the tunneled areas of the dog's flesh thoroughly. The skinned pads of the dog's paws, however, he washed more gently than he had anything in a long, long time.
And then came the bite wound, which Draco scrubbed mercilessly, and he had the urge to lick it better, but while part of him thought it may help, the other didn't want to die of infection.
And that was another thing. The bite wound probably had an infection that was more than skin-deep, but this is what Draco could do, and so he did.
And then he dried it, gingerly, and the dog's black fur was marginally softer after being cleaned.
And Draco looked at the still slightly-oozing wound, and felt a faint panic well within him that this would all be for nothing if this wound wasn't properly disinfected.
He really wanted the dog to heal. In fact, it felt imperative to him that it did.
He needed this.
And when Draco felt the urge again, he gave in. He didn't lick it, but he drooled profusely over the gummy niche in the dog's torso. He smeared the saliva with his hands, spreading an even coating, and it felt oddly thick, his spit, but he wasn't sure if it was honestly more viscous or if it was his exhaustion fooling him.
And, considering that was all he could really do for now, Draco left out some fine china for the dog, filled one with water while he filled the other with a can of tomato soup—he knew better than to attempt to reintroduce the creature to solids so early after near-starvation—, and head off to bed.
It was much easier to return to his bed than it had been to leave it, he noted mildly, just before his head hit the pillow and he was out cold.
When Draco padded into his kitchen the next morning, it was to find piles of vomit on the floor, but he ignored them easily and looked for the dog.
He found it, tucked fearfully beneath his sofa, the single other piece of furniture in his flat other than his bed, the kitchen table, and the few wooden chairs in there.
It snarled at him, but Draco paid this no mind.
He lifted the sofa, and the dog darted out with a cry, and Draco, using instincts and moving with more speed than he had in years, spun and caught the dog, undoubtedly jarring its wounds, but after wailing again, the dog attacked him, sinking its teeth into his hand, but Draco merely winced.
He crowded the dog in his lap, and it continued screaming around his hand, struggling to escape, but Draco kept petting it, and it screamed harder, releasing his bloodied hand to thrash with abandon, but Draco held it closer, and pet more firmly, but still gently, and cooed at it, shushing it, and still the dog screamed.
But the morning sun slowly moved across the floor, and the birds outside sang as they did every morning, and soon Draco realized he was, indeed, hearing the birds.
The dog was just crying, whimpering, trembling, but it rested in his lap, and Draco didn't risk releasing it yet.
He had nothing else to do, no one else to occupy his time, so Draco kept petting, and cooing, and soon the dog was crying into him, instead of away from him, curled into his lap, and only then did Draco check the wounds.
The infected bite was still gummy, and open, but it wasn't bleeding, or oozing puss. The slight discoloration was only that, slight, and it looked healthier. Noticeably healthier. And the maggot holes were still there, of course, and they were pink and irritated, but he vowed to apply saliva to them as well as the bite when the dog eventually fell asleep.
But before bed, it must be hungry.
Draco carefully lifted the dog. It was large, in no way a lapdog, but it was so bony, skeletal, that he could carry it easily. It began to wail again, so quick to jump on the defensive, but Draco cooed some more, and kept cradling the dog as he filled another bowl with tomato soup—all he had to feed it, at the moment. And this time, as it lapped at the liquid, he didn't let it drink the whole thing, because the vomit wasn't necessarily angering him, but he knew the dog needed all the nutrients it could get.
Between 'feedings,' he let the dog outside to pee, carefully away from his rubbish bins, where he had first attacked it. The scene of the crime. That's where he had a cigarette, because he didn't want the smoke inside of the house. And when they were done, they went back in, where Draco coddled it some more as he listened to the wireless, and when it fell asleep, he drooled on the wounds some more—definitely thick—, and when it woke up, hours later, he gave it more soup, and some water, and monitored the dog's intake before removing the dishes and returning to the living room to watch the telly.
He knew, distantly, that he hadn't eaten all day, but it didn't seem as important as the dog.
But then he remembered he would need to go out and buy dog supplies, eventually. And he would need money for that. And a job for that.
He went back into the kitchen, grabbed a banana on the verge of death, and clambered back on his sofa.
This is where the dog watched him guardedly from the doorway.
Draco pat his thigh, murmuring softly, and slowly, slowly the dog came forward, sniffing at his fingers hesitantly, and he pet the trembling creature softly as he watched television. And when the dog began to yawn, Draco slowly, slowly pulled into into his lap, where the both watched the glowing screen with drooping eyes. Where they both fell asleep.
TBC
This is going to be a multi-chaptered fic. I haven't finished typing it though, so I'm not certain about consistent updates or where it will end, if it will end, etc. I want it to, because I like where it's going so far, but I have a thing for starting stories strong and then giving them shitty, half-arsed endings. As my followers know, eh heh heh...
Questions, comments, or concerns?