Disclaimer Note: I don't own these characters, they belong to the lovely JKRowling and her wonderful mind. This is just my own thoughts on something that could have happened with them in the future, inspired by I Need A Doctor, by Eminem.
I Need A Doctor
It had been three weeks. Three desperately, horribly long weeks. Three weeks of loneliness. Three weeks of an empty manor, echoing halls and dark corners, the damp nights spent alone in a too-big bed, the dinners she ate, cold, at a huge table all alone. She swore she wouldn't stand for one more night like that, for two weeks she'd been saying that. If he's not back by tomorrow, I'm leaving. She could never do it. Maybe he'd be back tomorrow. Maybe he would be home when she woke up. She couldn't bring herself to take her things and go somewhere else, she couldn't make herself leave him no matter how much she hated him for leaving her alone so long.
At the start of the fourth week, she decided there had to be a better way to pass the time than pacing the empty hallways, going through room after empty room, staring blankly out of every window they had in the walls of their home. There had to be some other way to make the time go by, to wait until he came back. That night, discovered whiskey. A little at first, but by the end of three days, she had taken it to extremes, drinking until she passed out, waking up the next day all groggy, the only cure being more alcohol. She was still sad, still alone. It didn't fix a bloody thing. There had to be something better.
Four weeks and six days he'd been gone. Four weeks and six days he had left her alone, not a word where he was, when he was coming back, not a single note to even let her know he was still alive. She'd cut her hair one night, while drunk no less. It probably looked a mess, but she liked it. It was short, spunky like she'd worn it when they were younger and in school. Back when their cares were less and before they'd gotten together. The bangs were a bit too long, a bit too crooked, but she liked them, called them avant garde in her head. She went out on the town that night, all dressed up in a nice dress she'd never gotten the chance to wear, her hair sleek and shining, gems on her neck and her arm. Her head held high like the pureblood princess she was.
But on the night of the fourth week and sixth day, she picked the wrong place to go. On that night, she discovered something that made her smile, made the time pass and almost made all the waiting okay. She took a bottle of it home, the little pills rattling in her pocket cheerfully. Just a few at first, like the alcohol, but soon it wasn't enough. She took more and more, lying on the floor and staring at the ceiling.
She was falling apart. She wasn't herself anymore. The loneliness was killing her, ripping away who she used to be and turning her into this shadow of a person. Being alone this long does things to people, drives you mad. It wasn't right to have to live without your new husband for this long. How long had it been now? She had no idea. Probably about three, three and a half months. Ten bloody weeks. Too long. She had long since run out of pills, doing whatever she could to get more.
Nights spent by the toilet turning her insides out, sleeping wherever she collapsed, she was pathetic. If any of her old friends saw her now, they wouldn't have recognized her. She wasn't the same person anymore. Not that she had any friends left. She'd cut off ties with them all when she married her prince, but then he'd left too, leaving her here. Alone.
She was a shadow. Nothing more. Stick thin, hollow cheeks, dead eyes. She never smiled except when laughing at her own stupidity. She was rarely sober for longer than an hour, spending her life drunk and drugged, wandering the house, or curled up in a corner of the parlor, crying for him to come home. She just wanted him home. Six months he'd been gone. Six months she'd spent by herself in the damn house, six bloody months of crying and wishing and wandering, four months of not enough food, two months of too much alcohol, a month of too many pills. Half a year and she looked like death.
Until finally one night the big door in the foyer opened. A slight figure stepped in, rain dripping off his shoulders. A clank rang through the house as he shut the door, his shoes smacking the floor as he ran across the stones and up the stairs to the long legged figure that was sprawled on the landing halfway up the staircase. He dropped to his knees and shook her, and for the first time in too long, after she'd finally opened her eyes, she smiled. It was a drunk smile, drugged, crooked and pathetic, but a smile.
"Draco. You've been gone for so long."
Tears in his eyes as he saw what she had become, she was crying too at the sight of him. She tried to get up, but she couldn't move. His arms wrapped around her, warm, tight, strong, holding her frail body to his. She concentrated and reached up for his face, her bony fingers tracing over his cheek as she pleaded to him.
"You came back for me. Bring me back to life."
