He takes another drink, his throat burning with the intensity of the drink.
The bartender eyes him warily, taking in the disheveled blonde hair and darkening bags under silver- gray eyes. He could have mistaken him for a homeless man, with his sunken cheeks and his aura of tiredness, if not for the neat (and surprisingly) clean black sweater and dress pants he wore.
He doesn't care though, if he even notices the eyes of anyone else on him he does not show it, simply drinks and drinks and drinks.
Finally, the bartender shakes his head and says "No more." and offers to call a cab to take him home.
He dismisses him, staggering out of the bar and into the night, not quite sure which way he should turn to get home. He stumbles his way around the city for a good hour, cold and slightly damp, until he finds his apartment.
As soon as the door opens he collapses. He feels like he might start sobbing, but he holds himself together just long enough to get up and close his door and pick up her shirt laying on the couch.
Memories flood his mind.
Soft pale lips, dark brown eyes, bouncing curls of chocolate hair, slender fingers intertwined with his, a soft voice whispering "It's okay."
The shirt even smells like her. She's still fresh, vivid in his mind.
He clutches the old cotton shirt and sobs, pain in every crevice of his body as he tries to drown in the memory of her smile, her gentle hands, her happiness, their togetherness.
Instead he is smothered by the memories of her tears, her desperate pleas for mercy, her fear, and how he could have saved her.
He almost stands to go to his drugs, to forget, but the drinks have taken their toll and the room is spinning and fuck.
That is his last coherent thought before slipping into blackness, and nightmares of blood and screaming and funerals.
He wakes up on the floor, cold, in pain, and hungover. Her shirt is still in his hand.
He lets go, standing, trying to steady himself. He staggers into the bathroom and empties the contents of his stomach.
The entire room lurches, and his head pounds, and the glare from the light is unbearable.
He knows already it's one of those days.
He doesn't get up for a long time, and when he does he strips off his sweater and tosses it aside. His arm catches his eye, that disgusting thing still visible.
The tattoo forever burned into his skin and then he runs his fingers over it, the raised skin of scars and semi fresh wounds. Wounds that he himself made, trying to remove that fucking mark of shame. Cigarette burns and overlapping scars, nothing was enough to make it fade.
His fingers itch, he wants to try again, to remove it or die trying.
Instead, he finds what he needs and shoots up.
Now, he's flying, so damn high and so numb. Except he can still feel her touch, still see her, still hear her.
"Self destructive." They told him. "You are falling apart and won't live to see twenty three at this rate."
"That's the fucking point, isn't it."
No one ever looks at him the same after he says that, even Weasley tries to help him.
"Malfoy you need to get your act together." The saint Potter steps in. "Stop trying to off yourself, indirectly or directly."
He just turned twenty two last month, he'd spent it at the graveyard, from sun up to sundown, kneeling and sobbing and wishing he'd just fucking die already. Clinging to her grave with everything he had.
The mark on his arm glares at him and he takes his nails and scratches until the skin is raw and near bleeding.
He reaches to the counter and finds a razor, scraping it furiously across the already raw skin, crating new wounds and re opening not quite healed ones.
He can't feel anything yet, but he doesn't know how long that will last.
He doesn't bother to wash the the blood off, or to clean out the wounds.
When he crashes from the high he is slammed full force with pain, pain he swears he's only felt once before, caressing her cold limp form as spells flashed around them and screams echoed and walls crumbled.
His entire body shakes with pain, his stomach gives out again and nothing stands still.
Again his mind betrays him and replays the fateful night, the intense magic crackling through the air, the moment he outed himself as a spy and fought beside her, how at first, even in the midst of that battle she smiled and said "We are finally not in hiding." How he tried to get to her, to shield her her, how when he did reach her, she was already dying, bleeding out too fast.
"It's okay." She whispered, "It's okay." she had known she was dying, she had known she'd breath her last in his arms.
He doesn't remember when he started calling for her, screaming her name in absolute horror as he lost her over and over again.
Some one stands in his doorway, hand clasped over their mouth in surprise and terror. "Oh god, Draco."
Someone might have said he used the drugs to forget he ever had her, but he knew, Potter knew too, that he used them to remind himself that it was all his fault, he could have saved her.
It is Potter at the door, pure panic on his face.
It is Potter who hesitates just long enough before rushing to St. Mungos with him in his arms, still panicking.
He knows they will do nothing.
Not even for the pain.
The pain, oh the agony, fire in his blood and body and mind and soul. Burning and tearing through him like broken glass and shrapnel.
Draco is dying. He knows it. Everyone else does too. His body is giving out, shutting him down.
He isn't screaming anymore, just forcing breath out of his constricting throat.
It is so cold and yet burning, washing over him and fighting to take him down.
A healer is yelling something. The pain begins to dull, but it only fuels an anger. He deserves to hurt, he deserves to feel everything she did and a hundred times worse.
His arm still throbs,he is still on fire, but it is less agony and a dull burn.
They won't make him live, they can't make him live. If they did it would come to this point again, except he'd dye in an alleyway, or in a bar, or on his bathroom floor.
He begs them with his eyes, just let me die.
They look at him with sympathy, pity.
They leave the room when Harry walks in, and while Draco looks in his direction, Harry knows he is looking at someone much more important then him.
Draco reaches his hand out, looking directly at Harry now, and Harry, not willing to let him be alone in this takes it and sits at his bedside. "Thank you Harry."
Draco is back to looking past him, right over his shoulder. Harry sigh, holding back the sorrow and says "Tell her I miss her."
He watches as Draco's other hand closes in a fist and squeezes his own almost painfully. "Hermione." Draco whispers, eyes glazing over and hand falling from his as Draco's heart gives in to the fire and pain and years of abuse.
Harry doesn't leave the room for another five minuets, he does he's still wiping away tears and the healers nod.
It's Harry who arranges the funeral and buys the coffin and who tells Blaise that, "Yes, he's gone. And no, he wasn't alone. I was there." It is Harry and Blaise who comfort his mother and who bury him next to Hermione and accept the sympathy from the few attendees.
It's Harry who hand carves Draco Malfoy into the memorial at Hogwarts because both he and Blaise agree he died on the battle field that night.
Harry stares at the name for the longest time with Blaise's hand on his shoulder as he can't help but remember the self destruction of Draco Malfoy.