"Draco…" I hear Harry speak to me gently. "Draco, don't listen to him. He's just an arse he… he didn't… Draco, it isn't true." I close my eyes and try to take a deep breath, but all it does is catch in my throat. I start to feel the overwhelming sensation of panic take over my body. I feel sick. "Draco…" Before Harry has the chance to say anything else, I turn away and rush off toward the castle, running as fast as I can. I drop my broom in the process, regretting it the moment I do. I can hear Harry yelling after me but I ignore him.
I feel for my wand in my robe pocket and realize with dismay that I left it in my bag back in Harry's room. I don't have it, and I don't have long before Harry catches up with me. I reach the castle doors and pull them open with as much force as I can muster. I hear them slam against the stone walls outside but I'm already halfway down the corridor by the time they do. I'm crying, and the worst part of this entire ordeal is the fact that this hallway isn't empty.
"What's the hurry, Malfoy?" I hear someone shout in my direction. I recognize the voice as a Slytherin but I'm too upset to distinguish who. I burst into the first bathroom I come across and with a brief moment of relief I realize that it is, in fact, a boy's lavatory. I don't give it any further thought, knowing Harry will be in at any moment and I lock myself in the nearest stall.
I shove my finger down my throat.
I'm able to pull this off four times before the stall door blasts open and a set of strong arms wrap tightly around me and pull me out. I struggle briefly for freedom.
"Let me go!" I shout at him, frantically. "This is your fault! You made me eat so much!" The last word dissolves with a sob. "It's your fault!" My stomach lurches and I gag. Harry releases me just enough that I'm able to lean over and vomit again, the contents of my stomach splattering against the stone floor below me. "This is your fault." I say again, gasping. "You m-made me do this."
"Draco, stop!" Harry shouts. "Just stop!" I sink down on to the floor, sobbing.
"I-it's y-your fault!"
"That's it." Harry says, shortly. "That's it. You're coming with me." He grabs me roughly by my arm and yanks me to my feet.
"Ow! You're hurting me!" Harry, while loosening his grip slightly, doesn't let me go and drags me into the hallway. "What are you doing? P-people are going to see me!" Harry takes a deep breath but keeps pulling me.
"Then you're going to have to calm down." He pulls me up a set of stairs and as we march, we pass by a group of Hufflepuffs who stare after us.
"Was that Potter and Malfoy just now?" I choke on a sob.
"Let me g-go… where are we g-going?" By the time the second person chortles in my direction I've decided that I need to calm down before everyone in the school hears about it. I start taking deep breaths and – with my free hand – wiping the tears away from my cheeks. "Harry stop…." I plead. He ignores me and we continue up flight after flight of stairs. Once I've stopped crying, we've reached the seventh floor, and I realize where it is that where going. A sense of relief washes through me. We're going to our study. Sensing the end to my escape struggle, Harry releases me as he paces back and forth along the familiar stretch of wall. I stand and watch him, trying to get my hands to stop shaking. When the door opens I follow him willingly into the room.
When I step through the doorway, I'm shocked to find that instead of our cozy, calming study, the room I've entered is walled entirely by mirrors. My body tenses up and before I have a chance to turn to run Harry's grabbed both of my shoulders and is holding me in place.
"Let me go," I whisper. "Please." I start to tremble. Harry pushes me forward, until I'm standing directly in front of a mirror. I squeeze my eyes shut, tight.
"Seeing as this is all my fault," he says gently, and guilt rushes my mind like water, "I want you to see what it is that you've been doing to yourself. Open your eyes." I shake my head.
"No."
"Draco, open your eyes." I shake my head still more violently and I feel a few hot tears slip out and escape down my cheeks.
"No… I can't." I whisper. "Harry please don't make me."
"You're making this harder, Draco. Please, just open your eyes, and look at yourself." Slowly, I unclench my eyelids, and glance toward my reflection. A moment later I avert my eyes to the floor and I'm dismayed to find that it too is displaying my image up at me. I look around, frantically, trying to find someplace that I can look without seeing myself.
A distressed sound escapes my lips. I whirl around, searching for the door, but I am unable to find it. I'm trapped. My ugly body is staring down at me, forcing itself into to my acknowledgment without chance of escape. All I can see is me.
My translucent face.
My colorless hair.
My boring, grey eyes.
My stupid, bulging teeth.
My body.
My imperfect, unflattering, flabby, and overall disgusting body.
I can't get away.
Harry stands back and watches me while I try desperately to find someplace that I can look to avoid myself. My body shakes violently and I begin to hyperventilate. I can't get away. Tears begin to slide uncontrollably down my cheeks. I can't make a sound other than with weak, shuddering sobs. I don't want to see this. I cover my face with my hands.
Harry approaches me from behind, and I tense as I hear his footsteps coming closer.
He places a hand on each of my shoulders, and kisses me gently beneath my right ear. I don't respond. With a calm and steady hand, Harry grabs each of my hands within his own, and from behind me he pulls my palms away from my face. My crying grows in volume.
"I'm not doing this to hurt you, love." He says softly. "I only need you to see what I do."
"I s-see it." I stammer out. "I see how ugly I am." Harry wraps his arms around me and rests his cheek on my shoulder.
"That's just the thing, Draco. You aren't ugly. But you need to see how you're destroying yourself." I don't answer him. "Now listen to me, Draco. I need you to undress for me." I spin around in his arms.
"H-harry please…" Harry reaches up and brushes a tear from my cheek and I watch him do so in the mirror ahead of me. The one he's wiped away is quickly replaced by three more.
"Off with that sweater." He tells me. "Come on." When I try to protest, my voice catches on a sob instead. Harry grabs the bottom of my shirt and begins to pull it up over my head. I don't fight him. Once he's removed it, I stand in the middle of the room, my arms crossed over my front, in a futile attempt to cover myself. "And now the pants," he tells me. "Please, Draco."
Again, I don't make any move to undress myself, but I allow Harry to slide my trousers slowly off of my body and on to the floor. He leaves my underwear on, and I step out of my pants as he leads me close to a mirror. From this position, I can see both the front and the back of me. I can see my ass protruding into the room behind me and I cry harder.
"We'll stand here all day if we need to, Draco. I'm going to wait for you to calm yourself so that you're able to look in properly." I hope he realizes that as long as I'm here, I'm not going to stop crying. Not ever.
At least, that's how it feels, anyway.
As we stand in front of the mirror for what feels like ages, Harry holds me from behind and hums to me softly. Somehow, I manage to calm myself down enough for Harry to speak to me. With soft, warm hands, he rubs me down my sides and across my stomach. He moves back up again and stops on my rib cage.
"These, Draco," he tells me, "are your ribs. Do you want to know what the problem is here?" He asks. I just chew on my lower lip to keep from crying again and wait for him to answer. "The problem is that I can see them." I sniff. "You haven't been eating," he tells me. "And what you have been eating you've been throwing up. Your body is eating away at you to compensate. Pretty soon there will be nothing left, and that scares the hell out of me." I stare into the mirror and try to see what he does. I can't find it in me. He slides his hands down again, stopping at my hips.
"These are your hip bones. Do you know what the problem is here, Draco?" Still I say nothing. "Answer me."
"You can s-see them?" I stammer out, trying to see them myself.
"They're sticking out, Draco." He rubs my stomach. "You need to have more here. I'm surprised you have any energy at all." I don't say anything but think. I suppose I have been dizzy lately. "Open your mouth." I turn around and look at him.
"Why?"
"Just do it, Draco." I do. "Get close to the mirror. Can you see your throat at all? Do you see how it's all red like that? Do you see your teeth?" I close my mouth and watch my lower lip tremble in the mirror. "That's from throwing up every day. Your stomach acid is literally dissolving you and after a while your teeth are going to get weak and fall out."
"I k-know that…" I answer him weakly. "It's why I carry my tooth brush…" Harry grabs my hand and forces it to my face.
"The back of your fingers are bleeding from shoving them down your throat today. You're destroying yourself!" He's beginning to sound desperate. "Do you really think that this is what it takes to make you beautiful? That this is how to be perfect?" He runs his fingers through my hair. "All this beautiful blonde hair of yours. These dead ends. These brittle strands. It's because you don't have enough nutrition in your body to even keep it going!" His voice breaks and, holding my hands, he turns my arms out so that my wrists are toward the mirror. "Look at what you're doing to yourself. For once in your life I want you to take a good hard look at what you're letting yourself be reduced to and you tell me what good you're doing!"
I open and close my mouth a few times before I'm even able to get words out in a response.
"M-my ass is sticking out…" I manage, watching my body in the mirror. The panic is beginning to return and I can feel that I'm about to start crying again. "I-I need to look like them… I have… I to be perfect or… or no one will want me…" The tears spill over. "Please Harry!" I sob. Take the mirrors away… make it stop, Harry I can't take this!" I lower myself to a sitting position and burry my face in my knees, just to make the pictures go away. For a long while I just cry, hard. I feel Harry sit beside me and he begins to rub my back in an attempt to calm me down.
When I look back up again, the pictures on the walls aren't only my reflection anymore. They're memories.
There's me, locking myself in a bathroom stall after dinner time.
Me, inspecting the bodies of my Quidditch mates in the changing tent, comparing them to my own.
Me, throwing up after a Quidditch match.
Me, sitting on my bed with the pocket knife.
Me, less than an hour before, fighting against Harry. The picture is silent, but I can hear myself screaming at him. "This is your fault!"
I clamp my hands over my ears, hard, but it does no good to drown out something that I'm hearing within myself. The pictures don't stop coming. My eyes are dark, my hair is frail and my ribs show from within my chest.
"Harry…" I beg, faintly, "Harry please… please make it stop…" I'm feeling sick. Everything I'm seeing here is ugly. I burry my face once again into my knees. "I can't d-do this, Harry, please! I-I want to die… make it stop!" I feel Harry's arms around me, tight.
"Shh…" He whispers into my ear. "Hush, now. It's over. It's all gone. It's alright." I grab blindly onto his shirt and bury my face into his neck. He kisses me on the top of my head. I cry.
"I-Is it really g-gone?" I ask, hiccupping. "N-no more?" I sound desperate. I am desperate.
"No more." He answers gently. Slowly, I lift my head out of Harry's neck. The room has transformed back into our study, ruddy sandwiches and all. The only difference is the couch, spread across the back wall of the room. Harry picks me up from the floor and guides me over to it. He sits down and I lay on my side, resting my head on his lap, and curl my knees up against me. With a few shuddering breaths, I start to calm down, closing my eyes and focusing on the feeling of Harry gently petting my hair.
I roll over so that I'm facing in toward Harry and away from the rest of the room. Exhaustion takes me over and let myself fall into a state somewhere between asleep and awake. Harry hums to me and I force myself not to think of what's going to happen to me when I leave this place.
I force myself not to think of what might happen when Harry leaves me alone tonight.