I've been drinking

I've been doin' things I shouldn't do

Overthinking

I don't know who I am without you

I'm a liar and a cheat

I let my ego swallow me

And that's why I might never see you again

I'm alone in my head

Looking for love in a stranger's bed

But I don't think I'll find it

'Cause only you could fill this empty space

-Empty Space, James Arthur

I'm standing on the balcony, the party raging in full swing behind me as I nurse my first firewhisky of the night. Pansy's flat is posh and modern with clean lines and minimal decor. She is part of the first generation of pure-blood women to not move directly from the Hogwarts dorm to either her husbands or back to her parents. It was all incredibly new-age and would probably make most of our mothers blush shamefully… but most of our mothers weren't here anymore.

I can't bear to let my mind drift to the evening before. Shame shrouds the parts I can remember, and everytime new memories surface, I flinch away from them – as if I could hide it from myself. No matter what I do, I can't banish the thought of Granger sucking on that blasted spoon when she realized it was me standing outside the Muggle club with Tracy pressed against me.

Someday long from now, when I want to know when I lost my chance with Granger, I'll be able to pinpoint it to that moment in time. I suck my tongue between my teeth, making a clucking sound while my thumb tears into skin at my nail bed.

"Enjoying the party?"

Pansy.

"Yea. Thanks for the invite," I mumble, leaning over the banister of the oversized terrace.

She settles next to me, her arm brushing mine, and laughs. "I didn't." She peers over at me with a familiar grin, and I can't help but smile back. Pansy and Blaise are just as much a part of my childhood as Quidditch and temper tantrums – constants in all the chaos. She grabs my firewhisky and tips it to her lips for a dainty sip before handing it back to me. "Heard you got dumped," she says, turning to lean her back against the glass.

I scowl. "We weren't dating."

"That's not what I'd heard."

"Well, it's what you're fucking hearing now." I down the rest of my drink and straighten my spine.

"Settle down, Draco. I'm not judging you or anything." She rolls her eyes, and with a wave of her wand, she summons a bottle of firewhisky through the crowd of strangers in her flat. She takes the first drink and then offers it to me.

I scoff before following suit. What in the fuck could she have to judge Granger about. Fucking hell, does she still actually think she's better than them? The thought is preposterous and comical but I'm running low on allies these days, so I keep my mouth shut.

"You know, Malfoy Enterprises is still waiting for you. The board has been keeping up on it, but that spot is yours when your ready. You don't need to stay in that shitty little office with your sad little flat. That's… it's not your world, Draco. You belong here."

I look over my shoulder and see the drunken wizarding elite – born rich, dying somehow richer. I'm not sure what it is anymore that I want from this pitiful life I've mostly squandered, but it's not this. It can't be this.

Blaise emerges with a mischievous grin on his face and settles next to Pansy.

"You guys ready to take this lame ass party up a notch?"

"Blaise, do fuck off, will you?" Pansy sneers.

"You'll be changing your tune soon enough." Blaise reaches into his robe and pulls out a small violet vial, glimmering with what can only be described as stardust.

I break into a fucking panic, my body needing and rejecting the urge all at once. Breath catches in my throat and I can feel a hot sweat break out over my body, beating the chill of the Autumn air.

"What is it this time?" Pansy snags the vial from him and lifts it to inspect it.

"Dealer calls it Vega. One inhale should do it; two will knock you on your ass." Blaise winks, and Pansy uncorks it.

I can't fucking breathe, and I stagger back like someone's pulled a wand on me, my back crashing into the stone wall that meets the neighboring balcony.

"You okay, mate?" Blaise's eyes travel me in wary confusion.

I swallow, and it's like there are chards of glass coating my throat, and I realise this is a war I'm never going to fucking win. I'll be fighting this battle with this unquenchable need to be numb for the rest of my bloody life.

I don't want to give in, but gods, it'd feel so good to lose the fight for a moment, for a night. I can't remember the withdrawal or the pain; all I remember is the way I never hurt when I had Nebula.

A hear a trill of laughter float from inside, and it captures my attention. I search the party for her. She's not here but the sound is so similar that I let myself hope for a minute; she is the only thing that keeps me tethered to my fragile sobriety.

Granger.

I need to just get to Granger. She's my new drug, even if she won't have me. Feeling things for her is worth more than being numb to everything else.

"Merlin, Draco. Hello?!" Pansy is waving her hands in front of my face and placing her palm on my forehead. "You're more pale than usual and you're sweating."

"Sorry." I blink. "I think I'm ill. I've got to go, talk to you later." I rush from the apartment, feeling the pull of that tiny vial drawing me back. As soon as I can Apparate, I'm in Diagon Alley, panting in relief that I'm away from them. The pull of my addiction lessens the closer I get to her, and I storm towards Flourish and Blotts, praying she has a shift tonight. Even if I can just see from the window, even if I can just…

I round the corner and stop dead in my tracks, frozen in horror as I try to make sense of the scene in front of me.

That McLaggen fucker is tucking a hair behind her ear, leaning in to brush his lips against hers – the lips I kissed just a week ago. Nausea rolls in my stomach when I watch her eyes flicker closed and accept him.

I stumble back, into the shadows where I belong. Forever banished to the outskirts of her life, watching and wishing from the wings.

She's the reason I pulled myself from that balcony, from that attic. She's the reason I've been strong, and suddenly... it doesn't fucking matter anymore.

She doesn't care about me.

She's his.

My breath leaves me in sharps gusts, eyes clenched and refusing to acknowledge what I've just witnessed. I need to get somewhere that I can feel grounded and safe, but I can't think of anything other than getting fucking high. My fingers thread through my hair, yanking until the strands come lose between my fingers.

And why shouldn't I get high? What's stopping me from enjoying a night with my friends? And it's not like I'm going to start using everyday or anything… it's just one night. It's just one night, and it's not like there is anyone in the world who cares about me enough to want me to stop.

I feel the tendon in my neck come to life, a feral, frantic need that I can't ignore any longer. With a sharp crane of my jaw, I bring my palm against my cheek hard enough to leave a mark, enough to try and sober me, but my mind is soaked in firewhisky, and my willpower is shot to hell.

With an ugly snarl that claws its way from my lungs, I turn on my heel and disappear in my own magic.

Vega is different. It doesn't have the harsh burn that Nebula does; it's softer, and I don't feel numb. I feel… fucking hell, I feel happy.

I'm rocking on my heels in laughter as we pass back and forth the firewhiskey bottle from earlier. Vivid memories that I had one time banished, come back to me in new color. I can remember the manor again, before it was covered in Dark Magic and death. Visions of hiding from my mother in the rose bushes while she pretended she couldn't see my white hair behind the leaves dance through my mind, images of my father watching with a smug grin as I summoned my broom for the first time.

I remember the way Pansy looked on the night of the Yule Ball and how I thought I was going to love her the rest of my life when she let me peel her pretty pale dress from her shoulders.

I can see it all, and there isn't an allusion to the darkness. The darkness is gone. I can even think of Granger, and it makes me fucking feel again.

I feel a stitch in my side as laughter bubbles past my lips when Blaise talks about his little blonde fraulein in Germany who had quite the domineering personality in the boudoir, often taking to making him kneel on all fours while she whipped his arse like an animal. He swears it was the best sex of his life and that I've just go to try it, but I can't think of anything other than Blaise meowing on all fours like a cat. I can't stop rocking from laughter, and Pansy claws at my arm as she gasps for breath.

Everything is fucking right again, and I should have known that sobriety wasn't the answer.

Sobriety is the fucking problem.

Maybe it was just Nebula… Nebula wasn't right for me, too much of a downer.

This. Vega. This is what I need, everything is glowing and good, and Pansy's touch on my arm feels like a caress I didn't know I missed.

She's familiar and there and that's enough as I wrap her in my arms and kiss her senselessly. Another pair of lips this week, but these aren't new. These I've kissed a hundred times, and when we stumble into her bed, she laughs when my stubble tickles her neck, laughs again when I trip over my trousers and topple on top her.

It's clumsy and wrong when I enter her... but it's also so fucking right. It's right to want to feel this good, and whoever doesn't want me to feel like this can't really give two flying figs about me.

Everything about her skin is velvet and cream and when my eyes close, I'm not with her anymore. I'm in a messy little flat with worn tapestries and too many books.

Driving into her, I feel her small hands wind into my hair, and her breathy little pants hit my ear.

Her hair isn't silken, it's curls – messy and wild – and I tug at her tendrils to allow myself access to her neck.

"Missed you," I murmer against the soft skin at the hollow of her neck, peppering quick kisses there between by thrusts, and she hitches her knee up over my hip. "Missed you so much. I'm so sorry."

"It's okay." A whisper, and I am relieved. I find her lips again, and they feel off, but they're here, so I kiss her again.

With a shove of her petite hands, I flip onto my back, and she's straddling me, but I still when I look up at her, my face paling.

It's not her.

Not Granger.

Pansy's lost in herself, pleasure etched in her features as she rides me, her head thrown back, and I want to vomit. My hands are shaking on her hips, fingers squeezing too tight, and I know she thinks they are encouraging, that I want her to bounce harder on my cock that's quickly falling limp inside her.

Before I'm completely impotent inside her, she slips her hands under the hem of the short dress she's kept on and touches herself, moaning and shuddering on top of me, and I feel nauseous as she collapses on top of me.

"Sorry, love." Her voice muffled is by the bedsheets. "I didn't realize you'd already…" her voice trails off, and she rolls off me in a heap.

I gulp, and I'm sure my skin is green, my stomach in knots, and my limbs weak. The glittering spots of the high are shining too high, blinding me, and I clench my eyes shut, digging the heels of my hands into them.

"Oh shit, are you coming down already?" Pansy props up on her elbow, and I can feel her study me. "Blaise warned it was kind of a bitch of a come down. Just sleep here; you'll feel better in the morning."

Her shrill voice is on the verge of making my ears bleed, and I need some fucking silence to keep the bile and whiskey in my belly.

"Gods, put me out of my fucking misery." I moan, my shirt fallen open, and my trousers and pants long abandoned. A merciless pain sears through my head, and I claw at my skull with my nails.

"Ugh, you're really killing my high, Draco. I'll get us Dreamless Sleep." My head snaps to the side and acidic yellow bile leaks from my mouth burning my throat on it's exit. "Fucking hell," she mutters, and I feel the mattress shift under me as I gag again. "I'll get you double."

A/N: I won't lie, I have been terrified to post this chapter. I hope you, my lovely reader, can trust me to bring this all back around. Things will get a touch worse before they are better but I promise you that I am trying my absolute best to keep it as authentic to a true human experience as I can, and those lines are blurry and ugly and at times, tough to stomach.

I would love to know what you're thinking about the story so far! Your reviews brighten my day more than you could possibly know!