Preface
Tick TockPosted originally on the Archive of Our Own at /works/8396371.
Rating:
Mature
Archive Warning:
Major Character Death
Category:
F/F, M/M
Fandom:
Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Relationship:
Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Hermione Granger/Pansy Parkinson, Ron Weasley/Blaise Zabini, Luna Lovegood/Ginny Weasley
Additional Tags:
Suicide, Self-Harm, Unrequited Love, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Timers
Series:
Part 1 of Drarry One Shots (Trash Tbh)
Stats:
Published: 2016-10-27 Words: 2288
Tick Tock
by Harrys_anaconda_dont
Summary
Soulmate AU where your timer counts down and turns blue when you meet your soulmate. The timer also turns red and burns you when your soulmate is dying. (Warning: self harm, suicide, major character death)
Notes
you can find me on tumblr at embracethefuckingay
please be my friend
im so lonely
Tick Tock
Soulmate AU where your timer counts down and turns blue when you meet your soulmate. The timer also turns red and burns you when your soulmate is dying. (Warning: self harm, suicide, major character death)
Looking across the dining hall during first year, he remembers meeting Harry's eyes and begging silently, through his own eyes, hoping that Harry will realize exactly what Draco was supposed to be to him. Even at the age of 12, he so desperately wanted to be everything for Harry, the way that Harry was everything for Draco. Every time Draco glances down at his wrist, his heart aches in his chest because it isn't fair. He hangs his head in shame, because why isn't he enough for the precious boy all the way across the room? Why does fate have to be so cruel?
Some time during their second year Ron decided that despite the obvious hate Lucius Malfoy has for the Weasley family, it has nothing to do with Draco, because Draco isn't his father. As they started playing Wizards Chess, Draco saw through the corner of his eye that Harry tugged Ginny into the library and over to where they were seated. Draco's heart lurched in his chest and his breaths started coming quick and uneasy. His head spinning a million miles a minute with so much jealousy and possessiveness he scared himself.
Ron noticed something wasn't okay, and reached over and shook Draco's shoulder firmly enough to try and get Draco to come back to life, because he was sitting too still, his face pale, hands clenched at his sides, and his eyes filled with so much loathing Ron briefly considered letting it go. "Draco. Draco!" A hand shoved his shoulder and he jumped, looking around wildly before landing on Ron and saw how curious and worried his gaze was.
Harry was paying more attention to him than the ginger haired girl on his arm, and he felt sick at the level of satisfaction that ran through him when he noticed that. Jade colored eyes were alarmed, trying to figure out what was wrong with him. "Draco what-" Draco sprang up from his chair, grabbed his bag and was out of the library doors before either of the boys had a chance to react to his abrupt leave. He thought he could do this, he thought he could withstand the thought of someone else touching what's his (or what should have been his).
He should be the one to care for Harry, to cherish him, to protect him, to give him everything his heart desires. He should be the one to love him with all of his being. Not that wretched girl.
Third year, is probably when Draco had realized he's hit rock bottom. If he thought that it was hard to control himself the two years before, he wasn't prepared for when Harry came back, looking decidedly more attractive than when they left the year before. Harry's voice broke often, going from low to high, probably from hitting puberty, and the blush that coated his cheeks and went beneath his robes killed Draco every time. It started a fire in his gut and his fingers itched to feel the heated skin beneath his fingers, but of course that weaselette bitch had to take what's his.
He doesn't really hate her, he envies her, he's so jealous of her that sometimes he can't help but let his anger take over completely. Those are the nights when razors, blood, tears, and scars overcome him and he's left feeling like he should be gone. Everything would be better. So much better.
Fourth Year goes by with Harry almost dying three different times. Draco has third degree burns on his skin, for the three times his soulmate had nearly died. Every night he runs his fingers over the scars left from them. His arm is covered in scars, from Harry's near death experiences to his own self inflicted ones. It's sick, the way that he's satisfied that Harry had marked him. To be marked by the Chosen One.
He wonders what he did to deserve this pain. Knowing that your soulmate will love someone else instead of you. What had he done in a past life that he's paying the price for now? He's seen what happens to people who's soulmates have died, or left them, or have a different soulmate than you. They are either alcoholics, depressed, druggies, or they go so crazy that they either kill themselves or have to be locked away somewhere.
People always romanticize unrequited love. Saying that its beautiful how people break themselves so they fit someone else, or that breaking yourself for love is the best thing you could do. None of that is true. Loving someone who will never love you back destroys you from the inside out. Always thinking you're not worth it, that there's something wrong with you and that's why they chose someone else. Unrequited love will break you down, and it will slowly but surely kill you.
Fifth year was a nightmare for Draco. He pushed everyone away from him. His friends don't even try to spend time with him anymore. He's always sad, he doesn't talk, he sits there with tears in his eyes and a break in his heart that's spreading poison through his body with every beat. People say that love hurts, but that's not really true.
Rejection hurts, envy hurts, jealousy hurts. It's love that takes away all of the fears and the pain and makes the hurt worth it. But when you feel all the negative feelings, and not the positive ones, it slowly consumes you until you're nothing left but the person you used to be. Draco knows his friends see the scars, the way he's lost weight, the way that he is so broken that they know he can't be fixed.
Harry is the only one who still bothers trying anymore, and that's what hurts the most. The one person he can't have is also the closest person he has. Draco knows that Harry cares, but he has half a mind to tell the boy to leave him alone, to turns his back on Draco and leave, to end this pain that Draco puts himself through daily.
Draco questions why he's putting himself through this. He should just take his razor and slit his throat, or maybe hang himself from a tree in the Forbidden Forest, maybe go to Madam Pomfrey everyday requesting medicine until he has enough to drink down and die in his sleep. But no, he can't do that.
Harry cares. Even if it's not the way that Draco so desperately hopes that he would. He puts himself through this pain, because he cares about Harry, he loves him. He's in love with him. He refuses to leave him, because so many people have left Harry already and to do that as well, he wouldn't be any better than they are.
Unrequited love will consume you and make you do things you never thought you'd ever do.
Sixth year is when Draco breaks. Sobbing in the bathroom, his demeanor broken. He thought that he had hidden it so well, he thought that no one would notice. But then Pansy had to ask, and wouldn't leave him alone, and he just broke.
He had never allowed himself to say it out loud, too afraid if he did, it would become all the more real. But then, she said, "You're in love with him, and he's in love with you. It's like a goddamn tragedy because you look at him and see the stars, and he looks at you and sees the sun, and you both think the other is just looking at the ground," and he couldn't pretend anymore.
"Pansy you don't understand. You don't, I wish you could but you can't and it hurts. You have Hermione and Blaise has Ron, but I have no one. Do you want to know why, Pans? Because Harry is my soulmate, but I'm not his. My timer stopped when I met him in Madame Malkin's and his is still going. So no, you don't get to comfort me, and tell me everything is going to be okay. You have no right. I love him, hell, I'm in love with him, but that doesn't change the fact that he belongs to someone else, and I'm not selfish enough to ask for him to give that up. He is a good, nice, lovely man and he is worthy of a love that he deserves, and as much as it pains me, I'm willing to give my happiness up for his, because goddammit he deserves the fucking world, and if I can't give that to him, then I'm not taking that from him."
She had looked at him with so much sadness. No, she doesn't know that kind of pain, and she's lucky she doesn't have to know, but that doesn't make the situation any better. She opened her mouth but Draco kept talking.
"It's okay Pans, really. I wouldn't choose me either."
Seventh year is the year Draco completely broke. Ginny and Luna are soulmates. Harry is gay. But his timer is still going.
One night, Draco had had enough. He can't do this anymore. This is their last year here, and after that, Harry isn't going to be around anymore. He's going to leave, and Draco is going to be so fucking broken he won't be able to function anymore. Draco made his way up to the Astronomy Tower, carrying lots of parchment and a Quick Quotes Quill.
Once he had everything set up, he started talking to the stars, because after tonight, that parchment will be the only thing left of him. His last words that told all of his feelings he refused to tell anyone.
"I wake up every morning, wishing I didn't. What am I fighting for? I'm beginning to realize how little I mean to everyone and it's pretty fucking painful. I have to accept the fact that I won't ever be anyone's first choice. I'm not scared of dying. I'm scared of living day after day feeling like this. Sometimes I just want to cry because everything I ever do isn't good enough. I try so fucking hard and yet I still get nowhere. You destroyed me, and I apologized. I was so scared of someone breaking me, that I eventually broke myself. I think that the worst kind of sadness is the sadness that you've taught yourself how to hide."
Draco looked up at the stars, tears rolling down his cheeks and being absorbed by the black sweater he is wearing -it's Harry's, because he wanted to feel safe one last time- and he leaned over the railing to look at the landscape below him. This is the only place he ever considered home, and isn't that just heartbreaking?
"I honestly don't care about myself anymore. I don't like remembering. Remembering makes me feel things. I don't like feeling things. I remember you always asking me if I was okay. Please don't ask if I'm okay. I might do something stupid like open up to you. And I'm really tired of getting close to people and watching them leave like I'm nothing. I've learned not to depend on anyone too much in this world, because even your own shadow leaves you when you are in darkness."
Draco sank down into the floor, hanging his head and scratching at his arms until the wounds put there a few nights ago reopened, covering his arm and Harry's sweater in his blood, the coppery tang hitting his nose and making him gag slightly. His body is wracking with sobs, his heart burning with every breath he took. His breathing is becoming erratic, but he needs to finish the note, he needs to calm down. Draco forces his breaths to steady, for now anyways.
"I'm so sorry that I loved you for so long. I'm so sorry that I kept trying to hold onto you when it was so obvious you didn't want me. I hate to say I want you when you make it so clear you don't want me. But feelings don't die easily because we keep feeding them memories. If I'm being honest, I just kind of wish none of it ever happened. I don't know what the fuck I'm doing anymore. What I do know, is that sometimes to stay alive, you have to kill your mind."
Draco laughed softly to himself, before he wiped his eyes with the sleeves of his soulmate's sweater. 'Oh Harry,' he thought 'you have no idea how much you actually mean to me.'
"I've always been afraid of losing the people I love. Sometimes I wonder if there's anyone out there afraid to lose me. If you could read my mind, I guarantee you'd be in tears. I think it's okay to walk out of somebody's life if you feel like you don't belong in it anymore. I think that the scariest part about letting someone in is that they could take one look inside you, and never come back. As humans, we ruin everything we touch. Including each other. And sometimes, you have to accept the fact that things can never go back to how they used to be, even as much as you want it to."
Draco grabbed the potion that he had brewed, and he popped the cork on it, and swallowed the potion down. He looked up at the sky for the last time.
"And now, I'll do what's best for me. I'm sorry I wasn't what you wanted."
Afterword
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