Spellbound (It's Terminal)
Trigger Warnings: deals with self harm (attempted suicide) and unhealthy mechanisms of dealing with trauma. Namely, a pain-driven character inflicting hurt upon another, who believes they deserve it. Look after yourselves xx
Unfair [uhn-fair]
adj.
1. not conforming to approved standards, as of justice, honesty or ethics:
an unfair wage policy.
The silver-plated pocket watch in his hand ticked down the hours he had been sat there; it had been a gift from his father, before…everything, and like most things in the Malfoy vault, it was exquisite.
Most people expected gold from one of the most influential families in the wizarding world, but any fool knew that silver was the real winner. Gold was soft; malleable where silver was refined and strong, and only a simpleton with eyes bigger than his brain would think to carve his way out of the lesser metal. Gold-plating for sure, but never as a structure.
Draco turned the watch over in his hands again; a nervous tic his mother had attempted to beat out of him many a time before, and which only came up when he was truly worried.
It was a double hunter, its internal mechanics bared for all to see when the casing was opened, and it had a slender silver chain which was almost always hooked to the inside of Draco's jacket. The casing was engraved with an intricate forested scene; pine trees which seemed almost to sway as one watched, wide-eyed rabbits and prancing deer, and in the corner, his favourite detail; a single snowdrop, unfurling in the frosted grass.
"Lord Malfoy?"
Draco turned the watch over again, feeling the cool metal glide through his fingers like a balm to heal all ills. If he tried, he could almost convince himself it had all been a bad dream, and he would open his eyes to discover he was a child staring at his father's pocket watch in fascination.
"Mr Malfoy?"
It had been one of the only times he could get his father's attention as a child; the moments when the bureaucracy would fall away and it would just be father and son sitting side-by-side as Lucius wove tales of centaurs and dragons and Draco stared into the fireplace and watched their shapes dance in the flames. As he got older, those times became scarcer, until they were nothing but a distant memory to be pulled out and looked fondly upon in the dark.
"Draco?"
Draco was pulled from his thoughts by a soft voice, and he looked up into the kind eyes of Padma Patil. He looked around the hospital room in alarm; there was only one other person waiting on the hard plastic chairs set up around the edges of the room, and they had their chin against their chest, dozing. The clock on the wall read 2:13am. Draco rubbed his eyes and sat up, looking back to Padma.
Padma was kneeling in front of him with a comforting look on her face, gazing at him in sympathy. Draco gave her a pained smile. "How long was I out?"
Padma rested a hand on his knee briefly. "I don't think you were."
Draco barely restrained himself from rolling his eyes. "You know what I mean; how long have you been calling me?"
"Only about five minutes," she said fondly. She stood and gave a small toss of her head. "Come on. Your girl wants to see you."
Draco's heart gave a lurch and before he knew it, he was jumping to his feet and following Padma from the room and down long, sparse corridors lined with hospital rooms. He anxiously looked inside each as they passed, his heart racing in his chest. He desperately wanted to ask Padma if she was okay, but there was a lump in his throat stopping him.
Please be okay, his whole being seemed to chant, please be okay.
After what seemed like an eternity, they came to a stop in front of a door with the number 'B18' painted on it in harsh white lettering, and all too soon, the door was opening and Padma was disappearing inside.
Draco swallowed harshly and followed.
The story of how Padma and Draco came to be so familiar was a funny one. One which started and finished with a field in the middle of Norway.
Draco had been dragged along by Pansy and was by all accounts an unwilling participant. He had been under the impression that they were headed to a salon for a fitting of Pansy's dress for her wedding to Daphne in ten weeks. Instead, he found himself unceremoniously apparated to a muddy field speckled with wobbly plastic tables filled with food and drink, poles driven into the ground for the sole purpose of stringing tinsel between them, and a raised platform populated with plastic chairs and a banner which proclaimed 'Hogwarts Class of '98 Ten Year Reunion'.
The first words out of his mouth had been "Fuck no" followed closely by "I'm leaving" and quickly rounded off with "These people will eat me". Pansy, of course, wasn't having any of it, and had dragged him by the elbow right into the middle of a group of their old classmates.
It had been the first time he had seen her since she had apparated out of his life.
Luna Lovegood.
Standing resplendent in a yellow sundress, there was no doubt about the identity of the witch holding court amongst the dirt and grime. The last Draco had seen of her was clutching the hand of his old house elf after being held captive for weeks in the basement of his childhood home, dirty and bloodied and looking as skeletal as a Thestral. Now, she shone with a healthy glow, a beaming smile on her face as she conversed with the people around her, seeming to pull everyone's attention her way. She locked eyes with Draco across the field, and the light seemed to dull. She looked away quickly but Draco had already seen it; seen the pain that had flashed behind her eyes as she looked at him.
Right then, Draco vowed that he would do whatever he could to make up for all the pain he had caused her.
Draco winced as the table shifted and bumped into his side, jostling the bandage wrapped around his hip. He rearranged himself in his seat, hoping that his friends didn't notice his discomfort. It was only fair, but that didn't mean he wanted his friends to find out what had been going on. They would only worry, and they did that enough without adding any more fuel to the fire.
Gathered around the spindly wire-frame table of their favourite café in Diagon Alley with his best friends in the world, Draco was content, and could almost let himself forget the horrors of the war they had faced when they were only children. Sure, at the time they had believed themselves to be older, but looking back they had been so naïve. The one thing that comforted him was that all of them faced the same demons. Or if not the same, at least similar.
Theo, while he may smile and joke around more nowadays, suffered from crippling night terrors that left him completely incapacitated for days on end. Draco knew that now he had moved in with Neville, they had become much more manageable, but they would never go away entirely.
Blaise had become recluse immediately following the war, barely attending their optional eighth year before shutting himself off from the rest of the world. It had taken a lot of well-meaning badgering from Pansy for him to come back into the land of the living, and even then, he remained with one foot out the door, ready to bolt at the slightest hint of, well…anything.
Pansy herself had suffered greatly after the war. Being known as the girl who tried to sell out Harry Potter didn't do her reputation any favours, and it was even worse for her mental health. She had confessed to Draco later that it had been a heat of the moment thing born out of terror, and Draco couldn't fault her, but for years, any mention of Potter's name was enough to set her off in a panic attack. It was through the gentle guidance of Daphne, and her insistence at Pansy going to a muggle therapist, that Pansy was able to eventually reach out to Potter personally, and apologise. After that, a tenuous bond was formed between Pansy and the former Golden Trio and they still exchanged cards at Christmas.
"What about you, Drake?"
Draco rolled his eyes and kicked Pansy's chair leg under the table. Pansy gasped dramatically as her chair scraped backwards and Draco smirked. "I told you not to call me that."
Pansy tossed her hair over her shoulder. "And I told you to get used to it."
It was an old argument, ever since Hogwarts, and it was comfortable. Easy.
Pansy cocked her head to the side. "But that's still not an answer."
Draco huffed. "Do I have to?"
"We all did."
Draco scoffed and looked away dismissively. "That's cause you lot are idiots."
Daphne leant forward on her elbows, a glint in her eyes. "I think you're scared."
Theo smirked, lazily crossing his hands behind his head. "I think you're right, Daph."
Draco rolled his eyes. "I'm not scared; just not stupid enough to answer that."
Blaise, sitting beside him, clapped a good-natured hand on Draco's shoulder. "C'mon Malfoy. How bad could it be?"
Draco crossed his arms across his chest. He knew he had lost; he was going to have to answer Theo's stupid question. "Fine," he said, shaking off Blaise's hand. He leaned forward and took a swig from his glass of lemonade. Pansy rolled her eyes and Draco gave her the finger.
He swallowed and said, "McGonagall."
There was an immediate reaction from the table; Theo let out a victorious yell, Blaise rolled his eyes and leant away from Draco, taking a drink from his glass in disgust. Daphne grumbled as she handed over a couple of galleons to Pansy, who was looking distinctly smug.
"See?" Pansy said, condescendingly patting him on the arm. "That wasn't so hard now, was it?"
Draco rolled his eyes. "It's not as if I'm actually going to marry her, though."
"A-ah," Theo chided, waggling his finger. "That wasn't the point. The question was which teacher would you marry if age and custom was no object."
Draco took another sip of his drink, grumbling under his breath, "Stupid question either way."
"I know what we should do!" Suddenly, Daphne slammed her drink onto the table.
The jolt of the table sent a thrill of pain up Draco's side and he wasn't quick enough to stop an exhalation of discomfort. The entire table turned to look at him.
"What?" he asked nonchalantly, desperately trying to brush it off as nothing.
His friends would not be deterred.
"It's Luna again, isn't it?" Pansy asked gently. "I thought you said you had finished with that."
Draco hid a wince as he shrugged lightly. "I guess she changed her mind."
Blaise looked at him over the rim of his cup worriedly. "It's not fair to you, mate."
Draco pretended he couldn't see the worried looks from the rest of his friends, steadily picking at the loosened corner of the menu instead. He shrugged a shoulder. "Doesn't matter," he told him flippantly. "She needs me." Picking up his drink, he changed the subject. "I heard you've been getting closer to Granger. Changed your mind about Gryffindors, have you Zabini?"
Blaise rolled his eyes at the obvious diversion tactic but allowed it, leaning forward and getting into the story of how he and the brain of the Golden Trio had had an impromptu meeting in Schrivencrafts, and how she wasn't quite as bad as she'd been at Hogwarts.
Draco saw Theo and Pansy exchange a glance as he took a sip from his glass, but he didn't care. He owed Luna too much to turn from her now.
It went like this.
Every time Luna woke from a nightmare, so too did Draco. Every time Luna felt the aftereffects of her time in Malfoy Manor, so too did Draco. Every single time Luna felt the need to hurtpainworkmaimhurt, so too did Draco feel the sensations.
You see, Luna had developed a one-way, temporary bonding charm which allowed the bondee to feel everything that the bonder felt for a period of time. It was revolutionary in the field of healing, as it could be used to diagnose conditions when the patient was unable to explain what was happening.
It was also revolutionary in the field of getting even. With a subtle flick of the wand while casting, the effects could be permanent. So now, Draco was being properly punished for the pain he had caused Luna, and Luna was getting proper peace of mind that her suffering was being understood.
It was only fair, after all.
Padma had gotten involved two weeks after the spell had been cast. She had followed in her grandmother's footsteps and become a healer after Hogwarts, and had quickly risen to Head Healer at St. Mungos. She was heading a new division which strived to incorporate the muggle field of psychology into practical healing magic, to pioneer a new branch of healing.
She also did house calls to her old classmates.
It seemed Luna had been a frequent patient of Padma in the years after Hogwarts as the Ravenclaw girl hadn't recovered quite so cleanly as the world believed.
It had been icy between Padma and Draco as she cleaned and wrapped Luna's self-inflicted wounds, only melting slightly when Draco had offered up an apology for the way he had been in their youth.
The next visit had been better.
Soon enough, they were friends; meeting up for coffee outside of work hours, and recommending books they thought the other would like.
So, of course it was to Padma Draco would go when he walked in on Luna lying in a puddle of her own blood.
Luna looked so incredibly pale lying against the stark white of the hospital bed. The slow rise and fall of her chest could almost convince Draco she was simply sleeping. But he knew the truth. He had felt it too.
Without tearing his eyes from her, he asked Padma, "Is she okay?"
There was a shuffle, a whisper of fabric on skin, and Padma spoke, "Yes."
Draco instantly felt all the tension melt from his body, and he collapsed onto the chair by her bed. "Thank Merlin."
Padma walked up behind him, looking down over Luna with a comforting hand on Draco's shoulder. "She woke up a few minutes ago and I wager she'll be up again soon. Would you like me to leave?"
Soundlessly, Draco shook his head. When he found his voice again, he said, "You should be here too. It's what she'd want."
Padma didn't say anything, but Draco heard her pull up a second chair and come sit beside him. Wordlessly, he reached for her hand, feeling her rest her head on his shoulder. Together, they sat, and watched the steady rise and fall of Luna's chest in the half-light of the hospital room.
Luna began to stir. Draco held his breath.
Her eyes blinked open and she looked around. Draco could see the moment she realised where she was, in the fall of her shoulders and the downward turn of her lips. She locked eyes with him.
"Hey," Draco croaked. "How are you feeling?"
Luna just blinked at him. Then, her face crumpled. "I'm sorry," she said, voice barely a whisper.
"Hey, no," Draco said, pulling free of Padma to lean forward and grab Luna's hands, squeezing them when she refused to look at him. "Come on, now. There's nothing to be sorry for."
Luna shook her head. "I wouldn't blame you if you hated me."
Draco started. "Why would I hate you?"
Luna's eyes flickered up to Draco for a moment before returning to her hands. "You know why." Draco shook his head, but before he could protest, Luna was continuing. "Everything I've put you through. It was selfish and unfair, and I knew it was, but I couldn't stop myself because–"
"You were in pain," Padma interrupted. Draco jolted, having forgotten she was there, and she sent him an apologetic look. She moved forward, holding onto Luna's hand. "I know you don't want to, but will you please think about coming to the clinic? The mind healers really are amazing, and you don't have to talk about anything you don't want to, but it will help you." She gave Draco a sideways look. "Both of you."
"Me?" Draco asked, surprised. "But I'm not…"
Padma rolled her eyes. "Of course, you are, you numpty. Why do you think you've been letting Luna do this to you? For the fun of it? Or because you think you deserve it?"
"I–" Draco blinked. "Oh."
Padma nodded firmly, then turned back to Luna, who was looking extremely shamefaced. Softly, Padma reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "I think it's best if the two of you are apart for a while. I've talked to Neville, and he says he'd welcome another pair of hands around the place with Grey. I think a baby is a tad more demanding than he'd expected." She looked at Luna with a smile in her eyes. "What about it, girlie? Fancy a holiday?"
Luna looked hesitant, casting a glance at Draco before shakily nodding her head. Padma smiled, and dropped a kiss onto her forehead. She turned to Draco, who was still feeling shell-shocked. Padma smiled kindly. "I just got notice that I'm off to the Melbourne Institute of Healing to help them with setting up their mental health department; fancy a trip?"
Draco found himself smiling inadvertently. "Patil. That sounds wonderful."
He would see Luna again; when they were both healing and learning to live again.
Life was terminal, but guilt didn't have to be.
0_0
Round 5 for the QLFC
Team: Montrose Magpies
Position: Beater 2
Prompts: Unfairness
Additional prompts used:
(4) object pocket watch
(7) dialogue "I wouldn't blame you if you hated me."
word count: 3000
0_0
If you ever need to talk, lemme know cause trauma, self harm, mental health...all are extremely difficult to deal with and sometimes ranting at a stranger online is a good way to feel a little better for a little while. My tumblr is wizardoface if ya want to get in touch or if you need a friend. Don't force yourself to go through something alone, okay? You deserve love and kindness 3
Look after yourself first x