October 20, 1998

Oh God. I've messed up horribly. How could I be so stupid? I've been cautious all this time, making sure that if they don't show their cracks, I won't either. Then he comes. I looked like an idiot! But no, never mind that —

How hadn't I noticed him before? What if he's up to something? Honestly, he looks dreadful. It was like I'd accidentally turned back time to sixth year. And that's the thing. Sixth year. The year he snuck Death Eaters into Hogwarts.

He's up to something. I'm going to find out what it is. I won't let that sick, pale facade fool me again.

- HJG

October 20, 1998

He wakes up to his head throbbing, as though a dozen hammers had beaten his brain to a pulp in his sleep, and now it's trying to swell outside his skull. Bending his neck from side to side, Draco cracks his joints and lets out a groan as the tension releases. He then drags himself out of bed to begin his daily routine.

He's in the middle of covering his eyebags with Glamor charms in front of the mirror when it all rushes back.

First in flashes —

Then all at once.

Golden arches and cigarettes and blood stains and cloves and weeping mermaids and limp hair and seeing his parents and — and — and —

It's frayed and hazy at the edges as if it's a dream. But it's enough. Enough for him to drop his wand and his heart to skip a beat as if he's accidentally missed a step going down the stairs.

He knows that he can't continue his usual routine, can't risk the clear-mindedness, because all he'll do is overthink himself into another panic attack. Chest aches at the mere thought of it. He needs something else. Something to mellow him out.

"Blaise!" he yells, pounding his fists on the door. By the look of how barren the common room is, class has already started, so he makes no effort to silence his commotion. "Open — the fuck — up — you tosser!"

He pounds one last time on the door with as much force as he can summon. It doesn't open.

He lets out a frustrated growl. If his usual routine had been carried out, he would have already snorted a line and been well on his way into the day.

Draco flips off the door in hopes that somehow that would make Blaise open the fucking thing.

Miraculously, it works.

"Oi, mate, what the fuck?" Blaise says groggily after opening the door. He rubs his eyes and squints at him. "Bloody hell, you look like shite."

Draco doesn't reply.

"Blaise, who is it?" comes a soft, feminine voice from inside the room.

"Huh? Oh, erm—" he turns around. "It's Draco."

"Oh." A beat. "Well, I better be going then. Can I borrow your shirt?" she replies.

"Sure, love."

There's a brief, stilted silence where nothing can be heard except ruffling sheets, then Daphne comes out.

"I'll see you in Charms," she says.

Blaise pecks her on the cheek and then she leaves, pointedly not making eye contact with Draco.

"You and Daphne," Draco states after she's gone. "Are you two just…"

"Not sure, really." He shrugs. "Is that why you're here," he says with a grin, "to ask about my love life?"

"My love life," Draco mocks. "Merlin, you're a right pretentious arse when you want to be one." He shifts his weight to the left. "And no, that's not why I'm bloody here."

"Right. So?"

He runs his hand through his hair, feeling as though he might detonate any second. Salazar, just get it out already. "I just need something — anything — that'll release a bit of tension. I don't care what it is, just, please."

Blaise frowns. "Is everything alright, mate? I'm here if you—"

"No, no. Rough night, that's all," he says. "I just feel knackered."

"Okay." He hesitates but nods after a moment. "Come in, I'll see what I've got."

Draco trails after him into Blaise's room which is, for the most part, neat, except for the unmade bed and a stray Bertie Bott's wrapper beside his wooden desk. Blaise walks over to his trunk, crouches, and starts rummaging through it.

"You're good with a smoke?"

"Yeah."

"Here." He throws an opaque black zipline bag without looking back. Draco catches it instinctively. "There's seven in there. Don't smoke it all in one go."

"This isn't my first time," Draco snaps. It's going to be his second. "I'm not a fucking idiot."

"Being stupid while self-loathing is your entire brand, personality, whatever, mate. We've talked about this."

"You're a shit friend."

"Hm." He gets up and scans the room, eyes honing in on the wrapper. After Vanishing it away with a wave of his hand, he asks, "What class are you supposed to be in?"

"What class are you supposed to be in?

"Free period."

"Astronomy," Draco grumbles. "I think. Could be Divination," he adds after a pause. "It's all a load of hogwash anyway."

"Are you planning on going to class at all today?"

"As though I have a choice."

Blaise sighs, facing him. "Look, Draco, I have to get to Charms, but try getting to class, all right? Or, fuck, take a shower. I don't know. Do something instead of rotting away in that depressing room."

"Okay, mum."

"See you, then."

"Later. Let me rot away in my depressing room in some fucking peace."

He plucks a blunt from the bag, holding it gingerly between his thumb and pointer finger and lights the end with a murmured Incendio. There's more hacking and coughing than smoking. For one aching moment, Draco thinks about Theo, who would have executed it effortlessly, and lets himself miss him. But it gets the job done.

Afterward, he completes Glamorizing his eyebags, downs a cup of water, and goes to his second class of the day, Charms, not thinking about her or it.

It doesn't last for long. He sleeps through Charms, Transfiguration, and his compulsory Muggle Studies class, and it's all fine. Really.

But then comes lunch hour.

He's sitting, half-heartedly chewing on a chunk of bread and cheese. The large bench is empty on either side of Draco, his presence an invisible repellent that only Blaise, who's sitting across from him, seems to be immune to. It's normal, fine. The last time he was in the Great Hall to eat was probably during the first day, but this is what Draco assumes is normal. There is an occasional pointed glare here and there that makes his skin prickle but nothing more.

Then she parades into the lunch hall. He knows from the strut, the way she brashly opens the main door without even a morsel of grace. It's as if all of his senses have been honed only to her. His neck tenses, feeling as though it might snap any second.

She's probably already told them.

Of course she did.

Of course.

Though he's careful not to make eye contact, only looking from the corner of his eyes, she openly glares at him before whipping her hair over her shoulder and sitting down at the Gryffindor table. The books she was hugging close to her chest slam onto the tabletop. He looks back down at his plate with feigned indifference, a hot spear of fear, then fury, stabbing through his throat and settling in his stomach like molten lava.

"You should eat, mate," Blaise says, immediately noticing Draco's change of mood. "Honestly can't remember the last time you were here," he continues lightly.

But Draco's lost his appetite.

Perhaps he should eat. While Hogwarts may just be a cushy prison for Draco, Azkaban is one that is stale. And cold. And lifeless. And if she's tattled on him, who knows when the Aurors will come and seize him to rot away with Father's corpse? Might be any second now.

Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock.

He thinks he'll vomit anything that goes into his mouth right now. He doesn't want to eat. He wants to walk up to Gryffindor's table and scream at her.

"Why?" he would scream.

Or maybe, "FUCK YOU."

She probably wouldn't even fucking react. Probably a sniff, then something just as rehearsed and stiff as her walk, like, "You are a Death Eater." She would say it like a slur. Like Mudblood. "What did you expect?"

And then everybody would fall to their knees, because she is Granger. Golden girl, war heroine, the bloody brightest witch of their age. And he's the disgraced Pureblood, the pariah. The weight of the Malfoy legacy was on his shoulders, and he got crushed by a pebble.

He hates her. He hates her. He —

Nearby, glass shatters. The sound lodges into his ears like broken shards.

His head snaps up, right knee knocking underneath the table. The hall becomes dead silent. He's too shaken to even breathe.

They're all looking at him.

He's panicking now, why're they looking at me? Why're they looking at me? Was it me? Was it? Was it?

Then anger. Of course they'd think it's me. Little Death Eater gone mad, eh? Just like his aunt.

Indignation washes over him, and his hands clench.

They're already balled into fists.

Then realization. Hitting him like a bucket of ice. His fists slowly unclench, and his throat constricts.

Act normal, act — he stands up abruptly, like a metal rod amid a grass field, before walking swiftly to the exit. The hundreds of pairs of eyes feel like bugs on his skin. The tie that he'd haphazardly thrown on this morning feels like a noose.

If they weren't sure he'd done it before, it's well-confirmed now.

As the main door to the corridor approaches, he abandons all intention of looking calm and speeds up, throwing the door open and breaking into a run toward the bathroom once the hall is out of sight. All the while, the bugs don't stop crawling over his skin.

He makes a bee-line toward the bathroom sink to lurch over and take deep breaths. It's fine. It's fine, he thinks, lies to himself.

Opening the tap, Draco splashes water onto his pallid face. He shakily inhales and exhales, inhales and exhales, inhales, inhales, inhales, and exhales. Adrenaline pumps through his veins.

Just got out of control. I just got out of control.

But it's not just out of control. What if he's too unstable to stay? What if this is just the beginning? What if the last of his comfort is going to be ripped away, because he's too dangerous? What if all his future is now enclosed in a small gray cell where the only possible escape is death?

Devastatingly, he realizes that as pessimistic as his train of thought had been for the past few weeks, months, years, he wants to stay here. Not just for the fact that Hogwarts is a much more comfortable prison than Azkaban — not now, anyway. It's the thing he's been diligently avoiding confronting for this entire day.

It.

The mirror.

Draco takes a few fortifying breaths, and for the first time, he dares to look at his reflection.

Somewhere deep inside, he knows that the mirror may just be a figment of his imagination. A desperate coping mechanism, or worse. It could have been planted by somebody who knew that he would become paranoid like this.

But somewhere deeper, he knows he still has to check. A reckless sliver of hope that says it's too good to miss. Even if it feels like willingly lowering himself into a Basilisk's mouth. Yes. His back straightens as he turns around to head back to the mirror.

"Stupefy."

A flash of red, then black.