Notes: A huge thank you to my alpha Riane_b13 and beta Internct. This wouldn't have been here without them. They're both on AO3.
Trigger Warnings: PTSD, Mental Health Issues, Recreational drug use, Drug abuse, Alcoholism, Psychological abuse, Unhealthy coping mechanisms, Violence, Character death
"This mirror will give us neither knowledge or truth. Men have wasted away before it, entranced by what they have seen, or been driven mad, not knowing if what it shows is real or even possible."
—Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter & the Philosopher's Stone
September 1, 1998
They hung a plaque for Snape in front of the Potions classroom. I wanted to burn it down.
God, he — he fucking abuses the boy he's supposed to take care of for seven years and then he gives his life up, and it isn't even giving his life up really, he was murdered. He was murdered. He didn't even do it of his own volition. And call it technicalities, even then. He didn't do it for Harry. No, not for him, it was for his dead, married mother. And everybody praises the coward? Make him a woman and he would be called a crazy psychotic bitch who's better off dead.
And it's not just the stupid plaque. It's the whole castle. I want to burn it all down. Every repaired piece of stone and mended portrait. It all feels shifted, out of place. As if I'd woken up in an alternate universe and everything is perfect except me.
No.
Everything's not perfect. Everything looks perfect — like a gilded bracelet, one dent, one scratch away, from revealing the gray hell underneath.
And honestly? I don't even know why I'm here. I could have stayed with the Weasleys or with Harry and Ron in Grimmauld Place. I could have bought myself a flat with all the 'war hero' money I have now. I could have gotten an apprenticeship earlier and jump-started my career. I could have done anything. I don't know why I came back to Hogwarts.
Maybe because it's home. But is it? There's this heaviness in my soul that I can't get rid of. It spreads like ivy and clenches my lungs and throat. Most times I feel nothing. Like my soul's withering away but my body's still very much here — like a Dementor's Kiss. I try surrounding myself with people to not feel so alone and yet all I want to do is be alone. Run away and live in a cottage somewhere beside a small creek and wake up to chirping birds and wear pretty cotton dresses all day long.
No. I don't even want to do that. I want to bury myself in a hole, feel my body fester and rot into nothingness. But that's not life at all, is it? Not before and definitely not now. I feel cheated. Betrayed. And the worst part? I thought that the war would end it all. The death, the pain, the misery. But it's worse. The aftermath.
Victory is supposed to taste sweet.
- HG
October 19, 1998
He's sprawled, back flat against the cobblestones, his hands groping around for another vial. Fingers reach, reach, and then — there.
It's the size of a grape and the shape of a teardrop. Holds onto it in his palm like it's his life source and breathes a sigh of relief. And then Draco almost drops it.
"Fuck," he mutters, trying to thumb the cork open. He's already had one and is piss drunk. Vision's blurry as if there are multiple versions of everything overlapping on top of each other. Draco grips the vial and curses as he fails to open it again. Taking the bottle in his teeth, he resorts to spitting the cork across the dim room that's his dorm.
He cranes his neck and knocks back the entire vial in one smooth, practiced motion. It looks like a liquefied night sky and tastes like tar.
And then — explosions.
Violet — blue — green — red.
A kaleidoscope of colors and patterns. His eyes glaze, gaping wide as if they're absorbing the entire universe into two dilated pupils. It's heaven. Better than.
"Isn't — Isn't the world great?" Draco slurs to the empty room. Laughs. Fuck, he loves the world.
A lazy smile dons his face. Drool drips down the edge of his mouth.
Draco stumbles up, scattering some of the vials that lie around him. It's amazing how it can make him feel like a god while reducing him to fumbling around like a toddler. Fucking loves it.
He half-crawls, half-drags himself, to the door and slips it open. A cold gush of air grazes his hollow cheeks.
Everything's twisty and multi-colored like a funhouse — he doesn't know where he's going, where his shoes are leading him, but it doesn't matter. Nothing does.
o-o-o
Draco's going up the moving staircase dotted with Jack-O'-Lanterns, intent on going to the Astronomy tower when he wavers on the second to last step. It's a cool night and there aren't any stars or the moon to speckle the sky.
But there's something drawing him in. Like a magnet, a lullaby. His eyes clear and the euphoria ebbs away. A steady calm. He turns around, his feet heedlessly taking him to where the pull is.
Scanning the area, he sees the weeping mermaid stained glass. He's on the fourth floor.
Eyes glaze again. It's beckoning him, noiselessly, insistently.
And that's how Draco reaches a dead end, in front of an oddly placed alcove. He stares at it as his fingers run over the grooves of the stone.
The air is staler here, and a thin layer of dust covers the ground. A stain that looks eerily like dried blood on one of the stones on the walls embellishes the already depressing hallway he's just walked into. It makes him feel sort of miserable looking at it. Alone. But other than that —
There's nothing.
Shaking his head, he turns around to start trudging back —
He freezes.
A glimmer. Faint, barely there, but he sees it in the corner of his eye.
His head whips around, eyes wide, heart hammering. Hairs rise on the back of his neck —
It happens again.
He almost misses it. But he doesn't. He won't. Can't.
Draco reaches for his wand and when he's sure that his trembling fingers won't drop it, he half-whispers, half-wobbles out, "Revelio."
For a while, nothing happens.
Then within a blink of an eye, he's in front of a room that's bare of anything except a dusty mirror. He staggers back, a sharp inhale.
He gapes, not knowing how long he's staring, waiting for something else. But nothing else occurs. He was in front of an alcove, and now he's in front of a room.
Draco furrows his eyebrows. Looks down to see if there are any visible traps. None.
He casts a nonverbal Homenum Revelio. Nobody.
Draco steps in. One foot in front of another, like an infant taking his first steps.
His hands reach forward and wipe the dust off the mirror.
It's archaic in its beauty. Grand. Golden arches reaching high toward the sky with ornate detailing. Something that would belong in the manor.
Draco cocks his head. So why does it seem so… abandoned? Unwanted? Alone in this stale and dusty room? He steps back, and that's when he sees it. The swirling. A stormy flurry of black and gray.
And it should startle him, but it doesn't. It feels as though he's just taken a powerful dreamless sleep potion after three long months of agonizing sobriety. A silent, steady, confident calm like it's just him and the world and he knows everything, no surprises or groping in the dark, it's just him and he's — he's at peace. A faint pleasant tingling in his neck, the tranquility flowing down his body in waves.
It's peace. Draco closes his eyes and basks in it, before opening them again, as if the world is being reborn.
It's shaping into something, he realizes. Lengthening, separating into two branches at the bottom —
He gasps, choking on air as the swirling settles like dust after a storm.
Two figures materialize.
It's his parents.