Vicious Cycles Make You Laugh

(control and the loss thereof)

In every family, there's a place where things fall apart. For me, that happened an eternity ago, before I even went to that godforsaken school. Hogwarts, their houses and their superficial tendencies.

I never wanted to be in Slytherin, but the house was a part of me; my parents had lavished me in green and silver and they expected it, and that ridiculous talking hat expected it, too. I was the princess, I guess. I had the boyfriend everyone expected me to have – and surely, we were meant to still be together, but… ugh. I don't even want to think about it anymore. I tried to distance myself, (yeah right, like you could ever really do that) by throwing myself at him, making him even more my betrothed. God, the Purebloods wanted purebloods wanted – oh, I'm babbling again.

The entire system was flawed; sure, I believed in the Dark Lord, and I probably wanted even a taste of his power – but really, really, the magical hierarchy sickened me.

I was by no means the sneering, disgusting little slut everyone thought me to be. Sure, I was gorgeous, with long legs and stick-skinniness, and black hair kept nice and clean except for during the holidays (no one ever gave a damn during the summer hols, except that I was always at Malfoy Manor with Draco over Christmas. That was another expectation – and I HATE IT.)

I had my morals, and my principles. But the world took them all away from me – and now I'm here, in this place. St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries – my bloody ass. This was nothing more than a mental hospital, a looney bin – the place where that ridiculous Lovegood belonged with her crazy father.

I hope they got what was coming to them. They deserved to be here, not me. There's nothing wrong with me.

There's nothing wr–nothing is right.

Nothing is wrong, but nothing's right either.

I slept – really slept – for the first time in weeks.

. … .

"Pansy? Miss Parkinson?"

Despite the cliché, I didn't wake and bolt into a sitting position in a pool of sweat. My eyes don't open right away, and when they did I gazed for a five minute eternity at the blinding white ceiling through glazed, half-lidded eyes.

I didn't answer, that must've worried the orderly.

Hell, I was sure (deadly sure) that I'd worried the orderly.

My eyes closed as soon as I heard her footsteps across the carpet, and I held my breath. When I felt the nurse's cold hand on my bare shoulder, then by forehead, I screamed – but not because of the cold. After being in a complete dreamless wasteland for no more than half an hour (in weeks), the coming darkness behind my eyelids became what it always was: a complete dreamless Hell.

There were monsters, great scaly things that seldom had heads, like those disturbing Inferi Snape taught about when she was a sixth year – and worse. There were unimaginable monsters residing in lands built up upon thousands of (broken) dead bodies, rivers of blood pulling continents apart.

But I couldn't pry my eyes open.

"Sh-Shit!" The orderly's voice sliced (casually) through my blindness-induced haze, despite the hyperventilation wracking her body. "Uh – Nurse Blackroot? W-We've got a bit of a situation here!" She wasn't speaking casually at all; in fact, she was yelling and hyperventilating.

Quite the difficult feat.

I was beginning to hear my heart pounding in my throat and my ears – the only sound in the (broken) dead world seemed to be the petulant drumming that kept me alive (yeah right – like you call this living).

It was fading.

Or maybe I was the one fading.

Over my breaking eardrums I heard some sort of incantation, and it all faded to a dull roar, a dull grey. I floated for a long while, not bothering to come down, almost pleasantly deaf… until I came down.

. … .

When I came down, I crashed, I burned. It was dark, but the moon cut silver slashes against my eyes, and I screamed – or tried to. My throat was on fire, and I gurgled, reaching blindly across myself for something – anything – liquid. My fingers brushed against glass, and I sat up, turning away from the hated light and bringing the glass to my lips – I don't know what the bitter liquid was, or even what it looked like, but I drank it like a healing ambrosia despite the scalding heat it produced.

When I came fully to my senses, I spluttered for a moment before vomiting over the side of the bed, green eyes slamming shut – and there was a light tapping on my door before a cheery call of "Checks!" reverberated through my ears.

"Oh my – Merlin's hat –! Are you alright, dear?" The new orderly, a pleasing young woman, knelt on my bed, a pleasantly cool hand on my forehead. I nodded and turned away before she could register my temperature.

"I just drank a little too much, too fast," I mutter hoarsely, looking at the wall, the wall that reflected the moonlight through the darkness like a prism. I'm more than surprised at myself, expecting nothing more than a few (broken) words rather than a fully coherent sentence.

The orderly smiled gently, and then nodded, "Do you want me to get you something to ease your nerves? Your pulse is irregular."

How she caught that is up to me, but I shrugged, "I don't know if it'll do any good… but it sure as hell can't make me any worse."

The nurse smiled knowingly, then left. During that time, I slept into a day (night) dream that scared me to death, then brought me to life again to recommit the homicide.

It was the same as before (it was always the same as before), except – except it wasn't. There was one subtle little difference that scared me more than anything else could: him.

The pale, disgusting creature that loved the Dark Arts more than anything else, one who would give up half his life to have a taste of that higher power. Draco Malfoy, and all the expectations that followed, haunted my dreams.

I screamed when I saw a shadow cast across my bed, then inhaled, with difficulty, exhaled, calmly, and again, when the lights flickered on, lighting the white room. The nurse handed me a steaming potion, then patted my shoulder in an almost motherly gesture.

"That coffee does terrible wonders to you when you're sick, dear. I wouldn't touch it again if you end up sedated again."

Terrible wonders? Ha. That bitch didn't know a thing about terrible wonders. If she knew – yeah right. (like you could ever really know that.) She'd never knew.

No one must ever know…

Hell. Who the hell was I to know what a motherly gesture is, anyway? Let alone an almost motherly gesture.

I drained the potion, quickly feeling a warmth spread from my stomach outward.

Again, for the second time in an evening, I slept – really slept.