Mira groggily opened her eyes. Her wrist was throbbing, and both of her arms were stinging painfully. "Shit." She muttered to herself.
The pale orange light from the approaching dawn poured in her window, allowing her to see the oozing cuts spread across her arms. She got out of bed and walked to the bathroom, ready to begin the next part of her routine. The chandelier that hung in the bathroom lit itself upon her entrance, and she went to the mirrored cabinet above the marble sink and opened it. She took out a small bottle of rubbing alcohol, a bag of cotton balls, a roll of medical tape, and a stack of gauze. She'd found these supplies in a first aid kit that had been tucked away in one of the storage rooms at the manor, and though it was extremely odd and out of place, she hadn't questioned it. She assumed one of the house elves (probably the mad one that wore Potter's old, stinking socks all the time) had acquired it and stashed it away where the Malfoys would never find it.
She set them carefully on the marble counter, then shut the door. She didn't need the whole house to hear what she was doing. Mira unscrewed the bottle of alcohol quickly, and dumped some of its contents onto a ball of cotton. She turned and sat on the toilet, dreading what was going to happen.
Looking down to her right arm, Mira found the deepest cut that was partially bleeding, partially scabbed over. She took a deep breath, then pressed the wet cotton to the cut. The pain seared through her, the stinging of cleaning the cut worse then the stinging she had felt in her bed.
When the pain had passed, Mira ripped a small piece of gauze from the stack and taped it over the cut. Finished with the first ordeal, Mira set to the next cut, then the next. When her right arm was taken care of, properly cleaned and wrapped in the gauze, she turned to her left arm.
"Holy shit, did I screw myself up last night." Mira commented to herself, inspecting her sliced vein. Dried blood covered the entire half of her arm, from her wrist to her elbow, indicating how long it been bleeding. She went to the sink, and turned on the warm water. She softly scrubbed off the caked blood, turned off the faucet, and dried her arm on a towel hanging from a silver rack.
She returned to her seat on the toilet, and took another deep, calming breath as she added alcohol to a fresh ball of cotton. She brought it to her wrist, then stopped. This was the worst cut she had ever gotten, self-inflicted or otherwise, a relic of her progression of survival. Draco had caused this cut, this pain, and she had hurt enough. She wouldn't, she decided, bother cleaning it. Maybe it would get infected, then she would really go to town, re-opening an infected wound…she had never been into cutting that deep, and now she was definitely on her way there.
Love makes you do crazy things, Mira thought sickeningly to herself. Smiling, she skipped straight to the gauze and tape. Humming to herself, she cleaned up, shut the medicine cabinet, then headed back to her bedroom. Knowing that certain members of the household would already be awake, Mira changed from the clothes she had slept in, and as she pulled down her black long-sleeved shirt, she noticed a particularly annoying bulge in her stomach.
"Damn." She said to herself, walking over to the full-length mirror. She poked her stomach, almost gagging when she saw it jiggle.
"Too much damn food." She shook her head, then smiled again. "And the perfect companion high to cutting…no food." She said to her reflection. Leaving her room, Mira shut her door behind her.
"Why, Mira, up with the sun? I thought vampires hated the light?" Mira stiffened. She turned, and faced Pansy Parkinson. Pansy's usually straight hair was ruffled, and she wore a pair of faded boxers and an old shirt Mira recognized to be Draco's.
"Narcissa will flip when she finds out you spent the night." Mira said to Pansy, ignoring the drop in her stomach that actually made last night a reality, and not just some twisted nightmare.
"Actually, Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy are out for the day…they were called on some business late last night, and insisted that I stay so you and Draco would not be in the house all alone…and, I must say, I found last night rather enjoyable." Pansy smirked at her in a way that told her this pug-faced girl knew Mira had saw her and Draco last night.
"Oh?" Mira said, turning around and preparing to storm down the hall, but Pansy leaned in towards her.
"He said I was better than you." Pansy whispered loudly, her voice hard.
Mira's jaw dropped. How dare this bitch even think of saying that to her! "Excuse me, but who in the fuck do you think you are?" Just as Pansy was about to retort, Draco, clad in a pair of black silk boxers, came up behind Pansy.
"Morning, Mira." He said, unabashed, as he took Pansy's hand in his own.
"Fuck you both." Mira said angrily, spinning on her heel and stomping down the hall.
"We did! With each other!" Pansy called after her retreating figure, laughing.
That's it, Mira fumed, Pansy is now going down, along with Dumbledore. The two people she hated most in the world….she would make them both suffer as much as they had made her suffer.
Yes, the voice in her head chimed in, yes, make your plans.
Mira nodded in agreement, and proceeded to the kitchen. The house elves that usually populated the basement kitchen were gone---probably taking their first day off since they were born, as Lucius and Narcissa were rarely ever gone.
Mira went over to the fridge, and yanked it open. Searching until she found the bottle of vodka Narcissa always hid at the back of the bottom shelf, she grabbed the bottle, and slammed the door shut.
"Drinking isn't really the way to go about this, is it?" A drawling voice said to her back.
"Fuck off, Draco." She said, taking off the lid of the bottle and downing a small shot before turning to him.
"I want you to know that I was thinking of you, love." Draco, still scantily clad in his underwear, said.
Mira choked on her mouthful of alcohol. "How fucking stupid do you think I am?" She said, managing to swallow.
"I couldn't get my release from you, when she was here, could I?" He said, coming closer to her.
Mira closed her eyes as his scent, a woodsy aroma that reminded her of pine trees, hit her nostrils.
It's like you're a drug
It's like you're a demon I can't face down.
It's like I'm stuck, it's like I'm running from you all the time
Mira opened her eyes, and with the strength left inside of her, walked past Draco. He stuck out his arm, catching her in the waist. "Don't fucking touch me." Mira seethed, though every sense in her body willed him to.
"Mira," He said, his voice different, almost worried, "What the hell is this?" He held up Mira's wrist, where the edge of her make-shift gauze bandage poked out. Mira pulled up her sleeve, so he could take in every area of her arm. She hadn't covered all of her cuts in gauze, only the very worst ones, but the uncovered damage was almost as sickening to look at.
"Why are you still doing this? We talked, we decided that you wouldn't!" Draco said, lightly fingering the gauze around her wrist.
"No, you decided. I never said such a stupid thing." Mira shrugged, looking down at the kitchen floor.
"Why did you do this?" He demanded again, and Mira looked up into his gray eyes.
"That's the total obvious." She said, taking a long pull from the vodka bottle, then wrenching her arm out of his grasp.
She left him standing there, and as she disappeared through the swinging wooden door, she didn't notice the tear that fell from Draco's eye.