Ravenclaw, drabble, A much needed shower, WC: 558

AU. Draco Malfoy's recollections of the first 100 days after the war.

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Day one. Voldemort is dead, the Malfoy family completely disgraced. My parents try to comfort me with their suffocating arms, surrounded by people who hate me. I can't breathe, and my chest is too tight. Hermione Granger looks over at me as I let my mother touch my face, my hair, my shoulder. Her light fingers bruise my skin, her maternal gaze crushes me a little bit more. My father smiles weakly at me. Everything he does is weak. I allow the both of them to fawn over my safety for the hours as the sunlight bursts over the blood-red horizon, unmoving bodies lit grotesquely against a pale backdrop. My entire body feels dirty with death.

Day four. I can't seem to escape the feeling of being constantly grimy. The guilt sticks to my skin like dried-up oil, and the dark memories of the last few years hold onto me. Even if I'm trying to let go, everything else from the past is grasping me with several hundred hands, pulling me back towards the shadow and the blackness. Everything else is forcing me from my attempt at the clean and the light.

Day thirteen. Unlucky for some, catastrophic for me. Hermione Granger is glancing over at me again, talking about something they all call PTSS, or PTSD. Apparently, it's common in those who have participated in war. She doesn't explain what it is, but merely uses the blasted acronym, assuming I would understand. She's wrong. I don't even understand what's happening to me, let alone want to give it a damn name.

Day twenty-five. Granger calls them panic-attacks. I seem to get them a lot. I shower twice at the end of the day, feeling disgusted and horrified that she caught me in the compromising position of a snotty nose and the inability to breathe correctly.

Day forty. Still suffering. Granger is a bitch. She's trying to help. I cannot for the life of me understand why someone like her would want to help someone like me.

Day fifty-nine. The memories and the nightmares are the worst of it, to be brutally honest. Flashing images in the night-time darkness which force me awake again, sparking all sorts of fears. Nightmares which are direct reminders of the ferocious and endless violent acts Voldemort committed while I was less than ten feet from him. The snake-like eyes of an almost-man haunt me every waking and sleeping moment of every day.

Day sixty-one. Two goddamn days after my last entry. Three panic attacks. Two showers. I am horrified with myself.

Day eighty-three. Why am I doing this? Oh yeah, Granger told me to write down my feelings. I still feel like this is a horrible idea.

Day one-hundred. According to the rest of society, making one hundred days after the war is a big achievement. Then there's me. Daily panic attacks, new nightmares not failing to haunt me, and the ever-present fear that Voldemort will return again. I feel dirty. It's as though there is a perpetuating itch on my skin and it can't be removed.

There will never be enough showers for me to rid myself of the Dark Mark branded onto my arm.

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Ta.