Pros & Cons

18. The Equals

Hey I'm switching back to third person ad I'm going to go through and edit previous chapters so that they're in third person also.

!!TW: Self harm!!

It's been three days since Draco's encounter with Gardner. He kept his distance throughout the weekend, he didn't want her thinking she had control of whatever this is that they have. He will have her when and where he wants - He's made himself clear on that.

Either way he'd neglected his task over the past few weeks and needed to refocus if he wanted to make any progress. His mother had been berating him with letters about the breakthrough he should've made by now. He tore up each individual letter and burnt them in the fireplace.

Doesn't she realise I already fucking know.

He spent the entire weekend in the Room of Requirement, with the temperamental cabinet. He swore it would break slightly more every time he spelled it, just to spite him. The cabinet demanded an awful lot of magic, which sometimes he just didn't have access to. After hours of working on the cabinet he could feel his magic straining. It's like his veins start to run dry and rub together like sandpaper. He gets blinding headaches and shooting pains up and down his arm, originating in the mark.

As he made his way back to his dorm he traced his finger over the patch of cotton that covered the inked skin.

That bloody mark. The reason I'm in this whole mess. A branding that binds me into an eternal contract.

No one warned him when he was marked; no one warned him that it will forever be what he hates most about himself. More than his arrogance and selfishness. Far, far more than any blemish or insecurity. He hates his mark.

He believed all the people who say 'hate's such a strong word' or 'you can never truly hate something' are ignorant cunts. They didn't know how it felt to have dark magic intoxicating your veins every second of every day. Or how it felt to try and grasp onto the banks of who you once were, whilst drowning in the black depths of who you're becoming.

The only thing that seemed to keep him from being submerged was Gardner.

You may think this is some kind of fucking love confession and oh, how excruciatingly wrong you are. Draco doesn't love Gardner, far from it actually. She is pain relief - a drug. And an excellent one at that. You see, when he first got entangled with her and she occupied every lingering thought, his hypothesis was he just needed a kiss to settle his mind. Just a kiss, nothing more. But once he got his kiss the feeling lingered.

Draco craved her and suddenly wanted her for the exact reason he had tried to push her away. She was a distraction. A perfect distraction from everything going on around him. And it didn't take him long to notice that when he was distracted all the pain just seemed to wither away.

When he was around her it felt like she siphoned the darkness straight from the mark itself. Each time he received one of her delicate kisses it removed a fraction of dark energy from within him and he gorged on the feeling. Although he knew what they have can't last, because she may not know it yet, but he's corrupting her. She takes his dark energy - and that's true - but energy cannot be destroyed, only transferred. Gardner is taking his pain away and he's certain it's at her expense; willingly or not he knows will be her downfall.

Gardner and Draco are more alike than she would ever admit. Ever since her mum died she's been alone. There is no one who cares enough to stop Garder's life being ruined, just as there's no one who cares enough to stop Draco from ruining it.

That being said he would still protect Gardner; from external forces that is. He wouldn't let anyone touch her because she is his pain relief, his drug.