Glacius

Chapter 2

"Draco," Astoria kicked him from under the table, Draco snapping out of the lingering trance that he didn't know he fell into.

The kick was like a check back into reality. Only yesterday he had lost his temper and left, thinking that it would make some sort of difference. But it never did. He was still stuck in that endless cycle of forced events. Forced conversation. Forced everything. He didn't want any part of it.

"How proud I am of you, Astoria, where is it you two will wed?" A woman asked, looking specifically at Astoria. Not once a glance toward Draco.

He felt as though he had seen his life as if he had already lived it, an endless parade of parties and cotillions — all supporting things that didn't matter. All the yachts and Ministry Galas, it was always the same narrative. All the same narrowed people in the same mindless chatter. It felt as if he were standing upon a great precipice with no one to pull him back.
Surrounded in a room full of people who wouldn't care if he just... Disappeared.

There was nobody to pull him back, no one who would even notice, or even care.
Dinner drawled on, as usual. Draco was more focused in his train of thought. He was scared of himself in those moments. He had even resorted to drawing blood from himself under the table with his fork discreetly.

He knew it wes pathetic, but it was the only sense of relief he ever got— just to fucking feel something.

When he walked alone from dinner back to his suite, he felt a voice in the back of his head chanting something over and over. Do it. He used to hear things like that all the time, but he ignored them and tried to better his thoughts. It never worked. Do it.

When a stewardess passed, she lightly smiled, to which he returned with a smile and nod— just as he had been told to practise. If only she could have seen his pain in his eyes— maybe she could have saved him. He didn't need to be saved, nor did he want it. He craved death.

He walked into the room, and thankfully nobody was in there. He needed to be alone. He didn't know how long for, he just knew nobody should ever have to see him in this state.

The second his grey eyes met his own in the mirror of his room, it all went downhill. He hit the mirror, separating the shards into a million pieces. Tearing papers of invitations around the place, pulling apart bed sheets and cushions. Smashing everything off the table with his hands, grunting as he did so. He had ripped off his tie with the most amount of strength he had, ripping it and throwing it to the ground, not caring of the condition of it. He never wanted to wear it again.

And he didn't plan to.

The room didn't look so grand and beautiful as people made it out to be after he had ripped it apart bit by bit. Intentionally, to add.

He ran toward the only place his brain could have thought of— the back stern of the ship. He didn't have any intention of returning that night. He just knew he had to do it, and now. It was the only opportunity he would ever have to free himself.

He ran as fast as his legs could carry him, not stopping to look at the couples who were perplexed by his show of emotional display in public. Especially since it was coming from a man. His cheeks were a flushed red—streaked with tears, but he was also angry. Livid, in fact.

He was shaking with emotions that he didn't understand. Hatred, but also self-hatred.
The night was a blanket of beautiful stars ahead. It was bitter, yet refreshing. Hermione Granger— of all people laid down looking up at the stars.

On a bench, her hair parting in all directions due to the windy atmosphere. A cigarette that she likely knew was no good for her in her hand. Slowly making its way up to her parted lips as she took a deep inhale, exhaling slowly as her eyelids shut, a temporary relaxed feeling. Her mind was full of artistic thoughts, gazing at the burning stars ahead of her, the concentration in her eyebrows were enough to tell she had an image.