when they became villains [draco malfoy] {book 2}

Year 6 - 141

Droplet after droplet rotten water fell from the ceiling of the small space. Walls, floor and ceiling made of stone, it looked much like the dungeons of Hogwarts yet somehow much different. Astrid couldn't actually smell anything but she could draw what it would've smelt like - putrid, old, dead. 

She looked to her feet and could just barely see the pool of red by her feet in the dark of the space. Looking further, she followed the trail of blood until her eyes met a hunched form, laying thin and gasping on the ground. Their clothes torn in tatters, dark brown hair having grown out. Tattoos spread down the back of their neck, their hands. Curled in a ball, trembling, there laid Eric Ninomae.

A foreign force made her look away, forcing Astrid to look at her blood-smeared hands.

A cold voice drawled in her head suddenly. "For a bit of motivation, daughter. A reminder of what happens if you fail again."

Astrid awoke with a gasp, her form shaking as she tried to hold in her cries of utter despair.

It's all my fault.

"Stop laughing, Ninomae," A voice called from somewhere below and Astrid recognised the indifferent tone of Tracey Davis. "Sleep."

At that Astrid did actually laugh out aloud, then hid her face under her pillow to keep herself from making any more noise. Sometime during the week, her roommates had decided to return to the dorm. Still, they barely talked to her. Not that it was too upsetting, Astrid wouldn't have had much to say herself.

Although ordered to, Astrid Ninomae no longer slept that night. Once she had calmed down, she had pulled the pillow back under her head, flipping it on the other side to try and forget the wetness her pathetic tears had made. 

If you wouldn't care. Life would be loads easier. 
We will push that pitiful caring out of your system.

Astrid Ninomae barely slept and not because her thoughts kept running wild, preventing her from getting any rest. It was the fear. Fear to close her eyes and dream of Eric Ninomae again. Fear to see his crumpled body again.

Many nights were spent that way, just laying and staring. Sometimes she just thought. Sometimes she plotted murder, wondering what else she could do to get her dad back. Sometimes she repeated a single word on loop, trying to push an unpleasant thought out of her mind.

Many days were spent pretending nothing had changed. She barely ate but she played it off with a joke of having eaten too many sweets beforehand. Astrid had noticed she had gotten thinner for her pants had begun sliding down more than they had before, but it was okay... She barely studied and played it off as having intense period cramps, therefore being unable to think clearly. Although that wasn't too far from the truth as all her stress had caused them to be immensely painful - keeping her up at night. She didn't attend quidditch practice at all and that she had a legit excuse for. It was an excuse she was seriously contemplating pulling out throughout the rest of the year as well. She hadn't the energy for quidditch anymore.

Astrid didn't do much more than just that for some time. It was time that felt stretched loads longer for the girl than it actually was, stretching her grief through an eternity. When she finally decided to go and talk with Malfoy, lost in her mind she had been convinced a month had passed when in reality it had been just barely a week.

Sneaking about after the platinum-blonde, Astrid followed his footsteps in hopes of killing two birds with one blow - figuring out where it was he had been disappearing to and getting to talk to him - to confide in and maybe even vent to the only person she knew she could trust with all this stuff. Just like it had always been, he couldn't really judge her on any of that without simultaneously judging himself as well. Just the thought of talking to him brought more comfort to her than it should've. It brought loads more undisguised comfort than it would've even just a week ago. Astrid knew it was selfish, but knowing she wasn't the only deatheater in the school was comforting in itself.