Stronger Than Silver

Am I Ready for Hogwarts?

Trigger Warning: Self-Harm, Blood, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempts, Bulimia, Binging/Purging, Cursing

(Author's Note: If I could sort the characters into hybrid houses, I would sort Lucius into Slytherpuff (a combination of Slytherin and Hufflepuff). As I watched the series, he did not show many traits of intellect (a quality of Ravenclaw) or bravery (an attribute of Gryffindor). I would sort him into Hufflepuff as a secondary house because of his loyalty and care for his family.  In this fic especially, I wanted to develop a character arc for him where he is a, what do you call it, people-pleasing person? Because he is a Malfoy, he has to be perfect and all.) 

Besides his miserably failed suicide attempt with the Draught of Living Death, Lucius had tried to end it by various other means. Just two days after that attempt, Lucius cut himself again. With a stabbing mental agony in his chest and limbs, he watched the dark crimson foam at the ripped flesh his knife had torn open. The feeling had become too familiar now that it was daunting. Blood was welling up to capacity at the lacerations. Droplets were spilling over the edges and streaming down his forearm. They were little rivers of crimson flowing across his skin. It was the only way to cope with the emotions he could not release and the pent-up intrusive thoughts he could not talk about to anyone. 

The thought had crossed his mind again while he tore open a long gash on the inside of his wrist. He could see it slowly open after he pulled the blade away, the blood rushing to the wound, the red tinge underneath his skin making its way to where it had torn open. 

"I could do it now..." Lucius whispered to himself, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth at the thought of trying again and finally ending his worthless life. 

He moved the sharpest point of the knife's blade against the most vulnerable part of his left wrist with his right hand, his smirk dissolving into a wide smile that stretched creepily across his face. He pressed the sharp blade as deep into his skin as he could. Lucius knew that his most vital veins and arteries were there. Death was going to be easy. He would bleed to unconsciousness and then die. If he could stomach cutting, he could stomach a suicide. How could he have been so daft? Downing the Draught of Living Death would have hurt like a bitch. 

Somehow, he could not do it. Perhaps he did not want to die to the extent that his mind put no barriers to preserve himself. It was as if some invisible force was holding him back, and he just sat there, looking foolish as ever. It was a recurring phenomenon that occurred most of the times that Lucius had tried to end his life. It happened when Lucius had attempted to hang himself, when he had tried to jump off the highest balcony of the manor, and when he had tried to drown himself in the pool. 

Fuck his abominable self-preservation. As Lucius slowly withdrew the blade from his wrist, he wished he were braver so he could end it already. Nothing could be more cowardly than this, and it hurt even more that he could not escape this prison. No matter how much anguish his life entailed, it was impossible to flee. Well, maybe he could eventually. He could keep trying until he succeeded. He would try every day until the day he would naturally die if he had to.

Three years later, he had received his Hogwarts letter. Things were still going downhill. His eating disorder had gotten much more frequent than when he first developed it when he was a lonely nine-year-old. 

Lucius blacked out in the bathroom after binging and purging consecutively for ten hours. 

Thank Merlin that his father was on a business rendezvous in Paris, so he could not intervene. His mother was likely mingling with her friends in some swanky shop or coffeehouse.

There was this other time when he nearly choked to death. He remembered it vividly. Lucius was on his knees, hunched over the toilet with his left elbow propped against the porcelain seat.