BANALITY : Draco Malfoy

61

I'm in a room. I have no idea how I got here, or exactly where I am. There is a wooden door, worn and nearly dilapidated, and also an oil lamp. My head is looking forward, and I cannot move. I'm beginning to panic. Where am I? How'd I get here? I try to recall the moments that brought me here, but I cannot. Everything is out of touch.

The door opens. It creaks, and the hand behind it is pale.

I can see the hand and I'm shocked. I had imagined the figure to be hazy for some off reason.

Then, the door opens, and it's Draco. His name is on the tip of my tongue, but I have no idea how it got here. I don't know him. My brain is trying to piece together the events that led me here.

Terry. I can picture his face. He hit me with a spell. This is a nightmare, I think. Or Terry has captured me and this is real.

"Oh, thank Merlin," I feel the words escape my lips, and then I'm crying. Well, those things are things my body does, but I don't cause them. I feel like I'm being puppeted. Maybe I'm actually possessing someone. "Oh thank God you're here, Draco. I'm so sorry I left. I am so sorry."

That's right. I left Draco. Why did I leave?

Draco's wand slices in the air, and the spell hits me. I feel my brain slice open and hear my voice screaming. It seems even if I'm not in control of this body, I can still feel it's pain.

Then, there is a memory in front of me. Unlike the nightmare, it acutely feels like a memory. There is something distant about it. It doesn't feel like I'm puppeted here. You don't feel pain in dreams or memories, and this is the same. My arms are bound still, but I'm not on a chair. I'm in a dark room. My breathes are ragged, and I'm more panicked than I even was before. I can hear them more than I can feel them. The tears are in my mouth. At this rate, I'm going to pass out from hyperventilating.

"Let me go," I cry, or the body that I'm invading cries, or the body that is being invaded by the body that I'm invading cries. "Please, please. Let me go!"

The room around me is getting darker, but it flakes. I try to focus on it, but the body's vision is blurring. Everything is going wrong. Then, my bound hands are also disappearing, and so is the rest of me.

My head snaps backwards, my neck flinging. Now, I am back in a world that is real. Or, that I think is real. I'm getting whiplash from this memory within a memory bullshit. The chair crashes onto the ground behind me. My back aches, and now my chest is shaking. My head cranes up. The voice that is laughing is Draco's.

"I'm surprised you thought he was here," the person who ought to be Draco, but I assume is not, shakes his head. "Although, I suppose you've forgotten about the Polyjuice potion."

"I'm still cleverer," my voice is trembling. She is clearly lying.

I don't think this is just a nightmare. It's a memory.

"Really?" he asks. I feel the chair raise from beneath me.

The fake Draco is up in my face again. His fingers are under my chin, pulling me forward. I fight against the touch. He slaps me harshly, and I nearly tip over, but he forces me upright. His hand grips my cheeks, forcing me up to his face.

"Why are you resisting?" the Draco who isn't Draco asks. "You like his body, right? It's clear enough from your memories. Although do you even remember what he looks like under his clothes? I can show you if you'd like."

I spit on him.

"Stupid bitch," he says.

He hits me with the Cruciatus curse, and the world flashes white. Then, something slices in my head. My heart is racing. I'm not tied up. Instead, I'm trying to peer through a doorway, my fingers wrapped around the corner. A scream echoes through the hallway I'm in, and then a sob. At first, I thought it was mine somehow penetrating into this memory from the world where my body is being tortured, but then the body flinches and pulls back. I know that scream. I heard it come from Hermione. Someone is shouting from somewhere behind me. Ron. He's calling her name. I turn my head to look. The corners of the memory are peeling black, and then there is nothing that I can see. I'm pulled out of the memory, but my body is still being tortured. I'm still screaming. My head aches.