Out of Time

Chapter 13

As a point of idle curiosity, Draco wonders how many things he can destroy before someone steps in and stuns him. Can Draco Malfoy have an absolute meltdown temper tantrum and have anybody intervene? How terrifying is he?

He knows this for what it is: ill tempered self indulgence. But after having to control himself so completely for weeks and weeks (every word, every look, every sodding breath, every eye twitch), he's genuinely interested to see who will step in front of his warpath.

It hadn't taken such a specific turn until after he wrecked the Room of Requirement. That had been immensely satisfying, enough that Draco thought he might have exhausted himself. By the time he left, wall tapestries and window dressings were in ribbons, furniture was in splinters, gouges were carved deep into the floor. The room had been more cooperative than he could have expected, conjuring new things for him to obliterate.

It was far better than spending it in the girls loo, only able to inhale long enough to facilitate immediately retching over a sink. If asked, Draco would recommend this method instead.

But when he gets back to his common room, dark and dank and miserable just like him, it all hits him like a second wave. Going to - well, not to Defence, since he's already forty minutes late, but no matter what the next locale might be, Draco dreads it. Lunch? Charms this afternoon? Public, with other people around, Hermione possibly (probably) pretending he doesn't exist, and not just because it's some agreed-upon travesty with Theo?

Theo, who Hermione ran straight to as soon as the door reappeared in the wall? This rankles in a way Draco knows is unfair, but the idea of Theo comforting her - of Theo even making this better on Draco's behalf - is infuriating.

How can he go sit in the Great Hall for meals, attend lessons, or otherwise go back to normal life if she won't give him a chance to explain? He hopes that's all this is, that all she needed was a moment to herself to decide what to do. What if she never lets him state his case? But this is the risk he ran, the risk of her finding out on her own. Every day, every hour he delayed, was courting this disaster.

He could have controlled the narrative. He could have gotten ahead of it and told her everything, but he didn't. He hadn't; he finally had a chance in private and he fell asleep like a fucking idiot, so happy to be back with her at last, and he didn't think.

He didn't think.

His rage and self-loathing overwhelm him again, and he lashes out in the common room. Spells and hexes and curses fly everywhere, a full personification of how much he hates everything: the situation, himself, all of it.

Now comes the curiosity, almost as if he's standing outside his own body. Will anybody stop him? Will anybody step in front of his wand? Or a second possibility - would someone just stun him from behind rather than face him head-on? He's not sure which he'd prefer, really; the second option would at least indicate a certain amount of apprehension towards confronting him.

Objectively, the only students around when he starts his decorative slaughter are young and incapable. They wouldn't stand up to an older Slytherin, whatever the situation. Draco is a little disappointed, wishing for someone with whom he could have a proper exchange - a full duel, if it came down to it.

To his chagrin (and this is still a secondary concern, shoved far down past his self-pity and undiscerning level of wrath), it's Pansy who finds him first. Defence class must have let out.

Pansy does not step in front of his wand, but does shout and holler at him something fierce. He's immature and childish (aren't those the same? If he were thinking faster on his feet, he'd needle her about vocabulary) and he should be embarrassed of his behaviour. Draco wants to respond that he was far more embarrassed by vomiting through a panic attack in the second years' toilet with an attention-seeking ghost bint for company - until Potter showed up and nearly killed him.