Drarry One Shots

Drowning

A/N A year six/seven story that isn't really focused on 'Drarry' but on an event (or series of events) that leads to a dramatic change in their relationship.

Warning: This one-shot opens with suicidal thoughts/failed attempt. Please don't read it you'll find this triggering.

Copyright note: Some parts of the dialogue/action are quoted directly from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Also: One shot 100! How TF did that happen?

***

'Draco...' Moaning Myrtle wheedles.

I watch the water swirling away through the plug, tumbling angrily in its burbling whirlpool, escaping into darkness.

I hate myself. That's all I can think. I hate myself. I hate the situation I've ended up in. I hate my life. I hate that life has deceived me, and there is no escape.

I can't see the answer, but I know now that I was never destined to succeed.

The Dark Lord summoned me at the weekend. He showed me a vision. My father, hunched in a dark cell, curled up on the floor in stripped prison clothes, his long, dirty hair bedraggled as it fell around his sunken face. His face is grey with hopelessness as a Dementor hovered in the air, haunting his memories, slowly feeding on the life in his soul.

'With every failed attempt, Draco, your father's condition worsens. Only you can save him from this fate. His life depends on your actions...'

Those hissed words are a falsity. I see it clearly. I know the Dark Lord is perfectly capable of rescuing my father from Azkaban. No, it was not those words that told the truth; it was what came next that showed me who I am to the Dark Lord.

'Your father failed me, just as you fail him. He knows what I command of you. He knows, as he sits there in despair, that his fate, his punishment, is in your hands. The longer you take, the more he suffers for his own disappointing performance. Unfortunately, Draco, your father deserves every second he survives in that place because he has demonstrated he does not have the faith in my cause that I demand. He does not have what it takes to be a true follower. Money is not enough. This is the price of failure, Draco. Do you understand? Because, if you fail too, I will not kill you straightaway, I shall make you watch those you love suffer a far worse fate as they too fight the impossible. And only once they have died by the promise of your failure, shall I allow you your death too.'

This impossible task is my father's punishment. I am my father's punishment. His pride and joy must also be his greatest disappointment. I was never destined to succeed. Meanwhile, he sits there, isolated and hopeless, knowing what I must do, knowing that as each day passes, I've failed again, not knowing where I am in the process, whether I'm close or no further forward than I was six months ago. He's waiting for me to fight the impossible.

I wonder if his faith in me has finally broken.

The water from the running tap gurgles and spits as I grip the sink edges. I wish I could follow it. Instead, I'm trapped.

'Tell me what's wrong...' Myrtle says.

I dare not lift my head. I dare not catch my reflection because I know I will hate what I see. I look ill. I've lost weight. My skin is yellowing and clammy from the constant fear I live under. And now the hopelessness too. I might as well be beside my father, sitting on that floor, pissing in that bucket, letting that Dementor slowly hollow out my soul for what is left of it anyway?

I glance up anyway, taking in the black circles around my grey eyes that are dull with the futility of what I'm trying to achieve.

Anger flares momentarily because the situation is so pathetically doomed. I smash my fist into the mirror before I've really realised it. I'm not even sure where the strength has come from.