Drarry Oneshots

Amortentia

Potter was stalking him again.

Draco could feel it on his neck. The drops of perspiration sliding on his skin, leaving a burning trail of shame that made his whole body heat up.

He was on a five-year probation of his magic use under strict observation, for Salazar's sake. Potter should have no business stalking him or staring at him in that goddamn infuriating way, like he's trying to figure him out.

The war was over.

Potter should just look away, go on with his merry life, snog his girlfriend, and stop trying to be the bloody hero waiting to catch the ex-Death Eater plot to raise the Dark Lord from the dead.

There was no plan.

All Draco planned to do was get his N.E.W.T.s, graduate, and then spend the next five years in reclusion on a mountain in Italy. He didn't plan on ever interacting with any of them ever again after graduation. Especially Potter.

Never Potter.

Draco scratched lightly at his arm through his sleeve, where the Dark Mark lay on his skin like a disease. He resisted the urge to scratch it with his nails. Not here. Not with Potter watching, those green eyes thinking they knew everything about him.

His jaw clenched. Professor Slughorn's voice became a monotonous drone in his head, the words going inside one ear, blending together in his head, before going out the other. Everything else blurred away in the periphery of his senses — all he could focus on was the heavy and pressing weight (of his mistakes, of all his wrong choices) on his arm and the gaze of Potter on him.

In another life, he would have welcomed it. Would have relished that Potter was finally, finally paying attention to him. In another life, Draco may have entertained the thought that Potter's gaze meant something different. But the Draco in that life, would never have taken the Dark Mark.

His vision blurred. Not here.

With great effort, he stood up from his chair as quietly as he could and left the room.

No one paid him any mind.

Draco hoped Potter didn't pay him any mind.

**********

He doubled over the sink in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, emptying the contents of his stomach heave after heave. The ugly noises he made echoed off the walls, and if Draco closed his eyes, he could easily transform it into the sounds he had made almost two years ago as he lay on this same bathroom floor, slowly dying on a pool of his own blood, and Potter beside him, looking like he was scared of Draco dying, like Draco didn't deserve it.

That was why he still returned to this place. It reminded him of that awful pain of having your chest sliced open, of the gripping and mind-numbing fear that you're about to die and all that you could brag about your life was that it at least took you 16 years before you succumbed to the pressure to be Marked, that you tried your best to keep your mother and father safe but you still made all the wrong choices, and now the only person you've ever wanted to look at you and maybe even save you had just sliced your chest open and had the gall to call your name and beg for you to live.

What a selfish prick.

Draco rinsed his mouth and spat. He closed his eyes and waited for the world to right itself.

He came back to this place over and over again to remember what dying felt like — because he was too scared to actually end it himself.

"Malfoy?"

Draco opened his eyes and locked with green ones reflected on the mirror. He wasn't even surprised. His throat strained and his voice cracked as he spoke.