If I Lose Myself

Chapter Eighteen: Draco

Trigger Warning: Chapter includes mention and sight of blood. Caution is advised if you're uncomfortable reading such.

Chapter Eighteen: Draco

May 1997

Just when he had thought he had it within his grasp, it disappeared between the slits of his fingers like running sand.

Draco was certain the Vanishing Cabinet had done well in the past month, but certainly not enough. Apart from the cabinet suddenly having mood swings of its own by suddenly not being able to work for whatever reason, he had resorted once more to thinking of other ways to kill Dumbledore. He had hope that the cabinet would be enough, that someone else would do it for him—but the impending threat of the Dark Lord on his family and himself grew stronger every day. Sometimes, he felt as if the Dark Lord could read through his mind, wind through his dreams. But it couldn't be possible, and he can only hope it wouldn't be—or all of those precious times at Hogsmeade being tortured by aunt with Occlumency will have been all for naught.

As if the pressure of the cabinet wasn't enough for Draco. Fate, it seemed, had a funny way of making his life incredibly miserable now. And for a moment, he was slowly regretting every transgression he's ever done if it meant to be safe from the desperately anxious way his life had winded up to now.

Katie Bell had just emerged alive and well from St. Mungo's. It didn't take much for Draco's guilt to resurface. It was blooming the moment she entered the Great Hall. And he overheard things, of course. He overheard Katie's conversation with Potter. And it struck him, nervously, how her eyes shifted towards him for a moment as if she knew what he had done.

And thus here he was once more, sobbing himself senseless in the boys' bathroom where, not surprisingly as of late, Moaning Myrtle seemed to be waiting upon his arrival.

Over the past month, he had come to find some bit of solace from the ghostly girl. They spoke of the same challenges, the same "bullies" that made their life miserable. But if only Myrtle knew that his bully wasn't just some petty teenage girl out to play mean-spirited fun at another girl. His was much worst; and it pained him to know that nobody that he wasn't related to knew the gravity of the situation he was in.

He wished someone knew. He wished he could tell someone. But who? He certainly couldn't tell it full to Blaise, who Draco had long abandoned asking for help since the scuffle at Hogsmeade with the Greengrasses and Nott. He couldn't tell Pansy, who would—he assumes—otherwise would encourage him to do it rather than give him any sort of comfort. He already knows that if he were to tell anyone he knew—perhaps aside from Blaise—about it, they'd only tell him to do what was necessary. That they would tell him to be proud, just like his aunt has.

Perhaps a small part of him wished someone could tell him he didn't have to do it.

Then he thought of Astoria.

Astoria, who was compassionate and carefree, and wouldn't judge. She was the girl who so openly sought to help him, who didn't care what he had done, who only cared deeply for his well-being. And yet she was also Astoria, who was innocent, young, and too put together to be pulled into this madness. Draco could not live with himself if he ever subjected her to his own cursed life. He knew, as much as anyone else does, that she deserves better than him—better than anything terrible in this world. For Astoria was so good, so kind. How could that kind of light illuminate the dark that he's hidden himself into?

His body wracked with sobs as his thoughts diverted into things he couldn't have, the freedom so harshly taken from his grasp. It was turning him weary, his worst fears coming to light all of a sudden. How could he ensure his parents' survival if he couldn't even ensure his own?