On The Skin Of A Soulmate | Drarry

{03} - Draco Malfoy is Angst

Draco Malfoy hates both his bloody annoying owl, Dionysus, and his meddling, lunatic cousin, Luna Lovegood. They're as bad as each other, in his opinion. Nys won't leave Draco the fuck alone and chooses to stick his beak where it doesn't concern him - in Draco's hair. If he weren't so heavy and tired from carrying nightmares in the forefront of his mind, Draco might be persuaded to hurt something - something being Nys.

Luna glances at him from the window ledge underneath the large French windows at the end of his room, her eyes soft and her dirty blonde hair flowing against her back. Against all odds and all reasoning, Draco can concur that his cousin is not, in fact, a hideous beast.

Which, if he allows himself to think hard, Draco supposes make sense - she's his cousin, after all. He doesn't like to be reminded that the ethereal, aloof, sweet girl that rescues him from low-rank gay clubs was once in the prison underneath his very room.

Draco clutches his rolling stomach and breathes out through his nose.

It's only Wednesday, and already he's had enough hangovers to make him wonder if he's slowly turning into his father. The thought, instead of uplifting him and making him feel bigger than Harry-bloody-Potter himself, actually crushes his windpipe with one foul squeeze.

He struggles not to throw up and shoves his head against the softness of his pillow. Draco has spent the last year dreaming of what will become of him once the reputation of the Malfoy name improves, and has even entertained himself with thoughts of being a lawyer with his own firm, or a well-respected businessman.

Now, however, in the early eves of Spring of the 2nd year after the war, Draco realises that whatever rubbish his father has been spouting at him is just that - rubbish.

Grief, lone and willing, takes over his frail body and Draco buries his head underneath his pillow and draws his duvet around his shivering body. It all hurts, hurts too much to be real. He closes his eyes and lets the feelings crash over him and drown the happiness the alcohol from the club had brought.

It hadn't even been that - mediocre firewhiskey, at best. Maybe it's the bad alcohol that makes him feel this way - because the emotions are too much for Draco to comprehend.

Luna is silent all throughout his episode, and Draco can't figure out if he hates or loves her for it.

He makes up his mind, pretty quick.

"I hate you," he mumbles into the sheets, and he means it.

He hates her very existence with a passion, hates the kind way she looks at him - an ex-Death Eater, someone who allowed her to be enprisoned like a criminal - as though he deserves it. He hates how she won't let him die in peace inside his room, alongside his acrylics and watercolors.

Luna smiles - and Draco's hate builds. He dares not think about the other emotion that swirls rampant underneath that hates, something that feels almost like...guilt.

"Of course you do, Draco. Would you like to paint with me?"

Draco only moans pitifully. No, no painting. Creativity is furthest from his mind, and Draco feels like if he paints he'll end up decorating the canvas with his puke. He's well aware that his usually-pristine hair is stuck to his forehead with sweat, and he smells like a pig despite the numerous cleansing charms the House Elves perform, but he can't seem to care.

Why should he? Everything that's ever made sense has just come crumbling down in a matter of years. Including his standing with Harry bleeding Potter.

Fucking Potter, coming to St Mungo's while Draco was in rehab, looking like he actually cared and like his life was just so perfect, as though he was boasting to Draco just how put together he was while Draco was in a hospital for trying to kill himself.

Just like that, Draco feels his hate, guilt and annoyance surge together into something much more hostile, dangerous, even. Strangely, they meld into whispers in the voice of Lucius Malfoy.

You're fucking worthless.

Piece of scum, can't even kill properly.

Dumbledore was an old man - he may have been powerful, but he was weak and injured and your hesitation makes you a failure.

You went to bloody school with Potter and all you could fucking do was glare at him from across the Great Hall instead of slaughter him like the lamb he was.

You. Are. A. Monster.

The words are hot, torrential rainfall in a rapidly rising tornado, and Draco moans into his sheets. They beat his skin so hard he feels as though he'll implode. Perhaps drinking to excess wasn't really the best idea ever. Draco needs to extinguish that burning pain, needs to lash out at someone who can't take it out on him.

He grabs a self-inking quill and returns under the covers, not noticing that both Luna and Nys have disappeared. Draco is too engrossed in stabbing at his arm, tearing the skin with black ink and splashing tears over his words.

I hate myself.

I hate you.

Don't ever fucking try and find me.

I'll slaughter you. Wring you 'till you're dead. Slice open your hopes and watch them bleed over your sheets. I'm a monster.

Draco's hands are shaking so much he hurls the quill at his door and wraps his arms around his knees. His breath comes faint but erratic on the bare flesh, the tears now cold on his cheeks as he lets himself spiral downwards.

Later on, when Draco isn't quite so intoxicated - both from alcohol and grief - he spends an hour on a drawing on his arm for his soulmate, complete with an apology fit for a king. All throughout this, though, his soulmate says nothing. Draco doesn't understand what this means, but he prays he hasn't fucked his whole life up.

He doesn't hold his breath.