Draco awoke suddenly, his eyes flying open as he was jolted into consciousness. Immediately, he realised that he was not in his bed, nor was he even in his bedroom. No, he was in the kitchen, on the floor. Again. His cheek was pressed against the cold, hard surface of the smooth tile that lined the luxurious kitchen of Malfoy Manor. His jaw hurt from being pressed against the floor, and his right arm was completely numb from where he had slept on it — or passed out on it, more like.
With some difficulty, Draco pulled himself up into a sitting position. He leaned back against a cabinet and stretched, his bones cracking in protest as they returned to their regular posture. The bright light slipping through the kitchen window made him groan inwardly. The last thing he remembered was asking Jinxy for some Firewhisky as he read his newest book on potion-making, and now it was late morning, or early afternoon — Draco wasn't completely sure — and he was waking up on the kitchen floor. This wasn't the first time this had happened, and it certainly wouldn't be the last. He wasn't even sure why he had ended up in the kitchen.
"Jinxy?" Draco called.
Jinxy appeared with a loud crack. "Master is calling Jinxy?" she asked nervously, wringing her slightly gnarled hands against the yellow pillowcase she wore as a dress.
Draco nodded, then grimaced. His head fucking hurt. "Yes, Jinxy. I have some Sobering Solution in my bathroom — could you bring it to me?"
Jinxy frowned and looked down at the ground. "Is Master Draco sick?" she asked, continuing to wring her hands.
"Yes," he replied curtly.
You have no idea how fucking sick I am.
"Jinxy will get it for Master Draco, then." She disappeared with another crack, and within minutes was back, standing before Draco with said potion in her hands. She held the bottle up to him, her eyes wide, in offering.
Draco took it gratefully, swallowing the familiar bitter brew in one long gulp. Finished, he handed the bottle back to Jinxy and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His lips were dry and chapped, and he could feel a slight tremor beginning at the tips of his fingers. "Do you know where my mother is, Jinxy?" he asked.
Jinxy blinked slowly, and Draco saw her fingers lightly grab at the pillowcase that ended at the top of her elfin thighs. "Mistress Narcissa is still in bed."
"Has she been up at all?" Draco asked, as he slowly willed himself to his knees, and then to standing. His bones cracked again, and he hurt all over. He just wanted to go back to bed, too.
"Jinxy brought her breakfast this morning, Jinxy did. Mistress ate, thanked Jinxy, then went back to bed."
Draco sighed. Things had been different in his family after the war. He had gotten away with a fairly light sentence, thanks to the Golden Trio: three months in Azkaban and two years of probation. His mother, having never been Marked, had received no sentence from the Ministry whatsoever. His father, however, had not been nearly as lucky — Lucius was in Azkaban for the rest of his natural life.
Draco didn't miss him. Not at all.
His mother, however, did. Without Lucius, Narcissa had wilted before Draco like a delicate flower starved of water and sunlight, doomed to live the rest of her life without the very thing that had given her purpose. His father had been everything to his mother, he knew. He also knew that his father very much deserved every year of his prison sentence.
His mother, however, did not.
Narcissa had lost a fair amount of weight over the past few years. Once a petite, well-fed and glowing witch, she was now bony and ghost-like as she floated through the Manor with a vacant expression and dull eyes. Draco knew she tried. She smiled at him; she tried to speak with him as if everything were normal. She tried to be Narcissa Black Malfoy: powerful, confident, unstoppable. But she wasn't. She just wasn't anymore.
But Draco wasn't himself anymore either, if he was truly being honest.
While his prison sentence had been lenient, it had still been horrible. The Dementors were gone, but he had still been treated like filth — which, he supposed, he really was — and he had been left with almost no dignity, afraid of sunlight and trembling violently when faced with open spaces and schedules not set by his captors. When he was released from prison, Narcissa had been waiting for him. She opened her arms wide and smiled a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. Draco had gone to her and allowed her to envelop him, but he had flinched at her touch and his arms hung limply at his sides.
He knew he was lucky. But truly, he didn't feel lucky.
"Is Master Draco needing anything else?" Jinxy asked.
"No, Jinxy, thank you. I'm going to go visit my mother," he replied with a smile that he did not mean.
Jinxy nodded. "Jinxy will make you sandwiches later, Master Draco!" she squeaked, and disappeared with a crack.
Apparating would have been quicker, but Draco's whole body hurt, and he felt that he needed the physical activity to relieve the aches. He trudged slowly up one set of winding stairs, and then another, before he found himself in front of his parents' — his mother's — bedroom. Draco rapped lightly at the door twice before he spoke: "Mother?"
"Come in, my darling," his mother replied in her soft, lilting voice.
With a sigh, Draco pushed open the heavy oak door and let himself into his parents' — mother's — room. "Mother, why are you still in bed?" he asked, as he closed the door behind him.
"I am feeling a bit of ennui today, Draco, my dear," she replied lightly.
You always feel ennui, Mother.
"You should get up. Come for a walk with me in the gardens. Jinxy could make us lunch," he suggested.
"The gardens are dreary now that the peacocks are gone," she replied wistfully.
The peacocks had been gone for years now.
"Jinxy has been working in the gardens on her days off. The violets are looking quite lovely."
Draco saw his mother's nose wrinkle from where she rested in the bed. "I still don't understand why you gave that creature days off," she muttered.
"I freed her, Mother. You know that. She's a free elf, and an employee of mine — ours. As such, she gets days off," Draco responded tightly. He had been ordered by the Ministry to free all the Malfoy house-elves upon his release from Azkaban, but Draco would have done it anyway. No creature deserved to be enslaved. His own enslavement to a madman had made him realise that — much too late.
Narcissa huffed. "Ridiculous, if you ask me."
"Mother, please get out of bed and come spend some time with me," Draco said, choosing to ignore her comment.
There was a long pause before Narcissa spoke again. "You can't possibly understand what it's like to lose everything," she whispered. "I do. And forgive me, but I'd like to stay in bed just a little bit longer."
I understand what it's like to lose everything. I fucking understand.
"You still have me," he whispered back.
She nodded. "Yes, I do. Without you, my dragon, I would be nothing. I'll try and join you for lunch, but for now I'd like to be alone."
Draco wanted to argue; wanted to stay, wanted to shake her. Instead, he simply nodded, and left the bedroom.
Without you, I would be nothing.
His mother did not join him for lunch, and he really had not expected her to. Instead, Jinxy had brought him a sandwich on freshly baked bread, and he had worked through lunch.
Upon his twenty-first birthday, all of Lucius' financial holdings and business dealings had fallen to Draco, who was neither prepared nor interested. Some days, Draco felt like he was barely holding his head above water. Other days, he wanted to slip below the waves and let the sea take him.
He didn't feel cut out for wheeling-and-dealing or managing investments. Truthfully, he was far more interested in the artistry of potions and charms. Financially, he felt himself to be a failure.
Always a fucking failure.
With a sigh and a bite of his sandwich, Draco once more ran through the latest report on his investments. The words swam in his head, and he threw the report aside in frustration. He hated this — hated it. He hated the numbers that jumbled in his head and the reports he didn't quite understand. He hated that all of his father's responsibilities had fallen into his lap because his father lacked the ability to simply be a decent person. He hated that he himself was no better.
He hated himself.
Draco stood from the chair and shoved everything off the desk in one dramatic sweep. "Fuck," he gasped, slamming his fists down on the now-empty surface. "Fuck." He ran a hand through his hair and collapsed back into the chair. Why was everything so hard? Why did it all have to be so bloody hard?
Narcissa convalesced in the darkness behind drawn curtains while he — he — fought. He had fought every day since that day in June, his birthday, when the Dark Lord had branded him like chattel. He fought, and he despised himself for it, but he never stopped trying —
He wanted to stop trying. He desperately, utterly, wanted to stop.
The thought knocked the air out of his lungs. "I just want it to stop," he whispered to himself. "I just want it to stop." Draco's gaze fell on the letter opener that had stubbornly refused to leave his father's desk during his outburst. Was that a sign?
It would be so, so easy.
Draco reached for the handle of the letter opener and watched as the light from the window caught the blade. He held it against the thin flesh of his wrist, just to see —
Crack.
Jinxy appeared and Draco flung the letter opener across the desk. It struck the wood with a sharp clatter before tumbling over the edge. "Jinxy!" he yelped.
"Yes, Master Draco?"
"Sorry — " Shit. "You surprised me, is all," Draco replied.
Jinxy's eyes slid across the desk, then to the floor. To the blade. "Is Master Draco all right?"
"Everything is fine, Jinxy," he replied tersely.
"Jinxy is very fond of Master Draco, and Mistress Narcissa. Jinxy would be very sad if something happened."
Draco smiled tightly. "Nothing is going to happen, Jinxy."
"If Jinxy may —?" the house-elf began.
He sighed. "I freed you, Jinxy. Of course you may."
"There is potions that can be helping Master, and Mistress," she said quietly.
Draco shook his head. "Nothing has helped me, Jinxy. And Mother refuses to take them — you know that."
"Master is good with potions — could find one!" Jinxy suggested happily. "Could always slip Mistress potions." She smiled shyly at Draco.
"I will not incur my mother's wrath like that, Jinxy. But you are a devious little thing, aren't you?" he replied with a short, genuine laugh.
"Want the best for you," she replied quietly.
"I'm doing the best I can, Jinxy."
"Jinxy knows. Master Draco is sad."
"I'll look into some potions, all right, Jinxy?" Draco said, noncommittally.
Jinxy nodded enthusiastically before grabbing his plate and apparating away.
"Jinxy, I wasn't done —" he began.
It was useless; she was already gone. Draco took in the state of his father's — his — office. Papers strewn across the floor. The blade of the letter opener glinting up at him from the ground, suggestive and patient.
He wanted to grab it. To press it against his skin, his veins —
"Stop it," he whispered to himself.
He needed to be out of this room before he did something he could not undo.
Out, out, out, his brain screamed.
Draco stumbled as he made his way to the door. He threw it open and slammed it closed behind him, sinking back against the wood on the other side. There was wetness on his face, and he realized he was crying. He wrapped his arms around his knees, buried his face between them, and muffled his sobs against the fabric of his trousers.
He wanted a drink, badly. He was sweating and unable to sleep.
But he also hated picking himself up from the kitchen floor.
He couldn't decide if the inability to sleep was worse than the shame of waking up with no memory of the night before.
The knife —
"Shut up," he whispered to himself in the dark.
I'm here, and I won't go away, his own head whispered back.
"My mother," he murmured.
She's already dead on the inside. You'd be doing her a favour. You'd be doing everyone a favour.
"It's in my head —"
They all hate you, Draco. All of them. Everyone. You are nothing.
"I know."
You should do it. You know you should. You deserve to bleed.
"Yes," he whispered. He did deserve to bleed. He wanted to.
He also wanted a drink, desperately. It would quiet the voices and the self-loathing that boiled in his blood. But dammit, he didn't want to wake up on the floor again.
Not again.
Instead, Draco sobbed into his pillow until he passed out from sheer exhaustion.
He didn't sleep long. He woke covered in a cold sweat, a nightmare about the Dark Lord still fresh and clinging. He needed a drink. He needed it to sleep, to hold the nightmares at bay.
Gods, he was so tired of himself.
It was late, so Draco didn't call Jinxy. He pulled on a pair of pyjama bottoms and quietly made his way down to the kitchens. After opening a few cabinets, he found the Firewhisky. He unscrewed the cap and took a large, greedy swig straight from the bottle.
He felt better already.
Draco sank down against the counter with the bottle in hand. Several large gulps later, he was sobbing quietly.
—
Before he even opened his eyes, he knew they hurt. Tired and crusty, stinging in the light. And he knew, without needing to look, that he was on the kitchen floor. Again.
Something inside him was so bone-weary of the whole performance.
You can't even make it to your bed? Slit your —
Mother. Never. Not while she was still here.
Cut. Hurt. Kill. You know you want to.
No. Without him, his mother would die. He knew this. He only wanted her to live. That was all he had left to want.
He pulled himself into a sitting position, bones cracking. He didn't know how he had ended up here, and he wanted to cry. He hated not remembering.
He hated so much about himself.
Draco wanted to vomit as he rose to stand. He sagged against the sink for a moment, trying to catch his balance. His head was pounding, and he felt sick, and all he wanted was to purge the poison from his veins.
Or let it finish the job.
Please. Let it finish.
He briefly considered calling for Jinxy to bring him a Pepper-Up Potion, but decided against it — he didn't need to make a habit of summoning the elf every time he found himself passed out on the floor. He had done this to himself. It was time to suffer the consequences.
Between his nausea, the pounding of his head in time with each step, and the fact that he was most certainly still a little inebriated, it took Draco longer than usual to make it back to his bedroom. When he finally arrived, he drew the curtains closed, blanketing the room in soothing darkness. He threw himself onto the thick silk comforter of his large bed, not bothering to get under the covers. He buried his face in the pillows and closed his eyes, which helped ease the pounding in his skull.
He just wanted to sleep.
When he awoke hours later, the headache had mostly dissipated and he felt mostly sober — only mostly. Still exhausted, he threw his legs over the side of the bed and brought himself to standing. He had no idea what time it was. He needed to check on his mother.
His stomach growled loudly in the dark. He needed to eat, too.
With a plan in mind, Draco made his way to his mother's room, hoping he would be able to convince her to dine with him today. He knocked once, then twice when he received no answer. After the third knock, he felt himself begin to panic, and he barged in. "Mother —" he began, but the room was empty.
The hand gripping the doorknob fell limply to his side. Where is she? "Jinxy!" he shouted.
Jinxy appeared instantly. "Master Draco?"
He could hear the shake in his own voice. "Where is my mother?"
Jinxy smiled and clapped her hands lightly. "Mistress is downstairs eating lunch! Jinxy made her lunch, she did!"
"She's downstairs?" Draco asked dumbly.
Jinxy nodded. "I'll take you to her!" she said excitedly, holding out a gnarled hand to him.
Draco had only just taken the little elf's hand before he felt the familiar tightening, wrenching sensation behind his navel. Elf apparition was slightly more pleasant than wizarding apparition, but not by much. He lost his balance as they arrived, landing with a loud thud.
Narcissa sat at the table, delicately chewing a finger sandwich as she read the paper over the reading glasses she refused to wear out of the house, no matter how poor her eyesight had become. "Mother," he said, his voice catching slightly. It had been weeks since he had seen her outside of her room.
She looked up with some surprise, primly removing her glasses. "Draco, my darling! How nice of you to join me," she said with a smile. "Please, please, have a seat!" She motioned to the chair across from her.
Draco did as she bade. "I went looking for you in your rooms. I was worried when I found them empty, Mother."
Narcissa waved a hand at him. "Nonsense, Draco. I was feeling cooped up and thought I could use a light lunch and a walk in the gardens. It has been so long since I've seen the flowers and the peacocks," she said wistfully.
Draco's heart lurched. So it was one of those days, then. "Mother," he began gently. "The peacocks?"
"Yes, my darling. The elf made some fresh bread, and I thought I could bring a little snack to Hera, Lillibeth, and Priscilla."
"Mother, they aren't here," Draco said slowly.
"Well, why ever not?" Narcissa asked hotly.
Draco sighed, unsure of what to do. He didn't want to shatter his mother's illusion and tell her the truth — that the peacocks had been donated to the Magical Zoological Park of London at the behest of the Ministry of Magic, following his and his father's arrest at the culmination of the war. At the same time, he could feel his own heart breaking as he heard his mother speak as though everything were normal.
Ultimately, he knew this would pass — it always did. Sometimes it took a few days, other times a week, and sometimes even longer, but eventually her fantasy would collapse around her and she would once more take to her bed.
He didn't want it to disappear for her just yet. These were the only times she was happy, and he couldn't bear to crush her — not again.
So Draco did what he did best; he lied: "Father's showing them in Lyon, don't you remember?"
Narcissa looked thoughtful for a moment, furrowing her brow subtly before nodding. "Yes, yes, of course," she replied absently.
He couldn't bear to look her in the eye after that. Turning his head away, he fixed his gaze out the window and onto the gardens, where three white, regal peacocks used to roam.
—
Draco didn't wake up on the kitchen floor that morning, and for that, he was grateful. He had made it through half a bottle of Ogden's before realising he had just enough alcohol in his system to sleep, but not nearly enough to cause him to blackout. He was proud of his willpower, but also deeply ashamed of himself.
But he had woken in his own bed, and that was a start, at least.
His head pounded only faintly, so he rose quickly and made his way to his bathroom, hoping that a shower would wash away the remnants of his slight hangover.
The hot water certainly helped. As he was finishing up, he turned the shower to freezing and let it wash over him in icy sheets, snapping him fully awake and offering a brief moment of reprieve as the cold numbed the skin of his face and back.
Stepping out of the shower and wrapping a cotton towel low around his thin hips, Draco stepped in front of the mirror to look at himself. He was not pleased with what he saw — which had become the usual. He was always preternaturally pale, but now his skin looked grey and dry, drained of any colour it once held. The only colour evident on his face were the dark purple crescents pooled beneath his eyes. His hair was slightly too long, and he desperately needed a shave.
With a sigh, Draco found his razor and his wand. He couldn't fix the way his skin looked or the shadows under his eyes, but at the very least he could shave. He had just lifted his wand to charm the razor when the glint of the blade caught his eye.
They'd be better off without you, it whispered. It would be so easy.
Draco immediately dropped his wand with a loud clatter. "No!" he shouted, knocking the razor to the floor. Closing his eyes, he took several deep breaths in an effort to steady himself. "No," he whispered again.
After several long moments, Draco felt calm enough to look at himself in the mirror again. He still hated what he saw, but he supposed he wouldn't look too bad with a beard. He scratched at it lightly with his fingertips. The bloody thing itched, but he supposed he'd get used to it.
Clearly, he couldn't be trusted around anything sharp.
He dressed quickly in a black wool jumper and a well-worn pair of black trousers before heading downstairs, wondering if he would find his mother casually eating breakfast without a care in the world, or if she would be back in bed, her fantasy already shattered.
Narcissa was in the same seat he had found her in yesterday, taking small bites of scrambled egg as she read The Prophet.
He watched her for a moment before joining her. Seeing her like this — it hurt. It reminded him of happier times, when his family would eat lavish meals together, laughing and talking. It reminded him of when everything was okay.
But was it ever really okay?
No, he knew it hadn't been. Between the laughs, the conversations, the hate and the prejudice had always simmered just below the surface. The man he had laughed with, the man he had loved — ultimately, he had been made only of cruelty and lies. Things had never truly been all right in the Malfoy family. Draco had simply been naïve enough, once, to believe otherwise.
Draco took a seat across from his mother. "Good morning, Mother."
"Good morning, darling," she replied, not looking up from the paper.
Draco spread a napkin across his lap as Jinxy brought him his own plate — eggs over-easy, the way she knew he liked — with buttered toast and sausage. "Thank you, Jinxy," he said quietly.
His mother looked up briefly. "You don't have to thank them, darling. They live for this."
Draco bit his tongue and nodded. "Yes, Mother." Desperate to change the subject, he asked: "What are you reading?"
Narcissa let out a brief snort. "The most audacious thing, darling. Do you remember that Muggle-born from school?"
Draco flinched. "Which one, Mother?"
She waved her small wrist in the air. "The one with all the hair. The Granger girl."
The one who testified on my behalf and kept me out of Azkaban for longer than I deserved? Yes, I quite remember. "Yes, Mother. I do remember."
"She went and got herself a Potions Mastery, and she's just opened a shop in Diagon Alley." Narcissa scoffed. "A Muggle-born, with a Mastery and a shop in Diagon Alley? Do you believe that, Draco? Always a bright little thing, though. Left school early, didn't she?"
Yes, he quite believed it. "No, Mother. How absurd. And yes, quite early," he replied.
"The Dark Lord would have something to say about that."
Draco's vision lurched, and he felt his breathing quicken. His free hand went to the underside of his chair, where he grasped the edge white-knuckled. He forced himself to chew, but he wanted to vomit. The toast soaked in egg yolk now tasted like sawdust. He swallowed with some difficulty. "I'm sure," he said quietly.
"When he comes back, it will be different, Draco," she said yearningly.
Draco's arm went instinctively to his left forearm, pressing the Dark Mark hidden beneath the sleeve of his jumper. When he comes back. His nerves spiked, and his heartbeat began to quicken until it was throbbing so painfully in his chest that he thought it might give out entirely.
When he comes back. No. No, no, no.
He had to calm down. Right now. His mother was in her happy place and he could not ruin that — especially not with this. Even if she were in her right mind, he didn't think he could speak of that. He had to breathe. Gods, his heart was hammering, and he could feel beads of sweat beginning to form at his hairline —
"Darling, are you quite all right?"
His mother's soft voice cut through the static and pulled him back to the room. "Yes, Mother," he ground out.
"You look ill, Draco," she pressed.
Draco nodded. "I do feel a bit off-kilter, Mother. If you'll excuse me, I think I'll go lie down for a bit."
Narcissa gave him a worried look. "Yes, darling, do that. I'll send the elf to check on you in a few hours."
Draco nodded as he stood — was it just him, or was the room tilting? — and pressed a light kiss to his mother's cheek.
Once he finally made it back to his room, he closed the door and allowed his pent-up panic to course through him. He was trembling violently, and any moment now he was going to stop breathing, he was sure —
Breathe.
— Deep breath. And then another, and another. He was still shaking, but the panic was mostly under control. His heart was not going to give out. And Voldemort was gone forever.
Draco dropped down onto his bed, his head in his hands. He thought of the razor, lying on the floor in his bathroom.
So easy.
Without you, I would be nothing.
No. No razor, no letter opener. None of that. His mother needed him.
His mother needed him. The family business needed him. But nobody truly needed him — not the way he wanted to be needed. Nobody cared about him. The thought crushed what was left of him. They needed his function, his presence, his usefulness. And all he wanted was out.
Well. He wanted a drink first. Then out.
Fully clothed, Draco slid under the comforter of his bed, wrapping himself in the blankets up to his chin — the way it always comforted him, the way it had when he was small.
Exhausted from the panic, Draco fell asleep quickly.
He dreamed. And in his dreams, he died.