A/N: Please mind your triggers, as we'll be dealing with depression, alcohol abuse, suicidal ideation, self-harm, and just a sprinkle of panic disorder. That being said, I promise I won't hurt you too badly.
Some comments and review would be nice.
2001
Draco awoke suddenly, his eyes flying open as he was jolted into consciousness. Immediately, he realized 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 regular posture. Blinded slightly by the bright light slipping through the window in the kitchen, Draco groaned inwardly. The last thing he remembered was asking Jinxy for some firewhiskey 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 pop. "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 potion in my bathroom, do you think you could 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.
"I will get for Master Draco, then." Jinxy disappeared with another pop, 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 tremble 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. Draco 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 all water and sunlight, doomed to live the rest of her life without the very thing that gave her purpose to begin with. His father had been everything to his mother, he knew. He also knew that his father very much deserved every year that was his prison sentence.
His mother, however, did not.
Narcissa had lost a fair amount of weight over the past few years. Once a petite, but 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 was 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 as he was 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 to him 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.
Draco knew he was lucky, he knew. 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 popped away.
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 parent's—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 ennui today, Draco, my dear," she replied lightly.
You always feel ennui, Mother.
"You should get up, Mother. 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 anyways. No creature deserved to be enslaved. His own enslavement to a madman had made him realize 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 21st 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, Draco wanted to slip below the waves and let the sea take him.
Draco didn't feel as if he was cut out for wheeling-and-dealing, or managing investments. Truthfully, he was more interested in the artistry of potions and of 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 away in frustration. He hated this—hated it. He hated the numbers that jumbled in his head, and the reports that 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 just be a good person. He hated that he himself was not a good person.
He hated himself.
Draco stood from the chair and pushed everything off the desk in one dramatic push. "Fuck," he gasped, slamming his fists down on the now-empty desk. "Fuck." He ran a hand through his hair and collapsed back into the chair. Why was everything hard? Why did everything have to be so hard?
Narcissa convalesced in the darkness of the bedroom with the 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 hated himself, but he never stopped trying—
He wanted to stop trying. He desperately just 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 eyed 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 opened and watched as the light from the window reflected off the blade. Two cuts and it's over. He held the blade of the opener against the thin flesh of his wrist, just as a test, just to see—
Crack
Jinxy appeared and Draco threw the letter opener across the desk. It slammed briefly onto the wood before it tumbled 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 floor. To the knife. "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 chuckle.
"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 on the floor, the knife shining up at him suggestively. He wanted to grab it, take it, slide it over his skin, his veins—
"Stop it," he whispered to himself.
He needed to be out of this room before he grabbed the knife and—
He needed out.
Out, out, out, his brain screamed.
Draco stumbled as he made his way to the door. He threw it open and slammed it closed, sinking back against it on the other side. There was wetness on his face, and he realized he was crying. He wrapped his arms around his knees, burying his face in between them, muffling his cries.
Draco wanted a drink, badly. He was sweating, and unable to sleep.
But he also hated picking himself up from the kitchen floor.
He hated himself.
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 head whispered back to him.
"My mother," he murmured.
She's already dead on the inside. You'd be doing her a favor. You'd be doing everyone a favor.
"It's in my head—"
They all hate you, Draco. All of them. Everyone. You are garbage.
"I know, I know."
You should, you know. You deserve to bleed.
"Yes," he whispered. He did deserve to bleed. He deserved to die. And he wanted to.
He wanted a drink desperately. It would quiet the voices in his head and the self-hatred 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 up covered in a cold sweat, a nightmare about the Dark Lord still fresh in his mind. He needed a drink. He needed a drink to sleep, to keep the nightmares elsewhere.
Gods, he hated himself.
It was late, so Draco didn't call Jinxy. He pulled on a set of pajama bottoms and quietly made his way to the kitchens. After opening a few cabinets, he found the firewhiskey. He hurriedly unscrewed the cap and took a large swig right out of the bottle.
He felt better already.
Draco sank down against the counter with the bottle of firewhiskey in hand. Several large gulps later, and he was sobbing quietly.
Before he even opened his eyes, he knew they hurt. They were tired and crusty, and he knew he was on the kitchen floor. Again.
He hated himself.
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 wanted.
He pulled himself into a sitting position, his bones cracking in protestation. He didn't know how he had ended up here and he wanted to cry. He hated not remembering.
He hated 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 get rid of the poison in his veins.
Or let it kill him.
Please, let it kill me.
As he dragged himself off of the floor, Draco briefly considered calling for Jinxy to bring him a Pepper-up potion, but then decided against it—he did not need to make a habit of calling the elf when he found himself passed out on the floor. He wished that wasn't a habit either. Besides, he had done this to himself and now 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 bit inebriated, it took Draco longer than normal to make it back to his bedroom. When he had finally made it, he drew the curtains closed, blanketing the room in soothing blackness. Draco threw himself onto the thick silk comforter of his large bed, not even bothering to get under the covers. Burying his head in the lush pillows, Draco closed his eyes, which helped easing the pounding of his skull.
He just wanted to sleep.
When he awoke hours later, the headache had mostly dissipated, and he felt mostly sober. He was still exhausted, however, as he threw his legs over the side of his bed and brought himself to standing. He had no idea what time it was, and he needed to check on his mother.
Draco's 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 that he would be able to get her to dine with him today. He knocked on the door once, and then twice when he received no answer. After the third knock, Draco felt himself begin to panic, and he barged into the room. "Mother—" he began to call out, 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?"
Draco could hear his voice shake as he spoke, "Where is my mother?"
Jinxy smiled at him and clapped her hands lightly. "Mistress is downstairs eating lunch! Jinxy made her lunch, she did!"
"She's downstairs?" Draco asked dumbly.
Jinxy nodded again. "I'll take you to hers!" she said excitedly, holding out a gnarled hand to him.
Draco had only briefly grabbed the little elf's hand before he felt the tightening, wrenching spiral behind his belly button. Elf apparition was slightly more than pleasant than wizarding apparition, but not by much. Draco lost his balance as they arrived, landing with a loud thud.
Narcissa sat at the table, delicately chewing a finger sandwich as she read a newspaper over the reading glasses she refused to wear out of the house, no matter how poor her eyesight was. "Mother," he spoke, questioningly. It had been weeks since he had seen her outside of her room.
She looked up at with some surprise, primly removing her reading 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 seat across from her.
Draco did as she bade and took the seat. "I went looking for you in your rooms. I was worried when I found them empty, Mother."
Narcissa waved her 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 a long time 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 break his mother's heart and tell her the truth: the peacocks had been donated to The Magical Zoological Park of London at the behest of The Ministry of Magic upon his and his father's arrest at the culmination at the war. At the same time, though, Draco could feel his own heart breaking as he heard his mother speak as if everything was normal—like everything was just okay.
Ultimately, Draco knew that 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.
Draco didn't want the fantasy to disappear for her just yet. These were the only times she was happy, he knew, 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 on 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 realizing 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 the least.
His head pounded only faintly this morning, so he rose quickly and made his way to his bathroom, hoping that a shower would wash the rest of his slight hangover away.
The hot water certainly helped, and as he was finishing up his shower, he turned the water to freezing and let it wash over him in icy droves, fully waking him and allowing a moment of reprieve from feeling as the water numbed 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 Draco noticed that his skin looked gray and dry, having lost any amount of color it once contained. The only color evident on his face were the dark purple crescents pillowed 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 bags under his eyes, but at the very least he could shave. He had just lifted his wand to charm the razor to shave him, when the glint caught his eye.
They'd be better off without you, it whispered. It would be 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 calm himself. "No," he whispered.
After several moments, Draco felt calm enough to look at himself in the mirror again. He still hated what he saw there, but he supposed he wouldn't look too bad with a beard. Draco scratched at it lightly with his fingertips. The bloody thing itched a bit, but he supposed he'd get used to it.
Clearly, he couldn't be around anything sharp.
He dressed quickly in a black wool jumper and a well-worn pair of black trousers before he headed 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.
Draco 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 simmered just below the surface. The man he had laughed with, the man he had loved—ultimately, he was made only of hate and lies. Things had never been all right in the Malfoy family, not really. Draco had once just been naïve enough 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 of eggs—over-easy, the way Jinxy knew he liked—and buttered toast and sausage. "Thank you, Jinxy," he said quietly to the elf.
His mother looked up at him 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 Mudblood 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 that testified for me and saved me from a longer stint in Azkaban? Yes, I quite remember, he wanted to say. Instead: "Yes, Mother. I do remember."
"She went and got herself a Potioneering Master's and she just opened a shop in Diagon Alley. A Mudblood, with a Master's and a shop in Diagon Alley? Do you believe that, Draco?" Narcissa scoffed. "Always a bright little thing, though. Left school early, didn't she?"
Yes, he did believe. He quite believed it. "No, Mother. How absurd. And yes, quite early," he lied.
"The Dark Lord would have something to say about that."
Draco's vision lurched and felt his breathing quicken. His free hand went the bottom of his chair, where he grasped its 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 instinctively went to his left arm, touching the Mark where it was hidden beneath the sleeve of his jumper. When he comes back. His nerves bubbled, and his heartbeat began to quicken until it was throbbing so painfully in his chest, he thought it was about to explode.
When he comes back. No, no, no.
Calm down. He had to calm down, right now. His mother was in her happy place and he could not ruin that right now—especially not with that. Even if she was in her right mind, he didn't think he could talk about that. He had to breathe. Gods, his heart was beating so fast, and he could feel beads of sweat beginning to form at his hairline—
"Darling, are you quite all right?"
With his thoughts erratic and threatening to fly away from him, his mother's soft voice pulled him back towards the ground. "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 world tilting?—and he pressed a light kiss to his mother's cheek.
Once he had 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 he mostly had the panic under control. His heart was not going to explode, and the Dark L—Voldemort was gone forever.
Draco dropped down onto his bed, his head in his hands. He thought of the razor, 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 needed him. Nobody cared about him. The thought crushed him. They all needed him, and he just wanted out.
Well, he wanted a drink first. Then, he wanted 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.
Exhausted from his panic, Draco fell asleep quickly.
He dreamed then. And in his dreams, he died.