Sweet Release

Sweet Release

“You are an absolute disappointment to the Malfoy clan, purebloods, and even the lowest of wizards!” Lucius Malfoy growled through clenched teeth as he pressed a long, pointy index finger deep into his son’s chest.

Draco was nearly the same height as his father and they looked uncannily similar as well, save their different opinions on how the Malfoy hair should be worn, but now he cowered in the presence of Lucius Malfoy. At the beginning of the hour, a mere fifteen minutes ago, he had been brimming over with spunk, edge, and fight. But his back against the wall was what mostly kept him standing now.

Lucius Malfoy winced as if the mere sight of his son caused him physical pain. Then he grabbed Draco’s upper arms, his long fingers going well around the limbs, and pushed the boy into the wall with more force than was necessary and held him there. His father simply stared at him now, though there was nothing too simple about his stare.

It was a glare. It was a challenge.

Draco stared back unblinkingly into the eyes of the man behind his existence. Cloudy gray eyes into pitch black eyes. The silence was deafening, but without warning, his father bore his full weight on him and Draco flinched.

Instantly his father, still clutching his upper arms, swung him around and threw him against the opposite wall. Draco hit it hard, his left shoulder cushioning the blow from the wall. He felt himself sliding down the wall and begged his legs to bare with him a little while longer. They did, but his father swiped at him with a long, stiff arm and Draco tumbled to the floor.

He quickly turned over and half lay on the floor, propped up by his elbows. Draco was breathing hard and he tried to control it—he had to breathe, of course—but the sudden necessity for air was overwhelming. Nostrils flared, he eyed the man he called Father. He didn’t know if his eyes were wide with horror for the man or bulging from the anger he felt for him.

Then his father spit in his direction. “Get up,” he ordered.

Draco scrambled to his feet but before he was fully standing, his father grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, opened the door to his room with a swish of his wand and threw Draco in. Draco looked at his father from the floor again, now with disgusted horror.

Lucius Malfoy swirled his wand away from the door and it closed with a click. He was locked in. “I don’t want to see you anymore.”

Draco groaned internally, silently cursing his weakness and his father. He held his breath until his father’s receding footsteps were completely gone.

The fair-headed boy turned on his hands and knees now and crawled to a space beneath the only window of his room.

Eleven candles dimly lit the room, though with the translucent boy there, it seemed like twelve. The walls were covered in an impenetrable, sticky black color as were the curtains, sheets, rugs, floorboards, and ceiling tiles.

Breathing normally again, he balled his hands into fists and got up, using the windowsill for support. He looked outside, but there was nothing to see. The Malfoy Estate stretched for miles and for every charm cast around it was an equally worse curse cast with it. He touched the glass with the fingertips of his trembling left hand, but quickly drew them away at the stark shiver the cold beyond the window sent up his veins. He stared at the foggy, almost dreamy, gray world outside his room, and suddenly, he felt very distant.

Distant from nothing in particular—just distant from everything.

He used the back of his hand to brush away the hair that skimmed the tops of his brows, but the moment he removed his hand, the silvery-white strands fell back into place and he noticed he was covered in a thin film of cold sweat. He slowly peeled his shirt off, wincing slightly as he raised his arms to get it over his head.

Draco twisted his neck around to see the enormous, darkening handprints imprinted onto his arms. He reached into his back pocket for his wand, muttered something under his breath, and waited as the bruise marks vanished.

They were still there—scars never really disappear, but no one else could see them now.

Suddenly, his stomach seemed to flip over and he plunged into an invisible, ice-cold pool of guilt.

He was the absolute worst kind of person. He not only wore a mask over his face, but with such spells and enchantments endowed to him, it was like he wore a hideous costume as well, yet people didn’t even notice.

It was like people didn’t even notice him.

His father’s words echoed through is head.

“I don’t want to see you anymore.”

The row with his father today had been nothing compared to the other times. And like the other times, he wasn’t exactly sure what he had done to deserve being thrown about the walls. He wasn’t ever sure of anything anymore. He remembered his father had slapped him when he’d made it onto the Slytherin Quidditch team his second year at school. Then, he’d whimpered and his hand had gone straight to the reddening skin on his cheek and his father had laughed at that and dismissed him without an explanation.

Within the past month, the annoying and indispensable Harry Potter had beaten him twice in Quidditch. School rankings had been posted up and he was second, again, to everyone’s favorite Mudblood. Ron Weasley had flushed his Prefect badge down the toilet of Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom; of all houses, Hufflepuff was beating Slytherin in the run for the House Cup and his father had discovered he hadn’t been reading the Dark Arts texts he’d been given two months ago.

He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. He breathed in deeply, once, then twice, then almost a third time—but overtaken by anger and rage, he balled his left hand into a fist so tightly that his nails dug into the skin of his palm. Then he whirled around and roared as he punched the window, an action that scattered tiny pieces of glass everywhere—some which struck Draco’s naked chest. He looked down at tiny wounds about his torso and the random flecks of blood.

He realized his hand was still clenched and when he finally let his fingers relax, he gave a slight gasp at the sting he felt. His left hand had two pieces of glass sticking into the skin between two knuckles. He brought his hand up to his face, forcing all the fingers to extend out straight as trails of blood dripped down his hand and arm. Then he turned it over and looked at his palm, still clear save four crescent-shaped wounds.

Unexpectedly, he felt a shiver. With an intake of breath, he saw the relatively small hole he had made in the once smooth glass. The rough edges of the glass were red with his blood, but the hole was there, nonetheless. Like a caged animal, Draco’s heartbeat quickened at the thought of escape. Unthinkingly, he placed his hand in the hole he had created and began pulling at the glass, not wincing once as the jagged sides of the broken window sank into his palm.

All of the sudden, the window began repairing itself. He used both his hands now, desperately trying to pry glass out of the window, but every time Draco pulled out a new section of glass, the window would magically repair two other damaged portions and eventually, the window was in one piece again.

Exhausted and out of breath, he put his bare back to the wall and slid down it to sit on the floor, his long legs outstretched before him. He caught his breath again and ran a bloody hand through his hair, leaving red streaks through his pure platinum locks. I can lay my body down, he thought, but I can’t find my sweet release.

He glanced at his wand that had fallen to the floor, a hand’s length away. He grabbed it, pulled his knees to his chest, looked at the simple wooden stick one last time before putting it against his right knee and snapping it in two.

Immediately, he felt a tingle run through him and he looked at his arms, a couple spots along his sides, and he felt more than a few portions of his legs come uncovered—all the scars, the bruises, the marks—he could see them all now.

Then, slowly, he spotted a piece of glass on the floor next to him. He took it in his hands, trembling—they were always trembling—and touched it to the wrist of his left hand. He took a deep breath, but he was decided. In one swift motion he slit his wrist vertically—up the veins, and wasn’t able to muffle the cry from his mouth. The wound was half as long as his arm and had begun pulsating already.

His face was screwed up with pain and he’d occasionally cough. He looked up at the ceiling now, but it was hard to tell where the walls ended and the ceiling started. His vision was getting blurry—watery? He coughed some more and everywhere his eyes darted began to look wavy and obscure and he felt sick to his stomach. He closed his eyes now—he hoped not to open them again.

This was his sweet release. He would finally be freed from…everything.

The pain suddenly became unbearable and he cried out. He turned over and balanced on his knees and one hand whilst the other hand—the one with the slit wrist, clutched at where he felt his heart was. He could feel it burning, the pain—he felt as though he was coughing up his soul… but it would all end soon.

All he could do now was wait.

The burden of staying up had become enervating and he involuntarily fell over, knocking over a small table and its contents onto the floor with him.

He’d opened his eyes.

Taking slow, shaky gasps of air, he observed the items around him—anything to take his mind off—anything to take his mind off this.

The last things he’d ever see were nothing special. There was his Prefect badge—the bloody thing seemed to be cursed, appearing every time he didn’t need it and disappearing every time he’d wanted it. Then there was a hairbrush, a fake earring, and an expensive pocketknife he’d snitched from some unknowing fool. He put his hand over the leather hilt of the knife and slid it close to him. He held it to his chest and before he could do anything with it, a flash of silver played at the corner of his eye. He turned his head slightly to see what it was.

A watch.

It looked like an ordinary Muggle watch, but the watchmaker had enchanted it so that it could be worn safely around Muggles as well. Draco stared entranced at the seconds-hand as it made thirteen full cycles around the face of the instrument before he gave a few consecutive raspy breaths which spurred into action a coughing fit which, in due time, caused him to move more than he’d ever intended to.

He wailed in anguish. He wailed in fury. He wailed in pain. He wailed in regret. He wailed in—

The door to his room swung open rashly. It was his mother. She’d probably heard him and come to see what had happened, but now she stared down at her son—her son, drenched in blood—drenched in his own blood.

“Draco! Oh, Gods, dear boy! Lucius!” she called, already in tears. “My son!” His mother ran, tripping over herself to get to her son’s side as quickly as she could.

No, he tried to tell her. Don’t do this to me, he’d wanted to say.

But it was too late.

Gripping the hilt of the knife with all the force he had left, he set the tip over his heart and just as his mother landed next to him, he pushed the blade into his body. Once the metal had completely disappeared, he gritted his teeth and twisted the knife.

He could’ve twisted it again and again. It didn’t matter. He could hardly feel it. The pain was almost gone. Forever.

His surroundings slowly became blurrier and soon, objects began melting into one another; all he could see was a mess of colors and all he could hear was his mother’s screaming and weeping…but he muted that out. He would not spend the last seconds of his life acting like Harry Potter.

His sweet release… it was coming… so close. He only had seconds now. He would definitely close his eyes now—the thought of his dead shell staring at his mother with bug-eyes was disturbing. Just as his eyelids closed, he saw one last thing— a patch of bright light.

No… it wasn’t light—it was his father.

Draco narrowed his eyes and tried to distinguish what his father’s face looked like, but all he could make out was a pair of furrowed brows and a frown.

Without warning, all the colors became lighter and lighter until everything finally became a blinding white and then…

Black.

…Black?

Draco blinked.

What was going on? Where was he?

His mother was nowhere in sight and he couldn’t even feel his father’s presence.

He strained his ears for any noises. Moments of silence passed and then he heard something.

Crickets chirping?

He didn’t realize he had been holding his breath until he finally let it out. He abruptly sat up, the sheets sliding off his bare chest, and immediately brought his wrist to his face then looked down at his torso.

Nothing. There were no marks, though he felt a chilling burn where his fatal wounds had supposedly been.

Draco finally looked past the bed and into the room—he was at Hogwarts?

Had it all been a dream?

The fair-headed boy huffed, resettled under the covers and prepared to go back to sleep, but when he turned on his shoulder, he winced.

He twisted his neck around to look at his arm and found an enormous, black handprint on it—his father’s handprint. The other arm had the same.

Because scars never really disappear.