Fic: In Dreams It Creeps | Draco Malfoy | PG-13
Title: In Dreams It Creeps
Characters: Draco Malfoy, Bellatrix Lestrange, Voldemort
Words: ~1000
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Some disturbing imagery. Not that bad, really.
Author's Note: Well, once upon a time I thought I could complete a DracoBigBang. I was wrong. xD I got about 1500 words in and declared myself DOOMED. But in the interest of not letting it go to waste, I thought I'd post some of it as a one-shot. There's more to this but it just kinda drags along so I cut it for a tidier reading experience. Hope you like!
He couldn't move. Couldn't breath. Couldn't think.
There was only panic. And terror. Wave after wave crashing into him, wrenching his muscles as they tried to tremble and were denied. Even breathing came with hard deliberation, his lungs unable to expand fully by the locked muscles of his chest. What air he took in was in sharp erratic breaths, a half-step below hyperventilation.
Through the haze, he heard a husky laugh, frayed around the edges by years of screaming and madness. A sound so familiar and horrible that he was sure it would follow him in his dreams. It sounded like family.
Aunt Bellatrix stood behind him, out of his vision but close enough to feel. She crouched down to rest her chin on his shoulder, the point digging in painfully, and crooned vicious sweet nothings in his ear. A master of small tortures, under her caring ministrations even a simple Full-Body Bind could become an agony, holding not only your limbs in place but conceivably your heart or lungs. It was an unspoken warning, a friendly reminder that his situation could be infinitely worse.
The proof of which rotated in a lazy fashion above him. An unidentifiable corpse drifted over head, an ominous reminder of what happened to those that disobeyed.
There was something familiar about it, he'd seen its like before. He'd seen this all before. If he could just breathe, he would understand.
Sucking in wisps of oxygen through clenched teeth, he tried to take stock of his situation.
This was his father's study, the one that the Dark Lord had taken over. He was at the meeting table--formerly the second dining table that had collected dust in the attic. On the edges of his peripheral vision he could see Death Eaters on either side watching him. Certainly it was with carefully detached interest, waiting to see how events unfolded and to react accordingly.
Draco hated them and hated them even more knowing that he'd do the same in their place.
Opposite him, in his father's chair, sat the Dark Lord.
Voldemort had remained silent, only observing, watching the interplay between his most faithful and her erstwhile kin with an air of congenial malevolence.
"Young Mister Malfoy," he finally tutted, his tone chillingly pleasant. "I admit that this was never my plan for your illustrious family but you understand that such questionable loyalty can not be allowed."
Without any help from Aunt Bella, his heart stopped.
They'd been found out. The thin clipped words that Father had whispered to him, his mother's planning; it was going to get them all killed.
He watched the figure--the body--spin slowly. It drifted towards him, the dangling cornsilk hair brushed his cheek. Involuntarily, he tried to jerk away. The hex held fast.
The Dark Lord continued, "To think, Draco, if only you'd been able to complete your task none of it would have fallen to this."
The body--still so very close--spun, finally revealing its face--glassy-eyed and pale.
For a moment, the shock overrode the hex and he rocked the chair fractionally.
His mother's horror-struck face stared at him.
And then Draco Malfoy woke up.
Lying in tangled bedsheets and staring at the canopy above him, Draco concentrated on evening his breathing with deep slow breaths.
Inhale for five, hold for five, exhale for five.
The dreams weren't fading. Every night, he closed his eyes and was transported to that room, that moment. Details varied. Only Bellatrix or only Voldemort. The Cruciatus or Imperius. His father rather than his mother. Once, Pansy had looked at him with those cloudy eyes.
Inhale for five, hold for five, exhale for five.
They were but a dozen variations on a theme, each one just as horrifying as the next and just waiting for him to close his eyes to appear.
Draco rarely slept peacefully.
Inhale for five, hold for five, exhale for five.
Pre-dawn light seeped through the curtains, illuminating the embroidered brocade pattern in shades of grey. It would be hours still before the household stirred and Draco was wide-awake, not even a spare hope for sleep left in him.
To pass the time he searched for images in the loops and swirls but his imagination twisted them all; a body here, a demonic face there.
Anger and fear raged in him at the idea that something months ago still affected him. It was past, it didn't matter. And the past should know better than to continue bothering him.
Even if the past was Professor Burbage's limp hanging form or Loony Lovegood's shaking frame behind bars. Katie Bell unmoving in an infirmary bed, paler than her sheets. Madame Rosmerta's trembling hands.
It was past. He needed to move forward.
Time passed and he began to discern hues in the canopy, his signal that it was time to rise. With a deep sigh, he sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed, sliding into slippers before padding to the bath, beginning to run the water. If he'd slept another hour the house elves would have had one waiting for him.
He avoided looking in the mirror while he brushed his teeth, too aware of what would be reflected back at him: sleepless eyes, dull hair, sallow skin, and an already pointed face made gaunt by a small appetite. Mother told him that he looked like a ghost. He'd told her that he'd work on it.
When he sank into the bath, he hissed at the heat which was just this side of uncomfortable. It was exactly what he wanted. The sharp heat pushed thoughts of dreams from his mind, focusing him in the present and allowed him to cover the wounds that had been scrapped raw again in the night. It was the first step in rebuilding the Draco Malfoy of old, that cocky, sneering, prince of Slytherin that he hadn't been since his sixteenth year.
That Draco Malfoy was nothing but a convenient mask, an illusion.
But who he was now, what lay beneath the mask, that was a mystery even to him.
Maybe he was just a collection of dreams.
Characters: Draco Malfoy, Bellatrix Lestrange, Voldemort
Words: ~1000
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Some disturbing imagery. Not that bad, really.
Author's Note: Well, once upon a time I thought I could complete a DracoBigBang. I was wrong. xD I got about 1500 words in and declared myself DOOMED. But in the interest of not letting it go to waste, I thought I'd post some of it as a one-shot. There's more to this but it just kinda drags along so I cut it for a tidier reading experience. Hope you like!
He couldn't move. Couldn't breath. Couldn't think.
There was only panic. And terror. Wave after wave crashing into him, wrenching his muscles as they tried to tremble and were denied. Even breathing came with hard deliberation, his lungs unable to expand fully by the locked muscles of his chest. What air he took in was in sharp erratic breaths, a half-step below hyperventilation.
Through the haze, he heard a husky laugh, frayed around the edges by years of screaming and madness. A sound so familiar and horrible that he was sure it would follow him in his dreams. It sounded like family.
Aunt Bellatrix stood behind him, out of his vision but close enough to feel. She crouched down to rest her chin on his shoulder, the point digging in painfully, and crooned vicious sweet nothings in his ear. A master of small tortures, under her caring ministrations even a simple Full-Body Bind could become an agony, holding not only your limbs in place but conceivably your heart or lungs. It was an unspoken warning, a friendly reminder that his situation could be infinitely worse.
The proof of which rotated in a lazy fashion above him. An unidentifiable corpse drifted over head, an ominous reminder of what happened to those that disobeyed.
There was something familiar about it, he'd seen its like before. He'd seen this all before. If he could just breathe, he would understand.
Sucking in wisps of oxygen through clenched teeth, he tried to take stock of his situation.
This was his father's study, the one that the Dark Lord had taken over. He was at the meeting table--formerly the second dining table that had collected dust in the attic. On the edges of his peripheral vision he could see Death Eaters on either side watching him. Certainly it was with carefully detached interest, waiting to see how events unfolded and to react accordingly.
Draco hated them and hated them even more knowing that he'd do the same in their place.
Opposite him, in his father's chair, sat the Dark Lord.
Voldemort had remained silent, only observing, watching the interplay between his most faithful and her erstwhile kin with an air of congenial malevolence.
"Young Mister Malfoy," he finally tutted, his tone chillingly pleasant. "I admit that this was never my plan for your illustrious family but you understand that such questionable loyalty can not be allowed."
Without any help from Aunt Bella, his heart stopped.
They'd been found out. The thin clipped words that Father had whispered to him, his mother's planning; it was going to get them all killed.
He watched the figure--the body--spin slowly. It drifted towards him, the dangling cornsilk hair brushed his cheek. Involuntarily, he tried to jerk away. The hex held fast.
The Dark Lord continued, "To think, Draco, if only you'd been able to complete your task none of it would have fallen to this."
The body--still so very close--spun, finally revealing its face--glassy-eyed and pale.
For a moment, the shock overrode the hex and he rocked the chair fractionally.
His mother's horror-struck face stared at him.
And then Draco Malfoy woke up.
Lying in tangled bedsheets and staring at the canopy above him, Draco concentrated on evening his breathing with deep slow breaths.
Inhale for five, hold for five, exhale for five.
The dreams weren't fading. Every night, he closed his eyes and was transported to that room, that moment. Details varied. Only Bellatrix or only Voldemort. The Cruciatus or Imperius. His father rather than his mother. Once, Pansy had looked at him with those cloudy eyes.
Inhale for five, hold for five, exhale for five.
They were but a dozen variations on a theme, each one just as horrifying as the next and just waiting for him to close his eyes to appear.
Draco rarely slept peacefully.
Inhale for five, hold for five, exhale for five.
Pre-dawn light seeped through the curtains, illuminating the embroidered brocade pattern in shades of grey. It would be hours still before the household stirred and Draco was wide-awake, not even a spare hope for sleep left in him.
To pass the time he searched for images in the loops and swirls but his imagination twisted them all; a body here, a demonic face there.
Anger and fear raged in him at the idea that something months ago still affected him. It was past, it didn't matter. And the past should know better than to continue bothering him.
Even if the past was Professor Burbage's limp hanging form or Loony Lovegood's shaking frame behind bars. Katie Bell unmoving in an infirmary bed, paler than her sheets. Madame Rosmerta's trembling hands.
It was past. He needed to move forward.
Time passed and he began to discern hues in the canopy, his signal that it was time to rise. With a deep sigh, he sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed, sliding into slippers before padding to the bath, beginning to run the water. If he'd slept another hour the house elves would have had one waiting for him.
He avoided looking in the mirror while he brushed his teeth, too aware of what would be reflected back at him: sleepless eyes, dull hair, sallow skin, and an already pointed face made gaunt by a small appetite. Mother told him that he looked like a ghost. He'd told her that he'd work on it.
When he sank into the bath, he hissed at the heat which was just this side of uncomfortable. It was exactly what he wanted. The sharp heat pushed thoughts of dreams from his mind, focusing him in the present and allowed him to cover the wounds that had been scrapped raw again in the night. It was the first step in rebuilding the Draco Malfoy of old, that cocky, sneering, prince of Slytherin that he hadn't been since his sixteenth year.
That Draco Malfoy was nothing but a convenient mask, an illusion.
But who he was now, what lay beneath the mask, that was a mystery even to him.
Maybe he was just a collection of dreams.