HP -- Perchance to Dream V: Earth
Title: Perchance to Dream
Chapter: 5. Earth
Fandom: Harry Potter
Character: Draco Malfoy
Rating: R
Word Count: 1,664
Warnings: suicide, language, violence, a bizarre sense of humor
Summary: Chronicling the annual suicide attempts of one Draco A. Malfoy, failure.
Author's Note: I have nothing to say to you. Uh. About this chapter.
V - EARTH
Tilling my own grave to keep me level
Jam another dragon down the hole
Digging to the rhythm and the echo of a solitary siren
One who pushes me along and leaves me so
Desperate and ravenous
So weak and powerless
Over you
- “Weak and Powerless” - A Perfect Circle -
It was Draco Malfoy’s twenty-ninth birthday, and he was trying to kill himself.
Well, he was working on it, at least.
Slowly, slowly, he delved his hands into the soil, curling his fingers. It yielded, gave, admitted him; cool and rich and kind; so gentle, hesitantly painting dark streaks on his skin.
He was possessed, suddenly and irrationally but too completely to ignore, by the urge to smear it on his face like war-paint. To mark himself. To clarify.
Moist clumps trickled through his fingers, raining lightly on their brethren below. It was wet. Welcoming. Primordial. There was a simplicity inherent in it, and an ancient authority carried by all it produced.
Slowly, slowly, tenderly and meticulously, Draco moved around his tiny plot, easing plants from their earthen nests. He had chosen this apartment specifically for this reason-for the tiny gardens, tightly enclosed by white picket fences, that sprawled in all their cramped, miniature glory over the expanses of the roof. He had nurtured his like a child, like a pet, like a lover, with a single-minded sincerity and a whisper of desperation that unnerved the little old ladies in their multicolored gloves. He just loves gardening, they murmured to each other. Like a phoenix loves a flame.
There was something clean about dirt. It was paradoxical, and it was enchanting.
I just love gardening, he thought. Like a drunkard loves a tall glass.
He arranged his Earth-given acquisitions in a charming(ly stupid) wicker basket, took it in hand, and started down the stairs. Twenty-nine was big. Twenty-nine was significant. It was the cusp of the next decade, of the three that haunted Christian theology and old magical mythology alike. It was the ushering in of the trinity, of the triumvirate, of the… truth?
Fat chance of that.
Humming “Funeral March of a Marionette,” Draco proceeded down to the third floor, unlocked the door to his apartment with muddy hands, and conjured some bluebell flames beneath his waiting cauldron. From there, it was only a matter of following the instructions laid out on the crumbling pages of the old Potions book.
He’d always been good at Potions. It had been one of his few triumphs in school, and it was one of his few refuges now. For a boy who’d sat sucking on a silver spoon for the duration of his childhood, he was remarkably good at crafting things. At putting things together to make something new. Everything had a purpose and a place, and when you obeyed the directions set out before you, it all came together perfectly.
If only life were so simple, right?
Draco Malfoy had obeyed the behests of others for a very long time-his mother’s, his father’s, the simple and general family dictates of honor and purity and nobility. He’d bowed to them, committed himself to them, given himself to them, heart and soul and mind and form, even when he knew at his core that they were wrong.
He was very good at following directions.
Snape (Draco hadn’t even been able to think of him as Severus until many years later, when he had both feet firmly planted in adulthood; a first name made the man seem drastically human and horribly real) had looked over one shoulder at him, coldly.
“When they come,” he said, “you will run.”
Draco had been wearing a Head Boy badge and a broad smirk. A few of the pebbles of his vast confidence had slipped loose, tumbling down the mountainside, and he’d feared that the boulders would follow.
“Why?” he’d asked.
It was laughable now, yes, but then, with the war and the world spread out before him, he’d wanted to fight.
“Because you are the last of the Malfoys,” Snape had responded calmly, “and we’d rather you not die.”
The word carried no weight then. It was letters, that was all-marks on a page. Die. As if it was possible. Dying happened to other people, like cancer and herpes and Squibs. Not to him. Not to the convergence of the Malfoys and the Blacks. Not to the hero’s foil.
“I’m not running,” he’d declared, standing up straighter, taller, putting his chest out.
Snape had sat down, heavily, in an overstuffed emerald fauteuil. He had put his elbow on the armrest and dropped his head into his hand.
A considerable portion of Draco’s composure had shattered in the face of the realization that Severus Snape was many things he hadn’t known-old, weak, fallible, and, mostly, just so damn tired.
“Then you’re an idiot,” Snape had concluded.
It certainly wasn’t the first time Draco Malfoy had heard it, but this one hit like a meteorite and stuck.
Draco selected one of the plants he’d grown himself, with his two hands and a bit of help from Ma Nature-one of the many things he’d buried there, offered her, only to take it back when it had changed into something else entirely.
The whole process kind of reminded him of zombies.
And just of graves in general.
He’d been to the cemetery more than a few times. Once every few years or so. He had used to worry about encountering his mother there until he’d figured out the infinitesimal nature of the odds. His mother wouldn’t come, because she wouldn’t want to remember.
When they found him and identified him, he did wonder if she’d stick him in the family plot. They’d put everyone else there, even the ones they’d claimed to have condemned. Eventually, it seemed, everybody with a claim to the bloodline ended up in the Black plot, mourned by stone angels warmer than the survivors.
He’d run into Andromeda once-with little Teddy in tow. He’d almost died, though he hadn’t been sure what of.
But she’d ignored him, as she had ignored Teddy’s carrying whisper asking who he was.
The question was, if you relinquished your claim at the most basic level-by trying to extinguish your own existence-did you still belong among those who had clung to the bloodline and defended it to the death?
Draco was fairly sure that he, in particular, didn’t belong anywhere.
He hadn’t partaken in the division of the remaining wealth; he hadn’t helped to craft the epitaphs; he hadn’t spent a moment more in the house than had proved necessary to collect his things and leave. He hadn’t said goodbye, and he hadn’t managed to care.
It was hard to care about much of anything when you knew you’d killed Remus Lupin.
Yeah, he was going straight to hell. Do not pass “Go,” do not collect two hundred dollars.
It hadn’t even been his fault; they’d been in this pulsing fray, in the thick of things, with people everywhere, and he’d aimed for some dumb bitch Auror with nothing to live for, but she’d moved, and Remus had looked right at him, right into his eyes, and then-
It had been his fault. Denying it was an insult to the man who’d died for it.
Somehow a thousand sleepless nights didn’t seem sufficient to pay the debt. They’d been related, even-by law, but law was enough, wasn’t it? More than enough. Kith and kin cut down on the work of a moment.
Less than kind.
There might have been some small consolation to be found in the fact that he’d mourned Lupin more than he had his own father, but he felt greedy reaching for it.
Reaching. If that wasn’t the truth. Reaching always, never to grasp, and hold, and own.
He ground one of his dry herbs with the old-fashioned mortar and pestle he’d rustled up. There was something very genuine about the effort it required.
When his liquid masterpiece had simmered happily for fifteen minutes, he put out the flames, gave it ample time to cool, and poured himself a mug.
“Cheers,” he murmured.
The first sip was the worst-it was thick and gritty, rife with fibers and filaments and the crunchy exoskeletons of his insect and arachnid victims cum ingredients.
There were things that would have been easier and, depending on your definition of the word, cleaner, but he shied away from cyanide and arsenic. For all their ruthless efficacy, for all their deep-set origin as elements of the Earth, they were tainted with their manufacture, stained by the oil of men’s hands, men who distilled and distributed them as a commodity, men who professed to own these things.
Also, they cost money, and Draco was poor as shit.
On the upside, this stuff was fast-acting-he had the shakes in a matter of minutes, and his extremities were freezing just moments after that. It wasn’t long at all before he was curled up on the floor, arms around himself, shivering uncontrollably even as sweat like hot glue gathered on his fevered skin and dripped to the floorboards, where the droplets lay quivering.
He thought he was golden-ha-until his stomach convulsed, and then it all came back up again.
Including the colorful cereal he’d had that morning, but some details didn’t bear thinking about, let alone describing.
The racking shudders possessing his frame jerked him around a few more times, and then he lay still, attempting to apply his rattled brain-which currently resembled a panicked hamster on a loose-axled wheel-to the Herculean task of figuring out what to do next.
He imagined opening the top of his skull, which would surely be attached by a hinge like in the cartoons, and poking it with a probing finger. It made squishing noises but didn’t otherwise respond.
This did not bode well for our hero.
Sighing emphatically, Draco dragged himself to his feet, mopped a variety of don’t-even-want-to-think-about-it substances from the floor with toilet paper, and went and took a shower.
Then he ate some more colorful cereal, pretending he didn’t remember the fate of this bowl’s predecessor, and slept.
For the next fourteen hours.
It was his birthday, after all.
[Chapter IV] [Chapter VI]
Chapter: 5. Earth
Fandom: Harry Potter
Character: Draco Malfoy
Rating: R
Word Count: 1,664
Warnings: suicide, language, violence, a bizarre sense of humor
Summary: Chronicling the annual suicide attempts of one Draco A. Malfoy, failure.
Author's Note: I have nothing to say to you. Uh. About this chapter.
V - EARTH
Tilling my own grave to keep me level
Jam another dragon down the hole
Digging to the rhythm and the echo of a solitary siren
One who pushes me along and leaves me so
Desperate and ravenous
So weak and powerless
Over you
- “Weak and Powerless” - A Perfect Circle -
It was Draco Malfoy’s twenty-ninth birthday, and he was trying to kill himself.
Well, he was working on it, at least.
Slowly, slowly, he delved his hands into the soil, curling his fingers. It yielded, gave, admitted him; cool and rich and kind; so gentle, hesitantly painting dark streaks on his skin.
He was possessed, suddenly and irrationally but too completely to ignore, by the urge to smear it on his face like war-paint. To mark himself. To clarify.
Moist clumps trickled through his fingers, raining lightly on their brethren below. It was wet. Welcoming. Primordial. There was a simplicity inherent in it, and an ancient authority carried by all it produced.
Slowly, slowly, tenderly and meticulously, Draco moved around his tiny plot, easing plants from their earthen nests. He had chosen this apartment specifically for this reason-for the tiny gardens, tightly enclosed by white picket fences, that sprawled in all their cramped, miniature glory over the expanses of the roof. He had nurtured his like a child, like a pet, like a lover, with a single-minded sincerity and a whisper of desperation that unnerved the little old ladies in their multicolored gloves. He just loves gardening, they murmured to each other. Like a phoenix loves a flame.
There was something clean about dirt. It was paradoxical, and it was enchanting.
I just love gardening, he thought. Like a drunkard loves a tall glass.
He arranged his Earth-given acquisitions in a charming(ly stupid) wicker basket, took it in hand, and started down the stairs. Twenty-nine was big. Twenty-nine was significant. It was the cusp of the next decade, of the three that haunted Christian theology and old magical mythology alike. It was the ushering in of the trinity, of the triumvirate, of the… truth?
Fat chance of that.
Humming “Funeral March of a Marionette,” Draco proceeded down to the third floor, unlocked the door to his apartment with muddy hands, and conjured some bluebell flames beneath his waiting cauldron. From there, it was only a matter of following the instructions laid out on the crumbling pages of the old Potions book.
He’d always been good at Potions. It had been one of his few triumphs in school, and it was one of his few refuges now. For a boy who’d sat sucking on a silver spoon for the duration of his childhood, he was remarkably good at crafting things. At putting things together to make something new. Everything had a purpose and a place, and when you obeyed the directions set out before you, it all came together perfectly.
If only life were so simple, right?
Draco Malfoy had obeyed the behests of others for a very long time-his mother’s, his father’s, the simple and general family dictates of honor and purity and nobility. He’d bowed to them, committed himself to them, given himself to them, heart and soul and mind and form, even when he knew at his core that they were wrong.
He was very good at following directions.
Snape (Draco hadn’t even been able to think of him as Severus until many years later, when he had both feet firmly planted in adulthood; a first name made the man seem drastically human and horribly real) had looked over one shoulder at him, coldly.
“When they come,” he said, “you will run.”
Draco had been wearing a Head Boy badge and a broad smirk. A few of the pebbles of his vast confidence had slipped loose, tumbling down the mountainside, and he’d feared that the boulders would follow.
“Why?” he’d asked.
It was laughable now, yes, but then, with the war and the world spread out before him, he’d wanted to fight.
“Because you are the last of the Malfoys,” Snape had responded calmly, “and we’d rather you not die.”
The word carried no weight then. It was letters, that was all-marks on a page. Die. As if it was possible. Dying happened to other people, like cancer and herpes and Squibs. Not to him. Not to the convergence of the Malfoys and the Blacks. Not to the hero’s foil.
“I’m not running,” he’d declared, standing up straighter, taller, putting his chest out.
Snape had sat down, heavily, in an overstuffed emerald fauteuil. He had put his elbow on the armrest and dropped his head into his hand.
A considerable portion of Draco’s composure had shattered in the face of the realization that Severus Snape was many things he hadn’t known-old, weak, fallible, and, mostly, just so damn tired.
“Then you’re an idiot,” Snape had concluded.
It certainly wasn’t the first time Draco Malfoy had heard it, but this one hit like a meteorite and stuck.
Draco selected one of the plants he’d grown himself, with his two hands and a bit of help from Ma Nature-one of the many things he’d buried there, offered her, only to take it back when it had changed into something else entirely.
The whole process kind of reminded him of zombies.
And just of graves in general.
He’d been to the cemetery more than a few times. Once every few years or so. He had used to worry about encountering his mother there until he’d figured out the infinitesimal nature of the odds. His mother wouldn’t come, because she wouldn’t want to remember.
When they found him and identified him, he did wonder if she’d stick him in the family plot. They’d put everyone else there, even the ones they’d claimed to have condemned. Eventually, it seemed, everybody with a claim to the bloodline ended up in the Black plot, mourned by stone angels warmer than the survivors.
He’d run into Andromeda once-with little Teddy in tow. He’d almost died, though he hadn’t been sure what of.
But she’d ignored him, as she had ignored Teddy’s carrying whisper asking who he was.
The question was, if you relinquished your claim at the most basic level-by trying to extinguish your own existence-did you still belong among those who had clung to the bloodline and defended it to the death?
Draco was fairly sure that he, in particular, didn’t belong anywhere.
He hadn’t partaken in the division of the remaining wealth; he hadn’t helped to craft the epitaphs; he hadn’t spent a moment more in the house than had proved necessary to collect his things and leave. He hadn’t said goodbye, and he hadn’t managed to care.
It was hard to care about much of anything when you knew you’d killed Remus Lupin.
Yeah, he was going straight to hell. Do not pass “Go,” do not collect two hundred dollars.
It hadn’t even been his fault; they’d been in this pulsing fray, in the thick of things, with people everywhere, and he’d aimed for some dumb bitch Auror with nothing to live for, but she’d moved, and Remus had looked right at him, right into his eyes, and then-
It had been his fault. Denying it was an insult to the man who’d died for it.
Somehow a thousand sleepless nights didn’t seem sufficient to pay the debt. They’d been related, even-by law, but law was enough, wasn’t it? More than enough. Kith and kin cut down on the work of a moment.
Less than kind.
There might have been some small consolation to be found in the fact that he’d mourned Lupin more than he had his own father, but he felt greedy reaching for it.
Reaching. If that wasn’t the truth. Reaching always, never to grasp, and hold, and own.
He ground one of his dry herbs with the old-fashioned mortar and pestle he’d rustled up. There was something very genuine about the effort it required.
When his liquid masterpiece had simmered happily for fifteen minutes, he put out the flames, gave it ample time to cool, and poured himself a mug.
“Cheers,” he murmured.
The first sip was the worst-it was thick and gritty, rife with fibers and filaments and the crunchy exoskeletons of his insect and arachnid victims cum ingredients.
There were things that would have been easier and, depending on your definition of the word, cleaner, but he shied away from cyanide and arsenic. For all their ruthless efficacy, for all their deep-set origin as elements of the Earth, they were tainted with their manufacture, stained by the oil of men’s hands, men who distilled and distributed them as a commodity, men who professed to own these things.
Also, they cost money, and Draco was poor as shit.
On the upside, this stuff was fast-acting-he had the shakes in a matter of minutes, and his extremities were freezing just moments after that. It wasn’t long at all before he was curled up on the floor, arms around himself, shivering uncontrollably even as sweat like hot glue gathered on his fevered skin and dripped to the floorboards, where the droplets lay quivering.
He thought he was golden-ha-until his stomach convulsed, and then it all came back up again.
Including the colorful cereal he’d had that morning, but some details didn’t bear thinking about, let alone describing.
The racking shudders possessing his frame jerked him around a few more times, and then he lay still, attempting to apply his rattled brain-which currently resembled a panicked hamster on a loose-axled wheel-to the Herculean task of figuring out what to do next.
He imagined opening the top of his skull, which would surely be attached by a hinge like in the cartoons, and poking it with a probing finger. It made squishing noises but didn’t otherwise respond.
This did not bode well for our hero.
Sighing emphatically, Draco dragged himself to his feet, mopped a variety of don’t-even-want-to-think-about-it substances from the floor with toilet paper, and went and took a shower.
Then he ate some more colorful cereal, pretending he didn’t remember the fate of this bowl’s predecessor, and slept.
For the next fourteen hours.
It was his birthday, after all.
[Chapter IV] [Chapter VI]