Painkiller - A Drarry Fanfiction

Part 014

We all saw Draco running out of the house. By then, I had expected he would have come down for breakfast a while ago, but when I went to knock on his door at seven, there wasn't any sign he was awake. And so I didn't bother him, came back to the kitchen, and waited. I noticed every minute tick by. Petunia had just asked for me to check on him again when he more or less crashed down the stairs and out the front door.

"What was that?" Dudley barely said through his food.

"Wizards—can't ever understand them," Vernon muttered.

No one seemed worried, or even wondered what the rush was about—not really. I found it interesting how much the Dursleys cared to look good in front of Draco while caring so little for him. Why do they even care to look good, anyway? I guess I'm not worried, either, but I was at least curious.

And that's how I ended up peeking into Draco's room, seeing the hurricane-swept state of it, and seeing it.

It was easy to spot, even in the midst of every other piece of paper on the floor with it. It was tucked nicely in a brown paper folder, opened to a page containing a black-and-white photo. What stuck out was the fact that the photo was moving. There wasn't a way to stop myself from entering Draco's room for a closer look. The bloody photo was moving, damn it—how could you resist that?

Upon approaching it, I could see that the photo was of a car—a very broken one. I could see the smoke slithering out of its hood, the shattered remains of its windows on the road, and the side of it completely caved in. I could see the police lines squaring it off, the uniformed people with magic sticks held walking around the vehicle, and the flashes from the cameras of those who seemed to be reporters. The photo quite obviously pictured the aftermath of an accident.

I should have listened to the whispers in my head telling me to leave the room, don't touch a single thing, but my hands had already picked up the folder before I could stop them.

Page by page I read. Each sentence, each word.

Then I was downstairs, in the kitchen.

I slammed the pages of the case file onto the dining table. I pointed to the title page, the moving photos, and the names of the victims. I found myself yelling, questioning, burning. I didn't stop as Vernon put down his fork and left—the fucking coward. I followed him. The papers wrinkled in my fists, I followed him until he spoke.

"You don't yell at me, you don't shove things at me," Vernon snarled, "and you certainly do not question me."

"The wizard was right," I spat back. Vernon paused in his tracks and turned, facing me. I swallowed. "You are a liar."

"So what if I am? Huh?" Vernon said, stepping towards me with every word. "Your parents are dead—that ain't ever gonna change. And the same freaks as that wizard you're protecting killed them, you understand me?"

My lungs felt sore, my heart pounded on my ribs, and my hands shook. But I still didn't stop. "You—"

I don't even know what I was going to say. I just wanted to say something that wasn't what he told me. I didn't want to believe it, even if they made me believe it for so long. Funny thing is, I never thought I would care. My parents and magic, they had nothing to do with me—why would I have to care?

But now—now Draco says I'm dying. He says what my parents left me in the mere months we existed together is pain, suffering, and death. And then he says that I don't have to keep things that way. He says there's a way I can live into my adulthood, experience the world, and be whatever I want to be—but only if I go against everything I've ever been told.