crybaby

1 | truculent

- Reparo -

mends a broken object

THE SCREAMS WERE DIFFERENT TONIGHT. It was midnight, and his reflection slid around his mind distorted by the refraction of the bottle. He relished beer. It tuned out the sound a little. The voices in his head had less whip and recoil. An empty bottle lay in his grip, as the rest of his spine brushed against the wall. His room breathed with him, brushing against his bones, exhaling every sound into his eardrums.

The screams cut into his mind.

They carved faces and bodies in aguish, jaws that shook and wavered.

Eyes that looked at him with a lifetime of hate and fear.

He was tempted to strangle the culprit's screams so he could sleep. But sleep never came anyway, and it was another excuse. Maybe it was an excuse to touch human skin: the tight around the neck. The one space that controlled the blood rushing under his skin, the soft fragility.

If it was, he was not surprised. The weeks he had receded into himself without human interaction were endless. He mostly stood, emotionless, watching the wrinkles and creases multiple around him as he counted the seconds waiting for them to quicken. Time drug its heels around Malfoy. Even his dreams clasped him in an eternity of conviction.

Then he remembered yesterday Malfoy had been ordered to patrol his subordinates to seek out suspicious behavior- It had been a Tuesday.

"Of course," he mumbled before jamming his knuckles against his ears. "Wednesday."

She would have been up at it again.

Wednesdays were her midweek breaking point. Evidently her lack of viewing Potter's dead body induced stress upon Bellatrix, and since Voldemort continuously failed to kill Potter, she was tense and hardy. Instead of a few minutes, her torture lasted hours, and she would drain out an unneeded victim's last hours into a pent up relief of her frustrations.

By tomorrow they would be dead, and Malfoy would have the task of disposing of the body. He secretly hoped this time Bellatrix carved its head off so Malfoy did not see their eyes. Something ran up his spine as he clamped his hands over his ears. There was something noxious by the sound this time. It was female but worse- throaty and familiar. It resonated with a soft voice that was torn apart from pain. Normally it was men, normally they were angry yells or pleas. Not high screeches grasping heaven.

Millions of faces merged through his head and one brunette stood out among the mob.

"Impossible," he murmured before closing his eyes. She- she was not stupid. Surely she was floating away, working on her f-cking grades, twisting her f-cking hair, crying because it was not a f-cking outstanding. She was kissing Weasel and talking to Potter as if nothing had shifted. She was miles away from the Manor- the farther the better.

She was stupidly being not stupid.

He yanked his socks off and pelted them at the wall, followed by his stained shirt. The clothes smacked against his dresser. It was pitch black, but his eyes unearthed his disheveled room. He fell into a mindless state. On the verge of sleeping, but his hand still wound tight around his wand, juggling faces and wondering who it was in the basement. His hands tussled through his hair, his feet finding space on the floor to reside. 

The urge to stand up and vomit was almost as strong as it was to lay down and cry.

The screaming stopped. Abruptly.