crybaby

1 | truculent

He sighed. Stiffened up, swept his clammy hands around his eyes, and tried to wipe away the permanent dark circles. His feet were already sliding into his shoes, his coat flinging onto his shoulders. Even in the darkness, the veridian colored walls stood out as his one safety. His hand patted the wall and used it to trace his way around the cluttered room. Malfoy shoved the door open, scanning for the sharp cloak of his father. The clear hallway greeted him, the tall ceiling opening its jaws to him. The manor could eat his inoperable body in one breath, and he hoped it would.

The victim was dead earlier than normal. 2 AM. Still, it was his job to attend. He shuffled to the door and tried to quell the flutter in his chest. He recognized the scream, so familiar yet so impartial.

"Strange," he said. The words fell out slurred, tasting fiery.

Bellatrix had already flaunted away to her chambers, as she nodded toward the basement. Her eyes were wild, and her smile was more of a grimace. Her catty eyes were swollen orbs like a fish. He slowly edged down the steps, feeling dread pull his body to the ground. He twirled his wand and wondered who it was, how much blood he would have to clean up if he knew them. Since the war was at a tense stalemate, Bellatrix had been picking off innocents to rile up the wizarding world- to make Harry Potter take action.

He hated their dead glass eyes. His eyes shut, and he forced them open again. The low ceiling greeted its master.

He picked up a cloth bag and scanned the floors. The room was empty, besides a broken body in the corner. The figure was still. Her brown curls streamed out from under her face like a waterfall. She was paler than normal, and her chest and ribs had collapsed from starvation. Her lips were blue, agape.

"Breath," he murmured as his hand hovered over her mouth.

He edged closer, and the tight string inside him snapped. A ghost of breath escaped her lips.

She was barely breathing. Malfoy pressed his hand softly against her neck. A moan scraped the barrel of his throat as his fingers picked up a soft pulse. His body twitched roughly compromising to the itch in his mind. 

Granger...

He did not have to touch her to know she was damned. The second she was under Death Eater's grasp, she was worse than dead.

He knew the spot, directly on the hazy vein protruding from her neck. If he applied enough pressure she would die. The act would be done, and she would not have to put him through hell. Voldemort had orders, and he knew that he could not act on a selfish ploy. He moaned and scrubbed his fingers over his eye sockets. But it would be so easy. 

"F*cking Potter- you were suppose to keep your bitch." 

To the captives that were mudbloods, Bellatrix stretched out their lives relentlessly. She took pleasure in their screams. Granger was persistently active with the Order. He had seen the carnage she left in Hogwarts. She blew a crater into the Potions room and then f*cked up Pansy's leg. She would be alive for weeks. 

He had to remind himself she was alive because the figure out of his grasp was not her. Her cheeks pinched against bruised lips, and her hands were covered in the carnage. Blood caked her eyes and her nostrils, and the strong taste of iron coated the air. She was not kissing Weasley, not strutting in pride, not rosy and hurling words. The face he saw was so similar to his own.

God, it shook him to know she was here. He somehow imagined Granger would weave her way out of it. She was smart enough to escape the claws of the Manor. But she was a bloody Gryffindor with her pride, and she had thrown herself at the Manor's doorstep. Cowardice was better than any foolish idea of heroics. He would have given any chance to flee without notice. The idea of being in control of his own choices was a foreign concept.