crybaby

3 | cleanse me

- Obliviate - 

to wipe from existence; to forget 

"FOCUS."

His Fathers pressed his palms against the sides of Malfoy's ears. The hands blocked his view of the open windows and the trimmed hedges. The air was soft and cold against his cheeks. Outside snow whipped against the windows and drizzled down the windows like fallen angels. His gelid boots were smothered in snow flecks. He felt like a melting snowman.

"Draco!"

Snap. Snap.

"Yes sir."

"You should have mental blinders on at all times. Forcing you to look straight ahead. Nothing else matters."

His fingers found the hemming on his pockets and twisted the shallow cloth in fistfuls. His mind already felt intruded upon, and he pushed unwanted thoughts into crannies and nooks.

"Focus, my son." Lips murmured in his ear.

Clear your mind.

When he was younger he would imagine a snake protecting his dark secrets. The snake would swallow every precious memory, digesting them. Hide them in its notched abdomen. The first time he tried using the snake on Severus, Severus gutted the snake in seconds.

"You should be able to do it," his father snapped his fingers, "like that." Malfoy blinked and swallowed.

His father often pulled him aside for legitimacy practices. His father had a natural talent for blocking out unwanted intrusion: and he had nothing to hide. Each time Malfoy tried another method of holding his mind internally but to no avail. Since Snape's death, the mental barriers he built were useless without upkeep.

Focus focus.

He held his hands to his side, eyes frantically panning over the polished floor boards. The portraits above them murmured contorted jargon. He could not fail this simple thing again.

"Draco... do not disappoint me." A firm hand lifted his chin to his fathers gaze. "I am your father... do not... taint the family name again." His voice was so quiet Malfoy had to strain to hear it above the roaring in his ears. The whisper was more intense than any scream. Balmy eyes swept over Malfoy's face. The seams in his hands tangled awkwardly around his fingers. He was a brittle thread pulled too tight. No amount of control could stop the fissures forming on him.

His father stood motionless, shifting focus from eye to eye. There was nothing but tunnels behind his gaze. He was baiting him. Malfoy constructed tiny bridges of protection over his thoughts. Threads vined over the patches of mind and held in the floodgates.

A blistering agony shattered the barriers in place. He resisted the first wave with all his might, using the attack to construct fortifications in unnoticed areas. He was being pulled into the undercurrent. Each second of resistance left his head aching for resignation. Cold claws tore at the bridges he had placed. The force came in waves, too fast to construct enough protection, but giving him seconds to recoil in agony. Eyes drove a nail into the tissues, turning steel into fissures.

The pulsating throbs left no room to think. Malfoy gasped as his father rushed the puncture wound.

Stay still -was all he could think. He tried to mask the terror in his mind as his father flicked through memories in pages.

His early morning shower

Healing the wound on his inner thigh.

As the memories echoed in his eyes Malfoy slid others away. He flicked through them as one would book pages. Skimming, pausing for some moments, but always searching for something unexpected.