requirement | dramione

0.33

monday

december 3, 1996

Draco was settled against the Vanishing Cabinet during the early hours of the night. December had been painfully cold, even just three days in, and he hadn't managed to warm himself up since it'd begun. 

Hours ago, he removed his Slytherin green tie and dark gray jumper, nearly the minute his lessons finished. Now, he wore dark jeans and a thick gray shirt. It wasn't enough. He shivered against the Cabinet, tilting his head back until it found the wood. He pulled his knees up and rested his hands on them. 

Then he carefully rolled his left sleeve up to his elbow  and held his breath, trying to keep down sick. He scanned his mangled, pale skin and felt the prickle of numbness threating to overtake his fingers. 

Black ink swirled beneath gashes that were the shade of dark red wine, like something he imagined his mother would drink. They'd begun to heal enough to grow fingernail-deep scabs that were tight against the skin there. What was underneath was a horror–it was repulsive. A violent thing that needed to be hidden. Hiding something so large, irremovable, so heinous was not an easy task.

It hurt. His arm hurt beneath the pain that he'd inflicted on it. There was a burn that went deeper than self-induced scratches. It was a piecing fury, traveling through even his blood. 

He tried to remember exactly when he had done it– thought maybe it had been in his sleep this time. But now, he'd done such a thing more times than he could count. It was useless to try to devise what had compelled him to do such a thing. 

Draco screwed his eyes shut. Everything was spinning. Everything around him was moving impossibly fast and was begging him to lay down. Sleep. The insomnia had worn his brain tired and slow– all of his thoughts were faded against a mirage. 

He pushed two fingers against his scabbed skin until his head stopped reeling. He pushed his fingers against the scabs until all he could hear was the beat of his heart in his ears and felt the burn of salt at the corners of his eyes. 

He had a job to do. 

There was work to do and if didn't matter how badly the Mark hurt, he had to ignore it. 

His consciousness fought for dominance, begged him to open his eyes, but all he could think of was the pain in his arm. The way in which it hadn't dissipated since the day he received it. 

Before Draco had been Marked, almost an entire year ago now, his father had brought him to the first conversion meeting. The evening was hosted at LeStrange Manor with intentions for the Dark Lord's evangelists to preach on His behalf, conniving and coercing men to take the Mark. 

Draco's father had spoken briefly. Lucius wore a barbaric look when he told the crowd of men about the power they'd be given. The greatness in their blood; the greatness in being branded together. An honor to be branded. That night, Lucius looked tall, proud, and exceptionally cold. Draco wasn't sure if it was the first night he'd realized his father was nothing more than a slave, or if it was the first night the he worried that he was next. 

On the day of  Lucius' imprisonment, Draco held his mother. She didn't cry for more that five minutes, but Draco held her nonetheless. She wasn't crying for Lucius, Draco already knew. His parents didn't love each other in such ways. My darling boy, she cried. Over and over. I'm so sorry, my darling. 

Draco wasn't there when the Dark Lord heard the news of the failure of one of his inner most servants. It was less than a week later that the Dark Lord took his revenge and laid his claim over Malfoy's only son.