CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE:
the cut that always bleeds — conan gray
( 𝐃𝐀𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆 , 𝟏𝟔 )
Nearly two months had passed since Meredith had first met Moaning Myrtle and since then, she had been back to the girl's bathroom on the second floor to talk to the ghost in the S-bend a couple of times. Every time they spoke, Elizabeth complaining about the students who had come to bully her and Meredith talking about her day-to-day life because that seemed to fascinate her, she learned a little more about the Draco Malfoy that he kept hidden from the rest of the world.
From what she had gathered, he was supposedly doing something very important; Meredith never found out what it actually was ( because that was the one thing Elizabeth was sworn to absolute secrecy on and she'd rather get flushed down the toilet to say a peep about it ) but it was definitely the thing that had sent him spiralling all these months.
Although their relationship had healed a little since Christmas, Draco had yet to mention anything about this important task of his. Actually, scratch that, Draco hardly even spoke nowadays, still preferring the solitude he found in his dormitory ( "What am I? His bodyguard? Of course I don't know where he is!" Blaise had exclaimed after Meredith had pestered him about it for the nth time that week ) and still disappearing at odd hours of the day to a place Meredith couldn't quite figure out.
"Oh, Ron, you'll be alright." Meredith had comforted as they walked through the hallway, arm linked with Hermione's. The poor boy, although liberated, was still a little hung up over his breakup with Lavender since she had technically been his first ever girlfriend. Hermione, on the other hand, was absolutely delighted that Lavender had finally detached herself from her precious 'Won-Won'.
"I never really did love her or anything," he lamented, "And she got a little annoying towards the end, but I dunno, still hurts." Meredith made a sympathetic face and patted his elbow.
Harry, looking very cheery as well after the events of the day before, quipped up, "Well, at least Ginny and Dean broke up too." Hermione elbowed him and he hurriedly added, "But yeah, sucks that you broke up with Lavender, mate." Boys could be so dense sometimes.
"Well, on the bright side, Katie Bell is back from St. Mungo's," Hermione helpfully supplied as Meredith linked their arms together, "She probably doesn't know how she got the necklace but at least she's alright." From the whispers that had flown around Hogwarts in the week following the incident, it sounded like quite the awful ordeal she was having to go through.
Because of...Draco.
And maybe it was fate ( "Meredith, you've got to stop talking about fate when all you do is complain about it." ), but at that very moment, as she let the idea that Draco was truly responsible for all the hardship so many people had faced throughout the semester roll around in her mind, he walked by. Or at the very least, a pale imitation of the proud boy that was once Draco Malfoy.
Meredith could hardly cast a comforting smile in his direction before he disappeared down the hallway in long hurried strides, barely even bothering to glance at her.
The trio were heading to an dinner although it was still light outside since their classes had ended early with Snape storming off in his usual manner ( black cloak swishing about dramatically, eyebrows creased in annoyance ), irritated by either Ron, or Harry, or Hermione, or Seamus, or...anyone really.
It felt nice to be strolling down the hallways with them, to link arms and pretend that they were simply a merry band of friends, to disregard that she was the only one who proudly wore green, to disregard the fact that although she was bathed in the light, she wanted to follow a boy into whatever darkness he had gotten stuck in. To pull him out of it.
There goes your hero complex too, Meredith. She groaned internally as she dared to turn her head ever so slightly to catch him disappearing into a stairwell.
Harry, of all people, noticed her sudden disinterest in their conversation which had become more of Hermione and Ron arguing about something ( normalcy had been restored to the trio ), and had crossed over to her side to ask, "You doing alright?"
Thankfully, her little crush on Harry had more or less dissipated as time passed, but he still remained one of her closest friends, and one of her loyalest allies. She supposed that the only reason she had even had a mild crush on him was that he was in direct contrast to Draco ( it was no wonder that they were enemies ).
Harry represented the good; the Order, the survivors, the light that would create a better world. At the time, Draco represented the bad; Death Eaters, War, the darkness that would blanket their lives. She hadn't only been infatuated with a boy, but an ideal she wanted to live up to, a world she wanted to live in.
And maybe that was the reason that her next words were, "I've just realised that I left something in the common room." Well, that was an utterly rubbish bare-faced lie, wasn't it? "I'll see you lot soon!" Harry could only give her a feeble wave, uttering out a "See you." as she ran off, not glancing back.
Except, she didn't run back to the common room in search of a phantom lost belonging. No. She instead ducked into a stairwell that lead to Merlin knows where in pursuit of certain blond boy who was disappearing into the darkness.
She didn't hear him at first.
She didn't hear the gentle sobs carrying across the across the archways of the bathroom. Didn't hear the cries of desperation amongst the steady drip of water from the faulty.
She only heard an all too familiar voice crooning away, trying to bring comfort to a distraught boy. Meredith swallowed dryly as she let her fingers brush the stone archway, her entrance into his unknown and scary world. It was cold to the touch.
"Don't...Don't," came her voice, equal parts soothing and scathing, "Tell me what's wrong."
Please. Let me into your world.
"I can help you." Her voice sounded faraway now, as if she were spiralling around the bathroom.
Please. Let me take your hand.
"No one can help me." There was a sort of finality to his words, as if he'd made this decision for himself. As if he had decided that he would build up the walls around him, protecting himself from all the good and bad that wandered about outside. "I can't do it."
Meredith dared herself to take a step more into his world.
"I can't...it won't work."
Draco was standing with his back to the door, his hand clutching either side of the sink, white-blond head bowed. It might have been quite a beautiful scene, the soft light of the evening reflecting off the hard and narrow planes of his frame, casting his hair in an ethereal glow.
"And unless I do it soon..."
She paused, her heel braced to take another step, to submerge herself in the murky world of blue and grey.
"He says he'll kill me."
That was when Meredith realised, with such pain in her heart that it seemed to root her to her spot at the threshold, that Draco was crying.
It was more than crying actually, it was the kind of desolate sobbing that comes from a person drained of all hope. As a child, Meredith hadn't cried very much, priding herself in being the tough kid who picked herself up no matter what, no tears staining her face. She was supposed to be confident and brave, so she didn't cry. Her father praised her for it.
Meredith had cried plenty in her recent days; waking up from seemingly never-ending nightmares, choking down sobs so she didn't wake her roommates, letting it out in private once she had been left alone. It was through this that she realised that crying was never a bad thing; it was the most human way in which they expressed their feelings, let out their sorrows and griefs, instead of letting it bubble up inside them.
Draco gasped and gulped, trying to hold back another barrage of tears, as Elizabeth tried her very best to comfort him with words she couldn't quite make out. She truly understood why he had decided to turn to Elizabeth; she was someone who had been inflicted with as much pain and accepted people for who they were because she knew that everyone had to deal with their cards. Meredith wished that she had learned to do that sooner;
And so she took the step, her footstep echoing through the hollow bathroom, mingling with the quiet and heaving sobs.
His steel eyes met hers in the cracked mirror. Two people, merely fragments of who they used to be.
"What are you doing here?" His question wasn't laced with aggression, anger, sadness, or even happiness. It was simply that: a question.
She took another step forward.
"Well, I'm quite experienced in calming down crying Slytherins in the bathroom." She tried, hoping to lighten the heavy mood that blanketed them. Elizabeth protectively drifted toward Meredith, trying to shield Draco.
"Are you comparing me to Parkinson?" He scowled, wiping his nose before letting his hands brace against the grimy sink. So she had told him about the incident.
"Let's admit it," She took another cautious step so she had now passed cleanly over the threshold and no longer had to raise her voice, "No one deserves to be compared to Pansy." He gave a feeble and hollow laugh to that. He still hadn't bothered to turn to her, eyes cast downwards, following the slow twirl of water as it drained out.
"Who is this Pansy?" They both ignored Elizabeth who huffed and disappeared into one of the cubicles to sulk.
"But I'm not here to talk about Pansy, Draco."
His name felt so familiar and comforting on her tongue.
He scoffed, pulling his sweater over his head and tossing it aside. The air was stifling in the bathroom as she continued to coax him out from behind the walls he had built around himself.
"I can't help you if you don't tell me what's wrong." Her voice had softened considerably.
Please tell me all your troubles and problems and I'll hold you until its alright. Please let me brush away the hair in your eyes and tell you that I'm here for you.
He finally turned to her, eyes alight with a madness that only came from desperation, "I've already told you before! You can't just fix me! You can't..." His voice was lost in a wave of heaving sobs.
In Draco's sobbing was the sound of a heart breaking. Hearts don't snap like brittle caramel or burst like an overfilled balloon. A heart breaks in the heaving waves of a new disturbing reality that has arrived uninvited. It is the one in which their child no longer lives, or their partner is terminally sick. It is entering a life they can't bear and so they break.
So as Meredith watched Draco shake with pain, tears flowing unchecked, there was part of her breaking too. If he wasn't the same then neither would she be.
That's what happens when you love someone, right? Their happiness is a part of your own.
And Meredith wanted all of it; his sadness, his happiness. His pain, his joy. She wanted to drown herself in all of it because Merlin, Draco Malfoy had an unbreakable hold over her heart despite the path he walked. Whether they were destined to love each other till death did them apart, to walk through the blazing fires, to fall asleep for the final time side-by-side, or just to be there for one another as platonic soulmates, Meredith wanted it all.
"I'm not here to fix you." She whispered out, "I just want to be here for you—"
Suddenly, Draco drew his wand, eyes now blazing with anger, but not at her. Meredith whipped her head around only to see Harry Potter standing in the doorway, wand clutched tightly in his hand as well.
"Get out of here, Meredith." Draco warned, voice low, anticipating the fight that was bound to happen, "I don't want you to get hurt.". Harry seemed to have the same idea and jerked his head toward the exit.
She stood her ground, "Guys—"
Draco's hex missed Harry by mere inches, the rickety lamp on the wall beside him bursting into a hundred shards. Meredith instinctively rolled out of the way, drawing her wand, but it seemed like there was little she could do as Harry threw himself sideways and flicked his wand. Draco shouted a, "Protego!" to block whatever non-verbal spell that Harry had thrown at him.
Meredith noticed that the shimmering blue light shielded her as well even though she wasn't near the blast range.
"No! No! Stop it!" Elizabeth emerged from the cubicle she had been hiding in, her voice echoing loudly around the bathroom, "Stop! STOP!" Unfortunately, her efforts seemed futile as the two boys ducked behind cubicles to shield themselves. There was a loud bang and the bin behind Harry exploded, throwing him to the ground and sent Meredith askew.
She cussed under her breath as she crawled toward her wand which had rolled away amongst all the frenzy. Elizabeth moaned and groaned as she continued to try to stop the fight.
The cistern behind Elizabeth smashed loudly as Harry's jinx backfired off the wall. Meredith ducked to avoid the shards of ceramic, grasping her wand in time to cast a feeble shield. A sharp corner that managed to pierce through her shield nicked some of the skin on her arm. It was as if they'd become so invested in the fight that they'd completely forgotten that she was there.
Water poured everywhere and Harry slipped over as Malfoy, his face contorted, cried out as a last attempt, "Stupe—"
"SECTUMSEMPRA!"
And there lay Draco Malfoy, thin body limp and broken.
There lay Draco Malfoy, wings of red spilling from his chest.
it's the chapter y'all were waiting for in every draco malfoy fic. also, if you haven't read the books, i changed the spell draco casts at harry to "stupefy" instead of "crucio" because what he did in the books was high-key unforgivable.
also, i originally planned for act ii to also be twenty chapters but i've decided to cut it down to eighteen because it's gotten kind of draggy and slow since not a lot happens in half-blood prince that isn't super harry centric. sooo that means act ii is coming to a close soon😌😌 (it actually finishes before new years lol) i hope y'all have been enjoying this journey as much as i have!
on an unrelated note, i've published the first two chapters of my fred weasley fic so if you've got some spare time right now, do go check it out :)