HP -- Perchance to Dream II: With the Rope
Title: Perchance to Dream
Chapter: 2. With the Rope
Fandom: Harry Potter
Character: Draco Malfoy
Rating: R
Word Count: 1,157
Warnings: suicide, language, violence a bizarre sense of humor
Summary: Chronicling the annual suicide attempts of one Draco A. Malfoy, failure.
Author's Note: Assume eltea did fantastic beta work unless otherwise stated. Natch.
II - WITH THE ROPE
But if things don’t work out like we think
And there’s nothing there to ease this ache
And if there’s nothing there to make things change
If it’s the same for you, I’ll just hang
- “Hang” - Matchbox Twenty -
It was Draco Malfoy’s twenty-sixth birthday, and he was trying to kill himself.
Again.
This apartment was slightly ritzier-and consequently slightly more expensive-than last year’s model. The rent was straining his pathetically low freelance ghost writer/spellwork consultant/unaccredited (and possibly illegal) apothecary’s salary, but he needed it for the rafters.
Draco had embarked on an important errand this morning. He had gone to the hardware store and purchased a length of rope, and he had subsequently gone to the library to attempt to determine how it was one went about tying a noose.
Then he went and bought himself some gelato.
It was his birthday, after all.
He climbed onto his silver step-stool and extended his arms upward, but he couldn’t reach the beam. Accordingly, he took his desk chair, set it beneath the desired slab of wood, and arranged the step-stool on the seat. Slinging the coiled rope over one shoulder, he clambered up to the height of the tower and reached for the rafter.
His makeshift ladder shuddered and wobbled beneath his weight, but he swung the end of the rope over and began twisting at it, trying to create that inimitable, highly ominous, entirely distinct noose shape. He hoped his tower wouldn’t give way; he might crack his head open on the floor and die.
And dying would defeat the whole purpose of killing himself.
Frowning, Draco tried to thread the rope through its own coils, racking his brain for a clearer image of the diagram he’d studied.
Some people probably wouldn’t understand the nuances of the Hope-I-Don’t-Fall thing. But really, that was the crux of the whole matter-hope. Maybe. It was the uncertainty of it. The unexpectedness. Birth was a crapshoot of recombined genes; death was defined either by the whim of a higher power, if you bought into that, or just the weakness and weariness of the ragged body given you at your dice-roll birth; and the interim was chance and chaos. If you looked at it that way, bringing about your own death was the only thing that fell entirely under your control. Why not take it when you got it?
The rope looked about right, or about as close to right as it was going to get. Draco paused to consider it, nodded to himself, and managed to get down to the floor without severely fracturing his spinal cord, and it was there that he sat down at his chipped desk and thought about writing a note.
Adieu, world; we never would have worked out together?
Nah. Maybe It’s not me; it’s you, you miserable bitch.
Well, the whole act of suicide kind of expressed that general theme. He didn’t want to spell it out.
Maybe he should leave a few wonderfully vindictive words-give them something to remember him by. I should have put my quill through your eye when I had the chance, let them figure out who it meant. Everyone would assume it was them, because everyone, some deeper down than others, wanted to be important. There was a wretched significance to the second person of a suicide note, and many of them, against their wills and better judgments, would seize on it.
He paused, pen in hand.
He was making a crucial assumption, and it was probably an erroneous one.
He was assuming that someone would read it.
He put the pen down and looked at it, straight and plain and plastic on his blotter, a delicate gleam of afternoon light icing its angles. There was a quick, simple beauty to it. It might have been enough to make a better man turn back.
Draco Malfoy was so tired of turning back.
Again he bested his poor excuse for a stepladder, and then he positioned his neck within the noose and tugged on it a little to tighten it to fit. Not much happened, but Draco supposed that it probably wasn’t much like the movies in real life very often.
He gave it a moment, a moment to settle and to stew, and one of the myriad memories crept up behind him and stifled him with a healthy dose of chloroform.
Please no.
“It is regrettable-”
Please God no.
“-that you have not done-”
Please God please I’ve never asked for anything-
“-the single simple thing that I have asked of you.”
-but I’m asking now.
The twine had shredded his shirt, the better to cinch slowly tighter around him and dig tiny thorn-like teeth into his skin.
He didn’t feel it.
Draco’s mother was already crying, shining, silent tears rolling to the crests of her impeccable cheekbones and racing down to drip unheeded from her chin.
Draco didn’t see who it was that held her arm. The only vision that his brain, neurons bursting like fireworks, could process was Walden Macnair raising the glinting sword of Gryffindor and bringing it down in an immaculate arc that ended at Narcissa Malfoy’s right wrist.
The blood and the agony and the impossibility made real burned into permanence, a woodcut on the wall of his skull, a marble relief smeared with the color of his soul.
Cruel word, relief.
If there was one thing Narcissa had always been-she made no claim to kindness or wisdom, crafted no notions of talent or compassion-it was perfect. Every line of her person was calculated and necessary; nothing was out of place. Pale skin, pale hair, eyes like ice that softened, barely perceptibly, for two men in the world. She was Venus de Milo with a vendetta.
Slimmer, naturally.
But she wasn’t perfect anymore. She wasn’t whole.
Draco had always thought his admiration of his mother was more aesthetic than Oedipal, but it hardly mattered now. It was far, far, far too late.
The man-relatively speaking-at the heart of this atrocity, idle in the corner, shadows on the vampiric white of his face, smiled a thin, cold, skeletal smile that didn’t even try to extend to his eyes.
Narcisssa’s scream ceased almost immediately to resonate in the heavy air of the small room, but the pitch had penetrated Draco’s chest, and the echoes coiled around his ribs.
If he hadn’t been bound, he would have torn the red eyes from the white face with his bare hands, retribution be damned.
He already was.
He kicked the stepstool, and both it and the chair toppled to the floor. There was a jerk, his stomach dropped, and he had a long three seconds to stare down at the new dents in the floor before the rope slipped free and sent his face to their level such that he could examine them more closely.
“Son of a bitch,” Draco said.
He didn’t move for a long time, and then it was to get up, redistribute the fallen tower of furniture, and collect the rope. He tossed it into his suitcase.
There was always next year.
[Chapter I] [Chapter III]
Chapter: 2. With the Rope
Fandom: Harry Potter
Character: Draco Malfoy
Rating: R
Word Count: 1,157
Warnings: suicide, language, violence a bizarre sense of humor
Summary: Chronicling the annual suicide attempts of one Draco A. Malfoy, failure.
Author's Note: Assume eltea did fantastic beta work unless otherwise stated. Natch.
II - WITH THE ROPE
But if things don’t work out like we think
And there’s nothing there to ease this ache
And if there’s nothing there to make things change
If it’s the same for you, I’ll just hang
- “Hang” - Matchbox Twenty -
It was Draco Malfoy’s twenty-sixth birthday, and he was trying to kill himself.
Again.
This apartment was slightly ritzier-and consequently slightly more expensive-than last year’s model. The rent was straining his pathetically low freelance ghost writer/spellwork consultant/unaccredited (and possibly illegal) apothecary’s salary, but he needed it for the rafters.
Draco had embarked on an important errand this morning. He had gone to the hardware store and purchased a length of rope, and he had subsequently gone to the library to attempt to determine how it was one went about tying a noose.
Then he went and bought himself some gelato.
It was his birthday, after all.
He climbed onto his silver step-stool and extended his arms upward, but he couldn’t reach the beam. Accordingly, he took his desk chair, set it beneath the desired slab of wood, and arranged the step-stool on the seat. Slinging the coiled rope over one shoulder, he clambered up to the height of the tower and reached for the rafter.
His makeshift ladder shuddered and wobbled beneath his weight, but he swung the end of the rope over and began twisting at it, trying to create that inimitable, highly ominous, entirely distinct noose shape. He hoped his tower wouldn’t give way; he might crack his head open on the floor and die.
And dying would defeat the whole purpose of killing himself.
Frowning, Draco tried to thread the rope through its own coils, racking his brain for a clearer image of the diagram he’d studied.
Some people probably wouldn’t understand the nuances of the Hope-I-Don’t-Fall thing. But really, that was the crux of the whole matter-hope. Maybe. It was the uncertainty of it. The unexpectedness. Birth was a crapshoot of recombined genes; death was defined either by the whim of a higher power, if you bought into that, or just the weakness and weariness of the ragged body given you at your dice-roll birth; and the interim was chance and chaos. If you looked at it that way, bringing about your own death was the only thing that fell entirely under your control. Why not take it when you got it?
The rope looked about right, or about as close to right as it was going to get. Draco paused to consider it, nodded to himself, and managed to get down to the floor without severely fracturing his spinal cord, and it was there that he sat down at his chipped desk and thought about writing a note.
Adieu, world; we never would have worked out together?
Nah. Maybe It’s not me; it’s you, you miserable bitch.
Well, the whole act of suicide kind of expressed that general theme. He didn’t want to spell it out.
Maybe he should leave a few wonderfully vindictive words-give them something to remember him by. I should have put my quill through your eye when I had the chance, let them figure out who it meant. Everyone would assume it was them, because everyone, some deeper down than others, wanted to be important. There was a wretched significance to the second person of a suicide note, and many of them, against their wills and better judgments, would seize on it.
He paused, pen in hand.
He was making a crucial assumption, and it was probably an erroneous one.
He was assuming that someone would read it.
He put the pen down and looked at it, straight and plain and plastic on his blotter, a delicate gleam of afternoon light icing its angles. There was a quick, simple beauty to it. It might have been enough to make a better man turn back.
Draco Malfoy was so tired of turning back.
Again he bested his poor excuse for a stepladder, and then he positioned his neck within the noose and tugged on it a little to tighten it to fit. Not much happened, but Draco supposed that it probably wasn’t much like the movies in real life very often.
He gave it a moment, a moment to settle and to stew, and one of the myriad memories crept up behind him and stifled him with a healthy dose of chloroform.
Please no.
“It is regrettable-”
Please God no.
“-that you have not done-”
Please God please I’ve never asked for anything-
“-the single simple thing that I have asked of you.”
-but I’m asking now.
The twine had shredded his shirt, the better to cinch slowly tighter around him and dig tiny thorn-like teeth into his skin.
He didn’t feel it.
Draco’s mother was already crying, shining, silent tears rolling to the crests of her impeccable cheekbones and racing down to drip unheeded from her chin.
Draco didn’t see who it was that held her arm. The only vision that his brain, neurons bursting like fireworks, could process was Walden Macnair raising the glinting sword of Gryffindor and bringing it down in an immaculate arc that ended at Narcissa Malfoy’s right wrist.
The blood and the agony and the impossibility made real burned into permanence, a woodcut on the wall of his skull, a marble relief smeared with the color of his soul.
Cruel word, relief.
If there was one thing Narcissa had always been-she made no claim to kindness or wisdom, crafted no notions of talent or compassion-it was perfect. Every line of her person was calculated and necessary; nothing was out of place. Pale skin, pale hair, eyes like ice that softened, barely perceptibly, for two men in the world. She was Venus de Milo with a vendetta.
Slimmer, naturally.
But she wasn’t perfect anymore. She wasn’t whole.
Draco had always thought his admiration of his mother was more aesthetic than Oedipal, but it hardly mattered now. It was far, far, far too late.
The man-relatively speaking-at the heart of this atrocity, idle in the corner, shadows on the vampiric white of his face, smiled a thin, cold, skeletal smile that didn’t even try to extend to his eyes.
Narcisssa’s scream ceased almost immediately to resonate in the heavy air of the small room, but the pitch had penetrated Draco’s chest, and the echoes coiled around his ribs.
If he hadn’t been bound, he would have torn the red eyes from the white face with his bare hands, retribution be damned.
He already was.
He kicked the stepstool, and both it and the chair toppled to the floor. There was a jerk, his stomach dropped, and he had a long three seconds to stare down at the new dents in the floor before the rope slipped free and sent his face to their level such that he could examine them more closely.
“Son of a bitch,” Draco said.
He didn’t move for a long time, and then it was to get up, redistribute the fallen tower of furniture, and collect the rope. He tossed it into his suitcase.
There was always next year.
[Chapter I] [Chapter III]