HP -- Perchance to Dream III: With the Revolver
Title: Perchance to Dream
Chapter: 3. With the Revolver
Fandom: Harry Potter
Character: Draco Malfoy
Rating: R
Word Count: 1,603
Warnings: suicide, language, violence, a bizarre sense of humor
Summary: Chronicling the annual suicide attempts of one Draco A. Malfoy, failure.
Author's Note: God, "Marie Antoinette" was a terrible movie. XD ...and "Sugar" is a very strange song, just as a heads up.
III - WITH THE REVOLVER
I play Russian Roulette every day, a man’s sport
With a bullet called life
- “Sugar” - System of a Down -
It was Draco Malfoy’s twenty-seventh birthday, and he was trying to kill himself.
Tradition was a wonderful thing, wasn’t it? Unifying people everywhere with the underestimated power of repeated practice.
On a related subject, what was it that was so attractive about semi-rhetorical questions?
While he was at it, what was the meaning of life, and why was he so absurdly bad at ending his?
He hadn’t had that problem with anyone else’s.
Guns, despite their plebian Muggle connotations, were beautiful things. Draco put out a hand and ran a fingertip over the contours of his pistol. Beautiful things. Cold and smooth and ruthlessly efficient. Righteous and remorseless. Startlingly self-contained.
He had gone to the library for instructions again-a different library, of course, for a different apartment. With Apparition, it wouldn’t have been too much trouble, but he didn’t really like Apparating anymore. He avoided it when he could.
He had loaded only a single bullet-an opportunity afforded him by this particular model, about which he knew little more than the fact that such a thing was possible. He figured one was enough. It was very clean, metaphorically, metaphysically, and blood-splatter-on-the-walls-ically. If worst came to worst, he would just lie on the floor with an imperfect gunshot wound until he bled to death. He didn’t really have anything better to do.
Well, if he survived again this time, maybe he’d go buy himself a cake. And eat the entire thing.
It was his birthday, after all.
He picked up the firearm, hefted it in his right hand, and then grasped it with both hands, struck a pose, and pointed it at the lamp like a cop in a movie.
“Bang, bang!” he shouted.
It was good to know that there was a little bit of child left in him. And, maybe, a little bit of hope.
Hope for cake, anyway.
Thinking about it, rewarding himself for failing another suicide attempt probably wouldn’t very well motivate him to succeed.
But… cake…!
No. Nothing was enough to tilt the balance the other way. Not even cake.
Which was saying something.
He put the gun barrel to his right temple and adjusted it there, trying to find a comfortable spot. The sensation fell somewhere between painful, itchy, and luxurious, which wasn’t right at all.
He wanted it to be right. That was just about his only stipulation.
Next he pushed the barrel under his chin, into the hollow section outlined like a pale trampoline by his jaw, but it hurt. He started to move to put the barrel in his mouth, but that was just unsanitary. God only knew where that thing had been.
Shooting himself in the heart would result in recoil sufficient to break his wrist; shooting himself in the back was physically impossible unless he suddenly became a contortionist, which didn’t look likely… The only thing he had a good, clear shot at was his foot, and he’d done that figuratively enough times to eliminate the option immediately.
Why was everything so much easier in the movies? In a movie, you really just had to show up, and you had it made.
So unfair. So drastically unfair.
He set the gun down on the table and contemplated it. Maybe he should assemble some sort of Rube Goldberg contraption that held the gun steadily aimed at his forehead until he pushed the marble that went down a tube that popped a balloon that released a matchbox car that zipped down a track to hit a ball that rolled onto a mousetrap that snapped shut to pull a string that compressed the trigger and splattered Draco Malfoy’s brains all over the back wall.
Did he even have any marbles? It seemed he’d lost them all somewhere, long ago and far away…
Morosely with a chance of petulance, he flicked the gun barrel, and a death stick that could have taken the Elder Wand any day of the week spun in a lazy circle.
And then fired a solitary bullet into the decrepit aluminum heating unit mounted on the wall.
The sound of the shot was ear-splitting and spine-shattering, rippling through the blood, rattling the bone marrow, ripping at the tissue of every organ.
“Fuck a duck on a truck stuck in the muck,” Draco said blankly.
He would have done it, too; bestiality be damned.
Oh, God, no he wouldn’t. Eugh.
He dropped the pistol on his bed and went for the other bullets, buried safely in the drawer of his nightstand, the box of which he disinterred. He picked out another one, slipped it into the chamber, twirled the metal cylinder dramatically, and then snapped it back into the gun.
I don’t know if I’ve fired five shots or six, he thought in his best Tough American voice. So I’ve got a question for you. Do you feel lucky?
He touched the gun barrel to his temple again. Well, do ya, punk?
He pulled the trigger.
Nothing.
Vaguely disgusted, he tossed the thing on the table again.
A bullet sliced messily into the wall, ejecting a puff of plaster in its wake.
Draco started in surprise, and then he scowled down at the pistol.
“I want a refund,” he muttered.
He dragged out his suitcase and commenced filling it-sort of-with his belongings. His landlord would not be pleased about the two bullet-holes in the walls. Moreover, he might apply a meat cleaver to Draco’s vulnerable head. And Draco had already composed a detailed treatise about why getting killed wasn’t nearly so glorious as killing oneself.
If you wanted something done right…
He stuck his wallet and his not-his-for-much-longer keys in his pockets, jammed his hands in with them, partly so that they wouldn’t be lonely, and galloped ungracefully down the stairs.
Let them eat cake, he thought.
Speaking of which, it had been awfully hard to wait until his birthday after seeing the latest “Marie Antoinette” movie with Kirsten Dunst. Did Hollywood have no respect for one of the wildest, most groundbreaking periods of European history? He’d wished he’d been in charge of that cinematic monstrosity, just so that he could fire everyone involved.
He contented himself with the knowledge that they were all going to hell anyway.
What was not so encouraging was the fact that he’d probably meet them there.
He walked into the little bakery on the corner and commenced ogling their wares, wishing it was socially acceptable to press one’s nose to the glass. So engrossing was the business of the decision-making that he utterly ignored the cheerfully grating jingle of the bell on the door.
“Draco?” came an airy, half-distracted voice.
Terrifyingly familiar.
He turned and discovered that Luna Lovegood’s limpid gray-blue eyes were uncomfortably close. The woman-for they were all, regrettably, though not undeniably, adults now-had no concept of personal space.
Admittedly, Draco’s personal bubble had expanded exponentially as he had sunk deeper into solitude, but given how adept Luna had always proved at skipping blithely over boundaries, he figured he was in the right.
The man behind the counter raised an eyebrow. Or his eyebrow. Or half his eyebrow. “Your name’s Draco?” he inquired, incredulously with just a hint of distaste.
Draco bristled. Your MOTHER-
Luna blinked tranquilly. “And I’m Luna Lovegood,” she reported. “Is that a problem, sir?”
The man suddenly became extremely interested in some muffins, and Luna smiled absently.
“How are you?” she asked Draco.
“As well as can be expected,” he answered.
Luna paused a moment, and then she leaned forward and unabashedly sniffed his clothes.
Draco wanted to die more now than he had an hour ago. Humiliation would do that for you.
“You smell like gunpowder,” Luna informed him. “And smoke.”
Worst part was, he couldn’t punch her out. Not only did he not fancy a battery charge, she was a girl.
“Well, you smell like…” he scrabbled for something clever to say, and all his fingers found was the unruffled Teflon surface of Luna’s imperturbable calm.
“Love?” she prompted idly.
He stared at her. “Um,” he said, “no.”
Adding Categorically not seemed superfluous, so he didn’t. Even though he wanted to.
“What are you doing here?” she asked placidly, as if she hadn’t registered any of the preceding conversation-not that Draco would have been remotely surprised if she hadn’t.
“I wanted cake,” he explained.
Sagely she nodded. “Me, too.”
“What a shock,” muttered the guy behind the counter.
They both stared at him, and he pretended that he didn’t notice.
“What’s your favorite flavor?” Luna wanted to know.
Draco didn’t see how that bore any relevance to… anything.
“Chocolate,” he answered anyway.
She nodded again. “I tend to like weird flavors,” she told him.
Draco didn’t think he’d ever been less surprised in his life.
“What kind of chocolate can I get for you?” the behind-counter-dwelling man interrupted, likely eager to send them back out onto the street where they couldn’t intimidate all of his customers.
Draco vacillated a little between double- and triple-chocolate, then went for triple.
It was his birthday. And he did have another year to live.
When Luna had bought some cookies, saying that they were for her son-the idea of Loony’s offspring threatened to send a considerable tremor through Draco’s frame, but he tried to suppress it-they proceeded out to the sidewalk.
“Where are you headed?” she asked.
“Back to my apartment,” he told her.
“Good,” she decided. “You can have your cake and eat it, too.”
Deeply bewildered as he was, Draco felt a little sad when she wandered off around a corner and disappeared.
[Chapter II] [Chapter IV]
Chapter: 3. With the Revolver
Fandom: Harry Potter
Character: Draco Malfoy
Rating: R
Word Count: 1,603
Warnings: suicide, language, violence, a bizarre sense of humor
Summary: Chronicling the annual suicide attempts of one Draco A. Malfoy, failure.
Author's Note: God, "Marie Antoinette" was a terrible movie. XD ...and "Sugar" is a very strange song, just as a heads up.
III - WITH THE REVOLVER
I play Russian Roulette every day, a man’s sport
With a bullet called life
- “Sugar” - System of a Down -
It was Draco Malfoy’s twenty-seventh birthday, and he was trying to kill himself.
Tradition was a wonderful thing, wasn’t it? Unifying people everywhere with the underestimated power of repeated practice.
On a related subject, what was it that was so attractive about semi-rhetorical questions?
While he was at it, what was the meaning of life, and why was he so absurdly bad at ending his?
He hadn’t had that problem with anyone else’s.
Guns, despite their plebian Muggle connotations, were beautiful things. Draco put out a hand and ran a fingertip over the contours of his pistol. Beautiful things. Cold and smooth and ruthlessly efficient. Righteous and remorseless. Startlingly self-contained.
He had gone to the library for instructions again-a different library, of course, for a different apartment. With Apparition, it wouldn’t have been too much trouble, but he didn’t really like Apparating anymore. He avoided it when he could.
He had loaded only a single bullet-an opportunity afforded him by this particular model, about which he knew little more than the fact that such a thing was possible. He figured one was enough. It was very clean, metaphorically, metaphysically, and blood-splatter-on-the-walls-ically. If worst came to worst, he would just lie on the floor with an imperfect gunshot wound until he bled to death. He didn’t really have anything better to do.
Well, if he survived again this time, maybe he’d go buy himself a cake. And eat the entire thing.
It was his birthday, after all.
He picked up the firearm, hefted it in his right hand, and then grasped it with both hands, struck a pose, and pointed it at the lamp like a cop in a movie.
“Bang, bang!” he shouted.
It was good to know that there was a little bit of child left in him. And, maybe, a little bit of hope.
Hope for cake, anyway.
Thinking about it, rewarding himself for failing another suicide attempt probably wouldn’t very well motivate him to succeed.
But… cake…!
No. Nothing was enough to tilt the balance the other way. Not even cake.
Which was saying something.
He put the gun barrel to his right temple and adjusted it there, trying to find a comfortable spot. The sensation fell somewhere between painful, itchy, and luxurious, which wasn’t right at all.
He wanted it to be right. That was just about his only stipulation.
Next he pushed the barrel under his chin, into the hollow section outlined like a pale trampoline by his jaw, but it hurt. He started to move to put the barrel in his mouth, but that was just unsanitary. God only knew where that thing had been.
Shooting himself in the heart would result in recoil sufficient to break his wrist; shooting himself in the back was physically impossible unless he suddenly became a contortionist, which didn’t look likely… The only thing he had a good, clear shot at was his foot, and he’d done that figuratively enough times to eliminate the option immediately.
Why was everything so much easier in the movies? In a movie, you really just had to show up, and you had it made.
So unfair. So drastically unfair.
He set the gun down on the table and contemplated it. Maybe he should assemble some sort of Rube Goldberg contraption that held the gun steadily aimed at his forehead until he pushed the marble that went down a tube that popped a balloon that released a matchbox car that zipped down a track to hit a ball that rolled onto a mousetrap that snapped shut to pull a string that compressed the trigger and splattered Draco Malfoy’s brains all over the back wall.
Did he even have any marbles? It seemed he’d lost them all somewhere, long ago and far away…
Morosely with a chance of petulance, he flicked the gun barrel, and a death stick that could have taken the Elder Wand any day of the week spun in a lazy circle.
And then fired a solitary bullet into the decrepit aluminum heating unit mounted on the wall.
The sound of the shot was ear-splitting and spine-shattering, rippling through the blood, rattling the bone marrow, ripping at the tissue of every organ.
“Fuck a duck on a truck stuck in the muck,” Draco said blankly.
He would have done it, too; bestiality be damned.
Oh, God, no he wouldn’t. Eugh.
He dropped the pistol on his bed and went for the other bullets, buried safely in the drawer of his nightstand, the box of which he disinterred. He picked out another one, slipped it into the chamber, twirled the metal cylinder dramatically, and then snapped it back into the gun.
I don’t know if I’ve fired five shots or six, he thought in his best Tough American voice. So I’ve got a question for you. Do you feel lucky?
He touched the gun barrel to his temple again. Well, do ya, punk?
He pulled the trigger.
Nothing.
Vaguely disgusted, he tossed the thing on the table again.
A bullet sliced messily into the wall, ejecting a puff of plaster in its wake.
Draco started in surprise, and then he scowled down at the pistol.
“I want a refund,” he muttered.
He dragged out his suitcase and commenced filling it-sort of-with his belongings. His landlord would not be pleased about the two bullet-holes in the walls. Moreover, he might apply a meat cleaver to Draco’s vulnerable head. And Draco had already composed a detailed treatise about why getting killed wasn’t nearly so glorious as killing oneself.
If you wanted something done right…
He stuck his wallet and his not-his-for-much-longer keys in his pockets, jammed his hands in with them, partly so that they wouldn’t be lonely, and galloped ungracefully down the stairs.
Let them eat cake, he thought.
Speaking of which, it had been awfully hard to wait until his birthday after seeing the latest “Marie Antoinette” movie with Kirsten Dunst. Did Hollywood have no respect for one of the wildest, most groundbreaking periods of European history? He’d wished he’d been in charge of that cinematic monstrosity, just so that he could fire everyone involved.
He contented himself with the knowledge that they were all going to hell anyway.
What was not so encouraging was the fact that he’d probably meet them there.
He walked into the little bakery on the corner and commenced ogling their wares, wishing it was socially acceptable to press one’s nose to the glass. So engrossing was the business of the decision-making that he utterly ignored the cheerfully grating jingle of the bell on the door.
“Draco?” came an airy, half-distracted voice.
Terrifyingly familiar.
He turned and discovered that Luna Lovegood’s limpid gray-blue eyes were uncomfortably close. The woman-for they were all, regrettably, though not undeniably, adults now-had no concept of personal space.
Admittedly, Draco’s personal bubble had expanded exponentially as he had sunk deeper into solitude, but given how adept Luna had always proved at skipping blithely over boundaries, he figured he was in the right.
The man behind the counter raised an eyebrow. Or his eyebrow. Or half his eyebrow. “Your name’s Draco?” he inquired, incredulously with just a hint of distaste.
Draco bristled. Your MOTHER-
Luna blinked tranquilly. “And I’m Luna Lovegood,” she reported. “Is that a problem, sir?”
The man suddenly became extremely interested in some muffins, and Luna smiled absently.
“How are you?” she asked Draco.
“As well as can be expected,” he answered.
Luna paused a moment, and then she leaned forward and unabashedly sniffed his clothes.
Draco wanted to die more now than he had an hour ago. Humiliation would do that for you.
“You smell like gunpowder,” Luna informed him. “And smoke.”
Worst part was, he couldn’t punch her out. Not only did he not fancy a battery charge, she was a girl.
“Well, you smell like…” he scrabbled for something clever to say, and all his fingers found was the unruffled Teflon surface of Luna’s imperturbable calm.
“Love?” she prompted idly.
He stared at her. “Um,” he said, “no.”
Adding Categorically not seemed superfluous, so he didn’t. Even though he wanted to.
“What are you doing here?” she asked placidly, as if she hadn’t registered any of the preceding conversation-not that Draco would have been remotely surprised if she hadn’t.
“I wanted cake,” he explained.
Sagely she nodded. “Me, too.”
“What a shock,” muttered the guy behind the counter.
They both stared at him, and he pretended that he didn’t notice.
“What’s your favorite flavor?” Luna wanted to know.
Draco didn’t see how that bore any relevance to… anything.
“Chocolate,” he answered anyway.
She nodded again. “I tend to like weird flavors,” she told him.
Draco didn’t think he’d ever been less surprised in his life.
“What kind of chocolate can I get for you?” the behind-counter-dwelling man interrupted, likely eager to send them back out onto the street where they couldn’t intimidate all of his customers.
Draco vacillated a little between double- and triple-chocolate, then went for triple.
It was his birthday. And he did have another year to live.
When Luna had bought some cookies, saying that they were for her son-the idea of Loony’s offspring threatened to send a considerable tremor through Draco’s frame, but he tried to suppress it-they proceeded out to the sidewalk.
“Where are you headed?” she asked.
“Back to my apartment,” he told her.
“Good,” she decided. “You can have your cake and eat it, too.”
Deeply bewildered as he was, Draco felt a little sad when she wandered off around a corner and disappeared.
[Chapter II] [Chapter IV]