HP -- Perchance to Dream VII: Water
Title: Perchance to Dream
Chapter: 7. Water
Fandom: Harry Potter
Character: Draco Malfoy
Rating: R
Word Count: 1,008
Warnings: suicide, language, violence, a bizarre sense of humor
Summary: Chronicling the annual suicide attempts of one Draco A. Malfoy, failure.
Author's Note: This one's a bit different; I was having a particularly bad week when I wrote it.
VII - WATER
I am my enemy
The water’s up to the knee
I never wanted nothing from you
Yes, I do; yes, I do
My engine’s running on dry
My head’s so fucked up inside
Shut up
I know
I said so
- “Water” - Breaking Benjamin -
It was Draco Malfoy’s thirty-first birthday, and he was trying to kill himself.
Life was a bitch, but death was her mother.
He leaned over the railing of the bridge, peering into the river. Briefly, he’d considered the Thames, but it was too big-too popular, too public-and it might impart to him something of importance, which wasn’t right at all.
Also, who knew what kinds of crap ended up in the Thames?
So when it had come down to choosing, he’d selected this modest little river, which was deep and swift, crossed by traffic via a delightful wooden bridge that would rot away and drop them into the water someday. If any of them had taken enough time out of their commutes to learn to recognize the fair-haired man who frequented the footpath, they made no sign of it.
This was the perfect one. He’d scoped out a great many of them, but this one drew him back again and again, a pale moth to a paradoxical wet flame. This one was relentless and remorseless and nameless and amorphous, like the thing he sought to join; this one was everything he wanted to become.
It lay in a patch of kind serenity, this river did, in a swathe of wilderness that stood trembling at the fringes of civilization, determined to stand but doomed to fall to the axes and the fires one day or another. One day soon.
But not today.
Hands in his pockets, Draco strolled to the end of the bridge, swung both legs over the low concrete barrier, and commenced crunching his way through the dry needles and debris. The trees acted as a shield from the sun, mediating its stifling heat and blinding light both. You could look at the world as it was down here, without squinting, without groping for glimpses of the truth through the shimmering haze rising from the street.
He descended the slope to the water’s edge and selected an amenable boulder, which promptly conceded to serve as a stool. He sat awhile, watching leaves drift away in the current’s greedy clutches, watching eddies swirl and watching tiny waves tentatively lap the shore. He watched pebbles gleam and ripples wander, watched branches defer to the breeze and shadows play at tag. The river murmured, and he rose to answer.
Slowly, slowly, he waded in.
The water welcomed him, cool and sweet, seeping through his clothes to wrap itself gently around him, soothing fingers sliding on his skin.
What a lovely world it was.
He slogged in deeper, letting the river claim progressively more of his body. Shins, knees, thighs-ooh, that was cold. Icy cold. A little bit refreshing.
But mostly just cold.
His waist, his ribs, his chest-easy and enveloping. So kind.
Shoulders.
Time to let go and let it do its work. It was pulling insistently at his legs now anyway, barely resistible.
Resistance is futile, he thought absently. Including resistance to making pathetically geeky references.
He smiled.
And let go.
The water twisted him, spun him, whipped him back and forth, buoyed him, bounced him, and then slammed his head into a rock.
He had just enough time to gaze up at the sun winking through the latticework of the leaves and reflect on how much easier it had been for Ophelia. All she’d had to do was go gallivanting around in the branches of a willow, fall, and sink. Oh, some people would tell you she’d done it deliberately, but Draco didn’t believe that. He didn’t read it that way. The woman was crazy by that juncture. And as Draco had proved again and again and again (and again), killing yourself wasn’t easy. It took conscious premeditation and planning. And if you were Draco Malfoy, and the world hated you, it was virtually impossible.
He nodded a little to himself.
And then things went wonderfully black.
And all was well.
Or all was well until Draco Malfoy woke up on a pebbly bank with a bad sunburn and a murderous headache.
He had forgotten a crucial detail. It was this detail that had let Neville Longbottom bounce to safety when summarily defenestrated; this detail that had let Harry Potter plummet to the Quidditch pitch on countless occasions and get back up every time.
Yes, sir; that was where it stood. He, Draco Malfoy, was a fucking wizard.
“Fuckshithell,” he said aloud. It felt like someone had scrubbed the lining of his esophagus with steel wool, and the sound of his voice supported the theory.
This was a sorry state of affairs indeed. He was sopping wet, but the cruel sun of the late afternoon had sapped all of the comforting chill from the water saturating his clothes.
Better still, he’d left his wand at home.
“Why, God?” he muttered, feeling like the walls of his throat were rubbing together. And that its surface was covered in tiny steel spikes and hooks. Poisoned ones. With gnashing teeth.
In addition, he was going to peel like an orange over the course of the next few days.
“Bitch,” he added vindictively, unsure whether he was referring to God, or to life again, or to the sun, or to his mother for hiding him from all of them.
He heaved himself to his feet only to discover that he had lost both shoes and one of his socks in the course of his waterlogged little adventure. Just before he released a string of expletives of epic proportions, the likes of which probably could have bound the sails of all the ships in the Royal Navy, he noted that he was lucky he’d retained his pants.
That would have been awkward.
As he started back towards the latest apartment, the sun-soaked tarmac nipping and searing the soles of his feet, he generated an endless supply of hoarsely-mumbled insults.
He was soaking his bleeding, beleaguered feet in a pan of the lukewarm water that issued from the cold tap by the time he realized that their object was himself.
[Chapter VI] [Chapter VIII]
Chapter: 7. Water
Fandom: Harry Potter
Character: Draco Malfoy
Rating: R
Word Count: 1,008
Warnings: suicide, language, violence, a bizarre sense of humor
Summary: Chronicling the annual suicide attempts of one Draco A. Malfoy, failure.
Author's Note: This one's a bit different; I was having a particularly bad week when I wrote it.
VII - WATER
I am my enemy
The water’s up to the knee
I never wanted nothing from you
Yes, I do; yes, I do
My engine’s running on dry
My head’s so fucked up inside
Shut up
I know
I said so
- “Water” - Breaking Benjamin -
It was Draco Malfoy’s thirty-first birthday, and he was trying to kill himself.
Life was a bitch, but death was her mother.
He leaned over the railing of the bridge, peering into the river. Briefly, he’d considered the Thames, but it was too big-too popular, too public-and it might impart to him something of importance, which wasn’t right at all.
Also, who knew what kinds of crap ended up in the Thames?
So when it had come down to choosing, he’d selected this modest little river, which was deep and swift, crossed by traffic via a delightful wooden bridge that would rot away and drop them into the water someday. If any of them had taken enough time out of their commutes to learn to recognize the fair-haired man who frequented the footpath, they made no sign of it.
This was the perfect one. He’d scoped out a great many of them, but this one drew him back again and again, a pale moth to a paradoxical wet flame. This one was relentless and remorseless and nameless and amorphous, like the thing he sought to join; this one was everything he wanted to become.
It lay in a patch of kind serenity, this river did, in a swathe of wilderness that stood trembling at the fringes of civilization, determined to stand but doomed to fall to the axes and the fires one day or another. One day soon.
But not today.
Hands in his pockets, Draco strolled to the end of the bridge, swung both legs over the low concrete barrier, and commenced crunching his way through the dry needles and debris. The trees acted as a shield from the sun, mediating its stifling heat and blinding light both. You could look at the world as it was down here, without squinting, without groping for glimpses of the truth through the shimmering haze rising from the street.
He descended the slope to the water’s edge and selected an amenable boulder, which promptly conceded to serve as a stool. He sat awhile, watching leaves drift away in the current’s greedy clutches, watching eddies swirl and watching tiny waves tentatively lap the shore. He watched pebbles gleam and ripples wander, watched branches defer to the breeze and shadows play at tag. The river murmured, and he rose to answer.
Slowly, slowly, he waded in.
The water welcomed him, cool and sweet, seeping through his clothes to wrap itself gently around him, soothing fingers sliding on his skin.
What a lovely world it was.
He slogged in deeper, letting the river claim progressively more of his body. Shins, knees, thighs-ooh, that was cold. Icy cold. A little bit refreshing.
But mostly just cold.
His waist, his ribs, his chest-easy and enveloping. So kind.
Shoulders.
Time to let go and let it do its work. It was pulling insistently at his legs now anyway, barely resistible.
Resistance is futile, he thought absently. Including resistance to making pathetically geeky references.
He smiled.
And let go.
The water twisted him, spun him, whipped him back and forth, buoyed him, bounced him, and then slammed his head into a rock.
He had just enough time to gaze up at the sun winking through the latticework of the leaves and reflect on how much easier it had been for Ophelia. All she’d had to do was go gallivanting around in the branches of a willow, fall, and sink. Oh, some people would tell you she’d done it deliberately, but Draco didn’t believe that. He didn’t read it that way. The woman was crazy by that juncture. And as Draco had proved again and again and again (and again), killing yourself wasn’t easy. It took conscious premeditation and planning. And if you were Draco Malfoy, and the world hated you, it was virtually impossible.
He nodded a little to himself.
And then things went wonderfully black.
And all was well.
Or all was well until Draco Malfoy woke up on a pebbly bank with a bad sunburn and a murderous headache.
He had forgotten a crucial detail. It was this detail that had let Neville Longbottom bounce to safety when summarily defenestrated; this detail that had let Harry Potter plummet to the Quidditch pitch on countless occasions and get back up every time.
Yes, sir; that was where it stood. He, Draco Malfoy, was a fucking wizard.
“Fuckshithell,” he said aloud. It felt like someone had scrubbed the lining of his esophagus with steel wool, and the sound of his voice supported the theory.
This was a sorry state of affairs indeed. He was sopping wet, but the cruel sun of the late afternoon had sapped all of the comforting chill from the water saturating his clothes.
Better still, he’d left his wand at home.
“Why, God?” he muttered, feeling like the walls of his throat were rubbing together. And that its surface was covered in tiny steel spikes and hooks. Poisoned ones. With gnashing teeth.
In addition, he was going to peel like an orange over the course of the next few days.
“Bitch,” he added vindictively, unsure whether he was referring to God, or to life again, or to the sun, or to his mother for hiding him from all of them.
He heaved himself to his feet only to discover that he had lost both shoes and one of his socks in the course of his waterlogged little adventure. Just before he released a string of expletives of epic proportions, the likes of which probably could have bound the sails of all the ships in the Royal Navy, he noted that he was lucky he’d retained his pants.
That would have been awkward.
As he started back towards the latest apartment, the sun-soaked tarmac nipping and searing the soles of his feet, he generated an endless supply of hoarsely-mumbled insults.
He was soaking his bleeding, beleaguered feet in a pan of the lukewarm water that issued from the cold tap by the time he realized that their object was himself.
[Chapter VI] [Chapter VIII]