*TW: suicidal thoughts

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     I pressed my back to the door. Only a piece of wood separated me from Gabriella Ainsley, and yet, it felt like I'm miles away.

     Their muffled voices echoed in the empty stairwell behind me. There was no chance of them being heard up in the dorms, for this was how the common rooms had been so cleverly designed.

     The page of the Prophet felt like lead in my closed fist. I unravelled it for the hundredth time and stared at her moving image. The passion lit up her face from shades of monochrome like she had swallowed a fireball.

     Ainsley did that for me and in repayment, she would probably never see the inside of a press office ever again. Her remuneration came in the form of scowls from the people she calls her friends and a hailstorm of admonishment from the man she calls her lover. I could hear them through the thick mahogany door:

     What the fuck were you thinking?

     I was only doing what's right!

     And then my name. Draco. Draco, Draco, Draco.

     The sound of my thundering heart mingled with their shouting until I couldn't tell one from the other. I stared at the wall to keep my whiskey-pumped head from spinning.

     I wasn't the one who tried to murder the Headmaster three times! I wasn't the one who let the Death Eaters into Hogwarts with the very cabinet I told him about, that made me who I am now, and I don't have a fucking skull slapped onto my skin like some cheap, ugly, botched tattoo!

     I uncapped the flask and took another sip. The faded red scar on my left wrist grinned back at me - a branding of who I was. Who I still am. Cheap, ugly, botched. A weed that has no place in the well-preened garden of Olympus.

     It had gone quiet. The air was still and not another sound came through the door. Had she already left?

     I had to apologise - there was no other way around it. Would I buy another bag of those pineapples she loves so? I hadn't given the last one to her after all. 

     No, I decided. Mother was right. Enough cowardice. Enough hiding. I would tell Ainsley that I was sorry and then I would tell her what I truly feel about her and she would gently let me down and I would go to the Astronomy Tower and climb up the rungs and this time she wouldn't be there to catch me when I fall. I don't want her to.

     Because she might miss, and the rocks will split me open and she will see that my pieces are not sewn of light or hidden gemstones. They are haphazard shards of smoke and grey and crying and loneliness and beatings and death and blood and emptiness.

     I don't want her to see me.

     I necked the rest of the whiskey and creaked open the door. Monty was sitting on the couch, resting his elbows on his knees and raking his hands through his hair. He jumped up at the sight of me. "I didn't know you were still up, mate."

     I had wanted to come in here to sit by myself when I heard you and Ainsley. "I've only just woken up," I said, already making my way to the entrance.

     "Where're you going?"

     "For a walk."

     "It's three in the morning."

     I can tell the time, you fucking prick.

     "I know." The wall opened up for me and he disappeared from view.

     I tried not to run, opting for a brisk walk instead. The air was cold and breezy as I ascended the stairs and crossed the castle, then warm and mellow as I neared the kitchens.

     A sharp turn into the passageway that led to the Hufflepuff Common Room and there she was, tottering unsteadily ahead of me, feeling the wall with one hand as she moved.

     "Ainsley."

     She seemed not to have heard me. We were nearing the end of the tunnel. I only had seconds left before we would arrive at the common room where she would rap the password and go in and that would be the last I see of her before it's all over. 

     "Ainsley," louder. She stopped and spun around, her ponytail draping around her neck. In the semi-darkness, her eyes glowed like dying embers and I was momentarily rendered speechless. "Wh- what are you doing?" I blurt stupidly.

     Her mouth twisted in confusion and she coughed. "What do you need?" she said hoarsely. I noted the way she hadn't bothered to greet me or call my name as she always did. I think she really does resent me. "What do you need?" she repeated.

     You. "I want to tell you something."

     She looked so tired; shadows of her eyelashes fluttered against the prominent grey hollows under her eyes. "Draco, I'm really not in the mood."

     "Will you please just listen to me?" I reached for her arm but she pulled back with such force that she tripped over her own feet and almost fell over.

     "No!" The tunnel echoed back her scratchy shout. "No, Draco. I'm sick of listening to people! I'm sick of listening to people because that's what I've been doing all this time! I listened to Rita, and your family and then you and now look at what I've done! I've ruined your parents and you and Hogwarts and Monty and myself. I should never have taken this stupid project in the first place. It's because of it that everything's gone to shit now. So please stop talking to me because I don't want to listen to another word of what you or anyone else has to say any more!"

     Her last few words skipped and skidded and lost their sound. All feelings of benevolence left me and familiar bitterness took its place. "You know what? You're right," I said. "It's because of you that they took down the garden. It's because of you my father is now awaiting trial with the Ministry. It's because of you that the entire fucking school thinks I'm some lovelorn Death Eater prat, as if I haven't already fucked half the girls in our year."

     It's because of you that I no longer care about the garden, but about you. It's because of you my father is finally paying for what he has done. It's because of you I am a lovelorn prat, because I need you like soil needs rain and shadows need light.

     And it's because of you that I know what its like to have the sun on my face and finally feel its warmth. It's because of you my favourite poem is no longer Alone by Edgar Allen Poe, but one called Your Laughter by Pablo Neruda because that is all I can think of. 

     It's because of you that I love.  

     "Draco?"

     I wondered why she called my name, but it wasn't Gabriella Ainsley who had said it. 

     Hannah Abbott stood at the end of the tunnel like an angry goddess, folded arms tucked under her voluptuous chest. Her forest green slip barely covered anything. "You were supposed to be here hours ago!" she whined. "I waited all night for you! What are you doing with," - she peered into the darkness - "Ainsley?"

     Ainsley turned back to me, a stray wisp of light winking off the high points of her face. She carelessly tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, and she was so heart achingly beautiful that I could have sworn the heavens wept when she said, "Goodbye, Draco."

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     I did not go to the Astronomy Tower after that. Hazy with alcohol, I left that blonde minion of Aphrodite¹ standing there to call after me, deaf to her demands as to why I had hung her out to dry. 

     The frigid winter gales portended a deadly winter, penetrating straight to the bone as I strode through the sheltered walkway towards the West Tower, but my skin was insulated by whiskey and my heart by newfound hope.

     I climbed the ice-painted stairs, almost losing my footing on the sixth step, and again on the thirtieth. Fifty-six steps - I counted - and I was at the top of the tower. Up there, the night sky hung so it seemed that if I raised my hands, my fingertips would graze the swollen clouds.

     The owls blinked awake at my presence and hooted in curious greeting. Further in the Owlery stood a shelf of little square spaces that held pending letters that have not yet been delivered. In the last hole was kept spare parchment and quills.

     I picked the materials out, and amidst the nauseating smell of owl droppings and piss, using the top of the shelf as a tabletop, I wrote a letter to my parents for the first time in two years.