𝑆𝐴𝑉𝐼𝑁𝐺 𝐷𝑅𝐴𝐶𝑂 𝑀𝐴𝐿𝐹𝑂𝑌

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟐𝟎 - 𝐞𝐱𝐭𝐫𝐚 𝐬𝐰𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫

╭────── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ──────╮

Grab some tea. It's a long one.
*trigger warning: self-harm*

⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼

𝐃

I stood behind the threadbare tapestry and touched the cold stone behind it.

It was early in the morning. Half of the students hadn't even woken up yet and the rest were heading to the Great Hall for breakfast. This place didn't intervene with any corridor that led to one of the four Houses, so there was no one around me. There was no more perfect time to do this.

I walked inside the Room of Requirements. This time it took the form of a much smaller room. In the middle of the room stood a plain table. I approached it. I took a look at the bottles on top of it. Why couldn't I be more specific with what I asked for? The Room gave me some clear, liquid. I unscrewed one of them. It smelled like alcohol alright, but the odour was tart and piercing. At least Whiskey smelled of something sweet. What was this?

I read the sign on the bottle. Vodka.

I knew I was maltreating myself even as I was doing it. It was already the end of September and I had used up the entirety of liquor I had stashed in my trunk during the summer. In this palace of purity, where the strongest thing an underage wizard can find is a mild butterbeer in Hogsmeade, I put my faith in whatever this unknown alcoholic drink was.

I took a sip just to test the flavour. I remembered when I was younger, Father and I had to go to the Ministry of Magic to settle some unimportant paper issue that had come up with my muggle birth certificate. Father murmured and cursed the whole way to the Portkey that would take us there. On our way there, somewhere in the centre of London, we passed by an oddly smelling place. I still remembered it as if it were yesterday; the muggles drove their 'cars' as they call them, they parked next to some smelly stalls and connected their vehicles to them with black pumps. I even remembered the sign on that place. It was called BP. I wondered what that stood for but I knew better than to ask Father. Whatever that place was, it reeked of a smell nastier than alcohol.

Well, that was what Vodka smelled like. It smelled like the weird 'car' place in London.

In any case, I took another sip. I contemplated leaving the room and ask for my regular, but it seemed that the taste was getting milder the more you got used to it. Then again, I did ask for the strongest thing I could bear, so I simply trusted the Room's judgement and opened my backpack. I loaded the bottles and made my way out of the Room of Requirement.

I almost sprang my way to the west wing. I couldn't be caught carrying these things. I might have gotten used to feeling guilty about some things in life but carrying alcohol intended for daily wasn't one of them.

"Morning, mate! Where did you go this early?"

Blaise was still in his pyjamas but was very much awake. He was freshly back from Maya's dorm and now I would see him shaving through the open bathroom door. However happy I was that I got the room for myself from time to time, I sometimes wished I could punch that lovesick look off his face. During the past couple of weeks, I had to watch everyone in our year fall in love and snog in between classes. The hormones that the school suddenly radiated were unbearable. Somehow, things had been thrown back to the carefree days of our fourth year, when everyone only really cared about who they were going to bring as a date to the Yule Ball. Was the world not witnessing what I did? Of course, they weren't watching the world getting darker to the extent that I did, nor did they have to push every distraction around them away like had, but how could they be dallying in the corridors while there was a war going on?