d r a c o
two hours before
Alcohol made things clearer.
It was a common misconception, Draco thought; staring down the bar at hazy faces. People always said that alcohol made the world blurry; that it numbed pain and obscured thoughts. But despite the firewhiskey coursing through his bloodstream, the heaviness in his head, the numbness of his senses - Draco's thoughts were clear.
He needed to forget about Belly.
Or not forget about her, but move on. Leave her behind. He had grieved long enough.
Fuck. Well, maybe not. His hand moved instinctively to the snowdrop in the pocket of his jeans, tightened around it. The flower was worn and weathered, petals falling off, stem decomposing. He couldn't possibly grieve her long enough, not ever. But apparently, the earth hadn't stopped turning when he had lost her. And the cracks that had existed before the war were now chasms.
He raised a hand at the bartender, gestured for another drink. The man slid a glass over to him: golden liquid shimmered under the bright lights of the club. Draco wasn't sure what it was. His friends had been ordering whiskeys and rums, finishing them and refilling their glasses with flasks of firewhiskey they carried in their pockets. He downed the drink in one, gestured for another.
Across the room, the other Slytherins swarmed a corner in the back of the club; distinguishable by the long sleeves they wore despite the heat.
Draco's friends had taken their Dark Marks in seventh year, had surreptitiously shared them in the common room; held smug, hushed discussions over them at the Slytherin table. He had wondered on more than one occasion if taking pride in the mark was some vile trend that he had unintentionally started, or if it had just made everything a bit more tolerable to pretend that they were cool, back then.
The Dark Marks were almost unbearable, now. They sat starkly on their forearms, skulls and snakes unfading. They might once have been considered reminders of their past - battle scars - but now seemed like damnations, forever branding them as the people they had been at seventeen. Or the people they had wanted to be, or the people their parents had wanted them to be. That was their classification now, and it rested forever on their arms.
From the circle of Slytherins, Theo turned and waved eagerly to Draco. Draco turned his back to them and moved to the edge of the room. He was wearing a black knit jumper and was too fucking warm. He missed his drafty apartment.
He rested his back against the wall. Writhing, sweaty bodies pushed against each other on the dancefloor in front of him. He closed his eyes and tried to block them out.
His friends were not doing well. He understood that only now. For eighteen months his mind had been swarmed with thoughts of Belly, Voldemort, his family. The neglection from the wizarding world that he was wilfully enduring.
At first glance, you mightn't have noticed. On the surface, the group of Slytherins - babbling, laughing, joking - could easily have been the happiest, most carefree people in the room.
But their smiles were hollow, their eyes were aloof. When he had approached them, Pansy had stood on her tiptoes, grabbed the sides of his head and pulled his face down to hers. "We've lost you, darling," she had said sincerely, "to your camomile tea. And Blaise has told us about the perfume. It is very sad, and has to stop."
All of them were like Pansy, drunk or high out of their minds. Draco couldn't blame them for it, he just hadn't thought about it that much. Hadn't realised they might have been suffering as much as he was.
