The World and Her Stars: One Shots

Hallucinations of You

(During war; during 6-months D & R were apart; Draco finally puts down the bottle and leaves his room to return to Voldemort's ranks, where he continues to struggle with the loss of the love of his life; Theo steps in to do what Draco can't)

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DRACO POV

"Do it, son. Do it now!" My father yelled, shoving me forward so hard I almost stumbled off of my feet. 

Alcohol was so much easier than this. Being drunk, wasted in my room 24 hours a day was so much easier than pretending to be alright. Numbing the emotions I couldn't occlude was so much easier than facing the withdrawals of the cinnamon fire that ran my throat raw. Or maybe that was the screaming. Or the crying. 

What I knew, was that I felt like shit. Every bit of my body ached. 

For her. For the alcohol. For death. 

Anything to make the pain in my chest go away. 

Blaise's stupid speech was the only thing that got me out of my room. That and the look of pure heartbreak in my mother's eyes. The mix of those two was sobering enough to get me to put the robes back on, but not enough to kick the side effects I was feeling after they threw out every bit of alcohol in the house. 

Now I stood in front of 4 prisoners that kneeled, bloody, bruised, and battered on the floor of my drawing room. No one I recognized. When they spoke, it was in a language I didn't understand, but I did manage to make out the words "Order" and "fuck you". 

My brain felt as if it were bouncing my skull like a rouge balloon. My balance was complete shit, and I was actively trying not to throw up on these poor people. My vision was in double, so who actually knows if there were four prisoners or not. 

That's when the hallucinations kicked in, another side effect from the lack of alcohol by body was used to having by this time of night. 

The faces of one of the women in front of me started to morph into something right before my eyes. I knew that my brain was just playing tricks on me. I knew what I was seeing wasn't a part of reality, but the eyes were just so realistic. 

"Draco, please don't hurt me...please...I love you..." the hallucination sounded just like her too.

"Rose?" I blinked a few times, but the hallucinations were persistent little fuckers. 

"He is ill, dear. He is not in the state to be--" my mother started behind me. 

"Do not make excuses for his weakness." my father cut her off in a barking tone, "He was chosen to be a part of these ranks, and I will be damned if he fails the Dark Lord due to his own carelessness." 

"You are not evil, Draco." the hallucination of Rose continued on. Seeing her bloody and beaten like the prisoner who's body she was appearing on made me feel even more sick, "You're not evil. Don't do this. This isn't who you are. You aren't a murderer." 

Her words echoed in my head like she was actually speaking to me. 

"If he is incapable to complete such a...simple task, Theodore would be happy to carry things out." Nott Sr. sounded from the other side of the room. 

Next to him stood the shell of my former best friend. I honestly didn't even recognize him anymore. He acted nothing like the boy I once knew. He wasn't in there anymore. It was like he had fallen victim to the cycle. He had been consumed by some sort of evil that controlled him like a puppet. 

In a way, I felt bad for him. I had seen the things he had done. There was no way that anyone could live a long life with those kind of sins eating away at their soul. There was no way in hell. 

The vision of Rose melted away sooner than I would have liked. I wanted another moment to believe that she may still be here. I wanted to take another moment to look into those eyes that I missed so bad it made me scream her name in my sleep. 

But she was gone. And with her, my will to live. 

My mother and father bickered for a few more moments behind me before I felt my mother wrap an arm around my shoulders and bring me back to the side of the room, rubbing a comforting hand on my arm.

"Go ahead, Theodore." My father instructed, frustration thick in his voice, with immediately brought up a deep-rooted sense of terror, caused by memories from my childhood that seemed to spill from the depths I had pushed them. 

I stood there as the sharp screams of the prisoners pierced through the air, ricocheting off of the cold, stone walls that surrounded us. Once they saw the look in Theo's eyes as he approached them, they knew their end was only second away. 

I just wish their screams were loud enough to conceal the snaps of their necks, and the thuds their bodies made as they fell to the floor. 

Those sounds would live in my nightmares forever. 

Snap. Thud.