The Malfoy Project

𝟕𝟓 - 𝐒𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐆𝐥𝐨𝐛𝐞

༻⚜༺     

     After that night with Pansy, I think I stopped being able to breathe. 

     It is as if she has infected me. My flesh can't rid itself of her: the weighted warmth of her body, her black hair tickling my shoulders, the way her mouth smothered itself over mine, silencing me. 

     The memory of it closes my throat up, pinching its walls and making it difficult for air to go in or come out. My palms are sweating all the time, and my fingertips will tingle at odd, random times. I think I might be going insane. Which is why on Sunday night, I agreed to go out drinking with the other Eighth Year Slytherin boys. 

     I had followed not to socialise, but so I could have another excuse to drink myself into a kind of conscious non-consciousness. I've never been close with Blaise or the other Slytherins. I know they never really liked me, and after the war, they have became all the more cold and distant. Still, they always made an effort to invite me to things, make a space for me at the table, congratulate me when I play well during a game. It's a kindness I don't think I deserve. Also, Montague hadn't followed, so I thought I could allow myself this one thing. 

     We had gone not to the Three Broomsticks, but to the Hog's Head Inn. They prefer it there, where, in Vaisey's words, the barkeep isn't so "uptight". What he really means is they won't report us to the school if we got absolutely plastered and started getting rowdy. 

     They ordered three rounds of Butterbeer and a bottle of leftover Christmas mead they sold to us for cheap, and chatted about things that might have interested me once: Quidditch, expensive clothes, stories from their holiday parties. It was all so fucking banal I couldn't even bring myself to acknowledge their questions to me, though they were more than happy to ignore my presence.

     An hour in, they decided the mead wasn't enough and Theodore Nott splashed out on two bottles of Firewhiskey. By eight, half of them were already drunk and the other half were on steadily their way there. They became more boisterous, talking crudely about who they were going to shag on Valentine's Day, each trying to one-up each other, and Vaisey boasting the loudest about the "blonde Hufflepuff with the massive tits" who'd agreed to go on a date with him. I made a mental note to tell Ernie to warn Hannah off if I saw him later. 

     I didn't say much, just focused my attention on drinking as much as I could without passing out. I could not stop thinking about what happened with Pansy: the slippery feeling of her lips on mine, icicle fingers grabbing me like I belonged to her. I remember the fireplace rocking side to side like we had been on a boat, the vomit slopping at the back my throat, the hazy hourglass silhouette hovering above me. 

    But most of all, I remember the moments after, when Pansy had left. It had been hurting unbearably under my trousers, and I needed desperately to relieve myself of it. I necked the last of the vodka, and then, barely able to stand, stumbled my way to the bathroom. 

     In the cubicle, I unzipped my pants and leaned against the walls. Pansy was crawling under my skin, staining it red and black and grey with her slender fingers. I needed reprieve, an escape. Naturally, my thoughts rested on Ainsley, as they always did nowadays. Except this time I did not try to stop it. 

     I imagined her touching me; her tender touch caressing my ugly face, dragging across my mouth, trailing down my body, holding me like I was special; like I was loved.

     You're so good to me, Draco, she whispered. So, so good.

     She washed away everything I have done in the past, washed away who I am. I stood in front of her, clean and sparkling new.