Serpentine Hearts

3-Draco

Draco awoke in his dorm room the next morning to his alarm blaring and the shadows of his latest nightmare swallowing him. He leaned over to smack the clock, and Blaise in the next bed started to shuffle around in his sheets.

"Bloody Hell Draco" Blaise groaned and rolled over putting his pillow over his head. He had a certain distaste for Draco's new affinity toward muggle devices, but he found that they had their purpose.

"Sorry," Draco said with not much care, lighting a cigarette "I call the bathroom first"

Draco dragged himself out of bed into the bathroom taking a look at himself in the mirror. It wasn't a shock to him that the dark circles were still there and his skin looked clammy. He could feel the silent hum of the dark mark on his forearm waiting to strike, he knew it would slowly get worse throughout the day. He can feel the smoke in his lungs helping to numb the sting.

He remembers when he first picked up the habit. He was In the hallowed halls of Malfoy Manor, where the echoes of a tumultuous past lingered like ancestral whispers, he sought a reprieve from the burdens that adorned his shoulders. The heir to a legacy both illustrious and tainted, he found solace in the quiet ritual of smoking, a habit that became his silent companion in the struggle against the weight of expectations.

The manor's gardens, bathed in the pale glow of moonlight, became Draco's clandestine sanctuary. Amidst the meticulously manicured hedges and the fragrance of night-blooming flowers, he lit a slender silver cigarette holder—a symbol of elegance that veiled the tumultuous currents beneath the surface.

As the first tendrils of smoke curled upwards, Draco felt the insidious grip of stress loosen its hold. Each languid inhale seemed to carry with it the weight of unspoken pressures, and with each exhale, the tendrils dissipated into the cool night air, taking with them the relentless demands of a world that knew no mercy.

The soft glow of the cigarette holder illuminated Draco's face, casting a play of shadows that danced across his features. In those moments, he found joy not just in the act of smoking but in the temporary escape it afforded him—the liberation from the expectations that shackled him to a destiny forged by others.

In those stolen moments of respite, Draco found a semblance of control—an autonomy that eluded him in the grand tapestry of wizarding society. The stresses of bloodline expectations, the scars of a fractured childhood, and the haunting specter of a dark mark were momentarily eclipsed by the tranquility of the night and the measured draw of each inhale. He slightly laughs at how miserable he feels as he puts the cigarette out.

He begins to dress he thinks about the dream that he had, a shiver wanting to run down his spine, but he would not give the noseless lunatic any more of himself, even if the man was dead.

The war may have ended, but the echoes of his experience with Voldemort persisted, manifesting in the twisted landscapes of his dreams.

In the dream, Malfoy Manor stood as a malevolent fortress, its walls echoing with the sinister whispers of a time he wished to forget. The air was thick with tension, and the corridors seemed to elongate with each step as if he were navigating a labyrinth of guilt and fear.

The dream unfolded like a tragic play, each scene a visceral reminder of the choices Draco had made under the shadow of the Dark Lord. The cruel taunts, the mark on his arm, and the sense of suffocating powerlessness clawed at him, unraveling the carefully constructed façade of composure.

As Draco moved through the nightmare scape, the boundaries between memory and fantasy blurred. His attempts to escape were futile, the dream pulling him deeper into the mire of his subconscious fears. The Mark on his arm burned, a searing reminder of the indelible stain on his soul.