Begin Again - Dramione

Decisions

A memoir forces me to stop and remember carefully. It is an exercise in truth. In a memoir, I look at myself, my life, and the people I love the most in the mirror of the blank screen. In a memoir, feelings are more important than facts, and to write honestly, I have to confront my demons. - Isabel Allende

Draco's POV

The halls were silent. Even the usually noisy portraits were muted. After such a hectic game, the fatigue was finally catching up to me. I longed to be in bed, but I knew sleep wouldn't come easily. Therefore, I decided to walk around the place, evading Filch as much as possible. If one thing I truly felt sorry about after the war , it was that even after all those disasters occurring all over Hogwarts, Filch had still managed to come out alive without a scratch. If anything, it only made me a little bit wary of the old goon. Who knew what he did all this time lurking away in dark recesses of the castle.

As I made my way down the fifth floor hallway, a muffled sobbing sound made me pause. It felt like the owner of the voice was trying their best to mute down their anguish, but clearly it wasn't working. Intrigued I followed the sound which led me through a hidden passage through a tapestry. To my surprise, I ended up in the potions lab.

The night was dark and silent, the chilled November air wafting through the open windows. The lab was dead silent, which made the muffled sound of crying more eerie than it should've been, had it been any other time of the day. With slow, steady steps I crept farther towards the back of the room, walking in between the narrow isles - my wand held tightly in front of me.

"I'm so sorry.. I'm sorry..." a gruff voice whispered. From the distance, it sounded like a male's voice. Now really intrigued I slowly made my way closer. Quite suddenly, silvery puffs of smoke erupted from a cauldron nearby and I almost cast an Unforgivable.

Holding my war instincts back, I calmed down enough to make out the ginger head of Weasley standing over the cauldron. The little light coming through the windows shone over his face and I could make out shiny tear drops glistening on his cheeks. The sight was disturbing, to say the least.

"I should've had saved you. I'm sorry." he repeated, again and again. The trance-like state of the weasel was starting to creep me out. As I watched on silently, Weasel produced a large vial from his robe pocket and started pouring the draught in it, still murmuring maniacally. Having seen enough to know what was going on, I retraced my steps back the way I'd come and not knowing any place safer, mindlessly made my way to my haven.

The torches were lit and the fireplace was roaring with toasty warmth. Walking in I found Granger passed out on the couch while the strange looking black box kept flashing with moving images and the numerous headless sounds produced a soothing background noise. Settling down on the opposite couch, I closed my eyes.

What I'd just seen wasn't something out of the blue. The war had had horrific effects on everyone. And I could at least give the trio this much credit as to be the most disturbed out of all what with being the center of most of everything that went down during the war.

Everyone had tried to find escape. Some way of salvation, inner peace. For me it was thinking. It proved dangerous for my sanity, no doubt but analyzing, scrutinizing everything to bits gave my conscience a breakthrough. It gave me the ability to judge and justify. It made me not feel imprisoned in my own body. It gave me a reason to move on. It gave me strength to fight my own head which had been so polluted over the years by my father who was now as good as dead. And most of all, it made me feel human.

Everyone it seemed had found one way or another to deal with their tragedies. Weasel had been drugging himself all this time, and I had a slight hunch that he hadn't told anyone about his conditions.