Davina | hp. ✓

26 | The Tipping of Scales

DAVINA GOT DRUNK the following evening. Whereas Theo got blind drunk and stumbled up to their room to pass out, likely on the floor, Davina with her back against the coffee table and stared at the fire as she nursed a bottle of bourbon. Draco had lost count of how much she had, but both of them did enough damage to the bottle to leave it nearly empty. Blaise and Pansy were rummaging in the kitchen, trying to whip up some food for the pair while Kreacher went out to the market to get them supplies for the week and potion materials on Davina's orders. 

Theo was a lost cause now, but Davina was in the state between drunk and totally blacking out where she was sitting down, falling into a troubled introspection. The anguish was written all over her face as Draco sat down with his back to the fire and gazed at her with concern written all over his face. 

"Your spiraling." He observed quietly. 

The reflection of the crackling flames danced in her glossy eyes. She never looked at him, but a low chuckle escaped her lips. 

"I'm self-medicating. There's a difference."

"If you're worried about the Weasleys, don't be. They're going to be fine, they'll rebuild their rut of a home and-"

"I've killed thirteen people since you left for school. That's thirteen lives stolen because some wicked, snake-faced tyrant decreed it, and they all perished by my hands. I can still remember what their faces looked like before I killed them -- the fear, the anguish, the acceptance." Their faces haunted her at night when she tried to close her eyes, but was worse still was the small, lingering darkness in the chest -- the coldness she felt when their deaths traveled through her soul like an ice-bath. "I wonder how many more people I'll have to kill before their faces all blur together in my head? I wonder when I'll start to lose count... If I ever will."

Draco's heart clenched in his chest and he blinked rapidly to prevent the tears in his eyes from falling. "You...You can't think that way."

"It's the only way I can afford to think, Draco." She finally turned her gaze to him. Her expression was pretty impassive, but her eyes -- her eyes were always the window to her soul. They glittered with anguish. "Do you know that I actually welcomed the torture from the Dark Lord last night? I thought it was penance for the shit that I've done, but it wasn't even close. A few minutes of agony can't compare to taking lives in cold blood. I have to think that way because it's the only way I can hold onto my humanity -- or whatever I have left of it."

"You'll end up destroying yourself along the way." He replied, running his hands through his hair. "Is that what you want?"

She craned her neck toward him again and raised the bottle. "What if that was what I planned all along?"

He shook his head and reached out to put his hand on her knees. "Don't do that. Don't...Don't write yourself off as some martyr!"

She seemed to ignore his comment. She turned her gaze back to the fire and took another swig from the bottle. After a long moment in which he stared at her, tears filling his eyes rapidly now, she breathed a heavy sigh. 

"You can't avoid it, Draco. You can't cheat, and you can't find a loophole. You have to kill Dumbledore yourself. Even if you did manage to succeed in some other way, you can't do it that way." She licked her chapped lips. They tasted of bourbon and faintly of coppery blood from went she bit through it during the torture. "Take it from someone who knows... When you kill someone, you at least owe it to them to do it yourself. You have to bear that burden."

"I know... I suppose I did all of that other stuff to get his attention...to get him to figure out what I was doing." He rubbed his face and them wiped the wetness on his palms onto his jumper. She took another drink. "I think some part of me wanted him to try to stop me, maybe even to kill me or imprison me alongside Dad...just so I wouldn't have to go through with it. But he hasn't figured it out. He hasn't done anything."