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[He's still trying for the sake of trying, practically hearing Lucius' voice in his ear telling him to fight on and be stronger. You're a wizard, Draco. You should be stronger than this...girl.

Should be, but not likely.]

...how was I to know that's what she would do to her? What was I supposed to do when spells started flying and she started...just...mutilating her? I should have done something. I should have figured out a plan sooner and now because of me she gets to have a perfectly nice constant reminder of the day I stood by and watched her start to die a slow and painful death.

[sophie's gradually putting herself between draco and the shadows. despite the fact that she's struggling with him a bit, her voice stays pretty even]

You weren't to know. What could you have done, Draco, realistically? Not just should have and something. You didn't mark her.

I was there, Sophie. I could have--[He has no idea. He has absolutely no idea how he could have realistically helped Hermione without fucking everything up for his family and himself. As she gradually puts herself between him and shadows, he's just as gradually curling up into himself on the floor, only occasionally trying to strain to scratch the wall again.]

I watched. That's just as bad. I let it happen.

I know you were. I saw.

[the more he curls, the closer she gets to him. she still has his hands, so when he curls he's pulling her in as well]

You didn't answer the question. What could you have done?

[He just shakes his head. Rationally, yes, he's aware he couldn't have done much without getting them all killed. However...rationality took a nice, long vacation from this conversation. ]

I could have ignored them. I could have released Potter from the cellar myself.

[she's quiet for a long moment]

Who would have died for that?

...[He just quietly stares at her. Who do you think, Sophie? Draco Malfoy has never really been a self-sacrificing type of person...but a lot can change when you hear someone else's death mantra and actually understand what it's like.] It might have been worth it.

[she lets out a little breath and leans down over him, head resting on his shoulder]

They won the war, Draco. You haven't lived it yet, but she has. It happens. You lived, she lived. Everyone has their scars.

[she takes a long, slow breath, chest pressing into his shoulder for a moment]

I prefer you alive.

I think it terrifies her. How I got the scars. [Hopefully Sophie can keep up and realize he's suddenly talking about Jade instead. Draco likes to make illegal lefthand turns without signaling during conversations.] ...she asked me some things and the answers scared her. I scared her. She wants to know but I can't tell her. I can't terrify her again.

It doesn't matter. Sophie things were...are...were...are? Everything's hopeless, war won or not. Nothing will ever be the same ever again and I had a prime hand in causing the wreckoning.

Which scars? [it takes her a moment, but she realizes that the 'she' has changed once he starts talking about telling things. she can't imagine him being purposefully honest with hermione] When was this, Draco?

[her head rolls enough to look at him, even if it's a bit down her nose]

Things not being the same doesn't mean that they're hopeless. Just different.

...[He settles for gesturing to his arm first, and then his torso.] When was what?

[He's avoiding her gaze again, shaking his head.] They're synonymous for us. You don't understand, it's completely the same thing. Different is hopeless.

Show me? Not your arm.

When did she ask?

[there's a moment of silence, and then sophie lifts her head]

I understand hopeless, Draco. They won the war. Your mother helped end it. That's not hopeless. There's the possibility of redemption there, for you.

[He's shaking his head suddenly. No way. It's taken a lot for him to just show Jade his scarring. So instead he does exactly what she says not to do and holds out his arm.]

...right after the nightmares ended.

[He's biting his lip, tearing it up even further and sprouting a new bought of bleeding.] That's not...no. It's not that simple.

All right.

[she's not stung by the refusal, she just runs her fingers through his hair. him not wanting to tells her plenty]

Then of course she was afraid, Draco. She dreamed of you dying, with me.

[and then she pauses for a moment, because the gesture at his chest and the torn-open draco she saw in jade's dream just clicked together]

They're hard things to hear, and maybe she couldn't right then. But that doesn't mean she can't later. Or that everyone will be horrified.

[she takes the handkerchief and dabs his lip with a clean spot]

Why not?

[He doesn't reject the fingers running through his hair, but he's also still trying to more or less eat his lip.]

...wait, what? [Somehow that doesn't add up for him. He's also curling up further to make his torso as small as possible.] No...she told me that she wants to know someday but I can't keep terrorizing her. I can't tell her about everything that I've done because it's going to change everything. You didn't see the way she looked at me when I told her about keeping everyone in the cellar and hexing people.

[He doesn't bat away the handkerchief though it's not doing much if he keeps messing with his lip.] It doesn't matter what my mother did. Yes, she's going to be the one that makes sure we don't end up in Azkaban, but beyond that the reputation of our family's going to still be old servants of the Dark Lord. I'm always going to be the boy who attempted to murder Albus Dumbledore. My father's always going to be the man who was one of his most faithful servants. And we're both always going to be marked.

[he curls and she curls with him, because hurting him makes her want to squeeze herself small. but she's trying to keep her feelings about what she's doing to herself. this isn't about her feelings.]

No, I didn't. But I did see one of her dreams. If she said she wants to know, she wants to know. It's not really surprising she couldn't hear it then. Most people seem to have a limit of what they can bear at once. If she'd seen what I saw in her dream she was probably there.

You're going to chew through your lip, Draco. Then she might actually try to kill me for hurting you. [she pulls very gently at where he's gnawing himself.]

You'll be those things, yes. But you didn't kill him and I know this sounds mad, Draco, but people think we're children.

I know...I know she wants to hear it all but I don't know if I can do that to her. I can't give her that kind of responsibility and those things to worry about. I can't keep giving her my problems because she's going to keep taking and taking and eventually break. [And that in itself terrifies him] I can't break her. I'm not going to break her and let her down.

It's fine. [But he can't stop her from stopping him and he just gives her another kind of helpless looking. Lip-gnawing is a lot like a security blanket.] Besides you didn't cause all of this.

People may think we're children, but I would be tried as an adult. I've been branded since I was a child, Sophie. The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black has a reputation, as does the Malfoy family. I can't escape without changing my entire identity. And even if I did that the Dark Mark's always there. There's always a reminder that I made this choice. Made my bed, have to lie in it, that sort of thing. [He sniffs suddenly] I have made a lot of really bad choices, and most people can recover from that but I can't. I can't recover because too much damage has been done already.

...besides. I haven't been treated like a child since I was about eight years old. Just another reason that argument is invalid.

Edited (You'd think I'd make even more mistakes than one typo while phone-tagging...) 2013-04-23 23:41 (UTC)

She's worrying anyway. And you don't have to tell her absolutely everything or all at once. It didn't happen all at once.

[when he gives her that helpless look there's pain in her face for all of an eyeblink. then it's gone and she's calm]

If you want to gnaw, gnaw the handkerchief. It's about as bloody now.

Perhaps. But you didn't do the worst of what was asked of you. That doesn't make you a coward in the eyes of those who thought those things wrong. And I know you love your family, Draco, but is their reputation the one you want?

[she's practically wrapped around him, like she can shield him from anything at all]

I just don't believe that it's impossible, Draco. Hard, yes. But not impossible. You have more in you than you think, or it wouldn't hurt so much.

No, but a majority of it happened within a year or so. I know she says she can handle it but I don't need her to know everything that makes me--[He just stops. Remember what your father always said, Draco. Dignified. Strong. And never, ever admitting to weaknesses.]

...that's disgusting, you know. I'm not looking for the taste of blood. [Other than he sort of is in a weird kind of way. He'll have to pass though.]

I didn't do it because I'm a fucking failure, Soph. [There, he said it. He's a failure. "He doesn't have the stomach for it. Just like his father." And he's shaking his head again.] It also doesn't matter what I want. It's what I have. It's the price I've paid. It doesn't matter because you know what? I'm a coward in the eyes of everyone who was expecting me to actually pull through, and I'm a two-faced bastard in the eyes of everyone who thought those things were wrong and saw I didn't go through with them anyway. It doesn't matter.

That's a bunch of bullshit and you know it. [Sharply, more confident than anything else he's said thus far.] There's nothing left.

You don't want her to know. Because she might think of you what you think of you.

It's less disgusting than chewing through your lip. [she's not offended by the rejection but if he starts gnawing again he's getting a bite of fabric instead]

Not wanting to kill someone doesn't make you a coward. I'm pretty sure there's something more wrong with people who find it easy. [like her] And it does matter what you want because things change. You changed.

[well, now she's a little upset]

It is not bullshit. Are you really going to tell me you have nothing with a straight face?

["I'm a monster. So. Yes."] Exactly.

That's hardly disgusting. That's human.

Things cannot be changed! [Annnd we're snapping like turtles.] It doesn't matter if I've changed because it's not something I can keep a hold on. It doesn't matter what I want if it doesn't line up with the best interests of what everyone else wants, don't you understand that?

I have nothing. All of my choices and all of my decisions leave me with nothing.

You aren't really what you think you are.

[she tenses like she's about to snap back, but it doesn't come. she can't let herself keep tearing at him. so she reaches for her control.]

If that's what you really believe, then why are you torturing yourself with a future you don't know of a life that the person you are now won't be living?

You really don't have nothing. But I don't want to play the comparing horrors game. What you don't have is the straightforward black-and-white life you had before you realized what it was.

[He's silent then, knowing that she's beating him with logic but he's a little too busy scrambling to hold onto his emotions and reel everything back in. He doesn't speak for a very long time.]

...what do you want me to say now, Sophie?

I don't know. What I do know is that you're poisoning yourself, carrying all these things you hate yourself for. And I understand that fear. I don't really understand why you'd rather take yourself away from the people who care about you, the you of right now. Maybe Jade doesn't really want to know what she thinks she does. That doesn't make you a monster. Yes, you made mistakes. But if you eat yourself from the inside like this then you're taking away your chance to be more than those mistakes. You're the one who doesn't believe that's there, not the rest of us. You're so afraid of failing something you've already succeeded at. You realized. You changed. You're running from a monster you're already facing and of course that's tearing you apart.

You're important to me, Draco. I know that means very little in the scheme of things, but you do. I won't leave you alone in your head to destroy someone who's mine.

[...maybe he is just running away from something he's already facing. Maybe he is something different. Maybe Sophie's right.

Of course it's not that simple. Nothing's ever that simple.]

...that actually means a lot more than you'd suspect. [The first admittance. He's suddenly more concerned with the hem of his shirt and the dried blood on it.] ...and anyway. It's safer to eat myself than let it consume everyone else, isn't it? It's better to keep yourself from falling apart in eyesight of other people.

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