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He watches himself in the mirror. Turns around a few times. His fingers find his imperfections immediately, they prod them and his eyes flicker to all the fat that shows. He sees bulging cheeks, a round belly with no definition, wide hips and his thighs smashed against each other. Draco sighs and turns around again. His eyes catch on the photograph Pansy had made two summers ago, she had used a sticking charm to make sure it stayed on his mirror and he can’t help but notice his skinny frame. Legs that barely filled his trousers, bony hands and arms that wouldn’t be able to carry anything. He remembers how he could touch his ribs, how he could count them all and he remembers the anguish on his friends face when they found out they could count them too.
He puts on his robes and after a last glance into the mirror he goes to find his friends.
fourty-three, fourty-four, fourty-five,
“Dray, I’m worried about you, I haven’t seen you eat in three days!”
twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven,
“You have been working out every night this week, mate, can’t you come and play some cards with us?”
seventy-eight, seventy-nine, eighty,
“Mr. Malfoy, I hope you know that help will always be given to those who deserve it.”
He finds them in the common room and goes to sit with them. Pansy gives him a small smile and Vincent grunts at him. He says hi back but soon finds his eyes glued to the muffin Gregory is devouring. He cannot remember the last time he had one, and it is hard to recount the taste. He knows it must be marvellous though, the elves here sure know how to bake them.
“Have you thought about joining it? Draco?” He startles and looks at Pansy. “Joining what exactly?”
“The Inquisitorial Squad, the one Umbridge set up? I’d have thought you would have joined immediately to be the first to capture Potter.”
He didn’t remember being asked, but he knows he hasn’t been too aware of his surroundings lately. Sometimes his brain is so slow, he cannot think at all. Nevertheless he doesn’t have the time. He needs to make sure his grades are better than that Granger, his nightmares surely don’t let him forget what will happen otherwise. Sometimes his hand will start to shake out of nowhere and he’ll hear The Dark Lord laughing, just as he did when he was at the Manor during summer. He needs all the time he can get to work on being perfect. So his mother will be safe and his father might be proud of him once more.
“No, I do not have time. Besides I hardly think Potter will be stupid enough to jeopardise his already poor standing.” He casts a tempus and lets his friends know he’ll be going for a walk. If he goes now, he’ll have enough time to be back before curfew and burn the amount of calories he needs to.
You already ate that piece of cake after dinner, why not some chocolate? You already ruined this day, you can have a fresh start tomorrow.
It’s the thoughts late at night, when he lays awake. Hunger eats at his stomach and it tries to crawl out of his throat. The hunger will reach for anything, it will beg for anything, it hurts and hurts and hurts and it’s all he can think about when he just wants to sleep because he is so tired from being awake all day.
Why don’t you go the kitchens? The elves will feed you, if you go now.
But he hasn’t done anything to deserve it. He doesn’t deserve food and he doesn’t deserve help. He hasn’t earned it. He spewed hate and filth at others and when they simply dismissed him, he turned that hate inwards. He started to see himself with hate-filled eyes and all he can think about is that he doesn’t deserve anything.
Can you imagine what they will give you?
Draco’s fingers tap his collarbones rhythmically, he encircles his wrist with his thumb and pink and he wraps his hand about his upper arm. In his head he keeps repeating. “You don’t need to eat.” He doesn’t.
Forget about the kitchens, Gregory brought some chocolate frogs with him from Hogsmeade last weekend. Take those. Eat them.
He receives a letter from his mother during breakfast and eyes the sugar quills she sent with it. He offers them to Vincent before reading the letter. Vincent doesn’t eat them immediately like Draco thought he would, but saves them. During the day Draco keeps seeing them. In Vincent’s bag when they sit next to each other during a lesson, when Vincent takes them out of his bag to search for a pen, when Vincent puts his bag on the table in the library. Draco cannot stop thinking and before evening falls he has stolen them back.
He eats them all. And the chocolate he still had. And the piece of apple pie he had smuggled from dinner. And the sandwich he took from lunch a few days back pretending to eat it. He is debating going to the kitchen for more when Theo walks in and laughs at whatever he sees on Draco’s face. “You’ve got a bit of…” he says while pointing at his face. Draco feels himself blushing before he rushed to the bathroom. He sees a bit of the chocolate around his mouth but he cannot stop looking at his cheeks. Why did he eat all of that when he already looks so fat?
Dread starts to close his throat, his breath quickens and all he can see is the toilet. His stomach churns while he kneels before it and sticks his fingers down his throat. He needs it out.
A second on the lips, forever on the hips, his mother always said. He doesn’t want more on his hips. He shoves his fingers down again.
He sees the numbers everywhere around them.
They stand brightly on his essay, just a few points less than on Granger’s. They are in his Defence Against The Dark Arts book and he sees them on his empty plate. They stare at him when he looks in the mirror.
His stomach rumbled and he hasn’t eaten in two days and he didn’t think it would matter but who was he kidding. Why couldn’t he be better?
He is checking himself over in the mirror (to make sure nobody can see what he did in the bathroom when he steps out) when Potter and Weasley walk in the lavatory.
“Looking to see if your hair is still on your head, you git?” Weasley snickers at his own joke, but Draco sees Potter frowning at him. He wonders if it is obvious he binged this morning again, and that he just purged. He doesn’t want to think about what would happen if they had come in a bit sooner. He simply sneers at the two and walks out of the bathroom.
He eats too much cake, and heaves it all up. He runs so much his heels are bleeding twenty-for-seven. He smiles at his friends while panicking and wondering what they were talking about again. He laughs and talks and tries to work out what makes the people around him the most happy. He cries at night, and after he eats and when he runs and he wonders why he is still trying.
But then he remembers he is almost at perfection. He remembers why he is doing this. Because his parents are scared and agry and happy but they don’t listen. They don’t see and he feels so alone. He knows where his path lies, though. He knows what he has to do to keep them alive and he knows that neither of them will compromise. No matter how hard he begs.
No matter how hard he hopes someone will tell him they can help him, and actually mean it.