I check the bathroom for any other occupants and then lock the stall door behind me. I curse the school staff for making the bathroom doors immune to locking charms. They do it so students won't have sex in here. I need them locked for another reason. I let my bag slide to floor and roll up my sleeves.

I've been doing this for well over a year and I still haven't mastered the appropriate charm and so I'm forced to do so by hand. I kneel down in front of the toilet and shove my first two fingers down my throat. I retch, violently, and everything I ate today and most of yesterday presents itself for a second time. I repeat this again, and as the contents of my stomach spill into the toilet bowl, I hear the bathroom door open behind me. I sigh, and spit into the bowl. I stare at my own sick for a moment, waiting for my stomach to settle.

My bathroom companion takes a piss and flushes the toilet in the stall beside me. I flush, wiping my mouth with a piece of tissue and sliding my sleeves down before unlocking the door. I groan as I see who it is that joined me in my private moment. I approach the sink beside Potter and begin washing the vomit off my hand. The flesh on my fingers sting with the contact, but at least they aren't bleeding today.

After I wash my hands I pull my toothbrush out of my bag. Irritatingly, I notice that Potter is looking at me funny.

"What the bloody hell are you staring at?" I snap, holding the brush beneath the water.

"Are you alright, Malfoy?" He asks, slowly. I stare at him for a moment and then I look away.

"Don't eat the shellfish." I mumble. He raises his eyebrows at me as I spread toothpaste on the brush.

"Oh is that what's wrong with you?" He asks. I ignore him and start brushing my teeth, eager to rid myself of the taste of vomit. There's a lot of things wrong with me, and he doesn't need to know a single one of them. I spit, and start to rinse my mouth out with water. Potter stands beside me, calculating every move I make. "So, uh," he says, trying and failing at sounding casual. "Why do you carry a toothbrush with you?" Getting annoyed, I spin around to look at him.

"Since when are my personal hygiene habits so important to you, Potter?" He's quiet for a moment.

"You know," he starts slowly. "This is the third time this week I've heard someone vomiting in here." I stop and close my eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath and counting to 3 before I respond. I'm sure to leave my tone monotonous, and uncaring, despite inwardly panicking.

"You must be psychic." I mumble, pushing past him. He starts to say something else but I leave without giving him the chance. Looking around to make sure I'm not being followed, I pick up speed on my way back to my dorm. The encounter has me shaken.

Potter knows. He has to know.

I reach the dungeons and lock myself in my four-poster.

It was only a matter of time, I figure, as I pull my journal from my bedside table. I've been at this for a year and a half, maybe more. I've been walked in on before. No one has ever said a thing, though. So either no one cares, or no one has paid enough attention to the sounds of my retching to figure out that something's wrong. Or, I consider as I yank up my sleeves and examine the cuts on my wrists, no one even notices that I exist. Honestly, I'd rather the second, despite a large part of me knowing almost as fact that it really is the last.

So Potter knows. How bad can that be? Hell, I can probably even convince him that he's wrong. That wouldn't be so hard, right? Just keep on acting like he's crazy, and eventually, he'll start believing it himself. Just because he heard me throwing up doesn't mean he can prove that it was me.

Despite these reassurances, I'm unable to rid myself of the pesky butterflies, fluttering in my stomach and making it impossible for me to sit still. I pull my knees to my chest for a moment, but this doesn't work, and I eventually give in and pull the razorblade from beneath my pillow.

This one isn't the only one I have. I have them hidden everywhere. In my Quidditch locker, in some of my textbooks, taped to the inside of my journal, and I carry one in my robe pocket, in the off chance that I'll need one during class and I can't take my bag with me. So during times like this, when the anxiety takes hold or for some reason I find it hard to cope, it's never a struggle to find what I need.

I waste no time in applying 6 fresh slices to my left wrist, and watch carefully as each one beads up with blood, one after the next, slowly starting to drip across the scars and to the crevice of my elbow. The sting hits me a moment later, and I feel the anxiety begin to fade. I'll be okay. I will, really. It doesn't matter what Potter knows. I open up my journal – a muggle notebook – and pull my standard ball-point pen from the spiral.

21 September, 1996

So I think that Potter is on to me. He sort of cornered me in the washroom after lunch today, and that's why I'm here right now instead of in History like I'm supposed to be. That's okay, though, really, because no matter what he suspects I might be doing, he has no way to prove it, and he wouldn't have to guts to tell on me.

I don't see why he cares, anyhow, and with the way he was looking at me I can imagine that I'm really more of a puzzle than a person to him. He doesn't care, care. He's just wants to sort me out. Maybe it's his hero complex. Maybe he thinks it's funny. It doesn't matter to me because I don't care what Potter has to say. I don't.

Anyway, instead of going to History, I'm upstairs with my curtains drawn and I've just cut myself again. It's a wonderful way to start off a week, don't you think? All joking aside, I think I'm starting to fail some of my classes and I really wish that I could make myself care more than I do. And yet, I don't, and I can't see myself caring any time soon. I have to face that truth that I'm probably not even going to make it until graduation, anyway. So tell me, what's point?

What's the point of any of it? I'm lying, always, every time I even step outside these curtains. There's not a single person out there who knows or would even care to know what's wrong. I could do it. I could end it any time if I could just gather the courage. All this pain, and fear, and judgment. All of it would be gone. Heaven knows I've got enough suicide notes piled up in these pages to provide a decent idea as to why I did it.

Maybe someday, I'll give them all a chance to read it.

As for now, I'll keep lying, and cutting, and puking. God knows that's all my fat ass is good for.

Draco Malfoy

"That's all you're good for." I whisper, as I stare down at the pages. Something wet smudges my signature, and it takes me a moment to realize that I'm crying now. I sniff and impatiently wipe the tears from my face. "That's all you're good for, you worthless, disgusting piece of shit." Two more tears hit the pages, and I close the cover of the notebook. I'm not up for class today.

Locking my journal back into my bedside table, I lie down and curl into a comfortable position. I drape my arm across my face. If I sleep, I can't cry, and I need to be presentable for dinner time.

Eventually, I'm able to pass out.

I awake a few hours later to the sounds of the door being slammed open, and Blaise talking loudly to Theo as they walk in. I groan, wincing from my sudden headache.

"Fuck off, Blaise." Theo is saying. "I'm not loaning you anything else."

"Oh come on, man. I didn't mean to lose this one. I swear."

I roll over and sit up, rubbing at my eyes, which are a little crusty from crying before I forced myself into sleep.

"You never mean to lose them!" Theo exclaims. "Just go buy yourself your own damn quills!"

"I can't until Friday." Blaise whines. "I already spent my allowance money." I try to block them out. My wrist is stinging, sharply, and I look down to see that one or two of the cuts has bled through the sleeve of my shirt. I sigh. I have to stop ruining my shirts like this. I'm useless when it comes to charm work, so I don't know how rid them of these bloodstains…

I stare at the scabs on fingers. If I was useful at all in charms, I wouldn't have to shove my fingers down my throat. I feel the depression starting to suffocate me all over again. Ignoring my roommates, I hurry into the bathroom and step into the shower.

"Come on." I whisper to myself. "Get yourself together Malfoy." Dried blood caked on my wrists begins to liquefy, running off my fingertips and swirling dramatically down the drain. Regardless of anything I might be feeling or thinking at this very moment, when I step out of this shower, I have to go back to being a Malfoy again.

This weakness is truly my darkest secret. It's the part of me that absolutely nobody should ever see.

I slide down the wall so that I'm sitting on the shower floor. It's getting hard to keep pretending. I fight off the urge to start crying again, and pull deep, steadying breaths from the steamy air surrounding me. I take my showers way too hot, and I watch my pale skin turn an angry red beneath the water.

Purging type Anorexia. That's what the muggles call it. An "eating disorder". A psychological condition which constitutes as a legitimate mental illness. Bullshit. It's all bullshit. What I do is means of staying with the familial and social pressures that come with being me. A method of perfection. A mechanism which keeps me where I need to be. I may be a lot of things, but a psych case certainly isn't one of them. If it were up to them, my cuts would land me in a metal ward, too, and any moron can figure out that a simple, harmless coping method isn't enough to warrant slapping me with an "addict" label and shipping me off to St. Mungo's. I'm fine.

Still, sitting here on the shower floor, forced to examine my body, I'm beginning to wish I'd brought a blade in here with me. I can't hide them in the shower, for obvious reasons. I glance up and spot Blaise's shower razor. It will have to do.

I grab it.

The only place a shaving razor is good for is the hips, because it's the only spot where the skin is thin enough to penetrate. Otherwise, it's hard to get a good, blood-drawing slice. I take the razor and run it a few times over my hip bones. It takes a good moment before the blood begins to surface, and it does so in groups of 3. One line per blade in the razor. I watch, satisfied, as the beads of blood run down my skin and into the water below.

This is effective in cheering me, slightly. Enough at least to get on with tonight's dinner show.

I step out of the shower and wrap my towel all the way up beneath my armpits. In my haste, I have forgotten to bring fresh clothes into the bathroom with me, and so now I'm faced with the dilemma of dressing myself without exposing my cuts to my roommates. I listen briefly at the door, and determine that Blaise and Theo haven't left yet.

I take a deep breath. No matter how many times I have come close to discovery, the anxiety never fades. I've done this dozens of times. Yet, I still feel like at any moment one of them is going to call me out.

I open to door and fast-walk across the dorm room, and hide myself in my curtains before either one has had the chance to notice me. I take a moment to catch my breath. My hands are shaking. I groan at my pathetic sensibilities and pull a shirt from my bedside drawer. I pull it on over my cuts and button it slowly, examining my forearms to make sure that they aren't going to bleed through on me. After my shirt, I attend to my pants and trousers, wincing slightly as my waistband bites into my newest lacerations.

I tuck in my shirt, do my belt, pull on my robe, straighten my tie, fix my hair, and trim my fingernails.

A Malfoy must always be presentable. Especially during dinner time.

God forbid someone watches me eat.

The concept makes me shudder.

"Hey, Malfoy?" Blaise calls from the doorway. "You coming or what?" Taking one final, stabilizing breath. I turn to Blaise and nod.

"Yeah." I answer strongly. "I'm coming."

The show must go on.