➤ pairing: Draco Malfoy x gryff!fem!reader (house barely mentioned).
Request: None
tw: eating disorder; mentions of bullying and anxiety attack.
Note: I’ve wrote this based on personal experiences and what I needed at the time. DO NOT read this if it’s not comfortable for you. If you or someone you know is struggling with an eating disorder, please reach out for help.
English is not my native language so I’m sorry if there is any mistakes. This is my first fic ever so it might not be so good. I hope you enjoy it though.
Summary: Y/N is a keeper at the Gryffindor (barely mentioned) team, who has been developing an eating disorder and Draco Malfoy seems to be only one who noticed it.
Y/N always had problems with her body image. At her early teens at Hogwarts she used to be mocked, mostly by Pansy Parkinson and her friends, because she was too thin. When Y/N turned 14, she started gaining weight since she was eating too much due to her increased anxiety, and then she was again being mocked, except now because she was getting fat, and everyone talked about it, even when they didn’t want to be mean, saying things like “you should get on a diet”. By 16, Y/N started focusing on her weight loss journey, she was finally gonna be health, delicate and beautiful as the other girls her age.
Some months later
It was right after the quidditch match between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw. They won, of course, since you’ve let too many quaffles go through the goal hoops. You’re a keeper at the Gryffindor team, and you’re good at it. When you’re not dizzy anyway.
“It happened again, didn’t it?”
you heard the familiar voice behind you. It sounded soft, which was not a usual thing. You closed your locker and turned around to face Malfoy. The others had already left the locker room, so now it was just you and him.
"It happened what again, Malfoy?" you asked him, trying to sound indifferent, when you were all, but that. He had some power over you, it was irritating actually, how nervous you would get when he was around.
Malfoy has been acting weird these past few months, he didn't tease you anymore. When his friends said anything about you, he would either just leave or just stare at you, but never laugh with them, never contribute to their bullying. He was the only one in the group who said nothing about your recent weight loss. The others did. Pansy would never loose the chance to say you finally learnt to shut your mouth.
You hated that he hadn't said anything, you worried you hadn't lost enough weight for him to notice, and you wanted him to see that you could be pretty too.
He looked in you up and down, checking you, before focusing on your eyes again and said "Dizziness."
You didn't understand why he was saying this, why he would notice you feeling dizzy. "Yeah.. just a little. I'm bit distract that's all". A few seconds went by where he said nothing, just stood there looking at you. Was that concern in his eyes? You couldn't tell. "Look, uhmm, I don't know where this is coming from, but I have to go. If you have any jokes to make about me being a bad keeper, or an ugly, fat bad keeper or whatever" you noticed him flinch at that, as if it had hurt him. "say it now or leave it for tomorrow 'cause I'm really tired and just wanna go to my bed"
He walked towards you, enough for him to talk low and look closely into your eyes, making you even more nervous, and said "You have to stop this, Y/N, it's making you sick."
"I don't know what you talking about"
Now he let out a breath in disbelief. "Oh, you don't know what I'm talking about? Let my clarify to you, then, It's a very simple concept, really, I thought you would know it by now." He was actually getting angry. "In order to live, people have to eat. It's the only way to get nutrients into your body. Really, Y/N, that's basics"
"I know about that. It's a good thing I eat, then, right?'' You said also angry now with his sudden aggressiveness.
"Do you though? 'Cause what I'm seeing-" he said gesturing to your body "is a girl fading away, a girl who plays with food at lunch instead of actually eating it, a girl who who used to be a great keeper, but now can't barely stand in a broom because is too weak to do so." He could feel his heart in his throat. He was so nervous, so scared you would fall off that broom. More than he could ever admit. He was keeping his worry to himself for months, hoping you would stop, hoping someone would intervene, but no one did. People just kept either praising your weight loss or humiliating you. But he couldn't stop himself anymore, if you had got hurt today, he would never forgive himself.
You felt your heart skip a beat at that. He was worried. Really worried. You didn't know how to react. You felt seen, someone saw what you were going through. But you also felt good, reassured. So you WERE thinner, and he noticed. “You know what? I don’t get it. Weren’t you and your friends the ones who said I was too heavy to play quidditch? that my weight would slow me down? that I would fall? that the broomstick couldn’t take it?” you now had tears in your cheeks. Your vision was blured by the tears and, God, you were so tired.
Malfoly’s heart might’ve actually broke in that moment. He was so angry at everyone who didn’t notice you hurting yourself, when he was actually the who drove you into it.
‘‘I am so tired.” you kept talking now, tears rolling down your face. “Why is it never enough? I’m tired. I’m thin, I’m ugly. I’m fat, I’m ugly too, and disggusting. I need a diet. I do a diet. and now fading away? OH well, just let me be happy for once.and I am happy now, ok? I’m finally beautiful.” You were talking so fast and you were feeling so weak. Malfoy saw that, so he immediately hold you in a hug, preventing you from falling. Your head were now in his chest, and you were trying to stop crying, trying to make your heart go back to it’s normal rhythm.
“It’s okay. It’s okay, love.” He said stroking your hair. “I’m sorry” he said almost inaudible.
After a few minutes you heart and breathing were finally stable again. You detached yourself from his harms, although his hands were still in both sides of your arms. You looked up to him with watery eyes. You hated crying in front of people. "I'm sorry" you said.
"It's okay." He said again, looking back at you. Taking his hesitant hand, like he was afraid to actually break you, to clean your cheeks from the tears. "I promise".
"Why are you doing this?" you were really confused. You had never seen Malfoy this gentle and.. scared?
He caressed you cheeks while looking from your eyes to your mouth. He then joined your foreheads and spoke really low, like a whisper. “I need you, Y/N.”
“what?” you said also in a whisper. you couldn't believe what you were hearing.
“I need you, and I need you to get better. This is making me crazy. I’m scared all the time. I’m scared you’re gonna fall off the stairs, or the broom. I’m scared of you getting hurt. Please.. just- just let me help, ok? Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it. Anything.”
“Can you.. uhmm. eat? with me, I mean” you asked detaching your heads to look in his eyes.
“Sure” He said immediately. “Is that all?”
“No.” you let out a breath in relief with his answer and smile a little. “But it may be a start. I think”
“Ok.” He returned your smile. “You should probably talk with someone else, though. Someone who could help more. A professor, maybe. I’ll go with you, if you want me to.”
“Yeah.. ok. Can we go to McGonagall, then? Not now, please. When I’m ready.”
“Of course. Anyone you want, love.” He said looking back at you before you hugging him again. Letting your head rest in his chest while he stroke your hair again. This felt like home to both of you. You were so scared, but he was hopeful. He would do anything for you to feel better.
This whole not eating thing made you so tired, but it was also so addictive. You didn’t know if you could ever get better, but maybe this was a start. Having someone to lean on, someone who cared.. it certainly helped.
Shall I tell you the secret of true love? her father once asked her. A friend of mine liked to tell me that women love flowers. He had many flirtations, but he never found a wife. Do you know why? Because women may love flowers, but only one woman loves the scent of gardenias in late summer that remind her of her grand mother's porch. Only one woman loves apple blossoms in a blue cup. Only one woman loves wild geraniums.
That's Mama! Inej had cried.
Yes, Mama loves wild geraniums because no other flower has quite the same color, and she claims that when she snaps the stem and puts a sprig behind her ear, the whole world smells like summer. Many boys will bring you flowers. But some day you'll meet a boy who will learn your favorite flower, your favorite song, your favorite sweet. And even if he is too poor to give you any of them, it won't matter because he will have taken the time to know you as no one else does. Only that boy earns your heart.
" I wish you could see what I do. I can hear everybody on this ship, the blood rushing through their veins. I can hear the change in Kaz's breathing when he looks at you."
"You... you can?"
"It catches every time, like he's never seen you before."
“I'll be with you every step of the way. Just don't lock me out. You want to walk in silence for a week, I'm fine with that. So long as you talk to me at the end of it.”
“What's your favorite color?”
“Blue.”
She rolled her eyes. “Boring. Mine's gold-or turquoise. Or emerald.”
“Why doesn't that surprise me?”
“Because you aren't as stupid as you look.” I didn't know whether to be insulted or flattered. She didn't give me time to decide.
“I fall to my knees and press my palm to the ground and feel the power coursing through me, feel it curdling in my blood and mixing with the anger, the passion, the fire inside of me and I think of every time my parents called me a monster, a horrible terrifying mistake and I think of all the nights I sobbed myself to sleep and see all the faces that wanted me dead and then it’s like a slide show of images reeling through my mind, men and women and children, innocent protesters run over in the streets; I see guns and bombs, fire and devastation, so much suffering suffering suffering and I steel myself. I flex my fist. I pull back my arm and
I
s h a t t e r
what’s left of this earth.”
“Have I told you how hideous you look tonight?” Cardan asks, leaning back in the elaborately carved chair, the warmth of his words turning the question into something like a compliment.
“No” I say, glad to be annoyed back into the present. “Tell me.”
"I can't.”
Words, I think, are such unpredictable creatures. No gun, no sword, no army or king will ever be more powerful than a sentence. Swords may cut and kill, but words will stab and stay, burying themselves in our bones to become corpses we carry into the future, all the time digging and failing to rip their skeletons from our flesh.
Despite everything, I can’t bear the thought of this ring being lost forever, any more then I can bear the thought of leaving you forever. And though i have no choice about the one, at least I can choose about the other. Im leaving you our family ring because you have as much right to it as i do
I’m writing this watching the sun come up. You’re asleep, dreams moving behind your restless eyelids. I wish i knew what you were thinking. I wish I could slip into your head and see the world the way you do. I wish I could see myself the way you do. But maybe I dont want to see that. Maybe It would make me feel even more than I already do that I’m perpetuating some kind of Great Lie on you, and I couldnt stand that.
I belong to you. You could do anything you wanted with me and i would let you. You could ask anything of me and I’d break myself trying to make you happy. My heart tells me this is the best and greatest feeling i have ever had. But my mind knows the difference between wanting what you cant have and wanting what you shouldnt want. and I shouldnt want you.
All night I’ve watched you sleeping, watched the moonlight come and go, casting it’s shadows across your face in black and white. I’ve never seen anything more beautiful. I think of the life we could have had if things were different, a life where this night is not a singular event, separate from everything else that’s real, but every night. But things aren’t different, and I cant look at you without feeling like ive tricked you into loving me.
The truth no one is willing to say out loud is that no one has a shot against Valentine but me. I can get close to him like no one else can. I can pretend I want to join him and he’ll believe me, up until that last moment where I end it all, one way or another. I have something of Sebastians; I can track him to where my fathers hiding, and thats what im going to do. So I lied to you last night. I said I just wanted one night with you. But i want every night with you. And thats why I have to slip out of your window now, like a coward. Because if I had to tell you this to your face, I couldnt make myself go.
I dont blame you if you hate me, I wish you would. As long as I can stil dream, I will dream of you
“Everyone deserves happiness. The road there isn’t easy. It is long, and often traveled utterly blind. But you keep going. Because you know the destination will be worthwhile.”
