A/N: Silence is Draco's enemy. I would like to thank my friend, Kataang32, for helping me write this. I do not own Harry Potter.

Submission for:

The Fluff vs Angst Competition: Angst - Silence

Secret Battle Competition (Take 2): Trio Era, Angst, nightmare, scarlet, Bellatrix Lestrange, Draco Malfoy, "Let me go", hunger, fear, startle, "Did you ever wonder what would happen if you didn't exist?", "I don't want to live.", "You broke my heart"

Open Category Competition 2: Angst

Draco stares up at his ceiling, shivering slightly from the cold night air wafting through his open bedroom window but not wanting to pull the sheets over his bare chest. It would have been a futile effort anyway for in a few minutes, they would get tangled between his legs from the thrashing of his nightmares and he would startle awake once more.

The room is silent, the sounds beyond his four walls far away and unheard, lulling him into a false sense of security. It pretends to be a friend when it is truly the enemy.

He had learnt from a young age to fear the silence, though it had its benefits. In silence, you could take in the world around without distractions. In silence, you could listen to yourself think, rationalize any problem and come up with the best solution. However, you could hear the slightest noise and the smallest thought could latch onto your mind and never let go.

The silence reminds him how truly alone he is in the world. He lived this way his entire life and he would die this way. All his friends had deserted him, the few he considered close had abandoned him or died in the battle, and his parents were suffering on their own.

The number of times he had heard his mother crying in the silence of the manor killed him every time. She was broken after so much loss and despair in the last three hard years. The once beautiful, strong woman he had always been proud to call his mother was now a shell of her former self. Her skin became drawn, her hair greyed and the light disappeared from her eyes. He was waiting for the day when she would say, "You broke my heart," for he felt like it was his faults and his actions that finally broken her.

Since the Battle, his father had holed up in his study to stave away his silence. It would start off with screams into the night, sometimes waking Draco out of his own restless slumber, before the footsteps travelled to the furthest reaches of the manor. The demons that haunted him during his stint in Azkaban would resurface and would only disappear when he had sufficiently drowned them in alcohol, sometimes passing out in his own vomit. However, if the liquor didn't work well, his father would leave the room in one of his all too common rampages, searching out the first person he could find. A few times, he was the one his father found, the bruises still fresh from their meeting a few nights before when he had gone on his own walk to combat his nightmares.

"Did you ever wonder what would happen if you didn't exist?" a voice asks in the back of his mind, audible and clear in the silence.

He had wondered often what things would be like without all this pain and suffering, these images haunting him. They begin to play out across the ceiling, pulled unwillingly to the surface, and he can hear the sounds as if they are happening live once more.

Professor Dumbledore's lifeless body falling from the roof of Hogwarts. He had not delivered the final blow but he had been there and if he hadn't been a coward, it would have been him.

Running through corridors while narrowly missing being hit by nasty purple and green spells, praying for some way out of this hell-hole he had gotten himself into. Oh what a fool he had been to idolize this lifestyle.

Vincent being engulfed in the flames. A long time friend losing his life in such a senseless battle, forced to fight their fathers' battles. It would have been so easy to follow his footsteps and perish that night as well.

Granger's screaming, her body contorting into horrifying positions, something which haunted him during his day and night hours. She was always a pain his side but she was one of the good ones. She was supposed to save everyone from this life, but instead she was close to losing her own. There was nothing he could have done that wouldn't have made it worse for everyone but that didn't make the guilt go away. What would have happened if they hadn't escaped with the house-elf, if his aunt was allowed to continue...

His crazed aunt, Bellatrix Lestrange, who he has to remind often himself is actually gone, her hunger for blood and pain forever quieted. She's never coming back to seek him in his room, to murmur lies into his ear as she abuses in the name of "love".

Scarlet, his aunt's red lipstick which she wore all the time, leaving nasty prints on his arms and shoulders to contrast the blue-black bruises she had made beneath.

Scarlet, the blood he spilled of the innocent. None deserved the death he exacted on them. "I don't want to live," they would cry as he was ordered to torture them instead of just ending it all. He couldn't help but share their sentiment.

Scarlet, those demon's eyes piercing into his soul. Draco had to convince himself even more that he was truly gone. Potter had gotten the job done and he would never see those eyes again, trying to read his mind, feeling like a failure.

"Let me go!" Draco growls, throwing his arm over his eyes to block out the visions.

His ears are met with silence, an old but dear friend soon ready to betray him once again. He shivers again, contemplating the merits of getting up to close the window. He wouldn't be falling asleep again anyway.