Death Will Tell
It was quiet. Too quiet. Draco looked around - he could feel a certain... tingling. He could feel it in his soul, and it terrified him. It didn't hurt per se, but it wasn't exactly a welcomed feeling. The room around him was completely white and as hard as he looked, he couldn't find a corner anywhere - the walls surrounding him were smooth, with no visible breaks or joins. He looked upon the horizon and still saw nothing but white. Where am I? He wondered. The last thing he remembered was going to bed with his wife, then he was sure he woke up but... the rest was blank.
He did the only thing he could think of doing: walk. With the hope of finding some answers. He walked straight ahead (or what he thought was straight ahead, anyway), just waiting to see a person, or a street, anything. He kept walking for as long as he could, the bottoms of his feet were paining when he finally found a wooden door; it seemed like he was walking for hours. He kept going for what seemed like forever until he finally found a wooden door. What the hell is this? He turned the doorknob and opened the door slowly. The door revealed another smaller room that looked a lot like the Slytherin Common Rooms. Just like the common rooms the walls were lined with emerald wallpaper and there was a fireplace in the middle of the room surrounded with couches. Draco still felt the tingling in his body, but walked through the door nonetheless.
"Why am I in the Slytherin Common rooms?" he wondered aloud as he moved to stand by the fire, attempting to rid himself of the tingling.
"This room reveals a favorite place by the person who's in it," a voice said, turning Draco's attention towards the staircase.
"Draco," the voice continued, "Come."
Draco looked towards the voice in extreme thought. I know that voice.
"Father?" Draco asked, "Am I dreaming?"
Lucius frowned. "I wish you were, son."
"What happened?" Draco questioned, "I don't remember anything."
"Give it time," Lucius nodded, "it will all become clear soon enough."
Draco continued to follow his father through the room, questions flowing through his mind. If I'm not dreaming what the hell is happening? Why is my father here? My father died years ago in Azkaban. Why is the room so dark? Where are we going? Before Draco could interrogate his father with all of the unanswered questions floating through his mind, they stopped at another door. This door however was guarded by a masked figure.
"Who goes there?" It asked in a husky male voice.
"It's me," Lucius said, "I have brought another."
"That's the third death today," The Guardian said shaking his head, "knock on the door, kid."
"Wait a minute," Draco said, looking at his father and the hooded man in disbelief. "Death? I'm dead?"
"Of course you are," the male said, "and I'm the Guardian of Heaven."
Draco looked between the two men, more questions bubbling in his mind. "What do you do?" Draco asked his father, "No offence, but I didn't see you getting into Heaven."
"I didn't," Lucius smirked, "I'm the Angel of Guidance, I bring people here, to this door to see if they can go into Heaven."
Draco just looked at the door and sighed. "How did I die?"
"Everything will become clear once you pass through," The Guardian answered.
"And what happens if I don't pass through?" Draco asked.
"Then you stay here with us forever," Lucius said. "Death will give you a job to do most likely."
"Death?" Draco asked, "Death is a person?"
"Creature," Lucius answered. "Don't you feel it?"
"Feel? You mean that feeling is from a creature? From Death?"
"Yes," Lucius said, "That's how he gets people to move on. Except it didn't really work on us," he gestured towards the other guardian. "So he gave us jobs. And orders not to kill… Like we could kill someone in the afterlife anyway…"
Draco pondered this for a few moments. "What if I want to go back as a ghost?"
"Then you have to pass through first," The Guardian of Heaven said, "Please, pass through, there is no reason for you to stay here."
"What if Heaven won't let me in?"
"Then you'll go down to the gates of Hell," The Guardian of Heaven answered. "It really isn't such a bad place, it just separates the good angels from the bad."
"Why didn't you go to Hell?" Draco asked his father.
"Didn't want too," Lucius said with a grin. "Too many people want me deader than dead down there."
"Okay," Draco said, lightly knocking on the door in front of him. The door him for a second and then opened its passageway through to Heaven. Draco said goodbye to his father and The Guardian of Heaven and went through the door, not expecting what came next.
Flashes of light came towards him; red, silver, blue, gold. The four colors swarmed around him, brightening up the room he was in. Is this Heaven? Draco thought, looking around the little room. The disposition of the rooms that he had been in, in the last twenty minutes were all jumbled in his head. Once his eyes were back on the light, it didn't take him long to realize that they were memories he didn't really know, but as the light hit him, he wished he could go back and be completely clueless again.
Scorpius, younger than Draco remembered him and with a face puffy and swollen, clung tightly to Bellatrix. Too young to know what to do, she clumsily wiped his arms with what she hoped was anti-swelling solution, and pressed her face into his soft hair.
A hex was whispered in the night forcing Four-year-old Naomi to look out into her mothers bedroom from the closet she was sitting in. As hard as she tried to move her head from the unspeakable scene that was in front of her, she simply couldn't. Too young to understand what was exactly going on Naomi watched as the two women had sex.
Ten-year-old Bellatrix looked scarily like her namesake as she lay twitching on the floor, the after-effects of the Cruciatus Curse clear in her claw-like hands and the blood running down her chin. Her bedroom door swung closed silently behind the figure of her mother, and only then, when she was safe from prying eyes and cruel remarks, did she attempt to move. The torture was getting longer, the tears were coming faster.
Life became much more real when six-year-old Naomi was forced out of the tiny closet and into her mother's bed. Her aunt and mother did unspeakable things to her - then left her in her bedroom to weep. Threatened that if she uttered one word of what happened to anyone - including her siblings - she would be killed. Aunt Daphne even went as far as to kill a Muggle girl, polyjuiced to look like Naomi right in front of her eyes. She made sure she kept her mouth shut after that.
Flashes of memory assaulted his vision; his beautiful, innocent children tortured at the hands of his wife and her sister. Images that would stay forever seared into his brain, he could hear the screams of his children ringing in his ears, smell their sweat and their blood. He was sick at the thought - they hadn't won, not his family; how could he ever think he'd won, that his children would live a life free of fear and of anger and of pain. Scorpius, so like him in more ways than he'd like to think, Bellatrix like his aunt in many more. Naomi, his sweet little girl just like his mother.
"Make it stop!" Draco yelled, tears pouring down his face. The light stopped bombarding him and just floated around him. Could this even be true? He couldn't believe what he saw. Did Astoria really commit all of those unspeakable crimes? Why? How could he have not known? They were his children, why didn't they go to him? Why didn't he see? Was Astoria really just putting up a facade all of these years? He was married to her for 15 years for crying out loud. How could he possibly not see the devil inside of her? How could he be so blind? Draco fell to the floor, trembling. "I'm sorry!" he yelled, "I'm so, so sorry!" Can anyone even hear me? The light swarmed him once more...
Thirteen-year-old Bellatrix standing at the edge of a building before jumping; only to be saved with the anti-suicide charm on her.
Eleven-year-old Scorpius cutting himself with a razor to escape the pain.
Seven-year-old Naomi blaming herself for everything that went wrong.
Just when Draco thought he couldn't take it anymore, the scene changed once again revealing the ultimate betrayal.
Astoria putting her wand to Draco's throat and whispering ever so softly, "Avada Kedavra."
I look at the cross
Then I look away
Give you the gun
Blow me away
I've watched a change
In you
It's like you never
Had wings
-Change, Deftones
School of Prompts: facade. tremble. brighten.
Quidditch Pitch: He couldn't believe what he saw.
Drabble Club: Crucio
OC Challenge: The OC, death. (Song) 'Change (In The House of Flies') by Deftones, (Word) disposition, (Sentence) He could feel it in his soul, and it terrified him.
Astronomy: [Task] I would like you to either write about a character death or about somebody pondering the after life
Music Club: word: horizon; dialogue: "Standing at the edge" (can be part of a sentence); word: crime; emotion: betrayal; colour: silver
The OTP Challenge
