How is it than when everything seems impossible, that everything is so perfect? Right as the world around me falls apart, that it just comes together? How can something so horrible, be so… right?

Wait, back up. Forgive me, I'm going on a bit of a poetic ramble here. None of that made sense, but it does. God! I'm doing it again, the deep paradoxes. Love addles the brain and makes you take leave of your senses.

War can do that as well. It turns strong willed men into whimpering heaps crying for their mothers. Weak and quiet people turn into the psychotic war criminals. The unlikely and unassuming rise up and become the heroes. It all sounds so great. But not this war. No, not this time. Not when the psycho becomes the hero and the hero becomes a pariah. War's not so glorious when the wrong side wins.

But, that's a little off topic. True, this is yet another story of young love in a time of war, but this isn't what you think it is. This is Romeo and Juliet in a WWII Concentration Camp. The twist? Romeo is the up and coming Gestapo and Juliet is the inmate.

_-_-_-_-_

I paused, then pulled out my wand, letters appearing on the wall. Dumbledore's Army Will Rise Again. Not the catchiest phrase but it gave hope to us people trapped here in Hogwarts.

There is something I'd never thought I'd think. Hogwarts, a prison. Somehow my home away from home, my safe haven in the war, had become the battleground. I was on the front lines too. I pocketed my wand and Neville led the small group of us down the twisting halls to the Common Room. Pretty soon us Gryffs wouldn't be safe there anymore. The Carrows were horrible and knew we'd gather there. Nowhere else in the school had a semblance of safety. Even the library had become Slytherin turf. No Gryffindor even left the Commons alone, and groups of three or more were barely "safe" anymore.

We somehow made it back to the Commons without incident. That was good, because it was two AM and we were dead if caught. "Good job guys, that'll at least distract the Carrows long enough to get those first years out of the dungeons." Neville looked at me, Seamus, Lavender, and Pavartie. "I cast the time release on it so it'll show up right at dinner. It'll show up we'll be sent to dorms. McGongall will cover for us. We rescue them from the Cruciatus." Neville rebelled at every chance, people being tortured under that curse hit a major nerve in him.

We all slowly started to drift off until Seamus, Neville and I were alone. "We need a way to hide from them." I said quietly. "We can't keep running here and put the whole house in danger."

Neville and Seamus nodded. "They sealed off every entrance. We're stuck here. Hogwarts is all but a fortress now." Seamus was resigned to the Carrows being here. That didn't mean he liked it any more than I did.

"Where are we supposed to go Gin?" Neville looked at me, and the dying embers of the fire threw the injuries on his face into sharp relief, he looked horrible. "The Carrows will catch us wherever we are."

I racked my brain. Inspiration struck. "We go to the one place they know exists but can't find. The Room of Requirement."

Neville shook his head. "We know where it is. Harry never told us how to make it appear though. We can't access it."

Right as I was about to tell him that Harry and I would sneak off there to have alone time without Ron around and that I'd seen him do it enough to figure it out, the portrait hole swung open. "Hello children." We all froze as the Carrows stalked it. "You should know better than to brag about your crimes in a bugged room." They bugged the Common Room!

We whipped out our wands. Screw Hogwarts being a fortress. Screw Harry and Ron and Hermione for taking off and leaving us all here to die. Screw my parents for not leaving England when Dumbledore died and Harry our "Great Savior" ran off like a kicked dog. Screw the repercussions. I was getting the hell out of here. I dodged the now too familiar yellow burst of light.

I'll teach them to torture me. You're messing with the wrong Weasley idiot. I threw up a shield to hover in front of me and dodged a few more Cruico's. The Carrows laughed as Seamus fell to the ground, screaming in agony. I hurled a stunner at the male, Alecto, and he dodged, growing in anger. He threw a black spell at me, lighting fast.

I gasped and shook on the ground as what felt like bolts of lightning flew through my body. "IDIOT! We need the Weasley girl alive! The Dark Lord needs her to lure Potter in with! We can't lure him and the youngest Weasley male if she's dead!" Dead? I'm… dying? But, I can't die. My body convulsed impulsively and I found I couldn't control myself. As hard as I tried, I jerked around, no conscious thought behind the wild movement. "Go get Severus, he'll brew the counter potion. I'm no good with cauldrons and the like."

"Severus is gone."

"Then find somebody else to brew the damn potion! Just make sure the damn girl is alive!" I heard somebody getting slapped and footsteps leading away. Out of the corner of my slowly fading vision I saw Neville and Seamus floating away and I slowly followed, still flailing uncontrollably.

_-_-_-_

I started at the knock on my door. "Wha?" I sat up in bed, confused as to the light pouring in from the open doorway.

"Get up Malfoy." Carrow? Why was he here? "You're good at potions, correct?" I rubbed my eyes as I nodded. What time was it anyway? "Good, I need you. Snape's gone and we need a potion brewed. I… had an accident with a student the Dark Lord needs alive. The Weasley girl."

"An accident?" It was too early for this.

"The Soul Eating Spell. I need it reversed or it'll be your ass before the Dark Lord."

"My ass Carrow? Who was the idiot that cast the Soul Eating Spell on a vital person? I'm not the idiot that did that. It's not my fault if she dies." I felt a little bit bad for her. I'd had that nasty spell on me once, it's not a pleasant experience. Once you get past the convulsions as it works its way through your body it's half Dementor half very powerful Crucio. It was a recent invention of the sickos in the Dark Lord's ranks. A soon to be Unforgivable. If there was even a government left to regulate such things once he was done with England.

I pulled myself out of bed and fumbled in my trunk for pants and a shirt. I wasn't brewing potions at… two in the morning while wearing boxers. I quickly donned my clothing and pulled on my slippers. Yes, Draco Malfoy wears slippers. I followed Carrow down the halls to a room just off the Torture Chambers. Well, technically they were called the Detention and Reeducation Rooms. That meant if you got detention or defended the muggles and/or half-bloods they tortured you in that room.

"Good. Malfoy, the counter potion and girl are in there. He hit her five minutes ago." The uglier of the Carrows directed me to a side room where a cauldron sat over a fire.

"Have you cast the Soul Stasis spell yet?" It'd buy me some time.

"Soul Stasis? What the hell are you rambling about boy? Brew the damn potion!"

Merlin! They are so stupid… "The Soul Stasis Spell slows the other spell down! Idiots! Learn how to do something right before I AK you myself!" I would actually kill them… On second thought… it'd before for the better. The spell has to be cast almost immediately. I needed to work quickly. Seventeen minutes until she died? Well, started to die.

I brushed that thought aside and started to brew the potion as the youngest Weasley convulsed on the floor. I tried to ignore her as I quickly moved around the room, throwing herbs into the bubbling cauldron. It took me fifteen minutes to brew and I had to cool it the muggle way or it was ruined. I conjured a bucket and water and floated a vial of the potion in it. I counted the time down in my head.

Thirty seconds or so before shit got bad I pulled the vial out. "Open your mouth." She had her jaw clenched tight, "Stubborn witch! Just drink the damn potion!" Again, she refused. "If you have some semblance of a heart Weasley, drink the damn potion! If you don't, the Dark Lord tortures Carrow for a few minutes, kills him, then throws me in a dungeon for a few weeks where I'll be used a form of entertainment and a training dummy, so please, drink the damn thing." She still held her mouth shut. Losing my patience I grabbed her. "Listen, don't give a damn about me. Whatever. When your precious little Potter and brother and Granger find out that you were killed, they'll go postal, come here and try and lure the Dark Lord out. When he comes, he'll bring an entire army of Death Eaters and every person who rebelled against the Carrows will be dead. Potter and his little band of Merry Men will be overwhelmed by Death Eaters, subdued, and used as examples of what happens when you defy the Dark Lord. Want the entire world to go to shit? Die. Hold off the apocalypse for a few months? Drink. The. Damn. Potion." She finally relented.

None too soon either, not three seconds later she started writhing in pain. I cursed and started to cool another vial. When it had actually cooled I grabbed my knife and cut her shirt open. Not in a perverted way… I saw the tell-tale black mark with slowly creeping tendrils on her stomach. Hoping that the theory of putting the potion on the spell impact site was correct I crossed my fingers and poured the vial out. I'm not sure how long I sat there, her writhing in pain on the ground next to where I was sitting.

Somehow, during that time she ended up with her head on my lap. I really didn't have a problem with it. Despite my outwardly asshole/stuck up snob attitude I really didn't have a problem with the outcome of the war. This is my logic, Potter pulls out a miracle and wins, I go back to rich boy with the world at my finger tips. The Dark Lord wins and I have the world at my finger tips and bow to a megalomaniac.

Clearly, my life is better if Potter wins. However, the Dark Lord knows how far my loyalty goes and won't push away his biggest financer's son. He won't throw me on the front lines like he does my father. So, I don't die. If I fight on the Light side with Potter, I get thrown on the front lines against people who want me dead. I die. Better to be alive and bow at a psycho's feet.

So, I didn't mind if the Littlest Weasley found some ounce of comfort by cuddling. It'd take more effort to push her away than keep her here. Once the pain had mostly past and she was just living her worst memories she'd worked her way into a sitting position as she curled into my chest. I simply sighed and wrapped an arm around her as she tucked her head under my chin. I whispered that it was almost over.

I'm not sure why I was nice to her right then. It wasn't me. I was Draco Bloody Malfoy. Her entire family hates me. I'm supposed to hate her. But, seeing your "enemy" curled in a ball hits a nerve. I'm not evil. I don't kick people when they're down. I may have been a petty ass before, but watching your world fall apart makes a lot of things much more real. My life was no longer the pampered rich boy's, I now saw the absolute horror my mother had shielded me from. I saw my father rape and torture people and laugh when they begged him to let them leave and to stop.

Maybe I connected to her a little. We were both victims in this war, she just had the nerve and guts to fight back. I hid in my corner and pretended it wasn't happening. She knew she was a victim and tried to change it. I was a victim and pretended I wasn't when people asked. Maybe I wished I was a bit more like her.

All I know is I wish I wasn't me.

_-_-_-_

Wow, so I have some major writers block and tried to put something out just to flex my creative muscles. This came out better than expected. Most of the time I do these and save them on my flash drive and never see them again. I like this so I posted it. Hopefully you like it too?