Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

This was inspired by the song "Some Will Seek Forgiveness, Others Escape" by Underoath. It's very different from anything else I've ever written. Feedback is always appreciated.

Savior

He crashed his way through the carnage around him, face set in a mask of impassivity. Long ago, he had learned to ignore the wreckage around him and focus on the task at hand.

That's all it was, really. A job, a task, a mechanical action. His heart had broken in it and died long ago.

The grotesque image on his left arm burned and twisted with his master's bloodlust. He threw curses with deadly accuracy, moving swiftly from victim to victim. Faces of those whose names he used to know, used to see every day, passed and fell before him...he couldn't remember them now. They were just part of the enemy, the faceless mass he was designed to destroy.

When Draco was in battle, the world faded to sounds and images. Thought ceased and instinct took over. There was no feeling, no sense of time. He passed out of coherence and cognizance, his eyes and his body becoming entirely feral.

He was waiting for the end.

How could he have known what he would become? He was so young, not even seventeen when he joined the ranks of death. What he had known of this world beforehand, he had learned from his father's tales of glory and the twisted manipulations of Slytherin. How could he have known it was a lie? There was no glory in this. This was base, animalistic massacre, and it would forever be this way if the Dark Lord won.

Distantly, Draco wondered how he would survive a lifetime of this...this servitude.

The sky itself seemed to be tinged with red. Red of blood, red of anger, red of passion. It matched the red on the ground, red on his hands, red in his vision.

But there, in the distance...there was another shade of red. Flashing and beautiful, it caught the fading sun and held it captive there, drawing the eye into its embrace. Ah, yes. The darling of the Light. So here she was at last.

She was dressed in white, a brilliant beacon of light in the midst of the dark. Her face, like his, was impassive, cold, focused. He had heard the rumors of the death and destruction she brought with her. How ironic that the Lady of the Light was the most cold blooded of them all.

Maybe she could be his savior.

For she alone was the savior for the Dark. Not Potter. Should Potter win, yes, the Dark Lord would be vanquished, and the world "saved." But what fate awaited those who had chosen the wrong side and lost? Not death, no...the Light was too cruel for that. A lifetime of imprisonment, a lifetime of self desecration. A life of blank walls and leering faces, of security wards and eternal silence. This was the punishment befitting the agents of evil. Those who allowed themselves to be led astray did not deserve the peace of death.

He knew this, he understood what it meant. And so with every battle, he saw not the fear of death and the battle for life, but an opportunity. His chance for redemption, in whatever twisted sense he could have it.

And he knew that she understood this. She had too much darkness within herself not to understand. Maybe it wasn't on a conscious level, but he saw it in her eyes. This, for her, was not an act of rage and passion. It was an act of pity. An act of forgiveness, of necessity.

As the army parted before her onslaught, as the tide of death came sweeping ever closer, he felt the wall barring his emotions cracking. He saw, as if for the first time, the faces, the souls, the lives of those falling before him. What right had he, had any of them, to rip away the lives of others? Why did they go through this pointless exercise? Chance put them on different sides of this breach, separated by the deluded ravings of a powerful madman. How wretched the world had become.

She was close, so close now. She looked ethereal, beautiful in her deadliness. He did not even look to see where his curses headed now, his gaze locked solely on her. He watched as she struck down one of his comrades with a jet of green light, and he felt a wash of an emotion completely foreign to him. Gratitude. And fear.

Oh sweet angel of mercy, with your grace like the morning

Wrap your loving arms around me.

Time seemed to slow to an agonizing halt as he watched her gaze turn toward him. The world around them faded to darkness and all he could see, sense, hear was her, and his own heart beating frantically in his chest.

Her eyes flickered and she moved slowly towards him. He remained rooted to the spot, trying to ignore the instinctual fear of death that rose in him despite his desire to die. He felt with heightened sensitivity those things he'd never noticed before - the breeze on the back of his neck, the rough wood of the wand clutched tightly in his hand, the cloth of the robes against his skin, the air moving through his lungs.

He faltered. Did he really want this? This would be final, this would be forever. There was no turning back. In her eyes, he saw finality. He saw his own, inevitable end. It was terrifying, for all that he had wished for it in the past.

Then, vaguely, in the distance behind her, he saw them. Two mortal enemies locked in the final combat of their lives. Both so full of their own darkness that they could not help but be consumed by it. One would use it to destroy the world. The other, to destroy what had made him this way.

And as Draco watched, a great light issued forth from Harry's wand, blinding in its intensity. It struck the Dark Lord full in the chest, and sudden screaming rent the air, although Draco couldn't be sure where it came from. The light seemed to absorb into Voldemort's chest, and the look of fear on his face flashed to triumph. But then...there was a great rumbling and the very earth itself shook with the intensity.

Draco looked back quickly to Ginevra, who now stood less than five feet away from him. He found himself lost in her eyes, those knowing eyes that told him everything he needed. The end of the Dark was at hand. The end of an era, his era...no, his father's era. But no matter now. The end was here.

He felt the calm of acceptance wash over him, and he nodded once, slowly, never losing eye contact. He didn't even flinch when the explosion behind her rocked the ground beneath their feet, when the Dark Lord's scream of defeat split the air.

Her eyes seemed almost...regretful...as she lifted her wand, pointing it at his chest. He watched her calmly, silently urging her to end this before it was too late. No longer would he be bound to the one he had called master. No longer would he suffer.

"My savior," he whispered, and she seemed to hesitate for a moment, indecision written across her face. He shook his head and dropped to his knees, taking the hand holding her wand and guiding it to rest against his chest.

She closed her eyes, briefly, before opening them again and looking down at him with certainty. He smiled as he heard the incantation flow from her lips, as he felt the poisonous magic enter his body.

The world blurred and faded around him, and as he felt himself falling, he concentrated on those eyes, those beautiful, sad eyes.

He was coming home.