Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or any of the characters featured in this story, I've written this purely for entertainment purposes and no profit is being made.
He wonders how many people actually care about Pansy Parkinson.
Surely not her parents, who, at dinnertime, allow her to eat at a polished brown table that could seat twenty, but at dinnertime, seats only one lonesome brown-haired girl alone with the company of nineteen glaringly empty chairs, picking delicately at the steaming hot potatoes she's knows she's not going to eat.
Her past boyfriends couldn't really be called boyfriends at all, to Draco, they were simply red checkmarks on an otherwise perfect paper. Besides, the only person who sent her a bouquet of flowers was Draco. Clearly the lot of them didn't love her, never had. If they could break her heart without flinching, they wouldn't mind if someone else broke her bones.
To the world, Pansy Parkinson was nothing but a pug-faced girl, a conniving Slytherin, an arrogant pureblood. That's what everyone believed about her. She had a face and a name, but the world assumed that was all there was to her, that she was a hollow shell and empty within.
Voldemort didn't care about her, all he cared about was his cause, when it came down to it, he wasn't the one out fighting, day after day, his robes tattered, his face drawn, trying to get through the day without being killed. With her head held high and her hands shaking, Pansy did that for him.
She could die. Voldemort wouldn't notice. Hundreds more fight for him, what's the loss of one?
Draco watched her everyday, fighting alongside her whenever he could, her presence was a comfort. They were both killing for a cause that they weren't even sure they believed in, but it was better than dying themselves.
She was the one that he could count on to be there, to stay with him, the one who could smile at him and convince him everything would work out and eventually the war would end. In a world riddled with chaos and lies, she was his only constant.
It didn't matter that no one cared about Pansy Parkinson.
All he could see was her wide, terrified eyes, and that Auror, pointing his sharp, glittering wand straight at her chest, his lips forming the beginnings of a spell that would pierce her in the chest and kill her
For a second, he was disgusted with himself, it pulsed through him. For who was she, but an unloved girl who didn't get the life she deserved. She wasn't his responsibility. Why should he care about her when not one other person did?
Who was this Auror, to take everything away from her? They were strangers. This idiot minion of Dumbeldore's had no right to take away Pansy's life, because she still had so much more living to do.
If this wizard- so intent on doing what was best for the world, so dead set on doing the right thing - could look through Draco's eyes for one second, and see an exposed, innocent girl who had a laugh that could make his stomach flutter, a witty girl who could carry on a conversation better than anyone he'd ever come across, a broken girl who could love and feel and fight, if this Auror could get one glimpse of the girl Draco gazed at everyday -
They wouldn't kill her.
There wasn't time for Draco to aim his wand, he knew he couldn't save her by grabbing her familiar, pale hand and pulling her out of the way, because his speed was no match for the Auror's. No one hesitates before they Avada Kedavra a death eater, it was a battle.
And he fighting his own.
In a second he was in front of her. The next second he could feel the spell burst through his body, light all of his veins on fire, and erase any fear he had. He murmured her name so quietly that it became a jumble of unrecognizable syllables; a groan in his last moments; a last word no one would remember.
And then he couldn't feel anything.
Draco only knew one person who cared about Pansy Parkinson, and for him, that was reason enough to save her.
a/n: Sad? You bet. Riddled with errors? Undoubtedly. Reviews? Yes, please, it would be lovely to know that you read and hate/adore/somewhere-in-between this. I'm not asking for anything detailed, just a simple I liked this/didn't like this. Hard? Nope, painfully easy.
