Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, or any associated characters.
Tumblr Prompt, "Never Again -Draco Malfoy to Harry Potter"
~*Victory Is Crimson Red*~
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Blue eyes stared in unabashed horror at the carnage strewn from on end of what was once Hogwarts, to the other; bodies of friends and allies splayed out upon the cold hard stone like ragdolls, eyes open and spirits departed.
Here and there scorch marks from the more pervasive and deadly spells marked decimated pillar and crumbled wall alike. Amongst those ruins were those he knew… lying in eternal sleep, some with faces frozen in horror or surprise; and yet also, there too were the fallen foes he and the others had fought so diligently to ward off. Such violence for the sake of peace… a hysterical laugh burbled just below the surface of his self-control, tightening his chest in an almost physical way…
The sheer despair and relief conflicted within his grime-streaked, weary body; cold winds whipping past and biting icily at the places torn clothing revealed bare flesh. He shivered, raising a hand to his pounding head and allowing a brief moment to inhale, to try and calm the violent internal upheaval of everything he had seen and done to lead up to this moment…
So much death. So much destruction in the name of one evil man, one evil MORTAL man… whose body lay cold and still at the base of the Hogwarts entrance. None dared touch it, or go near it, lest they too be tainted by his madness.
A ridiculous superstition, but it paid to be cautious with one who was as crafty as Voldemort had been. McGonagall said she would burn it personally after everyone was tended to and safe, and… and after she had informed the families of those who would not be coming home.
Faces all around him, some achingly familiar, others echoed memories of passing by in the hallways… oh Merlin, it hurt so much to know that in some way this was his fault… look at all the dead!
Their eyes, open and accusing… he couldn't breathe…
Freedom, yes… but at what cost?
There were first years among the fallen, for Merlin's sake!
Oliver Wood, the former Gryffindor Quidditch captain, shuffled towards him, and then past, without a word; his expression of utter devastation, body moving as if the tiny bundle in his arms was far too great a burden for him to bear…
Oh… Colin Creevey… the boy with the camera from Second-year… he looked so small now. You could almost imagine he was sleeping if not for the gaping wound marring the still chest…
Fingers dug crescent-moon shaped scars into his palms, body shaking violently now; knees barely holding him upright any longer.
"My fault…" he whispered, "My fault…"
He could still hear the horror in the voice of Mrs Weasley as she discovered one of the twins draped over the other, inconsolable and near-hysterical. Their sadness was a physical thing that spread out and coagulated with that of the other families who had lost members and friends today… it radiated off of what little was left of Hogwarts, of his home away from the dreadful place he lived when school was out.
In the madness, this primal quest for power that Voldemort had spear-headed… he had lost both his parents one after the other; and yet at this moment, it didn't matter. As more and more people came trudging up through the entrance-way from the grounds, bearing more bodies and those still able to shudder in agony with every breath… he realised that now was not the time for self-pity or loathing.
These people, his people, needed him.
The dead were, sadly, beyond anything he could do… but at the moment all the remaining teachers and adults were simply overrun by the sheer amount of injured arriving by the second, in the Great Hall. He was a Seventh Year, technically… and had maybe been paying a little more attention to his Healing incantations and charms than usual in recent times… he could do this, he could help.
Like a cold fist slamming into his abdomen, the sensation ofguiltandlossandgriefandhorror all wrapped into a tight ball hit home as his eyes strayed down to see that the step he had taken towards the castle… had landed on a small fraction of someone's outstretched, blood-matted hair.
Nausea welled up like a surging tide, and he was truly horrified. Eyes tracing back the hair to see the face, one he knew only too well… Ginny, Ginny Weasley… oh god, her eyes were open but so vacant… so horrifyingly vacant of everything that made the fiery girl herself…
Burn marks marred face, neck and arms… he wondered idly what had happened before brushing the thought aside before kneeling down to quickly check if there remained a pulse; though he knew there not to be. The cold flesh yielded nothing, no heartbeat, no breath… she was gone.
Finding nothing else about the situation he could do, he shut her once beautiful and lively eyes with a hand before rocking back onto his heels and taking a deep, supposedly calming, breath. Merlin, all the times he'd been purposefully cruel to her…
"Ginny?" called a familiar voice, and his eyes snapped open, upper body already swinging in the direction of the pounding footsteps. "GINNY!"
The voice became more desperate, joined by a second pair more distant than the first.
"S-Sh-She's over here!" he managed to croak out of a raw, dry throat.
A horrified cry of, "NO!" exploded out of one of the figures, a Weasley given the distinctive colouration of the hair. The footsteps sped up until Ron slammed hard to his knees beside the body and began gently, but frantically, alternating between stroking her face and shaking his unresponsive baby sister. A steady chant of, "PleasePleasePleasePleasedon'tbedeadPlease…" uttered between clenched teeth.
The second figure approached slower, bending down to pick up Ginny's limp wrist for a pulse as if this would yield a different outcome to what they all could see before them.
"Ron… I'm so sorry she's… she's gone…" Harry husked out, sorrow breaking up the statement towards the end as the gravity of the situation seemed to strike him. His girlfriend had been killed… by Crabbe's father, it seemed… going on the still-twitching but nonetheless dead body right across from her.
A heart-breaking cry came from Ron as he cradled Ginny to his chest and rocked, anguish at not protecting his little sister filling the sound and radiating off the red-head. Two siblings lost in the same day… it might just destroy the Weasley family when they found out.
Harry seemed as if nothing in the world would be better than to sink on his knees and join in screaming at the universe for allowing this to happen; but the Chosen One did not.
Instead, the Boy Who Lived levelled red-rimmed eyes with him, sitting uselessly by the wayside as the scene played out, and took a step in his direction to place a companionable hand upon his shaking shoulder.
"Thank you for finding her, Draco…" Harry whispered with sincerity shining in his tired eyes.
He found the strength to reach up and grab the Gryffindor's hand, grounding both of them. "I… I'm just sorry I couldn't make it in time to help her." Draco muttered back, watching as the now-youngest Weasley seemed to exhaust himself to silent sobbing once more.
"We've all lost today, more than we won, really…" Harry responded absently, looking about the battlefield strewn with bodies, rubble and debris. So many young faces looked back. "They always said we would have to fight in the end… but I never… I never imagined THIS…"
He understood what the other meant. When Voldemort had been talking of strategy and battle tactics, it had all seemed like a big…well, game was the best word for it, but when you are standing in the midst of flying spells, fire, screams, death, cries for mercy and the sounds of rending flesh… it becomes all too real. And the remnants… all too painful.
Those who were dead would never grow older, and those who remained alive had to now learn how to…
This was something that could never be forgotten, never erased.
"Never again…" he whispered.
Harry's green eyes locked onto his own, "Never again. We can never let something like this happen ever again, no matter what the cost…" he agreed with his once-foe. The Gryffindor's posture shifted, "Draco… I'm sorry about… your parents."
Automatically, tears pricked behind his eyes at the words, but he forced them back; if he allowed them, he'd be useless, and there were people who needed him, and the healing skills he'd been cultivating in anticipation of perhaps becoming a healer at St Mungos on graduation.
A hysterical laugh burbled out unbidden at the realisation that at least now he wouldn't have to to his father about it and deal with the fallout…
Ron's head jerked up to look at him, "You alright, Draco?" he seemed uncertain as to whether he really wanted an answer to that, drawing Ginny's body tighter to him.
He dashed at the tears that had leaked out during the seconds he lost control, "I… will be fine, Weasley. My parents chose their side… and… and decided that being Pureblood was more important than being a parent… I will bury them when we find all of them, but I don't want to talk about it now."
Harry squeezed his shoulder before letting go and offering the same hand as a hand up, "C'mon, we… should go, we have to tell them that we've found her… and there are others that need us."
Draco allowed Potter to pull him upright, swaying momentarily, then gathering what was left of the scattered strength inside of himself and nodding that he could indeed be allowed to stand on his own. Harry let go and went to gently coax Ron away from Ginny for a minute, they needed to check all the bodies in the area for survivors.
Finding no one other than a pile of Death Eater corpses in various charred conditions, and making the unfortunate discovery of the bodies of Luna Lovegood and Dean Thomas.
After taking a moment to privately grieve and shutting their classmates' glassy eyes, Harry and Draco both hefted the lifeless shells of former classmates before making the arduous, but thankfully short trek, back to where Ron stood with Ginny held tightly in his arms like even a Giant Acromantula couldn't steal her away.
Without a word, they turned their backs on the carnage for just a moment, a brief respite in the agony that was the aftermath of hatred and love clashing upon the battlefield… and moved towards the still-standing Great Hall of Hogwarts. The building stood as both beacon and shelter in these dark times, where sad revelations were made, condolences whispered grimly over the dead, and the injured tended to as quickly and gently as possible.
As he looked down on the peacefully surprised expression Luna wore in death, Draco questioned how things could have come to such a point where he would hold not one, but two girls of different houses that he regularly made disparaging remarks towards, in his arms on the same day and mourn their losses like a piece of himself was missing.
He hoped it meant there was some part of his soul that could still be redeemed… that turning against the darkness his parents chose could mean a new beginning for him, even if it must be born out of these dark times of blood and death.
The warmth of another body crowded him from both sides, Harry and Ron walking as close as they were able… seeming to know exactly what he was thinking, and expressing through generally exhaustion-neutral expressions and body language… that whatever had come before this was now passed and also past.
This was a new world, he realised as they walked into the Great Hall filled with crying people and frantic tenders of the injured; a new world where people dropped what they were doing to bustle in their direction with frantic haste and check them all, Draco included, over for injuries. For people he did not know the names of, to take the metaphorical and literal weight of Luna away from him to lay her with the others whose faces were shrouded by bedsheets salvaged from wreckage.
A world where Percy Weasley bustled over with broken glasses askew and grim determination on his pale face, to gently extricate Ginny from his baby brother's iron-like grip and bear her away to lay beside Fred; where the other Weasleys were waiting.
One where Mrs Weasley immediately rushed over to check for herself that Harry and Ron were safe; petting their faces, stroking their hair, whispering motherly assurances that things would be alright. Such a strange new world wherein she immediately turned and did the same for him, though he had not anticipated such an action; before drawing all three boys in close for a hug such as he had never received from his own mother…
This was the dawn of a new world, a new age where family was not limited to blood and status, but to those around you who you have fought and grieved alongside… those who loved you when there was no reason to do so, and you never believed you deserved it.
That was family.
Mrs Weasley ruffled his hair before moving away to mend a fourth-year Hufflepuff's broken leg as the rest of the small crowd of concerned dispersed to do their part also.
The determination, the sorrow… the grief and triumph on so many faces, some too young to have fought and lost so much, and yet others feeling far too old to be allowed to continue living when so many children have passed away.
It was not fair… war never was… but they never spoke of the aftermath of it, when one side wins that is when most stories end; happily for one side, sadly for the other.
Never do they speak of the cost. Never do you hear of the winners burying their dead and carrying the wounded home, nor of the way the memories of what they have seen will haunt them for years to come in nightmare and waking life…
As he paused to look about, at the way the survivors held each other, former enemies, best friends, family or complete strangers who have shared only battle beside one another… Draco felt his heart warm, and yet ache. This should never have happened.
"Never again." he whispered to no one, and turned away to head towards a small group of frightened looking first and second years of all houses, injured and clinging together for support. Their hopeful eyes turned on him, the former black sheep of Hogwarts, like he was Merlin himself… and if they were willing to give him a chance to help them, then Draco Malfoy would do everything in his power to ease their suffering and bring the light back into their eyes again.
As he diligently moved from one injured child to the next, it struck him that the reason for all of this… was so blatantly ridiculous, he could have hit the floor and laughed hysterically, with tears of disbelief flowing down his face.
[If, of course, such actions would not have frightened those h was attempting to help, who needed a calm and non-hysterical seventh year Draco right now.]
But for one man's hatred and greed they could all be sitting down to dinner right now, all of them; each house filled with laughing and chattering people. That could happen once more, in time… but for now it was just the memory of a dream, intangible as smoke.
Though this, he promised himself, would never happened once more as long as he could stand against it. Never again would they allow others to go through what they had faced this day, to experience the battle and fire and death they had seen and would not soon forget.
Not if they could help it.
He caught the gaze of Hermione Granger as she came over to assist, followed by Cho Chang and several Hufflepuffs in their year he could not identify. The sense of community, purpose and determination was tangible in that moment…
This would never happen again, if they could help it… and Draco, for one, would sure as hell like to see the piss-pot magical dictator-wannabe wanted to mess with the people in this room in future… because they certainly wouldn't make it out alive if they did.
He'd make sure of it.
They all would.
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The End