Sound the bugle now - play it just for me
As the seasons change - to remember who I used to be.
Now I can't go on - I can't even start.
I've got nothing left - just an empty heart
Harry Potter lay fallen on the ground, unconscious, while around him hexes furrowed the air in great beams of light. In front of him, standing on the stained Ministry floor, stoodthe blond and arrogant figure of Draco Malfoy. Wand in hand, a triumphant smile danced on his lips. He had beaten Potter, his archenemy, with a simple spell used thousands of times in his school duels.
Only, this wasn't a duel, nor they were at Hogwarts. It was the final battle, the war everyone wanted to win, in a neutral arena. The Ministry of Magic hadn't taken a clear position in all that time, and the war was an open fight between the Order of the Phoenix and the Death Eaters, between Dumbledore's Army and Voldemort, between Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy.
In the end everything was reduced to that dichotomy.
Draco took a step in the direction of Dumbledore's fallen angel, that horrible smirk on his face while he raised his wand towards Harry. Behind him, Voldemort sent a spurt of green light towards Ron Weasley, his inert red head bouncing against the ground in his fall. He heard the Dark Lord's steps at his back, and his sibilant voice urging him.
"Do it, Draco. Do it for your massster, and your debt will be sssettled. Kill the boy."
It was Voldemort's last revenge. He hadn't been able to use either Granger or Weasley against him. In an attempt to avoid the last implication of the prophecy, in his anxiety to save himself, Voldemort had decided that the one to kill Harry would be Draco. Only Malfoy understood the reach of Voldemort's intentions.
Harry's heart belonged to him.
He aimed cautiously to the chest of the boy lying (either Harry is lying, active verb, or he is layed out, passive verb) in front of him, concentrated so he didn't show the slightest tremor, and thought the spell he had to say. It would be his first time since the Draco's fiasco, and this time he would use it again one who would have helped him.
He closed his eyes and pronounced the words. "Avada Kedavra." The beam of green light fleetingly illuminated the room, letting them see the steps that led upstairs. It hit Harry, and slipped by his figure. Nothing like it had ever happened before. That curse had only failed once before.
Nothing happened. Harry continued breathing anxiously, eyes opened wide by the force of the curse. Draco watched him openly, his green irises matching the light that had left Draco's wand.
"Are you trying to kill me again, Malfoy?" he asked laboriously, panting. "When will you learn that you can't kill?"
Harry looked around him, paying attention to Ron's corpse not so far from him, to Hermione's limp body beyond Ron, to the embraced figures of Neville and Luna where Bellatrix Lestrange had sent a curse to them that left them together for eternity. Ginny was still fighting, but he could feel how her power was failing. They were losing.
"Do it, Draco!" Voldemort exclaimed.
"You can't kill someone who has already given up, Tom," Harry said. "Hatred no longer intimidates when you have nothing left. You have made me invincible by killing the ones I loved."
I'm a soldier now - wounded so I must give up the fight
There's nothing more for me - lead me away
Or leave me lying here
Draco watched Harry, speechless, pain and revenge mixing in his soul. He now understood that the Boy-Who-Lived no longer wished to be alive because he didn't have left anything to believe in.
Harry Potter had been a puppet whose threads had been pulled by a destiny that wasn't his. The legend said that love would save the Wizarding World, but Draco had never believed it until then.
Love was what made Harry weak, what gave him false hopes of victory. And when everything he loved disappeared, the reality showed Harry's true nature. He wasn't brave or determined. He was a boy pretending to be a soldier in a real war, asking at the top of his lungs for a reason to keep up with that madness.
Without love, Dumbledore thought that Harry would not win. Draco had just confirmed that without love, it was the Dark Lord who wouldn't defeat Harry. Your enemy's weakness is the one that makes you strong, Draco thought, but Harry Potter wasn't his enemy. He had never been, actually.
Draco Malfoy had been a puppet at his father's service, he had been hurt to force him to hate Harry, to create an inner struggle. And when he didn't have anything left, when his only exit was to kill or to leave like a coward, he had found out that he couldn't. He wasn't a coward, he wasn't weak. But he had to give up that fight.
He had to end that nightmare.
He raised his wand for the second time and aimed it directly at Harry. He yelled the curse more forcefully than he intended, and the green light hit Harry. There was a small commotion of smoke, and jade eyes met Draco Malfoy's gray gaze.
"Leave me here, Draco," Harry begged. "I can't move, and you can't kill me. Please, leave me lying here."
"No"" Draco exclaimed over the wild beats of his heart.
He closed his eyes, overcome. He let his mind fly to the past, remembering old wounds he should not open again, though he couldn't help doing so.
Sound the bugle now - tell them I don't care
There's not a road I know - that leads to anywhere
Without a light I fear that I will - stumble in the dark
Lay right down - decide not to go on
"It doesn't really matter, Draco," Harry had said in a low voice. "Every road will end up leading me to him, and I will kill him. You don't have to worry about coming back to kiss his robes. You won't have to surrender to him. Never again."
"But it's the only way," Draco had replied. "I won't be free unless I hand you over to him, and I don't want to. I can't, Harry."
"But we won't be free until I kill him."
"And what if he kills you first? Your weakness is that you trust too much in your chances."
"And yours is that you don't trust in anybody at all. Draco, trust me, I can bear it. If you're the one who has to hand me over, then that's it. I'm not going to endanger the protection that Dumbledore offered to you trying to be a hero. "
"But the problem is, you're always playing the hero role, Harry! Don't you see it? We need a light to guide us, we need you. Without you we will never win."
"It's only a prophecy, a few words that don't even have much importance."
"They're the reason why there's a war! How can you say that? I'm putting my life in danger for a person who doesn't even believe in what keeps him alive!"
"Then go. Don't stay on my side. You don't need me, at least that's what you've said when I've offered you my help, all these years."
"Maybe that's what I'll do!"
The door had closed after Draco, who had leaned on the wood with tears in the eyes. Then, he had fled Grimmauld Place towards Voldemort.
He hadn't seen Harry again until that night, until that battle.
Then from on high - somewhere in the distance
There's a voice that calls - remember who you are
If you lose yourself - your courage soon will follow
Back in the Ministry, the night when Voldemort had decided to kill Harry Potter in an ambush, Draco opened his eyes. Betrayal shone in Harry's, reminding him that he had made a mistake. There was no path outside the light of that green glance. Harry Potter could be a soldier in mercenary's hands, but he had an option. A choice Draco had wasted fleeing from him.
Slowly, he raised the wand a third time. He closed his eyes, finally making the right decision.
But there was no spurt of green light. There was no light at all. Voldemort had lost patience; he wasn't going to wait anymore. He took Draco's shoulder.
"Draco, I have given you three chancesss to ssshow me where your loyalty liesss. You failed with Dumbledore, and you have failed now. Remember who you are, becaussse you already know that no action isss left without punissshment."
Nobody heard him pronouncing a word, but Draco fell to the ground. Harry blinked, surprised. The last bastion of the Order, the one who had left them, was dead in front of him. In the distance, he heard Ginny's torn shout, and he knew that everything had finished.
In front of him, Voldemort watched his wand inexplicably split in two. With a simple movement, he reached for Draco's and used it to aim again at Harry.
"Go on," Harry couldn't stand up, but he seemed to have grown in seconds, his face showing a determination that Voldemort hadn't seen before. "Try it, Tom. But you won't kill me. You've made me invincible. You have killed my dreams and my illusions, my future. I don't have anything left, no reason to fight. I'm at your feet, at your mercy, and you will not be able to kill me. Draco knew it."
"Draco knew it? That traitor? He wasss jussst like hisss father," Voldemort sneered. "Harry, Harry, Harry. You trussst too much in people. Didn't you know that coward couldn't kill you becaussse he wasss weak? Not becaussse he trusssted you nor appreciated you."
"Is that what you think? " Harry smiled the same smirk Draco had given him for years. "Draco Malfoy couldn't kill me because he loved me. You can't kill someone you love, Tom. That's the reason why you are able to kill, because you can't love. That's why you can't understand my power."
"What power? I only sssee a broken boy ready to die. Levicorpus!" Voldemort exclaimed suddenly.
Harry felt how his body moved up in the air. He didn't care about anything, not even Voldemort guiding him towards the veil he would disappear behind if he fell. He didn't have anything left. The Weasleys had died in the battle, his friends lay around him, and the only love of his life had died trying to save him from that end. He found it ironic that he had discovered that Draco loved him in those circumstances.
Draco's heart belonged to him.
He closed his eyes, wishing it would all end as soon as possible. He could almost hear the voices of the ones beyond the veil, voices he knew so well...
"Remember who you are," whispered the voice of his mother.
"If you lose your faith, you will also lose this war, Harry," Sirius said with his inflexible voice.
"Be strong tonight, Harry, remember who you are," it was Ron's voice, it was Hermione's voice, it was Ginny's voice.
"You gave me an option, Harry, you offered me freedoom. Freedom is worth all this fighting," assured Draco, Harry could almost see his shining silver eyes. He wished he were by his side.
But if he went through the veil without having killed Voldemort, nothing would make sense anymore. He would have wasted his life. He raised his wand for the first time, but he didn't say a thing. The spell came from his heart, an endless love spell.
The light hit its object, and the spell that had kept Harry levitating over the veil was broken.
There's nothing more than darkness after the weak act.
There's nothing more than darkness after the brave act.
So be strong tonight - remember who you are
You're a soldier now - fighting in a battle
To be free once more - that's worth fighting for