quidditch, round nine: what if Draco Malfoy had been the one to kill Albus Dumbledore at the end of HBP?
The Death Eaters said that little actions didn't make a difference.
They said that you should seek fame and glory, grand gestures. And that you should save yourself, at all costs.
They also said that it would only take one little action to end Dumbledore's life. A small push, a broken body, a bright skull burning in your eyes.
You guessed they thought that murder was no big deal.
You smeared the taffy across your wrist and watched the 'blood' spread out. You were too much of a coward to even hurt yourself properly. It was a wonder that you managed to kill a man at all.
But you had taken a life, more than once.
You were a proper slytherin now, bent on self-preservation.
As your kills accumulated, they weighed you down, chains around your neck. They raised you up in your aunt's eyes. Killed your mother's eyes and confused your father's. Blinded your own.
They said that this was the right thing for you to do.
If all you care about is yourself but you are too broken to believe in youself, then you turn to the only one who really does care about you.
(you thought he did.)
If he asked you to draw your wand a few too many times, watch their eyes suffer silently, enjoy the thrill of the hunt, then why shouldn't you have?
You were a Slytherin. They said your favorite color was green.
They said you were one of them now. You pretended that the mark on your forearm was a membership into an elite club. You pretended that you were their equal.
When you walked in and heard cruel laughter, drunken cursing of the Malfoy name, you pretended you were a hero.
You pretended that every time you killed someone new, they thought more of you.
They said you were only there to repay your father's debts.
You carefully shook foundations and then trembled when everything crashed down.
You were afraid that it would fall on your head.
Sometimes you thought about snapping your wand in half, burying it in the forest and moving to Australia.
They said that now you were in and you wouldn't be leaving.
You wanted survival because it was what you thought you saw your parents working towards for so long. Seeing the way that your mother looked at you now though, you knew you had been wrong. She didn't only care for herself. She wanted the best for you. It hit you every time you saw a new line in her forehead, another smashed beer bottle in the ornamental garden hedges after a long mid-night meeting in the living room.
You took lives like some pick flowers telling yourself that it was okay, because you would be the last one left in the field. Your mother's petals withered everyday while her sanctuary was being invaded. She stood up for you and you were left wondering who you were supposed to stand for.
They said you were supposed to have two priorities- the dark lord, and yourself.
You were beginning to wonder when what they said had started to dictate your life.
During a broomstick ride to a murder, there was a lot of time for thinking. It wasn't like you could have listened to soothing music or pretended you were still playing quidditch in Hogwarts, so you sat and wondered.
It hurt your head to try facing the truth. Sometimes you would rather have just stared into the sun and been done with it. Your wand sang of superiority, your heart, of equality and your head, of defeat.
You wanted to know about the value of a human life.
They said it depended on who's life it was.
It wasn't easy to be a killer. Although becoming one was disturbingly unconcerning, afterwards, you had to fight your way down with every bloody kill you earned. You almost missed being king of the mountain in the big stone castle. You almost missed thinking that you could be superior to everyone else.
It was funny that you ever thought you were worth that much.
They said that anyone could kill. They said you didn't matter.
It hurt that you agreed with them.
The razor came closer to your skin each time you tried to break yourself but it never quite pierced your skin. Maybe it was a long dormant fear of pain, or maybe you just didn't want to help them shatter yourself even faster. You continued sucking red candies and letting them bleed for you.
You had to hurt somehow. You had to hurt for all the people you broke, all the shattered bodies who would never hurt again. Your lips were stained red and your hair was turning grey. Your life was turning grey too, overcome with worries and guilt.
They said that you had nothing to be guilty about.
You were summoned for a private audience with him one day. Stuffing your hands into your ears, you tried vainly to block out your thoughts. You would approach this like you wished you did murders- devoid of emotion, looking out for only yourself until the end. (Of course, that wasn't how most murders went.)
The dark lord turned around in his chair and you still had to stifle a shudder of revulsion after all these many months.
He hissed, he heard that you seemed weak lately, lacking drive. He didn't like his workers to be uninspired, did he?
He said that you were his servant.
The last one you tried to kill was an old man. He looked like a picture in a book you used to have as a kid. You would bend over it, not reading the words but imagining what it would be like to have someone in your life who looked as kind as that. He was the final briefing you got, the last lonely cold broomride to the scene of crime.
If you couldn't stand for yourself, you would stand for no one. You would fall instead.
There was something comforting about falling off of the building. You were finally done making choices because the only direction you could go was down.
They had said many things while you sat silently.
As you fell, though, you finally answered your own question, the words disappearing in a cloud of fog.
Human life?
It's priceless.
but i wonder what would happen if you
say what you wanna say
and let the words fall out
honestly i wanna see you be brave
-sara bareilles, brave