Disclaimer: The characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and not the author. No profit is made and no copyright fraud is intended. The scenery and the plot spring straight from my imagination and Rowling should not be blamed for them in any way.

Author's Note: Violence and character death both implied and shown. Some of the character portrayals in this story are honestly pretty OOC.

Killing, Not Murder

It was too pleasant a day for such a confrontation. But then it was always going to be too pleasant. Killing still did not come easily to me. The people who said that it got easier after the first time were wrong. Especially since the last person I had had to kill was once my best friend. How Theo and I ended up on opposite sides of the Great War is a long story, so I won't try to explain it here. All you need to know is that I've seen too many people die - I've killed too many people myself - to ever look on a sunny summer's day again without feeling a wrench of guilt and depression.

But this one would be the last, I had vowed. I had promised Hermione that I would quit. And I would. But there was one thing that I still had to do, one last criminal to be hunted down before this Auror was ready to hang up his robes for the last time. This was something that I had promised myself, looking down at the mangled body of the only person left in the world that I still cared about. I had sworn a wizard's oath to catch her killer. And I would. Only two hundred yards of barren shingled shoreline lay between me and my goal.

So what made me hesitate? Certainly not the warm sun upon my face. Since she died, nothing like that had made any impression on me at all. Without her, life made no sense, and I had never really been one to appreciate the beauty of the natural world. It was Hermione who had made me notice these things. Before her, I had slouched through life with my eyes fixed on the ground, hoping never to be noticed. And now, without her, I would revert to the same, awkward, shy observer, never interacting for fear of ridicule. Except I would never be the same. The innocence I had once had was gone forever, but it would never even be graced with a headstone.

I suppose it might have been anticipation that made me pause at the top of the steps down to the beach. But I was never one for savouring the moment. I was only made a Slytherin for my native cunning. I was never comfortable with sadism; I could never savour watching other people suffer, however much they deserved it. And this man deserved anything I could do to him.

He'd tortured my Hermione for no reason other than to satisfy his twisted psychotic impulses, and then he'd slit her throat with a seven inch carving knife. He'd left the knife. It was the same one that had been used to kill Ginny and Ron Weasley, Harry, Neville and Parvati. Luna, the only survivor of any of these attacks, swore it was the same one that she had seen in his hands. It was only thanks to Luna that we knew who we were dealing with. And it was because I knew who and what I was dealing with that I was afraid.

Yes, I was afraid. Aurors get scared too. I'm more than competent at out-duelling any opponent I meet, but one who chooses to use Muggle weaponry is an unknown factor. Who knew what the psychopath could have waiting for me? I didn't dare hope that he would escape while I dawdled. He knew I was there. He'd sent for me. And that's why I was afraid. Even knowing that Kingsley was in the area for backup didn't make me feel any better. This was no ordinary wanted criminal. He'd killed the Boy-Who-Lived and the greatest wizard of our time. If he chose to, he would certainly be able to kill me.

In the end, I held my head up and began to descend the steps carefully, all the while looking for the man who had summoned me. The man I had come here to kill. I couldn't see him, and I thought that it had to be a trap. It wasn't as if he could have killed any of his victims in a fair fight. Even Neville could have turned the tables on his attacker had he not been asleep. I felt my blood boil. My quarry was an emotionless coward without a conscience. And today he was going to die.

I reached the bottom of the steps, my feet scraping on the shingle. And then I saw him, slumped in a deckchair at the tide line, looking out to sea. His fair hair reflected the light of the sun perfectly, and for just an instant I was captivated by his beauty. He was the picture of young male health, glowing visibly, with a slight veneer of animal sexuality. It was hard to imagine that this man was a vicious murderer. Harder still to think that this pretty boy had butchered my fiancée in cold blood, for no real reason at all. And it was near impossible to believe that he had killed all hope and destroyed all that was good about the fragile world that he and I both lived in.

I shook my head to get rid of these thoughts. It didn't matter how pretty he was, I knew that he was a killer. We didn't need Luna's testimony to tell us that he had killed Hermione. He had left a note along with the knife. It was brief and brutal, but it was undeniably in character for the sadistic little bastard. I'd never liked him.

Blaise,

How can your Mudblood help you now? Shouldn't you have been here to protect her from me?

Regards,

DM

I remember the words of that note as if the ink had been burnt onto my retinas. No one needed to ask who DM was. We all knew. I didn't know whether he had actually gone insane, or whether he had always been psychopathic. Psychopaths aren't mad. They don't have the cover of insanity to fall back on. That's why they're so frightening. They know exactly what they're doing, and they know what it means. They just don't care. He didn't care. He'd killed so many people that I don't think he even remembered them all. But he wanted to finish it. That's what he said in the owl that he sent me, and that's why I was there.

I didn't know if he knew I was there or not, but I drew my wand anyway. Then I walked over, measuring out each of the hundred and fifty paces that lay between me and the limp figure in the deckchair. I was three paces away when he stood up to face me. He must have heard me long before that. He looked at me with his cold, inhuman grey eyes, staring as if he didn't know why I was there, as if it wasn't he who asked me to come in the first place. He was just as I remembered. His angular face still looked strangely handsome in the light of summer, and his elegant hands looked none the worse for the volumes of blood that had poured over them in the previous months.

"Blaise," he said, simply. I could almost imagine that I heard a little warmth in his voice. "It was very good of you to come here, you know. I really didn't think you would. Or at least, I didn't think that you'd come alone. You didn't bring my fool cousin or old Moody with you, did you? I want it just to be you and me, old friends, together."

Old friends? Had he taken leave of his senses? I could see the gun from here. I had only seen one once before, but that instance had burnt itself into my mind. Arthur Weasley had shot himself when he had found out about Ron and Ginny's deaths. He'd already lost his wife and eldest son to the War, and these brutal murders at the hands of a deranged serial killer had been too much. I had the misfortune of seeing the body, and the weapon itself. The memory of Arthur reminded me of why I was there.

"I was never your friend, Malfoy," I reminded him, in a level voice. Getting angry would not solve anything, especially since my adversary never appeared to feel any emotions at all. "I haven't come to chat, or to catch up, or anything like that. I've come to talk to you about a series of murders."

"I wouldn't call it murder," Draco Malfoy said, his piercing, cold eyes staring straight into mine in a way that made me feel distinctly uncomfortable. "No, it was killing, but not murder. I only killed people who deserved to die. I rid the world of people who should not even have been alive. Mudbloods, blood traitors and fools; that's all any of them were."

I gritted my teeth. I wanted to hex him to oblivion, but he had an advantage. I had a wand, but he had a gun, and his finger was on the trigger. All he had to do was pull it. I would have to say an incantation to get any result whatsoever with my wand. And the hardened murderer is always a quicker killer. Most decent people hesitate momentarily before they can kill. A psychopath like Draco no longer cares enough about anyone, even themselves, to pause at all.

"What about Harry?" I asked. "What about Dumbledore? These people saved our lives. If it wasn't for Harry, Ron, Hermione and Dumbledore, the whole of this country would be ruled by Lord Voldemort! And what about Ginny? She sacrificed everything for you, and you repaid her by slashing her throat with a carving knife!"

Draco Malfoy shrugged. He appeared to have lost interest in both me and the conversation. I felt the rage rising again, but I could not let my emotions rule me, or I would be yet another victim laid out on a stone cold mortuary slab. The wind rippled the white blond hair, and for a moment I felt almost sad. What had we done to create a monster from such promising beginnings? What accident of upbringing or experience had turned Draco into this predatory, remorseless creature that he had become? How did we do it so regularly and so spectacularly? Tom Riddle, Draco Malfoy, who would be next? What made them any different from me?

He spoke again, and this time his voice was sad. "You know, Blaise, I've killed everyone I've ever wanted to kill. I know Luna survived. I don't care. I didn't really need to kill her. She was just there with Neville. But everyone I've ever wanted dead isdead. Except for one person. And that's where you come in." He looked at me piercingly, and I shivered. Was he going to kill me in cold blood? "One person still has to die before I can have my piece of mind."

My composure deserted me at these words. "Why should I give a damn about your piece of mind, you traitorous murdering little bastard? Why does it matter?"

He smiled. It was not a pleasant smile. It looked as if he had been practicing it for many years and had still not got it quite right. Draco Malfoy never smiled. He smirked, he sneered, but he never smiled. It just looked wrong. I would have closed my eyes, but I didn't want to stop looking at him. It would have been like turning my back on a snarling tiger.

"I don't expect you to care about my piece of mind," he said, quietly. "But you want this person dead as much as I do." And he levelled the gun between my eyes, looking almost sorry for what he was about to do. "Blaise, tell me this, can you forgive me? Will anyone ever forgive me?"

But before I could answer, he pulled the gun away from my forehead, whirled it around, and pulled the trigger. The world seemed to stand still for a moment after the ear-splitting sound. And then Draco Malfoy, war hero, serial killer and psychopath slid slowly to the ground, stone dead and killed by his own hand.

I stared for a minute or two at the body. I was numb. It was a huge shock. He looked angelic in death. The blood poured from his right ear, but aside from that, his features were composed in such a way as to emphasise his youth and beauty. I could not believe he had done it. But then, I could never believe anything that Draco Malfoy had ever done in his life. Nothing he had ever done had seemed real. Did he ever really care for anything or anybody? Until that moment I would have said that he cared only for himself, but he had proved in his death that he did not. Was that why he had done it?

Tonks and Kingsley Apparated next to me with a pop, and looked from me to the body on the ground several times. I don't think they could believe that he'd done it either. I didn't say anything. Nothing needed to be said. The dark man just shrugged and levitated the body, but before they left I thought I saw a flicker of pity in Tonks' eyes.

When they were gone I just stared at the blood stained shingle. And I realised why Draco had done what he had done. When he killed Hermione he must have realised that I would want to kill him. In his last act, he was taunting me. I could never keep my oath. I could never have my vengeance. I would never be able to forgive myself for letting her die. I wished that the others had left the gun behind them, for I had never wished for death more in my life than at that moment.

I turned and walked back up the beach. I didn't want to go back to the Ministry. I would never go back. I would keep my promise to Hermione. This Auror would never ride again. As I climbed the stairs back up to the road I thought of Draco. When had he turned from the arrogant prick I had loved to hate into a psychotic butcher of human beauty? Was this somehow my fault? Had ignoring Draco's pain lead to all of these deaths?

I reached the top of the steps and turned to look down at the beach. The sun still shone, reflecting off the glistening green sea. Life went on. Draco's final act on Earth had not changed anything. People would still die. I would still grieve, my love for Hermione unresolved and unavenged. And I would hate a poor misguided fallen soul forever, simply because he had called it killing, not murder.