House: Gryffindor
Year: 4 (stand-in)
Category: 1
Prompt: Creature AU
Word Count: 1297
A/N: Contains non-canon Veela lore, references to a canon character death, and a non-canon character death.
The irony was not lost on him.
The Light had always warned that Dark magic came at a price, and this was his, not two weeks after being cleared of all charges by the Wizengamot. Generations of diluted Veela blood had somehow been activated. In him, of all people. But being a normal Veela would have been too kind. The Séduire were like the Sirens of the tropical oceans – beautiful, irresistible, and dangerous. Every Veela in the Malfoy line had been Séduire. Until him.
Fate had dealt her hand, and it was a cruel one. He was Falaichte. A so-called "Dark Veela". He had no powers to entrap and ensnare, no charm or seductive powers, and he would be dangerous only to himself. He had been cursed to forever be unable to resist, to be irrevocably charmed by another, and to fall fatally ill should he be unable to capture the heart of the object of his Veela's desires. The object of these desires, in yet anther cruel twist of fate, had been predestined for him from the moment of his birth. It could be anyone – old, young, male, female, human, magical being, alive or dead. They could even be Muggle. Aside from being over the Wizarding age of maturity at the moment he turned, there were absolutely no parameters or limits on who Fate could be cruel enough to choose.
This was why Falaichte were so rare – almost completely unknown even by the Wizarding populace: many of them hid their true natures and passed away within weeks of receiving their inheritance.
This was the fate which awaited him.
Truly, death in battle would have been preferable.
The pain began immediately, poisonous tendrils weaving through his heart, slowly cracking open the weakened organ. Two days after he received his inheritance, he became unable to eat; he could not keep food down, and eventually he was unable to even ingest any. After five days, he was no longer able to sleep, his every moment haunted by pain that far exceeded any Crucio aimed at him by Voldemort or his Auntie Bella. After seven days, he began to suffer visions and hallucinations of his Veela's chosen mate that accelerated the spread of both the pain and the poison in his heart. After ten days, he lost control over his magic.
That was how, late one night, he resurfaced from a vivid hallucination to find himself in a graveyard.
He fell to his knees in front of the grave, too weak to stand, too weak to fight the tears that coursed down his gaunt, ashen cheeks, making them appear luminescent in the moonlight.
His trembling fingers reached out to trace the grooves of the inscription, flinching at the sharp jolt of electricity that shot straight to his heart as he touched the last remaining proof of his mate's existence.
Mischief Managed.
His lips twisted into a wry smile in spite of himself. Not quite yet, Fred. Looks like you had one last trick up your sleeve. This was exactly the kind of thing Fred Weasley would have done: find a way to take out one more Death Eater, even from beyond the grave.
Slowly, he opened his eyes, but what he saw made him slam them shut again. He was hallucinating again. He was hallucinating his mate was alive, though. That was Stage Four. Death was thankfully, blessedly close.
"Draco?"
The hallucination was even speaking to him. Calling him.
"Draco."
The voice sounded wrong, somehow. It wasn't his Fred.
His Fred, he scoffed to himself, as if Fred Weasley would ever so much as speak to someone like him. Someone who was responsible for his death. He had killed his own mate. He deserved far worse than what Fate had assigned him.
Belatedly, his pain-addled mind recalled that Fred had a twin.
"George."
His voice sounded faint, scratchy. Weak, even to his own ears. Nothing like the haughty Malfoy tone he always affected around families his Father said were below them. Families like the Weasleys.
"What are you doing here?"
There was no anger, no hostility in his voice at finding an enemy weeping at his brother's graveside in the middle of the night. His voice held only the same empty, broken pain as Draco's own.
"I'm going to die without him."
He wasn't sure where those words had come from, but they were the truth. The pure, simple, painful truth.
"Sometimes, I think I might, too."
"You aren't surprised to see me here." It came out flat. A statement, rather than a question. Looking at a man who's almost, but not quite, a carbon copy of his mate was beginning to shatter the edges of his mind. It was painful, in an odd way that promised peace once the process was over.
"No."
George's voice cracked, and for a moment, silence settled over the graveyard, but he gathered himself and continued.
"Fred told me. Before the Battle. Said if anything... happened to him, to keep an eye on you. And—" George's voice broke off painfully, the next words shared in a halting whisper. "To tell you... to tell you he'd see you soon."
After that, George met Draco at Fred's graveside every night, even as Draco lost his ability to speak and his vision faded, replaced fully by hallucinations of the life Draco and Fred could have had, if only Fred had lived. If Draco's heart had no already been torn out of his chest, placed in the hands of someone no longer on this earth, it would have broken at the sight of freckled, strawberry blonde children and a red-headed husband who loved him.
Draco had no real sense of day or time, unable to see or speak, unable to move, surrounded constantly by pain and visions, but his Veela instincts – his soul – returned him to that graveside night after night, and George was always there, waiting for him with pain potions he couldn't swallow and blankets that did nothing to ward off the cold that started within him, not outside of him. But his calm, steady presence was almost comforting at the same time as having someone who wasn't Fred, but almost, added a new layer to his torture.
George knew that none of it eased the pain that was slowly breaking Draco's mind and destroying his body; nothing could reverse the poison that seeped through his veins, rendering his eyes glassy and unseeing, his body skeletal, and his skin paper-thin. But George did it all anyway; Fred would have wanted him to, and this was his final act, the last thing he could do to honour his fallen twin.
One night, not long after arriving at Fred's grave, Draco felt it. Darkness – a soft, welcoming warmth – began to wrap around the edges of his fractured mind.
"It's close," he breathed, so feebly the sound could have been a mere whisper on the breeze. "I will finally... have peace."
George's sudden chuckle jolted him painfully, but he didn't flinch or moan. He was no longer able to, barely in his mortal body as the end drew nearer. The darkness wrapped more tightly around him, sluggishly wiping out the pain in its path, and he heard George's voice one last time.
"Peace? C'mon, Malfoy. Freddie's waiting for you up there. Peace is the last thing you'll bloody have."
Dimly, Draco was aware of an odd, falling sensation as the last of the pain fled his broken body. The darkness that had wrapped around his mind, easing him away, slowly retreated, replaced by a soft, ethereal glow of light. Then, he heard the voice it felt like he'd been waiting an eternity for as strong, gentle arms wrap around him.
"Welcome home."