Disclaimer: I do not own these characters or this world. I just had an idea and the story flowed from there.

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Forgotten

They found him laying on the grass outside the Astronomy Tower, a small pale boy just on the breathing side of eternity. The students who discovered him brought him to the Infirmary while some others searched the area for a clue to his identity.

A note was found in a high tower room, pinned under the weight of a shining badge. It was the Slytherin Prefect badge, but no one knew where the boy got it. There was no Prefect for Slytherin that year. The note was sealed by red wax and an unfamiliar sigil and no one could pry it open, though many tried. Eventually the note joined the badge and a small piled of cleaned and folded clothes on a low table next to the boy's bed.

The Medi-Witch declared that the boy had suffered several broken bones and perforated organs from his fall and would have died had he not been found when he was. However, after thorough examination she had to admit that she did not know the boy. She provided his vital statistics to the headmaster, height, weight, skin and hair color, and prying back sleeping eyelids, eye color as well. The boy had old claw scars on his fore arm but the rest of his skin was unmarked. His teeth were perfect and before he was found on the grounds of Hogwarts he had never had a broken bone.

A picture was posted in The Daily Prophet, in the hopes that someone, somewhere, would recognize him. The picture was uncharmed and unmoving, but it would make no different because the boy was still and sleeping. He was due to wake up only hours after the bone and organ mending potions had been administered, but he slept on. The Medi-Witch, worried for her pale and wounded mystery, tried everything she knew to wake the boy, but nothing worked so he was moved to a small cot at the end of the ward and left to sleep.

Hours became days became weeks and no one came forth. Another effort had been made to open the rolled letter, or waken the boy so his identity could finally be revealed. But all efforts failed. To prevent curious and mischievous students from frightening or hurting the boy by accident, he and his meager belongings were moved to another room, the door warded to prevent any untoward entry. The Medi-Witch and teachers could enter and did as each took shifts checking on the boy. The House Elves took care of the sleeping child, feeding him fortified broth and cleaning his body and bed. Every hour, on the hour, they turned him to prevent bedsores from tainting his pale skin and hiding any distinguishing feature that might be used to identify the child.

The students forgot their mystery eventually. Even the most fascinating and dramatic events do not stay long in the memory of a child. But the staff never stopped hoping that someday someone would come through the gates and look for the brother, their son.

No one came, and the weeks became months became years and the teachers grew older. The Headmaster died, and professors followed him like dominoes. The boy continued to age, becoming a man as he slept. He would be tall, if he woke, and as pale as something that never sees the sun can be. But he never woke, though the Medi-Witch kept trying.

Eventually the years caught up to her as well and she died as she had lived, in service to the children, the students that surrounded her every day. Her face in death was troubled as it had been for many years, though no one remembered why anymore.

The boy, now a man, lay forgotten in his little warded room and now the House Elves were his only visitors, passing on the tale of the nameless boy from one generation to the next so their duty would not be forgotten. Years came and fell as they often do and the only noise in the room was the soft soughing breath of the boy, now a man, now an old man. Tarnish covered the Slytherin Prefect badge, and the fine robes that lay cleaned and folded beneath it had long since been rendered to dust.

The parchment roll remained pristine. But as the breaths finally stuttered and stopped, the seal, the dollop of red wax that held the rolled parchment note closed, broke away with a snap.

And though there was no one there to read it, the spidery handwriting unfolded, pinched and tight and half writhing with pain and fear and sorrow.

If you are reading this, it means I am dead. I charmed the parchment to release only when I took my last breath. My name is Draco Malfoy and you do not remember me. That is for the best as there is nothing I have done that deserves remembrance. I lived a wretched frightened life, scorning those I should have befriended and betraying the trust of those that cared for me. My parents are dead, my mother at the hand of a madman and my father by his own devices. I am alone in a world to which I am useless and that is my great sin. I am too much a coward to die with honor for a cause in the midst of battle, to have my name carried on the lips of eternity. I found a charm that would erase my existence from history. All it required was my death, a paltry price to pay for that which gives so much relief, and one that I find myself more than willing to pay. My greatest sin in life has no more meaning than my greatest virtue now, if I had one, so dispose of my body as you wish. Fling my ashes into the sea and be done with it. Do not mourn a stranger, for that is all I am to you now. Simply think of me as a mystery, or a tale that no longer bears repeating, and consign even this parchment to dust.

Beneath, though the parchment was water stained and almost unreadable, a discerning eye could see the faint and faded words.

Tell Harry I am sorry.

As the letter unrolled it disintegrated and if anyone had been there to read it, in the moment the last word appeared the rest of the letter fell apart. The House Elf that next visited the room was more concerned with the mess of ash and dust that covered the table next to the bed and barely noticed as the Prefect's badge was knocked away to roll into the far shadowy corners of the room. When the dusty mess was cleaned away the Elf left the room, once more silent.

Moments later, its ears ringing with the exhortations of its elder, the last of the original Elves to tend to the sleeping boy, it returned to the room to feed the sleeper and found him dead.

Not knowing what to do, it returned to its home in the warm cellars of the castle and retrieved the elder. The elder knew of a small patch of land on the castle grounds that had been used as a graveyard for those who died in service to the castle. Not knowing what better place for the boy, they bathed him for the final time, wound his body in white linen cloth, and carried him out onto the grounds.

Some students, out to make mischief in the twilight hours, saw the strange procession, for the two House Elves had quickly been joined by others until all the Elves of the castle trailed, mourning their charge with silent tears.

The body was buried without ceremony. The House elves never saw the need to invent Gods. They knew the world's fate for their kind. Beneath the green grass and dark rich earth of the caste grounds the boy would sleep on for eternity and a simple stone was erected over the site.

It read "Forgotten."

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Note: Okay, this story depressed the hell out of my beta, DerSaboteur. She agreed that it was good, and that there was resolution, but there is no hope in this story, no potential for happiness at all. And that's how it worked out. There will be no sequel to this story, no second chapter where characters travel through time to save a life. If you want to read something like that you can try my story WEATHER THE STORM. It has two endings, the sad one for readers who enjoy angst, and a happy one for those who prefer a happy ending.

Please review and tell me what you think.