About a Burning Fire
Draco turned to face his only light source, the tiny window that let in a few rays of sun only three hours a day. He savored every sunray. It had been so long since his skin felt the heat of the sun and he missed it dearly. His already alabaster skin was paler than it had been before he was sentenced to rot in this horrible place, his cheeks were hollow, and his eyes were lifeless. He knew he deserved to be there. He didn't do anything to stop the horrors that still plagued him after all these years.
He turned his back on the window and walked to the middle of his cell. He lowered himself down to the ground and sat cross-legged. It had been five years since it all happened and it still haunted his dreams and waking life. He rested his elbows on his thighs and placed his head in his hands. He ran his hands through his long, dirty hair. If he could go back to that night and do something, anything to change what happened. A tear slid down his sunken cheek and he wiped it away with the heel of his palm. He refused to shed any more tears about this. He couldn't change the past, but it didn't ease his guilt.
He stood with little difficulty and walked over to his cot. He laid down and looked up at the dismal ceiling. He let out a breath through his cracked lips. Draco could see why prisoners went insane in this place. There was so much time to think and do little else but that. It was what he feared the most that he would lose his mind in this place and wouldn't know who he was and where he had come from. All he would know is what happened that night and only that.
Draco rolled to his side and pulled himself into the fetal position. If only there was a way to combat this, but he knew it was futile. He would forever be a slave to the nightmare that robbed him of his freedom. He clamped his eyes shut and muttered incoherently to himself. He just wanted it all to go away. He could see Weasley and Potter's face looking at him from where they sat in the courtroom with nothing but malice and sorrow in their eyes. Even though Draco wasn't the root cause of it, he still felt shit because he didn't do anything to stop it. His sixteen year old self just stood there with his mouth opened as he watched her get tortured.
He placed his hands over his ears. He could hear her screaming for help and crying out for someone to help her. And he did nothing. Nothing. That's what he was...nothing. He wasn't brave. He wasn't determined. He was nothing.
He lowered his hands from his ears and cracked open his eyes. The images from that night started again and Draco could do nothing but let them play out before his eyes again as if he were standing there again.
Draco couldn't believe what he was witnessing. Potter, Granger, and Weasley were standing in the middle of his drawing room. They were here and it would all be over. The Dark Lord would come once his aunt summoned him and it would be over. Voldermort would win and they would be his prisoners for the rest of his life.
For so long Draco thought that's what he wanted - a world where Purebloods were at the top of everything and Mudbloods and Muggles were finally shown that they were nothing but dirt on their shoes - but he was wrong; completely and utterly wrong. He still didn't know how he felt about Muggle-borns and Muggles, but after seeing what Voldermort had done while he stayed in the Manor was enough to hope that Potter would kill him for good so that he could leave him and his family alone. But he was wrong. Potter was going to die in front of him and he would never be safe again.
His aunt grabbed him by his arm and thrust him in front of Potter. Draco knew it was him instantly, but there was something wrong with his face. He squinted and cocked his head to the side.
"Is it Potter, Draco?" Bellatrix crooned next to him.
He hated when she spoke like that; curiosity and excitement mingled together in her shrill voice. Draco made sure his mind was completely secured before he told the biggest lie he would ever tell in his life. He gulped quietly. "No, it isn't him."
"Are you sure?" Bellatrix's voice bordered on hysterical. It only got that way when she was angry.
Draco nodded, daring not to speak for his voice may give him away.
Bellatrix bared her teeth and ground them together. Draco wanted to take a step back from her, but he knew better.
She started barking orders at Fenrir and Pettigrew to take Potter and Weasley down to the dungeons while she interrogated Granger. Draco knew this didn't bode well for Granger. He felt helpless in that instant as his aunt dragged her across the room by her frizzy mane that Draco made fun of numerous times when they were kids. They weren't kids anymore. War had wiped their innocence away so quickly. How he wished for simpler times now.
He couldn't take his eyes off of his aunt, wand drawn and yelling, and Hermione, sitting on the floor choking out the answers that his aunt didn't want to hear. And he could do nothing. He was rooted to the spot, eyes open wide, and fear clenching his every nerve ending.
When Bellatrix hit Hermione with the first Crucio Draco flinched. He knew something was coming as soon as she kept telling his aunt that she didn't know where the sword came from. Draco wanted to shut his eyes. He didn't want to hear her muffled groans. He didn't want her to be there. He didn't want to be there.
The torture kept going on and on and on. Draco didn't know how long he had been standing there. It felt like hours, days, weeks, years. He didn't have any concept of time. All he saw was Hermione Granger, his only competitor when it came to intelligence and the girl he tormented for years, bloodied on his drawing room floor with her screams ringing in his ears. Draco wanted it to stop. That's all he wanted. He wanted to rush over to her and get her out of there. She didn't deserve this. Yes, he had wished her dead back in second year, but he couldn't have meant it. He didn't mean it! He just wanted this to stop.
He could hear Weasley yelling from the dungeon. Yelling her name and wanting nothing more than save her as well, but he couldn't. Draco could, but he was a coward. He knew if he even tried to intervene he would get avada-ed. As always he felt like two different people inhabited his body. One wanted nothing more than to stand there and wait for Bellatrix to get bored and finish her torture so that he didn't have to witness it any longer. And the other part of him wanted to stop it himself. He wanted to free Potter and Weasley, grab Granger, and apparate to safety, but he couldn't move. His legs were not receiving the message from his brain that he needed to move.
The blood curdling scream that Hermione let out chilled his blood. It was as if she was giving her all wishing to escape the pain with ever fiber in her being and he knew she was. He had been tortured once by Voldermort after he failed his mission, but it was nothing like this. Bellatrix was sadistic and maybe more so than her Master.
The scream died in Hermione's throat and Draco moved his head forward to see why. Blood leaked out of the corner of her mouth and he could see that her chest stopped moving. couldn't. She couldn't...Draco felt numb. He felt like he had just moved outside of his body. He could see the shock and disgust on his face. He could see his parents in the corner of the room also rooted to the very spot they stood.
"Oh, I believe I killed her." Bellatrix cackled. "I thought she'd be able to hold on, but it proves how weak a Mudblood truly is." She sounded delighted. Draco wanted to do nothing more than hurl at the tone of her voice.
"What do you mean she's dead?" Fenrir Greyback asked. "I thought we had a deal, Bella. I thought you would give her to me after you had your fill of her."
She turned to the werewolf, malice burning in the depth of her eyes. "Greyback, we had the deal, but I didn't get the truth out of the Mudblood. Also, you are a simple servant of the Dark Lord, nothing more. You hold no real rank in his army. So therefore I don't have to uphold my end of the bargain. Find another young girl to fuck and devour."
Fenrir growled. "I can do that any time, but she was special! You know that."
"Yes, but she is dead. If you want her body, then take it!"
Draco could hear Weasley's voice screaming Hermione's name. Draco winced. He had no idea she was dead. Not yet.
"Wormtail, shut him up!" She screamed at the balding man.
He scurried out of the room and disappeared down the steps that led to dungeons. Draco's throat felt dry as he finally got a full look what was Hermione Granger. Her brown eyes were open and unseeing at the ceiling, her bloody mouth was open in an eternal scream that no one could hear anymore, and her frizzy hair was in disarray coated with blood. He felt sick. His knees wanted to buckle, but he kept them from wobbling, but he averted his eyes. He saw his mother looking over Hermione's body, shock clearly written over her face. His father's face was impassive, but his eyes were averted from her body.
Draco turned as he heard footsteps coming up from the dungeons. Weasley and Potter were at the top of the stairs before he knew it. They looked around the room until they found her. Weasley held up the wand in his hand and moved toward Granger's body as Potter kept an eye on everyone in the room.
"It is you after all!" Bellatrix was back to sounding gleeful again. "Summon our Lord Lucius."
Draco saw his father hold out his left arm and slowly roll up his sleeve. His index finger lowered to the inky tattoo that marred his own flesh, but stopped when all hell ensued. It was all a blur as Potter and Weasley unleashed their fury over Granger's death.
After his old house elf disapparated them away only then did Draco drop to his knees and allow the contents of his stomach to splatter along with mahogany floorboards.
Draco was panting and sweating as the memory left him, but he knew it would be back. It always came back. The simplest of things triggered it.
In his dreams he always saw the way Granger's skin paled and bloodied. Or he heard the sound of her screams reverberating around the spacious room. She would always look over at him and reach out with her right hand and beg and plead for him to save her. He could only stand there and shake his head over and over again. He couldn't do it. He was scared.
Draco curled tighter into himself. He closed his eyes willing the tears to cease. "I'm sorry Granger. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry I was a coward. I'm so sorry. Please forgive me," he said over and over again. He knew that no matter how many times he said the same words over and over again she couldn't hear him. She would never forgive him.
Author's note: I've been toying with this one-shot for awhile, but whenever I tried to write it it never came out right, but I got a surge of inspiration. I should be back to writing more often once school is over (just a week and a half left), but I hope you enjoyed it. xx