The Potter boy and The Dark Lord, collapsed at once. There was silence all around us, not a single one of us flinched in the time that passed but Bellatrix who spent her time trying to awaken her master…Certainly her master, for he was no longer mine. They call a person a coward for avoiding the very thing they fear most. For wanting to live, wanting to preserve what they have and cherish it. I realized in that dark hour that time had passed. I saw Harry Potter standing there, and as much as I resent admitting it, he was the sight of something I have not seen in years. Cowardice... as many put it, was not present here…in him, but in Voldemort, who sent him to the ground, silenced. And then I imagined, couldn't help to but imagine, my own son in the same spot. Limp and lifeless, all because of this…Who would have known the consequences that would befall us?
Narcissa had stood at my side as I sat on that log by the fire roaring to the left of the Dark Lord. I looked at her face in the fire's glow and it was no doubt as equally livid as my own. Returning my gaze to the cold, icy ground, I could see my hands were still bruised and cut from Christmas. Some would soon become scars in the coming months. I had wondered how many more would come, and how many of them I had deserved. But this was the moment that set the tides for the world. As others were stricken with fear of the Dark Lord's health and triumph, my own fear was of my son. But there was the slightest hope in the corner of my mind, where the death of one, or both of the two in front of me, meant the end of all this pain. I've grown tired of the fight, tired of the stench of death. Though the killing and the torturing thrilled me in my youth, and partially still to this day, it is not worth the debt or the cost. I have accumulated enough scars and lost enough blood to finally realize where the end lies.
Not to my surprise, The Dark Lord rose once more, where gasps and shuffling could be heard around the circle of our brotherhood. That senseless sister in law gushed over him in a sickening manner that I myself, could not virtually stand. I turned away until I heard my wife shift in her place. "You! Go check!" he screeched. I looked up at her once more and she moved willingly enough, silkily through the grass as she always was able to do, calmness in even the worst matters… she bent over him. That horrible image of Draco lying somewhere dead entered my mind once more… If he were to be found, it would surely look like this. It would be worse. It would be hell…my only son. She stood once more and yelled. "He's dead!" Casually, she returned to her place as seconds later, the circle erupted in bloodthirsty cheers. To my astonishment, there was warmth by my ear that was not of the heat from the fire. I felt her touch between my shoulders and as the shouts swelled amongst the tree tops, "Draco is alive." What I thought was my cold, dead heart, leapt. I stood on my feet in what seemed ages, looking at her with as I imagine, widened eyes, seemingly beside myself.
"Yes! He'll be very visible in your arms!" The Dark Lord muttered, who was preparing to display his unworthy prize to those in the castle.
Soon enough, we moved as a unit, more as prisoners than an army, fear encasing us in servitude. More than anything at the moment however, burned in me than anger, as he gloated and lied about the encounter with Potter to the occupants of Hogwarts. It was pathetic to even see the hilarity displayed on his grey-toned face. Amusing perhaps after all the struggle we had gone through, that the boy be defeated in the matter of seconds, but nothing more. Bellatrix gleamed with happiness at the scene, the indecency. At that moment, I wondered to myself what had enthralled me so much prior to this hideous chain of incidences…though no answer would arise as much as I beckoned. They yelled back in protest, the familiar face of that young boy whose nose I broke in the ministry came out…Stupid, but nonetheless, impressive. How many more of these children would die for Harry Potter, to put away every death eater including myself until we are dead and gone…until only tales remain of our pillages and murders?…Probably hundreds… thousands perhaps. But will they remember the fight of those caught in between the struggle? Never.
Suddenly, the resistance came again, and those around me were in a mad dash towards the school, jinxes flying everywhere. I took the opportunity and ran. Narcissa was already yards in front of me, as I tried maneuvering my way over and through the fallen corpses and those swooping skeletal horses that screeched from above in the pitch-black sky. Some of my old companions were suddenly lifted off up the ground screaming, kicking, and being dragged off into the darkness as I ran by them. It would have been much easier with a wand, I had thought to myself. For months I had felt so naked without it, I felt so disgraceful, but that didn't matter now. I didn't need a wand to make my body run. Flashing through the main gates, as fast as I could, I barely missed the foreign looking creatures that were being dropped off like lit oil on to unsuspecting victims. There, were the injured and dead leant against the walls and floor, but I did not stop to look any further, for the first time… afraid of what I might see.
At this point, I cared of nothing else, as both adrenaline and fear coursed through me like a rapid surge, in a way it hadn't for years. Narcissa had climbed the stairs, two, three, as they kept shifting and changing amid the chaos of spells below and above. I could hear her calling out his name in all this noise that seemed to make my head spin. It was a search so blind, that the hopelessness began to settle in me once more until my attention was gained when she ran to the balcony overlooking the great hall, outside of the Gryffindor common room. "Lucius!" she yelled, and pointed down, across the hall. I followed her to her side and looked to see Draco cornered between a heated fight between a Weasley, and several death eaters. Heat ran up my face as if a poison. I sprinted down the staircases, tripping at the bottom, backwards, and then skidded across the corridor between the exchanging blows. A green flash of light sped inches to the side of my face. Apparently, they were all aiming to kill. "Draco!" I yelled at him in a tone that was unfamiliar to me. He looked up from the corner wall, looking quite filthy and sounding like he had inherited a smoker's cough. "Father! It's not my fault! I-"
I yelled as I rushed to grab him from the shelter, but Narcissa reached him first, taking him into her arms. I looked around the confusion with a new clarity as I saw with my own eyes, Harry Potter once more standing in the Great Hall, in front of the Dark Lord. I turned to Narcissa who gave me a strange look. "You lied?" I asked her, my eyebrows raised feeling both betrayed and stunned. "He told me that Draco was safe." She replied, still holding the boy who still continued to cough. She was clearly covetous of the boy to say the least…and how I loved them both. How they hardly knew.
The room went suddenly silent as I looked up to see the two circling, later learning that my old friend Severus had died… not only died, but had fooled us all. And all that time I thought he was trying to oust me. Then my ears perked to another line. "The true, master of the Elder wand, Draco Malfoy!" Potter had yelled out. I turned in a stare at my son who looked at me, not knowing what to think, or what I was thinking, especially of him. Turning back, I could see with now a happiness arising deep within me, the fear and rage on Voldemort's face. It was contorted and hideous, as I had always failed to see it as. Good, I thought to myself. Good. Let them see how ugly you are, how shameful. No sooner, the great flash appeared between them and only one was left standing. The one I had expected to stand. I laughed and Narcissa looked up at me as if I had lost my mind. To think, that such a powerful wizard would be defeated by a de-wanding, in all places. It had been so easy it seemed that I wished it only had been that easy in the first place.
I gathered them both and we sat on one of the long benches in the main hall as Draco told us what had happened. I, already guessing I was hearing the vigilant form of the story, Draco leaving out the parts that I would almost certainly find objectionable. Little did he know, it mattered not. Looking around I felt odd and out of place; many of these people, I had hunted with pleasure, perhaps killed their family members in the past and without regret. Seeing the Weasleys across the dinning hall, had arisen a fragment of dislike, but it subsided swiftly. Arthur's wife was crying over what I would have assumed as the body of one of her sons. And again, that aching feeling arose in my chest. All these people were mourning and celebrating. Not one attempt was made to advance us and who could blame them. I was grateful they hadn't. It was over… and there was no more reason to flee. No more reason to fight.