You're a coward.
On the night of the Final Battle, after everything had been said and done, everyone gathers in the Great Hall. You sit with your parents, dazed. You have never known this feeling: the feeling of absolute weariness. As soon as you get the chance, you slip away.
Walking through the war-torn corridors is surreal. The floors are stained with blood, and wherever you look, you see mangled bodies. They pulse along the ceilings, line the walls, blanket the floors, and congest the air. They whisper things to you, and you dig the bases of your palms into your ears, digging your nails into your skin, trying to make them stop, but they don't.
You find an empty classroom deep in the castle's recesses, and climb the dusty stairs to the teacher's office. It's obvious that nobody's been here for a long time; a place untouched by time. You realize that's exactly what you need. So you sit down behind the desk, and you cry. You sob and sob, and you don't stop to think if someone can hear you, you don't think about anything really, because you don't care.
Afterwards, you lay for what seems like hours on the dusty surface of the floor, dried tears on your alabaster skin. All you want is to go back in time, to stop your soul from inhabiting this body, to stop your life before anything can happen, before you can live this life, but that's impossible.
Eventually you rise and wipe the tears from your skin; you can't be seen like this… so discombobulated and weak. You recall the words of your father so many years ago, almost a lifetime away. "Draco, get up! Malfoys do not cry. You must always remember to never show weakness… Don't disgrace this family. Always remember that you are better than them." You were so young then, only four years old, but you remember it clearly. That was the first time you were ever physically punished by your father, and from there your life had gone downhill.
You yearn to return to the time when suffering didn't center your existence. You want to be young and naïve again, proud and arrogant to carry the Malfoy name, and boastful of your father and his influence. If only.
However, it's too late, your innocence has already been shattered. You've seen so many deaths, (too many), you bear the sign of the scorned, the Dark Mark, you're bitter and so tired of the world, (so, so tired), and you've killed, (you're so ashamed). You know that you'll never heal, and never forget. You still recall every detail of that night; the night you became a murderer.
It's the summer prior to your seventh year, and you internally shake with fear as you face the devil himself. He smiles, his lipless mouth curving into a grotesque shape, and his red eyes flashing with power. "Draco…" he croons. You close your eyes, replying quickly.
"My Lord?" the Dark Lord studies you, and you acquire a horrible feeling in the pit of your stomach. You're still trying to figure out why he had summoned you to his court, and you stroke the protruding black mark on your arm absent-mindedly.
"Draco, I believe that you are ready for your first real mission," he murmurs quietly. The Dark Lord motions to someone, and they grab your arm so fast that you have no time to react, and then you're spinning into thin air, your stomach churning. When the sensation stops, you find yourself on a grassy hill overlooking a valley. In the dip of the valley sits a small village. Surrounding you are more Death Eaters. They look eerie with the soft moonlight glinting off of their cold silver masks.
At once, they all start gliding forward, not making a sound in their movement. You swallow hard and take the silver mask that one of them hands you, donning it; then you follow. It's a muggle village, and the forces begin to pillage and overrun it. Soon, chaos is everywhere, dark shapes running after distraught muggles, animals running rampant, houses burning; and you feel yourself smiling. This is what you were born to do. To kill, to maim, to destroy muggles; to finally join the ranks of the Death Eaters, just like your father. Your father's cruelty propels you towards this conclusion. You are determined to make him proud by annihilating this filth right off of the Earth. So you begin.
At first, you relish it, you bask in it, and you launch yourself into it wholeheartedly. You run at them, torturing them. That's easy; to make them feel a fraction of the pain and fear that you feel is way too easy, and you don't stop. Before long, you find yourself in a house that has yet to be touched, strangely enough. It's right on the outskirts of the town, and deathly silence fills the whole space.
You stride forward, looking through the abandoned rooms full of pictures and mementos. You make your way through a small living room, the curious lighted box still running; a kitchen, the faucet running, water spilling over the rim of the sink, and cold food sitting half-eaten on the table, with chairs pulled back; and finally you ascend to the upper level. There you find them. Cowering behind a bed is the whole family; a father, a mother, and a boy and a girl.
The rest of his family still crouching down in fear, the father stands and faces you, his hands held up as his only weapon. You wonder if he already knows that this is a losing battle. You decide to have a little fun, and cast a Crucio. The muggle man falls, his spectacles sliding off of his nose, as he writhes before you.
When you stop, he tries to get up once again, gasping in pain, but he can't seem to. Blood leaks from his nose silently. "Leave them alone… please," he gasps. You smile cruelly and yet excitedly, raising your wand. You can't help but vibrate with power and the deep urge to kill, and green light bursts forth from your wand, hitting the man. He becomes silent and still, his stricken family watching on.
All at once, you sober and realize what you have done. Torturing is one thing, but murder? You had thought that you would feel nothing but joy, but your chest is full of a strange feeling that is in no way pleasant. You realize with a start that it's shame and disgust, and even a small twinge of despair. You fall to your knees beside the corpse, clutching at your chest. You claw at your throat, hyper-ventilating.
They had explained this with a sense of pride and elation; they had said that it is an honor… They had not said anything about this consuming emptiness, this shame, and this transformation to some creature that killed for entertainment. You can just feel the ripping apart of your soul; its conversion into a twisted existence. That's not the worst thing though, for you can feel the urge to do it again dancing on the edges of your mind. You feel this powerful need to give into the bloodlust, and you know that this could be the beginning. The saner part of you doesn't want it to be. And you're scared; so unbelievably frightened. You're just a child, god damn it.
Tears blur your vision as you realize what you must do. You look at the family, and whisper "I'm so sorry," as you stupefy them. You scoop up the unconscious bodies, and grab what you can for them, stuffing it in a small sack. You then disapparate to a discreet location in Muggle London, and leave the family in a small motel sleeping peacefully in their stunned states. You know then that you'll never be the same.
After the memory passes, you trudge back to the Great Hall where everyone seems to be in teary elation over the victory but you.
/
Life after the war is harsh. You are let go with only the sentence of a year of community service. You feel so guilty. If only they knew, you think, If only they knew that I'm a murderer. You want to tell them; you want them to know so they can punish you… But you're a coward. You fear of the consequences of telling them. After all, you're already hated enough.
When you walk the streets, people spit at your feet in disgust. You are chased by grievers whose family members perished in the war. You are kicked out of stores; as if you had any money anyways. Your father's in Azkaban for life, and your mother's deathly ill. You feel so alone, and it's because you are. There's nobody left to care for you, to brush your hair out of your eyes, tell you that "it's okay," and hold you out of harm's way.
Often, you wander the streets thinking. You relish in the chance to get out of the cold Malfoy Manor. It holds too many memories. Every time you walk its halls, you think of the Dark Lord inhabiting your home. You think of the dead who fell there, of the living who have nightmares about their days in the place. You sympathize with them, for you dream every night of the muggle family whose lives you destroyed, of the corpses that filled the halls of Hogwarts, (that still linger there), of what you lost and won in the war. Freedom is what you gained, but is it really worth all of the losses?
One day, you are just walking past a run-down building in Wizarding London, thinking about how you just want to escape the pain, when the wall you are passing suddenly opens. A golden light spills out, and you think that somehow you've died, and by some miracle, made it to heaven. You step through the doorway, and find that you have stumbled upon a little park.
You can see that it was once beautiful. Stone arches are sprinkled along the small cobble-stone path, and dead grape vines intertwine them in a deathly grip. A small stagnant pond houses a dry waterfall. The plants, though, have not died. They are overgrown and require pruning, but are still full of beauty in their own wild way. They overtake the path, and reach high above your head. You feel lost within them, but you find that you like the feeling.
Over the course of the next couple months, you return every day and work on taming the garden. You find that as you sift the dirt and dig holes for new plants, the hard work helps to clear your mind. You slowly begin to rebuild your soul, healing in an unimaginable way. Before long, the place is restored to its former beauty.
Despite this, you continue to visit the garden every day, never seeing the pair of eyes watching you.
It's a normal day, and you are once again heading to your secret garden. About a block away, you begin to smell smoke, and you find yourself panicking. You can't tell the present from the past as you run to the entrance of your garden. What you find is sickening.
The brick entrance is destroyed and in pieces, littering the ground. Inside, the garden is on fire. You do the best you can to save your safe haven, but you are too late. After the flames have died down, and the sky is raining ashes, you sit where the bench you'd built with your own hands had once stood. You stare in a daze at the message burned into the path in large letters: Murderer.
That day only serves to remind you of what you are.
/
Many years later, you sit in your study in the cold interior of Malfoy Manor, brooding. The windows are open, letting in a warm breeze as evening falls. Outside, lightening bugs dance in the falling gloom, lighting up the darkness. A small figure dances among them as another watches. You watch them for a moment, smiling grimly, before you turn back to the matter at hand.
You twirl the silver gun in your hands, stroking its shiny exterior. One bullet, you think, just one bullet would do. You raise the gun to your temple, and flick off the safety; and then you hear laughter from outside. You make the mistake of looking, and see your son with his nanny. You realize then you can't do it, you can never do it with Scorpius alive. You love him too much, and you know that he's the only thing still tying you to this Earth. So that's it then.
You flick the safety back on, and slip the gun back into the top drawer; locking it in tight. You put away the gun and live with your guilt; your ashamedness of the skeletons in your closet; your first and last kill.
It's like this every night.
/
It goes on like this, until one day while playing Quidditch together, Scorpius falls form the sky. You rush towards him fearfully and catch him, because you can't lose him, you will not lose him.
You apparate into St. Mungos with your son limp in your arms. As they take him away, you keep your eyes on him until you can't see him anymore. You haven't cried in the years since the end of the war, and now you feel as if you will; but you don't, you won't let yourself.
As soon as they let you, you rush into Scorpius's room, taking hold of his hand and sitting beside his bed. He's unconscious, but you yearn to see his eyes just open. The doctor enters then, taking a seat awkwardly.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Malfoy," he says, and after that, you only hear clips of his words, almost like your ears can't focus on getting good reception. "Scorpius… cancer… fatal… only six months… if only… too late… nothing that can be done…"
At first, you refuse to believe it. You go to every doctor in Britain, and then in France, and the answer's always the same: "We're sorry."
Only then do you allow yourself to cry.
/
Within the next five months, you do everything with your son that he never had a chance to do. You do big things like traveling to exotic countries, buying out a zoo for the day, learning to drive a muggle thing called a car together, (which you crashed), going to the fair, pulling pranks, and making his 12th birthday the best he's ever had. You do little things too, like reading Scorpius bedtime stories, teaching him how to do complex broom maneuvers, ruffling his hair and hugging him, taking him to visit his mother's grave, and telling him that you love him and are proud of him. The most important thing you do for him though is you stop with your nightly ritual.
In those few months, you live and love more than you ever have in your entire life, and it's so bittersweet, because you both know that Scorpius is dying. It's evident when he goes to chemo- therapy for the first time, when he stumbles and has trouble getting back up, when he can't get out of bed some days, when you learn that his major organs are beginning to fail, when blood begins to leak from his nose, and finally when he is permanently confined to the hospital for the last month of his life.
The last day of his life is no different from any other. You play board games together, eat sandwiches for lunch, (even though the both of you aren't very hungry), and read a story about a boy who healed his dying planet with one touch once he had realized his individual power. Then, the routine changes. Scorpius feels too tired to do anything more, and lays down to rest.
He looks thin and fragile as he sleeps, but peaceful, and you can't help but stroke his cheek. His grey eyes flutter open, and he smiles at you so sweetly. "Daddy?" he whispers quietly. Then, his eyes flutter shut again, never to open once more.
At once, nurses sweep in and tried to revive your little angel, but there is nothing they can do. Once they are gone, you clutch his tiny body to your chest, sobbing into his white-blonde hair. You keep expecting him to laugh and tell you that he is faking, but he never does. You cry long into the night beside the empty bed that once housed your live son.
/
The next morning, you go home to the now empty Manor. You go into your study, and unlock the drawer in the still silence. Finally, you can be at peace.
As you take out the gun, you realize something. Scorpius had died a week after they had said he would. God had given you an extra week with your son. You smile softly, tears making their way down your cheeks.
You lift the silver gun to your temple like so long ago now, and click off the safety. You keep smiling, thinking of everyone you'll be meeting on the other side: your mother, your father, your wife, your son… Maybe even the poor muggle whom you killed. You like the idea of being able to apologize, and you have no idea that you were forgiven long ago.
You have made a lot of mistakes in life, and hold many regrets, but this will not be one of them. In a way, you are glad that you made the decision to live so many years ago after the Final Battle, for while living you performed your one achievement in life: Scorpius. You smile once more in complete acceptance.
And you pull the trigger.