Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations from the Harry Potter series created and owned by J.K. Rowling and various others including—but not limited to—Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No copyright infringement is intended.
Author's Note: Short and lightly abstract for one of mine, but I am rather proud of it. Extremely belated Christmas gift for Chelsey (Girl in Midair), with blessings for her patience. Many thanks as well to Liz for a late night/early morning beta and the prevention of several glaring and embarrassing typos, and credit to the Draco muse for not wanting to leave my head.
His hands were cold. He had forgotten his gloves, and so he placed them in his pockets to ward off the chill. His feet crunched in the snow, and he wondered if it had been hard for them to dig her grave in the frozen earth. Snowflakes drifted, dancing and swirling in a spiral pattern about the dark silhouette that could have been Death himself come to visit the last maid taken into his cold embrace.
His lips twisted cynically at the thought of that. Death perhaps would have been a more likely visitor to the simple cemetery in the midst of a world without magic than Draco Malfoy. Not that, he reflected with a deeper sneer, magic had done them much good.
He let out a breath and watched as it clouded in the air before him before being swept away like so many insubstantial things. Sacrificing the warm hiding place his hands had taken, he pulled up the collar of his coat. It was long and black and cut in a style familiar to this world, not that it was necessary to blend in. There was no one here but him.
Indeed he doubted there had been anyone here but him since they first put her in the ground. It hardly mattered that he stood out like a dark pillar that could blot out the pale winter sun where it held court with but a few ragged, scudding clouds in the grey sky. No one was here. No one cared, except him.
Were he unused to such things, the utter absence of life here would have unnerved him. The sight sickened him, row after row of headstones in varied states of aging dignity, granite and marble caps and statuary fighting their way free from the drifts of snow like hands and heads clawing and reaching for the surface in protest of their early captivity.
Did she wish, somewhere, to still be alive? Had it hurt to die? Had she been afraid, in those last few seconds before her life was siphoned out of her?
He bowed his head and closed his eyes and he could remember it all vividly. Standing in the doorway and watching as she banished a boggart into vapor. He remembered being a bit sorry. He would have rather liked to see what her worst fear was and morbid curiosity had nothing to do with it.
–You any good with that? he'd asked.
She'd turned to face him, an eyebrow raised. Challenging.
–Don't you make noise?
–Forgive me, he replied without apology. I'll just tie a bell around my neck, shall I?
That earned him an impatient stare.
–Keep being such a prat and I'll show you whether or not I'm any good with this.
She had always seemed to see it as her duty in life to knock him down a peg or two. Never minding the fact he always climbed right back up. He didn't know when it turned to love. Or if it even did. He was far from a proper judge of such things. He knew that he valued her company. Her intelligence. Her spirit. Perhaps that was love. He knew that it hurt to lose her. But it hurt to have her, too.
–Do you think this war will ever end?
They were sitting together on the creaky staircase steps when she asked him that. Her voice still had that assured tone that said she knew it would. That things would go back to some semblance of normal someday. But he could hear the doubt creeping in.
–I hope not, he replied.
She was surprised. He wondered why.
–That's an awful thing to say.
He'd tightened his arms around her waist and pretended it didn't matter.
–If . . . when . . . it ends, we won't be able to do this anymore.
She looked at him over her shoulder. Her dark eyes were bemused.
–That's silly. Why can't we?
He sighed, kissed her temple. Lingered there, relished the warm feel of her.
–Things aren't that simple.
She'd left it at that. Settled back into the circle of his arms, leaned her head against his chest. But he'd left her doubting, out of his own insecurity.
–Do you love me?
It was the wrong time to be asking such things. The end was near, as clichéd as the term was. Everyone was tense. Perhaps that was why she asked now.
–What do you want me to say?
It was the wrong answer to give. He knew it even as the words came out. It hurt her. She was quick to conceal it but he caught the flash of pain in her eyes.
–If I have to tell you, then it's answer enough.
She'd turned and started to leave. He caught her arm, she tried to wrench away. He held her wrist tighter, pulled her back to him.
–Is it going to matter to you after all this is over?
Her eyes were wide and searching in the candlelight. He thought she glowed.
–Yes.
He knew she was telling the truth. But he hadn't been able to.
–Then ask me again when it's over.
He'd kissed her before she could respond. Searching. Desperate for something to hold on to. She would wait. Then he would let her know the truth.
IloveyoumorethanI'veeverlovedanyone.
A red dawn broke that morning, bloody and miserable light for the survivors to locate their friends and comrades by. The smell of death and decay hung heavy in the stale air. She had lain there like so many fallen and yet seemed hardly touched by the chaos all around. An arm draped half across her waist, the other extended all the way out to the side, as if reaching out for something. Someone.
He'd not held her as she died. Far be it from him to be granted or even to ask the privilege of doing so. When he finally found her, her limp body was cradled in the arms of a tall redheaded boy who sat helpless. Acting as if he could bring her back if only he asked hard enough.
At first he hardly believed it. Even as she lay in a pine box he could deny the thought. She was one of the heroes. She was supposed to help rebuild what was lost. She was not supposed to be lost herself. Victory had been theirs. And she was cut down at the last moment by a straggler from the other side. He never found out who.
Later he learned that she had been broken apart inside. Her bones shattered and nothing to show for it but a trickle of blood from her rosebud mouth. He thought it a horrible way to die and at least hoped that it had been quick. That wish did not banish the sight of her lying like a discarded doll from his mind.
He knew it was not his fault. He hardly thought to pin the blame on himself as her two closest friends had. Malfoys were meant to be neither martyrs nor saints, but she haunted his dreams. He did not have nightmares, only dreams where he did it right. Perhaps that was a nightmare in itself.
He opened his eyes and knelt before her headstone. It was a simple affair and terribly small by his estimate, yet he could not see her wishing any larger monument. His fingertips traced over the weathered granite, dipping into the grooves where her name was carved, roaming over the date. Ten years from today. It could have been a lifetime ago, but he had not forgotten.
–Next time I'll get it right.