This is my entry for The Character Death Challenge. I had Sirius Black and Draco Malfoy, and the prompt "stone". This is kind of AU, in the seventh book. Hope you like it.


Like a stone, that's how a broken body falls when meeting the end. Draco won't ever forget those sharp words from his father's mouth as he related Black's death. It seemed insignificant, something more in the long list of the ones who had died fighting the Dark Lord, and Draco couldn't have cared less about that tall, messy Gryffindor who died to Bellatrix, but now it was different.

As shattered glasses marked his road across bodies, broken walls and dust, Draco couldn't help but remember his father's memory of Black's death. Learning Occlumency, he ended up bursting into the memory of that day at the Minister, and the exact scene would always replay in his mind: a black-haired man laughing before a shot of green light would take away all the movement from his body, like air that got frozen in his lungs, and then his body in complete stillness falling slowly through that creepy veil. Now death was chasing him around, taking away friends and foes in front of him. Why did all of them fall like that, like stupid, heartless stones?

The war was getting more and more bloody, making the ground tremble right under his feet. He should be fighting, he needs to be fighting, but he can only wander through the destruction. Crabbe just died, and he witnessed from away how one of the Weasley twins was killed with a last smile on his now vacant, soulless face. A smile, a laugh, all of those fools ended up having the same pathetic end, as bloody heroes.

He's now fighting, trying not to get caught in between the hoarse screams of pain and battle, but the image doesn't fade from his eyes. A stone falling, a pile of bones and meat that makes no sense anymore. And now he wonders, why does he need to fight?

"Draco…"

A broken whisper came from behind. It's that Mudblood, Granger, calling him. He pointed his wand at her out of reflex, expecting curses and shouts from her, but she just stood there, looking at him. She didn't even have her wand out, and she just took a few steps closer to him until they met face to face. She took his hand and lowered it, and on the verge of tears, she softly spoke to Draco.

"Why don't you just stop all of this nonsense now?"

Draco didn't react, and mumbling, he saw Hermione linger a while in front on him and then returned to the fight, protecting that Boy-Who-Lived or the red-haired jerk. The war continued but he couldn't move, couldn't think. This was nonsense; he was fighting for nothing, for they were all stones in the end. The Golden Trio, teachers, even Death Eaters, they had all something to stand for, but he was just acting out of habit. Again, the veil, those broken bodies in his mind, and he ran as far as he could.

There's no point in fighting when he has nothing worth protecting and dying for, right? He'll end up like them, cold piles of dust in the ground. He stopped and somehow sensed it. A flash of green came from behind, like a missing bullet in the middle of war, and hit him on his back.

What was the point in fighting when he was going to end up falling like a stone, a broken body meeting the end?