The Chosen One

Ginia Malfoy

I do not own Harry Potter. This is a dark fic that's been buzzing around in my head for a bit and had to be posted before Deathly Hallows. It's written in the same style as my "His/Her Eyes" stories.

I came to in hell, or what might as well have been hell. The curse's effects slowly dissipate as I gain my bearings on the battlefield, not knowing how long I've been unconscious. I am awash in mud - and blood, I also note - and with a momentary grip of panic I search for my wand.

The battle had raged for hours, well into the night, but hardly anything is moving now. Fires blaze from misdirected curses, illuminating the vast devastation. I have fallen at the base of a rocky hill, the top of which is encased in a immense cage of golden light. I know who is in that cage. Everywhere I look lay the bodies of wizards and muggles, their forms blending with the earth, tangled and draped across the desolate landscape. I fight the impulse to be sick. What had that morning been a windy moorland was now trampled into a desert of mud: dirt mixed with blood.

A body is under me. It's Parkinson, and I suddenly remember that it was she who I'd been fighting. The idiot. She could never best me at dueling. She must have figured it out though, my double agent role. Perhaps she'd seen me discretely killing Death Eaters and 'missing' members of the Order. Maybe she was a cleverer Slytherin than I gave her credit for. Either way, she's dead now.

Granger is sprawled a few meters away from me, dead or unconscious, I can't tell. A shock of red hair catches my attention, and I feel my stomach drop. It's not her. It is one of her brothers though, Charlie I think, clearly dead and hardly recognizable beyond the red hair.

And then I see her, drawn again to the sight of red hair more brilliant than the pools of blood. I will it not to be her, perhaps it is some muggle girl instead, but there is no mistaking the youngest Weasley. Even in the worst place on earth, she is still beautiful, though her skin is ashen and streaked with blood. Far too much blood. I don't see her chest moving, and I feel my eyes begin to burn.

An unearthly cackle stabs the night, sucking the breath out of me with its booming peals. I see them at that moment; Potter and the Dark Lord. The golden cage is splintering away, its magic crackling into nothing, and Potter is falling. I watch his body arch through the air as if in slow motion, propelled over the edge of the hill by the force of the Voldemort's curse, and flinch even before his body hits the ground. The dull thud of flesh on rock rings in my ears.

He has lost. My childhood nemesis in everything from Quidditch to Ginny is dead. My true enemy, our true enemy, is still standing at the top of the hill. The Chosen One has failed. I almost laugh aloud at the irony.

The Chosen One. The Chosen One. The words pound through my brain. The-Bloody-Chosen-One.

Shivers suddenly ruffle my skin as a wave of epiphanic consciousness assails my reason. Ginny told me of the prophecy, and the words pound through my brain:

The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches… born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies … and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not … and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives … the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies …

Potter had been the logical choice. His parents had died for him. He had the brother wand to Voldemort's. He had been the brave Gryffindor. It had all fit so tidily, yet Potter had failed. Could it be that too much had been written into Potter's sodding sob story? He was The Boy Who Lived, surely, but did that necessarily make him The Chosen One as well?

I have powers the Dark Lord knows not. I proved it the night that I couldn't kill Dumbledore. I proved it by loving Ginny. I have the same bloody power that Potter has…the power to love. I sneer at the realization.

As for being marked as an equal, doesn't the Dark Lord mark all of his followers? And aren't most of the Death Eaters just as cunningly cruel as their master? Has he not marked us all as his equals? I clutch the mark burned into my forearm.

My birthday is a problem. I was not born in July. Suddenly, I feel like knocking myself in the head as realization floods me. That prophecy was made before Potter was born, before I was born. Surely, my father would have been told of its contents, being one of Voldemort's highest ranked Death Eaters. I was born on August 1st, or at least that's what I was told. What if my parents had concealed my true birthday? What if they'd stayed the announcement of my birth to spare me from the wrath of the Dark Lord? What if they'd delayed it by three days? Would they not have thrice defied him? It could easily be true.

Could it be so simple? Could I, Draco Malfoy, be The Chosen One?

… and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives …

Bloody brilliant.

I wouldn't have chosen this for myself, Slytherin that I am. But neither would I choose to be enslaved under the sadist up that hill. He'll probably kill me anyway, just like he killed my family. Just like he killed Ginny.

My eyes are seared with the vision of Ginny's lifeless form, and the nail in my coffin is driven deep. She was the only thing worth staying for. She's gone. He killed her.

Blinding, incomprehensible rage. It breaks over me in torrents, so consuming that it is beyond reason, beyond understanding. I know one thing only as I wrench myself off the blood soaked earth and propel myself like a missile towards my master.

Voldemort is going to die. I am going to kill him. It isn't a lingering ambiguity, it is a bloody fact.

I savor the scene as it plays before my eyes, almost as though I am a spectator. Voldemort stops laughing as a feral roar is ripped from my chest. I see him register the onslaught, see the recognition flood his being as I advance. A twinge of cruel satisfaction fuels my wrath as I see the look of alarm and even fear break over his snake-like features.

I am upon him. I hurl my first curse.

I was originally going to have a kinda fluffy ending…I may still add it if I feel sorry for Draco, but I quite like the abruptness of this. I don't know Draco's canon birthday, and it's probably wrong, but I had to write this and a date wasn't going to stop me. The prophecy was of course written by J.K. Rowling, and I take no credit for it. Please let me know what you think.