Spur-of-the-moment songfic, meant to be read to Bryan Adams' "Sound the Bugle" from the Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron soundtrack. (Well, it was spur-of-the-moment; now it's been going on for about two months.) It's been done, I'm sure (how could it not be?), but maybe this is a little different. Maybe a little. Anyway, my version of the end of the seventh book (keeping in mind this is being written before the seventh book's release) with a twist of a twist. Kind of. It makes sense in my head, okay?

Dashed lines stand in for the original version's insertion of song lyrics, but here they stand only for a leap forward in time.

Lie Awake Tonight

Today, I wake at the crack of dawn and immediately, thoughtlessly, weave a ribbon of black cloth between the fingers of my left hand. Black—the color of life, now the color of death. I weave it absently and there is a long piece left over, so I lace it around my wrist and tuck in the ends with the thought that it will stay there for awhile. Smiling briefly but affectionately, I sit up and rub my eyes with my right hand, flicking the sleep dust, which is a more attractive term than "mucus" even though the latter is more accurate, from my eyes. My hand is naturally splayed on the comforter, my fingers approximately equal lengths apart. Expressionless, I move my middle and ring fingers together and bend them all slightly—all except the thumb, which looks better straightened.

"Good morning, Draco."

I look up, a bit startled. Her words are emotionless and hollow, making me cringe.

"Morning," I reply, seeing nothing very good about it. We are silent for a long minute until he rolls over, bending at his waist and propping himself up on his forearms.

"Do you hear that?"

"I hear lots of things," she says, still in that empty tone which sends shivers down my spine. "Mostly people talking quietly, thinking they're not waking anyone."

She speaks with hints of inflection, reminiscent of a public speaker like an actor. Moments of irony, of bitterness, but all sort of faked. I smile sadly and move to sit, cross-legged, on my blankets.

"Not in here," he says, a little annoyed. "A noise outside, kind of like music. One instrument; a horn? A bugle or something. Maybe a trumpet?"

I shrug, although I can hear it too. It is a proud noise, or at least it should be. Likely a bugle meant to declare something we do not yet know, although at this point, anything we do not know cannot be worth knowing. She smiles wryly, drawing her knees up to her chin and resting her head on them. He and she close their eyes and I look out the window, though from the floor, all I can see is a misty winter sky. A few wispy white clouds tease the chance of snow but are too small to afford anything.

"Oh, I hear it now," she says. "A bugle. That sounds like a declaration of victory."

"Really?" he asks. "I suppose you know more about everything in the world than I do, but I thought it sounded like some kind of mourning song. A wartime funeral march."

Privately, I agree with them both. It is almost as though two musicians are fighting over the same horn, shoving it back and forth to play two different songs. I almost wonder what is really going on outside before I remember that I have nothing left that is important enough to care about.

---

Today, I sit on the window ledge with one knee hugged to my chest and the other leg dangling outside, thumping against the wall. Surely the heel of my sneaker is being worn down, but this pair is old and well spent anyway. I can always buy more. I can buy nicer ones made of stronger cloths and tied with tighter laces.

"Oh! These leaves are crawling with bugs!"

I look down, craning my neck slightly to see them all below. They shove one another into leaf piles and then help each other up. One who I cannot identify from this height goes about taking others' hands and then dropping them before they have their footing, laughing like an idiot. I frown with the sour thought that I would have enjoyed a similar game once.

It is autumn now, only a few months before the end of the world. Not literally, of course; I know the end of the world has already come and gone. According to the Daily Prophet, which was never unbiased, and all our duly appointed leaders, who have become less than reliable in such matters, the end of the world was sometime last year. "Luckily," the Prophet declares still, "our destruction was deterred! The prophesied 'doomsday' fell short, due in part to the heroic and courageous acts of these following saviors from the Ministry of Magic…" As if some are left who still do not know. As if it was because of one person. As if those who were supposed to protect the wizarding world had a hand in the battle.

"Be careful there, Draco, or you might fall out."

I close my eyes and do not turn to her. She speaks with a coy seductiveness that I find repulsive.

"Fine, you know, whatever." She turns and walks away, her footsteps purposefully clacking on the stones below her feet. My rejection of her advances has always frustrated her, and now she wishes to drag me forth from my apparent depression and into the open arms of her love. I am no fool, however. Her love is not true and would not stand the trials of poverty, should such a thing ever befall me.

One would think, or at least one should, that such recent suffering as we have all gone through would have changed us all for the better. Tragedy is meant to show some light, some great explanation of all that is wrong with the world so that those who are punished may change their wicked ways.

Anyway, that's what I've been told. Not several times, and truthfully I cannot remember the circumstances under which I heard it at all, but someone said it to me once and it has stayed with me. I may not believe it, but I do remember, word for word.

That's not entirely true. I believe parts of it. I believe that tragedy has the ability to show truth to misled individuals and, should they so choose, change them for the better. I believe that tragedy changed me, although for the better or worse, I could not say. My friends say I have grown moody and quiet, but I admit I do not share my thoughts with anyone. They have no reason to think otherwise.

Interrupting my thoughts just now is the sound of a flute in the courtyard. Blinking to refocus my vision, I look down and see them all laughing at something as some clap along to the music. Then one points and two others look up, searching the windows with darting eyes. Finally one spots me and waves, calling out. I cannot hear above the music. The other waves as well.

Although I see them both and know they are beckoning to me, I do not respond in any way. Perhaps looking down at the yard was too suggestive that I might join them; I avert my gaze and look out at the unpleasantly grey clouds. Rain appears imminent, but that means little as it has looked this way for several days in a row.

---

In our daily efforts to plan another final attack, I have participated less and less each time. It isn't that I don't believe in our efforts; I simply have nothing to gain from our victory and do not believe it possible without support we do not have. Maybe I have not changed so much.

Awhile ago, when the first rally—and coincidentally, the final one—was being planned, I had thoughts of grandeur in my head and notions of people to protect. I thought I would be hailed a hero if I was to play some key role in the downfall of the darkness threatening to cover our land. For awhile I was assured by some that this was all true, that all who fought so hard would be rewarded with fame and glory.

It did not take them terribly long to stop, and then it did not take me much longer to realize the truth.

There would only be one hailed as a conqueror after that battle was done, and it would not be I. I, who had lost so much and fought so hard, had done so too late and had too few blessings to be truly recognized as anything great. Once I realized my true purpose in this last fight, I resigned myself to the role and did little else. It was as though I had lost my own mind and become something of a drone.

As the others sit together, chattering away with their hopeful plans and dreams of victory, I stand alone and listen scornfully. Do they not understand that we are too small a force to make any difference? That we are too weak and they are too strong? Their "last ditch efforts" are stronger than ours and many of our potential allies are too afraid to stand alongside us, rendering them useless.

"Hello in there!"

I frown but jolt back into awareness, easily finding the source of my annoyance.

"Draco, were you listening?"

Nodding, I wave her off and cross my legs where I stand, rolling my eyes. She acts as though there is something worth listening to. I know better, but they will never listen.

Sometimes, but not often, I wonder if my lost ones would appreciate or praise me for participating in this recovery effort. It is doubtful—even ignoring my father's obvious alliances and loyalties, I have not acted in a particularly noble fashion recently. Perhaps the only reason he, meaning "they," would have for rewarding me would be that I have not even pretended to have fallen in love. Such a thing would be weakness, I am sure, and luckily I still evade its clutches. Would I like to find it? Perhaps. I cannot truly say, as I have never known it at all. I will never have to make such a choice, though, for my heart has become empty and I am not left with the tools to refill it. I would never know how to begin doing such a thing.

I have watched the others, all around me, pass through their initial hopelessness and restart their emotions and I have wondered: why can I not do such a thing? What makes me so different? What makes all of them so identical? Is it what we had going into this war? They all had family, I know, and friends to closely bind them. I had a technical family devoid of love or loyalty and so-called friends clustered around me to do my bidding until funds ran too low for their varying tastes.

Perhaps this is the key difference which keeps me from fighting properly: I have nothing to fight for. I never have and now, I likely never will.

---

Sometimes I think to simply abandon my efforts to be a part of this team and join those undecided many who roam the streets, avoiding us as they desperately fear for their lives. I have been hit most directly and although I know my family life would have been little better, if at all, I cannot help but miss it and my parents. As these depressed thoughts fill my head, I wonder, too, what would happen if I simply lay down where I stand and let the team walk over me as those who are truly committed to this fight are allowed to take full command of it. I do not know why they placed me in any sort of critical position, as any sort of leader here. For once, at least, I certainly did not ask for it.

One could say—and some do say—that I have been wounded beyond repair, that I have been touched by a scar in that my father was associated so closely with what they all, and we all, call "Darkness." "Purity" may be another word for it: an unending search for pure life and worthy hearts. The sadness of it comes not in the violent means by which it must be attained, but in that such a thing is deemed necessary at all.

I wonder for a moment what would come of the pure darkness winning its battle against the tainted light. Perhaps the whole world would become unified by a single objective: maintain the strength of that unity by preserving a single network of bloodlines. Or perhaps the world would fall to the loss of a strong ally such as the light, which cannot exist and has no purpose without darkness. I am not some godly man and I cannot say for sure which it is, but I know it would be fleeting either way. Darkness, paradoxically, is too weak to sustain itself without light, without something to cover up. That is the purpose of the dark. Hiding.

I no longer have a care for this cause. It is disrespectful of me to remain with these freedom fighters, pretending to be one of them. They do not suspect, I do not think, but they will eventually if I continue with this facade. If they do not, then they are merely unobservant, even stupid, and sure to lose their eventual showdown.

During battle, a wounded soldier may be left on the ground to perish if he cannot drag himself to safety. His comrades may put their own wellbeing before his if they are immersed in their weaponry and so forth. Later, the regret might come, but others insist that they could have done nothing and fought the only good fight they were responsible for.

"Oh, thank God, I was beginning to think I would never find you!"

I make no response and do not look at him.

"You, of all people, can tell me what happened in the last meeting, right?"

I cannot, in fact, as I was present but thinking of other things. Unimportant things, surely, as I can no longer recall any of them, but the point is made. Waiting for a moment, he hopes I will come out of my now constant near-catatonic state to answer him, but when I do not, he is not surprised. I have not spoken in several days.

Perhaps matters would be simpler if I had someone to guide me on this quest towards inner peace, but I have only a team of hopeful children and a mass of frightened would-be allies. Neither battle will easily be won. I am content, for now, to sit alone.

---

Today I was awoken by a hopeful young one, the child of two of our official team members. She sat beside me serenely, her legs folded and her hands turned up on each of her knees in a fake meditation pose. As I turned my head one way, she turned it back with an annoyed sound, causing me to open my eyes. I was not angry, nor annoyed, but simply… nothing.

"Meditation requires absolute stillness," she berated me harshly.

I said nothing to her, merely closing my eyes and lying utterly still.

"You're doing it wrong!"

I do not even ask her how I can be doing anything wrong, as she is the one trying to meditate.

As I lay with my eyes closed, my other senses all proportionately spiked, I thought of what I needed to do as the day progressed. Very little falls within my actual domain; while the others know I am a skilled worker, they know that I cannot be charged with any missions designed to rally allies and strengthen our forces by increasing our numbers. Those jobs require heart and belief in our cause which I do not have. Perhaps I will be asked to do some menial labor, but it will be silly and easy and probably unnecessary. I know some of them feel bad keeping me around as I do nothing.

I heard the girl stand with an annoyed huff and walk away, no doubt seeking a more able pupil for her calming exercises. I paid her no mind.

It might interest you to know that I am still lying here, still cocooned in a thick blanket and still tucking my socked feet up against my body.

The time is now 1500 hours.

---


"Does it worry you that Draco hasn't eaten all day?"

"He is quite thin, but he's always been that way, don't you think? I mean, it's nothing new, really."

I hear them. I always hear them. Their whispers always scream through the dead silence.

I would eat. I know I should eat. My brain has given up ordering me to eat, but my stomach is craving sustenance and trying to tell me as much. Despite this, I have no desire to eat. Eating would imply a desire to live, a will to survive. Such a thing is reserved for those of us who have something to live for, and I have said I am not one of them.

I do not stand from the table before the last of them is finished, nor do I take any food for myself. I know our supplies are limited. I know we save every scrap for the next meal and no snacks are allowed, even for the children. That is my contribution to the movement. I am not wasting life support.

The need for this movement is partly our fault, anyway. What did we do to fight back when it mattered? We put our faith blindly into one man, still a boy, shoving him off to war and wishing him the best of luck. We split ourselves down the center, some finding solace on this side, some on that or the other. But who tried to mount any sort of attack? No one I heard of. And I surely would have heard.

Standing at once, I feel my chair skid back on the dirty stone floor as I shove off from the table, my eyes narrowed at nothing. The last freedom fighter to leave the table—a child, perhaps eleven or twelve years old, who I only vaguely recognize—looks back at me with a start, pausing and making a move as if to come to me. I can see in her mind the thoughts forming of coming to my rescue, bringing me back to her reality and saving me from myself. I snap at her with my wolf's fangs, growling dangerously for a moment as I walk away. With a startled whimper, she recoils and begins to cry.

My chest constricts as I think of that last day of humanity's reign over the world, for we have now been thrown into chaos and I would not pretend any different. He, the savior, tried his very best, or so they told us all and indeed continue to tell us. I am perhaps the one who wonders different. Was it possible for him to lose? Was it possible for him to fight with everything he had? Could the two happen simultaneously? What would he choose? Did he even have a choice?

He was our light in the darkness and now, he is gone and his memory? Fading. Fading into the perfection of an idol. I or anyone would be hard pressed to find a single person left in the world who remembers one bad thing he did throughout his entire life. I remember many, but am afraid I remember too many without that light to guide me through our dark world. I fear some of them are not memories but my own inventions, placed in a memory's casing so as to make myself special for keeping his reality alive.

Still, I am utterly worthless.

This I know.

---

Another of them has come to speak with me. I mindlessly pick at the new grass, finding a spry dandelion to torment. Perhaps if they know I am not interested, they will simply go away.

Such is never the case.

"Draco, I think we need to talk."

I wonder if she thinks merely that I need to speak, or that we must have a conversation, and so I say nothing.

"I can't help you if you won't let me!"

Funnily, I cannot recall asking for her help. I muse over this silently, expressionlessly, waiting for her to leave. Finally, she does so, clenching her fists and not bothering to wait until she is out of my hearing range before ranting to her father about that strange man who sits on his bed all day and never helps with the movement. I do not smile, nor do I forgive her carelessness.

"Sweetie," he calls her, "don't say those things. Draco was one of our finest fighters in his prime; we've just got to wait a bit longer for him to recover. He's been through quite a trauma, you know."

"I know," she'll say coldly, "but he's just sitting there, all the time, like some parasite sapping our resources. He's taking up space!"

I do not hear any of this. Not this time. He is too careful; he will make sure she has come far enough away. Every word in my mind slides through a veil, tearing apart a little hole so that the veil is smaller and smaller every time. She has made this complaint many times before; the veil is nearly gone. It is ripped through in many places.

What will happen when the veil is gone?

I couldn't say. I wonder often, but never come to any conclusion. Perhaps I will find some rest or resolution; perhaps I will join these freedom fighters or make some great contribution to their cause. Perhaps I will go mad. Die.

If I knew what the veil was covering—what its purpose is—I would be better suited to answer this question. But I do not. I know only that it is important and that some critical part of my personality will be broken when it is gone. Critical to what, once again, I cannot say, but I know that when it is gone, I will never be the same.

What strikes me as funny about this situation is that the girl, a child, wished to help me; she thought she could save me. She thought she could understand. When even I do not understand, how can anyone else be expected to? I have asked for no friend, for no confidant. I wish for no such thing. From far away, they seem to seek me. A more philosophical or religious man might say that destiny is calling for me, but I disagree. Destiny died on the day that he did, the day that changed the world.

If I so desired, I suppose I could put my faith in destiny and simply stop thinking of much of anything. But that is not my calling; I can hear the voices, off in the distance, trying to scream for me through muffled curtains. They cannot reach me.

No one can reach out to me.

---

The tattered remains are gone now, and I sit alone inside myself as I wait for the end of the world.

I fight. Having abandoned my last hopes and tired of hearing murmurs in the walls—"He is too weak for us," or sometimes "I wish he would die"—I forfeited myself, body and soul, to the cause of the freedom fighters. I have not yet given up my heart, which some claim is merely hidden and others arrogantly declare is long gone, nor my mind, which most believe I have lost but do not care to help me find.

Rumors and voices leak into my mind, telling me things all the time. I hear the idiots fighting against us who believe they can win. I see the idiots fighting alongside us who do not know what they are getting themselves into. I know the idiots outside our walls who are merely looking in and declaring that surely something must be done.

Stupid. They are all stupid.

Why have I begun fighting once again? It is not because I have seen the light, as many of them claim. It is not because I began to believe. It is simply that I have lost the will to argue and decided that I must do something, as so many of the fools outside accuse us of failing at. They all see me rush into battle and believe that I am fighting with all my strength, drawing on my devotion to fairness and peace, my love for this world.

They are all stupid.

I fight because there is nothing else. I fight because all they have done has led, ultimately, to nothing, and I wish for it to end. I hope against hope, dreaming silently of a day without fighting, without love, without hatred, without peace, without anything. Sacrificing the bad would not bring about the good, and so there must be nothing at all. In this, I wish somehow for infinity, by which I suppose I can only mean one thing.

It should be obvious, I would think.

I do not know if we will ever see him again, if we will ever see any of them, ever. Winning this fight would not bring them back and I do not know what else could. Nothing, probably. And going to the place where they are... It may be my fondest wish, but I doubt that they would be there waiting for me. I wouldn't want to see all of them, anyway. Only a few. One, two, maybe three.

More than that, I do not know if he would want to be seen. I would not, were I in his position. The sanctity of our final fantasy, the preciousness of putting an end to it all is not something to be disturbed.

The end is nigh, as they say.

I will lie awake.

Let's pretend again.