Disclaimer: If I owned harry potter, do you really think I'd sit around writing fanfics about it?
There's no turning back. That's the only thought that passes through my head as I hurry away from the Hogwarts grounds, the only place I've ever really considered my home. I don't want to be in the position I'm in, but then again, who would? I had gone through the whole year attempting to complete the mission I was given, but I couldn't even do it when it really mattered. Maybe the Dark Lord was right. Maybe I was just a good-for-nothing coward. That was what he had told me the night before I left for Hogwarts at the beginning of the term. Was it really just a year ago? The time when I had been free and without worry seemed much more distant than that.
"Hurry, Draco!" comes Snape's voice. Snape, who has nothing to fear, for he completed the orders that I could not. He is in no danger while the lives of the whole Malfoy family are hanging by a thread, and it is all my fault. Why couldn't you have just killed him! I ask myself silently. Maybe you didn't want to, is the only answer I can think of, but of course that can't be right. So why did I not do it!?! I knew exactly was at stake, and still did nothing! What kind of a son was I to my parents, when I knowingly did something I was aware would cause their deaths? Not to mention mine as well. I saw no reason why the Dark Lord would spare any of our lives. He had no conscious anymore. I had seen him kill people in front of me, and I knew he would do the same to me in the blink of an eye.
I realize that what I want right now most is to be back at Hogwarts castle, and not be under the pressure that I know can be lifted only two ways: forgiveness or death. But I have no life at Hogwarts anymore, where I am sure to be branded a traitor and Death Eater. Perhaps this is not unfair, for I do have His symbol engraved in my skin, even if I don't want it to be there. I know that I could never be accepted at Hogwarts. No, there is definitely no turning back now.