Rating: PG for this part but it's going to get more violent
Disclaimer:
No profit is being made out of this and no copyright infringement intended.
Category:
Drama, Romance
Notes:
Reviews are most welcome. This is Draco's POV. This chapter is dedicated to Tanya Jamon.

SALVATION: CHAPTER THREE

They're giving me that look again.

Fuck you all—and don't get the impression that I actually chose to be here. I'd rather be in hell than be here. But I'm already in too deep. I've as good as sold my soul to the devil. But still I keep on walking. What the hell—the way they look at me is the least of my problems. A call halts me in the middle of the hallway and I turn around to see. The rest of the young Death Eaters walking with me walk on ahead in their merry way.

"Draco—"

"Father," You are the greatest fucker this world ever spat out, and I loathe having your blood run through my veins. But still, I hang my head low to show respect. Sometimes, I think that I'm still under Imperius or something. After all, the reason I still respect this bastard is beyond me. "Is there anything you want to tell me?"

"You will be at the front to subdue Hogsmeade and capture all Resistance forces left there. Dark Lord's orders." And I merely nod. What do they want me there for anyway? But no such protests come out of my lips. I wonder why they need me there but that's it—there's no use trying to make a point with my father.

"Make me proud," he says before turning his back on me and walking away, cloak swaying, with his eternally present swagger. Yeah right. Make you proud by what? Killing a few people and bringing their decapitated heads to you for souvenir? I don't know why I even bother with anything. My father as good as killed me long ago so I might as well do whatever he wanted. I walk towards the balcony at the far end of the hallway, mindless of the thundering of my heart. Any second now, I have to go to Hogsmeade and murder a few people. Maybe a lot of people… But I figure, I will have to take it when it comes.

Will I even see Harry there?

Whoa Draco, Don't even go there. I open the glass doors of the balcony and step out into the blissful cold. This hideout is supposed to be Unplottable, undetected by the Resistance. But the fact that I'm officially nowhere doesn't calm me in the very least. I put both my elbows on the railing and bend low to immerse myself in my thoughts. The cold comforts though. It makes me forget the infernal situation I'm in.

The voices keep on reverberating in my ears, voices that haunt me even in the daylight. And I can't filter them out because I created them. I created them to drown myself in guilt and self-blame. I'm a traitor, and I have no right whatsoever to think that things might have been different, because I chose this.

Technically, I did. I let my father trap me in a web of manipulation and betrayal. I let my guard down and by that one sorry mistake, thousands upon thousands of lives became the price. I rake a hand through my blonde hair and groan. Time is of the essence now. In less than an hour, I'd be killing innocents, so better languish myself in eternal damnation before that and then feel good that somehow, I chose this path.

Though I never succeed in convincing myself, it's always worth a shot.

"Draco," someone calls from below. I look down with dread. "It's time to go."

I stall, but I know I have to follow orders. "Yeah," I reply, and reluctantly leave the comfort of the balcony.

When we arrive without incident at the point of Disapparition, I'm livid with terror at the prospect of another massacre—and the possibility of seeing Harry again. What should I say to him if I do meet him? Will I even be able to look him in the eye and take responsibility for everything I had done? I betrayed him, not to mention, I killed Seamus and Neville in the name of Voldemort.

I raise my wand to Disapparate from the site quite a walk away from the castle and the next moment I find myself in Hogsmeade amidst the crowd of people, scampering off to different directions, clueless of our presence. The move had begun to prepare for our coming. I inwardly beamed; at least this time, they're somewhat prepared. The rest of the young Death Eaters appear one by one in the safety of our little hiding place beside an edifice, which by smart calculations, won't be kept standing for long.

"Now where's the welcoming committee?" Vincent scoffs as he appears by the far wall, closest to the main thoroughfare of stampeding people toward a slim chance of survival.

"They're prepared for us this time around, Crabbe," I intone, trying my best to keep the triumphant tone of my voice to a minimum. "There's going to be real battle this time."

"If they're hiding Potter here, there sure as hell will be one," Gregory threatens, flexing his muscles and raising his wand a little higher to try and catch people's attention.

"Think, Goyle," I sneer, sarcastically. "If they have the initiative and the foreknowledge enough to evacuate people, there's as many chances of finding Potter here as your developing a working brain cell in that brain of yours," I finish, virtually patting myself in the back for such a job well done. But underneath the façade of suaveness and unfazed certainty, I secretly start to hope that I really won't be finding Harry here.

"Who's up for the first wave?" A chorus of 'Yeah' sounds from the eager group of human killing machines upon Crabbe's question, and I nearly hurl my guts in abomination. Why am I doing this?

"Draco?" Blaise jolts me out of another session of self-blame. The rest of my group had started to ransack the building next to the alleyway, which served as our Apparition point. I knew that this building would be the first to go. By the time I enter the building, there isn't much left for me to vent my frustrations on aside from the old man and a younger woman being held hostage. The others had gone off to destroy some other edifice and disembowel the people left standing.

Crabbe clutches the young woman by the throat while Reddings holds a wand out to keep the weeping old man in check. "Please, spare my daughter. Kill me! Spare her, please!" Everything seems to shift to slow motion. All I can hear is my ragged breathing. This is crazy! But I just stand there unmoving as Crabbe strips the girl's clothes off and starts ravaging her, in front of her old father. Screaming. The voices are back again in the cradle of my raw emotions. Why do I let things like this happen?

When Crabbe is done with all the perversion privy to his limited but lecherous mind, he raises his wand and it's over in a flash of green light. The girl is dead. I hold back the impulse to hurl and close my eyes to the inhumane reality. I let it all happen—making amends by self-blame and guilt wallowing is never going to be enough. Every crime I did and had let happen in front of me that had gone unpunished will haunt me forever.

The sight of the old man in noisy tears strikes the dormant chords of my heart I had long silenced. I feel I can identify with him—we are, after all, both there but we didn't do anything… we couldn't do anything…

Crabbe re-fastens his robes with a smug smile. You bastard—you dirty scum. "We'll join the others, Draco. Finish him off," Crabbe points a finger at the old man, tied up behind his back with thick ropes, leaning over the body of his young daughter. By his knees are shards of glass and what look like remains of wands. It will be very easy. But the hard part will be to look into the eyes of my victim—the eyes of a bereaved father, of a pained, suffering father who never expected this to be the end.

"I want to spare you, old man. Because I know this is not the most ideal way to die. I would have wanted you to have a chance to try and defeat me and die an honorable death, defending your life and your daughter's. I'm sorry for what they did to her, but I couldn't have stopped them. I don't know how to make amends, but—"

"Kill me—finish off my suffering. I failed to defend my daughter as a father should. That's how I can make amends. Death—death is the only way I can free myself from the guilt, when I join my daughter," he interrupts. There are tears in my eyes, the same tears I had cried in secret for all the deaths my hand had caused.

"When you see your daughter, tell her that she's lucky she did not suffer long."

Green light. Choked words. It's done again. I am a murderer. And maybe the old man was right; only in death can I make amends.

My wand shakes in my hand, and a voice echoes from it. The Interlocution Spell. "Draco! Hurry—we're at the robes shop. Potter's here! He's with the Chang girl!"

-emeraldine-