Hey you guys, here is chapter 4. Sorry I have another story that I also need to make chapters for and it was taking forever to figure out how I wanted this chapter to go., I then decided that it would work better to just scrap the previous idea and go with this one. So I hope you guys like it. And check out Lana Del Ray, she's pretty good. Especially when it comes to writing this.
Chapter 4
The feeling of cold had Ron opening his eyes blearily in the darkness. As he stared at the ceiling he vaguely noticed that it wasn't his curtains that surrounded his room in Gryffindor tower. It wasn't much of anything. Just a stone ceiling.
It reminded him of the dungeons in Malfoy Manor, where they found Luna and Ollivander chained to the walls. Dark and spacious.
Trying to sit up was a chore, his body felt weight down by bricks of lethargy, but he managed. Blankly staring at the white curtains that surrounded him, trying to force his brain to play catch up.
"Pomfrey?" he asked to the darkness. Looking around the room.
Yea, he knew those white curtains anywhere, he was in the infirmary.
But why?
Draco...
It hit him slowly, the memories of the blonde's bloody body laying on the dirty stone floor. The way his heart stopped and tightened at the sound of an Unforgivable. Fred and so many others that had died.
Drawing back the covers, he dragged himself out of the bed slowly. The moonlight coming through the windows thrust the room into a realm of grays and blues, almost unnatural, Ron had to wonder if he was actually awake.
Madame Pomfrey was screaming orders at her nurse. The curtains were closing Malfoy from the rest of the world. But it was the darkness that blinded him from the world that scared him the most.
How long had he been out? Was Malfoy alright or did McCrain actually succeed in killing him?
Pulling back the curtain, the cling of rings against metal was loud in the silent room. And his sight was slowly adjusting to the darkness, the shine of the white curtains and cots caught his attention, but his interest wasn't in that. He vaguely noticed the door to Madame Pomfrey was open, but inside it was pitch black, the woman had obviously forgotten to close her door.
In the entire infirmary there were beds, but, Ron saw, there was only one besides his own with the curtains closed.
He didn't know what he expected to see as he neared the closed bed space. Maybe he hoped to see a sleeping Malfoy, slightly beat up but fine. Or maybe he expected to see a comatose Malfoy, with broken bones and the Grim Reaper standing at his bed side.
Ron stopped in front of the curtain. He didn't know, Malfoy probably wasn't even there! He was probably disturbing some kid!
But there was no use fretting like a child, he decided. Drawing the curtain back, Ron gasped.
He knew he didn't know what to expect. He knew- or hoped- he would find Malfoy. He knew the blonde had gotten hurt, hurt enough that his lungs were punctured.
He just didn't know Malfoy died because of it.
He knew it was Malfoy under that light gray sheet. The soft blonde hair stuck out from under it. The limp but nimble fingers belonged solely to the hand that caused him unknown misery at Hogwarts.
Not knowing what to say, if there was anything to say at all, Ron came closer to the cot. Until he was looking down at the sheet that covered the blonde.
For awhile he just stared, unwavering, his thoughts drifting slowly and then pulsing rapidly. This was Malfoy...this was Malfoy.
Oh Merlin, this was really Draco under that sheet.
He was falling to his knees before he could even finish the thought.
To think that Draco Malfoy was dead. It was like losing Harry or Hermione, it was supposed to be impossible! It just wasn't supposed to happen. Ron had never thought it could happen.
"Bloody hell," he spoke, amazed at the strain in his own voice. Was he...was he crying?
No, that was ridiculous. He thought, but he couldn't stop the slight hiccough from escaping his chest or his face from becoming wet.
He sat there for awhile, on his knees, hiccoughing and in a daze. When he finally pulled himself up, it was only to slump in a chair that sat near the bedside.
"...I think I hate you more than I hate Fred," Ron said after some time, staring straight ahead at the off white or light blue curtains at the foot of the bed.
"Everyone's always dying and leaving me behind,"
Fred had died and so had so many others, people that Ron had become good friends with over the years, now lay buried under rubble and dirt. Taking with them the relationship Ron had shared with them.
"I used to think that if there was anyone I hate more in this world it would be, you. Imagine that, Malfoy, I bloody hate you. You're a right bastard and a fucking death eater to boot.
"You poisoned me, you git. You teased my family, you HURT my family and my friends." Ron growled out, glaring at the prone form. Malfoy was the arse of his dreams. He never knew he could meet such an insufferable man until he met the blonde. And over the years, Ron had accepted that he and Draco were bound to be enemies, even if Ron was never his real target.
"And then you had to go be a sacrificing idiot. You didn't rat us out to your crazy aunt. I heard from Luna that you brought Alvander and her food in the middle of the night even though the house was crowded with death eaters. Or that you saved Luna from being raped."
"Yea, I bet you thought no one knew, but she told me. Told me that night after we saved you and your friend Blaise from the Room of Requirement. 'Don't kill Draco, he stopped those Nargle minded wolves from raping me," she had told him this in passing, it was after Ron had seen Fred, dead from the Cruciatus curse. Ron had been seething to know that Malfoy was being treated, he couldn't describe how much he wanted to find the blonde. Thrust his wand down his throat and scream "Crucio" a thousand times, knowing that it would never be worth it. It would never bring his brother back to him. If Luna hadn't have come, Malfoy would have been dead.
"I don't know when I came to forgive you Malfoy, I doubt it was at Hogwarts, I think I forgave you before then. Hell, I thought we could have been friends. Funny how all that works out." he laughed. A sad and broken sound even to his own ears, much less Draco's dead ones. But some time over the past two years since the war end. Ron had accepted many things. No amount of tears and research would bring Fred back and sooner or later he was going to have to forgive Draco.
"Ah yeah, that's right, you're dead now, Funny, I forget in two minutes. ...I guess I just thought you would pull that sheet off, call me something or talk about my mum and laugh at me." he said sadly, standing from the chair. He looked down at the cloth that covered Draco. He just need to see his face one last time. Even if they had never really past the threshold to becoming friends. Rom would miss the blonde bastard.
Taking the ends off the cloth in his fingers Ron looked down at the stray hair, mesmerized. He was never going to see it again.
He was so lost in his own world that the sound of metal sliding against metal fell on deaf ears.
But only for a moment.
Pulling away from Draco to grab his wand, Ron looked through the unclosed curtain, but he saw nothing but the gray and blue tones of the rooms.
His heart beat quickened as the clang started again. Squinting his eyes he tried to feel where the noise was coming from, but all he saw was the pitch black room that was Madame Pomfrey's office. The door moved slightly in the moonlight. It was so strange that Ron was rooted to the spot.
Of course the woman would never leave her door open! What was he thinking?
"Protego Totalem," he whispered, the thin spidery lines oozed from his wand slowly covering the air in a dense shine that slowly blended with the surroundings. Ron slowly, and carefully drew the spell across the area, never turning his back on the door, he made sure to cover Draco's body.
He wasn't entirely comfortable, leaving the body behind, but what could happen to the dead? He thought as he stepped pass the barrier.
"Pomfrey!" he called, only to be met by the sound of books toppling over. It only reassured him of his fears. He would be fighting tonight.
If anything, Madame Pomfrey was hopefully in her quarters sleeping and Ron was just dealing with an intruder.
He didn't know what he would do if he had to deal with a dead Pomfrey as well as a dead Draco.
The room felt colder with ever step he took towards the door the thoughts of Dementors whirring through his mind. His heart was the loudest thing in the room, hammering into his chest like a baseball at the batting cages. He recalled the times of the war, trying to find Harry and Hermione again in that dark, daunting forest. The way his heart refused to calm down at the unknown threat of death eaters.
Was there one here now?
And if so, what the hell were they doing in the infirmary?
He was five feet from the door when he felt a stab to his left shoulder. So fast he had no time to block.
"Bloody Hell!" he hissed.
It was an achievement not to cry out, Ron looked at his shoulder. The thin sliver weapon glinting in the moonlight.
It was an arrow. And not just any arrow. A transfigured arrow.
Damn it, he always hated transfiguration.
"Protego!" he said, casting the spell as quickly as possible, even though no other arrows came flying at him, he knew he need to be careful. Because a Death Eater wouldn't hesitate to kill.
"Lumos!" he cast as soon as he was in the room. Defenseless, he cursed himself, for not carrying his Deluminator. And just when he needed it. He couldn't see a thing without casting Lumos.
And yet there was nothing there as soon as the room was lit. Not a single person or thing that Ron could see amongst the haunting shadows. It chilled his core, but he knew that no self respecting Death Eater (the arrogant fools) would shoot a student and the hide, not even if that student was a war hero.
So who shot him?
He felt a slight brush of wind pass by him, common sense telling him, there was no open window in either room.
Whirling around, he heard the steps before he saw the body, appearing out of thin air that for a moment, Ron thought he was fighting Harry, but he was too tall. And Harry wouldn't do this.
"STUPEFY!" the man screamed, his voice familiar in the silence.
And suddenly the shield that protected Draco from the world shattered, scattering across the room, breaking the sound barrier that tossed Ron and the intruder aside for a few seconds.
His ears felt like the were bleeding, the buzzing was louder than anything he had ever heard, overtaking his sense and leaving him confused for a moment.
He saw the man get to his feet, picking up his wand he stumbled before righting himself. The man was looking at Draco. He looked as though he was fully prepared to attack the blonde's body.
Raising his wand, he had no time to think. The intruder was already pointing his wand at the still body that lay underneath the white sheet.
"Avada Ked-
"DURO!" Ron screamed before he could finish his incantation.
The process was slow as the man's words died in his throat. It has started with his feet, trickling up his pants and into his hands, the wand fell from his hands, but it didn't stop there and before the wand touched the ground the man- his attacker was left standing there, his body completely turned to stone.
Ron waited a full ten seconds before dropping his wand.
"That worked?" he whispered, coming closer to the intruder, he wanted a good look at the man that stabbed him.
Anger clouded his eyes as he stared at Eric McCrain, his stony eyes piercing through Ron and solely focused on Draco. He mouth was open, Angry lines marring his face as screamed his failed incantation.
Ron just could understand. McCrain wasn't even a bad person, the man got along with everyone. He was friendly to everyone, but as soon as Draco stepped into the picture, he changed into some killer. Why was he so set on Draco that he was willing to use an Unforgivable on Draco's dead body? Why was he so willing to kill?
And more importantly, what was stopping Ron from killing him? McCrain had picked on Draco through his entire time at Hogwarts. He tried to kill him twice already. He could just end it no and save himself the trouble. The idiot was going to Azkaban anyways and he was going to die anyways. Why not get it over with?
"You're a fucking bastard," he growled, but finally turned away. It wasn't worth his life to end McCrain's. Casting a binding charm just in case the man knew how to break the spell. Ron moved away to check on Draco's body.
The breaking of the Protego had left the entire room in a disarray. The white sheet that covered the blonde's lifeless body was thrown off, lying somewhere, discarded.
Ron found him leaning over Draco's lifeless body, checking for any signs that the blast had hurt the body since it was closest to the blast.
He was thoroughly distracted, though.
"Merlin, you're beautiful," he found himself saying, his bloodied hand ghost over the pale bruised cheek, admiring the warmth and softness it still held. His over long blonde hair framed his face well. And his long eyelashes fluttered along his cheek bones gracefully.
Something that normally didn't happen with the dead. Unless of course, it was an Inferi.
"Well I'll be damn," Ron murmured. Pressing his palm against Draco's cheek, only to have the blonde shy away from his touch. "You bloody, bastard, you're alive," Ron said, backing away from Draco's sleeping form. He left his bedside, vaguely remembering to close the curtains. He wasn't sure how the blonde survived without Madame Pomfrey seeing it but, there was no time to waste.
He had to tell Madame Pomfrey as soon as possible.
Hey, hope you like it. I did some slight editing, not sure about the spell but please read and Review.
