A/N: This is it, guys! Last chapter! Thank you to all who have stuck with the story from the beginning, and thank you more than ever to my editors! I love you guys so much! Please review and tell me how I did!
One August morning Draco sat staring out the window of his London home. He was wondering. He had taken to wondering, lately, about a great many things. The sun streamed down upon him as he looked pensively into his cup of tea. He wondered whether he deserved all he had. The answer did not immediately come to him. Though he had often pondered on this topic, he still could not satisfactorily answer his own question.
He had worked tirelessly for years, earning a living and livelihood. He had had nothing, once. Oh, how well he remembered it. He had had no friends, no home…Nothing. He had come close to not even having a life to continue living… He shook his head and chose not to dwell on that particular aspect of nothing. Those memories would not soon leave him, but he could keep them at bay.
He next wondered whether his parents would try to reconcile with him again. His mind shrugged in wonderful indifference as to the answer. Draco still missed his mother, but he found that he didn't need her. In retrospect, he had admitted a while ago that breaking with his parents was one of the smartest things he'd ever done. Draco sighed deeply and fingered the picture of his mother that he kept in his pocket, always. This is for the best.
Steadying his gaze on the shrubs outside the window, he wondered where he would be if it were not for that dream. On a December night years ago, he had dreamt of the thing he had most wanted to do. He closed his eyes and felt the wind, felt the rush adrenaline that had surged though his veins as he stood on that ledge… He could recall it all perfectly. It was as though he had not dreamt it but lived it, somehow emerging alive. Would he still be alive, had it not been for that dream? Draco quickly answered this question: he would not be. He would have thrown himself off the roof of the Leaky Cauldron and never looked back. Had his dream-self not beaten him to this task, he would be dead. He wondered how one dream could save his life.
No, it was not only the dream. Draco grudgingly admitted that Harry Potter was one of the reasons he was alive today. He rebuked himself for the bitterness of his sentiments towards Harry, but smiled to himself as he did so. His school days would live on in his memory, along with the days during which Harry had talked him through his worst of times. Draco rose and stretched slowly, relishing in the feeling of his body. He was alive. He may have only stayed alive against his will, but he realized now how much he valued his vitality. Time had moved with an agonizingly unreal degree of slowness then. Each morning he had awoken wishing he hadn't. But with each passing day, the wish had burned less brightly. It had faded from the forefront of his mind and had not reared its head in years. As Draco strolled to his desk, he tried to recall the desire to die. He tried in vain to remember how it had felt. To his relief, it did not come. It would not return again.
Potter,
You're probably tired of hearing this, but thank you. I feel alive again. I feel real. I can't remember how it felt then.
-Draco
August 19, 2003
Draco knew the memories would never fade. The screams, the anguish, the helplessness; it was all ingrained in his brain as though branded. But he knew now that he could handle it all. The pain only recurred on occasion. The screams only echoed every so often. The anguish would sting and prickle, but never quite reach the surface. Time went on and life breathed at last. Draco Malfoy breathed with it.
