Main Characters: Draco
Prompt: No Choice
Setting: Hogwarts corridor, Sixth Year
No Choice
Draco paced the empty corridor, clenching and unclenching his fists with every step—in a rhythm that gave him assured stability. It was the only thing he could do to calm his troubled mind, for his life for the next few years was going to lack all the stability he could possibly crave. When he thought of the life he'd been faced with—the life he would have to endure in the ever-looming future—he wanted to do two things.
Firstly, he wanted to break down and cry. But that was a humiliating possibility, and he would never show weakness in the face of such terrifying uncertainty as he was surely about to. The other thing he wanted to do was to run. To run away from Hogwarts, his family, his troubles, and never look back. All responsibility would be erased.
But this, he knew, was just as unlikely an option as him becoming Headmaster next year. They would find him. He would find him.
Draco's duty to the Dark Lord was not a suggestion, was not an offer. It was an order. And he had no choice.
Fail to carry out those orders and he would be dead in an instant. It was a responsibility that had been forced upon him, and for the sake of his own life and the lives of his parents, he had to complete the impossible task he'd been burdened to perform. What were the honest chances of him succeeding? But then, what were the honest chances of him surviving more than a day if he really did run away?
Draco's future was set in stone, and there was nothing he could do to change it. And so, he had no choice but to perform the first action he'd considered, and sank to his knees in that abandoned corridor, with his head in his hands and his body heaving with each fresh sob.
He had to kill Albus Dumbledore. He was a Death Eater now. He had no choice.