A/n- Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed (you guys make this worth while): Natural-181, Bundibird , heart5, Samantha, Syranda, OBLuvr13, Lildaani,Dwindlingcandle, ThePrincessWolf, UltimateAuror, and Kitematsu.
Disclaimer: Why do I still do these?
Summary: Well, it should be obvious… no?
The Other Side of Fate
The faucet in the back room was still dripping. It had been doing so for what Mad Eye thought must have been nearly three months now.
"I don't understand you Tom." The man growled, his magical eye whizzing into the back of his head as he stared through the wall at the leaky water tap. "That thing in there is driving me mad." He brought the large mug he was nursing up to his lips.
The hunched innkeeper laughed, wheezed, as he snuffed the last torch on the Pub's high walls with a flick of his finger, looked over the swept floor, and retreated into the private back room where Moody was taking his drink.
The door closed until only a fraction of the dark beyond was noticeable.
"Don't ever get around to it I suppose." He said, scratching his chin as he sat down with his own warm stein.
The solitary oil lamp on the small round table flickered.
As it was customary on Mad Eye Moody's nearly nightly vigils, the man brought out his slightly yellowing stack of Exploding Snap.
The Innkeeper's wheezing laugh caused Moody to pause mid-shuffle and look up, his magical eye still fixated on the dripping sound.
"You are once again too eager to loose what little money you have, Mad Eye."
Gruffly, the man replied. "I am reimbursed by the free alcohol."
Tom grinned, yet, his face faltered. Leaning in, he placed a hand on the cards Moody was dolling out.
"What news, Mad Eye? I always need to ask, you are never forthcoming."
"How do I know you haven't been cursed?"
Tom shook his head wearily as the floorboards above them creaked as patrons moved about their bedrooms. He man opened his mouth to speak when a loud whip-like sound reverberated from within the Inn's main room; followed almost instantaneous by the loud crashing clatter of a table and a chairs being upended.
"Merlin!" Tom yelped. Mad Eye bolted from his chair and hobbled into the darkness, Tom right behind. With another flick of the Innkeeper's hand, the lights blazed brightly. "Oh my god…"
As Moody hobbled to the other side of the room, where a table lay on its side, the chairs once stacked upon it now on the floor, Tom rushed after.
Laying on the floor, his legs entangled strangely with the legs of one of the four chairs, Draco was bleeding all over the stone floor. A puddle of blood was splattered onto the ground, upon his cheek. Moody bent down to him, his cane tucked under his arm.
"What happened!?"
Moody's magical eye whizzed over the boy's body. He narrowed his eyes as he touched the blonde's pale forehead.
"Looks like he Apparated in mid air, just above this table. Must have fallen on it, slid off and upended it." The man touched the sideways tabletop where a streak of blood both wider and longer then his palm glittered in the dim light. "He's bleeding from the side; no doubt a curse."
He could see that Malfoy was breathing, barely, but he was certainly out cold.
"Who is it? Should I call for a healer?"
"No!" Mad Eye said harshly as he bent down to pick the boy up rather awkwardly. A fresh splatter of blood sloshed down his front as he hoisted Malfoy into his arms. There was a deep cut, a slash, from Draco's left hip to the upper side of his ribcage. The boy hung limply, his head swinging back and froth. "You need to clean this mess up, Tom."
The hunchbacked man got a glimpse of the figure's pearly white-blonde hair and covered his mouth with a knarled hand. He nodded slowly, his eyes wide.
The boy in Mad Eye's arms twitched.
"I'll contact you later."
"Good luck."
Just before the Leaky Cauldron disappeared, Draco Malfoy's eyes snapped open.
With another loud crack the front entry way to Number 12 Grimmauld Place suddenly appeared.
And just as suddenly, there was the pain.
Malfoy screamed, writhed within the arms of whoever was holding him down, clamping him to their chest. From somewhere ahead of him, although Malfoy had screwed his eyes shut and couldn't see, someone dropped something and it crashed upon the floor.
He was still creaming, brought his hands up to cover his face and found them wet. Cracking his eyes open, seeing his own blood staining his palms, feeling tears running down his face, he lashed out.
Moody, trying to stumble along the corridor without his walking stick, yelling for help, was unable to hold the boy. The man's knees buckled and Malfoy was dropped.
Before he could hit the floor, a women yelled something, and he was suspended inches from the hardwood floors. The sharp halt made his head fling back. He could see his own blood dripping onto the floor.
"Molly, I couldn't hold him. Get Remus! Where's Kingsley?"
"Mad Eye?"
Another man's voice.
"Arthur! Wake Remus!"
"Oh my god."
Hands were all around him, hoisting him up.
"Move him to the couch, we can't get him upstairs in this state. Where's Minerva?"
Too many people… Draco couldn't count the voices through his own screaming. Someone set him down gently on a spongy surface. His head lulled back as his hands flew to the wound. Someone's strong grip held him away from the blood.
"What's happening?"
"What's going on?"
"Harry, dear, go back upstairs! Ron! Go!"
Draco groaned as a spell hit his side and soothed it- minimally.
"D-Draco?"
Malfoy couldn't breath; someone other then him was screaming. A high voice, crying.
"Draco." Someone was saying very calmly into his ear above all the commotion and racket. "Draco, look at me." Malfoy's eyes snapped open. He was staring into a soft gaze. "You've got to lie still…" The man's words were interrupted by what sounded like Molly Weasley dragging someone away and into the kitchens.
"Lup-" Malfoy started.
"Shh." His old Professor said softly. A burning pain erupted in his side. "Lie still, Draco." Malfoy clenched his fist in this man's own hand. "It's going to be all right, you're with us now."
Draco's head lulled back.
"Hermione." He choked out.
The world went black.
What felt like seconds later he was rushing up to meet reality. Malfoy could feel his arms, his legs, could move, but his brain- his mind- felt so far away. Strangely, as he gained consciousness, it felt as if his soul was rushing up to meet his body; as if he was rising to the surface of glassy water.
He wasn't on the couch, he was on a bed.
Coughing, he tried to move, yet he felt as if he was suffocating. That cold, crisp, clear water he had be rising through was drowning him.
Draco's chest heaved.
"It's bleeding again!"
"Hurry!"
Blackness.
The second time he woke, it was light outside, yet the heavy draperies were drawn tightly shut so that the only light that issued from it was a small sliver upon the heavy carpeted ground.
Malfoy was able to tilt his head up. For a moment a thrill of horror ran through him as he noticed a large stain of red on the bed sheets. After a frantic moment, he realized that his bandages were clean and that the blood was from before.
Someone moved in the room.
"Draco, dear?"
"I'm burning."
"It's just the aftereffects of the spells." The figure moved to where Draco could see them and was pleasantly relieved to see Molly Weasley standing over him. She murmured a soft spell and what felt like a cold washcloth was pressed onto his forehead. "Drink." She whispered, pressing a glass to his mouth.
Unsure, Draco took a sip. Again, he was relieved. Only water. He gulped it down greedily. The cold liquid ran from his lips and down to his neck.
"I'm tired." He admitted.
"Go to sleep."
"Where's Hermione?"
"Go to sleep."
Malfoy was reliving the final moments at his family's Manor; the large moon above the orchards waxy and glowing.
"Sectumsempra!"
With a crack the ground beneath Draco vanished. Instantaneously he was looming over a large, flat, dark surface.
The after effects of the spell left him hovering for a split second in the air.
"Uh-" He managed to moan before he plummeted towards the ground.
With a sharp smack his head came into contact with the table's edge, his arms crumpling underneath him. The table, unbalanced, tipped over, the chairs that had been slid neatly underneath falling with it.
Malfoy's chest slid sideways off as the stand fell on top of him. Draco's head cracked against the stone, knocking him out.
The final time Draco awoke there were more people in the room, he couldn't see them all yet, but he could sense them, hear them. His head was pounding. Everything felt loud
Malfoy widened his gray eyes, trying to soak in the minimal light that shadowed the crevasses and edges of the room.
In the corners Arthur, Shacklebolt, and Moody stood. Lupin was taking in a hushed, hurried voice to Molly at his bedside.
"I don't want to wake him."
"Molly, please, be reasonable." Lupin soothed. "We need to know what happened."
"He needs to rest."
The man, a hand on her shoulder, looked slightly put off.
"I-" As Malfoy spoke, everyone looked at him, seemingly unaware before that he had been slowly coming to. "Water." There was a moment where silence pervaded the small room. Molly Weasley suddenly knelt down to him.
"Draco, dear. You all right? Water? You feel all right?"
A glass was tipped towards his lips before he could answer. Malfoy gulped it greedily.
"What happened?" He croaked. "I mean- I remember Professor Lupin-"
Mrs. Weasley smoothed his hair gently. "You're safe. We brought Poppy and a few others to help. You're wound is healing."
Draco's hands were shaking, he was gripping the sheets.
Malfoy blurted, "I didn't- I didn't kill him!" as a fear that had mulled itself within him bubbled to the surface. Molly Wesley's brow creased, her lips parted in question.
The door to the room suddenly swung open and Moody had to jump aside as it banged against the frame.
"I heard voices, is he- Draco! Oh my god!" Hermione was standing in the doorway with her hands covering her mouth. She was shaking.
From behind her Ginny and Tonks peered.
Malfoy smirked, tried to put on a brave face. As he moved, sat up, he hissed in pain from the tight bandages around his middle.
"No! Don't move!" She squeaked. Slowly, painstakingly so, she tiptoed to the bed. Mrs. Weasley moved out of the way. Laying a hand upon his, Draco could feel her warm skin against his ashen cold palm. He closed his fingers around hers. "How- how are you?" Hermione breathed softly.
"All right." He drawled, chin tilted up in a defiant way. "All right. Couldn't kill me, could they? No, suppose not, the cowards." But then he noticed the tears leaking out from between Hermione's white knuckles. "Ah- I was only joking… I wasn't going to…"
Ignoring him, Hermione bent to wrap her arms around his neck. Malfoy wanted to embrace her but his arms felt so heavy.
"I wasn't going to die." He repeated. Over Hermione's shoulder, Draco saw Lupin look away.
Had he been that close to death? He didn't remember.
The screaming; not his own. Hermione being dragged away from his prone form on the couch as the adults flitted around him.
His chest heaved with a painful breath.
Hermione sobbed into his bare chest; tears dripping down his collarbone.
"We- we thought you we're dead! That they got you and killed you! That I'd never see you again!" She cried piteously. Trying to soothe her, Malfoy ran a weak hand through her hair.
With glazed eyes, a silvery gaze of dark storm, Draco turned his attention to each person in the room in turn. All of the adults except Molly looked a tad uncomfortable.
Moody's large blue eyeball rolled back into his head.
Malfoy breathed in Hermione's smell; her hair. He closed his eyes. A knock on the door turned Draco's gaze. Hermione continued crying.
From the doorway a lanky shape of muddled darkness seemed to lean. Tentative.
"How is he?" Harry whispered, looking in. When looked at Draco, there was immeasurable pity held in his gaze. Malfoy didn't know weather to be grateful or spiteful. He didn't need the Wonder Boy's feelings.
"Yeah." Another voice issued. "How is the Ferret'y git? Ouch, Ginny!"
"Shut up Ron!"
"All right, all right!" Mrs. Weasley threw her hands up in the air. "That's quite enough! All of you…" She pointed at the adults as well as her children- especially Lupin. "Out, out, out!"
"Wait!" Draco strained to sit upwards, his hand out as if he wanted to pull everyone back into the room. Hermione was startled out of her crying by his hard voice. "Wait, Potter!"
The room suddenly felt very hot; confined. The walls were closing in again.
His screaming from atop the Astronomy Tower, his screaming - sound was never heard. It was rising within Draco like bile.
"I didn't kill him. I didn't kill Dumbledore."
There, he had said it. Blood pumped rhythmically in his ears. He could feel his heart beat irregularly as the sound from Hermione's own chest reverberated in his.
Pain. He was watching the boy's pain.
Harry's expression withered from hard resoluteness into something akin to fatigue.
"I know."
"But-"
"I was there."
And Harry explained the cloak and the Horcruxes and the freezing charm.
Malfoy had started to choke on the lump rising in his throat. "I was considering." He said through hicoughes. "To just lay there, die, rather then come back a traitor."
"Lay there…" Someone in the room echoed; Draco didn't know who.
Mad Eye, his magical gaze swiveling into the side of his head, looked at Ginny and Tonks rather disapprovingly. They leaned into the room at Malfoy's words; as if this might spark a story. As if it was some kind of spectacle.
Harry moved away from the others and came around to the opposite side of where Hermione was prostrated.
"Malfoy, I knew. From the moment I saw the wand shake, I knew. You're not a killer."
Laughter bubbled up from within Draco's chest, spilled into the room. It wasn't his laughter, it was his father's. Draco hated, amidst the cackling, how he sounded so much like Lucius. He wanted to cut it out of him. Wanted to drain his father's blood from his veins.
The thought of him not a killer.
Draco's mouth stretched wide as he begun to weep from laughing.
"…Draco?" Hermione whispered. "Your scaring me."
"Oh!" Draco laughed. "It's just- not a killer?" More laughter. "Could have fooled me. Got two people killed, didn't I? Three if you count Dumbledore!" He couldn't stop laughing, his father's laughing, and he was killing himself inside over and over again.
His hands clutched his head.
"Draco, who's died?"
The laughter was fading. Hermione was prying his fingers away from his golden scalp.
"Draco, who's dead?"
The room tilted.
His mother's dead eyes.
"I-" Draco couldn't finish the sentence.
I what?
I watched my mother fall dead?
I had a chance to save a fellow Slytherin but failed?
Oh Pansy; he'd nearly forgotten about her. Had Blaise finally killed her? Had she ended it herself?
Why was this war happening? Why was the death so… so prevalent?
Molly Weasley, at the look of catatonic shock plastering Draco's face, began to usher everyone out of the tiny bedroom with a little more force and resilience.
"He needs to rest; I've said it before! We're just overwhelming him. I'll bring up some soup and chocolate." The women physically pushed Shacklebolt through the door frame.
"No." Malfoy uttered under his breath. Hermione held his hand. "I want to tell you all. Don't leave me."
Weak... so weak. His inner Lucius Malfoy was silently scolding him. You sound so weak.
Had the fall and the hex addled his brains? Escaping the Manor one moment and cowering in your bed the next. Had the adrenaline sustained him that much? Was this the crash of some horrible high?
"Malfoy." Harry pulled a chair out from under the beside desk. He perched himself upon its edge. His hands, clasped, supported his chin, elbows on his knees. Leaning in, he regarded Malfoy attentively.
It was like he cared. It was like Potter actually cared.
Like they all did... Oh.
"Malfoy." He repeated. "Tell us then."
Draco glanced at Hermione.
"I love you."
She sniffed. "I love you too, Draco."
Malfoy heaved a large sigh.
"All right…"
A/N- So, I had college essays due- that's why I didn't get this done in time. I will still start the next chapter on Friday per-usual.
The next one will be WAY longer in comparison to this puny/under-developed one.
lol- I just hated this chapter. I always new it was going to be fuzzy and malformed (this as a way to try and have you guys feel as if you're seeing/feeling what Draco sees/feels). I hope it comes across like that and not like I wrote weirdly on accident.
Thanks for reading so far!
Please review!