A/N: I don't own Harry Potter, any of the characters that I didn't make up
for myself, and so on and so forth. I will post ch.21 and 22 at the same
time so read BOTH before reviewing - since this one is short and weird and
it makes sense in 22. Oh and I learned to ice skate in a day, and I stumble
a bit but I'm good. Better then my mom who skated since childhood. I guess
that's just me.
1 Chapter 21
Threads of Logic
Rebecca slowly lifted the locket, and then exclaimed, her accent suddenly gone (for she didn't need to use it now that she was discovered to be a fake, after all): " Ah! Draco, if it isn't my servant, back to see me?"
Harry felt his breath lodge inside his throat. What? Servant?
Draco spat: " I didn't help you for a long time!"
" Oh, but you did! You gave Harry this charmed locket, didn't you? Had him believe it was from his mother, while it was really mine, which I used as a tracking device, so I'd know when he's alone, when to kill him?" Rebecca hissed softly.
" What?" Harry burst out, emerging from behind the cabinet. "Draco?"
" I swear I didn't know, Harry!" Draco cried out.
" Liar! He lies, Potter! He wormed his way into being your friend, while the whole time working for me!" She shouted, her eyes mad.
" That's not true!" Draco cried out, getting up off the floor. He turned to Harry. " It isn't!"
" I trusted you!" Harry hissed in disgust.
" No! Harry. . ." Draco clutched at Harry's shirt. " Listen to me! I didn't . . ."
" Silence, fool!" Rebecca suddenly shot with her wand at Draco. He was blasted off into the corner of the room, where he fell to the floor with a hollow slam.
He looked up, a trickle of blood sliding from his freshly-cut lip: " Harry, don't listen to her! I didn't know the locket was . . ."
" How could you not know? No wonder you gave me that as a gift! You didn't do it out of goodwill, or because you wanted to! You were with her!" Harry pointed at Rebecca. " I should have known - - it says LP, and I just realized! My mother wasn't married! Her initials wouldn't be LP!"
" Ah! You see?" Rebecca hissed, snake-like. " Your so-called friend had been my faithful servant. I told him to give you the locket, and he did." Her eyes suddenly blared red - Voldemort eyes.
" Draco!" Harry turned to Draco, tears stinging his eyes. "How could you? How could you?" His chest ached, he wanted to cry. " I thought you were a friend."
" I didn't have anything to do with her!" Draco shouted. " Not for weeks and weeks!"
" He keeps lying!" Rebecca said, marveling. " So you deny being my servant. Then you shall die as the lying scum you are!"
" No! Harry, on my life, I swear I didn't know!" Draco hollered, blood pouring freely down his chin from his split lip. Harry suddenly felt somewhere deep inside that maybe Draco was right, and he immediately turned to help him up, but before he could, Rebecca said some sort of deep spell.
Rebecca pointed her wand at Draco again. Draco was thrown against the opposite wall. This time, he didn't get up. Harry stared in fright, and he backed away, his body bumping into Rebecca. She grabbed his arm, twisting it back. " Now that I took care of him, I can take care of you!" She pulled him around, throwing him to his knees before her.
" Through my locket I sent you dreams, asking you to join me. Why did you not join me?" She hissed. " Join me!" Her hisses, like a snake, soft and sharp and slimy, filled Harry's ears.
" Join you? Voldemort was asking me to . . ." Harry's eyes widened in fright, suddenly. " No . . ."
" Yes! I am Voldemort! Desperate to have you join me, whether by trick or by folly, and I stuck in this body. I had kept myself alive and strong with the blood and bones of the Whitescale that the scummy Weasley boy so easily provided." Rebecca hissed, her breath rattling inside her. " I hid myself in this DISGUSTING girl form, to keep you unaware. It seems your friend knew, though. He was sharper."
" What're you talking about? I thought you said he was your servant!" Harry whispered, lips draining of color. He turned to the crumpled body of Draco's, lying on the floor, a pool of blood swarming around the crippled body.
" Ah, I only said so to have you be stunned, so you wouldn't protect him while I took care of him." Rebecca snarled, her lips suddenly growing more and more snakelike, thinner and thinner and paler, losing the last touches of feminine beauty. " Now watch as I destroy the rest of you, and I will draw your power! I will be powerful!"
Rebecca raised the wand of hers, pointing it at Harry. "Say goodbye, Harry Potter."
Harry shouted: "No!" He ducked the ray of the spell that shot from the wand, and he then took out his own. He cast the Fainting Charm on Rebecca. She was hit by it, but it didn't affect her.
" You think I could be destroyed by feeble Dark Charms? How amusing, Harry Potter." Rebecca cackled, then raised her own wand. " I will finish what I had started! Avada Kedavra!"
A/N: While Voldemort is hidden in Rebecca's body I will refer to her as Rebecca to avoid confusion.
The spell rocketed from her wand, but missed Harry entirely. The eerie greenish light it let out slowly drifted through the room, then left Harry feeling frightened and stunned, kneeling on the floor. His scar throbbed, the feeling of blood rising to his face that was the most ultimate anger that he ever felt. Harry stood from his knees, quickly, helpless. He turned to Draco, turning Draco around from his spot on the floor so he'd face towards him. Draco's body fell to meet his eyes, and Harry gasped, for a long deep bloody gash stretched across Draco's stomach. The spell Rebecca cast had sent him across the room with such force. . .
" No! Draco!" Harry cried out.
Draco's eyes slowly opened, and he whispered, through dry white lips: " I . . . I didn't . . . I didn't know. . ."
" Oh, I know, I know . . ." Harry whispered, a tear falling from the corner of his eye. It landed onto Draco's cheek, slowly sliding down, loosening the dried trail of blood from his lip. Draco's eyes remained open, his breath a low rattle. " Don't die. . . please, don't. . ."
" Touching." Rebecca hissed, then shouted: " Corpus Mobilitus!" The body of Draco was thrown once more to the other side of the room.
" No!" Harry's voice sounded inhuman, an animal scream of fear and pain. " No!" He watched as Draco's body fell into a heap once again, his blood smeared across the ground. " Oh, God, no . . ."
Harry heard Draco's whisper: " Her shoes . . . take them off. . ."
Harry lunged at Rebecca, wrapping his arms around her legs, struggling to rip off her shoes. Rebecca shouted angrily: "No! No, back off, vermin!"
Harry slowly wrestled the left shoe off. Rebecca's body contorted. She kicked him away, her eyes turning a darker shade of red, expanding, growing frightening and eerie. Her hair was fading away into a baldness on her head. Her skin grew sunken in, her eyes hollow with dark rings under her eyes.
Harry watched in a sudden fright, but he knew what had to be done. In order to face the real thing, he needed to remove both shoes, to keep 'Rebecca' from hiding behind other forms. Harry then ripped off the second shoe, and Rebecca fell to the floor, her body twitching, slowly changing into another form, her real one. Harry backed away, moving towards Draco's body again. "This is all my fault! I'm so sorry!" Harry said with a voice filled with worry to Draco, tearing off his robes and then pressing the cloth to Draco's wound.
The cloth grew saturated with his blood, and Harry then pressed another corner of it down. Draco's hands clenched and he hissed through his teeth: " Harry, it's so cold. . . so cold. . ."
" Draco. . ." Harry felt another tear slide down his cheek. " No! This isn't how it will end." Harry stood, turning to Rebecca's body on the floor. Except now it was Voldemort, in his true and ghastly form.
" So it's true!" Harry exclaimed. " You are - - him. A coward." His body shook with fear at the words he was saying. " A coward to hide behind a young girl's body, using her appearance while doing your evil deeds."
The Dark Lord stood, eyes glowing like frightening red orbs, his face shriveled and frightening, nostrils flaring angrily, just as Harry's dreams showed him. Voldemort reached out: " This is your last chance, Potter! Join me, and I will save your friend! Join me, we will be one! There is no evil, Harry. There is only power!"
Harry shook his head. " No!"
Voldemort was taken aback. The red orbs flashed angrily across Harry's face, and he then cackled out, his voice low, droning: " Harry, think again. You can be so much greater then Dumbledore, then even me! Join me, we will conquer the world! There is no evil . . . only power. . . we are the power!"
" No!" Harry shouted. " No!" He raised his wand, his hand trembling. " Avada Kedavra!" The spell didn't work. His wand glowed, then crackled and died out.
" Fool! You can't cast it yet! But I can!" Voldemort took his wand and said, his voice back to the droning inhuman groan that was filling Harry's mind: "Avada Ked. . ."
" Wingardium Leviosa!" Harry said, and then attempted to pull the wand out of Voldemort's hand with the spell. Voldemort was unaffected by the spell, but it distracted him from the Avada Kedavra death spell.
Harry then thought to himself: 'He had to hide his power in something, something he thought would never be destroyed. But what?'
Suddenly, his eyes fell on the locket. It was in Voldemort's other hand, the sickly and deformed fingers clutching it with a protective hold. "What is it, Potter! You want it . . . you want this locket. . . the one that is the cause for all your trouble this year. . . who will be the cause of your future troubles!"
Harry threw himself onto the Dark Lord, trying to get the locket from his fingers. The Dark Lord hissed a spell out. Harry was pummeled across the room. His body slid into Draco's, and he was covered in his friend's blood. " No . . ." Harry cried out, shooting to his feet again. " I won't let you win! I won't!"
" Touching." Voldemort raised his wand and then said: "Crucio!" The spell was a haunting whisper inside Harry's mind. His eyes closed, he saw images of himself dying, of Draco dying, of Hermione dying. The most painful images . . . his body shook violently, slowly growing to an awful pain.
Harry felt his body fall to the floor, and then rock back and forth. The weight of everything possible, fifty million tons, seemed to press onto him. Suddenly his body felt as if it were ripped apart, being sent into torrents.
" Imperio!" Voldemort suddenly shouted.
" No!" Harry shouted inside his mind, screaming against Voldemort's will. He heard the voice in his head: " Harry . . . join me. . . come closer. . . we will be strong . . ."
" No!" Harry cried out, tears streaming down his cheeks.
" I will bring your parents back . . . I will give you life forever . . . join me, join me. . ."
" No! No, never!" Harry rebelled inside his mind.
" Join me. . ." The voice ordered.
" Join me!" Suddenly, the command hit him, full-force, sending Harry skidding across the floor. He felt his body collapse next to Draco's again. The force of the demand . . . Harry felt himself slowly rising, moving towards Voldemort. . .
" Yes! Join me! Power . . . power to us all!" Voldemort crooned, his evil face splitting in a smile that could have just as well been a grimace - it was so hideous!
" NO!" Harry felt a new power overcome him. He added: " I will never join you!" His hands readied his wand, and he shouted: "Wingardium Leviosa!" The locket inside Voldemort's fingers hovered past Voldemort's sickly, bony thumb, then was pushed deep into the folds of his hand again.
" Foolish to resist. . . in the end it will be just less suffering for you. . ." Voldemort hissed.
" That's a lie! You are nothing! I am not afraid of you!" Harry felt his screams rocket out of himself, growing higher in fear. "I am not afraid of you!" The words weren't his, he felt something inside him, a strength. He felt his parents were with him.
" Do you want to know why I hated your Mudblood friend, Potter . . ." The hiss split through Harry's mind.
" Why?" Harry asked, his breath coming out in a pant, his throat parched. He felt as if he hadn't had a drink of water in years, and his eyes were becoming blurry and unfocused. The only thing moving into existence was the continuous "join me" echoing inside his mind.
" She would have solved this quickly. I was stunned when Malfoy - the only other one in Hogwarts with such sharp a wit - was eager to help you." Voldemort hissed. " Now he lies in his own blood! Cry, Potter, your tears do nothing for you! Cry!"
Harry shouted: " No! Leave me! Leave! I won't join you!" The whispers in his head grew louder, the unforgivable curse commanding his mind and body.
Harry turned to Draco, battling everything. Draco had turned his head, his dying eyes resting on Harry. " The locket! Destroy the locket. . ." He whispered hoarsely. His crushed ribs had pivoted through his lungs. Blood poured from his mouth and nose.
Harry trembled in fright as he turned back to Voldemort: " I will not join you!" Then, he looked at the locket and shouted: "Wingardium Leviosa!"
It tugged from Voldemort's hands, but he caught it, pulling it closer. " My power! You will not destroy me!" Voldemort hissed, his mad cackle rocketing through Harry's mind.
" I will!" Harry shouted back.
" Join me. . . join me. . . join me. . ." The refrain of Voldemort's words was continuously playing through Harry's mind, a broken record stuck on a groove. Harry blinked away the net of tears covering his eyes and shouted: " No . . . no!"
" Join me!" The whisper in his mind grew fiercer. He felt invisible hands, strong and cold, clutching his body, and at the same time, something was pulling him back. He felt a motherly love and warmth from behind him, a fatherly strength and wisdom filling his mind.
He heard echoes of his mother's scream as she died. Then, the echoes faded into "join me".
Thin rivulets of blood twisted across the tiles and then wound around Harry's legs. Draco . . . he was losing blood, and a lot of it. Harry turned to his friend again.
" Draco, hang in there. You'll live. . ." He whispered desperately, knowing that words might keep Draco alive where physical conditions couldn't.
" Imperio!" Voldemort shouted again, frustrated with how Harry was reluctant to join him. Then, the hissing in Harry's mind began again: " Join me . . . join me. . ."
" Wingardium Leviosa!" Harry tried again, this time hoping he'd get to pull the locket out of Voldemort's tightly clutching fingers. " Wingardium . . ." Harry kept repeating the words, the locket sliding a bit upwards, then getting pushed deep into Voldemort's palm once more.
" Join me. . . join me. . ." The whisper echoes inside Harry's mind, and Harry bit down hard onto his tongue, trying to remind himself inside his mind: " No! No! No!"
" Join me, Harry Potter. Join me, we will be strong. Nobody would ever be able to beat us now! Join me. . . join me. . ." The whispers began to take over him, Harry's hands slowly dropping to his sides, his body staggering like a zombie's.
" Wingardium Leviosa. . ." Harry hears a voice, taut and soft and strained with pain. He turned to find Draco lifting his wand, through the blood choking him, whispering: "Wingardium Leviosa." His wand does something else, though. Through his before-death stance, the wand explodes with power, with strength that rockets through the room.
A shining light escapes through the entire dark area, the clock outside tolling something Harry didn't care about, and Voldemort was screaming in pain.
The locket shot out from Voldemort's hand and Draco held it, tightly, in his hand.
Voldemort cackled. " You have it, then. . . destroy that locket and you destroy me. I have put my power in it, and I have given it under disguise to the one who would care for it most."
Harry felt his stomach drop.
" The only way to destroy it is if you die with it as well. If you wish to sacrifice yourself, Draco Malfoy, for Harry Potter - the one who doubted you, the one your father wishes you to hate - then do so now." Voldemort hissed.
" Join me. . . join me, save him . . . join me! There is no evil. . . join me. . ." The words! Those horrible, hissing words!
" Draco . . ." Harry suddenly felt bewildered. Would Draco sacrifice himself for the cause? Would he instead decide to be a coward, and pull out of the case, fearing his death?
Draco held the locket, staring at it, battling in his mind whether he would do it or not.
" Join me. . . join me, and he will live. . . join me now, keep him from dying. . . do you not care for your friend?" The hissing in Harry's ears grew louder, more demanding. Harry cried out: "No! I won't join you!"
His mind overwhelmed, he turned to Voldemort and shouted the Blinding Curse. Voldemort staggered backwards, his eyes slowly sliding into slits. Voldemort's own bare feet staggered over the boots lying on the ground - remnants of Rebecca. Harry squirmed to move away from the Dark Lord as he told Draco, above the howling of the words in his mind: " Destroy it! Do it!"
Despite how it hurt to watch, Harry observed as Draco took the locket and smashed it against the ground. The back piece fluttered aside, revealing the letters 'LP', burning yellow hot as the light pierced through the room. Then, a terrible explosion rocketed the air. Draco was blown aside, Harry tumbled to the ground, and he could barely see as a thick dust covered the area.
" What's going on?" Harry coughed through the black smoke that had slowly begun to settle. Voldemort was gone, completely, and there was nothing left of the locket.
Harry looked around, his breath coming out in a bit of relief, to see if Draco was anywhere near. Then, he saw him - the light-colored hair, fluttered over Draco's forehead, his nostrils flaring in the dust. He opened his mouth to cough but only blood came out.
Harry gasped and then darted amidst the dust clouds and knelt down before the frail, broken form of Draco Malfoy. The other boy looked up, his eyes barely moving, the blueness slowly fading away.
" Draco!" Harry cried out, taking hold of Draco's shoulders, shaking him. " Draco, wake up!"
Draco's eyes opened, barely, then closed again. He whispered: "Did you see that? I did it . . . I did it. . ."
" I saw. . ." Harry felt tears slowly streak down his face. " I'm so sorry that I didn't believe you - I should have known - you wouldn't. . ." Words failed him.
Malfoy slowly raised his hand, his fingers dipping into the bloody, deep gash on his body. He lifted his fingers up to his face, looking at the thick blood that covered them. " I'm dying . . ."
" No! You'll live!" Harry shouted to him. " Come on, I'll pull you out of here, maybe Madame Pomfrey . . ."
" There's nothing you can do." Draco's body convulsed. "Nothing." He smiled to himself. " I did it, Harry. I destroyed Voldemort. It was me. . ."
Another racking cough sent blood out of Draco's mouth. Harry panicked. " We gotta get you out!" Harry said, his voice shaking. " We gotta."
" It's too late." Draco said. " It feels so cold, Harry. Death is so cold. . ." His eyes slowly closed.
"No!" Harry shook Draco again.
Malfoy's head slowly raised and he looked over the demise of his body. " It doesn't hurt, Harry. Don't cry." Draco looked dead already. " I'm ready to die, I was for a long time . . ."
" Don't say that!" Harry cried out. " You can't be ready to die! You're fifteen, how can you . . . you . . ." He stopped as Draco's fingers slowly unclenched. In his palm, he had the remains of the locket - charred, bruised.
" You can have it. Maybe . . . maybe it'll come to some use." Draco suddenly added, after he was able to muster the strength. "Rebecca left it in my house. I should have known." Suddenly he laughed. " You know what's funny?"
" How can you laugh?" Harry asked.
" I died good. I died good." Draco whispered to himself. " I always thought it would be different."
" You didn't die!" Harry said. " Stop saying that." Harry put his hands under Draco's arms, trying to drag him from the room. Draco was always bigger then Harry and it was hard to pull him even a few feet.
" Tell my mother I love her." Draco said, after a while.
" Draco! Stop it!" Harry cried out.
Draco's eyes opened again, the blue irises still of any life. "Potter, you aren't a friend-in-training. You - - you're a real friend."
Harry felt another hot tear roll down his cheek. The dust had settled completely in the room. Draco's eyes closed again. Draco's hands trembled as he brought one up to his stomach again. Then, he whispered: " I don't feel my body, Harry."
The whisper was almost incoherent. Draco's tongue was barely moving in his mouth, his chest no longer raised in breaths. Harry shook Draco's shoulders again. "Draco! Don't do this! You can live! Why don't you believe that you can live? You can live." His voice was crumbling, unreal. The world was hazy through the tears in Harry's eyes.
" It's so cold." Draco's final breath.
Then, his lips drained of color, mouthing the word: 'cold'. Then, he was gone.
Harry felt Draco's hand, for a pulse, for anything. Nothing answered him. There was a stunned silence. Then, Draco's hand slipped from Harry's, a dull echo crossing the room as his fingernails clacked the tiles.
" Did you think it would end this way?" Harry whispered to Draco's lifeless body. The only answer was the echo that swept through the room.
*¤*.¸¸.·´¨`»*«´¨`·. ¸¸.*¤*
Kneeling in the ashes
Cold, gray, dead, before me
Clutching at what remains
Of your passing life - a tragedy
Now there is nothing
Empty, hollow, silent, inside you
A heart freed of ice lies still
Chilled and cold in the blood it drew
Did you think it would end this way,
Cold and alone, broken, silent?
The answer comes in a howling echo
My sob racks from deep within me
Anonymous
A/N: Gah don't kill me Draco lovers! I like him too! ::shields face with arms:: Remember this isn't the end. Stuff can happen.
1 Chapter 21
Threads of Logic
Rebecca slowly lifted the locket, and then exclaimed, her accent suddenly gone (for she didn't need to use it now that she was discovered to be a fake, after all): " Ah! Draco, if it isn't my servant, back to see me?"
Harry felt his breath lodge inside his throat. What? Servant?
Draco spat: " I didn't help you for a long time!"
" Oh, but you did! You gave Harry this charmed locket, didn't you? Had him believe it was from his mother, while it was really mine, which I used as a tracking device, so I'd know when he's alone, when to kill him?" Rebecca hissed softly.
" What?" Harry burst out, emerging from behind the cabinet. "Draco?"
" I swear I didn't know, Harry!" Draco cried out.
" Liar! He lies, Potter! He wormed his way into being your friend, while the whole time working for me!" She shouted, her eyes mad.
" That's not true!" Draco cried out, getting up off the floor. He turned to Harry. " It isn't!"
" I trusted you!" Harry hissed in disgust.
" No! Harry. . ." Draco clutched at Harry's shirt. " Listen to me! I didn't . . ."
" Silence, fool!" Rebecca suddenly shot with her wand at Draco. He was blasted off into the corner of the room, where he fell to the floor with a hollow slam.
He looked up, a trickle of blood sliding from his freshly-cut lip: " Harry, don't listen to her! I didn't know the locket was . . ."
" How could you not know? No wonder you gave me that as a gift! You didn't do it out of goodwill, or because you wanted to! You were with her!" Harry pointed at Rebecca. " I should have known - - it says LP, and I just realized! My mother wasn't married! Her initials wouldn't be LP!"
" Ah! You see?" Rebecca hissed, snake-like. " Your so-called friend had been my faithful servant. I told him to give you the locket, and he did." Her eyes suddenly blared red - Voldemort eyes.
" Draco!" Harry turned to Draco, tears stinging his eyes. "How could you? How could you?" His chest ached, he wanted to cry. " I thought you were a friend."
" I didn't have anything to do with her!" Draco shouted. " Not for weeks and weeks!"
" He keeps lying!" Rebecca said, marveling. " So you deny being my servant. Then you shall die as the lying scum you are!"
" No! Harry, on my life, I swear I didn't know!" Draco hollered, blood pouring freely down his chin from his split lip. Harry suddenly felt somewhere deep inside that maybe Draco was right, and he immediately turned to help him up, but before he could, Rebecca said some sort of deep spell.
Rebecca pointed her wand at Draco again. Draco was thrown against the opposite wall. This time, he didn't get up. Harry stared in fright, and he backed away, his body bumping into Rebecca. She grabbed his arm, twisting it back. " Now that I took care of him, I can take care of you!" She pulled him around, throwing him to his knees before her.
" Through my locket I sent you dreams, asking you to join me. Why did you not join me?" She hissed. " Join me!" Her hisses, like a snake, soft and sharp and slimy, filled Harry's ears.
" Join you? Voldemort was asking me to . . ." Harry's eyes widened in fright, suddenly. " No . . ."
" Yes! I am Voldemort! Desperate to have you join me, whether by trick or by folly, and I stuck in this body. I had kept myself alive and strong with the blood and bones of the Whitescale that the scummy Weasley boy so easily provided." Rebecca hissed, her breath rattling inside her. " I hid myself in this DISGUSTING girl form, to keep you unaware. It seems your friend knew, though. He was sharper."
" What're you talking about? I thought you said he was your servant!" Harry whispered, lips draining of color. He turned to the crumpled body of Draco's, lying on the floor, a pool of blood swarming around the crippled body.
" Ah, I only said so to have you be stunned, so you wouldn't protect him while I took care of him." Rebecca snarled, her lips suddenly growing more and more snakelike, thinner and thinner and paler, losing the last touches of feminine beauty. " Now watch as I destroy the rest of you, and I will draw your power! I will be powerful!"
Rebecca raised the wand of hers, pointing it at Harry. "Say goodbye, Harry Potter."
Harry shouted: "No!" He ducked the ray of the spell that shot from the wand, and he then took out his own. He cast the Fainting Charm on Rebecca. She was hit by it, but it didn't affect her.
" You think I could be destroyed by feeble Dark Charms? How amusing, Harry Potter." Rebecca cackled, then raised her own wand. " I will finish what I had started! Avada Kedavra!"
A/N: While Voldemort is hidden in Rebecca's body I will refer to her as Rebecca to avoid confusion.
The spell rocketed from her wand, but missed Harry entirely. The eerie greenish light it let out slowly drifted through the room, then left Harry feeling frightened and stunned, kneeling on the floor. His scar throbbed, the feeling of blood rising to his face that was the most ultimate anger that he ever felt. Harry stood from his knees, quickly, helpless. He turned to Draco, turning Draco around from his spot on the floor so he'd face towards him. Draco's body fell to meet his eyes, and Harry gasped, for a long deep bloody gash stretched across Draco's stomach. The spell Rebecca cast had sent him across the room with such force. . .
" No! Draco!" Harry cried out.
Draco's eyes slowly opened, and he whispered, through dry white lips: " I . . . I didn't . . . I didn't know. . ."
" Oh, I know, I know . . ." Harry whispered, a tear falling from the corner of his eye. It landed onto Draco's cheek, slowly sliding down, loosening the dried trail of blood from his lip. Draco's eyes remained open, his breath a low rattle. " Don't die. . . please, don't. . ."
" Touching." Rebecca hissed, then shouted: " Corpus Mobilitus!" The body of Draco was thrown once more to the other side of the room.
" No!" Harry's voice sounded inhuman, an animal scream of fear and pain. " No!" He watched as Draco's body fell into a heap once again, his blood smeared across the ground. " Oh, God, no . . ."
Harry heard Draco's whisper: " Her shoes . . . take them off. . ."
Harry lunged at Rebecca, wrapping his arms around her legs, struggling to rip off her shoes. Rebecca shouted angrily: "No! No, back off, vermin!"
Harry slowly wrestled the left shoe off. Rebecca's body contorted. She kicked him away, her eyes turning a darker shade of red, expanding, growing frightening and eerie. Her hair was fading away into a baldness on her head. Her skin grew sunken in, her eyes hollow with dark rings under her eyes.
Harry watched in a sudden fright, but he knew what had to be done. In order to face the real thing, he needed to remove both shoes, to keep 'Rebecca' from hiding behind other forms. Harry then ripped off the second shoe, and Rebecca fell to the floor, her body twitching, slowly changing into another form, her real one. Harry backed away, moving towards Draco's body again. "This is all my fault! I'm so sorry!" Harry said with a voice filled with worry to Draco, tearing off his robes and then pressing the cloth to Draco's wound.
The cloth grew saturated with his blood, and Harry then pressed another corner of it down. Draco's hands clenched and he hissed through his teeth: " Harry, it's so cold. . . so cold. . ."
" Draco. . ." Harry felt another tear slide down his cheek. " No! This isn't how it will end." Harry stood, turning to Rebecca's body on the floor. Except now it was Voldemort, in his true and ghastly form.
" So it's true!" Harry exclaimed. " You are - - him. A coward." His body shook with fear at the words he was saying. " A coward to hide behind a young girl's body, using her appearance while doing your evil deeds."
The Dark Lord stood, eyes glowing like frightening red orbs, his face shriveled and frightening, nostrils flaring angrily, just as Harry's dreams showed him. Voldemort reached out: " This is your last chance, Potter! Join me, and I will save your friend! Join me, we will be one! There is no evil, Harry. There is only power!"
Harry shook his head. " No!"
Voldemort was taken aback. The red orbs flashed angrily across Harry's face, and he then cackled out, his voice low, droning: " Harry, think again. You can be so much greater then Dumbledore, then even me! Join me, we will conquer the world! There is no evil . . . only power. . . we are the power!"
" No!" Harry shouted. " No!" He raised his wand, his hand trembling. " Avada Kedavra!" The spell didn't work. His wand glowed, then crackled and died out.
" Fool! You can't cast it yet! But I can!" Voldemort took his wand and said, his voice back to the droning inhuman groan that was filling Harry's mind: "Avada Ked. . ."
" Wingardium Leviosa!" Harry said, and then attempted to pull the wand out of Voldemort's hand with the spell. Voldemort was unaffected by the spell, but it distracted him from the Avada Kedavra death spell.
Harry then thought to himself: 'He had to hide his power in something, something he thought would never be destroyed. But what?'
Suddenly, his eyes fell on the locket. It was in Voldemort's other hand, the sickly and deformed fingers clutching it with a protective hold. "What is it, Potter! You want it . . . you want this locket. . . the one that is the cause for all your trouble this year. . . who will be the cause of your future troubles!"
Harry threw himself onto the Dark Lord, trying to get the locket from his fingers. The Dark Lord hissed a spell out. Harry was pummeled across the room. His body slid into Draco's, and he was covered in his friend's blood. " No . . ." Harry cried out, shooting to his feet again. " I won't let you win! I won't!"
" Touching." Voldemort raised his wand and then said: "Crucio!" The spell was a haunting whisper inside Harry's mind. His eyes closed, he saw images of himself dying, of Draco dying, of Hermione dying. The most painful images . . . his body shook violently, slowly growing to an awful pain.
Harry felt his body fall to the floor, and then rock back and forth. The weight of everything possible, fifty million tons, seemed to press onto him. Suddenly his body felt as if it were ripped apart, being sent into torrents.
" Imperio!" Voldemort suddenly shouted.
" No!" Harry shouted inside his mind, screaming against Voldemort's will. He heard the voice in his head: " Harry . . . join me. . . come closer. . . we will be strong . . ."
" No!" Harry cried out, tears streaming down his cheeks.
" I will bring your parents back . . . I will give you life forever . . . join me, join me. . ."
" No! No, never!" Harry rebelled inside his mind.
" Join me. . ." The voice ordered.
" Join me!" Suddenly, the command hit him, full-force, sending Harry skidding across the floor. He felt his body collapse next to Draco's again. The force of the demand . . . Harry felt himself slowly rising, moving towards Voldemort. . .
" Yes! Join me! Power . . . power to us all!" Voldemort crooned, his evil face splitting in a smile that could have just as well been a grimace - it was so hideous!
" NO!" Harry felt a new power overcome him. He added: " I will never join you!" His hands readied his wand, and he shouted: "Wingardium Leviosa!" The locket inside Voldemort's fingers hovered past Voldemort's sickly, bony thumb, then was pushed deep into the folds of his hand again.
" Foolish to resist. . . in the end it will be just less suffering for you. . ." Voldemort hissed.
" That's a lie! You are nothing! I am not afraid of you!" Harry felt his screams rocket out of himself, growing higher in fear. "I am not afraid of you!" The words weren't his, he felt something inside him, a strength. He felt his parents were with him.
" Do you want to know why I hated your Mudblood friend, Potter . . ." The hiss split through Harry's mind.
" Why?" Harry asked, his breath coming out in a pant, his throat parched. He felt as if he hadn't had a drink of water in years, and his eyes were becoming blurry and unfocused. The only thing moving into existence was the continuous "join me" echoing inside his mind.
" She would have solved this quickly. I was stunned when Malfoy - the only other one in Hogwarts with such sharp a wit - was eager to help you." Voldemort hissed. " Now he lies in his own blood! Cry, Potter, your tears do nothing for you! Cry!"
Harry shouted: " No! Leave me! Leave! I won't join you!" The whispers in his head grew louder, the unforgivable curse commanding his mind and body.
Harry turned to Draco, battling everything. Draco had turned his head, his dying eyes resting on Harry. " The locket! Destroy the locket. . ." He whispered hoarsely. His crushed ribs had pivoted through his lungs. Blood poured from his mouth and nose.
Harry trembled in fright as he turned back to Voldemort: " I will not join you!" Then, he looked at the locket and shouted: "Wingardium Leviosa!"
It tugged from Voldemort's hands, but he caught it, pulling it closer. " My power! You will not destroy me!" Voldemort hissed, his mad cackle rocketing through Harry's mind.
" I will!" Harry shouted back.
" Join me. . . join me. . . join me. . ." The refrain of Voldemort's words was continuously playing through Harry's mind, a broken record stuck on a groove. Harry blinked away the net of tears covering his eyes and shouted: " No . . . no!"
" Join me!" The whisper in his mind grew fiercer. He felt invisible hands, strong and cold, clutching his body, and at the same time, something was pulling him back. He felt a motherly love and warmth from behind him, a fatherly strength and wisdom filling his mind.
He heard echoes of his mother's scream as she died. Then, the echoes faded into "join me".
Thin rivulets of blood twisted across the tiles and then wound around Harry's legs. Draco . . . he was losing blood, and a lot of it. Harry turned to his friend again.
" Draco, hang in there. You'll live. . ." He whispered desperately, knowing that words might keep Draco alive where physical conditions couldn't.
" Imperio!" Voldemort shouted again, frustrated with how Harry was reluctant to join him. Then, the hissing in Harry's mind began again: " Join me . . . join me. . ."
" Wingardium Leviosa!" Harry tried again, this time hoping he'd get to pull the locket out of Voldemort's tightly clutching fingers. " Wingardium . . ." Harry kept repeating the words, the locket sliding a bit upwards, then getting pushed deep into Voldemort's palm once more.
" Join me. . . join me. . ." The whisper echoes inside Harry's mind, and Harry bit down hard onto his tongue, trying to remind himself inside his mind: " No! No! No!"
" Join me, Harry Potter. Join me, we will be strong. Nobody would ever be able to beat us now! Join me. . . join me. . ." The whispers began to take over him, Harry's hands slowly dropping to his sides, his body staggering like a zombie's.
" Wingardium Leviosa. . ." Harry hears a voice, taut and soft and strained with pain. He turned to find Draco lifting his wand, through the blood choking him, whispering: "Wingardium Leviosa." His wand does something else, though. Through his before-death stance, the wand explodes with power, with strength that rockets through the room.
A shining light escapes through the entire dark area, the clock outside tolling something Harry didn't care about, and Voldemort was screaming in pain.
The locket shot out from Voldemort's hand and Draco held it, tightly, in his hand.
Voldemort cackled. " You have it, then. . . destroy that locket and you destroy me. I have put my power in it, and I have given it under disguise to the one who would care for it most."
Harry felt his stomach drop.
" The only way to destroy it is if you die with it as well. If you wish to sacrifice yourself, Draco Malfoy, for Harry Potter - the one who doubted you, the one your father wishes you to hate - then do so now." Voldemort hissed.
" Join me. . . join me, save him . . . join me! There is no evil. . . join me. . ." The words! Those horrible, hissing words!
" Draco . . ." Harry suddenly felt bewildered. Would Draco sacrifice himself for the cause? Would he instead decide to be a coward, and pull out of the case, fearing his death?
Draco held the locket, staring at it, battling in his mind whether he would do it or not.
" Join me. . . join me, and he will live. . . join me now, keep him from dying. . . do you not care for your friend?" The hissing in Harry's ears grew louder, more demanding. Harry cried out: "No! I won't join you!"
His mind overwhelmed, he turned to Voldemort and shouted the Blinding Curse. Voldemort staggered backwards, his eyes slowly sliding into slits. Voldemort's own bare feet staggered over the boots lying on the ground - remnants of Rebecca. Harry squirmed to move away from the Dark Lord as he told Draco, above the howling of the words in his mind: " Destroy it! Do it!"
Despite how it hurt to watch, Harry observed as Draco took the locket and smashed it against the ground. The back piece fluttered aside, revealing the letters 'LP', burning yellow hot as the light pierced through the room. Then, a terrible explosion rocketed the air. Draco was blown aside, Harry tumbled to the ground, and he could barely see as a thick dust covered the area.
" What's going on?" Harry coughed through the black smoke that had slowly begun to settle. Voldemort was gone, completely, and there was nothing left of the locket.
Harry looked around, his breath coming out in a bit of relief, to see if Draco was anywhere near. Then, he saw him - the light-colored hair, fluttered over Draco's forehead, his nostrils flaring in the dust. He opened his mouth to cough but only blood came out.
Harry gasped and then darted amidst the dust clouds and knelt down before the frail, broken form of Draco Malfoy. The other boy looked up, his eyes barely moving, the blueness slowly fading away.
" Draco!" Harry cried out, taking hold of Draco's shoulders, shaking him. " Draco, wake up!"
Draco's eyes opened, barely, then closed again. He whispered: "Did you see that? I did it . . . I did it. . ."
" I saw. . ." Harry felt tears slowly streak down his face. " I'm so sorry that I didn't believe you - I should have known - you wouldn't. . ." Words failed him.
Malfoy slowly raised his hand, his fingers dipping into the bloody, deep gash on his body. He lifted his fingers up to his face, looking at the thick blood that covered them. " I'm dying . . ."
" No! You'll live!" Harry shouted to him. " Come on, I'll pull you out of here, maybe Madame Pomfrey . . ."
" There's nothing you can do." Draco's body convulsed. "Nothing." He smiled to himself. " I did it, Harry. I destroyed Voldemort. It was me. . ."
Another racking cough sent blood out of Draco's mouth. Harry panicked. " We gotta get you out!" Harry said, his voice shaking. " We gotta."
" It's too late." Draco said. " It feels so cold, Harry. Death is so cold. . ." His eyes slowly closed.
"No!" Harry shook Draco again.
Malfoy's head slowly raised and he looked over the demise of his body. " It doesn't hurt, Harry. Don't cry." Draco looked dead already. " I'm ready to die, I was for a long time . . ."
" Don't say that!" Harry cried out. " You can't be ready to die! You're fifteen, how can you . . . you . . ." He stopped as Draco's fingers slowly unclenched. In his palm, he had the remains of the locket - charred, bruised.
" You can have it. Maybe . . . maybe it'll come to some use." Draco suddenly added, after he was able to muster the strength. "Rebecca left it in my house. I should have known." Suddenly he laughed. " You know what's funny?"
" How can you laugh?" Harry asked.
" I died good. I died good." Draco whispered to himself. " I always thought it would be different."
" You didn't die!" Harry said. " Stop saying that." Harry put his hands under Draco's arms, trying to drag him from the room. Draco was always bigger then Harry and it was hard to pull him even a few feet.
" Tell my mother I love her." Draco said, after a while.
" Draco! Stop it!" Harry cried out.
Draco's eyes opened again, the blue irises still of any life. "Potter, you aren't a friend-in-training. You - - you're a real friend."
Harry felt another hot tear roll down his cheek. The dust had settled completely in the room. Draco's eyes closed again. Draco's hands trembled as he brought one up to his stomach again. Then, he whispered: " I don't feel my body, Harry."
The whisper was almost incoherent. Draco's tongue was barely moving in his mouth, his chest no longer raised in breaths. Harry shook Draco's shoulders again. "Draco! Don't do this! You can live! Why don't you believe that you can live? You can live." His voice was crumbling, unreal. The world was hazy through the tears in Harry's eyes.
" It's so cold." Draco's final breath.
Then, his lips drained of color, mouthing the word: 'cold'. Then, he was gone.
Harry felt Draco's hand, for a pulse, for anything. Nothing answered him. There was a stunned silence. Then, Draco's hand slipped from Harry's, a dull echo crossing the room as his fingernails clacked the tiles.
" Did you think it would end this way?" Harry whispered to Draco's lifeless body. The only answer was the echo that swept through the room.
*¤*.¸¸.·´¨`»*«´¨`·. ¸¸.*¤*
Kneeling in the ashes
Cold, gray, dead, before me
Clutching at what remains
Of your passing life - a tragedy
Now there is nothing
Empty, hollow, silent, inside you
A heart freed of ice lies still
Chilled and cold in the blood it drew
Did you think it would end this way,
Cold and alone, broken, silent?
The answer comes in a howling echo
My sob racks from deep within me
Anonymous
A/N: Gah don't kill me Draco lovers! I like him too! ::shields face with arms:: Remember this isn't the end. Stuff can happen.
