Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters, much to my annoyance. JKR does. I own nothing but the writing.
Author's Note: THANK YOU, all reviewers!! And if you thought the last cliffhanger was cruel – well…
Warning: This is M/M SLASH so if you have objections to that, don't read this.
Title: Dragonweed
"The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven"
John Milton, "Paradise Lost"
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CHAPTER 6 – Battle
--- Harry ---
Darkness… mud… clashing flashes of white and green. Death Eaters closing in.Voldemort's flaring, excited red eyes. An explosion of violent pain in my head. At long last, we have reached the battle. Wands flashing and sparkling around me. Dumbledore at my side. Snape, black eyes burning. Sirius with a look on his face that I will never forget.
My vision is blurred with pain, my mind in shadow. My perception is weakening. I have no grasp of what is happening around me, or even to me. I hear the groans and screams and thuds of fighting. I repeatedly hear Avada Kedavra, or perhaps it is just an echo inside my head. The pain is excruciating, blazing white. I stagger and retch, trying to stay upright. At the edge of my blurred field of vision I see Bill Weasley fall heavily to the ground.
Flashes of green and red. I point my wand and my voice has a commanding note I have never known before. Lights are blinding. Darkness soars. This will never stop.
I slip in the mud and fall down on my knees. My wand rolls away from my hand and I feel mud squelch between my fingers. Mere inches from my hands, I see a pair of heavy black boots and the hem of black robes. Dizzy and defeated, I follow the folds of the robes upwards with my eyes. I find myself looking up at Draco Malfoy.
I have never known him to look so forbidding, so intimidating. He is towering over me, firm and still in the billowing battle, exuding a terrifying power I have never known him to possess. In my vision, hazy with pain, his hair seems to shimmer, a spiky halo of bluish white around his head. He is a pillar of blackness and metallic light, standing sternly over me like an avenging angel. I close my eyes, having no strength left in me to fight, and I know I have met my Angel of Death. I should have known that long ago. My last thought is that even if I had been fit, I don't know whether I could have fought him. His beauty shines through the mud and the grime and the blood. Even in this dark moment he is magnificent. Even in this dark moment I love him.
He lifts his hand and pain explodes white and hot in my head. Then there is only darkness.