Draco Malfoy, Seeker Of Souls

Chapter Seventeen

Child Of Light, Child Of Dark

**~~~~~**

I stood in the dark, trying to locate the patch of ground that would sink like an elevator when I plunged the golden key into the earth. The Forbidden Forest was very near, and I kept hearing strange sounds coming from its depths. "Oh God, please let me find the elevator! I need to get out of here!" I held my glowing wand up higher and scanned the ground. "Please?"

A hand clamped down on my shoulder and I yelled out. "Whaaaa!"

Harry laughed. "My, you're jumpy."

I tried to breathe. "You'd be jumpy too if you were standing in the dark next to the Forbidden Forest."

He deadpanned. "I am standing in the dark by the Forbidden Forest."

I paused. "Oh. True." I finally found the faint circle in the grass. "Finally! So what are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing! I heard you get up and take the Portkey. The Mystic met me in the living room and instructed that I get dressed and that we follow you."

The Mystic herself suddenly appeared behind Harry. "You have received the sign?"

"Tom needs help!" I said. I plunged the key into the earth. "I'm going down to find him and save him from Slytherin. Do you want to come along?" I sat down on the ground next to the key.

Harry crossed his arms. "He would have been safer if he had stayed in the dungeons, or at least with us. Going into the ground all alone with the spirit of Salazar Slytherin doesn't seem like the best idea."

"Sometimes he doesn't always make the best decisions..."

"That's the understatement of the decade," muttered Harry.

"…But he knows this and he's trying hard to help us."

"We must go down now," said the Mystic, settling herself on the grass next to me. "It is time."

I reached over and took her hand, ignoring the fact she wasn't really Ginny yet. "Everything will be fine," I said.

*~~~~~*

When Harry and I stepped into the Hall of Lost Souls with the Mystic, Tom Riddle was slumped on the throne with his eyes closed. I was surprised to see that he was still Tom, rather than Salazar Slytherin. I was afraid he might not have been himself anymore.

I ran towards him. "Tom! Are you all right?" I clasped his hands. "Did he do anything to you?"

He opened his eyes and gave me a smile. "I'm so glad you came! I was afraid for awhile, but when Slytherin knew you were on your way, he backed off. But I was so worried." He leaned back and sighed as if he were very exhausted.

"But you are yourself now?"

"Yes. You got here just in time. I'm too exhausted to fight him off anymore."

The Mystic glared. "Step away, Draco. Don't stand too close to him."

Tom looked hurt. "He's my friend. Why are you such an evil witch? I am in danger, not Draco."

"You lie. You were in no danger."

Tom glowered for a moment before he smiled, sitting up tall in the throne. "My dear. You are wise. I have always so despised Seers. They know too much, yet can say so little. And you can't hide a thing from them. I knew you were going to be horrid trouble from the moment I saw your Soul through Slytherin. You should never have been allowed to enter Ginny's body, nor should the others. Slytherin and I almost saw to it that you were not, but everything has to be so complicated. So disappointing."

Harry glared at Tom. "What do you mean?"

I looked at him too. "Yes, what do you mean by that? When you visited me you said you were so dismayed that the Soul of the Murderer had been placed in her body. You said that Slytherin was out to get you, and that it had all been his doing. You were honest! You nearly cried!" I felt terribly uneasy. Harry shot me a confused look when I mentioned Tom's visit to me.

Tom shook his head. "Oh, Draco, Draco…you're so corruptible. I really do like you. And I was frightened and upset. I don't like being like this. But don't you see? Didn't she tell you the myth? Don't you understand it? You must see why I'm so scared, and why I have to be so horrid."

"About the two boys, you mean? The Child of Light and the Child of Dark?"

"Yes. Don't you see who the boys are?"

It suddenly seemed so simple. Why hadn't I thought of it before? "The one is Harry," I said matter-of-factly. "He must be the Child of Light who was supposed to bring your downfall."

Harry looked shocked. "Me? Why me?"

I shrugged. "It makes sense, doesn't it?"

Tom nodded. "Yes, Harry is one. He is the Child of Light. There were to be two children, one of light hair and complexion and one of dark. Even though you were so dark, Harry, I figured you were to be the Child of Light, since you came from such a nice family. You would be the one to defeat me. So I decided to kill you. There was another child too, of course. I killed him first, but he was the wrong one. He looked remarkably like you, Harry. Your twin, almost."

Dread was building up in my stomach. Who did we know who looked exactly like Harry?

"You killed another child?" Harry asked, a tremor of fear in his voice.

"Yes. There was another little boy who was born before you by a little more than a year. I killed him when he was still small, thinking he would be the Child of Light who would do me in. Then the other child, the Dark Child, was born and I realized that the first boy could not have been the one. He had been born too early – the two children were supposed to be born quite close to each other. So I searched and searched and I found Harry. And I then knew what Harry would do in the future, being the good boy he was. I tried to do away with him."

I had fallen to my knees and wrapped my arms around myself. "The little boy you killed before Harry…the baby…he was..."

Tom smiled. "Nathaniel, of course. Didn't you often wonder why he looks so much like Harry? Pity I had to kill him. He was a beautiful baby. I liked him so much that I had Ginny resurrect him, as you well know." His face clouded as if that had been a very low point in his life.

"Oh my God…" My brain was so clouded with new information that I could hardly think. If only Hermione had been there, maybe she could have made some sense out of it. Why hadn't the others thought to wake her up and bring her along?

"So you do see why Harry has to die. He will kill me. As the Child of Light, that is his ambition in life – his destiny. It's not my decision to kill such a beautiful boy…it's just how it is. Meanwhile, I will take the Dark Child as my own and train him to do my bidding. I will rule the wizarding world with him, in place of the Child of Light. For the Child of Light will be dead." He glared evilly at Harry.

I was torn. Torn by my love for Harry and my love for Tom. I had sworn I wouldn't let the Child of Light kill Tom…but now that I had figured out he was Harry, everything was different. My life was a constant battle between light and dark.

Harry crossed his arms. "You haven't been able to kill me yet. How do you plan on doing it now? We outnumber you and you have no magic."

"Ah, that's where the Soul of the Murderer comes in, dear boy. It will be your downfall."

The Mystic trembled. "You'll never win, Voldemort! You can fight for as long and hard as you want, but you'll meet your death soon!"

Tom sprang forward from his place on the throne and grabbed Ginny by the arm. "Shut up, Soul! You can't defeat the Soul of the Murderer!" He threw her down onto the floor violently. She cried out as she slid across the floor.

"Ginny!" I yelled, and made a motion towards her, only to be held back by Harry.

"No, stop!" Harry looked at Ginny in horror. She was twisting on the floor, screaming in agony. Every few moments a guttural snarl would fly from her throat. She was having some kind of internal battle, fighting for control of the good Souls she housed. But she did not appear to be winning.

Tom was watching in a very unaffected way. "The Soul of the Murderer will win. Those other Souls that invaded her body will never be able to hold out."

Ginny finished the fight and lay still before an aura of dark light formed around her body and lifted her to her feet. She jerked up her head and her eyes opened slowly. And they glared with evil power. She was bursting all over with magic. The Soul of the Murderer had defeated The Mystic and the other smaller Souls we had come to know.

"I'll take those wands now, boys." Using the small bit of power he still possessed, Tom uttered the words "Accio wands" and they flew from our hands. This rose the anger in Harry.

"You!" shouted Harry. "You and Slytherin have been against us from the very start! You never intended to give Ginny back her Soul!"

Tom pretended to be surprised. "You don't say! But you are only partially correct. I wanted Ginny to have that Soul. Slytherin didn't have anything to say about it. I became too mentally powerful for him ages ago. I have no physical powers, but I'm very good at twisting the mind. It's always been a strong point of mine. I remember using it on the people at the Muggle orphanage so I could get my own way." He smiled that beautiful wistful smile of his – that smile that made it so hard to hate him. "This you know well, Draco."

Harry looked at me. "What does he mean by that?"

I looked at the floor. "He's been able to get into my mind lately. He was able to visit me in my room at night too. He's good at mental control. I think he's been telling me things and giving me headaches if I disobey. I'm pretty sure he made me sick that day in class." Now that Tom was concentrating on other things, he had lost his mental hold on me momentarily, and what had been blurry before suddenly became clear. I felt so stupid for falling for all of it. For trusting him so much. Harry stared at me as if I had betrayed him before turning back to Tom, who had settled himself in the throne again.

"Draco, listen. The Soul of the Murderer is only important so I can do away with Harry. This was never about Ginny. I knew back in the Black School last year that Harry had to go. I was honestly starting to like you and Ron and Hermione, but Harry just could not stay on this earth with me.

"At any rate, when I went back to my room after the first channeling session, I quickly learned how to do it on my own. Slytherin then spent a lot of time pointing out various Souls to me, back when I honestly wanted Ginny to have her real soul. He showed me Ginny's Soul, the Soul of The Mystic, as well as the Soul of the Murderer. As I watched that Soul, I started to formulate a plan in my head. I had lost all my powers, so I needed someone else to kill Harry, since I couldn't do it myself. By the time you came to me in the dungeon once Ginny had been returned, I had decided to plant the evil Soul in her body. I managed to overpower Slytherin and I told you to take Ginny to Harry once the Soul had been implanted in her body, so she could kill him."

I remembered Slytherin/Tom telling me this, and thought how odd it had it seemed at the time. Now it made sense.

"But then I thought that maybe I wouldn't have to put Ginny through all of this if I could just get rid of Harry early on, so I tried to get you to do it on your own by mentally goading you. But it made you very sick and you didn't succeed anyhow. I am sorry, Draco, that I had to do that. But you can see that I had Ginny in mind. I never wanted her to have a violent Soul. It was all about getting rid of Harry. It was Harry or me, and I can often be selfish.

"When we traveled down to the Hall, I was furious that Harry had been brought along. I had your trust for the most part, but he didn't trust me a lick."

"With good reason!" Harry yelled.

Tom glared and cleared his throat. "Anyway, I decided it might be better that way. The Soul of the Murderer could just kill Harry right away while we were down there. But then those Souls decided to act up and destroyed all of it. I decided I was not going back to the dungeon. I felt more powerful in the Hall of Lost Souls, and I still had a lot of mental control to exercise. Keeping you from suspecting me was no easy feat, Draco. Believe it or not, you had suspicions about me all the time, but I kept them out of your head. I felt terrible, but this plan needed to work." He sighed. "So please believe me when I say that I never meant to hurt you, or Ginny, Draco. Harry has always been my enemy and he simply must die. It's written in the stars, to quote something The Mystic – pardon me – the late Mystic might have said."

At the mention of Ginny, Harry and I looked over at her again. Ginny stood there, blazing with power, her hair drifting in the air up around her face. She had her head lowered and was glaring at us evilly from under her bangs. She looked even more terrible than she had in the Chamber of Secrets last year when she had been so evil.

"Besides, once Harry is gone you're going to need someone to rule over the rest of with wizarding world with you, Draco. It may as well be me, since we're best chums and all." Tom then looked bored as he lifted and handed a long silver knife to Ginny. "Ginny. Kill him."

He gestured towards Harry, who immediately stiffened and clenched his fists. "Ginny, listen to me. Don't do it."

Tom gave a helpless shrug. "I am sorry, Harry, but there's no way we could ever survive in this world together. Shame, too." He licked his lips in that creepy way of his.

Ginny gnashed her teeth and sprang at Harry. He tried to push her away, but she managed to pin him to the floor with all the strength her new powerful Soul gave her. She held the knife over his face and was ready to plunge it down when Harry got an arm free and grabbed her wrist. He locked his elbow firmly and held Ginny's arm steady, inches above his face. "Draco!" he gasped.

I was kneeling on the floor several feet away, my head in my hands. It was all too much to take in at one time. And something Tom had said was plaguing me. "Tom…what do you mean we'll reign over the wizard world? What does that mean?!"

He rose from the throne and moved slowly towards me. "Draco. You were able to guess who the Child of Light was. But who do you think the other boy is? The boy of fair hair? The Child of Dark?" He placed a gentle hand under my chin and lifted it so he was looking into my eyes. "You, Draco. You're the other child."

"Me?" I sobbed. My moral was crashing down around me. The world swam with Tom. I was giving in to the hopelessness in my mind.

Harry's arm had started to shake as he still held the snarling Ginny. "Draco…please!"

"You're the Child of Dark. You're the evil one – the one who loves the Dark Arts, from a family of dark wizards. You are the other boy who is to be the most powerful in the entire wizarding world. Only, Harry will not be here to steal all your glory. Aren't you tired of playing second fiddle to The Boy Who Lived? You are the boy who lived, Draco! You are the Child of Darkness, the most powerful wizard in the world! It is your destiny! Rule with me and renounce the Child of Light! You belong to me and always have."

I looked at the floor and sadly muttered, "And so it has always been…"

Tom's eyes gleamed and he smiled brilliantly. "It will all be fine. Just take my hand."

Sweat stood out on Harry's forehead. "Draco…"

I raised my eyes to Tom who was smiling that brilliant smile and holding out his hand to me. I had tried so hard to be good, just as he had, but had never really succeeded. This was the path I had to take. Just as he said, I was the Child of Dark and it was no use pretending to be good anymore. I raised my hand and let my fingertips touch Tom's.

Harry let out a strangled cry as the silver blade caught his cheek a bit. "Draco! Don't you listen to him! You're not a child of darkness! You're Draco Malfoy, our friend!"

I turned my head to look at Harry, but I gave him an evil smile. Tom had mentally swooped in on me and taken over my mind as soon as he had my hand in his. I belonged to him. I was going to rule the wizarding world on my own, with Ginny by my side to kill all who opposed me with her Murderer's Soul.

Tom laughed, yet it was not a triumphant sound. It was as if he knew what he was doing was terribly wrong, yet he felt he had no other choice. Voldemort may have been pure evil, but Tom Riddle was not. "You're too late, Harry! He's already come over to me. Now we will see what happens to The Boy Who Lived! The boy who destroyed all my plans again and again. I was lonely! All I ever wanted was to be great. And you won't let me be great, Harry Potter, the admired, the loved! Now I will be loved, and so will Draco!" He screamed all of this at Harry, tears welling up in his eyes.

Ginny drove the knife into the floor next to Harry's head and howled in rage at missing her mark. As she tried to pull it out again, Harry knocked her off of him. "We gave you another chance to be loved, Tom! We know you were lonely as a boy, but we gave you another chance. And you went down the very same road. You're evil through and through by now!" Harry looked at me desperately. "Don't listen to him, Draco! He only pretends to be your friend. He doesn't love you, and neither will your power!"

"That's not true!" howled Tom.

"I don't believe you, Potter." I said.

Ginny was back on her feet and she sank her teeth into Harry's arm. He screamed in pain and dodged her. She swung the knife at him, but he smacked her hand away, causing her to loose her grip on the weapon. He then took her by the arms. "Forgive me, Ginny!" He slung her hard against the wall, and she dropped heavily to the ground, unconscious, as her head hit the stone. A number of Souls drifted over to her and settled on her fallen body.

Tom stood behind me, one hand resting on my shoulder, tears of anger and hate streaming down his cheeks. "You can bang her up all you like, but you may not escape Draco as easily. Prepare yourself to die, Harry! I only hope that you have such a lonely existence as I've had, in Hell!"

"Power, come to me!" I commanded. Harry made a run towards me, but a blast of red magic shot out of my palm and hit him in the arm. Harry was the Child of Light. I had vowed to keep the Child of Light from hurting Tom, and I would hold to it.

Harry cried out and dropped to the floor. His hair stood up slightly. "Draco!" he gasped. "Please don't…"

I stared at my own hand for a moment, enjoying that fact that I didn't seem to need a wand anymore, before I unleashed my newfound power again, wanting to hurt this boy who was so much better than me and Tom. The intense red energy blasted through his body, making him scream. "Why not? You have people who love you. Tom and I have no one. I'm the Child of Dark. I'm nothing. I'm no one." Tears had started to creep down my cheeks as I dispatched energy blast after blast into Harry's weakening body. "Suffer, Harry. Suffer for being loved."

I observed him as he was writhing on the ground. He looked up at me, a slight trail of blood coming from his nose and ear from being shocked so many times. "Draco, please look. Please look and remember." He could hardly move from the pain, but he managed to reach into his pocket.

I raised my hand to hit him again, but something stopped me. It was a soft golden light and a fluttering of tiny wings. Harry was holding out the Snitch, a look of great hope on his face. "Remember, Draco. You gave this to me as a symbol of friendship. Please remember!"

I stared at it. The Snitch. The very essence of my goodness. And Harry had it. He was holding my heart in his hand. I cried out and raised my hand to let out the deadly blow. Harry closed his eyes and braced himself. "Avada Kadavra!" Familiar green light shot out of my hand…and hit Tom Riddle.

Tom screamed in agony and fell backwards. He landed on the steps that led up to the throne with a horrible crunch. He clutched his chest and he let out scream after scream.

I fell away from him and hit him again with the spell. "AVADA KADAVRA!!"

The scream was ear splitting. Blood started to pour out of him from wounds I couldn't even see. It was as if he was coming apart right in front of my eyes. But I didn't care. "Go away forever!" I hollered and hit him with the spell over and over again.

I finally felt Harry pulling me away from him, practically lifting me from the ground as I hollered the deadly curse hysterically. "Shhhh…Draco. That's enough!"

I let my hand fall to my side as I stared at the Dark Lord. He was definitely close to death. No doubt about it this time. I started to feel panicked as I realized what I had done. I had fatally wounded a friend…and an enemy.

Tom let out a guttural moan and he looked at me with fear, his arms wrapped around his stomach. "You…you were the one…it was you all along. Not Harry…you…" He choked up a great deal of blood, and his eyes started to roll back in his head. "I tried, Draco…when we were in the Black School, I wasn't lying. I did like you. But I've always been…easily corruptible, just like you are. I was scared to die…scared…I just wanted…friends. I thought if…I were all powerful I would have…respect." He coughed, tears spilling out of his eyes.

I took a gasping breath and forced myself to be strong and say what I had to. "I'm sorry that you were lonely," I moved slowly closer to him. "You had a miserable childhood. I'm sorry. But it's time the world was free from Voldemort. You've caused enough misery for everyone. I hereby avenge everyone who has suffered because of you – Ginny, Sirius Black, Nattie – and especially Harry and his parents. And my father and the rest of my family, who weren't always this bad. You helped make them what they are, in turn almost creating a demon out of me. Damn you to hell, Voldemort!" I looked down at him coldly.

As his life slipped away, he was reduced to the teenage boy he once had been. "Please…I'm scared."

My face softened slightly and I moved to him. As he looked up at me, the hatred drained out of his eyes and he was just a child like me. A child who needed to know he was loved. I kneeled by him and took him in my arms, cradling his head in my lap. I held one of his hands in mine. "Don't be scared," I told him. "Give in. It's over now. It's Voldemort who is horrible, not you. And you don't have to be Voldemort anymore. Rest."

"Draco…" he coughed.

"Shh…just let go, Tom. Poor Tom. Let go."

Harry watched from a distance, an unreadable mixture of emotions on his face.

"I…I'm so sorry…" Tom reached for me, but with a violent cough his hand fell and his breath ceased. I sat there looking down at him for several minutes before I let him rest on his back and stepped away. He was dead. The Dark Lord had finally been defeated for good. The next moment, Harry had wrapped me in a hug and we were on the floor sobbing from emotion and exhaustion as Voldemort's blood pooled around us.

I lifted my head after several minutes to look over at Tom's body again. "Harry," I said urgently. "Look!"

A green mist was seeping out of the body and slowly forming a shape above him. I recognized the personage from the statue in the Chamber of Secrets. "Who are you?" I asked, even though I had a good idea.

The misty figure bowed to us. "I am Salazar Slytherin. Thank you for releasing me from the mind of Tom Riddle. As he channeled with me, he began to take on my powers and became too strong for me to handle. My spirit is old and my magic grows weak. "

"I don't understand," I said hopelessly. "Is he really dead?"

The misty Slytherin smiled slightly. "Yes, he is dead. The Dark Lord has fallen. But why are you surprised? You are the Child of the Light. You were always the one who was to kill Voldemort, Seeker."

Harry and I were shocked. "Me? But why me? I came from such a dark family with a lot of bad history. How could I be the good one? And does that make Harry evil?"

Slytherin sat himself in the throne. "You said yourself that the Malfoys have not always been like this. And Harry is not evil. The names of the Dark Child and the Light Child were formed centuries ago when a mystic quite a lot like Ginny foresaw the two of you being born. Draco was called the Light and Harry was called the Dark because of their appearances, and the fact that they were opposites, as different as Night and Day. Voldemort assumed wrong when he decided that Light meant good –like Harry's family- and Dark meant bad –as the Malfoys were considered to be- for that is not always the case."

We had done what the Mystic had wanted us to do. We had indeed found the Child of Light.

I looked down at Tom's body. I felt such sorrow for him – for that boyish face that looked so peaceful in death. "Slytherin…I don't understand Tom Riddle. How did he become Voldemort? Sometimes he seemed so vulnerable. I mean, honestly fearful and wanting to be good."

Slytherin gazed at the dead boy. "That child was not born evil. At sixteen, he was very good. But he was lonesome, and hungry to be noticed. He wanted love and attention, and he turned to the wrong source for it. As Mr. Potter stated, power does not give you love. He did many horrible things, but inside he was always the scared and unloved child you see before you. Do not hate him. There are many others to do that for you."

Harry and I were silent, absorbing what Slytherin had just told us. Harry eventually cleared his throat. "But what happens now?" he asked. "Ginny still has the Soul of the Murderer in her and we have no way of getting it out. And what about the destiny that the Mystic mentioned? What happens to Draco and me now?"

"The Child of Light and the Child of Dark are said to be the most powerful wizards in the world. I do not see the two of you lording over others such as kings, but I see you doing much good in the world. You will be very powerful, but you will always use it for good, and not evil. Ginny will advise you further."

I looked towards Ginny where she was still slumped on the floor. "Oh, no!" I ran to her and took her hand. "Will she be all right? How do we get this Soul out of her?"

Slytherin gestured to the Souls that still flew around above us. "I believe I have what you are looking for." He extended a hand towards Ginny and her body took on a golden glow. One by one, Souls were extracted from her body and took their place in the Hall again. "I was the one who had the Souls fly into her body to overpower the Soul of the Murderer when Tom Riddle took over my powers. I also took the liberty of providing her with something that she will need in the future. The Soul of the Mystic must combine with hers. That is her destiny, as yours is to become the most powerful wizards. She is to become a great Mystic and help you with your tasks."

I wrinkled my nose. "Do you mean like Trelawney?"

I think the old spirit chuckled softly. "Perhaps, although I doubt anyone could possibly be quite that misty. She will still be the Ginny you love, only she will have heightened powers of Seeing. It is the way things are, and she knows it. I have nurtured her Soul since it arrived here."

My heart leapt. "Is it here? Where is it? Can't we put it back in her body yet? I miss her so much…"

As I spoke, a small golden Soul dropped down from the others and hovered in front of me. I gasped. "It was you! It was you the whole time!" Indeed, it was the Soul that refused to leave me alone while I was busy catching the Soul of the Murderer. It was my beloved Ginny's Soul. Why couldn't I have seen?

"You were still too influenced by Tom Riddle to see," said Slytherin, apparently reading my mind. "But go now and return it to its rightful owner."

I reached out my arms lovingly to embrace the Soul. "Come to me now. Please come home!"

The Soul flew into my arms and I held it tightly in my grasp, laughing and crying all at the same time. I moved to Ginny and gently set it on her chest. It sunk into her body and her eyes opened a moment later. They were clear and very much her own. "Draco?" A delighted smile crossed her face. "Draco!" She flung her arms around my neck and she started to laugh. I held her tightly and Harry joined us a minute later, also wrapping his arms around us. We were all whole again and finally safe.

I turned to look at Slytherin. "Thank you, oh thank-" But he had disappeared, vanishing into nothing. Nevertheless, I smiled. He knew. I know he knew.

Harry looked towards Tom's body. "What do you think?"

"I think we should take him back with us and give him a proper funeral. He's not Voldemort anymore, but Tom Riddle, the lonely orphan. He was good when he died, and he needs a good farewell."

Harry nodded and went to lift his battered body. Ginny gazed at him sadly. "Poor Tom. He had good in him, didn't he? I know he did."

I put a hand on her shoulder. "Yes. He did have good in him."

Then the three of us started the long trek back to our waiting lives.

**~~~~~**