Disclaimer: Don't own the story, blah blah, has same sex relationships, blah blah, this chapters features a lot of death, blah blah.
A/N: Thank you so so so much to everyone who has reviewed!! The reviews mean a TON to me, and I love each and every person who reviews. *mwah!!* And had to repost this chapter because since I write my chapters in sections I forgot a couple sentences at the beginning!! Sorry!
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Voldemort seemed to draw great enjoyment from seeing the look on Draco's face. He turned to Blaise, pointed his wand at him, and said "Abduvox." As Draco watched with wide eyes, Blaise opened his mouth and out slipped a thin, almost invisible golden curl of smoke. Voldemort used his wand to coax it over to Snape, who opened his mouth and swallowed it. Then he turned to Voldemort and bowed.
"Thank you, m'lord," he said. Draco felt sick, and swallowed a wave of vomit.
After Snape had regained his voice, he slipped back into line, throwing Draco a sympathetic look. Blaise remained where he was, and Voldemort turned his head to look at his captive.
"Mr. Zabini brings me a story, and I would like to ask one of my newest comrades to verify his tale." Neither his voice nor his smile betrayed the anger that glinted in those red eyes. Draco was still staring at Blaise, knowing what Blaise had told Voldemort. "Mr. Zabini has informed me that you might have carried on a..." the smile faltered, and those in the circle shifted uncomfortably. Voldemort's face was twisted in a sort of grimace. "He has informed me that you might have carried on a...relationship...with a certain person..."
Voldemort turned sharply, and in the moment when he called forward Lucius Malfoy and when he turned back, Draco fell quickly. Catching him only centimeters from the ground, Voldemort couldn't even seem to force a cackle. Lucius stepped forward and lowered his hood, his eyes looking anywhere but at Draco.
"Lucius," said Voldemort, "I've already spoken to you of the accusation brought against your son. What do you say to it?"
"That," said Lucius, looking up at Draco with cold, unfeeling eyes, "is not my son." Voldemort smiled at Draco and nodded Lucius back into line.
Voldemort looked tired of the foreplay, and said sternly, "Draco Malfoy, Blaise Zabini has come to me saying you carried on a romantic relationship with none other than Harry Potter, and have been passing information learned at these meetings to Dumbledore and other Ministry officials. Do you deny this?"
All of a sudden, Draco felt very tired, but almost relieved. Life had thoroughly exhausted him, and all the sneaking around, all the fighting, all the second-guessing had built up to this, and if he died in the next fifteen minutes, it would be okay. Death was almost welcome.
His silence was his answer. There was some murmuring around the circle, and Voldemort's eyes flashed. "Are you perhaps going to tell me of your deep plan to gather as much information as possible then pass it on?"
To his surprise, Draco found his voice long enough to say, "No" in a miserable, dejected tone.
"So you admit to this accusation?"
Was there any point in fighting it? Blaise was making motions at him, looking as if he was regretting his decision to turn Draco in. Too late for that. "Yes," he whispered, and this set off the circle, who all shouted in derision.
Instead of instantly killing Draco, Voldemort nodded stiffly. Draco thought that perhaps he would live through the next few seconds, when Voldemort flicked his wand.
Draco shot backwards, the bindings holding him breaking but not in time to prepare him before he struck a tree with the force of a swing from the Whomping Willow. His leg snap like a twig and he plummeted to the ground. His shouted with pain as his leg crumpled beneath him, then he rolled onto his back and took great gasps of breath. The circle had parted, allowing Voldemort to walk and stand over Draco.
"I will teach you to betray me," he whispered venemously, and he raised Draco into the air again. He floated him back into the middle of the circle and pointed his wand at him. He looked at Blaise, who was pale and shaking, and said, "Now." Blaise stepped forward to Draco, who was mere centimetres off the ground, and could look him in the eyes.
"You bastard," he whispered. Blaise reached up and pulled a single hair from Draco's head.
"If only you had kissed me back," said Blaise, so faintly Draco barely heard him.
While Blaise had been taking the hair, Snape had stepped forward and given Voldemort a goblet that Blaise dropped the hair into. With a glance back at Draco, Blaise took the goblet from Voldemort's hands and downed it.
Draco watched with growing apprehension beneath the pain vibrating from his leg as Blaise bent over and his features began to morph. His hair switched sharply from his black to Draco's white blonde. Ever so subtly, he shrank a few inches, and when he looked up, Draco was staring into his own eyes.
Then Voldemort approached Draco, pointed his wand at Draco's mouth and said, "Abduvox." Something rose from Draco's throat, and pressed against his lips. He had barely opened them when a gold wisp of smoke slipped from them. It traveled over to Blaise, who opened his mouth and swallowed the wisp.
Then he said, "Should I go now?" except it was Draco's voice that came out. Voldemort nodded, and Blaise turned and walked towards the house. The attention shifted back to Draco, who was beginning to feel faint from the pain in his leg. The skin around the break hurt like hell, and he figured that a shard of bone must have pierced the skin. But nothing hurt as much as the way his mind was screeching, every nerve ending yearning to fly to Harry and warn him. He could only pray that Harry would refuse to talk to him.
"We can only hope Mr. Zabini brings Mr. Potter back soon, for your sake and his." There was a pause, and Draco wondered whether he would be expected to hang here and make small talk while he waited for Blaise to bring back Potter so he could watch his boyfriend die.
Voldemort lazily raised his wand and said carelessly, "Crucio." The pain that had been in Draco's mangled leg managed to spread all over his body, and he writhed and squirmed. But try as he might, he couldn't scream. His mouth opened and his lungs emptied, but no sound came.
"Did you think you were going to get away with this? This is an atrocity!" In a small act of either distraction or mercy, Voldemort had let Draco fall to the ground as he walked around him. "I was thinking you would be a good addition to our band of merry men, but I was sorely mistaken." He kicked Draco onto his back. "You instead become the worst sort of traitor. You not only fraternize with the enemy, you sleep with the enemy!" Every time he ended a sentence, Voldemort kicked Draco hard in the stomach, where the scars of his own doing still lingered.
Out of a pocket in his robes, Voldemort drew the saber Lucius had given Draco, and he crouched beside Draco. Draco curled away from him, wishing he could die right then so he didn't have to feel anything anymore. Voldemort turned him back, and placed the razor sharp tip against the skin just below Draco's hairline.
"You should share something with Mr. Potter," Voldemort said quietly, then drew a jagged line across the clear skin. Gasping in pain, Draco tried to push the slender fingers away from the skin that danced with fire as the knife easily slit it.
When Voldemort pulled away, he had drawn a crude lightening bolt on Draco's forehead. He stood, and walked to the center of the circle, which closed back to its original form, leaving Draco to lie, dying, on the forest floor.
Draco could hear Voldemort briefing the Death Eaters on what they should be doing whilst he dealt with Harry, but it seemed so foreign to Draco, who was trying to desperately remember to breathe in and out.
The minutes slipped by, and Draco was staring at the stars, searching for constellations, thinking he saw his mother up there. 'Take me home,' he prayed silently to her, but the stars only winked at him cruelly.
Sudden commotion made Draco move his head slightly, and he saw the circle part to allow Blaise as Draco to drag an unconcious Harry into the circle and throw his body at Voldemort's feet. Voldemort looked at Blaise with a sort of psychotic pride, and motioned for him to take a place in the formation.
Voldemort pointed his wand at Harry and said a spell that Draco could only hear as a mumble of incoherency. His eyes were trained on Harry as he slowly awoke, and took in the scene. When he realized where he was, he tried to crawl backwards, and to reach for his wand, but Blaise pulled it from his pocket, waved it at Harry, and handed it to Voldemort, who broke it on his knee and flung the pieces into the woods.
When the wand snapped, a small sound of shock escaped Harry's lips. This seemed to seal some sort of victory for Voldemort, who smiled winningly and put his hands in the air.
"Welcome, Mr. Potter! Its been so long. Old friends really should spend so much time apart, don't you think?"
Harry was struggling to his feet, obviously slightly weak-kneed from surprise and despair, and he fixed Voldemort with the most venemous look Draco had ever seen.
Blood from the cut on Draco's forehead seeped into his eyes, and he wiped at it with one dirty hand. His torn leg was completely useless, and he had to brace himself against the tree he had hit when he attempted to stand. Perhaps he could tackle Voldemort.
But he knew it was useless. He knew as he was standing on his one good leg and blinking away the small river of blood that ran from the gash on his forehead that neither he nor Harry would make it out of the night alive.
'Surely our presence at school will be missed!' Draco thought wildly, then realized he was very wrong. He was supposed to be sleeping and Harry was supposed to be at the meeting. No doubt Hermione and Ron would tell Dumbledore of the fight, and Harry and Draco's absences would be written off as nothing more than a lover's tiff.
Draco picked a stick off the forest floor, and in a moment of extreme braveness and extreme stupidity, he beamed it at Voldemort. It missed the Dark Lord's head by mere centimetres, and Voldemort spun around to seek the culprit. Harry also looked, but at that moment he was caught from behind by Wormtail, Voldemort's brown-nosing assistant. He was tied to a tree and blindfolded.
"Mr. Malfoy!" Voldemort admonished Draco sharply. "You wait your turn for death!"
This could not be real, not in Draco's wildest dreams or most frightening nightmares. Draco felt himself being picked up and thrown back again, and this time when he hit the tree, he fell and couldn't move.
"My god, my spine has finally broken," Draco mouthed, trying to regain his breath and sense of reality.
Whether it was the significant amount of pain he was in, or whether is the last fragments of his life grasping onto memories, he saw his mother. She was saying something but he couldn't hear it. All he heard was the slow beating of his heart. He had split into two versions on his self--one still laid on the forest floor, in pain, in the last seconds of his life, while the other was standing before his mother. Except she had a porcelein doll look about her, not at all like the mother he knew, but he still reached for her.
"I want to die, I want to die," Draco sobbed. His mother shook her head and retreated.
The two halves Draco had become came sharply together as something heavy hit his good leg. He looked down and saw that Harry and been thrown against the same tree. He was on all fours, shaking his head. Then he glanced up.
He and Draco locked eyes. Harry looked shocked, but Draco could see how his eyes were sliding in and out of focus, as were Draco's, and there was an odd knowing between the two of them that the other was dying. There was no room for anger, or even love.
Someone pulled Harry away then, and Draco heard Voldemort say, "Good-bye. Any last words?"
Where he got the strength, Draco never knew, but suddenly he was dragging himself through the legs of the circle, which was coming apart as everyone prepared for the killing curse and the death of their greatest enemy.
A sixteen year old boy. The absurdity of it all was killing Draco as much as his wounds. But he was drawing nearer to the spot where Harry was lying, prone, having given up when he hit the tree. Draco pulled in front of Harry, then tried to stand, and could only manage to kneel, which was as painful as anything else.
His body language told Voldemort that he would have to get through Draco to kill Harry. Voldemort was silent for a moment, then raised his wand, fully willing to kill Draco.
The forest exploded.
Shouts filled Draco's failing ears as a large mass of wizards stormed into the clearing. Shots of red light streamed from the wands of the Aurors, who had come by miracle. They charged at the Death Eaters who were desperately trying to Apparate before their capture.
Draco collapsed.
It was too much, and there was so much commotion his head couldn't handle it anymore, so he fell to the ground.
His face was close to Harry's. Harry's eyes were blinking lazily, but he saw Draco. They stared at each other, then Harry's hand snaked out and found Draco's, and clasped it.
It wasn't clear if Harry even knew who he was holding on to. He had just needed someone's touch, a friendly heart somewhere in all the noise and pain.
So Draco held his hand.
He knew no more.
Try to hold on
a little bit longer
try to hold on
to this love aloud
try to hold on
for this heart's
a little colder
try to hold on
to this love
and we are still alive
try to hold on
and we have survived
try to hold on
to this heart
