A/N from an eternally grateful writer who loves everyone who reads her stories:Thanks so much to the reviewers of the last chapter. I'm so touched that it touched you. ^.^ And if you REALLY want to get weepy, then you should listen to Smashing Pumpkins' "Try, Try, Try" and you can get the feeling of that chapter. Actually, you are hereby commanded by me to go and listen to that song while rereading chapter 25. Then you will understand. XD. And this is not the last chapter either. I seriously considered ending it at chapter 25, but for those of you who don't like happy endings, pretend that is the end. For those who love...slightly happier endings...keep reading until the end of the next chapter, which WILL be the last.
"I used to be a little boy
so old in my shoes
And what I choose is my voice
what's a boy supposed to do?
The killer in me
is the killer in you
my love
I send this smile over to you…"
--Smashing Pumpkins "Disarm"
Nothing permeated Draco's dreams. Sometimes he vaguely thought he heard someone whispering comforting words to him, but they melted into the gentle dream world he knew resided in. The voices all became Harry's, and the words all became whispers of love and good tidings.
Draco's mother was there too, and she only spoke of his childhood, and touched his face with much needed tenderness.
Draco never said anything. More and more people from his memory came and went, speaking of happy times only. It was warm and pleasant and Draco wanted to stay forever. He was so tired and surely this had to be heaven where he could linger in the place between sleep and consciousness.
Then Harry came again, dressed in his Quidditch robes, walking among the whiteness that Draco was so content to stay in. He saw Draco, and smiled, and walked towards him. It was that precious smile that Draco had fallen in love with, the one that played on his lips and sparkled in his eyes and that lit up his face.
Harry took Draco's hands, and Draco had dull flashes of memory of lying on the forest floor, holding those hands, but one touch of Harry's fingertips on Draco lips and the dreams fluttered away like sparrows. "You have to go back," Harry said, kissing his forehead.
"I don't want to," Draco replied, the first words he had spoken the whole time he had hovered in the clean room. "Let me stay with you."
Smiling angelically, Harry shook his head and said, "You don't belong here."
"I'm sorry, Harry, I'm sorry," Draco said so softly he wondered if Harry could hear.
"I know," Harry whispered, and then he faded away. Draco felt himself lie down onto the white floor and fade too.
When he eased his eyes open again, he had to squint as they adjusted to the warm flickering candle glow. As soon as he could, he took in the surroundings.
He was lying on clean sheets on a clean hospital bed. Someone had dressed him in a clean pajama set. It was quiet except for the soft breathing of other sleeping--or unconscious?--wizards.
Fringes of memories from before his sleep began to wink awake in his head. He wiggled her toes. There was no more broken bone stabbing through his skin. His back hurt slightly, but it was likely from lying down so long. And when he touched his forehead, it was bandaged and still throbbed under his touch.
He coughed slightly, then let out a little sound, and felt his heart rise when he realized it was his own voice.
The cough drew a nurse Draco had never seen before to his bed. "Hello, sleepy head!" she exclaimed cheerfully, coming to his bedside. She placed a hand on his forehead in a motherly manner.
"How do you feel?" she asked.
Thirsty," he croaked, and the woman handed him a glass of water. Draco gulped it down and settled back against his pillows.
"Now how do you feel?"
"Sleepy. My head hurts."
"You've got a nasty cut. It's going to scar."
"Why wasn't it healed?"
"You woke up when we carried you into the castle, and told us to heal everything ut that. Then you passed out. " She lifted a corner of the bandage, then pulled out her wand. "I can heal it now."
"No, no," Draco said. He didn't remember every waking up, or telling them anything, because he didn't even know who "they" were. But there had to be some reasoning behind his delirious decision.
She reached over and fluffed his pillow, for a second obscuring his vision with the whiteness of her uniform. "Who are you?" he asked. She patted his head.
"Madame Ava. Madame Pomfrey had a slight overload of patients, so she called in for some help from St. Mungo's." Draco closed his eyes for a mere second.
'You don't belong here...'
"Where is Harry?" Draco exclaimed. The nurse touched his cheek.
"Calm down," she said. Fear seized him.
"He's...please don't say he's..."
She put a finger to her lips. "He's alive. Unconscious, and both of you were very close to dying, but he is, and you are fine." Draco began to get out of bed, but she pushed him back down. "But you both need rest, and Dumbledore has asked to speak to you."
She left his bedside to retrieve Dumbledore, who was not very far off, for he came back soon. He smiled at Draco, who felt apprehensive and nervous underneath that cool blue stare.
"Sir, I swear, I had nothing to do with anything..." he began, but Dumbledore waved his hand.
"I am well aware of your involvement, or lack thereof, in the proceedings. Professor Snape kindly filled me in." Dumbledore smiled at him, and Draco settled back.
"Is Harry okay?" Draco asked. Dumbledore sighed.
"Harry is fine."
"He almost died, didn't he?" Draco whispered sadly.
"You both almost died. But you pulled each other over the finishing line, I think."
"No. He thinks I betrayed him."
"Professor Snape tells me that Voldemort offered to torture you in front of Harry, but Harry said he'd rather die first. So I think he still feels the same way he always did about you."
"Did Professor Snape tell you about Blaise? It's all his fault, this never would have happened if he hadn't gone to Voldemort. Did you get him? Is he in Azkaban?"
There was sadness in Dumbledore's eyes, and it quieted Draco. "He's dead, Mr. Malfoy."
The words entered Draco's head, but didn't register at first. As much as he hated Blaise, he suddenly realized it was really all his fault...he had pushed Blaise to his breaking point...
"How..." Draco tried to force it out, but he instead could only draw his knees up and lean over them as he cried. Blaise was only 15. It wasn't fair.
"Mr. Zabini unfortunately got caught in the crossfire from the wand of a Death Eater." Dumbledore put a calming hand on Draco's head, and was quiet as Draco cried himself out.
"My father?" Draco whispered, once he had regained some scrap of self-control. Dumbledore's expression told him everything.
"My father is dead, too," said Draco in a monotone voice. "He killed my mother, and now he's dead."
"It was Lucius Malfoy who killed Mr. Zabini as well," Dumbledore told him quietly. "We have a feeling he suspected Blaise of also having a relationship with you. Severus tells me that Lucius went into a sort of blind rage when he heard of Harry and you."
Tears welled in Draco's eyes. Everywhere, everyone he had touched were marked with a trail of blood. Dumbledore looked at him steadily.
"I would like your version of it."
"How long ago was it?" Draco asked.
"You've been out for four days."
"He kissed me," Draco said suddenly. "I should have told him not to, and told him about Harry, or pushed him away or done something, but I kissed back. And Harry saw us. That's why I wasn't at the meeting. Then Blaise came, but he was Professor Snape, and he took me back to my house and they told me they were going to kill Harry in front of me."
Then he slowly and painfully recounted what had happened in the clearing, and Dumbledore listened quietly, stopping him only once or twice to ask a question.
"How did you know to come?" Draco asked after he had finished his story and he and Dumbledore sat in silence.
"Professor Snape's Dark Mark changed in the middle of the meeting. We knew it meant he had to get to the clearing, and since we've known about the meetings at your manor for quite awhile, we were all surprised since it was unexpected."
"If you knew about the meetings," Draco interrupted, "why didn't you attack earlier?"
"And run the risk of so many deaths? We wanted to wait, to prepare, but this made it imperative for us to come in."
"How did you know to come?"
"We weren't going to when Severus left. However, Blaise came back as you and found Harry with Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley. He asked to speak to Harry, and something about him must've set an alarm off in Harry's head. He agreed to come, but he first scribbed a note to Mr. Weasley." He pulled out a scrap of parchment and handed it to Draco. Scrawled across it in Harry's hand writing was: Vol Tel Dmbl.
"Voldemort. Tell Dumbledore," Draco translated. Dumbledore nodded.
"Miss Granger figured it out and came to tell me. Naturally, it took me a little while to raise the alarm and to come get you."
"You came just in time," Draco said. "How did I get my voice back?"
"Once Mr. Zabini died, your voice came to find you." "How...sweet..." Draco said, but it was half-hearted. He was staring at the note. Three words. Three words had meant the difference between life and death for he and Harry. They had meant death for Blaise.
"How many people died?" asked Draco, scared of the answer.
This question made Dumbledore look old. "Three from our side. Seven from theirs."
"It's all my fault," Draco said miserably, looking forlornly at the note.
"No, it is not," said Dumbledore so sharply Draco looked up at him. "If one could look back on all one's mistakes and blame every event following it on themselves, then we would always live in regret and guilt. This is no ones single fault. This is the fault of many, not one single person."
Draco didn't respond, and Dumbledore instructed him--kindly--to get rest and to not worry, for he would be able to do the O.W.L.s he missed later. He was also told not to go see Harry, but he wasn't given a reason.
When Draco slept that night, he had a nightmare that all were lying to him, and Harry was really dead. He woke in a heavy sweat, his chest heaving, having spent the last hour staring at Harry's dead, empty face.
Carefully and ever-so-quietly. Draco crept from his bed and went in search of Harry's bed, and prepared himself to not find anything. A dark corner that was surrounded by curtains drew Draco to it, and he moved them aside.
Harry was lying on a bed similar to Draco's, and he seemed to just be sleeping. As Draco came closer, his shuffling steps awoke Hermione, who was sleeping in a chair beside Weasel, but she stayed quiet, embarrassed that she was witness to this, but morbidly interested in seeing what would happen. She nudged Weasel awake and put a hand over his mouth to keep him silent.
"Harry?" whispered Draco, his face inches from Harry's. With shaking fingers, he touched a small scrap under Harry's eye, then his nose, then his mouth. "I'm sorry. Can you hear me?" There was no response from the still form before him. "I'm so sorry, I didn't ever mean to harm you. If I could take it all back, I would. I would never have spoken to you in Madame Malkin's, I never would have teased you. I would rather have died than come to Hogwarts and harm you."
A tear dripped from his eyes. ran down his nose and hung there clumsily, but still he stared at Harry praying for some response. There was none.
"I'm sorry, please believe me. I want to take it all back, and I will." Then he touched Harry's lips. "As long as you'll leave me one kiss, and one smile." Then he softly kissed Harry's barely parted lips, leaving traces of his tears, and he left.
He didn't see Hermione wipe a single tear from her cheek, or Weasel blink back his own tears that he was too embarrassed to ever shed, and none of them saw Harry turn his head to watch Draco go.
A/N for updated chapter from the dork herself: Ah, the James thing. I apologize for that. See, I write sections of the story at school, and since they are frequently taken by teachers and read, I had to change names so that I didn't get made fun of by my teachers. Hence why Draco becomes Daria, Harry becomes James, Ron becomes Randall, Hermione is Haylee, Dumbledore is Davidson and so on and so forth. That's why sometimes I totally furk up my pronouns. Sorry! Thanks to Yellow Man for pointing that out to me! I'm not crazy I swear.
A/N from the never-ending mistake queen: ARGH!! *makes many an obscene gesture at computer* Why doth it always make me mess up?? Argh...it should be fine now.
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