Chapter Eleven: The Dragon and the Dark Lord

She pressed her eyes tight shut, trying to flush the sting of tears, sweat and fog. Swallowed blood churned in her stomach, and, for the first time in two years, she felt as though she would vomit from fear and roiling adrenaline.

"Draco," she gasped as he wrung her arm particularly hard.

His warm grasp reminded her of the last time he'd held her, in the guttering chaos of the ballroom, dancing, spinning. The world spun again now, but in waves of black and white.

He breathed in sharply, and she understood. Her voice hurt him. Pricked him. He pushed her forward. "Move!"

Weak and dizzy, she crashed to the earth, pain shooting up her torn and bloodied arm.

He must have seen the Heart by now. He must be coming. Must be.

She attempted a raw whisper but before she could say anything, she was doubled over, coughing up thick, black blood, wretching violently.

Her mind no longer registered the shadows shifting in the distance, the shade of Draco heavy across her back, the fog thick like cotton in her mouth. Her guts flowed out of her, and with them, all her strength to fight. Eyes close to the earth, she struggled to keep breathing, longed to give in to the encroaching, hypnotic darkness.

The world spun. She had felt this wretching sickness before, her face over the fire, hot, afraid, a circle of shades surrounding her, watching like black statues. That had been the beginning. This, it seemed, was the end.

Now only the faint silhouette of trees encircled her, observing as impassive and silent as those shrouded sentinels.

She swallowed a mouthful of fog before heaving once more. Sweat and dew dripped down the tip of her nose, and she struggled to snatch back some of her former strength. She couldn't just give in, not so easily.

He's coming, Lili. He's trying to find you. Scream. Scream.

Shaking, she drew her head up as far as she could and screamed.

Draco's hand clapped over her mouth immediately. "Shut up! Shut up or I'll help you shut up--and it won't be painless." But he couldn't maintain his hold on her, her mouth, and his wand, and, as soon as he moved his fingers, she tried again.

She didn't manage more than a gurgling before her stomach revolted once more, spasming painfully. She shuddered, trying to breathe.

"There. Now that ought to teach you to be quiet." He tried again to move her forward but she had become lead weight. 

If you're going to take me, it won't be easy. You'll have to curse me. You'll have to hit me. You'll have to prove that you can do this… She opened her dry lips, only to feel the fog still clogging her mouth.

"Come on!" He shoved at her again, and she fell forward again. He swore.

"Move! Or I'll curse you, I swear!"

Her back was still to him, and she was glad. She had no desire to see that face. She knew every line, every shadow of the sneer. It was Lucius Malfoy's, eyes like glass and, behind them, a soulless void.

For all your hopes that he would be different…

She shut her eyes, wondering if she'd have the strength to open them again. "Then go ahead and curse me. You wouldn't have saved me if you—wanted me dead that badly—"

"I saved you because the Dark Lord wanted you alive. I saved you so I could take you back to him and gain favor," he hissed, grasping her arm roughly, dragging her up from the soft, wet earth. Despite herself, she whimpered as he moved his lips once more to her ear, breath hot. "After this battle, my family will be the most powerful in the world. And I'm not going to jeopardize that power for some ugly little traitor like you."

He kissed her lightly on the ear, then pushed her forward again.

She stumbled but this time remained upright. It was hardly possible to grasp what he'd said, and, in her struggling heart, she refused to hear it. Those were the words of his father. That wasn't Draco. It couldn't be. Not the Draco who'd laid beside her in Serpent's Tower, talking and watching the moon sink out of the sky. This was Draco the scared, the frantic—the Draco she'd seen so happy to be called to a Death Eater meeting. This was his father's Draco and the one she'd always feared would inherit his heart in the end.

"Power?" Her voice shook, but she forced it to steady. "What power? Things will be just as they are, Draco; following every order, every decree of your father."

She expected another blow or shove, but nothing came.

"It will be just the same. No freedom, no power. Lucius will control you, he and the Dark Lord." Blood trickled into her stomach, burning like brandy. "And the Dark Lord doesn't share power—only responsibility and pain." Her throat constricted, and for a desperate moment, the sorrow stopped all breath. "Pain."

And the pain came rushing back to her, like racing horses trampling her heart. That night, locked in the dark rooms of Malfoy Manor, skin burning: her freedom had collapsed, her heart dried to dust. She could only cling at the mockery of life. Suddenly, it didn't seem like much to lose.

But Severus. Maybe. Maybe one blessing in a long list of the pains the Dark Lord had brought her…

Trying to hope that Snape was on his way, she drew all her strength in a long breath and turned to meet Draco's face.

The face she met was not Lucius Malfoy's. The anger traced in the lines of his brow, the flash in his icy eyes was not deep, cold malice but an anger shallow and hot, still malleable on the anvil. It spoke to her clearly, explaining every cruel word. She had been on his side, and now, she had turned, abandoned him to all the forces that threatened to destroy him, just as they had rent her heart in two. The Death Eater arose because she, the last true friend of the real Draco, had turned out a traitor.

She had met the real Draco in her first few days at Hogwarts. He had saved her from herself. He sat and petted Artibius in the Slytherin common room. Under the Quidditch post, he'd asked her to the Yule Ball, pale eyes draped in winter shadows. His gentle kiss, a farewell, a resignation. His hands on her bare shoulders, his hands in hers as they danced.

No. She refused to believe that he would be the one. Anyone but him. Any of the others could carry her off, they could tear her, torture her, rape her, kill her.  But it couldn't be him.

She saw him watching her through the glass of his eyes, but it was not the soulless void of his father beyond. He seethed and writhed, and she wished, suddenly, that he'd never happened upon her--that she'd died in the jaws of the werewolf, and she'd never had to stand and look at him across the distance of their tragic lives.

"Draco, you can make a choice now. Please. You can let me go if it's what you want. You have that choice. Right here, right now, there's no one to stop you. It's your choice." She watched him, wondering, as she always had, what he would choose when, at last, life forked irrevocably.

The seething behind his eyes seemed to swell. He pushed his wand sharply into the base of her neck.

"A choice?" he mocked, nostrils flaring. "I have a choice?" He set his jaw strong for a long while, trying to steady himself.  "No, Lili. You had a choice. I warned you not to get involved with Snape. I knew you couldn't be a traitor. I knew it. I knew who you were, what you were. I knew you were loyal. And then my father gave you a chance tonight, a chance to prove yourself. I knew you'd prove me right. I knew you wouldn't betray everything you'd told me, everything you'd been." He swallowed, and, for a moment, his glassy eyes shook faintly, white fog gleaming off them like the shadow of tears. "But you made this choice, Lili. Not me. You made this choice when you apparated off the Manor, when you betrayed us all. Your choice, not mine."

"What choice did I have?" she could barely whisper, meeting his eyes and seeing there not hate but the soft ache of pain. Her heart squeezed, as if he held it between his gritted teeth. She wanted to grab him, to run away with him and explain everything. To tear open her heart and show him all the pulls and tugs, the excruciating weaknesses. And the love. The love she had for him. And the love she had for Severus.

Severus. He hadn't come--and likely wouldn't. Perhaps he was wounded, perhaps dead. Perhaps he was groping through the fog trying to find her.

In the flash of a second she considered the "choice" she'd made. The choice to abandon her playing at Death Eater games to warn them—to be with him. She imagined marching on the castle, meeting him on the field. She might have lived. She might have lived a life of the power Draco sought.

But-- the flush of lightness as he set his fingers on hers. His tiny upturned smile. His arms entangling her in his robes, against his solid warmth.

She wouldn't have traded it for all the world. For all the power and the politics and the peace in the world.

"What choice did I have?" Her voice was suddenly strong and gentle, wanting to call him out with her eyes. For a quick, unblinking moment, she saw a shudder of uncertainty in that sea of steel. "What wouldn't you do to save Dia? What wouldn't you do to see her one last time?"

The air smelled heavily of sweat. They watched each other for a long while, gaze for gaze.

No, it wasn't Lucius Malfoy's face. It was Draco's. She'd always felt something more in his gaze, and she felt it again now, almost dead, smothered by all he'd inherited from life. He was watching her, and she knew he was remembering too. The Yule Ball, she tried to remind him with her eyes. Flying around the Manor, seeing who could get the closest to the treetops without making a leaf fall. It was impossible to forget.

It was also impossible to forget, however, that his wand was still pressed lightly against her throat, his eyes still fixed on her as cold and harsh as the pale fog.

 "Lili—You know—I'm taking you. I can't—"

Her stomach lurched as, in her breast pocket, the Bleeding Heart began to shake violently.

Snape came crashing through the fog, wand drawn.

"Severus! Don't!"

But Draco had jerked her to him, wand pressed at her neck with bruising, trembling ferocity.

The world lurched into stillness again, and the two wizards stared at one another, both unblinking, both seething.

"If you curse me, I'll take her with me," Draco snapped, taking a step back and pulling her along.

"Severus. It's okay. Don't hurt him."

Snape took a step forward to match theirs, and she noticed a long, thick gash across his cheek. She tried to reach out towards him, but Draco pinned her arm back against her side.

"I'm okay. It was just a branch." His eyes remained, unwavering, on Draco's.

"Give me your wand, Professor."

Snape made no attempt to drop his wand. "Let her go."

It was a tone she'd never heard from him before. It was the same--low, silk--but the threat was sharper. It shook her heart with fear, and she knew Draco felt it too, his grip on her arm quivering.

"I will kill her. Give me the wand."

A long silence. In the distance, she could hear the battle raging. Screams, crashing. She wondered vaguely about the castle, about the reinforcements, about the students. For several moments, she had forgotten the world crumbling to dust around them, the crackle and snapping of twigs exploding continuously like artillery shells.

The muted sounds of battle were broken by a heavy clunk on the ground.

Snape's wand lay still against the damp, black earth.

"Alright, Draco," he said, gliding forward, wandless, eyes sliding alternately over Draco's wand and her face. "Take me. I'll go with you to the Dark Lord. I'm the one he really wants anyway. And, in return, you let her go. No one will know, and you'll still get the honor of bringing in a traitor."

"No," she objected and with such force that both Snape and Draco seemed taken aback. Snape's black eyes turned on her, and he looked suddenly betrayed.

She understood his intentions. By now, she wasn't even surprised by the proposed sacrifice. But, she thought resolutely, she refused to fight free from the shadow and then, in the end, lose the one thing she knew made all the fighting worthwhile.

 "I won't let you do that, Severus. Either both or none. I won't – I couldn't run knowing—what you would have to—suffer--"

"Come on, Draco," Snape interrupted, trying to take Draco back, drowning her quiet, rasping voice in his. His eyes met the young wizard's, steady, his face suddenly fiercely passionate, hypnotizing. "We know the politics. Take me. Turn her out. I'll tell them how you caught me trying to run. It will mean a good deal for you…"

Lili's heart quivered, cracking from pounding blood. Draco was trembling now, his wand knocking against her collarbone, his breaths short, and uneven.

"Favor."

He was fighting with something, and she could feel it in the shivering heat of his grip. She could hear his dry swallowing, and knew he was approaching the decision he'd been trying to avoid. His head turned from Snape, as if he wanted to examine both roads before choosing.

"Power…" Snape hissed at him, soft, low.

She closed her eyes, her body shaking beside his. There was a stop in the sounds of the world, and she could feel, as the earth seemed to breathe in, that it was time. Draco had to make the decision.

His hot arms released her and pushed her away, tumbling forward into Snape's arms.

No one moved.

Draco made no move at all. He merely stared back at Snape, gray eyes burning, vividly reflecting the white fog. It took her only a  moment's glance to know which Draco had won the battle.

"I don't want that power," he mumbled, stooping for a moment to recover Snape's wand and offer it back.

He'd made the choice. He made the choice she hadn't dared to hope for...…

Shock shot through the Potion Master's face, and Lili felt her heart shivering in a sea of pounding heat.

"You'll want to head west," he continued, smoothing at his robes and tucking his wand away, trying to reassure them and ignore the look of awe on Snape's face. "It's the weakest point in the line. After that—" He sighed. "Who knows."

Lili could no longer hold in the tears, burning in her stomach exploding up her body, and her sobbing caused both men to turn suddenly. She couldn't tell—nor did she care to—why she was crying. Her heart seemed to be bursting with so many different emotions, she felt as though at any moment, she might tip from sobs to laughter.

Draco had chosen. She had asked for a miracle, and this, she understood, was it. The Draco she saw was the same as the Snape she'd seen—a man, freed of his shackles, revealed. Surprised, overjoyed, relieved, she threw her arms about his neck, wetting his ghostly skin with her tears.

For a short second, she felt his hand tapping, light on her back, then he pushed her away, face composed, eyes cool.

"Both of you, go. Leave. Before I change my mind."

They were harsh words but edged with the tight tremble of tears stopped in his throat.

She met his gray eyes, and, all at once, she didn't think she could run. Not five minutes before, it was all she'd wanted. Now, she remembered what he'd done for her, three years ago, when she'd been lost.

And again he saves you, Lili. How can you run and leave him to this, victory or none?

"Draco, come with us. Please."

He looked back at her with a wan smile, and she knew that even Draco's true self couldn't take that last step. "No, Lili. I don't want to go. But you should. And you should hurry. Everyone is looking for you…"

She watched him close, heart thudding slowly like a bass drum against her stomach. The floating shadows in his eyes were the same she'd seen three years earlier, when he'd kissed her goodbye. He would let them go, but he knew. He knew he was sunk into the morass and wasn't trying, as she was, to struggle free.

Goodbye, Draco. Goodbye.

She wiped at her cheeks, glancing over at Snape questioningly. He nodded, and she took his long, cool hand, heading for the west. The fog lay before them, a void of white.

"Don't move!"

Lili wrenched Snape's hand, trying to break into a run, but he stood still, rooted in place. His black eyes narrowed as only one voice in the entire world could make them. It echoed again as she jerked harder, trying to pull him away.

"Don't move, any of you!"

With a jolt, Lili recognized it. Deeper, more ragged, but familiar.

She and Snape turned to see the tall, tousle-haired wizard standing thin against the fog, Draco pulled tight and helpless.

"Potter." Snape took a step forward, gripping his wand more tightly.

The young man looked haggard, his glasses cracked down the left lens, but the fierce spark in his green eyes and the smooth strength in his voice reminded her of their partnership in potions—it seemed ages in the past. She glanced to Draco, his pale eyes wide with rage, his muscles straining against his captor.

Lili met Harry's cracked gaze. "Potter—Harry—let him go. He was willing to do the same for us."

Harry's eyes drifted to Snape but returned quickly to Lili, finding her gaze less threatening. "I was told that you two were on our side. I didn't expect to find you making deals with your old Death Eater friends on the battlefield."

A growl shook in Snape's throat, but Lili squeezed his hand for silence. It wouldn't do either of them any good to go cursing the Ministry's star Auror.

"It wasn't a deal. He let us go out of friendship. We should be willing to do the same."

Harry's face contracted the way Olivia's did when Lili said the Dark Lord's name. His grip on Draco tightened, and Draco snarled, trying to wrench himself free.

"Friendship? You expect me to believe, after seven years of this bastard's insults—cruelty—smarmy prejudice—that he just shook your hands and let you go out offriendship?" He chuckled derisively. "I can think of a likelier explanation, and I'll be sure and pass it on during your trials."

Draco's resistance slowed, and, eventually, the pale wizard gave up his struggle. Lili searched his face, looking for some explanation of this halt, but his eyes merely looked dead, resigned.

"You're an even bigger fool than I thought, Potter," Snape hissed, stepping forward and causing Harry to shuffle back. "You can't stop to think that maybe, just maybe, people can change? You really are as simple-minded as your buffoon of a father. You had better be willing to give people a second chance, Potter, or Fate may be reluctant to offer you one."

Harry's eyes widened and, apparently taking this as a threat, he flicked his wand so fast, neither Lili nor Snape had a chance to react. Snape's wand lifted from his hand, flying across to the young wizard's waiting grasp. Snape cursed.

Harry's hands wrestled through Draco's robe, pulling his wand from its folds. "I'll give this bastard more mercy than I could have expected," he spat, pushing Draco to the ground and grinding his foot into the small of his captive's back. "More mercy than my parents got. I'll bind him and take him to be held. He should be glad I don't kill him."

Draco's gray eyes looked up at her from the dirt so pale and pained she wondered if this was true.

Harry extended his wand and pointed it, stiff, at the back of Draco's head.

Draco squeezed his eyes closed, betraying a tear.

His words came to her, echoing over the sound of her taut muscles. I knew who you were, what you were. I knew you were loyal.

And now she knew what he was—and she'd be sure Potter knew it too.

Both she and Snape leapt forward at once, swiping for the wand, but it jumped out of their grasp. In fact, it jumped out of Harry's hand.

Snape's wand jumped next. Then Draco's. Both whizzed through the air, disappearing into the fog behind them.

At first the white seemed as dead and impassive as ever, the sound of several explosions the only movement sifting through the wall of mist. But now it had come alive, ghostly shifting crackling over the distant rumble of battle. The silence began to tear, the weight of a thin, serpentine form slithering through the dewy air, parting the gray like a gossamer curtain. She felt it slice through the walls of her frail heart.

The pain in her arm returned to her, and again her stomach revolted.

Voldemort stood tall, looking down at Harry, cackling as the young wizard cradled his head desperately.

She didn't need to see them to know that the wands were gone—snapped.

Snape grabbed at her hand, and she thought she would scream. The cold, hard metal of the ring pressing on her palm seemed to burn. Her knees were weak, and her feet melted into the damp dirt. When the Dark Lord's eyes met hers, she felt the darkness gripping up her again.

The thin, veined flesh of his face stretched into a smile.

"Miss Lee, Severus-- how very good to see you—alive." His red eyes turned, flaming, to Harry. "And in such pleasant company."

In the distance, Lili heard an explosion, as the Astronomy Tower crashed to the earth. The world was tumbling around her, and his shadow pressed down, crushing her hope.

Her cheeks were burning, her body's pain frantically working to pull her away into the bliss of unconciousness.

For all the good in Draco's heart—for all that had happened—

A miracle crushed by an Auror and a Dark Lord.

Dead in the dew.

Her skin stung with beating blood, and she barely felt Voldemort's spidery hand as it gripped her face, pulling her eyes up to his. He devoured her fear.

"Now we can settle this. Once and for all."

The thin line of Voldemort's wand traced around the base of her neck, raising painful goose flesh.

All her freedom, her wretched life, her hope, she laid to the ground, dead in the dew.

His words returned to her from a world that seemed long past, and she knew it was time to stop fighting.

Hope, Miss Lee, is a fool's drug.

She squeezed Snape's hand, warm and trembling, and shut her eyes, ready for shaking white of pain.