Author: Dracos Diablos
Genre: Slash romance
Rating: PG -13
Warnings: This fanfiction contains slash/homosexual themes and some coarse language. Don't say I didn't warn you.
Disclaimer: Names, places, items or anything within this fic remotely connected to the world of Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling and affiliated companies. I own nothing. Except maybe the spell Laceratus, for which I claim to have made up and therefore you may NOT use it in your own fic. But JK can have it if she wants. ^_-
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I awoke sometime in the night. It was dark. Pitch black. At first I thought I was dead. And then a tremble of pain slithered up my elbow, reassuring me that I was very much alive.
I sat up and my eyes focused blearily on what appeared to be the Hospital Wing. Potter had rushed me to the infirmary. Normally I would have scoffed at such an act, but I was surprisingly grateful. And horrified as I remembered my stupidity.
Once you were the Dark Lord's property, you remained his.
I looked down at my arm and saw the white bandages wrapped tightly around my flesh, or what was left of it. The pain receded and throbbed dully.
It was then I noticed it. A figure, slumped in the chair next to the foot of my bed. I furrowed my pale brow in confusion. It was a ragged person, robes torn on one side. Messy black hair crowned a head that had slumped forwards onto its chest.
"Harry," I whispered, my heart stopping.
I crawled forward on my bed until I sat in front of him on the mattress, and prodded his shoulder.
He jolted awake.
"Draco… You're awake," he mumbled sleepily. His glasses were askew. I looked at the torn sleeve of his robes. He had done that to try and help me. To try and heal me.
"Harry…" I whispered. Overcome by gratitude and sadness, I threw myself at him.
He caught me smoothly, almost expecting it, and wrapped his arms around me, a large warm hand resting on my back protectively.
Burrowing my face into his shoulder, my arms around his neck, I began to weep.
I wept for the loss of myself. Because I had given it to Voldemort. Because Harry was my last hope. Because I was so scared. And more alone than I had ever been.
Tears sliding down my face, I began to realize what it was to feel like my soul was gone.
He held me until my tears were done, then let me settle back onto the mattress. He gave a small smile and looked at me. No pity, sympathy or regret did I see in his eyes.
Only…
Kinship. We were brothers. Only we knew what we were. The universe could not know how my heart almost gave way at that point. Harry and I? We were alone.
***
The weeks that followed were odd. One month had passed since the incident, and I now had two scars instead of one. A Dark Mark, and a livid red streak where my magic had cut deep, crossing diagonally across the black skull. Almost as if to say I rebelled Voldemort. It would not go unnoticed. I did not care.
I returned to an odd life. I was still a Slytherin, and so used was I to hiding my emotions, that they could not see how I had changed. I did not terrorize the students any longer. To be honest, I had no stomach for it anymore. I could handle it, but I wouldn't do it. I was not one of them anymore.
They noted my absence but did not remark on it. I did not care. They would never understand me.
Harry and I never spoke since that night. A part of me feared that he would tell the school and laugh it up that Draco Malfoy had lost his nerves of steel.
But he didn't.
Every now and then he would glance at me across the hall to see me chatting with the Slytherins. And he would see right through my walls. He knew that even surrounded by my housemates, I was still utterly miserable and alone.
His green eyes, lost for the lack of his godfather, sparked only when he looked upon me, when he watched me. Ready to pounce should another accost the already-tenuous healing process my soul was undertaking, Harry protected me. He knew me.
Only he could know, save perhaps Dumbledore. Indeed, once or twice at dinner I found the headmaster observing myself and Harry with great interest. This was enough for me to try and ignore Potter. If Dumbledore was getting ideas about us, then I was worried.
And so I stayed behind a wall that was solid to all save for two people.
Life continued.
It was one particular Charms class that it happened. We had doubled up with Gryffindor, and while trying to put up with Crabbe's horrendous spellwork, Harry passed my desk, heading towards Flitwick's desk. I watched him curiously; he had doubled up with that Granger, so why ask the help of a teacher?
Harry conferred with Flitwick for a few minutes, then turned around and began to walk in between the desks. As he reached mine, a strip of parchment slithered underneath my hand that was resting on the desk. His warm fingertips brushed the top of my wrist and skidded up my arm as he walked past me.
I shivered at the contact. Crabbe, still trying to locate his wand that had been blasted out of his hand a few minutes before by some mistake of his own, had noticed nothing.
I opened the piece of parchment to find a neatly written message, the handwriting neat but square:
"Meet me at the Quidditch pitch after dinner. Don't bring your broom."
I folded the parchment and tucked it into my breast pocket.
***
Just after dinner that evening, I entered the Slytherin common room, and walked into my dorm. I ignored Crabbe and Goyle and pulled off my robes and clothing underneath. Digging through the pile of clothing that was bulging out of my trunk, I pulled out a pair of black leather pants, and a slim grey t-shirt.
Who was I trying to impress, you ask? Certainly not Potter.
I picked up my wand, slipped it into a tight back pocket and traipsed out the door.
"Who are you going off to meet, dressed like that?" Blaise accosted me, coming back from wherever he had been. Most probably scaring the balls off some fifth years.
"Nobody. I'm off for a stroll, if you must know," I retorted with a smirk. Blaise backed off. Changed I might be but nobody would dare challenge a Malfoy. Inside I winced at my still-sharp spite.
I exited the Slytherin quarters, receiving a few approving looks from the Slytherin seventh-year girls. Not that I cared. My hair, now grown to my shoulders and hanging in terribly thin, silky blond locks, shone in the candlelight. Realizing I was probably late as usual, I jogged through the castle and out into the grounds.
My heart was pounding.
There was nobody on the Quidditch pitch. It was dark, the moon having just arisen. A tinge of maroon still stained the inky blue darkness. The night was fresh and new.
I took in a deep breath and strolled across the pitch, hands hanging loosely by my sides. A breeze stirred and lifted up my hair, my t-shirt rippling against my chest and belly. The cool air calmed me and my senses slowly sharpened as I took in the night. I heard him long before I saw him.
He approached me from behind.
"I'm glad you came, Draco," he called.
"Let's get one thing straight. You helped me out. You even held me while I cried in your arms. But that doesn't make me your friend," I replied, and turned to greet him. Harry was observing me carefully.
"But that doesn't mean I'm not grateful for what you did," I finished, and looked him up and down. He was out of uniform too, wearing baggy blue jeans and a black t-shirt that clung to his muscled form. Quidditch had benefited us both.
"Well, that's an improvement at least," Harry replied dryly, and strode towards me. I backed away a step.
"What's all this about?" I asked him carefully.
A flicker of unease showed on his face.
"What is it?" I repeated. I was curious, but I wouldn't let my walls down. Well, as many as I had around Potter.
"I … just wanted to know how you were doing lately, that's all," he said quickly.
I raised a pale, thin eyebrow.
You're a bad liar, Potter.
"If that's what you really wanted, you wouldn't have asked me out to the Quidditch pitch after dinner where no one could listen in. And you wouldn't be dressed like that," I replied, and nodded at his clingy t-shirt.
"And leather pants aren't as bad?" Harry replied with a smirk.
"Are you implying something?" I narrowed my eyes dangerously.
"Are you?" Harry replied, grinning at my slowly brewing anger. Oh, how he could tick me off so easily.
"Look, what do you want?" I asked tersely, and turned away from him, observing the empty stands. I waited for an answer.
"Draco…" he began, then sighed.
He walked up to me and stopped, standing just behind my right shoulder. I could feel the heat emanating from his body. He put a hand on my back comfortingly, his thigh brushing against the back of mine.
My body gave a very physical reply. Wearing leather pants was a mistake. But what the body wanted was not the same as one's mind. Besides, he was male. I wouldn't go that far across the line.
Refusing to turn around and let him see the reaction from our proximity, I asked him coldly, "What did you call me out here for, Potter?"
"Weren't we on a first name basis a month ago?" Harry replied coyly.
He was toying with me! Bitch!
"Are you going to answer my question?" I growled.
Inside, I was disturbed that he wasn't the same kind boy that had tried to stop me from ripping open my arm.
He gave a sigh and walked out from behind me, his hand falling from my back. I watched him walking towards the stands. He stopped and slipped his hands into his pockets. I folded my arms and waited. I gave a satisfied smirk as my body settled down. He didn't have that hold on me. Not yet.
Not ever, I corrected myself, horrified. I was not gay. Therefore would not be turned on by any male, least of all Harry Potter.
"I wanted to see you again. To be fully honest with you, since that night in the Hospital Wing, I've been terrified that you would forget all I had said and would return to scaring the shit out of the students with the other Slytherins. But you didn't. I'm proud of you, to say the least."
He turned around, wearing a sad smile.
"I just wanted to see you again, is all."
Ah. He hadn't changed. What a relief.
'I just wanted to see you again.' ….What do you really want, Potter?
"What's there to see?" I replied haughtily.
"A whole lot more than you think, obviously," Harry retorted with a playful smirk.
"What, so Saint Potter is homosexual now?" I replied darkly, unfolding my arms.
"Who knows? Certainly not I," he replied calmly.
I have no patience for this.
"Great. Well, now that you got to see me again, may I leave?" I asked, before turning around and beginning to walk away from him.
"Wait!" Harry called. I turned.
His face was hard to read.
"When can I … when can I see you again?" he asked desperately.
My heart softened. He appeared so afraid that I would mock him, degrade him for being so weak. Once, I would have done. But not now. Not after all he had done for me.
"Harry, why do you need to see me in private? I'm always in classes, or playing Quidditch, or walking around the school somewhere," I replied quietly.
At the use of his first name, he took it as a good sign and his confidence boosted. I could see that much.
"But talking to you then would be…public. People have noticed that you've left me alone, but Potter and Malfoy talking civilly? Walking around in one another's company? The type of ideas they'd get… Besides, seeing you around like that is so impersonal."
What do you really mean by that, Potter?
"Why the need to see me and talk to me so much? I told you - whatever passed between us was significant, but that doesn't make me your best friend," I replied shortly.
"You … really opened up to me that day, here on the pitch. You showed me who you really are. I haven't seen it since. Half of it, perhaps. But you're still not yourself," he finished.
So this is what you're after.
"I'm being nice to you now, aren't I?" I said.
"That's not what I meant! I saw the real you, Draco. I - saw - you. Ever since then you've hidden yourself and it was all my fault. I .. really like the real you," Harry said, then blushed and looked at his feet.
He broke a barrier. A part of my vigilance cracked and fell to dust. I watched him as he stared at his feet. Such a childish gesture, yet looking so good in those clothes and scruffy black hair.
My mind flinched and jolted away from the thought, even as the bulge in my pants threatened me once again.
"So what is the real me, then?" I asked carefully.
"The Draco you were on your broom, back on that day. Opening your shirt, letting the air play with your body, spiralling towards the ground better than I could have done. Not giving a damn about Slytherin. Or Voldemort."
Those days are lost to me, now.
"Ah."
"Draco, bring that side of you back! Carrying on like this, pretending to be who you're not.. you're confusing yourself! Please, just bring out the real you."
I stared at him as he looked up, eyes full of honesty.
He truly believed I had it in me.
"Harry... I will always, always be a Malfoy. I'll always bear that name in someway. The Slytherins think I'm a hero, more because of my lineage than deserving the title. Hell, I don't want to be the Dark Lord's pet… but I'm not as strong as you think I am, Harry. I can't be who you want me to be. Who once I had been. Those days…they're gone. My childhood is gone, and my childish dreams with it. All that is left, is my alliance with them," I choked out.
All of the fear and apprehension, and misgivings of my self-worth: it all came bubbling back in a mad furore and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
Tears leaked from my lashes, to patter onto my cheekbones. They were cold. So cold.
"Will I ever be warm again?" I whispered sadly, a finger brushing my pale skin, dampened by a tiny rivulet of woe.
"Of course you will," he replied, now standing directly beside me. He had put an arm around my shoulders without my noticing.
And so unlike the me that everybody knew, I gave a great gasping sob and turned into Harry's warmth, weeping against his chest once more.
"Oh Draco," was all he said, and wrapped his arms around me.
It was more the protection that he gave me, than affection for Harry that caused me to sink even further into his embrace, pulling down the shutter of Malfoy dignity.
He held me for the longest time. The night was blackened by the time I leaned away from him, face flushed.
Harry planted a kiss on my forehead.
"Just be who you are, and I promise you will always be able to rely on me. I promise."
Just such a small promise from him opened up such a massive gate in my heart, that I knew. I could never leave him.
As his enemy, I had been chained to him, all these years. It was my fault in the first place, back in my childish ignorance of our first year at Hogwarts. I had been the one to start our conflicting relationship. But even hating one another, it had brought a connection between us that nothing could break. Back then it had been hate.
And now?
Well, there was only one opposite of hate.
***
But I am not like my father. I am no coward. He may consider the Malfoys to be the property of the Dark Lord, but I beg to differ. I am mine. And nobody else's. The Dark Mark will bind me to no one. It's just a tattoo.
That statement followed me everywhere the next day. Resolved to change myself completely, I vowed to be unlike my line of fathers - to stand outside the veil of shadow and Darkness. Almost like a palpable aura, I was suddenly faced with all the things I had never been able to appreciate: solitude, good food and sleep, to name a few.
I found myself eating alone, arriving at the Slytherin table either very early or very late. I saw less and less of Slytherin, and more of Harry. Whether it was just in class, or in Quidditch practice (and even then I barely spoke to the Slytherins), I could always feel his eyes on me.
I admit that a big part of me tried to tear away, tried to throw my heart back into the hands of the Dark side - to be cold and unreasonable once more. But I just found that I couldn't do it. Not when the rest of me knew what I was throwing away; not when Harry was observing my every move.
But that wasn't unwanted. To find Harry dutifully keeping an eye on me, it reminded me how serious he had been. I found it to be more of a blessing than a curse - to know that still alone, I was not unappreciated.
Yet Slytherin house, right down to the first years, learnt to ignore me. They were still too afraid to rebuff a Malfoy outright - perturbed or not, my bloodlines were cleaner than any of theirs. They feared that. And left me alone.
Again, more weeks passed after my confrontation with Harry. It was one very late dinner that I sat alone in the Great Hall. My plate was the only one still left on the table, my goblet also; the House Elves still gave me a full array of platters to choose from, however. They could sympathize, minor as they were.
The Hall was very quiet.
I finished my meal, and the plates disappeared. I clutched my goblet, still half full, and looked into the pale, liquid contents. I gave a small sigh.
I missed Harry; missed his blushing admissions of friendship. Missed his vulnerabilities. Missed his equally strong side, his bravery, his protection that I seemed to love like a drug.
Damn.
My head fell forwards onto the wooden surface, the goblet tipping over, knocked off balance by my fingers. I heard it roll across the table before clattering onto the stone floor below.
So tired.
Barely minutes later, I heard the doors of the Great Hall open. A soft swish of fabric, and very, very slow footsteps began to echo across the floor. Bleary eyed, I raised my head, some part of my brain acknowledging the smeared stain of pumpkin juice across the table.
My fatigue deserted me as soon as I realized who was walking towards me.
Dressed in simple black robe, but too tall to be a student, this man was as thin as myself. Yet was all the more masculine for it. He held himself superbly, movements mapped out in grace - he was the perfect specimen of beautiful.
But I knew him better.
Silvery blonde hair wavered down to his waist, framing his thin hips and hanging delicately at his back like a bodice of fine silk.
Pale grey eyes seared in anger as he looked down upon me. It had once been in pride that his eyes flashed. No longer. Such a price to pay.
Father.
"Draco," he murmured, voice soft yet deadly.
"Father? What are you doing here?" I replied, my voice shaking. Of course I knew why he was here. All Slytherins in year six and seven were Death Eaters. The war demanded it to be so. And they were trained magnificently by their own fathers. Of course they had notified their parents of the Slytherin prince loosing both his pride and dignity.
Or so they thought it to be. Still. My father had been notified. And now he was here.
Harry couldn't protect me now.
I stood from my chair, even as my father strode and stood before me, on the opposite side of the table. He didn't have his wand out. Which could mean only one thing. He was angrier than I had ever seen him.
He was going to beat the answers out of me.
Violence was his most severe weapon; magic was handy, but when dealing with his son, it had to be more personal.
"Draco, what have you been doing?" he asked quietly.
"Digging the truth from beneath a sea of lies. As usual, you have held back everything that was really worth knowing. Including my own self, my own soul. I may be your son, but to replicate me as a copy of yourself? You taught me too well. Eventually my own pride showed me that I was wallowing in you," I replied, voice wavering defiantly. But he saw the tremble in my eyes. My words were sharp, but the meaning was not. He was too used to this.
"I disagree. I have not taught you well enough. Though I daresay it was more your ignorance than my lack of control that has resulted in this. You have not learnt anything, nor come to any remarkable realization. You were not wallowing in my image, as you seem to assume. You allowed me to bring you up as a Malfoy - it is only because of Potter that you are now having these…delusions of grandeur," he purred nastily.
Slender lips raised into a sneer on his face, as a slow swell of horror began to bubble in my stomach. He knew. The cold fear in my eyes told him all he needed to know. He knew of my friendship with Harry.
"How could you think," he smirked, walking around the edge of the table, "That I would never find out? That your little confidante would exist without an identity? No, your father knew all, Draco. I knew the second you began to slip."
He was nearing me know, on my side of the Slytherin house table. I gulped.
I had most definitely changed. Once I would have stood up to him, strived to prove my worth. Back when he owned me like a puppy.
"But I'm not yours anymore!" I cried out, my voice little more than a squeal, and I scrabbled away from him, tripping over a table leg. I fell flat on my backside.
Standing above me, my father gave a soft snarl of disgust, looking down into my eyes. His hair fell forwards slightly, strands peeking out from around his hips.
His grace was flung aside, and he fell down on me like a beast to prey. Anger writhed within and around him, and I could almost breathe in his fury, so heated was he. A fist slammed into my cheekbone, his lower body heavier than one would assume, pinning me to the ground. I gave a hollow shout of fear, laid out on my back, my own father now straddling my hips. His knuckles crashed against my left cheekbone again.
"YOU FILTH! HE COULD HAVE GIVEN YOU MORE THAN POWER! YOU COULD HAVE HAD IT ALL!" Lucius screamed, mad fury driving him to a point of no return. He backhanded me, grabbed me by the shirt, pulled me up slightly, and then slammed me down against the stone floor.
I gave a hoarse choke, blood splattering out of my nose and mouth. He was too powerful. Still gripping me by the shirt, he lifted me again, my torso rising off the ground, and brought my bloody nose to his. Maddened fury stormed in his eyes, and he gave an exhalation of even deeper disgust, his hot breath stirring the strands of hair slicked to my face with blood. Our eyes, less than half an inch away from one another, locked; musky blue staring into musky blue. He pulled me up closer.
And then he did it again.
"YOU - "
Slam.
"COULD - "
Slam.
"HAVE - "
Slam.
"HAD - "
Slam.
"IT - "
Slam.
"ALL!!"
He smashed me against the floor once more. My pain flowed freely through my veins, underlining all my senses with terror and agony. My very bones seemed to shriek with the hurt, more blood spraying from my mouth and nose.
"Father - !" I gasped out, "It's not you! It's me…I…I hate you controlling me! I want to be myself! Please…accept me!" I whispered, eyes watering. He looked down at me, still gripping me by my shirt.
For a second, I saw him as Harry had seen me. Free.
I saw his love for me, as his son. That bond was once strong, though hidden from the public behind our faith to Voldemort; but it had been there, once. Affection for me. Yet as the Lord arose, my Father had been smothered in glory, and had lost his appreciation for me, save for the fact that I was his heir.
For the very last time I saw his love for me. But he had lost his weaknesses long ago. He could never be healed.
Would I really have fallen so far, had not Harry seen the consequences of my current path? Oh, Father. I pity you.
His eyes widened, then narrowed, the pale grey orbs glittering with a mass of rain-coloured malice. He tried to read me but couldn't.
"Pathetic child. You've thrown all away because OF THAT FUCKING HARRY POTTER! DAMN HIM AND DAMN YOU!" Lucius screamed once more, grabbing me by the scruff of my neck and dragging me up with him. He stood, grace lining his movements once more, and held me above the ground. Tall as I was, my toes touched naught but thin air. Not for long.
He threw me far and hard. I flew threw the air, fell, and skidded along the stone floor for a short way, clothes tearing, skin likewise. I halted directly in the middle of the Hall, facing the staff table.
My body felt too shattered and weak to move. I lay against the floor face down, my breathing shallow and hoarse. Marred with pain both physical and mental, I closed my eyes in disbelief. Was he going to kill me?
I should have seen this coming.
"You have brought shame upon the Malfoys. Our line is broken because of you! We end in pity, in degradation! YOU SHAME ME, DRACO!" Lucius roared.
He rushed at me, picked me up around my waist, and even as I gave a cry of dread, he threw me once more, this time against the staff table. I crashed into it, giving a wild shriek.
He stood where he was and shrugged off his robes. Beneath was his slender body, framed in black cotton pants and a white shirt, top three buttons undone.
My eyes widened as I looked at him, pushing myself off my elbows.
He was identical to me save for his age and hair length. His pale white skin showed from beneath the fabric, fairest flesh devoid of imperfection.
Just like me.
I gave a sob more from knowing this was my father, that he now hated me, but that we were still so similar. He had never taught me how to dress. I had imitated him as a boy, wanting to be just like him. But never had I known that right down to our blood we might as well have been brothers. No, not brothers.
He had given me everything, as his son. And I had turned it all down.
He drew a small knife from a pocket in his robes. On the small blade was carved a dragon, thin and serpentine. I saw the letters D R A C O shimmering along the scales of my dragon. It had been made specifically for me, for this purpose.
I knew what was coming.
He gave me my life. He had every right to take it back, did he deem it necessary.
His anger was gone. All that was left was his control of what was to happen next. He took that chance silently, with his ever-present poise.
Tears streamed down my face. I positioned myself so that my back was resting against a leg of the table, legs stretched out and pressed together before me, and held my head up high. My own, yet still proud.
"Take me," I whispered, the blood cooling on my chin. I wiped it away angrily, smearing my robes with a maroon tinge.
Gently, knowing he had won, he approached me. He kneeled down directly before me, keeping his legs parted so that his backside rested on my knees, his thighs on either side of me. The warmth of his groin and lower body seared into the skin of my own thighs, beneath the fabric of my robes and pants - but it couldn't remove the dead cold of my heart.
We were so close to one another that I could smell the natural scent I had inherited.
"And so ends us," he whispered, resting the flat of the knife along my throat. "A shame that, just as you reach pure manhood, my own flesh and blood… It is a shame I must end it here before you bring the rest of us down with you."
"I'm sorry," I whispered, staring into his eyes. My eyes. His.
"No, you're not. Potter showed you the side of the Light. And you're embracing it, or attempting to. And yet, you have seen how destructive it can be. They know nothing of us, Draco. You can never be one of them. Never! We were born to be on our own side. Bittersweet how I once doubted its worth, as you do now. But I knew that we could never join them. You do not see it, but we are two different races, the Light and the Dark. They with their ideals. We with our leader, who will bring us to the best of all ends. They will give way, before the end. You are one of us."
The knife dug into my skin.
"You're wrong," I whispered, my eyes never leaving his. My tears pooled and continued to spill over. He looked at them, and his lips parted to speak.
"Am I?" he murmured. "Once I've finished with you, I'll take Potter to the Lord. That is part of my plan here, tonight."
The knife pierced a thin layer of skin. A droplet of blood formed on my neck, directly onto the scales of the steel dragon, held against my throat. I looked down at it.
An image of Harry, laying dead at Voldemort's feet. Blood coursing down his forehead, his scar a livid red mark. Glasses shattered, jade eyes wide open but long past living. His hair wild as always, being twisted in the hands of his enemy, as the Dark Lord reigns finally over that which had stood in his path for so long.
Harry's body battered, broken, scratched. Dead. Eternally gone. His soul nothing more than a fragment of a memory. He would laugh no more.
"NO!" I yelled, and dragged my gaze back up to look into my father's eyes.
The image replayed in my mind, Harry's expression of long dead terror impaling my heart.
Tears poured once more, to run down my cheeks faster than before, and my father's eyes widened.
My vision blurred. The horror of seeing Harry's future, should I die; it surpassed everything else and all I wanted was to stop that future from happening.
My sadness peaked an incredible height and with a pure scream of defiance, I shoved my father's arm away from me, ducked down and dug my shoulder into his ribcage. With a burst of energy, I threw him up away from me, thrusting forwards with my shoulder. Lucius flew back from me to land a few feet away on his tailbone, eyes wide and surprised, hair wild and tangled about his shoulders. The dagger clattered away across the floor.
I got to my feet, my heart pulsing with newfound energy.
Finally remembering it, I pulled my wand out of my robes, just as I heard the doors to the Great Hall banging open. I ignored whoever was entering.
Anger poured through me, fruitful and full of hate.
"I won't let you! I WON'T LET YOU TAKE HARRY!" I shouted, and pointed the wand directly at my father's chest. My rage rose past anything I had ever felt before, blocking out all else. The very essence of it thundered through me.
I knew what must be done. I hated him to no ends.
The wand aimed at his heart, I screamed it out:
"AVADA KEDAV -- "
He came up behind me, speedily and stealthily. Just as the rushing sound of death began to fill the Hall, green blurring our surroundings, my father staring up at me pitifully and terrified - a hand clapped itself to my mouth, the other hand dragging around my waist and pulling me back up against him.
He knew what effect it would have on me.
The imminent curse of death fell away, the green receding and the sound of rushing wind fading. The hate in my blood suddenly froze and fell to dust. My eyes widened at the shock of what I had been about to do.
Horrified and panting into Harry's hand, I gave way to tears once more. The wand fell from my fingers. Harry let me lean back against him and his hand moved down to my shoulder to support me, knowing I wouldn't try the spell again.
"Oh father, forgive me!" I cried out, tears staining my cheeks, looking out over Harry's arm.
Lucius stared up at me, betrayed but no longer surprised. In fact he appeared quite dignified, if not slightly ruffled. I knew better, being able to see through him better than anyone. I was so sorry.
Voldemort would never forgive him, and he would be condemned.
"I only wanted the best for you, Draco," he said quietly. He knew he was defeated.
I knew what he said was true. But he hadn't been right in trying to force it on me, all those years ago.
"What you envisioned as my future is not what I desire. Not anymore," I whispered back sadly. He heard me, and creased his fair brow, but said not a thing.
"Come on," Harry said gently, removing the arm from around my shoulders. He bent down, picked up my wand and I turned around to head out of the doors.
Dumbledore had been stood a little way behind us, watching quietly. He and Harry had arrived just in time…I supposed. But for what?
In time to stop my death?
My father's death?
Or were they too late?
Voldemort would kill him for letting go of me like this. For failing in the mission he said he had been sent here for tonight.
Whatever the reason, Voldemort would be angry. And my father would be his target.
I stopped walking, and Harry stopped too, looking at me quizzically.
Voldemort would kill him.
I gave a choke, and struggled in Harry's arms, wanting to turn and run to my father. He would never live to survive the anger of his master!
"After all he's done to you, you would want to aid him now?" Harry said gently into my ear. I stopped trying to escape his grasp on my shoulders.
Silvery blond hair fell about my shoulders as I looked at my feet in dismay, eyes welling up once again. So much sadness.
All I will have left is his name, his master's mark, and our shared physical appearance.
I looked over mine and Harry's shoulders, to find Dumbledore pointing his wand at Lucius, holding my father's wand in the other hand. Lucius looked up at me, eyes dead. He was finished.
And his son had been the one to do it.
"Goodbye Father," I said hoarsely, throat tight. And Harry took me to Dumbledore's office.
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Chapter 3 coming soon!