A/N: Finished July 6th. Geeze I've been putting a lot of time into this story. While I think this may be the second to last chapter before an epilogue I might have this be the second to last chapter and have a sequel. This chapter has one happy ending for now, but it's not a happy ending for Draco... Anyway
Chapter 13: One Happy Ending Before Other Lives Are Ruined
Draco left Lily to dance with a Ravenclaw who asked her to after telling her, "Meet me outside by the lake five minutes before midnight." She nodded and went off with the guy to dance.
Draco found Hermione dancing with Blaise and ushered him away as he broke in, "Go away, Malfoy." She said as she started up dancing with Blaise again.
"Listen, I really need to talk to you." He said as Blaise smirked at him and lifted an eyebrow and pointed an arm to Hermione, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for doing what I did to Potter. I'm sorry for hurting you the way I did with your friend."
"She talked to me about it. And, Harry's over the dual so I should be too. I wouldn't mind having a friendship with you again. You and I were so close and… I guess I missed you." She said as Draco smiled. May Merlin damn him. She had changed him.
He wasn't who he was. He had stood up to his father. He had developed a conscience. He felt bad for attacking Potter with such a dirty curse because he was jealous. He had friendships with the most unlikely people. He didn't want to become a Deatheater. He didn't want to be a Malfoy. He wasn't a Malfoy! He didn't care about blood. Granger had the same blood coursing through her veins that Draco had coursing through his. With a guilty conscience, Draco mumbled the counter curse. If Blaise had truly come to care for her, then let him be happy.
"I… Oh damn, Granger. I need to take care of someone I care for." Draco said as Granger's eyes changed and she looked identical to the way she had before. She cared for him.
Draco shook his head and found Weasley sitting with Potter, their dates dancing with someone else. Evidently, they were either tired or had hated dancing the way they had back in their fourth year.
He didn't care either way. Flopping down on the bench next to them, they looked at him questioningly. He sighed loudly, "Look I have to talk to you later on Potter, but I have some other things I have to do. Weasley, I need you to do something for me because I want to make things right. I want you to meet someone by the lake in fifteen minutes, so that's five minutes before midnight."
"What is your motive, Malfoy?" Ron asked him raising an eyebrow.
"My motive? Why does a Slytherin always have to have a motive?" Draco asked smirking, but Ron didn't move from the spot, "My motive? Redemption." He said standing up and not looking back knowing he had said all he needed to say.
He had to walk through a thick crowd and past Blink 182 who was playing What's My Age Again. He turned and growled under his breath as he gazed at the top of people's heads to look for his friend. He saw him by the drinks so Draco walked to catch him there.
"Look man, we need to talk. Come with me." Draco said as he ripped Blaise from the Great Hall and into a corridor on the way to Transfiguration. He took the familiar route on the way to the room where the contract was.
He looked at the contract and looked at the strings. He took out his wand and blasted the contract apart.
"I'll give you the gold tomorrow if you want. I give." Draco said with a confident smirk on his face.
"Look, Draco, come with me." Blaise said as he tapped stones in to reveal a passage Draco didn't know of. He followed his friend up two staircases and came through to a balcony that faced the lake.
Blaise jumped off the balcony and onto a ledge that was visible from the lake. He sat on the ledge, his legs dangling one slip away from a prolonged death. He waved his arm at Draco to follow. He slid off the balcony a little safer than Blaise had and sat down on a ledge. How many times they had done something that was dangerous, Draco didn't know and didn't care. All he knew was what happened back when he was nine, the summer before Hogwarts.
"Draco, be careful! Mummy said that we shouldn't be climbing up to the third floor!" Said a young boy with medium length brown hair and deep blue eyes. A blonde boy with dark gray eyes stuck his tongue out and began to climb on the stones that were sticking out slightly to a ledge on the third floor.
"Are you a Puffskein or are you a wizard?" Called the blonde boy in a high pitched voice while the dark haired boy stomped down on the ground below him.
"I'm a wizard! Mummy said-" The dark haired boy was cut off by the boy on the ledge, "Mummy said boo hoo! My mum lets me climb to the top of my mansion if I want!"
"Does your mum know that you climb to the top? I bet she wouldn't like it. Besides, what do I tell your mum and dad if you fall? I have my wand, but I haven't looked through the spell books!"
"I won't fall. You're just a big, fat Hufflepuff! Even a Gryffindor would climb the ledge!" A young Draco proclaimed.
"I am not! Dad said I'll make Slytherin!"
"Then come up here and prove it, or are you a Hufflepuff?"
"Fine!" Blaise said as he climbed up to where Draco was in no time at all, "Told you I wasn't scared."
"Look!" Draco said as they watched in amazement as a unicorn came out of the woods next to Blaise's mansion. A golden foal came out after it.
They watched as the blinding white unicorn licked its foal's mane and walked over to the lake Blaise had on his property. The adult unicorn let out a long wail as it leaned over and took a sip. The foal walked away from its mother and came close to them sitting just a few feet above him. The mother wailed out again and the foal ran back to her and they disappeared into the forest.
"What are you thinking about?" Blaise asked Draco as he swung his legs back and forth.
"Remember the first time I made you climb a ledge?" Draco asked him rhetorically as he looked at the moon.
"How can I not? First time in my life I'd seen something as beautiful a unicorn." Blaise said as he looked at the moon, "I wanted to ask you how you feel about Hermione."
"It took me far too long to figure out that I didn't care about blood. I want to be her friend. The real question is how do you feel about her." Draco said as he faced his friend.
"Tell me the truth, Draco. I can tell you're lying." Blaise insisted as he nudged Draco with a grim frown on his face.
"It doesn't matter how I feel! I'm asking you. I'm telling you that I give you my blessings to be with her." He said quietly.
"I don't love her. You love her, though, don't you? Don't you see why I wanted you in the bet in the first place? Draco, she's you! She's you in a female form! I'm not talking about the whole Muggleborn/Pureblood thing. I'm talking about the real you! I'm talking about your arguments, your skills, your brains! You and she get along! By Merlin, I wanted you to see the light. As cheesy as that sounds, it's the truth. You and her are meant to be! Do you love her?" Blaise exclaimed.
"I don't know."
"Yes, you do!" Blaise yelled out, "You LOVE her! I know you, Draco. You are in love with that girl!"
"No, I don't." Draco said as he jumped onto the balcony.
"Are you kidding me? I put everything on the line to set you up! You seriously don't love her?" Blaise asked him with his eyes blinking and sweat forming on his face. Draco turned around one last time before going down the corridor, out of the room, and outside.
Draco stood in the shadows as he watched at the rumble that was going on inside and outside. He could see a giant clock hanging above him even outside. With five minutes until midnight, Draco watched Lily stand there against the tree and watching the lake.
The night had not a single white flake of snow in the appealing clouds that seemed to be sleeping in the contrasting black night sky. The stars lit up with a smile forming and preparing themselves for a new year they would be alive. Moonlight streamed from the sky onto the partly solid lake giving it a look of crystals under a magnifying glass.
He watched Lily stare at the sky hoping that some kind of answers would appear for her questions. After a minute he saw Weasley walk out of the shadows and up to Lily.
"Lily. I saw you tonight. What are you doing here?" Ron asked as he touched her left shoulder and smeared away the potion she had used to mask her dark mark. He frowned looking at it then looking into her eyes.
"I am here because I do not wish for my best friend to be killed by the Deatheaters that I am in the ranks with and because I am trying to force someone who I love as a brother to see something that I did not see when I joined Voldemort."
"Does that mean you're on our side now?" He asked as she nodded, "And how am I going to be able to trust you when I fell in love before you told me of what you were?" Ron asked angrily.
She rubbed all of the masking potion off of her skin and the Dark Mark lay in a dull color. She stared up at his defiantly yet spoke in a soft voice, "You know what I am. You know who I am. This scar on my skin is a mistake I made when I was in rage at your blowing me off for Hermione Granger who I told you repeatedly was wrong for you! Did you believe me, Ronald? No. You didn't for a second think that I was right. I forced myself to believe otherwise, and I made you happy and broke her up with Viktor Krum. Then what happens? Then when you get shut down you come crying to me like I am some sort of second rate witch. I was there for you! I am tired of being second, Ronald!" She bellowed.
"So, you're saying it's me that made you a Deatheater? Bloody hell! If you had told me from the beginning what you tell me only today, tonight, then maybe I would have given you a shot! Instead you join the Deatheaters? Did you think that would make me come back to you? My best mate's enemy's militia?"
"No! I am saying that while your problems consisted of trying to get a girl to notice you, I was trying to figure out ways to escape my destiny, my fate, the beliefs that I had been raised with. You only coming to me when you had issues was the last straw. I was tired of pushing. I was tired of waiting. I was tired of fighting, and I gave in."
"I'm sorry! I didn't mean for this to happen. You have to believe me when I say that! I always cared for you, but I was blindsided by my stubbornness. If you had told me of what you were going through during even one of your owls then I could have attempted to help."
"I did! I told you of what my family had planned and of the heritage I was coming from. Did you even read my owls or did you just trash them or recycle them as extra parchment to write to me about Hermione Granger with?"
"I'm sorry! How many more times do you need me to tell you that I was very much mistaken? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm SORRY!"
"You have nothing to be sorry for as I am the one who joined Voldemort. I am here though. Look into my eyes when I say this: I have thought about everything and I am risking everything. This was not my plan, but my plans changed when I saw you on Christmas. I couldn't stand not seeing you. If I had to fight with the Deatheaters and they asked me to kill you or even hurt you, I would have been killed myself for refusing. I am here for my best friend, I am here to save Draco, but most of all I am here for you!" She exclaimed as the countdown they had been yelling through ended and a loud buzzer rang to announce midnight.
"I'm sorry you had to go through all this. I didn't think I had any effect on you. Are you truly giving up your family, your teachings, everything, for our side, for me?"
"I am."
"I love you."
"I love you." She echoed as she saw couples still kissing from inside and outside. She looked at him and smiled her first true smile.
And as the night had not a single white flake of snow in the appealing clouds that seemed to be sleeping in the contrasting black night sky, the stars lit up with a smile forming and preparing themselves for a new year they would be alive, and the moonlight streamed from the sky onto the partly solid lake giving it a look of crystals under a magnifying glass, Ron kissed Lily.
A/N: I'm not gettin the reviews I need so I can't post the ending yet.
Chapter 13: One Happy Ending Before Other Lives Are Ruined
Draco left Lily to dance with a Ravenclaw who asked her to after telling her, "Meet me outside by the lake five minutes before midnight." She nodded and went off with the guy to dance.
Draco found Hermione dancing with Blaise and ushered him away as he broke in, "Go away, Malfoy." She said as she started up dancing with Blaise again.
"Listen, I really need to talk to you." He said as Blaise smirked at him and lifted an eyebrow and pointed an arm to Hermione, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for doing what I did to Potter. I'm sorry for hurting you the way I did with your friend."
"She talked to me about it. And, Harry's over the dual so I should be too. I wouldn't mind having a friendship with you again. You and I were so close and… I guess I missed you." She said as Draco smiled. May Merlin damn him. She had changed him.
He wasn't who he was. He had stood up to his father. He had developed a conscience. He felt bad for attacking Potter with such a dirty curse because he was jealous. He had friendships with the most unlikely people. He didn't want to become a Deatheater. He didn't want to be a Malfoy. He wasn't a Malfoy! He didn't care about blood. Granger had the same blood coursing through her veins that Draco had coursing through his. With a guilty conscience, Draco mumbled the counter curse. If Blaise had truly come to care for her, then let him be happy.
"I… Oh damn, Granger. I need to take care of someone I care for." Draco said as Granger's eyes changed and she looked identical to the way she had before. She cared for him.
Draco shook his head and found Weasley sitting with Potter, their dates dancing with someone else. Evidently, they were either tired or had hated dancing the way they had back in their fourth year.
He didn't care either way. Flopping down on the bench next to them, they looked at him questioningly. He sighed loudly, "Look I have to talk to you later on Potter, but I have some other things I have to do. Weasley, I need you to do something for me because I want to make things right. I want you to meet someone by the lake in fifteen minutes, so that's five minutes before midnight."
"What is your motive, Malfoy?" Ron asked him raising an eyebrow.
"My motive? Why does a Slytherin always have to have a motive?" Draco asked smirking, but Ron didn't move from the spot, "My motive? Redemption." He said standing up and not looking back knowing he had said all he needed to say.
He had to walk through a thick crowd and past Blink 182 who was playing What's My Age Again. He turned and growled under his breath as he gazed at the top of people's heads to look for his friend. He saw him by the drinks so Draco walked to catch him there.
"Look man, we need to talk. Come with me." Draco said as he ripped Blaise from the Great Hall and into a corridor on the way to Transfiguration. He took the familiar route on the way to the room where the contract was.
He looked at the contract and looked at the strings. He took out his wand and blasted the contract apart.
"I'll give you the gold tomorrow if you want. I give." Draco said with a confident smirk on his face.
"Look, Draco, come with me." Blaise said as he tapped stones in to reveal a passage Draco didn't know of. He followed his friend up two staircases and came through to a balcony that faced the lake.
Blaise jumped off the balcony and onto a ledge that was visible from the lake. He sat on the ledge, his legs dangling one slip away from a prolonged death. He waved his arm at Draco to follow. He slid off the balcony a little safer than Blaise had and sat down on a ledge. How many times they had done something that was dangerous, Draco didn't know and didn't care. All he knew was what happened back when he was nine, the summer before Hogwarts.
"Draco, be careful! Mummy said that we shouldn't be climbing up to the third floor!" Said a young boy with medium length brown hair and deep blue eyes. A blonde boy with dark gray eyes stuck his tongue out and began to climb on the stones that were sticking out slightly to a ledge on the third floor.
"Are you a Puffskein or are you a wizard?" Called the blonde boy in a high pitched voice while the dark haired boy stomped down on the ground below him.
"I'm a wizard! Mummy said-" The dark haired boy was cut off by the boy on the ledge, "Mummy said boo hoo! My mum lets me climb to the top of my mansion if I want!"
"Does your mum know that you climb to the top? I bet she wouldn't like it. Besides, what do I tell your mum and dad if you fall? I have my wand, but I haven't looked through the spell books!"
"I won't fall. You're just a big, fat Hufflepuff! Even a Gryffindor would climb the ledge!" A young Draco proclaimed.
"I am not! Dad said I'll make Slytherin!"
"Then come up here and prove it, or are you a Hufflepuff?"
"Fine!" Blaise said as he climbed up to where Draco was in no time at all, "Told you I wasn't scared."
"Look!" Draco said as they watched in amazement as a unicorn came out of the woods next to Blaise's mansion. A golden foal came out after it.
They watched as the blinding white unicorn licked its foal's mane and walked over to the lake Blaise had on his property. The adult unicorn let out a long wail as it leaned over and took a sip. The foal walked away from its mother and came close to them sitting just a few feet above him. The mother wailed out again and the foal ran back to her and they disappeared into the forest.
"What are you thinking about?" Blaise asked Draco as he swung his legs back and forth.
"Remember the first time I made you climb a ledge?" Draco asked him rhetorically as he looked at the moon.
"How can I not? First time in my life I'd seen something as beautiful a unicorn." Blaise said as he looked at the moon, "I wanted to ask you how you feel about Hermione."
"It took me far too long to figure out that I didn't care about blood. I want to be her friend. The real question is how do you feel about her." Draco said as he faced his friend.
"Tell me the truth, Draco. I can tell you're lying." Blaise insisted as he nudged Draco with a grim frown on his face.
"It doesn't matter how I feel! I'm asking you. I'm telling you that I give you my blessings to be with her." He said quietly.
"I don't love her. You love her, though, don't you? Don't you see why I wanted you in the bet in the first place? Draco, she's you! She's you in a female form! I'm not talking about the whole Muggleborn/Pureblood thing. I'm talking about the real you! I'm talking about your arguments, your skills, your brains! You and she get along! By Merlin, I wanted you to see the light. As cheesy as that sounds, it's the truth. You and her are meant to be! Do you love her?" Blaise exclaimed.
"I don't know."
"Yes, you do!" Blaise yelled out, "You LOVE her! I know you, Draco. You are in love with that girl!"
"No, I don't." Draco said as he jumped onto the balcony.
"Are you kidding me? I put everything on the line to set you up! You seriously don't love her?" Blaise asked him with his eyes blinking and sweat forming on his face. Draco turned around one last time before going down the corridor, out of the room, and outside.
Draco stood in the shadows as he watched at the rumble that was going on inside and outside. He could see a giant clock hanging above him even outside. With five minutes until midnight, Draco watched Lily stand there against the tree and watching the lake.
The night had not a single white flake of snow in the appealing clouds that seemed to be sleeping in the contrasting black night sky. The stars lit up with a smile forming and preparing themselves for a new year they would be alive. Moonlight streamed from the sky onto the partly solid lake giving it a look of crystals under a magnifying glass.
He watched Lily stare at the sky hoping that some kind of answers would appear for her questions. After a minute he saw Weasley walk out of the shadows and up to Lily.
"Lily. I saw you tonight. What are you doing here?" Ron asked as he touched her left shoulder and smeared away the potion she had used to mask her dark mark. He frowned looking at it then looking into her eyes.
"I am here because I do not wish for my best friend to be killed by the Deatheaters that I am in the ranks with and because I am trying to force someone who I love as a brother to see something that I did not see when I joined Voldemort."
"Does that mean you're on our side now?" He asked as she nodded, "And how am I going to be able to trust you when I fell in love before you told me of what you were?" Ron asked angrily.
She rubbed all of the masking potion off of her skin and the Dark Mark lay in a dull color. She stared up at his defiantly yet spoke in a soft voice, "You know what I am. You know who I am. This scar on my skin is a mistake I made when I was in rage at your blowing me off for Hermione Granger who I told you repeatedly was wrong for you! Did you believe me, Ronald? No. You didn't for a second think that I was right. I forced myself to believe otherwise, and I made you happy and broke her up with Viktor Krum. Then what happens? Then when you get shut down you come crying to me like I am some sort of second rate witch. I was there for you! I am tired of being second, Ronald!" She bellowed.
"So, you're saying it's me that made you a Deatheater? Bloody hell! If you had told me from the beginning what you tell me only today, tonight, then maybe I would have given you a shot! Instead you join the Deatheaters? Did you think that would make me come back to you? My best mate's enemy's militia?"
"No! I am saying that while your problems consisted of trying to get a girl to notice you, I was trying to figure out ways to escape my destiny, my fate, the beliefs that I had been raised with. You only coming to me when you had issues was the last straw. I was tired of pushing. I was tired of waiting. I was tired of fighting, and I gave in."
"I'm sorry! I didn't mean for this to happen. You have to believe me when I say that! I always cared for you, but I was blindsided by my stubbornness. If you had told me of what you were going through during even one of your owls then I could have attempted to help."
"I did! I told you of what my family had planned and of the heritage I was coming from. Did you even read my owls or did you just trash them or recycle them as extra parchment to write to me about Hermione Granger with?"
"I'm sorry! How many more times do you need me to tell you that I was very much mistaken? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm SORRY!"
"You have nothing to be sorry for as I am the one who joined Voldemort. I am here though. Look into my eyes when I say this: I have thought about everything and I am risking everything. This was not my plan, but my plans changed when I saw you on Christmas. I couldn't stand not seeing you. If I had to fight with the Deatheaters and they asked me to kill you or even hurt you, I would have been killed myself for refusing. I am here for my best friend, I am here to save Draco, but most of all I am here for you!" She exclaimed as the countdown they had been yelling through ended and a loud buzzer rang to announce midnight.
"I'm sorry you had to go through all this. I didn't think I had any effect on you. Are you truly giving up your family, your teachings, everything, for our side, for me?"
"I am."
"I love you."
"I love you." She echoed as she saw couples still kissing from inside and outside. She looked at him and smiled her first true smile.
And as the night had not a single white flake of snow in the appealing clouds that seemed to be sleeping in the contrasting black night sky, the stars lit up with a smile forming and preparing themselves for a new year they would be alive, and the moonlight streamed from the sky onto the partly solid lake giving it a look of crystals under a magnifying glass, Ron kissed Lily.
A/N: I'm not gettin the reviews I need so I can't post the ending yet.