Better Left Unsaid

AN: I decided to break this up into two separate parts considering the length. So, I hope you enjoy!

I waited beneath my weeping willow tree for hours. I knew in my heart what he would do, as I said, I never once lost my faith in him. When he approached the tree, his head bent low, and his steel eyes glittering in an emotion I had never seen him wear. His choice, to help the Order changed my plans greatly. One person I cared for, would not have to die. He stared at me, in my tree for a long while, before he finally spoke.

"Where did you place the people you killed?"

"I can not tell you that. In time you will find out."

"Gin, what do I tell Golden Boy? Everyone is so shocked about you joining our ranks, that they want to see you dead. Do you know The Daily Prophet was calling you "Red Death"? You are solely responsibly for the deaths of over a thousand innocents!"

"And so are you, though, perhaps you have killed them in the same manner I did."

Realization dawned upon his flawless features. He gaped at me in an uncharacteristic way. This was not the first time I had made him speechless, and I savored the moments when he could not think of a quick enough response.

Quietly he said, "Do what you must, and when all is said and done I'll wait for you under your tree."

"I need you to help Dumbledore. Do not wait for me; do not help me. I am not your priority; helping Golden Boy and his posse is."

Draco opened his mouth to protests, but were left unspoken as I leaned over and kissed him. He pulled away from the kiss, his normally stone face, immediately flickering with emotion. As fast as it appeared, it left his face, pale and ghostly. I squeezed his hand tightly , and gazed at his stormy eyes for a moment longer. Then I left him, standing beneath the weeping willow, with my red hair flowing in the wind like different shades of golden fire. My black and white robes billowed around my ankles as stepped across Hogwarts grounds, and stood in the open, vulnerable to any one's attack. Draco emerged from the depths of the tree, to call my name to warn me, but there was no need.

Lord Voldermort stood in front of me, his legions of Death Eaters following behind him, like a trail of ants. His cold scaly hand grasped my arm, and I felt a shiver reach my spine. Whether it was to be in fear or the wind, I do not know. He pulled me to his side, his "queen" that was to lead him into the most remembered battle of the era; a battle he believed we would win.

Harry walked out of the castle, his messy black hair billowing in the wind, and his pale face causing the scar on his forehead to burn vividly. His green eyes blazed in defiance, fear and anger. He had lost many friends and what little he considered family to this man, and he was prepared to kill him. He no longer had anything to hold him back.

Draco slipped back into the shadows of the tree. Observing the "Great Battle", he lit a cigarette. He watched Harry's face contort with the disgust as he approached me. Harry's scowl bit at me and if I cared, my heart would have broken. Unlike Draco, Harry's heart was filled with vengeance and lack of fear, the two things that cause a hero to be foolish and predictable.

"I am here! This is our last fight," Harry screamed at Voldermort.

Voldermort chuckled, and as he did so, the ribs in his chest seemed to clack together and rumble in his chest. He spoke in deep, slithering cracked voice, "Indeed it is our last fight, but it is not me you are to fight. I will not bloody my hands over you. However, my queen will, and she will take pleasure in killing you."

"Your queen is nothing more than a common whore."

I stepped up to Harry and from the corner of my eye, I saw Draco smirk. Raising my wand to Harry's chest, I saw him gulp. In his emerald eyes I saw his sudden fear of me, that was soon replaced by his stubborn defiance. The rest of the Order filed to the make shift battle field, and soon curses were being flung all about me, Harry, and my Lord. Draco had long since decided to join the din of the battle, and where he disappeared to I could only hope he was safe. Harry took this moment of distraction to attempt to disable me, but I was to quick and dodged his curse. Voldermort left my side for a moment, giving me the opportunity to turn to Harry.

Piteously I looked at him, his face bloodied from a fight he knew he was going to loose. "I'm sorry, Harry. Really I am, but you'll understand someday."

A shot of green light burst from my wand, and Harry's eyes clamped shut. His body fell limply to the ground, and splashed in the wet mud. The entire world seemed to slow, as Hermione shrieked as she watched her friend's body fall. Her eyes flashed, but she was unable to come after me.

I felt the tug at my arm and knew Voldermort was near. Not that I needed his tattoo on my arm to know when he was by me; the mark he emblazoned on my soul was reminder enough of his presence. I was a part of him, and he apart if me.

"Nice job, my pet. You have proven yourself well today. I do not wish you to further involve yourself in these trivial battles. Wait for me at headquarters."

I bowed my head, the roar of the war going on around me reverberating in my ears, and the coppery smell of blood invading my nostrils, along with the acrid stench of burning skin, hair and foliage. Mud squelched beneath my feet, as I prepared to leave.

Harry Potter, the boy who was to save the wizarding community twitched beside my feet. Voldermort glanced at the boy with curiosity, and his mouth twitched into a wicked smirk. Groaning, I silently cursed the boy who would not die; or at least pretend to be dead. I whipped around, to face Voldermort, my wand aimed at his chest.

His red eyes glowed, confusion spread about his mummy-like face. "Why is Potter still alive."

A lazy drawl from behind him responded, "It appears that is because your pet has never killed."

Draco stood behind him, his wand grasped in white knuckles and a shaky hand. His stormy gray eyes raged in a battle that would never be defined; a battle that was truly his own. This is what time had brought us to.

"Do you think that you two are to kill me?" Voldermort asked sneering.

"I am not," Draco said, " But I will help."

Before Voldermort had the chance to retaliate against Draco, his wand flew from his hand. Neatly, Draco caught it, and snapped it. Voldermort gasped as fragments of his wand fluttered to the floor, and was even more surprised as he was caught unarmed by one of the powerful stunning spells he had taught me.

I placed my foot against his throat, and grinned slightly. I had never killed before, at least not intentionally; I was not like Draco, Harry, Dumbledore, my brothers, or the rest of the school involved in battle. This would be my first, last and only kill, and I would take no pleasure from it.

Voldermort croaked, "You wish to die then?"

"Who better to kill you then the one who has been bound to you since I was eleven?"

"You evade my question, although I take pleasure in knowing I have owned you since then."

Laughing bitterly against the wind, I said, "No one has owned me."

Voldermort opened his mouth, but I pressed my foot deeper into his throat. Muttering a quick spell, the broken wand beside me transfigured into a beautiful, gleaming dagger. Green emeralds studded the hilt, and a single red ruby stood in the middle. Draco's mouth formed an 'O' as he started to run toward me.

I knew he recognized the dagger; after all it was the same one that had nearly killed me. Closing my eyes, for a moment, I firmly kept my foot placed upon the Dark Lord's throat. He did not struggle, perhaps because he thought that I would not go through with what I have had planned for years. Time passed slowly, as it did whenever something important was about to happen.

Draco lunged for me, his lover, his friend, but he was far too slow. He landed with a loud thud as I plunged the dagger deep into the Dark Lord's chest. Warm blood rushed from the wound, and he bucked up. His slick black blood bathed over my hands, and I grunted in pain. I felt my skin feel as if it was the one to be ripped open, and quickly I removed the knife, and went for the fatal blow. I raised the knife to his throat, like he had done to so many others, and sliced it from ear to ear.

His head drooped forwards a bit, before falling backwards, letting the gaping maroon-black hole in his throat grin up at me. The blinding white pain flashed through my body like a hot branding iron. With the strength I had left in me, I drove the dagger through my heart. I fell to the bloody mud, the Dark Lord's body by my side, and Draco on my opposite side.

Harry Potter's mouth was set at a grim line. His mind still reeled over the last battle, at how he watched Ginny Weasly kill the Dark Lord, with Draco Malfoy helping her. He thought he had died at her hand, but in reality she had only given the illusion that he was dead. He should have expected as much from her; yet, for some reason, in the heat of drawing the line between good and bad, he lost his head.

Today, two months after the final battle had taken place, he sat in huge cemetery waiting for the procession to finish and lower the Wizarding World's Savior into the ground. This was her shining moment, and yet Harry couldn't help but think of how ironic that was. She had found her love, he knew that the moment he watched Draco cling to her cold body, his designer robes being stained darker with her blood, which flowed from every pore on her body.

As her casket was finally lowered into the cold ground, and family, friends, admirers, all brought here as mourners, piled their roses onto the descending casket, a lone person stood back. He clutched a black lily in one hand, Harry vaguely remembered her saying that those were her favorites.

Draco watched with cool slate eyes as the mourners paid their last respects. He refused to show the world what that girl had done to him; he knew she loved him, as he did her, but in the time of war, these emotions were better left unsaid.

Harry stood beside him, awkwardly at first, before asking Draco the inevitable, "Why did she throw it all away?"

Incredously Draco glared at him. Frostily he responded, "How could you call sacraficing yourself "throwing it all away"? She died to save everyone she loved; she died because she knew that even if you did not kill Voldermort, I would, and either way she was to die."

"But love..."

"Love could not save what had been predestined. She was bound to him; her soul and his were entwined since the Chamber. No matter how much love she had, it could not overcome all she had been through."

"Love does conquer all, Draco."

Snorting, Draco said, "No, it doesn't. She would be here with me, but I understand why she did what she did. She died, to save our love."

"I'm confused..."

Rolling his eyes, Draco said, "How surprising. If I had choose not to agree to help her, and went against her, do you think she would be the only one buried in the Weasly plot? For that matter, I would be right beside her, probably killed by her hand. She may have loved me, and she may have died so I could save my self, but it I would have stepped in her way, she would have killed me. So, simply put, she died to save our love."

Finally all the people had left the casket, leaving Draco and Harry alone to stare at the still open grave. Hunching over, Draco lazily walked over to the grave and lightly dropped his flowers atop her casket.

Still not grasping what Draco had meant about Ginny loving him, he watched Draco leave, and noted that a silent crystal tear traveled down his pallid cheek. Harry watched, Draco Malfoy walk away a changed man, a man that over the years the wizarding world knew quite well, as his name, along with Ginny's became legend to be written in the history books forever to come.