Disclaimer: Hogwarts etc belongs to JKR
AN: Part 2. Because everyone is on holiday and I'm bored. Tis Draco's POV (well, ish. Draco POV from the second person?).
The thoughts that went through your head that night were not something you like to dwell on these days. You've made your decision. It was the only decision and you know it. And your angry at yourself for ever believing otherwise. (It was the nerves, you plead with yourself. I'm not that weak. I could have done it!)
When you returned home your mother wept with happiness. She hugged Severus before pulling you into the tightest embrace you'd ever shared.
You felt numb. Sometimes you do still. When you eat a chocolate frog and an old man with bright blue eyes winks at you. Sometimes you remember a frail figure clinging to a stone wall for support. Sometimes you remember him offering you hope – a way out. Sometimes you remember lowering your wand.
"How long's it gonna be, Malfoy? How long will it take you to give up?"
Snape saved you that night. He finished the job you were never confident you could do and in doing so granted you your life. He saved you have yet you feel yourself hating him for obliterating that one chance… that suggestion of a whisper of a hope.
"I don't 'give up', Granger. And how long's it gonna take you to live with the fact you cannot win?"
You're not the same person anymore. Not the same boy who called Hermione Granger names or laughed at Weasley's robes. You're not even the same boy that stood before the protector and leader of your sworn enemy and knew you could not cast the spell. You've changed now – not necessarily grown up (still just a boy) but definitely changed.
"You can try all you want, Malfoy, but if you think for one second I'll believe a word of the rubbish you insist on feeding me, you've got another thing coming."
The attitude you once held began to corrode with your father's capture.
That summer had been the worst of your life. There can be no doubt. You occasionally come to think it: You should have died them. You should have died that August. But you didn't and what you're left with is stark.
Tensing as darkness rises like bile in your throat. It is as though its burning path is like a mark of your servitude, like that brand on your arm it burns and you bend to its will. The will of the darkness, the will of the Mark. Why was it you did it? Stupid boy you were then. A fool as the blackness swirls around you.
It was not by your own mistakes you are in this position. Sometimes you resent that. That the people who bought you here. Sometimes it feels like fate, as though the gods are working against you and no matter how many opportunities you seem to be offered for redemption you are already damned.
Once you decided to end it all. You stood on the highest balcony of the Manor and watched the 17th century paving with its potted shrubs below for three full hours. But you turned away and it sickened you, even as you told yourself suicide was for muggles and Hufflepuffs. (Not man enough to kill. Not even the strength of will to take another step. Just one more step and I was too cowardly. They weren't right! No. I'm not a coward. It's common sense. I've got a reputation and a duty to uphold. Besides, what would mother do without me?)
Sometimes you think back and cringe at your own blatant ignorance. The pride you felt when it was announced you were to take your father's place. The honour you found in the assignment. The shame you felt as you looked upon the worn face of an old man (a great man). Regret is something you chose to ignore in all its forms.
You just don't want to die.
You're so scared and so ashamed of the fear but you are too much of a coward to run. Too much of a coward to live a better life that would be far kinder to you than the 'easy' route you travel now.
"Are you scared, Draco?"
You hate her. So much more than you did before. She thinks she knows (not understands, but knows all the same). She thinks she sees your reasoning and your fears. She thinks she's good enough to sit out there and watch you with pity in her eyes, as if it's you with the dirty blood and the fear of having a Dark Lord after your soul.
She has no right to pity you. She has no right to look at you.
Your life changed that night in the tower. An old man you held in the utmost contempt for all your life offered you a chance at something you never thought existed: an escape. He'd offered you a way out.
Redemption? Was that what you'd seen? Hope? Light? Freedom?
But he'd been dying. It was the insane muttering of a broken old fool. They could not help you.
You were simply never meant to be saved.
"Malfoy?"
And it is melodramatic thoughts like that that were going to get you killed.
"Malfoy!"
Your head jerks sharply to face the bushy haired head of a brown-eyed girl.
"What?" Your voice is taut and harsh but if she notices it does not show.
"You were about to tell me when the last time you'd spoken with Vold- You-Know-Who was."
"Was I now?"
"Yes." She radiates a sense of confidence, or determination or something else that makes the hairs of the back of your neck stand on end.
She does that sometimes you find. Goes all demanding and definite. But it never lasts for long. All it takes it a raised eyebrow and an amused look and she'll deflate and go back to looking lost and slightly uncomfortable.
"Well?"
"You honestly expect me to answer?"
"Well, it would be nice."
You blink and she blushes. "Nice?" You snort slightly and she looks away.
"Look," she fidgets, all stressed and twitchy, "We'd get through this much quicker if you were just to attempt to cooperate. Even just pretend! I'm serious, Malfoy, do you honestly think you've got so little left to lose? Aren't you tired of fighting?"
You eyes meet hers and sneer, though even she seems to know your heart's not really in it.
"Who says I'm fighting, Granger?"
"Argh! Why do you do this? You–" She cuts herself off, sighing. "Did you know Pansy Parkinson was in St Mungo's?"
You look up sharply and she bites her lip, looking like a guilty little girl, scared of upsetting someone even as she begins to bitch.
When you say nothing she continues. "Received an unidentified curse to the back of the head. No one knows what it is but the healers think they've got her stabilised." She pauses, looking uncertain and miserable with herself. "They were going to release her today, let her go home to her parents, but they found the Dark Mark on her arm. She's being shipped of the Azkaban as we speak, without a trial."
You watch her and are not sure how to respond. You don't even know how she wants you to respond; you don't think she even knows herself.
You lower your eyes and nod. "Right." You mutter, not sure whether you want to believe her or not.
She shifts and you look up. She's looking at you as though ready to apologise and you silently school all emotion from your face.
She looks uncertain, doubt flickers beyond her eyes and not for the first time you wonder why she comes here. She doesn't believe she can get it out of you any more than you do. She knows too little.
She's in two minds. She hates you with all her heart and soul, that much is blatant to anyone, but at the same time she wants to save you. It rings out in her pathetic pleas to get you to talk, as she tells you she only has a week before they bring in some lackeys to beat it out of you. As she hugs herself while telling you your school friend is rotting in the same hellhole as your father.
You wonder about her sometimes. About where she stands in this war. She fights for Light, without a doubt. She fights for Light and hates you so much for making the violence necessary. She fights for Light and yet you don't believe that is the driving force anymore. You think there's something more personal in the desperation she has to get the information out of you. She reads the names of ones you've killed. She brings pictures of corpses and orphaned children. She tells you of the interrogation your mother was given. She tells you how your father is suffering in Azkaban. She tells you how you'll be damned for all eternity and tries, eyes bright and throat dry, to explain why. She looks at you with carefully guarded (but never truly hidden) pain that would break a person's heart.
But you will not give up. You cannot give up. This is no different to all those years ago when you sent a cursed necklace to the school. You cannot resign to failure because he will kill you. You cannot begin to understand or think you'd like to care or realise that things could be different. You can't.
So you don't.
And you sit here and smirk because it upsets her and in that restores some form of normality. And she'll leave close to tears and you'll not care because that's what you're here for. To not care and to stand proud and sing out your cause without giving anything up. ("Mudblood!") She hates you and you hate her but neither of you are here on your own agenda and the words you speak are not necessarily your own. ("He'll find you, Granger, find you and you're filthy muggle bitch of a mother. You're all gonna die, Granger. You're gonna die and nothing you can make me say will change that.")
And she still cries.
And when she leaves sometimes you do too.
And in some ways it still isn't so different from those times in sixth year when, with the weight of the mark on your arm, you planned the death of another in exchange for you own life (because you're too young to die). It isn't so different and if you close your eyes and block out the bars and the guarded face of a little girl you sometimes see him, an old man clinging to some vague faith no one will ever understand.
"We trusted Dumbledore." She'd said. And now they trust Potter. And soon enough the cycle with begin again and again until eventually they all die. Because they can't win. They keep setting up targets for their enemies and that blind trust will give her hope in anyone. Anyone at all. (Even you.) And you can tell by the look in her eyes that she thinks she can save you. (You're not meant to be saved.) And you can tell by the way her eyes linger on the floor before they meet your own that she's trying everything she can to bring it out (what's left of the good person she's convinced you're able to be).
"Give it up Granger."
"What? Give what up, Malfoy?"
"Hope, Granger. Give up hope. It's never going to get you anywhere."
And she looks at you and seems so wounded and lost. And you would feel guilty were it not for the fact that you know she's taking in your words, storing them away and beginning to understand. And the more she understands the less faith she'll have in people like Dumbledore and Potter, and maybe (just maybe) she might see why you do it. (Not to save yourself, not because you must or you want to, but because it is the only thing to do.)
"Has he already done it, Malfoy?"
You don't understand and she continues.
"Has he already broken you, Malfoy?"
And you glare and she watches back, all dark eyes with shining pity and an almost genuine sorrow.
"What makes you think there was anything to break, Mudblood?"
She smiles a sad little smile and you bare you teeth (because what else have you left to do?). She holds your eyes and pushes a cream envelope through the bars.
As suddenly as it comes to mind, you spring to your feet and grab her wrist, angry and scared and desperate all in one. You drag her to you until she's whimpering against the bars and you hiss into her ear.
"How long do you think it's going to last, Granger? Little Mudblood. There's nothing left! Whether you die or not or I have Potter and Weasley beat the crap out of me or the Dark Lord comes here on his fucking own to finish it, it doesn't make one blind bit of difference! No one's going to win, Granger! I won't and you won't and Harry fucking Potter won't either!"
And her eyes are wide and scared and you tug the envelope from her hand, shoving her towards the door.
"Get out, Granger."
And she does.
She picks up her bag and straightens her shoulders and turns almost before you see her tears.
She leaves and you collapse onto your bed, ripping into the envelope with shaking hands (adrenaline, anxiety, fear?).
The paper rips and as the contents fall onto your mattress you draw a shuddering gasp. And you cry. (Because that's all you are, a coward and a murderer.) You cry like you did to a bitter ghost when an innocent childhood seemed to have passed you by. Your shoulders shake and your throat grows dry and you hate her and hate her and hug yourself to make it go away. And you hate her and hate them and hate him and hate the fact that you were too much of a coward to make it all stop when you had the chance.
And the photos bleed before you, children, warriors and muggles alike. Equal finally in death. And it makes you sick and you ache. You ache and you cry and your mother smiles and your father scowls and a little girl is pale and cold with white flowers and black gowns.
And you hate Hermione Granger
Because you know it's real and yet she always feels the need to give you proof.
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