Say Something
Summary: Before joining Voldemort's side, Draco was waiting for someone to say 'stay', but no one did. (I saw this in a YouTube video, and I decided I had to write a story based on that. So here it is.)
Say something. Please.
This is the only thought as he looks up at his father, who's looking at him with cold but prideful eyes.
"I knew you would make the right choice in the end."
His mother, however, looks anxious. Say something. Anything. "Lucius, he's just a child." Oh, thank Merlin. "We can't let him join the Death Eaters. He's a child, Lucius."
"It's his choice. And he has decided to join us." Draco's father turns to him. "You will serve the Lord well, Draco." Then he turns on his heels and strides away, leaving Draco and Narcissa alone.
She looks at him with blank eyes, though he thinks he catches an edge of worry before the blankness steals into those eyes. She doesn't say anything. He doesn't expect her to. She never speaks against his father once he's decided something. She looks on at him, and then she walks away, slower and quieter than her husband, her footsteps somehow reflecting her sadness that's mirrored in her son.
Draco is on the train to Hogwarts. About to start his sixth year. His forearm tingles from the Dark Mark he received weeks ago, and he resists the urge to rub his skin, clenching his jaw as he looks at his classmates.
Classmates. That's all they are. Not friends. Not even acquaintances. Classmates. Crabbe and Goyle are eating cauldron cakes, Pansy has her head on his lap for show-off purposes, Blaise has been called to Slughorn's party.
Before he leaves, Draco tells them all that he's a Death Eater now, in a quiet voice, barely audible even to himself. They stare at him blankly. This news is not really a surprise; he's been talking about little else the whole previous year.
"That's cool," Blaise says at last, though he looks doubtful.
"You'll be leaving Hogwarts?" Pansy demands, sitting up now. Does she care? Someone who cares at last? Draco hopes so.
"No," he says. "I'm not leaving."
She sighs. "That's good. I'm not sure what everyone will think if you suddenly drop out. They might become suspicious."
Draco's heart drops. Of course she doesn't care. All the gestures, the hanging off his arm and calling him 'her Drakie' was all a show to the other Houses. 'Slytherins stick together.'
Crabbe and Goyle look at him with awe. They don't say anything. They look at him like looking at him for the first time like they've never known that he'd always wanted to join You-Know-Who from the first day of the first year.
He realizes now that they never even bothered to ask him one single thing about himself, always just hanging around him and looking smug. He realizes now that they've never even been - forget friends - friendly. They didn't even make an effort to be his friends.
Draco remembers when he used to play with Dobby as a kid. He's known Crabbe and Goyle from the day he turned two - the three families have always been close - and when the two of them saw him playing with Dobby, Draco remembers them leering and jeering at him.
"He's an elf. An elf." They laughed, and he had laughed with them, thinking naively that they were making fun of Dobby, not him. He was wrong.
"I was lonely," he'd said. "No one else to play with."
He remembers Crabbe poking Dobby when the elf runs out of the room, hearing his master call him. He remembers Goyle's sneer as he said, "Your parents had better be kept in the dark about this, or they'll be furious." He remembers thinking that his parents would probably ground him for a whole three months of they knew. He remembers when he was five, he's at Crabbe's, and Goyle is there, too, and they're both munching on sweets his father bought them. They did not offer him anything. That was when the eating started and never stopped. They were friends, and he was not. Not at all.
He doesn't recall one time those two genuinely cared for him. Not when he was hurt by that bloody hippogriff, not when he was hurt by that stray bludger in Quidditch, not even when he's telling them that he's joining the 'Dark' side. He hoped they'd stop him, tell him it was dangerous, but no. They just stare at him.
So why did he even care? Because they're all he has? Of course not. Draco internally scoffs at the thought. He has his mother, and Blaise is his real friend. That's all? Yeah. That's about it.
Crabbe and Goyle aren't his friends. Not acquaintances. Just classmates.
He learns during the Battle of Hogwarts that house elves are a lot better - and capable - than those goons. He sees with his own eyes as Aunt Bella's old Elf, Kreacher, leads the other kitchen elves to fight. Fight! He's never thought that house elves could fight! Would fight. Now he knew how terrifying they could be.
He's underestimated a lot of people in his life. He thinks that he'd never let himself do that again.
He thinks of all this - all his mistakes and his recollections - as he stands in front of Fred Weasley's grave, tears silently running down his face. He's not sorry for the Weasley, of course not, he's just sad that he's been the cause of the war, directly or indirectly, it depends on how one thinks about it.
He should've talked to someone. Anyone. How could he ever have been part of this? Part of this nightmare? He's been cruel to break families apart. If he'd realized all this earlier, if he'd seen that Voldemort was evil, if he hadn't joined the Death Eaters just because his parents told him to, if he'd acted as a spy for Dumbledore - Dumbledore died - for McGonagall, if only he'd gone to someone who would understand... All this wouldn't have happened. He could've stopped it somehow. But he didn't.
He didn't.
And having all those deaths on his conscience, it was not fun. It haunted him. Not literally, ghosts didn't appear in front of him to yell at him, thankfully, but he felt the pain of being responsible for all the casualties, on both sides.
He shouldn't have repaired the cabinet. He shouldn't have listened to the Dark Lord, he should've gone to Snape or to Dumbledore, both of whom were dead now. One of them, his fault. If he hadn't repaired the cabinet, none of this would've happened. None of this. His parents wouldn't be in Azkaban right now, Crabbe - however nasty a 'friend' he'd been - wouldn't be dead, Pansy wouldn't be dead, and he himself wouldn't be facing his trial - they wanted to decide if they should send him to Azkaban or not, as he'd played such a big part in the war.
He rather hopes they would. At least he'd be with his mother. He deserves to be imprisoned. To have his soul be slowly sucked out of him. He's the reason for so many deaths.
"Draco Malfoy!"
He realizes he's walking, and that he's almost to the Malfoy Manor now. He looks up from where he's been staring at his shoes, and sees that the speaker is Rita Skeeter.
"Would you like to answer some questions?"
He stars at her uncomprehendingly and then realizes her camera is floating by her head, and that her quick-quill and notepad are hovering by his left shoulder. He takes a step back and his eyes widen, and he says, "No, I'd hate to answer questions. Go away."
And then he runs.
He runs as fast as he can and he doesn't even know where he's running to. An hour later, he finds himself in the basement of his house, where Potter and Weasley and Lovegood had been imprisoned. He finds himself thinking of how he'd been forced to torture Ollivander right here in this basement, the same old man who'd said when he first got his wand that he'd always been wary of this particular magical stick because he could feel that it would do terrible things one day. He thinks of the warning the old man gave him before shooing him out of the shop, and he remembers thinking that the man was bullocks, because why would his wand ever do anything terrible?
Now he knows. He wonders absently if Ollivander was a seer. Not that it matters.
He'll never be accepted by anyone again. Everyone had seen his parents - and himself - fighting for the Dark Lord, and not for Hogwarts. They'll all hate him, not give him a chance to repent or to change his ways.
He wishes they would.
He doesn't notice a shooting star shooting past the main window upstairs. There are no windows - not even air holes - in the cold basement.
Several years later, he stands on Platform Nine and Three Quarters, his wife beside him, his son hugging him, and he put his arm around Scorpius Malfoy and holds him close, and then lets go. Scorpius hugs his mother, says goodbye, and bounds into the train.
"He'll be alright," Astoria Greengrass says.
"Yeah," he replies. He smiles.
He sees Potter and Weasley and Granger - Weasley now - and their kids, and he catches Potter's eyes. He sees the way the Boy Who Lived hesitantly smiles at him for a second, and then his daughter catches his attention.
And Draco's surprised because he never thought Harry would smile at him. Glower at him? Yes. Hex him? Definitely. Kill him? Maybe not, but he'd want to. But smile? Absolutely not. It was almost like they were acquaintances.
Astoria notices the little exchange and smiles, and he doesn't know if she knew all along that he was loveable, that he was nice beneath everything, that one day, he would be accepted into the Wizarding World again. He likes to think she at least hoped.
Of course, they don't know that he was willing to be a Death Eater, they think he was coerced into it. He isn't too eager to correct them. He has a second chance at last, and he vows to himself that he's not going to waste it.
He watches as the train leaves, the start of a new year at Hogwarts, and hopes it's the start of a new life - one of love and acceptance - for him, too.
As for right now, things are looking well.
Author's Note: This did not go where I expected it to go. Also, just to make sure, I didn't mean to make Draco a saint or anything or excuse his actions, just repent for what he's done. Hope you liked it.
