As Draco kneeled in front of the man with red eyes and slits for a nose, a terrible scream pierced through the air, puncturing a hole in the universe and making Draco's heart turn to ice.

In all her beautiful, recklessly brave glory, she stood at the front of the gathering, and it took the combined effort of Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood to stop her from throwing herself at the duo in the middle of the Hall. Those brilliant brown eyes watering with terror as she, inevitably, understood what was about to happen. She let out another scream, this time mingled with that of Draco's mother.

He locked eyes with his childhood light and shook his head a fraction of an inch. It physically pained him to not run to her fighting arms, to make time itself stop just so he could see her for one last minute.

Draco wished he hadn't been so thick. They could've had months, even years.

And the stupid, kind, horrifyingly understanding woman stared back at him lovingly, so that her love could be his last memory of her. She even stopped fighting and let him drink in her soft, terrified smile. He, the idiot, knew that it was all fake. That she would start screaming the moment it happened. But a part of him, the part which was madly in love with her (most of him), smiled back. Even in his final moments, he had no thoughts other than that of hers. But-

He didn't know if she could hear the last words he uttered before an enraged incantation and a flash of blindingly green light filled everyone's vision, as she finally broke off from those holding her in place, about to jump in front of him in the empty hopes of saving him from a fate she did not want him to have-

'I'll dream about you.'