Trillium

Chapter Six

By Mell8

"Daddy."

The whisper was soft and tear filled so it took Ginny and Blaise a few seconds to place it. But then Draco rolled over in his sleep and showed them his tear stained cheeks and they knew who had spoken.

Draco had read the journal and his father's letter. He knew what was going to happen, what had to happen. There were only two possible outcomes of this battle.

Either Lucius died or Lucius took Draco away from his loves.

Neither option made the boy happy but he understood the stakes and what he served to lose if his father won. Ginny and Blaise were his world and even though he loved his father, Draco couldn't give them up even though it would mean his father's life.

The battle was nearing. Death Eaters had been spotted in Hogsmeade and Dumbledore had built a force of students who were prepared to combat this. Draco, Ginny, and Blaise had refused to join. Dumbledore's idea was to arm the students with better knowledge but the three of them fought differently.

They were one soul split into three separate beings and their fighting was always going to be done best when together.

Ginny snuggled into Draco's arms and let him clutch at her body while Blaise melded himself against Draco's back and held him to keep the nightmares away.

The whole castle was on high alert, but because of the impending threat Ron had forgotten about his sister again. She had taken it upon herself to stay with her loves this last night.

The explosion that hit early the next morning destroyed the Astronomy Tower and effectively woke up the whole school. Ginny, Draco, and Blaise all shot up from their shared bed and quickly found clothes and wands as they prepared themselves for the fight.

The first wave of Death Eaters had arrived via broomstick and while everyone in the castle was rushing to avoid being crushed by the crumbling tower, they broke through the main gates and entered en-mass.

Draco, Ginny, and Blaise came at a run from the dungeons. Draco was on point wand raised high and blazing with power while Blaise and Ginny ran at his sides, just half a step behind, wands out protectively.

They stopped for a moment at the edge of the fray to gauge where they were needed the most before diving in. Beforehand the battle had been tight with both sides matched somewhat evenly. Now, with the addition of the three of them, the tide of Death Eaters began to push back.

They danced as they flung spells, or so it would seem to anyone watching. They moved through the crowd as one, weaving around each other in their constant triangle formation.

It was beautiful to see their movement amid the bloodshed and pain. Fighters on both sides could be caught stopping to watch them. There were no weaknesses in their defense because there was always someone to watch their back and sides. There were constant strengths in their attacks because they were proficient at melding their spells together so all of their strength was pooled into one, powerful spell that cut swaths of Death Eaters in their path.

Sometimes, when they all turned their spell work towards the direction they were facing as they weaved in and out and around each other, Draco sent a spell at the back of Ginny's head and, milliseconds later, her head was gone and the spell flashed through hitting the Death Eater Draco had been targeting, and Blaise slid into place where Ginny had been only seconds later. If Ginny had moved too late or Blaise too soon it would have been their heads exploding, but, their connection allowed then to know just what the others were planning and where, exactly the others were at any point in time. Their formations never faltered, their spell work never failed, because they were one.

And then Lucius was there and it was as if everything froze in that moment. Everyone who knew anything about why this battle was being waged knew that the meeting between Lucius and Draco would be momentous.

"Draco, come home with me. Stop this foolish fighting," Lucius said as he held out his hand towards his only son.

Draco took Ginny and Blaise's hands in his own for strength before releasing them and stepping forward.

"I'm sorry, father," he said strongly. Ginny and Blaise could sense the faint tremble along Draco's spine that told them that he was all bravado but despite that he was still holding firm. "I don't want to follow your every whim and wish for the rest of my life. I'm my own person and I've chosen to stay with my loves and to fight for what they believe in, not what you want me to believe in."

"No!" Lucius hissed. "You are my son. You will come home right now and I will present you to the Dark Lord like my father presented me when I was seventeen. You will become a Death Eater and you will continue the Malfoy line, exactly like I have done."

Draco laughed sadly. "But don't you see, father? The Death Eaters are going to lose. Your Dark Lord is going to fail. And then the Malfoy line would have ended because both you and I would have been in Azkaban for the rest of our lives. No, I choose a different path where the Malfoy name will survive and flourish in this new world."

Lucius shook his head sadly. "Then you leave me no choice. I will end our line myself. I will kill you and then kill myself and then none of your fears will ever come true!"

His laughter rang through the silent hall as everyone, Students, Teachers, Death Eaters, Aurors, and Order members, got to see the madness Lucius Malfoy had been hiding from the world; the madness caused by Voldemort and by trying to fix his errant son, and just by living his life with a false, fabricated, sense of ideals.

He raised his wand towards his only son and his mouth opened to utter the spell that would destroy Draco forever, and, suddenly, there was a flash of red hair and dark skin, and Lucius Malfoy was no more.

A.N. Arg...I'm really not all too happy with this chapter. I just couldn't figure out how to get the true emotion of the scene to flow. I think the plot might have suffered because of it. Tell me what you think, where you think I can improve this, or whether you think it's lovely. I will take everything everyone says into consideration and if I agree with what you say I will fix this chapter until I am completely happy with it.

There's only the epilogue left now so I hope you've liked this story.

Thanks,

Mell8