This is for PJoHoOFan!

Draco Malfoy to Narcissa Malfoy, dated 23 April, 1997

I'm frightened.

I don't think I can do it.

I've been trying and trying but just when I think I'm making progress the whole thing breaks again like it think it's funny and then I just get so angry. I've been working on it hours and hours every day, every night, day after day after day after day when I should be in class, all the time, all the time, doing little niggling things and trying to make any progress at all but nothing works, I spend half my time in the library and the rest of it in the Room, trying and trying and trying. Do you know how many spells I know? Thousands, hundreds of thousands, more spells than words, and I've used them and used them until my throat is dry and I can barely gasp another and my arm is dead and my mind is clouded and all the magic drains away like blood, I feel it leaving. I know it can't but I know it is. I'm losing it, I'm losing everything, I'm losing my mind. I can't eat or sleep or think, I can't think, I can't concentrate, my mind is slipping away and everything goes back to that bloody cabinet, round and round it spins in my head until I can't see anything else. I've tried everything, everything.

I physically can't do more than I've already done. I don't understand. The cabinet is repaired, it's whole, I test it with every charm I know and it always comes out just fine, and then I try to send something through and it breaks or dies or collapses. Every single time. And it's always something different, it's like every time I think I've finally got some inclination of what's happening something else goes wrong and I'm more lost than ever. And every day, every second, I see Father's face when we went to see him and Mother, Mother it frightens me. He looked like hell and I can't bear to think of him in that place, it's like burning in my head, what if one Dementor gets careless and I lose my father forever? Hours and hours, days, weeks, months, all year I've spent on this cabinet, I dream about it sleeping and waking I've seen it a thousand different ways I know it inside and out I could count the panels on every wall and the knots in every board with my eyes closed because it's burned on the back of my skull with fire but I can't affect it in anyway, not that I've not already done, changing it back and forth and back and forth the same two useless ways over and over again like a bell ringing, back and forth and back and forth and never once a real change. Every time I think I've got something I become more and more excited and every time it fails, time after time after bloody time, hundreds of thousands of times, it gets worse and worse. I'm running out of time. I don't have time. He'll die, you'll die, I'll die. I'm frightened. There's no time, I hear the tick of the clock and it's like death coming nearer, and then I have to rush to the Room to work more and more but nothing helps and nothing changes and time keeps on going faster and faster and every second I waste brings me, you, him, all of us, closer and closer to death and there's nothing, nothing, nothing I or anyone can do to stop it oh god I'm afraid I'm afraid.

I can't die! I don't want to die! But I know I am dying, slowly, inexorably. I've given up hoping for a miracle. Now I'm just hoping the end will come quickly. But I know it won't; I know he'll force me to watch you die first, he'll force me to listen to you scream, because that way he'll punish both me and Father at the same time. I dream nightmares of blood and I hear him laughing, laughing, laughing as you die, slowly, and all I want to do is kill you so that the screaming will stop. Mother, forgive me…I learned the killing curse for Dumbledore, but if I fail, I will use it on myself. I can't bear to live knowing that my failure cost you your life and Father…his life, or his soul. It's all my fault. I can't do anything about it, I can't stop it, it's coming, like the tick of the clock, it never stops not for one breath not for one second the screaming is coming nearer and the laughter and the death.

I can't do it, Mother, I can't.

And there's something else—I see him, quite often. The headmaster. And I think—I'm sure—he knows what I'm trying to do. But he just goes on smiling at me, Mother. Like he's cheering for me. It's ghastly. It's ghastly. I see his smiles in my nightmares, too. He smiles at me and then I can't go through with it, but I know I must, but I can't. Mother, I don't even want to kill him. I can't think of anything else but killing him, but I don't want to kill him. I don't even want him dead. But he goes on smiling, smiling, smiling, like a doll, like a grinning clabbert, like he's laughing at me too. He doesn't think I can do it, or maybe he does. Either way is equally horrible, equally unbearable.

I know the Dark Lord will show no mercy. Kill him or die. Kill him or die. Kill him or die. Kill him or die. Kill kill kill or die

The letter ends here with a smudge and a trace of blood.

Narcissa to Draco, dated 25 April, 1997

Draco,

Please, you mustn't be afraid. You will not die. You will have help, I promise. If you need anything, go to Severus. Please, I know you want to do this yourself, but I can't bear to read those frightful things you write when you're on your own. For my sake, talk to Severus.

I love you. Remember that, please, Mother loves you. And Father loves you. Your father is strong; that place is terrible, but they will not break him, they will never break him. Above and beyond all else, whatever happens, we love you. Be brave, sweetheart, like Father. Be strong.

And eat. Do eat. Do sleep. I know everything seems hopeless now but there is always hope, you must believe that. And you are not helping yourself by not sleeping and eating.

You can do anything. I believe in you, with all of my heart. Remember what Father taught you? Take a step back. Take a breath. Believe that you can do it. Believe as much as Mother does and don't be afraid.

And I want you to know that Father and I aren't afraid to die. We would die for you without a second thought, without a first thought, if we had to. Don't be afraid of that. Nothing bad will happen to you, I promise.

We love you, we love you so much.

Mother

Draco to Narcissa, date unknown, sometime in May or June 1997

Mother-

I've got it. We're going to live, and he's going to die.

I love you.

-Draco