Draco

I remember everything.

I remember it so clearly in my mind. I wish I could forget but I know it's impossible.

Where do I start?

It should probably be when my father descended on me with a request – no, a demand. I could tell from the look on his face that he didn't really want to do what he had to, but he did it anyway.

It was the school break between fifth and sixth year and I was lying back on the couch with a book from our library in my hand. I heard him come in and looked up. There he was with that sick look on his face; my mother followed him with a face like stone.

"Draco…" He said as he put a hand on the side of the couch.

I just looked up at him, I had no clue what was going to come of it all. He started explaining things to me, about how it was going to change, about how his return would make our world a better place for all of us. My mother hardly looked convinced of the things he was saying but she would never go against my father, their bond was too strong for that.

When he told me about the role I would have to play I remember dropping the book and it fell to the floor.

"No! I won't do it!" I spat the words out.

I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

"Draco this is our chance to-"

"I don't care!" I cut him off sharply. "I won't do it, I didn't sign up for anything, you did!" I slammed my fist down into the side of the couch, like it would have done any good.

That's when he signed what was potentially my death sentence.

"You don't have a choice Draco."

After that my holidays were over, any chance of having a semi-regular life was over. I began my initiation into the death-eater core.

It started with the mark. When the first of it touched my skin I could feel the cold black ink seeping into my veins, infecting me with darkness. I could feel it moving, whenever he wanted me to feel it I could. I couldn't control it in the slightest.

It was just the start.

Soon enough I couldn't finish my studies because I had to work on the cabinets, they had to be ready. Snape helped me with that; he was one of the few who knew exactly what was going on.

I guess you know the rest. You know what happened to Dumbledore and that he stayed at our manor through what should have been my seventh year. I didn't sleep for weeks knowing that he had the run of the place. Suddenly everything that used to be mine was under his control.

I didn't have a say in it, I was expendable to him. If I put a foot out of line he could dispose of me like I was nothing. To him I was nothing.

It felt like I wasn't anything to anyone. Nothing but a pawn in their sadistic game of wizard's chess where he was the black king, and Potter was the white.

I was just another face in the sea of Death Eaters, except everyone at school knew what I had done and who I was allied with. The Slytherins respected me, most of them had parents involved in it all anyway. Everyone else would curse me as soon as look at me.

Even coming back this year I got looks of derision, hatred, disgust, and all other emotions in between. It was debilitating to live like that.

But that's too far forward, I've missed too much.

I had just lost Goyle, he had been my friend for seven years. I suppose this was the first thing that made me want to stand up for something different. It was what made me think that I should be doing what I thought was right.

The truth was that I loved it at Hogwarts. As much as Dumbledore favoured Potter and the rest of them and as angry and bitter as I acted I really did enjoy it there. That is until sixth year when it all changed. I couldn't just get through school and try to think about what I wanted to do when it was over. I had a job to do, and that job was to betray everyone within its walls.

After that, Hogwarts was never the same. How could it be?

There was a lull in the battle, I sort of wandered around the castle, avoiding glares and watching as people mourned their dead. It all came crushing down on me, I know that it all started when I let them in through the cabinets the year before. Maybe he would have found a way in without me, but I had a hand in it. There was blood on my hands. Hands, arms, I was practically drowning in it.

Maybe that wasn't as true as I thought it was, but there was no denying that some of this was my fault.

I wandered in the shadows looking at all of the damage I had done. When they finally emerged from the forest, and they thought Potter was dead, I tried to be strong. I tried to stand on the right side of the fight but my father was calling out to me.

They were all I knew, I had to go with them. Maybe it made me a coward to everyone else, maybe it made me pathetic, but I couldn't just stand there. I was too afraid that they would disown me and I would be stuck with nowhere to turn, or that he would kill me and then nothing would matter anymore.

So I walked out of the crowd and over to where he stood. I almost couldn't stand to have him touch me. I could feel the mark on my arm humming as his hands gave my shoulders a meek squeeze. It made me feel ill in my stomach.

When he released me I didn't turn back to look at the smouldering castle walls, I could feel the hot stares on the back of my neck. They hated me, they all hated me.

My mother took my wrist with a death grip and pulled me through the crowd of death eaters. until we were walking away from it all.

That is probably what I should start with, but she doesn't need to know all of that. It's just the part that I know she's going over in her mind. So I guess I'll start there.

"Well you know you can tell me anything Draco." She said as she smiled so warmly up at him.

His heart pounded and she stroked his cheek reassuringly, the nerves showing clearly on his face.

"Okay." She didn't say anything more; she thought it was probably best to just let him get out what he had to say.

If she was being honest she was worried about what it might be. He exhaled heavily before he began.

"After the battle, after we left everything, we apparated back home. It was only then that we found out what happened. Some of the others arrived shortly after. Most of them had some harsh words to spit at my father, some of them at me. We didn't fight, and they couldn't understand why.

"My mother screamed at the top of her lungs telling them to get out. Eventually they did but not before father yelled a lot of stuff about hopeless and how we were all going away for a long time.

"Anyway, they apparated out of there and my parents left me alone while they argued about… well everything. I sat in the library… for hours. I just kept thinking that even though it was over, it was never going to be over, not really.

"My parents sort of started to ignore me after that. My mother made small gestures, I guess she was trying to tell me that she was glad I didn't die or something. I don't know. Other than that, it was like I didn't exist.

"It was probably a week later that the inquests started. My father was carted away first, next they searched the house and then they thought about taking me in." His face contorted as he remembered it.

They took him down to the ministry, they had just appointed a new minister and he had ordered all Death Eaters whose whereabouts were known to be taken in and questioned. Draco bore the mark and so they thought it was necessary to bring him in. He remembered sitting in the cold chambers waiting for a high authority auror to meet him. The guard sat behind him, watching him closely. He could still feel his eyes on his back.

The auror had come in and sat opposite him. He didn't mess around.

"You are known to have committed acts of dark magic in accompaniment with Voldemort. Do you deny these acts?" I swallowed hard and flinched at the mention of his name.

"N…No… I uh… well my father-"

"I asked if you committed the act Mr Malfoy, nothing more." He said coldly as he scribbled something down on his pad.

I stayed silent as the quill scratched at the paper eagerly.

"When you completed acts for Voldemort were you or were you not under the impression of the imperious curse?" He looked up with the same cold face and I felt the sweat begin to form on my brow.

I almost couldn't get some of the words out. I finally managed to choke something out. "…No, I wasn't. I was-"

"Mr Malfoy when I ask you a question I expect you to answer it plain and simple. If I ask you to explain then do so if I don't then keep your mouth quiet." He had a rough voice, one of those people that you didn't want to see angry.

I had no idea what he was writing but I knew it was nothing good. The questioning went on for over an hour, by the end I was stressed out and sweating and I felt like I needed to take off my sweater because he was pounding me with so many questions that he could easily twist into something else.

It was about then when another auror – a woman in a grey suit and slicked back hair – walked through the door.

"Dolka!" She said sharply and nodded to the corner of the room.

They had a short conversation that I could hear from my chair.

"His parents are deeply rooted in their circles, you can't expect the boy to oppose that."

"He is seventeen years old, he should have to take responsibility for his part in the war." The one called Dolka was not very sympathetic towards me.

"I have just come back from an interview with his father. From the way he spoke it sounded as though they were coerced in the last year or so to do his bidding. He was using their house as his headquarters."

"Yes and he didn't have to do what he was asked." Dolka growled.

"Would you rather he died?"

"Many people died for what was right."

"I don't believe he had a choice, would you prefer us to take out the veritaserum?" She said.

I didn't know that it was allowed, but that's what they did. It only took about fifteen minutes to decide that they could let me go. They made sure I knew that I would be kept under watchful eye though.

They didn't release my father for another week; he had to undergo a trial.

"They ended up giving me veritaserum, to spill the truth. They let me go home, obviously. My father had to go through a trial before he was allowed home. They decided that 'towards the end of the battle all acts were against his better judgement and not of his own volition'. Officially that was the judgement anyway.

"So he was put under house arrest for the first few months, his only outside visits were to be to the ministry. He just sort of shut it off after that." He had told her most of this before.

Mainly he was stalling so that he didn't have to tell her what he was hiding.

"It must have been awful for you." She said in a voice barely more than a whisper.

He didn't have to answer, of course it was.

"Anyway, I… I didn't know what to do with myself. I couldn't do anything other than stay locked up in my house. I still couldn't sleep in my own bed. I was up for hours, any sleep I did get was crummy at best. It still felt like he was there, like he never left. My mother tended to my father and the only thing I could hear throughout the house was the ticking of the old clock in the parlour.

"I must have read two dozen books in just over a week. After that I took to cleaning every inch of the place, trying to get rid of the stench that lingered there… it was like a thick layer of grime that just wouldn't come off, no matter how many times I scrubbed it…" His breathing became heavy and Hermione stroked his cheek a little more trying to calm him down.

It worked a little, and soon he was back to breathing calmly.

"I did all of it, every single room, except for the one that my father remained in. I couldn't face him. When I finished the inside I tried the outside, in the garden. My mother always had a full garden, for her potions. It was pretty barren when I got out there, a year of neglect didn't do it much good.

"I tried to fix most of the plants, but they were almost all dead." He breathed out heavily and turned his eyes away from hers. "I couldn't handle it anymore. I hadn't spoken a word in weeks, I hadn't heard from another person since the questioning at the ministry… I couldn't take it Hermione…" He closed his eyes tight and clenched his teeth.

I wandered aimlessly through the garden, what else could I do? There was nothing for me anymore, nothing. I was nothing, a nobody, with no hope of a future. Everyone knew me as a traitor, on both sides. I was in exile.

I looked down to the corner of the garden and saw it; a small blue-green flower was about the only thing still living in the Death Valley that was the yard. I recognised it right away: wolfs bane.

The flower on the plant is harmless to humans, but the leaves are more commonly known as aconite – one of the more deadly poisons in the known world.

I pulled them out by the root and threw the flower aside.

"There was one plant that was still growing… there were wolfs bane flowers in one of the garden beds…" Her brow furrowed slightly. "So I took the plant."

"Draco… was that…" She said slowly.

"They were the leaves you found in my bag. Mind you a little bit dried out. I figured that I could just slip them into my tea or something; I could fool myself into thinking that I wasn't taking them." Her face held a look of horror and shock, she couldn't believe what he was saying.

I left them beside my bed that night, maybe it was to remind me to take them in the morning, maybe it was in case I couldn't sleep and the voices in my head became too much to bear. They were still there the next morning though. I took them with me everywhere after that. I had to keep them with me. That way if everything overwhelmed me I could just slip away. No one would even notice.

The thought that no one would even know that I was gone for quite some time almost pushed me to do it.

"I took them with me everywhere, I always had them with me no matter where I was in the house. It wouldn't be hard to disappear. Like I said, I was practically a ghost anyway." He had a faraway look in his eye and Hermione felt hers glassing over.

She couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"When I went back to school I knew I had to take them with me."

They had become almost a comfort blanket to me. It was like I knew that it could all disappear if I really wanted it to. If I needed it all to go, I could take them. I even had them on the tip of my tongue a few times.

"I almost did it more than once… I just ended up beating things with my fists. I wanted to do it. I really wanted to do it." He looked up at her as tears threatened to spill from his eyes.

Hermione already had tear stained cheeks from the overwhelming information.

I wanted to do it more than I had ever wanted anything. But I couldn't.

"I just couldn't." He choked. "Not once I found you."

He had never been so vulnerable. His body shook with sobs. He had never told anyone about the leaves before. He had never told anyone anything so close to his soul before. She held him and stroked his hair as he let out everything he had been holding in for months. She kissed his cheeks where the tears had been left and when he finally composed himself she held his head in her hands.

"You have to promise me you'll get rid of them." She said with a shaky voice.

He nodded to her and she pressed her lips into him for a hard salty kiss.

"You promise me."

"I promise." She kissed him again, and again, each with more need. No one had ever been so honest with her.

She could hardly believe that he confided in her with something like this. Maybe this meant that they could finally start something real, something with more elation than torture.

She held him into her for what felt like such a long time. She felt him begin to relax beside her and she realised that this wasn't enough.

"Draco?" She said.

"Mmm?" He murmured into her shoulder.

"I was thinking, maybe you could come with me to see my parents in the break… even if it was just for half the time." He pulled away to look up at her.

"You really think they would let someone like me into their house?" He said, his eyes heavy with despair.

"My parents are muggles, they'd be thrilled to meet someone from my school. They don't know anything about the war or who was on which side. I know they'd be ecstatic to have you." She smiled warmly and he thought about it.

He couldn't imagine what it would be like to live in a world where no one knows who he is and what he has done. His mouth twitched into a smile and Hermione kissed his forehead.

He knew there had to be a reason that he didn't take those leaves; she was it.