Words - 813

Rating - T

Warnings - Death, angst, vagueness

Prompt - "I've never done anything bad."

#11 – THRENODY

"You can blame me all you want, Weasley," he said softly, "but the facts are the facts. This is how it has turned out. Nothing you say will change reality."

Ginny's face was red; eyes shining wetly, fists clenched. "You're lying," she spat, "You fucking – why won't you just tell me the truth? I know it – I know you couldn't! I told everyone, I told them you wouldn't do anything… I fought for you!"

Draco sighed and shook his head. His voice was still calm, too calm, as he replied again: "You're not worth the effort to lie to, Weasley, even if my life was on the line, which it is not, you being in your present state. I honestly don't give a damn what they thought of me; never have, and your petition didn't change a thing. If you can't accept the truth, even when the evidence is right in front of your eyes, that's your own problem; leave me out of it."

Her breath was coming fast, her pulse pounding in her ears, and he was standing entirely too still. Everything about this was wrong – he was too calm, too quiet, and almost pitying in the way he spoke to her. And he was just standing there, unaffected, while she panted and sweated and tried to summon enough energy to rip his face off, to undo this all, because she had sworn he would never –

"You – how can I leave you out, when you're the center – " she panted, slowly standing. Draco didn't move, just lifted his chin up so that their eyes still met once she was back on her feet. The setting sun behind him lit him up with a halo, individual strands of sliver hair highlighted in golden light, and it was sickeningly ironic. But still beautiful, and Ginny remembered that once she had thought herself in love with this man. In all honesty she still did, and that only made this worse.

He didn't care. He never had.

"You say you hate me, Weasley," he said, and his eyes cut to the side quickly, once, at the crumpled bodies left behind. Blood smeared on the grass and on Ginny's face and hands, but Draco's skin remained milky-white, his robes pristine. "All of you did. And you say you're so right, you've done so much good, yet when you think about it…"

A small noise crawled up her throat, forced its way out of her mouth, and Draco paused. His eyes were that same grey as they had been all along, the same shade as when he had endured things no one should ever endure. The same as when he had committed acts she could never forgive. The same as when she had told him she believed in him.

If the eyes were the windows to the soul, then Draco Malfoy's had some damn heavy curtains, because his were as blank and unreadable as ever.

"I've never done anything bad," he finally stated, and after her knee-jerk snort of disbelief, Ginny found herself wanting to cry. Draco looked like a little kid, and it was what she'd seen all along, what she had defended and could never kill. He was a little lost boy, talking to himself, answering the call of inner demons, and she'd tried so hard to stop this. "I am not the villain here. If you can't see that, you're just as blind as those fools were."

Forget curtains, they were shuttered, boarded up, and incidentally made of stone behind all of that. He was lost, no matter how she had tried, and worst, he looked at her with both pity and regret.

Draco shook his head. "I won't kill you, not after what you've done for me. But… I confess I had hoped for more from you, Weasley."

His eyes were as blank as ever, as grey and as wounded, and she still could do nothing but blame herself for this. Even when he turned and calmly walked away, one boot landing on someone's limp, bloody hand with an audible crunch. Not that they cared anymore, but it was macabre and deafening in this silence, and she flinched.

She blamed herself, now as much as ever, because she had helped him. Because he had not killed her alone, and because she could not kill him, though her wand was gripped, ready, in her hand.

If he had just killed her, then she wouldn't feel so guilty. If he had killed her, if he had not shown mercy, she would have been wrong, and hideous though that was, it was better than the truth. Because what this meant was that she had been right all along, and just not good enough to save him.

This was her fault, as much as his.

So Ginny stood still and watched him go.