Hey, guys! Time for another chapter! I hope you enjoy, but I would like to reiterate that I do not know that much canon about Draco's post-Hogwarts life. I have made this fanfiction as accurate as I could, but I would like to apoligize in advance for any inaccuracies. This fanfiction is purely based on the films and the how the story-line of this fanfiction has developed.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. There are several unnamed OC's, however.
Chapter Thirty-six
My shoulder gave a sharp and debilitating throb of pain that was enough to make me cry out and drop my wand, reaching for my shoulder.
"Are you okay?" Pansy's voice echoed.
I wanted to say that I was fine, but I was too exhausted. My whole body was heavy and aching, and my head was spinning impossibly fast.
"I'll get a Healer," someone said. I thought it was Seamus. "You keep him awake."
Retreating footsteps sounded along with yelling, that was too distant to make sense of.
"Hey, Draco," a soft voice echoed. I thought it was Pansy. "You gotta open your eyes, okay?"
I dragged my eyes open to look at her. She stood and moved in front of me, stepping off the pile of rubble we were sitting on.
"Why didn't you step to the side or something?" she demanded, a pleading tone in her voice.
"Like I could," I muttered.
Another, stronger wave of fatigue washed through me, and I put my head in my hands to steady its spinning.
"Draco!" Pansy shouted, the echo in her voice more profound than before. "You need to stay awake. Look. Madam Pomphrey's here. She can help you."
"Can you look up at me, Draco?" a calm voice asked.
The calmness in the words reminded me of my mother, so my first instinct was to do the opposite of what she asked, but I knew that my mother would never run into a battle. Not even for me.
I dragged my leadened eyes open and lifted my head slightly to find Madam Pomphrey standing over me with her wand out.
"Good," she said, turning to Seamus beside her. "Where'd you say the wound was?"
"His shoulder, I think. He's been bleeding since a Death Eater hit him with a spell," he answered.
Pomphrey nodded and looked back at me. "Can you take your blazer off for me, so I can get a better look?"
I forced myself to reach for the buttons of the suit jacket and tried repeatedly to undo them, but my hands were shaking and slick with blood.
"Here," Pansy offered, reaching for my hands.
Pansy undid the buttons on my blazer and helped me take it off. She moved it as carefully as she could, but I tried to help her by taking my arm out of the sleeve and twisted my bleeding shoulder, sending a piercing pain slicing through my entire arm.
Pomphrey rushed behind me and muttered a spell under her breath. The pain in my shoulder slowed, replacing the cold air with something warm and pleasant that gradually spread through my whole body.
The spell reminded me of all that Mother did in the cellar after Voldemort tortured me, but I was too tired to panic about it.
"Where'd you get the scar?" Pansy demanded, grabbing my Marked wrist.
I yanked my wrist from her grasp, thinking only of the Mark and not that the lack of Death Eaters probably meant the Dark Lord's demise.
"Bellatrix," I muttered, tracing the curve of the scar from the back of my hand as it wrapped around my forearm and glided into the crook of my elbow.
"You have to stop moving, Draco," Pomphrey requested.
I sighed, rested my arms on my knees and stilled.
"Heal it yourself?" Madam Pomphrey wondered. "Your scar?"
"Yeah," I mumbled. "You asked how I learned healing magic, and that's the reason. Bellatrix cut me, and no one else was around, so I grabbed a book from one of the libraries and healed myself."
"And that was your first time?"
"Yeah," I answered.
"Well, at least I wasn't your guinea pig," Pansy laughed.
Pomphrey chuckled behind me. "It was very well done for your first time."
The complement made me smile, something I hadn't felt in a while making my heart lighter.
The four of us were quiet for several minutes until Madam Pomphrey broke the silence. "You should be good now. The wound's closed up, though I don't know what spell you were hit with, so you do have a small scar."
"Thanks," I said turning slightly to look up at her.
"Not a problem, Draco."
"Great!" Seamus yelled. "Now that you're no longer dying, I'm starving. Who's up for food in the Great Hall?"
Seamus offered me his hand, and I took it, allowing him to help me up. My head spun for a moment, and I would have fallen back down if it wasn't for Seamus's support.
"I'd be careful about standing up too fast," Pomphrey cautioned. "You lost a lot of blood. You need to eat slowly and drink a lot of water."
"Also drink slowly, so I can give my body time to adjust to having fluids again and not throw up," I added, earning a smile from Pomphrey.
"Exactly," she said.
"I'm actually hungry, too," Pansy commented as she got to her feet and handed me my wand.
"Let's go, then," Seamus said excitedly, jogging off through the doors of the Great Hall.
I took my wand from Pansy and stowed it in my back pocket before I followed Seamus through the doors and was overwhelmed by the change in atmosphere. It was the same room where people laid dead and families cried together, but now there was an almost giddy sense of relief racing through the Hall. Family members greeted each other and friends hugged with smiles and laughs. Students and staff alike were being healed and getting much needed food and rest. Professor Slughorn was even babbling away telling some random story to anyone who would listen.
Seamus found his way back to me and handed me a cup of water as Pansy walked off towards a group of girls. I thanked him and we both stood awkwardly, sipping on our waters.
Meetings with Death Eaters were more than uncomfortable, but this was a whole new kind of awkward. The meetings were terrifying, but I knew what to do during those. I would keep my mouth shut and stay out of the way, but I had no idea how to react to Seamus. He had no idea what his radio station had helped me through, but I used to hate him. He was a Gryffindor and always took Potter's side, so I hated him as a child, but now? Now I had no idea what to do.
A clattering sounded outside the doors of the Hall, and my hand instantly flew to my wand as I turned towards its source. I found Filch standing with a broom, tossing stones into the pile of debris. He threw the bristles of his broom down and aggressively swept the floor, pushing loose pebbles into the mountain of stone with the most distressed expression.
I scoffed with a genuine amusement that I hadn't felt in the longest time. "Looks like Filch is stuck cleaning up your mess again."
"Ha," Seamus laughed. "Yeah. Bet he never gets tired of that."
"Seamus!" Dean's recognizable voice called.
Seamus and I both turned to see Dean running towards us from what looked to be a makeshift nursing station. Dean laughed as he crashed into Seamus and wrapped his arms around him.
"You're alive!" they both shouted.
Dean and Seamus wandered off as they talked, bragging to each other about their heroic acts during the battle.
I scanned the Hall for some place to finally sit down and found an unoccupied bench. I practically ran towards it and collapsed on top. I wanted nothing more than to pass out, but I was so overtired that I doubted I could.
I took my wand out of my pocket and studied it. It was my mother's wand. Not mine. Neither of my parents had a wand, now, and they would most likely go into hiding after all of this. Half of me wished them good riddance, but the other half still worried for my mother's safety, and I had no idea which emotion was stronger.
"You came back," Ron's voice said.
I looked up to find the usual trio of friends standing in front of me.
"Mind if we join you?" Harry asked.
I shrugged-surprised and glad that my shoulder didn't ache when I did-and gestured for them to take a seat. Ron and Hermione chose to sit uncomfortably close to each other at my side, and Harry pulled up a nearby stool and sat in front of us.
"I'm surprised you did come back," Ron said. "Thought you ran off."
"Why'd you go with them in the first place? Thought you said you never wanted to be a Death Eater," Granger questioned, lowering her voice on the last few words.
I sighed as I reviewed what happened in the courtyard, though it seemed like ages ago. "I don't know."
"It's not like they could actually control you," Potter voiced. "Or cast an Imperious Curse from that distance."
"It's a long story," I quickly dismissed, spinning my mother's wand between my fingers to keep my hand from shaking.
The three friends fell silent for a while, but Harry's head popped up as if he'd just remembered something. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a wand-my wand-and held it out to me. "You still want it back?"
I glanced between my mother's wand and mine. It would be the best thing in the world to get rid of my mother's and have mine back, but… "Don't you still need one?"
Potter reached into his back pocket again and pulled out a second wand. "Mine got broken before, but it's fixed, now," he explained, holding my wand out again.
I put my mother's wand down on the bench and took mine from Harry's outstretched hand. An excited sense of relief flooded me as I grasped my wand again. It was like I had myself back. I didn't need my mother's wand anymore because I had my own.
"Wait. Hang on," I said, lowering my hand. "How could you 'fix' your wand. Wands can't be repaired with a simple mending charm."
"You won't believe us if we told you," Ron cautioned.
"Try me," I retorted.
"It was the Elder Wand," Harry answered.
"What, like from the 'Tale of Three Brothers'?" I remembered the story from when I was a kid. My father-Lucius-read it to me when I was young.
"Yeah," Granger said, leaning around Weasley to talk to me. "It's real. The wand was Dumbledore's."
"Then Snape's," I finished.
"Actually no," Ron laughed.
"What do you mean 'no'?" I wondered, surprised. "If I remember the story right, the wand's loyalty shifts to whoever killed it's last owner."
"You don't have to kill the owner. You just have to disarm him," Harry explained, giving me an odd look.
My mind drifted back to the moment in the Astronomy Tower with Dumbledore. It was only last year, but it felt like a lifetime ago. Dumbledore lifted his wand, and I disarmed him in a panic. I disarmed Dumbledore. "I was owner of the Elder Wand?"
"Well, up till I disarmed you in Malfoy Manor a few months ago," Harry said.
"So you've got the wand?" I clarified, receiving a nod from Potter. Forget not knowing how to react to spending time alone with Seamus. This was beyond strange.
"At least I would if I hadn't broken it," Harry voiced.
"You did what?" I almost shouted. "How could you do that? I know you were raised by Muggles, Potter, but I thought you would have heard the story by now."
"That's what I said when he did it," Ron agreed. "Well, minus the little rant at the end."
The four of us all exchanged looks as something almost entirely foreign bubbled up inside my chest and built to a peak, spilling over into laughter. As far as I remembered, it was the first genuine laugh I've had in years. It brought a profound sense of release, like I was letting something go that I never needed to hold on to.
The trio of friends around me grunted as their mouths thinned into a tight line. Eventually, they gave up and laughed with me.
"Never thought I'd be doing this," Ron muttered through gasps of breath and laughter.
"What?" I said as my laughter finally died down, an odd stitch pinching in my side.
"Laughing with you," Ron explained. "Not after she punched you."
"Neither did I," I sighed, feeling better than I have in years.
A group of people stormed through the doors of the Hall. They were all adults, and they had their wands out and ready. A shorter man with dark hair and skin separated himself from the group and raced up to McGonagall. The two talked in low voices for a while before the man gestured to the group that came in with him to lower their wands. The people compiled and seemed to relax.
"My apologies for our lateness," the man talking to McGonagall announced, silencing any remaining conversation. "We also had to clean up Death Eaters in the Ministry."
"Did you know about them?" Hermione whispered to me.
"I knew there were Death Eaters in the Ministry, but I thought they were all attacking the school," I answered, matching her tone.
"Does anyone know where the remaining Death Eaters ran off to?" the authoritarian man asked, glancing around the room.
"He's one," a recognizable voice said. I turned to its source and found Blaise standing off to the side, pointing at me. "He's a Death Eater. I-I saw his Mark."
I let out a huff of both disappointment and hatred. Not towards Blase, but towards myself. How could I think that everything would be okay? Voldemort might be gone, but I still had the Mark of a Death Eater, and Death Eaters would be hunted down and thrown into Azkaban.
I got to my feet as several members of the group of Aurors rushed towards me and grabbed my left wrist, exposing my Mark for all to see.
An Auror took my wand and grabbed my mother's off of the bench while another held my hands together behind my back, binding them with a burning spell.
"Mister Malfoy is not a Death Eater," McGonagall said, advancing towards me and the Aurors holding me. "He has renounced them, and he fought with us during the battle. Against them."
"Yeah. You've got to let him go," Potter agreed, getting to his feet.
"He's got the Mark," the head Auror countered. "Therefore he is a Death Eater, and he will be dealt with properly."
The man waved his hand towards the doors of the Hall, and the Aurors holding me forced me towards them.
"Sorry, Draco," Blaise called. I turned as best I could in the Aurors' hold to see him. "We can't trust you anymore." He glared at me, but it had something akin to guilt in the expression.
"We'll figure something out," Potter said, running up to me. "They can't hold you."
"They can and they will," I dismissed, the lightness in my heart evaporating like water in the sun. "It's alright."
Harry stopped in the doorway of the Hall as the Aurors dragged me into the courtyard. One of the Aurors raised her wand and Aparated us away from the school, taking me to the outside of a formidably tall building. The wall in front of us was entirely flat except for the long vertical slit that seemed to be a doorway.
I've never been to Azkaban, but I've seen pictures. It was more terrifying in person, and the unnatural, Dementor-induced fear made it ten times worse.
The Aurors led me through the thick, nearly black fog and forced me through the large door. The process of documenting me as a prisoner was quick and filled with disgusted and hateful looks directed at both me and my Mark. They gave me a card labeled "Azkaban Prison" and had five symbols on it. They pushed me in front of a camera and took two photographs of me from the front and the side. They shoved me in a small room and left guards who ordered me to undress and tossed a set of striped, grey prison clothes. I got it over with as quickly as I could, and when I was finished, they took my soiled clothes and dragged me by the arms. They literally threw me into a cell and slammed the door shut behind me.
I landed hard on the stone floor, my already aching body hurting all the more. I gasped for air until I got my breath back. After a moment, I managed to get to my feet and glanced around what would be my home indefinitely.
It was significantly smaller than the cellar the Death Eaters locked me in, but at least this cell had an actual bed. It was a cot, really, but it wasn't a bench and carved out of the wall, either. And there was a window. A barred one, and it was most definitely enforced with magic to keep me from reaching out, but a window.
The Dementors gilded through the dense, grey fog outside. Some of them lingered by my window and peered inside. The cold in the stone room deepened each time they passed, slicing through my thin prison uniform and biting straight to my bones, memories of the cellar, Lucius and Bellatrix springing to the forefront of my mind.
I hope you guys enjoyed, and I'll see you soon for the next chapter!