He didn't see the trio again until the night the dark lord launched his attack on Hogwarts. Draco was in the process of being shuffled out of school prior to the attack only to be caught before he had a chance to get away by none other than his old mates, Crabbe and Goyle. Supposedly, they'd picked up on the details of Harry's reappearance and insisted that he accompany the two of them to stand guard outside and help them get into the room of requirement.
Frustrated, he contemplated their offer. He didn't want to help them do anything much less did he want to go back into the school, which was growing more dangerous by the second. But then, what would they think if he said no? What sort of tricky questions would they ask him? What excuse did he have to turn them down? With great reluctance he agreed and followed them, looking longingly back on the group of students exiting through the school's large front doors.
They waited together, concealed by a disillusionment charm. Soon, Harry made his appearance, followed closely by Hermione and Ron. Draco was forced to hold his two companions back, whispering furiously that it was important to enter separately. Truly, he couldn't care less about the diadem thing that Potter was supposedly after but, unlike his daft comrades, knew a premature confrontation would end poorly for all involved.
When the trio vanished along with the door to the room of requirement, he walked three times back and forth imagining the room in which he had spent so much of his sixth year.
Once inside, Draco soon found himself wincing at the ruckus the large boys behind him were causing as they wound their way through the towering piles of long-forgotten items. The two brutes had the combined stealth of a charging heard of erumpents, yet despite the disturbance, they soon found themselves face to face with their target.
An important thought occurred to Draco a split second too late and the delicateness of his situation came crashing down upon him.
He hadn't come to interfere with Harry Potter's plans. He was there because Crabbe and Goyle would rat him out for disloyalty if he acted too suspicious. Suddenly he was painfully aware of how carefully he would need to tread. In the meantime, he needed a ploy, some other reason to be standing there. His eyes fell on the dark length of wood clutched firmly at the Gryffindor's side and it came to him. Of course, he knew that there was no way he would get his wand back, but with a limited amount of non-sinister motives at his disposal, he was forced to jump on the excuse.
"That's my wand you're holding, Potter."
Draco scoffed when Harry, in an obvious attempt to stall, feigned innocence and dumbly asked how they had gotten into the room. For a moment though, he almost felt sorry- the two of them had the same goal in mind: to buy more time. But the attempt was so pitiful, Draco couldn't resist the urge to retort sourly, "I virtually lived in the Room of Hidden Things all last year. I know how to get in." Potter knew good and well why he knew all about the room.
Their conversation came to an abrupt halt when the unmistakable voice of Ron Weasley called from behind a nearby pile. Crabbe wasted no time and went straight to his mass destruction setting, shooting all sorts of disruptive spells around randomly. Furniture and other unidentifiable objects crashed to the floor around them and Draco ducked to avoid a falling chair.
Upon recovering, he grabbed Crabbe, equally fearful and furious at the boy's complete lack of tact. Presently, he thought of a way to buy some time and came upon yet another somewhat-reasonable excuse.
"No! If you wreck the room you might bury this diadem thing!"
But Crabbe seemed resolute to forget that the diadem held any importance and instead lashed back, scorning his advice and proclaimed in a savage tone that he would no longer take orders from the likes of Draco.
Icy anger ran through Draco's veins. Obviously Crabbe was also determined to forget that he and Goyle were the reason they were all in this mess in the first place. Draco hadn't asked to come along, quite the contrary. And now, he was just trying to keep everyone in the room in one piece, an intention the large boy seemed set to thwart.
Draco had no time to react to this though, for the next moment he saw Harry take advantage of the delay, lunging for a dingy silver tiara on a ratty bust. Crabbe lunged forwards out of Draco's firm restraint and shot a cruciatus curse in Harry's direction. Draco thought frantically of another reason to keep the Gryffindor boy alive.
"STOP! The dark lord wants him alive!"
It was common knowledge that the dark lord wanted to finish Harry off himself. Draco hoped that, at the very least, Crabbe would remember to respect the dark lord's wishes.
But the situation was quickly spiraling out of hand and several things happened in rapid succession with disastrous results. Draco just barely dodged a spell off Hermione and stumbled into Crabbe on his way down, unintentionally saving him from the same spell. Next second, and to his complete horror, green light shot out of Crabbe's wand as he yelled the killing curse, narrowly missing a few lone curls as Hermione ducked behind a nearby tower. Harry sent a stupefy charm at the large boy who managed to dodge it but knocked Draco's borrowed wand out of his hand in the process.
Now panicked at the loss of his only defense and desperate to keep Crabbe's anger at bay, he shouted nervously, making a last feeble attempt to dissuade him from killing Harry. For a moment, his warning seemed to have its intended effect and Crabbe turned his wand away. But no sooner had he turned his back on one Gryffindor boy than the death-hungry boy immediately turned to run after the other, firing killing curses at Ron instead. With no wand to protect himself, Draco ducked behind a large wardrobe as Hermione charged at them with a fiery determination in her eyes, successfully stunning Goyle who fell sideways and lay beneath one of the towering piles of junk.
And just when things seemingly couldn't get worse, all hell broke loose. A great whooshing sound echoed about the cavernous room and he saw bright light projecting upwards a few piles of junk away. Abnormally large tongues of fire lashed upwards over the haphazard mountains of rubbish. Fear struck close to his heart and he turned to run. He tripped over Goyle's limp body and in a split decision of selflessness, picked him up and dragged the boy behind him. Crabbe raced cowardly past them, tearing a clear path through the objects littering the floor.
It wasn't long before Draco had lost sight of the others and found himself surrounded by fire on all sides.
With the only the slightest hope of survival lying upwards, he somehow managed to sling Goyle over his shoulder and pull him up a lofty tower of junk that lay closest. Fortunately, most were sturdy desks and his climb was not particularly difficult. Flames lapped at his heels as he frantically scrambled upwards, sweating in the scorching heat now filling the room. He reached the top and searched for anything he could use to help get them out. Panic filled his chest as an inhuman scream split its way through the room. Thunderously loud flames sounded around him.
He looked down at Goyle, still out cold beside him.
This is the end, he thought defeatedly.
A faint whooshing sound came from his left and her turned to see Harry shoot from between two flaming towers, hurdling towards them on a broom. He grasped Goyle tightly with one hand and reached the other high above him. But with the sweat pouring off him, his hand slipped as the two made contact. He unceremoniously wiped it upon his shirt as firmly as he could and held it high once more. This time Ron and Hermione accompanied, shooting by to hoist Goyle onto their own broom. Shortly after, Draco was safely seated behind Harry on a decrepit-looking broom, darting off towards the room's exit.
He felt sick as he glanced down at the now colossal flames reaching up to grasp at them. Suddenly, Harry steered their broom in the opposite direction of the door. He protested with panic, reminding him worriedly that the exit lay the other way. But he was ignored, as their broom was steered into a dive and they began heading straight for the flames. He screamed and held on tightly, shutting his eyes as he waited to feel the flames overtake him. But the heat did not come. Instead, he felt a rush of cool fresh air just before a crash sent him rolling off onto the stone floor of the seventh floor corridor.
His whole body ached and his quickened heartbeat pulsed brutally in his head. Wincing, he sat up against the wall behind him. He looked around and faintly muttered Crabbe's name. Ron spat what he had also suspected.
Crabbe had gotten what he deserved.
Green light blared in his mind as his mind replayed an image of wavy brown locks narrowly escaping electric green tendrils of death. He risked a glance at Hermione, but found her back turned to him. He slumped and looked down the hallway. Lights flashed all around, paired with the muffled sounds of yelling and crashing echoing through the empty halls. The sounds were growing louder.
Goyle stirred beside him. Shadows were emerging from a hallway several yards away. Without a wand to protect himself, he only stood a chance of getting hurt or becoming a burden. With little other option, he took off, working his way carefully through the eerily quiet corridors. Screams reverberated against the stone walls of the hallway behind him as he rushed on. He ran past dead classrooms navigating only by the light of the spells cast outside when they flickered their way in through the windows.
The familiar sight of the entrance hall met him soon, but to his chagrin, so did the battle. He rushed downstairs, successfully making it to the second floor when a masked death eater stole up the grand stair case. Draco saw the man glance in his direction and knew he had been seen. He stood still as the cloaked wizard approached him, wand held out threateningly. Slowly he raised his arms above his head. "I'm Draco Malfoy! I'm one of you!" The death eater drew even closer, evidently unimpressed.
Out of nowhere shot the light of a stunning spell and the death eater dropped in front of him. He glanced around, trying to determine the spell's caster but was greeted instead with a swift blow to his jaw. He stumbled, falling on the cloaked man crumpled beneath him. He heard Ron's unmistakable voice moving away from him. "And that's the second time we've saved your life tonight, you two-faced bastard!"
Draco huffed as he ran a wrist over his mouth to catch the blood now running down his lip. His thoughts filled with bitterness. Not like Potter had stolen his wand or anything. And for that matter, it was hardly his fault that he'd lost the second one. How did the Weasel expect him to defend himself against a death eater if he had no wand?
Yet he knew he deserved the jab. He was thoroughly guilty of standing on the fence. A grimace spread on his face as he thought back to the nearly deadly escapade he had joined in the room of requirement. He should have never agreed to accompany Crabbe and Goyle- should have known that there was absolutely no way the situation would have had a positive outcome. It was far too late now in any case.
He searched the wizard beneath him in the hopes of finding the man's wand but found that it had broken under the man when he had collapsed. With a grunt, Draco used the banister to pull himself up. Fatigue threatened his limbs but he knew that without a wand he was still in danger. So, with a last regretful look at the battle-blocked exit a floor below him, he turned to make his way back to the hallway he had just come from.
It occurred to him that he was in a real predicament. His working strategy involved heading back towards the room of requirement with the hopes of finding the passage out to Hogsmeade, if, and it was a big if, the room still worked. The plan was very likely to change, however because first and foremost, he needed a wand. He wasn't about to head anywhere without one.
Draco cautiously retraced his steps back through the eerily empty halls of the school. Peeking around the corner, he looked down the seventh floor hallway and saw collapsed bodies lying in the deserted corridor. Slowly, sticking closely to the wall, he made his way down. The first things he passed were a few mangled desks and the rubble of what looked like an empty suit of armor.
He soon came to a death eater, searched his person, and again came up empty handed. He cursed under his breath. Did the universe hate him that much? There were hundreds of wizards doing battle around him and somehow he couldn't get his hands on a single bloody weapon?
Fortunately, the next death eater he searched gave him just the object he was hoping to find. It was a fairly simple dark wand, not too different from his own in fact, with a slightly raised triangularly-faceted hilt. It would have to do, he didn't have time to be picky.
He grasped the wand firmly, the comforting sensation of being properly armed settling over him. Instinctively, he scanned for familiar faces as he continued down the corridor. A slight sigh of relief escaped him when his scanning eyes found only death eaters and the rubble of broken furniture.
But no sooner had the breath passed his lips than his eyes came to rest on none other than one of the Weasley twins, lying in a recess of a wall a few feet away from him. At first he wanted to believe that he was mistaken- that the lifeless eyes before him were merely the product of a petrification spell. But as he gazed upon the pale, unmoving face, he knew the man in front of him lay dead.
A shutter ran through his body. He remembered how, instantly, Crabbe had resorted to the killing curse. He thought of all of the unnecessary and gain-less violence that had taken place in his home for the past two years. The lifeless eyes of Albus Dumbledore flashed in his mind. When would it all end?
But he already knew the answer, in fact, he had known for a long time. If Potter succeeded, the war, the fear, the violence of it all would cease. Whatever personal issues he still had with his rival Gryffindor, it donned on him suddenly that they were, for the first time in their lives, on the same side. And as much as he was loath to admit it, he was confident that he was siding with the winning team. Potter's flagrant bravery and foolish nobility complex, for once, were just what they needed.
With new-found hope spurring him forwards, he took off to find a place where his newly acquired wand could be of help.
He followed the nearest sounds of battle and raced down several staircases until he came upon the scene that explained all the desks he'd seen scattered about the hallways. In the courtyard, Professor McGonagall was fighting a gang of acromantulas, accompanied by a small army of bewitched desks. Drawers popped haphazardly from their wooden frames, stunning the large spiders, as the furniture made headway through the enemy's ranks. The transfiguration professor was taking out monsters left and right, soundlessly firing off spells he'd never seen before.
He shot off a few stupefying charms and some petrifying jinxes, all of his spells hitting their targeted spiders. He was surprised. The wand seemed to obey him fairly well, even better than his mother's had. He noted that McGonagall seemed to have the situation under control and looked around to see where else his wand would help.
He was making his way across the courtyard to help a band of students when a blast sounded to his right and he ducked and ran to take cover. Rubble showered down, crushing desks and spiders and only narrowly missing students and death eaters alike. He saw the crude face of a giant appear through the smashed wall of the courtyard brandishing a rather nasty-looking spiked club. His eyes darted over to McGonagall who was attempting to do several things at once. She was sending protective spells towards the students dodging the last remaining bits of rock while also attempting to hold off the remaining twenty or so spiders. All but a few of her enchanted desks had been crushed in the wake of the wall's destruction. Still, she was managing fairly well.
She was not, however, in any position to also fend off a giant. A giant that proved, quite literally, an enormous problem as he slowly stomped his way through the remainder of the wall. Draco fired off several jinxes but noticed very quickly that he was doing no harm. He tried numerous spells from his arsenal, jinxes, hexes, and charms alike but everything seemed to bounce off. The giant roared in frustration and raised his club to attack. Draco ran and dodged behind a particularly large piece of fallen wall. The club came down with a thunderous boom, shaking the ground beneath him. He ran again, this time taking refuge within the corridor of an intact outer wall.
He was fortunate to look over at McGonagall just in time to see a masked death eater, wand raised, about to fire a spell behind her back. He sent a stupefy jinx shooting past her shoulder, hitting the man squarely in the chest and sending him hurtling backwards. Startled, she quickly whirled about to look behind her and then turned, meeting eyes with Draco, nodded to him, and then cracked a slight smile. He nodded back and turned to face the giant again. The large bloke had already found Draco's new place of refuge and was stamping his way over. Draco took off again, trying to think of a way to take down his hearty adversary.
At the moment, he was at least providing enough of a distraction to keep the giant's attention away from the others in the courtyard. He picked up a few rocks and attempted to pelt them at the giant's eyes. Unfortunately, his throwing accuracy left more to be desired than his jinxing accuracy and half of his stones never even hit. He cursed at himself, noting that it took a particularly poor arm to miss a target as big as a small house.
The giant's club was now raised high in the air, ready to strike, so again Draco took off. This time, he dodged the swing more narrowly, stumbling as the crash shook the ground violently. He stood quickly and ran off. He was now becoming increasingly more worried. Running and dodging were the only things he could do. Without a strategy, particularly one involving magic, his luck would run out. Time was running short. Think, he told himself.
He ducked to avoid a swipe of the giant's large calloused hands but when he took off running again his foot caught on a piece of rubble. Crashing forwards, his shoulder took the blow and when his body crumpled against the pavement he heard his wand clattering off to the side. He cried out as pain shot down his arm. The crashing sounds of the giant's footfalls grew closer. Draco struggled to get up but his arm came out from underneath him when he attempted to use it to pull himself up.
Through blurred vision he saw the tall, dark silhouette of the giant towering above him. The sound of his blood pumping roared in his ears and everything went fuzzy as flung himself sideways, rolling a few times across the courtyard's cobbled ground. He knew it wasn't going to be enough. He heard the whoosh of the club and the crack when it hit but felt nothing. He opened his eyes to see the faint walls of a protective charm surrounding him. Pieces of the giant's broken club were clattering off to the side the remaining stub held firmly between the giant's hands. Letting out a deafening roar, the giant turned to look at McGonagall.
All the spiders now done away with, she stood firmly planted with her wand raised squarely above her head. With a crack and a gust of wind, energy pulsed from the end of her wand as she released a powerful spell Draco could not recognize. A fleeting expression of shock crossed the giant's harsh face before Draco saw it contort in an odd way. The features began to morph and contract until the giant stood no taller than a pixie. With another quick wave of her wand the creature had vanished from sight.
He had no idea what had happened to it, but at the moment he didn't care. His gaze flickered over to his transfiguration professor as the protective barrier around him faded away. The look she gave him then was the most caring expression anyone besides his mother had given him previously.
The hours following rushed by. Following the giant's defeat, Voldemort spoke again in everyone's minds, summoning Harry and granting an hour's reprieve. During this time, Draco helped search the castle for friendly faces. Thankfully, he found very few hurt students and none dead. He was grateful- finding Fred had already shaken him enough. Upon his return, Madame Pomfrey tended to his arm and sent him off to rest with a cup of pumpkin juice. He sat in a wall recess in the hallway just outside the great hall.
As he sipped on the drink, his thoughts strayed to his parents. He hadn't seen either of them in the parts of the castle he checked. In some respects, this was a good thing: at least they weren't hurt. However, he soon realized bitterly that they weren't likely the ones he needed to worry about anyways. The students and professors of Hogwarts weren't the ones aiming to kill.
He brooded over his pumpkin juice and tried not to think about the events over the past few hours. Thoughts of flashing lights, loud explosions, and robed bodies strewn about the floor loomed threateningly in the back of his mind.
He hated the idea of just sitting around waiting for the dark lord to return. How much time did they have left? Twenty minutes? Five? Draco didn't know. And where was Potter? Draco hadn't seen him at all during the time since the dark lord's last announcement. Surely he hadn't decided to turn himself in? Draco had always doubted the level of intellect the so-called Chosen One possessed, but surely he wasn't stupid enough to try and sacrifice himself. The dark lord was not a man to be trusted to keep his promises.
As he attempted to banish the threatening dark thoughts, he heard a scream from within the great hall. Seconds later, Voldemort's harsh voice bellowed again in his mind. "Harry Potter is dead." As if in a trance, Draco jumped up and followed as a max exodus of wizards poured out into the entrance hall. He stood to the side of the school's grand front doors craning to see beyond the crowd in front of him. Between the bodies, he glimpsed the dark lord standing next to Hagrid across whose broad arms lay a body.
Draco watched apprehensively as the scene unfolded before him and before long Neville Longbottom was stepping out to confront the ranks of death eaters. But before Draco could even register the movement of the body hung over Hagrid's arms, chaos struck the scene and he found himself once again caught up in battle. He called spell after spell, firing them off at the numerous death eaters and monsters of Voldemort's ranks.
As the battle raged on, a swarm of creatures he could not recognize appeared on the horizon. As they grew closer, he identified some of the animals as hippogriffs, but the others remained undetermined. They were a terrible sight to behold, with sleek skeletal bodies and powerful bat-like leathery wings. He quickly realized, with relief, that they were coming as friendly reinforcements. Death eaters began to take notice of the new adversaries and turned to flee.
Amidst the battle, he saw his mother pushing her way through the crowd, calling his name. Their eyes met and soon both his parents stood beside him. As the fighting moved its way inside they found themselves in a duel with Crabbe and Nott senior. Draco's fury ignited as he looked upon Crabbe's older likeness. He repelled all the spells fired his way and before long a powerful petrification spell of his found its mark. Shortly thereafter, his mother hit Nott with a stupefy that knocked the man backwards into a wall.
By this time, the battle had thinned substantially. Robed bodies littered the floor and most duels now consisting of several Hogwarts soldiers challenging one or two death eaters. In the center of the great hall, Voldemort battled with McGonagall, Slughorn, and a man Draco recognized from the ministry.
The remaining death eaters were defeated quickly until the only two left fighting were the dark lord himself and his Aunt Bella. He watched with horror as his aunt shot a killing curse that was narrowly dodged by the youngest Weasley girl. Mrs. Weasley then stepped up to duel her one-on-one until a curse met its mark and his aunt collapsed.
Draco then turned his attention to Voldemort, who battled on alone, all of his followers having fallen or fled. The room was strangely silent save for the zipping and whirring of spells and the occasional crash from casts that did not hit their intended targets.
When the three fighting Voldemort were suddenly decommissioned, Harry came forth to duel the dark lord alone. The two spoke almost casually as the remaining Hogwarts forces watched with their breaths held. Draco couldn't help but worry as the dark lord circled about, sneering violently at Harry, waiting for the perfect moment to strike the boy down.
With malevolence emanating from his face, Voldemort raised his wand and screamed the killing curse. Harry called out the disarming spell in the moment directly following and Draco watched as the spells met. Both seemed to join into one, time slowing as the spells held together for a moment, and then backfired on Voldemort. The Elder wand flew through the air and was caught by its true owner. The dark lord's body collapsed and hit the floor with a low thud.
The sound had a finality about it that seemed to relieve a great tension in Draco's chest.
There lay the monster that had caused everyone around him so much pain and suffering. As the room erupted into relieved and joyous celebration, Draco shifted his eyes sideways to look with emotion he couldn't possible name at Harry Potter, the boy who he was so glad had lived.