Competition/Challenge Block
Written For: Monthly Challenges for All (Year 7); Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry 2.0 (Term 3); Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition (Season 11)

Quidditch: Wigtown Wanderers Beater 2; Semi-Finals (Song: On the Other Side; Addnl: [Object] Book; [Genre] Angst)

Hogwarts: Slytherin A4 (Performing Arts Task #1: Write about being forced to do something you don't want to do.)

MC4A:

Beta: Gwen; WiseGryffindor

Word Count: 1,063

Warning Tag: References Sacrificial Death; Curing Illness; Hauntings; Nightmares; Grief

Author's Note: My song prompt, On the Other Side by Ministry of Magic, sang about the death of Dumbledore and how his presence seemed to linger around the listener (or Harry). So, I took it and used the song name as my title, added a part of the song as an epigraph that best applied to my story, and wrote about how someone who has died seems to linger around those who loved and cared for that person. Said person is also in denial about the loved one's passing but can see/hear/feel them everywhere.

On the Other Side

Close my eyes (maybe I am only dreaming)

Try to lie (to myself you are only sleeping)

Close my eyes (close my eyes)

– On the Other Side by Ministry of Magic

.oOo.

The years following Scorpius' birth was not what Astoria had expected to unfold. Though, in hindsight, it certainly was a very Draco thing to do for her and their son. Despite this, she found the gesture almost selfish in her moment of grief. Because he had to take matters into his own hands, Scorpius had countless years stolen away with his father… and she lost the opportunity to raise their son together.

Astoria stood at her husband's family crypt, holding the book he left behind for them. It explained everything and held all that was needed for her and Scorpius to keep on living with his name. It was all so fresh; the flowers that adorned either side of the entrance, the words of comfort and condolences echoing through the air around her, the painful ache suffocating her heart.

"Draco, you bastard," Astoria said through a sob. "Why would you choose this?"

It was barely spring. The frost still clung to the dead grass and surrounding vegetation. Scorpius had only turned five over winter, and Draco's illness struck fast and swift soon after. The chill stung her lungs as she took a sharp inhale, turning the black leather bound book in her hands before opening it to the first page. Draco's elegant calligraphy looked back at her, its words almost an insult.

My Beloved Astoria,

She scoffed, yet ran her hand over the page anyway.

I know now it is hard to understand why I had to do what I did, but in time you and Scorpius will know it was the ultimate act of love I could give you both. Please know that I have and will continue to love you even in my death, but hope that you both live and thrive in your futures.

With all my love,

Draco

She pressed her fingers against his signature, tracing its emerald letters slowly with a finger, holding in the tears so they would not ruin the last thing he ever wrote to her. The book's contents explained in great detail what caused his untimely demise, but right now she couldn't read it, not wanting to spoil her grief with anger.

It will be there tomorrow.

And the next day.

And weeks from now.

Astoria hid the black leather book in his bedside drawer where it was quickly forgotten. She didn't want to know the why, but somehow she felt she already knew. Her own illness had been seemingly cured overnight since he passed away, and the only thing that could explain such a coincidence would be some very dark magic at work. The thought alone made her sick, but she couldn't find the courage to confirm her suspicions.

His ghost has haunted her every waking and sleeping hour since then.

She could see him among the shadows in the mirror from across the room, feel him lingering just behind her every step through the manor, hear his rasped breaths rattling with the breeze outside in the dead of night. Her sleep was riddled with horrid nightmares of seeing Draco crawl through a stone gate with a black-torn veil, skin black and clinging to his bones as his jerking motions found their way to her and eventually to Scorpius before she jostled awake in a cold sweat, wide eyes darting around the candlelit room, searching for danger.

It was only when Scorpius woke up screaming weeks later from his own nightmares did Astoria finally swallow her pride and dig out the book that had grown a layer of dust from its confinement to seek out answers she did not want to accept. Tearing it open, she found the pages that would tell her why they were being tortured, why he was haunting her, why he traded his life for hers.

As she had suspected, he had delved into dark magic.

Draco had found old and very complicated magic that combined spellwork, potions, and sacrifice to do his bidding. It was essentially a ritual of trading one's life for another. Her sickness is what killed him, but his life was given to her in exchange. Draco was able to slowly siphon her illness from her and to him, acting like a slow moving poison concocted just so until Scorpius' fifth birthday, tying them all together, and sealing his fate to it since the magic demanded a living sacrifice. Astoria was horrified, her stomach churned by the confirmation of this knowledge and that he would do such a thing to them.

Her denial was what was causing the nightmares and hauntings, because of course they were connected. They only started harming their son when she continued to ignore, deny, refuse to know and accept the circumstances Draco put her in. It was almost unfair that he would force her to accept his death, this selfish act he plagued them with because he couldn't ultimately live with his own demons of his past nor let go of them and move forward.

He did it for them so she could live and watch Scorpius grow up and be there to send him on his own journey in life. Freeing them of Draco's stigma he had inflicted on the world they didn't have to carry with him not there anymore. Astoria felt her breath stutter from a hard intake of breath at reading these words. In the end, Draco didn't feel worthy of the new life granted to him, that he didn't deserve to have what he had with Astoria and Scorpius, so he traded his sins to cure her and cleanse their name so they could live. So they could thrive.

Astoria didn't know if she would have done the same. She had accepted her mortality and what she was burdened with, and knowing he wasn't stung. He had gone and done an extreme to seek redemption and to help her, making it extremely difficult to love or hate him for it.

Either way, Astoria had to accept this reality. Accept his actions and abandonment to help her heal and get rid of the never ending suffering that cursed her and her son. She had to make it stop for Scorpius' sake.

A Devil's Trade.