The cloaked silhouette walked just ahead, hunched in the darkness. This alley curved around boarded-up, blocked-off back doors, and the brick walls tilted up into shadow. It was dark as night, and each streetlamp they passed immediately blew out when the man crossed its path.
Their only light now came from candles burning in second-story windows. Each low flame cast long shadows of candlesticks down the brick walls, shadows that loomed and dipped under the flicking lights. Draco caught Astoria's eye in glimpses of orange that sparked and faded with each step.
The hush chilled him. He couldn't hear the man's footsteps ahead of them or any sound of breathing. Every few seconds, the faint candle flickers threw the figure's shadow over the stone path in all directions. At first Draco thought the multiple candles cast a myriad of shadows, but suddenly he realized their escort had been joined by other cloaked figures. They emerged from the walls and alcoves and began forming a sort of shield around Draco and Astoria. Each wore a hood and pointed a crooked wand at their prey.
Since the steps were silent, Draco didn't realize when the first figure stopped. Now they all stood still, the frightened pair and the ring of dark shadows. There was no way out and no glimpse of the way back.
The first figure spoke in his slithering, strangely disembodied voice. "Lucius has a message for you."
How did he find us? Draco wanted to ask, but he knew that his father still held considerable leverage in the wizarding world. Most likely, Lucius never lost them.
"Go home," said the voice. "And let the girl come with us. She will live a good life far away."
"No," said Draco. "We're getting married. Tell my father he can keep his hands out of my affairs."
"It would be wise," hissed the voice, "not to resist. The both of you will not leave this alley together, even if it means one of you has to be carried out in a box."
Draco knew better than to call the bluff. Five or six wands still pointed at himself and his beloved.
"Where do you intend to take her?" he asked, trying to keep his voice steady.
"She will be safe. Never in pain. Never in strife. No one will ever curse her again."
Draco tried very hard not to show fear. He needed to stand firm. "You're going to kill her," he stated.
"She will come with us."
"She stays with me." Draco planted his feet, shielding Astoria as best he could.
"She will come with us."
"Not until Hell freezes over."
With a low murmur and a quick spark from a wand, the air turned deathly cold, and Astoria gasped sharply for breath. Draco turned to catch her and saw that she had drawn her wand, but now as her body quaked, the stick slipped from her fingers.
"My curse," she whispered, "they've amplified it."
"No!" Draco guided her to the floor to prevent her from falling. "Stay with me. I won't let them take you!"
Soundlessly, the circle of hooded figures moved in closer. The ringleader now pointed his wand at Draco's head.
"Lucius said you would comply," he murmured. "He said you always do what's good for your family."
Draco had no words. The champion of insults had no comeback. He remembered lying on the hotel room floor after Lucius smacked him down, and how quickly he had given in to his father's demands. "Draco, improve your grades. End that friendship. Get on the Quidditch team. Tear Potter down. Come here. Side with us." Lucius directed his son's life with each command and thinly veiled threat. It always worked that way, and Lucius always won.
Father's obedient son would dismiss Astoria and return to his family. Little did Lucius know, that pliable Malfoy heir was no more. Instead of fear, courage took shape in the boy's heart.
Draco saw the strength drain from Astoria's eyes, and he knew he had to get her out of the alley. He had one shot at getting out, so he concentrated and made a quick grab for her fallen wand.
His hand froze mid-reach as if paralyzed with electricity. He felt the nerves spasm and the muscles contract painfully. The pain was so sudden and so intense, he nearly collapsed beside Astoria.
"Your last chance," hissed the leader of the pack. "Let her go peaceably, and we will let you go unharmed. Whatever you do will not save her, so go home. Let it be over."
Draco thought back to all the people whose deaths he had witnessed. He wished he had spoken up more, fought back at least once. No longer would he sit back while lives were threatened. He would stand firm, whatever it took.
He straightened up, spun around, and socked the nearest man in the face, just under the hood. The figure stumbled backward. Draco cocked his fists and pivoted to take on the next attacker.
The snakelike voice cut him off: "Crucio!"
A horrific shock blindsided him and knocked him back into the wall. The worst pain crackled through his bones, seemingly tearing each nerve from end to end. Draco screamed and dropped to all fours, unable to shake the lashing fire.
After a moment, he realized the spell was over. Panting and shaking, he pulled himself back up and advanced to attack.
The curse knocked him off his feet a second time. He felt as if his skin was being peeled off while his thoughts were frayed and burned. Even when it stopped, scalding tremors continued to seize his whole body.
This curse had been used on him before. Draco knew the nausea would pass and his strength would rush back in a moment. He knew he could endure it, though with every blast he felt weaker. Still he knew he could continue falling to the Cruciatus and getting back up again and again, as long as nobody touched Astoria. He had once been tortured by an enraged Voldemort—nothing could match that.
But the curse did not come again. Instead all six of the dark figures lowered their wands and drew even closer.
"She will come with us now," said the leader.
Breathing hard, Draco again struggled to his feet. He glanced over at Astoria, who lay dizzily against a sooty wall, watching him with a distressed look.
"Take me, not her," wheezed Draco. "I don't know how you plan to dispose of her, but do it to me instead."
"Lucius was clear—"
"All my father wants is to prevent this marriage. If I'm gone, he's done that. He can have nothing to do with the Greengrass family after that."
"Draco, no," moaned Astoria.
"I'm sure that's what he ordered," Draco went on. "To make sure we can never marry. Go on, then. Keep me from ever marrying her. Carry out your orders."
"Young fool," chortled the voice. "Her blood is not worth yours. But we will accept what is offered. She is free to go."
Wands disappeared into cloaks. Draco dared to feel a touch of relief.
Then the leader revealed a black baton, like a policeman's club. "It is not honorable to take out a wandless wizard with our wands," he said.
He stepped forward and raised the baton. The candlelight highlighted the smooth rod in his ragged grip. "Is this your choice?" the voice asked.
Draco did not flinch. He stared under the hood where a face should have been, trying to meet his eye. "Yes," he said. "I've made my choice."
He grew up as a boy who had no choice. Now at last he could stand for what he believed in.
And he continued to stand, even as the club cracked down across his face and made his body tremble and tilt. He hunched to the side, holding a hand to his throbbing, bleeding cheekbone. Now the baton struck his back, his side, his ear, working him down to his knees.
He faintly heard Astoria crying out for them to stop, but her voice began sounding farther and farther away.
The circle closed in around Draco, and a new rhythm began. All around the ring, from one figure to the next, clubs swung down on him with bruising strength. He could not catch a breath between blows or recover for a second before the next attacker took his turn. The batons struck his back and shoulders, his arms, his face, his head when he failed to cover it. He tasted blood and dirt as the gravel embraced him. He saw flickers of candle flames and slanting walls of brick, then only blackness and blood.
Where was his younger self, who would have raised his hands in surrender and done whatever he was told? Why didn't his selfish nature come to his rescue? Where was Lucius Malfoy's heir to preserve his name and curse whoever came against him?
Perhaps the pain and the nausea made him feel like he was falling. Draco only knew that his old self had indeed fallen off the Astronomy Tower. He had fallen when Dumbledore fell, he was killed when Snape breathed his last, and a new man had been born. Draco would not dare behave like his old self again, even if it meant a hundred blows would bury his broken body in this dark and forgotten alley. He would not let Voldemort and his ideals win by throwing a human life to the shadows.
He no longer knew where Astoria was, but he hoped she had made her way back to the sunlight. Vicious thunder throbbed in all his bones, beating him deeper into the dirt, but the attack had stopped. Now the silent crew leered over him and bent to examine his bloody form.
"Lucius said this marriage must never take place," whispered the leader. Though quiet, his voice rang in Draco's pulsing head. "The boy cannot be allowed to recover."
Draco felt a firm grip on his ankle, and the gravel began gnawing at his back. Someone was dragging him by the leg further down the alley, into thicker darkness where not even a candle could survive. They stopped at a bend and dropped him there, and Draco lay motionless on his back, wondering when his soul would evacuate this bludgeoned body.
He was becoming delirious, floating through memories and semi-consciousness. For a moment, he thought he was lying on a wet bathroom floor, hearing the cries of his friend the ghost and slowly bleeding out. He couldn't make out the boy who stood above him, but he saw the sunlight glint off a pair of round glasses.
"No..." stammered his attacker's voice. "I didn't—"
Draco felt the lacerations deepen with every passing second, slicing through tissue and muscle, cutting into bone. Soon the curse would sever his ribs and pierce his heart and lungs.
Though the agony was unbearable, he felt a desperate peace. This would be his escape. This was how Potter, the Chosen One, would stop the Dark Lord's plan. Voldemort's wrath would only be satisfied if Dumbledore died, or Draco did. Draco would gladly let his blood drain out so his family could go free and his headmaster could survive. He was given no choice; now he would make it all right.
But then Snape. Professor Snape charged across the waterlogged bathroom and knelt at Draco's side. His counterspell knitted the wounds back together, leaving only long white scars behind. Draco was forced to get up off that floor and complete his mission. But Snape again stepped in. Snape saved him from the fate he was cursed with.
Draco thought sectumsempra should have been the end of his story. It was the end he brought upon himself, after all his years of hate and after he injured two students with his weak attempts to fulfill the Dark Lord's orders. Sectumsempra would have saved Albus Dumbledore, but instead Draco was lifted up, and the old headmaster fell. Why was Draco given such grace? Draco Malfoy, of all people, why did he make it to this point while others did not?
He floated in and out of the present just long enough to see the ring of figures crowded over his limp body, now targeting each of his limbs in turn. They each swung a methodical blow against his right arm until the bone snapped clean through. Then they moved to his left.
This would continue, he thought faintly, until they had broken every one of his bones.
He was back in the Room of Requirement, a blurry, dream-like memory. Every time he opened the cabinet, the dove returned in a lifeless faint. Draco wept, seeing the small white bird that once cooed a sad song in his hands. It wasn't right, but as long as the birds came back dead, he knew the cabinet could not be fixed and his mission would have failed. He expected the last dove to die like all the rest.
And yet the bird survived. When he checked on the cabinet after slipping away from the hospital wing, he heard a bird singing and found the downy white dove fluttering in circles around the room.
In his Sixth Year at school, Draco had been caught up in a great evil. He had almost killed for it and nearly died for it himself. But that year, grace delivered him. Even if he died tonight, he would be forever grateful that he did not die on the bathroom floor as a servant of the Dark Lord. He had been given a new life, even if it was short-lived.
Draco looked up in hopes of seeing the stars, but he only saw bricks and shadows.
Another baton cracked his forearm, right where the Dark Mark used to mar his skin. Now blood, pure Malfoy blood, stuck to his clothes and pooled beneath him.
His eyes began to close.
Then a white glow burned through the darkness. Light washed out the bricks and radiated across the alley. It cut around the tall figures, making their outlines darker and sharper. An ethereal light, growing and humming through the cracks.
It began burning the cloaks like bluish-white fire. The figures recoiled and let out high, guttural screams, writhing away from the spreading circle of light.
The light washed over Draco's blood and warmed his face. Feeling returned to his battered limbs, strength to his chest.
He strained to open his eyes and could just make out his scattering assailants. Above them, enthroned in rings of white light, a pure, glowing dove soared and circled over the spot where he lay.
Draco thought it was another hallucination, conceived by pain and delirium. He thought it was the bird from a memory, perhaps a bird he killed, now spectral as it greeted him on this side of death. But his pain had not lessened and life still pumped in his veins.
As the assassins spread out, one human shape staggered closer, arm raised and wand pointed high, dress twisting and flowing around her. Draco craned his neck and tried to blink the blood from his eyes, unable to believe what he saw. Astoria had made it back to her feet and came for him. The dove and its circle of light bloomed from her wand.
He knew it might not last, but like a magnificent flower at dawn, its beauty overcame him and erased the night long enough for the woman he loved to take her place beside him.