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The war was long and bloody. People died every single day, lost souls, they’re called. But I know that more than the dead are lost. The dead are the lucky; they no longer have to suffer. Perhaps, I could be called bitter. It wouldn’t bother me; I’ve been called worse many a time. Maybe I should be called stupid for thinking the war could have been anything but long and deadly. But I’ve been called worse than foolish as well.
I wish the war had been enough to take my life as well, because I’m no longer in a position to even choose to die: the Azkaban guards are trained not to kill us, for here, death would only be merciful, and we few who remain are not worthy of mercy.
Even here, however, surrounded by others who wore the Mark, I am thought of as the lowest of the low. I was pulled to this side only weeks before the war met its own end; before the precious Harry Potter had finally slain the beast. Oh yes, the Boy-Who- Wouldn’t – Die was enough to end this war, but he wasn’t enough to save her.
Ginny Weasley, sweet innocent thing that she was, was fool enough to think she could save me from myself. With her guidance, and the occasional well placed hex, I was swayed to fight for the Order. Not for noble reasons of course, I just wanted more time to be around her; and frankly was tired of taking orders from my father; it hadn’t gotten me anywhere thus far. I couldn’t have cared less who won the war so long as that fiery redheaded pixie stayed alive and stayed with me.
That’s probably why she had to die, of course. You see, I don’t get to have good things in my life, not really. My mother, God rest her, was the first to teach me that when the Dark Lord killed her for my failure to kill Dumbledore. “A life for a life,” he said.
I understand that Ginny’s death should have moved me to vengeance, should have spurred me on my course to end the war, but all it did was drive me to madness. I blamed Potter for her death, because he was the only one with her when she died; he was the bastard who came to tell me, “I’m sorry, Malfoy, there was nothing I could do,” as he handed me something that could have only come from her.
It was a ring, a promise ring made of intricately woven silver daisies. The detail in the tiny thing had been beautiful when I had found it, but even more so when I slipped it on her finger. She had said yes, had agreed to marry me once the war had ended, and had begun to fill my head with stories of a small house and children.
“Just think, Draco!” she’d said, laughing as I kissed her forehead. “We’ll find a little cottage somewhere, and we won’t leave it for a week after we’re married. And eventually, we’ll have beautiful babies. Oh, I hope they’ll have your eyes.” I nodded, going along with everything she said, almost too happy to believe that any of this could be real. We spent the rest of that day together, laughing, pretending, if only for that short time, that there wasn’t a war to get back to; that we weren’t both potentially hours away from death.
And of course, it was too good to be real, or, at least, to be real for long. Those same stories have become my nightmares, haunting me even in my waking hours. I know that if she were alive, she’d be ashamed of what I’ve done. When Potter handed me the ring, I did the only thing I could, I shoved him to the ground, and I ran. I didn’t stop as I ran though the battle field, wishing for a stray curse to hit me and end what was now a worthless life; I didn’t stop until someone made me.
I awoke what must have been hours later, my head in the lap of my aunt, her hands stroking my face. “Hush now, Draco,” she cooed. “Hush now, you’re home.” I had never expected to be accepted back into the ranks of the Death Eaters, but I was. My head was filled with the promise of revenge. I would make Harry Potter pay dearly for losing her. But even that revenge was denied to me. It was Potter who caught me, of course, his eyes disbelieving as he pulled the mask from my face, but that didn’t stop him from stunning me and knocking me unconscious.
As my vision faded to black, I swore I could hear her voice crying my name. I thought then that I was dying, that Potter had finally done something right. Or at least I hoped I was dying and that it was her voice, however reluctantly, welcoming me into the afterlife. When I awoke in my cell, the cold was the first thing that hit me. In the dark, I shivered for what seemed like hours before finally regaining feeling in my hands. When I began to feel the aching throb throughout my body, I knew that the death I had hoped for had never come; I knew it had all been a lie. If it was her voice I had heard, it was her ghost, disappointed that I had let all the good she had given me die with her.
Perhaps it’s better that she gone now, and I pray that she doesn’t watch me from above, because I know she’d be ashamed of what she would see. I won’t even delude myself with the thought that I’ll see her again; I’m not worthy of whatever afterlife she inhabits.
The only thing left for me, is to wish for a slow and painful death, one to wash away the sins and blood on my hands. But I already know they will never be clean again.
The wind screamed and moaned as it blew though the trees of the forest. Draco Malfoy, smeared with blood and covered with dirt paid it no mind as he kneeled on the cold ground, letting the pouring rain wash him clean. Thunder crashed above him as the lightning in the sky lit up the man running towards him. It was Harry Potter, and there were tears streaming freely from beneath his glasses. When he reached him, Potter stood doubled over, his hand outstretched so that Malfoy could see what it held. Another bolt of lightning streaked though the sky, causing the small silver ring to shimmer in the night.
Draco could feel the life being sucked from him. Mind spinning, he tore the ring from Potter’s hand, and grabbed the other's collar.
“What happened?” he demanded. “Damn it, Potter, you said you’d look after her! You promised her bloody mother that you wouldn’t let her out of your sight, that nothing would happen to her!”
Shaking, Harry wouldn’t meet his eyes as he stammered out an apology that would never be enough.
“I’m sorry, Malfoy, there was nothing I could do.” Harry seemed as if he was going to say more, but Draco had already heard too much.
“You were supposed to protect her!”
With a yell of anguish, he threw the slightly smaller man to the ground and began sprinting towards the trees, never to look back.
And yet, if he had, he would have seen the smile gracing the lips of Harry James Potter, twisted enough to rival that of the Dark Lord himself.
I never asked to be a hero, but apparently that’s what I was born to be, the Boy Who Lived, and all that. But never once did anyone ask me what I wanted from my life. I often think about whom I would have been, what I could have done, if my parents had never been killed- if there had never been a Lord Voldemort. But Ginny says dwelling in the past will solve nothing.
She’s right, I know. The past is full of nothing but pain, of war, of fighting, of death. That’s why I had to make it better for her. She didn’t understand that what she was doing was crazy. I know that she didn’t really love him, and that’s why I had to save her. Malfoy had her under his charm, and the silly girl thought she could make him a better person, and that he was actually capable of having feelings. As if the devil could actually be taught to love! That’s why I did it though; I’ve always know what was best for her.
I knew it was a bad idea the second Snape brought Draco Malfoy to the Order. I made sure everyone knew how I felt, but like always, no one listened. I tried to warn them; I told them we couldn’t trust him. Eventually, I showed them how right I had been all along, but not before he had had the chance to get inside Ginny’s head.
Why he picked her, sweet angel that she was, I’ll never understand. He probably just wanted to taint the most innocent and pure thing he could find. At any rate, he succeeded. It started alright at first; they fought with one another. I was so proud of her for the way she held her ground, and then he began to manipulate her. I watched as, before my eyes, Ginny changed. They weren’t fighting then, they were talking, laughing, I even once saw him kiss her. It was something I couldn’t stand for. But what finally did it, was when he asked her to marry him. I expected her to tell him where to shove his pathetic little promise ring, but to my surprise, and horror, I might add, she accepted, throwing her arms about him, and peppering his face with kisses, kisses that should have been mine, because she should have been mine. I was what was best for her after all; I always had been.
The ring itself was repulsively simple. A flimsy little thing; it wasn’t even made of gold. No, poor little Malfoy was no longer his father’s pet and so he didn’t even have enough money to buy her something in gold. It was silver, a tiny silver band of daisies. Daisies! And I would have given her diamonds! It’s what she deserved after all. I even went to talk with her afterwards. I was trying to knock some sense into her, reason with her, but she would have none of it. She had the nerve to laugh at me. “Harry,” she said, “it isn’t about money. It’s about love.” As if she could really know what love was. She’d been very close to getting a reputation during school, something I would have been willing to overlook, but to love Malfoy? I doubt even his mother could have done that.
I hadn’t understood how badly Malfoy had messed with her mind until I had begun to put my plan into action. My plan at first was to steal the ring, but she never took it off, so I did the next best thing: I went out and had a new one made. I spent enough time glaring at the damn thing to describe it in perfect detail for the jeweler; he did a fantastic job.
I had studied Malfoy well enough to know that rejection would crush his ego, and in the beginning, I had planned to give him the duplicate ring when Ginny was out of the way. I was going to tell him that she never wanted to see him again, and demand that he leave. The downside to this plan would be if he wanted to talk to her, or if she tried to go looking for him once she realized he was gone. I knew I needed something more finite. I would tell him she had died, and give him the ring back, hoping then that he would give up his game of loving her, and leave never to return again. Then, I would go back to Ginny and inform her that he had been killed in battle.
I would be there for her, to help her slowly pick up the pieces he had torn her life into. Yes, I would be there, and she would finally see what I had known since I was sixteen: she and I belonged together. I would forgive her, of course, for hurting me while she was infatuated with Malfoy, she couldn’t help it; he had always been manipulative.
In the end, Ginny and I were supposed to live happily ever after. That’s how it’s supposed to be after all, the hero gets the girl. But of course, Malfoy had a way of messing my plans up.
After I had told him Ginny had died, he ran. He must have run all the way back to the Death Eater’s camp because the next time I saw him, the Mark was burned black into his arm. I hadn’t known it was him when I’d fired at him, but when I finally pulled the mask from his face, the intensity of my strikes grew. He had proved me right; he was inherently evil, why else would he turn so quickly from the light?
And then, the complications began. I had just knocked him out when Ginny came running towards us. She had seen his damn blond hair from wherever she was, and began sprinting with tears in her beautiful eyes towards where we were – he never saw her though. She screamed his name, and fell to her knees next to his body. Fortunately, as she’d been running towards us, I’d been able to cast the illusion of death upon him; she wouldn’t be able to see the rising and falling of his chest, or feel the beat of a pulse flow though his veins.
I should have just killed him, but this revenge would be so much sweeter. I would make sure he spent the rest of his life rotting in an Azkaban cell, grieving for Ginny, who he’d never realized was alive. It was lucky I got my revenge too, because the sodding git got his as well. Ginny blamed me for everything, for Draco’s death, never mind that he still got to live. She never spoke to me again. The bastard took away my happy ending. He ruined everything by coming back. Because of him, the story didn’t end the way it should have. The hero didn’t get the girl; she would always belong to him.
Ginny fought viciously through the Death Eaters surrounding her. Ever since Draco had died, she tried her best to make ever single one of them pay for even the possibility that it could have been them to end his life. She tried to ignore the pain in her chest as the rain clouded her vision. As the lightning split the sky, she caught a glimpse of a color she thought she’d never see again. Without a second thought, she began running towards it.
It was him. He was skinnier than the last time she’d seen him, and he’d exchanged his Order’s Crest for a cloak of inky night and a Death Eater’s mark burned deep into his arm, but she would know his face and the perfect blond of his hair anywhere. Running towards him, she could see Harry, his wand trained on him, on a man who was supposed to be already dead.
The thunder drowned out her screams as she ran towards them, her heart hammering fast in her chest. He was alive, never mind that Harry had lied to her, she would get to touch him again. But her world came crashing down before her eyes as she watched Draco Malfoy fall to the ground.
Shoving Harry out of the way, she fell to her knees beside Draco’s body. Wiping the hair from his eyes, she pressed her hand to his neck searching for the pulse that had to be there: nothing. Her breathing began to keep time with the staccato beats of rain as she lowered her head to his chest.
Her heartbeat mocked her, because it was still beating, and his no longer would. How could this have happened? She had already lost him once, why a second time?
“Ginny, I’m sorry, I had to! Look at him! He took the Mark!”
Harry’s reasoning made so little sense to her brain, nothing mattered now. Ginny had thought she was going to be okay, that she could have survived his death, but in the course of a few minutes her world had been resurrected, only to come crashing down around her.
His blond hair, matted with rain and mud lay still in the bitter breeze, and storm-colored eyes were open wide with nothing to see. She placed her lips to his in a final goodbye; at least this time, the fate had given her a way to tell him that she loved him.
Author notes: ORIGINAL REQUEST:
Briefly describe what you'd like to receive in your fic Briefly describe what you'd like to receive in your fic I'd love a fic that makes me cry. Cry because it's heartbreaking or cry because it's a true-love, real-life fairytale, but I want to feel moved to tears by your masterful piece of fiction.
The tone/mood of the fic: captivating and emotionally stirring
An element/line of dialogue/object you would like in your fic: something lost forever, a chain of daisies, a very dark and stormy night
Preferred rating of the the fic you want: The higher the better
Canon or AU? canon [although the Epilogue can be ignored]
Deal Breakers (anything you don't want?) : incessant fluff [I know that the prompt makes it difficult, but I really dislike more than a spoonful of fluff], Ginny sacrificed, OOC Ginny/Draco, too much sunshine/rainbows/butterflies [I find that this is disrespectful to the memories of all those who lost their lives fighting. Yes people 'move on' but they don't forget.]
The End.
Pipperstorms is the author of 21 other stories.
This story is a favorite of 4 members. Members who liked Lost and Found also liked 1044 other stories.
This story is a favorite of 4 members. Members who liked Lost and Found also liked 1044 other stories.
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