Just in case || Draco Malfoy

Twenty Two - The Final Push

"A life without love, god that's just insane.
But a love without life, well that shit happens every day"

-A Different Age, Current Joys

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

Harry looked up at the scene, his feet frozen to the floor in shock. We both looked up to the railing that Dumbledore had just plummeted from, his lifeless body falling to the bottom of the tower and landing where we couldn't see.

I felt my legs shake beneath me. It didn't make sense. Dumbledore who was over a hundred years old and one of the most powerful and wise wizards ever - he was dead. It didn't seem possible- he was one if those souls who you thought would never die. He couldn't die. He was the only thing keeping the dark lord at bay from attacking Hogwarts. The only thing protecting the students.

My breath rate increased. I had never seen death before. As Dumbledores corpse fell, I finally realised the severity of the scene. Those were real death eaters and murderers above me. I of course knew this before, but hearing about death will never come close to the feeling of watching it. I had convinced myself it was a nightmare. A horrible nightmare that I would soon wake from. I kept closing my eyes, desperately trying to wake up in my dorm room, safe in my bed surrounded by my sheets.

I imagined Draco perched beside me. Softly stroking my hair as I awoke from my slumber. Placing a gentle kiss on my forehead, speaking comfort to me if I had a nightmare. I imagined one of these mornings with every detail I could, desperate to drag it into reality and laugh with Draco about the bad dream I had. To laugh about how silly and unrealistic it was. But as I saw him above me, I knew the only silly part of this was me kidding myself to believe it is a dream.

It terrified me how easily someone's life can be snatched away with the simple wave of a wand and two words. Dumbledore seemed to be impossible to kill. But of course, he wasn't. And now he had been. And his murderers were mere feet away from me, only a small sheet of metal between us.

Bellatrix let out a shriek of victory as she stood against the balcony, her wand pointed upwards as she cast the dark mark into the sky, looming over the castle.

I looked to Harry. He had tears welling in his eyes, and I was struggling to keep back my own. I looked up to the tower above us - the other death eaters were stood behind Bellatrix, victorious smiles on their faces. Draco stood further back from them. He brought his sleeve to his eye to wipe a tear from it while they were not looking at him.

How did I ever like, let alone love, such a monster. A willing member of a group of killers.

"I didn't have a choice. You have to believe me"

"You're a liar," I whispered as what Draco had said to me earlier crossed my mind. Harry must of heard me, but he was completely unfocused on that.

I heard the steps of the death eaters making their way back down the stairs. I quickly moved myself into the shadows, shivering at the thought of being seen by them. Harry didn't move from the spot he was stood at - he seemed like he was under a trance, still staring at the point where Dumbledore was just stood.

They were within earshot. I grabbed Harry by the wrist and yanked him into the shadows of the tower and out of the moonlight he was stood in as the death eaters made their way down the second row of stairs, laughing in victory.