The Girl Who Lived ☆ D. MALFOY

Chapter 65

A/N- hiiii. sorry i sort of dropped off the face of the earth for a while, but i'm back and this story only has a few more chapters left!!! i'm excited, are you? meanwhile, enjoy!

Every part of my body begged me to succumb to unconsciousness the moment I tried to move one of my limbs, but the bright light of the moon outside the window beside me wouldn't allow it. I heard shuffling beside me before I prised my eyelids open and turned to see Hermione laying in a bed beside me, Fleur Delacour standing over her with some sort of potion she was being told to drink. I tried to offer a greeting, but all that left my lips was a tense groan of discomfort.

My limbs ached to my very core, but other than that, my physical wounds had been healed. The scar on my cheek was more prominent than ever, as I could see in a mirror above the dresser across the room from us, and the bags under my eyes were no joke, their faint purple-ish colour contrasting heavily with my sickly complexion.

Fleur rushed over from Hermione the moment she'd finished taking her potion, the blonde immediately placing one of her hands on my forehead.

"Good, you're temperature 'as gone down," she said gently, offering me a small smile. "You were burning up for quite some time."

"What happened?" I forced out, trying to shift into a sitting position, but Fleur quickly pushed me back down onto my pillows.

"You must rest," she stated, leaving no room for argument. And yet, I still squeezed one in.

"I'm fine," I muttered, throwing my legs over the side of the bed before she could stop me again. "What happened? Where are Harry and Ron? Is everyone alright?"

The split second I tried to force myself to my feet, both my body and mind decided that I am an absolute dumbarse, and made my knees give out from underneath me. it was at that moment that the memories decided to come back. Images flickered behind my eyelids, flashes of spells cast in the past, pain like none other forced its way to the front of my mind. I clutched my head in my hand and with a faint whimper of pain, allowed Fleur to help me back onto my bed.

Draco, I thought, remembering our brief encounter. He'd been frailer than I'd ever seen him, and altogether quite pitiful, however, I wasn't much better off with my running amock in the woods. It was heartwrenching seeing him that way, and I could already feel the sinking feeling in my gut in his absence. Or rather, my absence, as I had been the one to leave him, as usual. I hated it.

I swallowed the lump in my throat before turning to Fleur again. "Where is everybody else?"

before the blonde could open her mouth to answer, the door to the bedroom opened to reveal a heavily scarred, red-headed Bill Weasley.

"Harry and Ron are outside with Dean," he answered gruffly. "How're you feeling?"

"I've been better," I muttered.

"You gave us a right scare there," he said. "You were out cold for quite a while. What on earth happened, Y/n?"

Er— " I stammered, unsure how much I was allowed to tell him. I didn't like keeping them in the dark, especially since they were so kind to take care of us, but it was for their safety. "I'm not supposed to— "

"You're not supposed to say, right," he said bitterly. Before I could say anything he continued. "We should probably go outside, there's something you need to see."

Walking was most certainly not the best idea. My bones were on fire, my muscles felt like cotton candy, and my limbs themselves were beanbags, therefore Fleur had to be kind enough to help me hobble my way out to the field wherever they were taking us. Hermione had yet to say a word and merely nodded her head, not looking me in the eye when I'd asked her if she felt better.

When we approached the wildflower-covered field, the sun was barely peeking over the surrounding body of saltwater, making it hard for me to make out who was standing in front of me. Once we got closer, I could see Dean and Ron standing while Harry was crouched beside a hole in the ground, clutching what appeared to be a bundle of cloth in his hands. But judging by everyone's solemn expressions, even in the dim lighting, I could tell it was likely nothing good.

It was then that I realised we were missing one of our bunch. The one that had saved us from further torture in the depths of Malfoy Manor at the hands of Bellatrix Lestrange.

"What's that in Harry's arm's?" I asked Bill hesitantly, already dreading the answer and scolding myself for being so selfish as not to think of it before.

"The House Elf, Dobby, he was caught by Bellatrix's knife when you escaped," he said. "He didn't make it."

A sharp pang of both guilt and pain resonated through my chest. I brought a hand up to cover my mouth as a few tears slipped over my cheeks, thinking about the elf had saved not only my life, but the life of my friends, and had paid for it with his life. And in return, I hadn't even been decent enough to remember sooner that he was there at all.

"We should close his eyes."

Luna piped up from beside me where she gently grabbed my elbow. Her voice had snapped me out of my own head and I hadn't even noticed how I'd begun to grow unsteady on my feet. I was grateful for the help of the younger Ravenclaw but didn't like the idea of putting my full weight on her when she'd been in a cell much longer than I'd been tortured.

Keeping her hand holding onto my arm, Luna reached forward and placed her fingers tenderly on the elf's eyelids, sliding them over his faraway gaze.

"There," she said softly. "Now he could be sleeping."

But he wasn't sleeping, and that was the problem.

I watched as Harry placed him in what looked like a hand-dug grave, placing his spindly limbs so as he might have been resting. More symbols to show that however much he might look like he's off in dreamland, he won't be coming back from it, and it's nowhere near his fault.