Pawns | A Draco Malfoy Love Story

Unfinished Goodbyes

My dad was dead.

My head was spinning. The world felt distorted and unreal. This wasn't real. It couldn't be.

I was sick and breathless and confused. I was burning up from the inside out, the air in my chest heavy and my windpipe raw from the screams. It was like my one true point of stability in life was gone. A part of me had been uprooted and decimated in a matter of minutes.

My dad was dead.

I felt a palm close over my shoulder in a gentleness that felt like an attempt at consolation. But I didn't want Draco to touch me. The world was still spinning and I was about to be sick. This was his fault.

I ripped his arm off of mine and I shoved him backwards. He looked too scared to reach out to me again, and he backed up, bowing his head. I stayed kneeling and as I looked up at him, I realized that he was crying too. It infuriated me, and I ripped my eyes away from his, shaking.

I stayed sobbing, but I tried to slow my breathing. I could see from the corner of my eye that my dad was still motionless. I half expected to turn my head only to find his body missing from the floor and pacing around with life; I expected him to awaken because this was just too impossible to be true.

I was heaving and shaking as I got onto my hands and crawled across the carpet, approaching him. His sweater was black and smelled faintly of nutmeg and maple syrup, reminding me of the last Christmas I'd spent with him.

I bowed over him now, and with a shaky hand I closed his eyes because I couldn't look at him otherwise. When I removed my hand, his eyes didn't open again.

I gently shook him anyway, only the deepest and smallest part of me realizing it was futile. "Dad? Dad?" I croaked. I begged quietly for him to wake up, wheezing between shaky breaths. But of course, he didn't.

I'd never lost control of my magic when I was a kid. That was part of the reason why my identity was such a surprise when I got my Hogwarts letter. I never had a single magical incident, not even when I was mad or scared, unlike so many of the other kids in my class. I never lost control. Not once. Not even when my mother died.

But I lost control now.

I screamed at the top of my lungs and I felt the air around me crack like a whip, an invisible energy shooting out like shards around me. The glass from the windows and china shattered immediately, and the lights exploded in a deafening bang, sending electrical sparks raining down around us. The foundation of the house quaked while dust and debris fell from the ceiling onto us.

I continued to shake him, begging him to wake up. Begging him not to leave me. The glass on every picture frame had cracked. Every photo of my dad and I was knocked off of the furniture or came crashing from the walls onto the floor. The snow globe I got him had rolled off the coffee table and the sparkly water was spilling out, soaking the carpet.

He still didn't move. I stroked his face, whispering now for him to get up as I'd lost my voice to yell any further. My tears landed on his cheeks and I wiped them off, slapping them lightly, trying to wake him and return to him the colour that was fading.

My dad didn't deserve this, and it was all my fault. I brought this upon him with my relationship with Draco.

He was dead and it was my fault.

Regret overtook me instantly.

If only I had never forgotten my wand on that first day of school when the Room opened and let me in with Draco. If only I hadn't gone to the Room of Requirement when Blaise had slipped me that note. If only I hadn't suggested becoming friends when a relationship didn't seem to work. If only I'd stayed with Harry.

If I'd only done any one of those things different, my poor dad would be alive. If only I'd done what my dad had told me to the day he dropped me back off at King's Cross after Christmas and kept my old friends close. Instead, I'd been a liar and a cheat, and it was all for Draco. And all the while, he was playing me like a pawn.

I cried harder, thinking of what my dad's last moments must have been like. He must have thought that something horrible had happened to me in order to keep me from coming home after the school year ended. Or how he, if he talked to my friends, would have died thinking that his only daughter had gone bad - that she resented him for not having magical blood.

I was still shaking him, chocking on my sobs. I needed him so badly to wake up. I needed to tell him that I loved him, that I'm here and I'm okay - that I'm sorry. I needed him to know that I wasn't ashamed of him and I loved him how he was. I loved him more than anyone.

There were no marks on his body; the Death Eaters must have used the killing curse. I hoped it was quick and I hoped he didn't suffer.

I pressed my head on his and I kissed him, saying goodbye and whispering that I was sorry and that I loved him. A foolish part of me thought that if I said it over and over again he might be able to hear me.

But he couldn't.

And I didn't know if he knew all the things I was whispering to him now before he died. And that thought made me want to die too.

I wanted everything to end right here, right now. I wanted to lay down and just make it all stop. I didn't know how I would continue living.

Draco touched my shoulder and I screamed out. It was in rage and in sorrow and he withdrew his hand instantly. I could hear him choke on a sob.

"Arabella, we need to leave. The authorities will be coming," he pleaded in a whisper.

I didn't want to go but I could hear sirens in the distance. Every window in the house was broken and the lights were still off. Someone must have called the police.

I resented the idea, but I knew that he was right, that we had to leave.

I kissed my dad on the head before standing tall on my knees, getting ready to go. I looked around and saw the damage in the house; I saw the digital photo-frame that my dad had gotten me cracked and on the floor, wet from the spilled snow-globe.

I realized that that's what I'd forgotten to bring with me when I searched my bag after the winer holiday before going back to school. I had become too preoccupied by Draco's gift to remember to take it with me.

The broken screen still flashed our pictures, one after another. Unending tears streamed down my face as I registered that we'd never take another one together again.

I whispered my apologies again and again, and almost fell back down to my knees. I was prepared to just stay here, even if the police came, even if the Death Eaters returned. I didn't care. I didn't want to leave my dad.

But Draco grabbed me roughly just as I heard cars pull up on our driveway and we disapparated before I could even open my mouth to argue.

I wasn't ready to go. I hadn't finished the goodbye.

But my already broken world started to spin uncontrollably and we landed back in his cold, dark manor.