Remember Me [ Fred Weasley ]

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐟𝐢𝐟𝐭𝐲 𝐬𝐢𝐱 / 𝑨𝒇𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒓𝒆𝒄𝒌𝒂𝒈𝒆

{ Song: Us by James Bay }

── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ──

Draco's death was followed by a lot of grief. The days have been plagued by silence ever since we left the Manor. Our naivety had been shattered the same moment that his heart stopped beating, as if reality had taken a seat next to us and forced us to see the truth.

The battle had come to an end right after the curse hit him. Lucius left as soon as he realised his mistake. As for the other death eaters, I don't know. Perhaps it was a failure too great to care for victory.

Theo had been leaning over Draco's lifeless body and the rest of us stood hopelessly beside them. After he had spoken the incantation of the killing curse, he had fallen to his knees and tried to hold on to someone who was no longer there. He had only silenced his sobs when Narcissa showed up. She hadn't said much, until she told us that we should leave. So we did.

We couldn't have undone it. There is no way to bring back the dead. It doesn't matter who you are. Well, there is one way. However, if Draco was miserable before, being brought back from the afterlife would cause a suffering too heavy for his life to go on. We all know how the tale of the three brothers went down, after all.

Draco is dead. Theo killed him. Out of mercy, of course, but at the end of the day it did the same damage and his soul was torn into pieces regardless of his heart's intentions.

When we got back to the burrow – a painful and nauseating apparition later – my chest was hollow. The words that he had spoken in his last moments seemed to echo inside me.

I can feel it, Theo. I can feel myself dying.

Draco only wanted to be saved from the darkness, not from death. He lost hope long before the rest of us. We did the right thing, we keep telling ourselves and each other. He would have suffered for no one knows how long if he hadn't been put out of his misery.

I suppose that death isn't the worst thing that could happen to a person. To fight every day, holding on to a shred of hope so tightly that your knuckles turn white, is hell on earth. Sometimes, it simply isn't worth it.

The toll it has taken on Theo is painful to watch. He hasn't smiled at all since it happened and has barely spoken a word after that night. We are all carrying those immeasurable minutes with us in one way or another, but Theo was forced to kill his best friend. Nothing can even begin to compare to that.

Perhaps that's not the only truth. At least not if you have seen Fred and the way he is shattered in a way that I have never seen another person break before. While Theo's grief is a heavy void, Fred's appears to be a persistent feeling of sheer panic.

Some nights he talks in his sleep, but most nights he just cries. Even when his face is covered in tears, he doesn't usually wake up. I don't know if it's because he can't or because he doesn't know that it's a dream.

The worst time was when he woke up screaming. He had been so convinced that the nightmare was real that it took until sunrise before he found his way back to reality. He never told me what the dream was about.

After that, he tried to stay awake for days. He said that the exhaustion was worth it if he could at least be aware of what is real and what isn't. Eventually, he couldn't do it anymore and the first few hours were the most peaceful moments since I can remember. It didn't last very long; the nightmares came back before the night was over.