How To Love

Intro

Draco stares out the window of the train as it chugs along to Hogwarts, just departing the platform. He doesn't want to go back, not after what happened last year, but he knows he doesn't have a choice.

He had let the death eaters in. He was supposed to kill Dumbledore, but he couldn't.

Now he has to face what he allowed to happen, what he helped to do.

Snape is now headmaster. Dementors circle the grounds. Hogwarts is now a prison.

What if I hadn't done it?

The thought eats him alive as it has the million other times he thought about it.

"Do you mind if I join you?"

Draco looks to the door to find a petite girl standing there. He recognizes her. Emily Valentine, a girl from Ravenclaw. Her long brown hair falls in ringlets past her shoulders.

He says nothing, just gesturing to to the bench across from him.

The Valentine family is a well known family, Emily's mother being the only muggle. Draco thought of this often when he first discovered it. How could her father ruin a line of pure blooded wizards by marrying a disgusting muggle? But he couldn't bring himself to care anymore.

Emily takes a seat across from the boy, staring out the window.

"It used to be so beautiful," she murmurs, almost inaudibly.

Draco takes in the details of the passing scenery. What once used to be colorful and full of light is now dull and grey. The flora dead and unwilling to grow, the grey clouds so thick that they block out the sun, giving everything a cold, and unforgiving atmosphere.

"It did, didn't it?" He says solemnly, guilt and shame washing over him like a tidal wave.

If Dumbledore we're still alive, this gloom wouldn't be here. The pair would be looking out to luscious green hills and trees, not this picture of death and despair.

"I didn't like Dumbledore, but at least everything else was nice," the girl speaks again, drawing Draco's gaze to her.

She didn't like Dumbledore?

Draco choose to not voice the questions running in his mind and instead goes back to looking out the window.

As the train moves along, the sky grows darker as the sun sets, causing the land around them to grow more ominous.

Draco finally looks away from the window when all he can see is his tired reflection, his eyes landing on the small girl.

Sometime during the journey, she had fallen asleep, knees pulled up to her chest and head resting against the glass of the window.

He studies her.

Her skin is pale with small freckles appearing here and there.

He had seen her in school many times, often admiring her talent from afar. She is powerful, one of the best in the school. She would often keep to herself, disappearing when there were no classes to read somewhere in silence. He had quietly  asked her to attend the Yule Ball with him during their fourth year, but she had kindly declined, instead spending her night in the Ravenclaw common room alone. She didn't participate in the school drama or rumors. She intrigued him but he never let it show.

She's too kind. Too sweet.

Draco feels the guilt build again.

This is to be their final year and she wouldn't survive.