The Disappearances of Draco Malfoy

Chapter 32: The Love of the Dead

As Draco ran through Hogwarts at Hermione's side, everything about the castle seemed off-balance. All the portraits had emptied of their inhabitants. Comfortable nooks once devoted to study were caved in, and space bled into ruined space. When Draco cast a look into a classroom whose desks lay on their backs, smouldering, he could see clean through a collapsed wall into the splintered tiles of the Prefects' Bathroom.

It was all wrong, and yet none of the wreckage felt as wrong as what Draco knew to be true: they were too late. Harry had had more than enough time to get down to the Forbidden Forest. He must already be dead.

Yet how could he be? Draco felt that sense of imbalance again, like water was pushing at his inner ear. How could Harry Potter, as foundational to Draco's conception of Hogwarts as the stones of the castle, have died?

Hermione was crying openly as they ran; Ron was white-faced; Lupin and Tonks urged them on faster, faster. Draco stopped only to snatch a wand from the hand of a fallen Death Eater and hide the Elder Wand deep in his robes. As they pelted through the first-floor corridor, they passed dozens of injured allies lying on the floor or propped against the wall, Madam Pomfrey attending to them. "Harry"—they stopped to ask—"have you seen Harry Potter?"

No one had, but Draco hadn't expected him to come out from the Cloak again. They ran onward. The hall was filled with low moans of pain, but the worst sounds came from ahead.

They tore down the steps in the Entrance Hall and froze in the threshold to the Great Hall. Hermione went silent, shocked out of tears.

The four house tables stood against the wall, and laid out upon the plain of flagstones were rows upon rows of the fallen. Feet away, Padma Patil and Michael Corner knelt by the tiny body of Colin Creevey, the living as blank-faced as the dead. Dobby and Winky were wailing quietly with the other house-elves at the end of the hall, where several elves were lain upon bedsheets and towels. In one corner, Fred and George were nearly invisible in the cluster of their mourning family. Molly Weasley was prostrate between them, her mouth wide open but no sound emerging, tears pouring down her cheeks.

My mother, Draco thought numbly. He scanned the rows of bodies for a blonde head, dreading that he would find her. Instead he saw other familiar faces. His gaze caught on Sturgis Podmore, then on Lavender Brown. Parvati Patil was wracked with such violent sobs over her best friend's body that it resembled sickness... But perhaps the worst were those whose bodies lay alone and unrecognised, with no one left to grieve them.

Hermione clasped his shoulder wordlessly. Draco turned and saw his mother standing in the Entrance Hall, not ten feet away. Narcissa looked ghostly, almost translucent.

The first thing Draco felt was relief, but he didn't move. He didn't know whether to step closer or gird himself for what might come out of her mouth. Her terrible scream on the Gringotts steps seemed to build in his ears. Would she look at him and see his father? Did she blame him for the fact that Lucius numbered among the death toll of this endless day and night?

Then Narcissa swept toward him and took his face in her hands. "My son," she whispered. She wrapped her arms around him in a crushing embrace.

Eyes tight shut, Draco placed his hands on her shivering back. He was returned to his senses seconds later by the great crack of the front doors opening, and Remus's and Tonks's magnified voices ringing down the grounds. "Harry! Harry!"

Draco pulled back from his mother as Ron, with a torn look at his grieving family, pelted after Remus and Tonks. Hermione hesitated. "Go," Draco told her.

She didn't need telling twice. "Hominem revelio!" she cried as she sprinted over the threshold, wand held high.

"This way, Draco," Narcissa said, turning toward the steps. "We must leave the castle before the Dark Lord launches his second attack. We must get to safety."