Lumos

Darkness took many forms, as Draco discovered during his sixth year.

There was physical darkness, cloaking the corridors as he crept along them. Lurking and thickening inside the Vanishing Cabinet. Engulfing him in sleepless hours.

There was the gloom of endless self-reproach as he struggled with his task. His blood running ever darker and hotter with shame and despair.

All he knew now were burdens and secrets. Things that rotted out of the light, corroding him from the inside. No relief. No way out.

One of the only things that breached his misery was the sight of another blonde head roving the halls: Luna Lovegood's.

Whenever he saw it, he remembered the first day he saw her, second year. There weren't many blondes at Hogwarts, even in Slytherin, and the sight of a new one had piqued Draco's interest. After bets placed with Theo and the boys, he had sauntered up to the new girl and attempted to chat her up.

He came back not defeated, but...bewildered.

"How is she? Who is she?" demanded Blaise.

"I'm...not sure quite how to describe her," said Draco.

As he spiraled deeper into his abyss, he remembered how Luna had been both completely attentive and completely impervious to him. She'd hummed pleasantly at his jokes and agreed that they should stick together as blondes. But beyond that, he'd gained no foothold whatsoever. The tween conqueror in him was disappointed. The human being was impressed.

Luna was her own woman. Over the years, he'd seen her around and developed a soft spot for her, if not a romantic interest. And her Quidditch commentary was the only thing that had made him laugh in months. He'd shaken with doomed mirth even as the rest of him felt bleak, inaccessible, locked off.

All told, the day came when the darkness and the obligation became too much for Draco. There was no way out that did not result in disgrace or in death — his own or another's. He stayed up all night, breathing hard, skirting his decision with horror. By dawn he had made the commitment.

He knew the alteration to the Draught of the Living Death that would make it a simple suicide potion. The research had only taken him one evening in the library. After that, stealing the ingredients was easy. Brewing the potion after hours, claiming to be working on an extra credit project, was even easier.

On the day he planned to kill himself, he looked at himself in the mirror for the last time.

This would be his last day in this physical form. Blonde hair, grey eyes, smart mouth, clever hands. His last day with this personality, this sense of humor.

His last day with these skills at Quidditch, with this tenderness for small creatures: always putting spiders out of the window on slips of paper, or making sure that trapped moths could fly away.

His last day as a Malfoy, and his last as this specific, irreproducible, once-in-the-cosmos person: Draco.

Draco didn't know what came after death. He knew what others believed about souls and sacrifice. All he felt right now was an intense grief for the brevity of his life. For the beginnings wasted and the endings he would not know.

He thought about his mother, old memories with her as she introduced him to her rose garden and its delights.

He thought about children. He sometimes imagined a small hand tucked in his, far in the future. Scorpius, perhaps.

Scorpius would have curls and a smart, heart-shaped mouth that was always the first to answer in class.

He thought about Granger and swallowed a sob.