Please Be There If I Remember

Chapter Fifty-Six: Fire

"Let me heal him, Harry," Remus said to him, cradling Draco's head as he gently rested him down on the cobble. "I think he's in a state of shock."

Harry stared at his boyfriend's face, ragged and sharp in the harsh lighting, a streak of dirt along his cheek. Blood layered his fingers in a swath of red, and Harry, still on a bit of an adrenaline high after running from Death Eaters, finding Sirius, then almost getting hit again by that bloody green killing curse, agreed with Draco's words.

This really had gotten away from them all. And Harry? Well, Harry started to feel angry. He rose, expression twisting, morphing into the warped face of rage. His head was muddled—small and feeble against the wall of hot fire that threatened to take him over.

He was wobbling on his feet, staring at the floor as Remus waved his hand over the red on Draco's side. And there was blood, so much blood...

Draco is dead, a familiar voice in his head said to him. He's gone.

"What?"

Multiple faces whipped around at the sound of his voice, and Sirius' eyes grew concerned.

The boy you love has fallen, Harry. Aren't you going to avenge him?

"I—" Harry looked down, then, at Draco. He was still. Too still. He was pale—but wasn't Draco always pale?—his face the visage of death.

"No," he whispered, and Harry's heart, like crimson paint left out of its container for too long, hardened into rock. He understood it, then, like it was a piece of his soul that had been taken out and ripped to shreds. Draco was dead. He could see him there, lying on the ground, and the rage that was starting to burn through his mind exploded, fueled by the agony that ripped straight through his head. "Please no—"

Harry's wand slipped into his hand.

"No." He said again, but this time, it was rough and guarded, scraped out of his throat like sandpaper. Harry turned to Dumbledore, who at this point, had slid up to the commotion and was staring at him. He had killed him. He had killed Draco. Harry's anger soared.

"Harry," the old man spoke—gently, caressing, like he was speaking to a wounded animal. "You have to fight him off, Harry."

Fight who?—Voldemort wanted him dead. Dumbledore had to die.

Dead like Draco. Dead like he would never wake up again.

Harry's eye twitched. He already felt like he was forgetting his face, the grey of his eyes, the way his hair framed his jaw, long enough that it now fell to his shoulders. He hadn't cut it since November, and Harry had loved to slide his fingers through it, but now—

Harry—Voldemort—who am I?—raised their wand.

"Harry," Dumbledore whispered again.

Belatedly, from beside him, people were shuffling out of the way and shouts were rising, but he couldn't hear them over the din of fire in his mind. Harry was deaf to the world, and in his place, Voldemort attempted to rise out of the ashes being formed.

And Draco was gone. So what was there left to do but let him?

—"Remember Harry," Draco had said to him, long ago when problems were insignificant. When death meant what happened to someone far away from you and was something that didn't affect you. "You have to know your mind. By meditating, you can learn what's you, and learn when someone else has gone past your barriers."—

But those lessons didn't matter anymore. They were all for naught because Harry—Voldemort—they had let him through. He had been fooled, thinking that Sirius was being tortured, and now Draco was dead because of him.