Thomas Potter-Love is a Different Dimension

Love's Gift: Pluto's Lesson

December 1997

Malfoy Manor

Draco POV:

The Dark Lord returned with Harry, bloody, battle worn and unawake.

For two days Draco sat by his bedside.

The first day to merely stare at Harry. Watching him breathe and sleep and internalize with sudden clarity that Harry... could have died.

He'd known of course, in the back of his head. He was a realist. There is an ideology war- a literal fight where people get hurt and die. He's tried to distance himself from thinking about the muggles (they are vermin, pests, and their lives are meaningless, they don't count, he repeats).

And what he did at school, his plan to serve the Mudblood to Voldemort, seemed appropriate. Honourable to the cause even. Of course, the Dark Lord will punish those who threaten their cause. Even after Harry accused him of being parry to the Weasley's death, Draco comforted himself...he never intended to target Ron, the fool followed Tom on his own...there are other Weasleys.

Dismissed it under the rug, refuse to analyse the complicated emotions that rose, thinking about it.

He's never allowed himself to understand- what someone dying meant. And it's coming to him now, an instinct he tried to suppress, a scary thought that looms by the corner of his bed, and he's tried to purposefully not look at.

That someone else dying is scary.

That it shouldn't happen under normal circumstance.

That he had a part in it.

And that ...it doesn't feel good.

It feels wrong.

The Dark Lord was not known for his mercies. Whatever Harry did, it had angered the Dark Lord enough to torture and execute all the muggles kept in the Malfoy dungeons.

The next day, Draco pretended he was on duty, guarding Harry (as is what his Lord prescribed for him), but deep deep down, where his Occlumency barriers shook, Draco knew he was afraid.

The smell of blood covering the floor of his ancestral home, the screams punctuating the jeers and claps of his fellow Death Eaters. The constant control of having to stop himself from sickening on his floors, from keeping his breathing even.

He couldn't stand it. He enforced his power to students in school, had no problem when Greg and Vince would rough around the younger students and was ready to hurt the Mudblood Potter for disrupting his chance with Harry.

But he knew now, if he was ordered to kill a muggle, cut it open even, he couldn't do it.

It made him nauseous to learn, the Dark Lord transfigured all of them to wear Harry's face.

The serene face, pure in slumber.

Was it worth it?

He didn't know anymore.

The first time Harry extended his hand in friendship, Draco had taken that hand and wanted.

He wanted Harry for himself in a way he never wanted anyone else before. Malfoy's were good at finding gems in the rough and Harry was a diamond. Sparking Draco's interest from the beginning. He was captivated, by how different and interesting Harry was. He was...genuine. Sly. Shared similar interests.

And powerful. Draco was always interested in power.

He hated learning Harry was attached to another, the jealousy and greed building in his mind and formed a mantra in his mind: He was a Malfoy, HE deserved the best, he was born to win, always.