What Draco Saw

Regrets and Reintroductions.

Sunday 10th September 19:48-23:15

⚠️ self-harm

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Scene: Thursday 9th September, 23:46. The night before hogwarts.
Draco's pov

Everybody has their regrets. Things they wish they never did, things they wish they followed through with. It was only natural, afterall. It's what made people human.

Ronald regretted lashing out at Harry and leaving him and Hermione when they were horcrux hunting.

Harry regretted not being able to save Cedric, and not finishing off Bellatrix when she almost killed Sirius.

Severus regretted how he treat Harry before his death.

But Draco Malfoy was full of regrets. He had too many.

He regretted not saving Dobby. Not helping his mother. Not being nicer to the Gryffindors, however obnoxious he found them to be. Regretted following his father. Regretted how carelessly he'd bullied and manipulated people throughout Hogwarts.

But that's the thing about regrets, they're in the past. You can't just go back and fix things. You can't change your actions. You have to live with them, learn to move on, grow through them.

But how could he? It was his choice to take the mark, his choice to follow his father.

But what he didn't realise- it was also his choice to give Harry Potter his wand. His choice to switch sides of the war, his choice to help Madam Pomfrey nurse the wounded back to health, his choice to plead innocent at his trail and win. His choice to go back for his mother, and get her a fair trail. But that's not what Draco here focused on.

So here he was, sat on the floor against his bed in his huge empty manor, crying as he tried to stop the bleeding. Narcissa was being kept in ministry holding cell while she awaited trail, and Draco visited her every day, but it wasn't enough.

The guilt he felt was overwhelmed. He should never have taken the dark mark.

That way, he would've have had to get it off.

It was driving him crazy, how he had physical evidence of his worst regrets imprinted onto his body. Sure, it faded after the death of the Dark Lord, but it was still there. Proof that he was weak, that he hadn't been able to make his own choices, that he was bad.

It didn't matter that he had been deemed innocent at his trail. He'd let it get too far, and now he had to pay the price.

Finally, he got up and weakly stumbled out of his room and down the hall to the bathroom. He tried to get his breathing under control as he bandaged his forearm. New scars were bleeding as old ones were opened up, and the pain was almost unbearable, but he had to get rid of this damned mark.

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Scene: Friday 10th September, 07:00 at the burrow.
Harry's pov

He groaned and stretched as he woke up to Hermione's last resort alarm. Ever the organised one, she was already dressed and checking over her trunk one final time to be sure she had everything.

He sat up yawning, and climbed out of bed and began sorting out what he was going to wear. He decided on a pair of black joggies and a dark green hoodie, which made his mother's Avada Kedavera stand out even more.

Hermione was in a similar outfit, but was wearing Ron's brown Weasley "R" jumper.

Ron wasn't even out of bed yet, which 'Mione clearly disapproved heavily of, proven when she shook him awake.

"Oh come on love, we have to be at King's Cross in," she checked her phone, "forty minutes, it's already quarter past seven for Merlin's sake!"

The man groaned as he rolled over, but opened his eyes and smiled at his girlfriend, reaching up to brush her hair out of her face. He got up and found clothes, choosing to match with Hermione. He reached for his Weasley jumper before realising she was wearing his rather than his own. He smiled and kissed her cheek before grabbing his quidditch jersey instead.