For The Greater Good (A Draco Malfoy Story)

Draco Malfoy, Wherefore Art Thou?

        The Burrow came alive with the anticipation of the wedding lingering in the air. Lavender banners and streamers and cloth covered every spare space in the house as the clock ticked down to the big day. Mr. Weasley and the boys were erecting the tent outside that would house the reception of the wedding while Mrs. Weasley and the girls and I were inside taking care of last minute details and preparing some of the food. "Rose, love, theres a banner hanging on the clothes line outside. Ron had gone and spilled raspberry jam on it earlier. Be a dear and go see if it's dry and ready to put up," Mrs. Weasley relayed her orders like a true commander, bustling around the kitchen elbow deep in potatoes.

"Sure thing, Mrs. Weasley." I made my way outside and unclipped the banner in question from the line, running my fingers over the black etchings that told of a union of love and commitment. I guess it was a good thing to have a wedding in the midst of all this chaos. Something to look forward to and rejoice over. But for Bill and Fleur, it was a way to claim each other, to bring them as close as they could possibly be as the chances of them being ripped apart grew steadily day by day.

Something squeezed around my heart at that moment. Longing, maybe? Before I could help it, thoughts of someone wrapping their arms around me, holding me close and pulling me into their soul so we became one infiltrated my head. What would it be like? To have someone love me in that way unfailingly, unequivocally, passionately? To have someone want me in every way possible and be an extension of myself? What would it be like, having someone to call mine and mine only? I looked around at the tall grass surrounding the Burrow, at the emptiness of the area and I never felt as alone as I did there. War was on our doorsteps, soon destruction and death would ensue. It was jarring realizing that I could die at any moment and any day. The hand around my heart squeezed once again. I could die tomorrow without having loved today.

As I walked back inside and to the living room, a flash of grey eyes passed through my thoughts, leaving my heart in my throat. Draco. Where was Draco Malfoy at this very second? Was he alive and well? What was he doing? Questions upon questions tormented me as my head started to pound. Why did I still think of him even after all that has happened? Every time I tried to conjure up an image of him in my mind, I saw his tortured expression, his tired eyes flickering back and forth, his pale skin under the moonlight in the Astronomy Tower. I saw the darkness surrounding him and weighing him down. I saw the colors that begged to come through and the fear of a boy who knew he was making all the wrong choices. He didn't deserve to be suffocating under all that evil.

He murdered Dumbledore, a voice whispered vehemently in my head. He didn't though, it was Snape. Harry had told us about that night. How he didn't think Draco would have gone through with it because he was lowering his wand before the others arrived. And that was it, that one little detail, one little movement of the arm, and I knew deep within me that he could be redeemed. No one was beyond saving. No one but Him.

And suddenly, I wished I could see him again. At least to know he was still alive. He had to be.

"Need help with that?" a good-natured voice spoke from behind me, making me jump out of my skin.

"Merlin, Fred! Nearly gave me a heart attack," I clutched at my chest. The tallest Weasley grinned as usual but he was so close that I had a better view of his freckles now. They were splattered over the bridge of his nose and his cheeks endearingly. He was so...orange. The thought made me laugh.

"What's so funny there, eh?"

"Nothing," I chuckled, shaking my head. "Wingardium Leviosa," I muttered, lifting the banner up with magic up to the top of one wall and sticking it there.

"Can you imagine trying to do that the Muggle way?"

"Well it'd be easy for you! You're taller than the house itself, Fred ol' boy," I nudged his chest with my elbow before rolling my shoulders. "Jeez, your mum can really put someone to work, huh? I've been peeling potatoes and chopping vegetables all day."

"Here, let me," his cool hands met my shoulders and slowly began to rub away the knots. A gratified groan left my lips before I could help myself. "Couldn't you have just used magic?"

"Percy...had said some rubbish to your mother about how magic alters the taste of the food so we had done it all by hand instead," I tried to focus but the feeling of his hands against the bare skin of my neck sent a flush spreading up the same spot. The tension began to ease from my body slowly as he worked his magic, pun unintended. "You're...really...good at this," I muttered. A low chuckle came from behind me before his hands slid from my shoulders to my arms, slowly rubbing against my skin.

"I've been told I have a way with my hands," he grabbed one of my own and twirled me so I faced him with a laugh.

"Thank you, Fred."

He looked at me with those dark eyes of his and a familiar spark ignited within. "Come on, I want to show you something."

Draco.

The dream started like it always did. I was in the Astronomy Tower, my wand raised, and I was screaming. I kept screaming and I wouldn't stop as Dumbledore stood there with those blue eyes that begged me but at the same time accepted their fate. He knew he was going to die. I screamed at him until my voice went raw and all he said was "Please." Then, the flash of green light ignited and he was falling, except it wasn't him anymore. It was Rose, her blue eyes that so often tried to stare into my soul, unseeing as she fell from the top of the tower to the bottom. I woke up before she could hit the ground. Sweat made my skin stick to the sheets and my pale chest heaved up and down. Merlin, it disgusted me seeing my body. If I got any paler, I'd be a goddamn ghost.

I was a ghost.

I drifted in and out of different states of apathy and fear through the day, every day. How could I feel anything else when my home had become the headquarters for Death Eaters and the Dark Lord? Day and night, prisoners were brought to the dungeons for questioning before their screams filled the Manor. Last time they brought that Luna girl, the one with the airy expression from my class. I had watched her as they brought her in and put her downstairs. Fear never crossed her face. Every time I saw her I felt disgusted. In myself, in my situation, in my family. We were only doing this out of fear. Fuck loyalty. What good was loyalty when any second you faced the chance of having the killing curse directed at you and your loved ones. No one was safe. The only one who lusted for all this destruction and blood was my aunt. Bellatrix's thirst could never be satiated. Torture had become her favorite toy and the Dark Lord was her god.

I was supposed to act like a good little Death Eater. Go on raids, watch the prisoners, sit in at the meetings. I bloody well did it all. It's not like I have a choice. I never had a choice.

Rose, a whisper of her name infiltrated the facade I had worked so hard to build. And just like that, it crumbled. "Stupid girl," I whispered without merit, pulling at my hair. She was a bloodtraitor, a friend of stupid Harry fucking Potter and his band of idiots. She was someone I should have hated and I did, at first. Rose was so...so full of light that it pissed me off. How could someone be so incorrupt, so goddamn lily-white. Fuck, that's what she was, wasn't she? She was bloody lily-white.

I hated her purity and how untainted she was. Then I saw her beaten and battered that night in the Astronomy Tower and realized she wasn't totally unaffected. Things weren't easy for her either. Who knew that it took someone to torture her for me to realize she was bloody special. A fucked up idiot like me, that's who. She was the only one to have seen me, not a collection of the choices I had made. Every time she looked at me, it was like she was sifting through all the damage and trying to find a piece of goodness, innocence, that was untouched. She made me hope, and that was fucking scary. Hope was one way to get you killed here. But goddamn it, she made me want more. She made me want to run and escape and risk it all just to prove that there is good in me.

Then I ruined it.

The way she looked at me that night still haunted me. The horror. A part of me had wanted to just stop and say, "Yeah, love. This is me, alright. I am something you should be horrified of," but the twist in my gut didn't let me. I'm a ghost, move your hand through me and you feel nothing but a chill. But she makes me feel solid.