Work Text:
When you’re young and happy, you try not to think about bad things that await. You know they do and that they’ll come for you eventually, but you toss them into the blackest and deepest corners of your mind. You never think about being a widower one day, do you?
Even when you know you’ll be one soon.
And when the moment finally comes, you aren’t ready.
He isn’t ready to say goodbye.
It hasn’t been violent. She’s just been slowly withering away, weaker and weaker with every single day, until she was too weak to walk, too weak to stay awake throughout the day. And soon, too soon, she’ll be too weak to breathe.
Although Draco suspects every moment would be “too soon”. He’ll never be ready to let her go. But Death doesn’t ask for permission; it sneaks stealthily to strike in the most unexpected moment, never checking if it’s the right one or not. It just comes.
And it just has.
It began with silent knocking on the door, a reminder that the fragile state of being partially in this world and partially already in the other, has come to an end. There came a time of transition, of dissecting Life from Death, putting one before the other without any choice as to which. It isn’t a decision, it’s a fact already done. But he still refuses.
Scorpius isn’t here; he’s coming back from the venture to the oldest Malfoys. It’s a good thing the boy would be relieved of watching his beloved mother die - the memory won’t hunt him for the days to come. He’ll remember her the way she always was - smiling, peaceful, kind, ready to deal with the cards she has been given, never complaining, agreeing with her fate while not resigning to it. His, and not only his, role model.
But Draco has to be here; he would never forgive himself if he wasn’t with her during her last dying moments. She’s his and he’s hers; and so, her death will be his as well.
She already looks like a corpse, lying flat on the bed paler than ghosts usually are. Eyes closed, lips partially opened, chest barely moving, she seems to cling to the remains of life that are still within her reach. But with every passing moment she fails more and more, while he can only be a silent observer of her demise, unable to help, unable to stop hers and his suffering. It may be peaceful, but what he’s feeling is very far from peace.
He’s hiding her hand in his, like it would prevent Death from taking her away from him. He’s holding her tightly yet gently as not to hurt her, keeping her with him; no one can take that away, no one can take her away from him. Not now, not ever.
He feels her weak pulse under his fingers; it’s momentarily erratic just to disappear few moments later and come back after a short pause. Every pause makes his heart stop as well, every time he thinks it’s it. The end. But every time it comes back and his heart leaps with joy; the moment of doom has been postponed, even if for just a few seconds. It’s not here yet.
He squeezes her hand lightly and lifts it to his lips, closing his eyes in the process. He wants to stay like this forever; he wants nothing to change, for this moment not to pass. His head falls on their conjoined hands as he surrenders to the feelings that overwhelm him.
“Draco...” Her quiet, shaky voice makes him open his eyes, but not lift his head. He can’t do that, as then she would see his face, she would notice the tears. She would know how much damage her death is causing. Although, she probably already knows it. “Don't let the world divide you. Be there for him and he’ll be there for you. You only have each other.”
She has trouble speaking, but there are apparently things she needs to say; she has to make sure her men will be fine. Although they’ll never be, because how can they?
“We have you,” he whispers, still not looking at her.
He can practically hear her smile.
“Of course you have. And you’ll always have me. But now... Now is the time to say goodbye.” The tears burn his skin as they intensify. He wipes them off instantly before they become too much to handle. “But... I... I can’t go unless you let me.”
“Do you...” His own voice is much shakier than hers; it’s trembling with tears that have both already come and are just preparing to do so. Suddenly, he feels her soft touch on his chin - even though it isn’t more than a brush of a feather, it makes him look at her. Her face is lit up with the kindest of smiles, although her eyes bear the deepest sadness, more for the ones she’s forced to leave behind than for her own fate. “Do you want to go?”
Her slim fingers seem no more than bones covered with a thinnest layer of skin, but they still manage to wipe the tears from his cheek. The gesture makes him shudder and lean into the touch, taking from it as much as he can, feeling deep down it’s probably the last. They both know all too well she doesn’t belong to this world anymore.
“There isn’t a thing in the world I’d like more than to stay,” she whispers, her fingers still slightly touching his cheek. This sensation and her words destroy all of his remaining walls and restraints, destroy him; the tears are now coming violently in hot streams and he doesn’t do anything to stop them, because there isn’t a thing in the world he’d like more than to make her stay. “But you know I can’t.”
"I'm not ready." He shakes his head, refusing the possibility of letting her go. He can’t, not now, not ever.
"You have to be. Otherwise it'll be all darkness and gloom, and I cannot leave you like that."
Typical Astoria - she is the one dying, but all she can think about is his mental state that would prevail after her demise. So caring, so loving, so...
He isn’t able to look at her yet again, giving up to his despair. The tears are still coming, but he fights against them this time so they wouldn’t transform into an uncontrollable sob. He doesn’t want such an image to be the last one she would ever see.
“Don’t cry. You’re a Malfoy, remember? You don’t cry.”
Even in such a state, she’s still able to jokingly make fun of him; he did cry, a lot, on plenty of occasions. It’s a part of him she loves the most - that this strong yet deeply vulnerable man isn’t afraid of his tears.
He looks at her, smiling through the tears. She smiles back and this time the smile reaches her eyes. Let me go, they say. Let me go and remember I’ll always love you.
For a moment he just gazes into her irises, finding in them the strength he needs to say what should be said. He finds in them the strength to let her go.
“Astoria Greengrass,” he starts, trying to calm his voice. He straightens in his chair, never letting go of her hand, never letting his eyes wander off from hers. “Beloved sister, mother and wife, the best person anyone in this world or any other has ever known, the owner of the biggest of hearts and the truest and only love of my life...” he stumbles, catching his breath. It seems not enough to sustain him with proper amount of oxygen, as it comes shallow and shaky, but he doesn’t care. “...I’m letting you go.”
The edges of her mouth go slightly upwards, almost unnoticeably.
“Do you hear me? You are free,” he adds; his vision blurs for a moment, but he blinks quickly and forcefully to take the tears away. He needs to see her alive as long as she is in such a state. Which won’t be long now.
It’s just one fleeting moment - in one second she’s smiling peacefully, her lips forming into a soundless “thank you”; in the other the hand in his grasp goes weak and he knows it’s the end.
And when she closes her eyes for the last time, he also knows he’ll never be whole again, because a part of him, an immensely important part that made him who he is now, has just died with her.
He wants to bid her farewell, he wants to do something constructive, but the only thing he can do is to squeeze her hand the tightest he is able to and sob violently, because now he can do it, because now any restrains make no sense. For a moment he cannot breathe, feeling the iron grasp on his chest that takes away its ability to widen. For a moment he just suffocates.
And then it lets go and he can breathe again. Letting go. He let her go, didn’t he?
He’s known grief for a long time, but he’s never realized it can hurt like this, breaking him into pieces, burning from the inside, taking away all ability to think, all will to survive, to fight. It isn’t only the mental pain, but also physical, so true and real it’s like he’s just received the Cruciatus Curse. For a moment he considers casting it on himself to aggravate this part of pain, so the other one, at least for a while, would be less intolerable, less authentic, less lethal.
He doesn’t want anything else right now but to lie beside her and die in the embraces of her dead body, but he knows he can’t; he has to be strong. He has to, for Scorpius. He has a reason to live on, for his son. For their son.
She was right not to leave him alone. Because otherwise... Otherwise he wouldn’t be alone for long, joining her soon after.
But he has a reason. And that’s what will keep him going now and for the days to come. Scorpius.
Scorpius.
The only part of her that is still alive.
Perhaps also the only part of him that is still alive.
Repeating it all over again, he succumbs into the state of nothingness, never letting go of her hand. Numb from pain and despair, hollowed, unoxygenated, he’ll await someone or something to take her away from him, to repeat the act Death executed, but this time more physically. Maybe then he’ll remember how to breathe again.
Maybe then he’ll let her go.
One day you have a heart. You cherish it, take care of it, even prepare it for a breakage, because it seems all too certain that it will break sooner rather than later.
But one day you no longer have a heart. And nothing can prepare you for that.