Chapter Text
I’m sorry. I’m not sorry, I’m tired. There’s no energy left in me to even try and explain why, mainly because that would mean I understood why things happened this way, but I don’t. Besides, there’s no one left to apologize to.
The quill feels heavy in my hand. Dragon heartstring core, just like my wand - elegant, expensive, useless. It won’t save me. But I’ve always been a good writer, so here we are. I have to remember to charm this journal to burn when I die. A little Fiendfire for my final masterpiece.
The manor is silent. No owls, no Floo calls, no Mother humming in the next room. Just the scratch of the quill, the faint smell of ink and the vial of poison in my desk. I should be writing my will, but I have no money left, only this manor that’s not my home anymore, and hasn’t been for a long time.
Maybe I should write something grand. A manifesto, maybe. “Why the World Failed Draco Malfoy.” I was supposed to write a goodbye, not… whatever this is. But the sound of the quill is soothing. Like rain against the windows in Hogwarts.
–
Why am I even doing this? It’s not as if I’ll be alive long enough for it to matter. But the parchment is warm under my palm. Alive. Unlike everything else.
Maybe I’ll start at the beginning. Not with the war, or the trials, or the funerals. Not even with Potter.
It started with her.
Cold hands, warm words Mother’s hands were always cold. She’d laugh when I said so, pressing her fingers against my cheeks. “Draco, mon petit dragon” she’d whisper, “you’re too warm. Like the sun”
Father hated when she spoke french. “We are Malfoys” he’d say, “not some parisian vagrants.”
But at night, when he was away, she’d teach me words he’d never approve of. “Amour” she’d say, tapping my chest. “Courage”
I can’t remember the last thing she said to me. Was it “be careful”? “I love you”? Or just “Go”?
The healers said the curse that killed her was quick. Green light, no pain.
They lied.
It’s been a year, and I can still hear her screaming.
I should have died with her.
Father used to let me sit in his study while he worked.
“Watch closely Draco,” he’d say, dipping his peacock-feather quill into emerald ink. “Words are weapons. Sharper than curses, if you use them right.” As I moved closer to take a peak, I knocked over the inkwell. Stained a deal with an important family I can’t remember now. I braced for a hex, but father just sighed. “Clean it up,” he said. And when I fumbled, he knelt beside me, guiding my hands with his. “Like this. A Malfoy doesn’t panic.”
His rings were cold. But his voice wasn’t.
The poison is right there. I keep staring at it. Not because I’m hesitating, but because I’m tired.
Even dying takes effort.
Father took me to see the peacocks the day I ever truly saw the Dark Mark burned black on his arm. He gripped my shoulder too tight. “You’ll understand when you’re older,” he said.
The peacock screamed when he wrung its neck. “Weak things don’t survive in this world, Draco.”
I used to think Father was a god. Then a coward.
Now I just think he was just a stupid man.
And I hate him for it.
Father smiled when my letter came. A real one, not the polished smirk for Ministry gala. “My son,” he said, thumb brushing the crest on the envelope. “You’ll make us proud.”
I thought he meant grades, Quidditch, the House Cup.
And look how that turned out. The Dark Lord’s dead. Potter’s a hero.
And I’m here, writing to no one, in a room that smells like dust and cheap firewhisky. Mother would’ve hated this.