Chapter Text
CHAPTER 1 : HE'S DIED
Hogwarts had gone very quiet.
It was the kind of quiet that did not belong to peace... This was the quiet of a held breath.. of a world too frightened to exhale.. of hundreds or even thousand of witches and wizards who had fought with every last scrap of courage they possessed, now standing in the ruin of the castle they had loved, staring at something that made the fight drain out of them entirely.
Hagrid was walking out of the Forbidden Forest.
Draco Malfoy saw it happen in the way one sometimes witnesses a catastrophe, frame by frame, each moment stretching into an eternity, each detail searing itself behind the eyes so thoroughly that sleep would never fully wash it away. The half-giant's enormous shoulders were hunched forward... He was carrying something. Someone.
The body was limp.
Every witch and wizard standing amongst the ruins stared as Harry’s limp form dangled in Hagrid’s enormous arms, his glasses crooked, his head lolling against Hagrid’s shoulder. His arms hung uselessly. Motionless.
Dead.
A silence fell over the survivors of Hogwarts so complete it seemed the castle itself had stopped breathing.
Hermione let out a strangled sob beside Ron, whose face had gone pale with horror. Ginny looked as though something inside her had shattered entirely.
And Draco Malfoy—
Draco could not move.
Something tore open inside Draco Malfoy's chest.
The world around him had become distant and warped, as though he stood underwater. He heard nothing except the violent pounding of his own heart.
No.
No, it must be wrong.
Potter could not be dead.
Harry Potter was infuriating and reckless and impossible, but he was alive. Always alive. Somehow. Against all odds.
Draco stared at Harry’s face desperately, waiting for movement. Waiting for a breath. Waiting for anything.
Nothing came.
The Dark Lord stepped forward slowly, snake-like robes whispering across the broken stones.
“Harry Potter,” Voldemort said softly, spreading his pale arms wide, “is dead..."
Draco's vision did something strange. The edges went soft and indistinct, as though someone had smudged the world with a wet thumb.
He could not stop staring at Harry. Not blinking even once.
Hagrid set Harry down, and the sound that came out of the half-giant was not a sound Draco had ever expected to hear from anything living. It was grief made audible, bottomless and ancient, the howl of something that had loved without reservation and been answered with loss.
Others had begun to cry. Draco heard Weasley.. making sounds that were not quite words. He heard Granger, and he heard people falling to their knees.
Draco did not cry.
He could not. He was beyond it. Some emotions are too enormous for tears.
He stood very still, and he looked at Harry Potter's body. Draco hate himself... To see that he can't protect Harry.
His heartbeat thundered so violently he thought he might collapse. His vision blurred around the edges. Everything felt distant and muffled, like he was underwater.
Harry Potter was dead?
Draco repeat that sentence all over his head. The thought struck him with such force he nearly stumbled.
He remembered green eyes blazing across Quidditch pitches.
Potter laughing with Weasley.
Potter bleeding in bathrooms.
Potter grabbing his wand at Malfoy Manor instead of exposing him.
Potter.
Potter.
Potter.
Every memory twisted painfully inside him.
Then Lucius spoke sharply in front of him.
“Draco.”
Draco did not answer.
“Draco, come,” Narcissa said softly.
He barely heard it.
"Draco."
Draco looked at his mother and saw that she was trying to tell him something without words. Draco didn't know it yet, that Narcissa were lied about Harry's death. She had done it for Draco. To get inside the castle. To find him. To save him.
His feet carried him forward across broken stone and ashes. Death Eaters parted around him.
The closer he came to Voldemort, the harder it became to look away from Harry’s body.
Voldemort was speaking.
Draco heard the words as though from underwater. "The Boy Who Lived is dead. The Age of Magic begins. Join me now, and be rewarded. Resist, and share his fate."
He heard it. He did not process it, not yet, because his eyes had returned..as they seemed incapable of not returning, to the figure on the ground. To the dark hair. To the glasses that had been knocked slightly askew. To the hand that lay open and upward, as though even now, even in death, it was reaching for something.
Voldemort had turned to him.
"Ah." The word landed with all the warmth of a blade. "Well done, Draco. Well done."
The Dark Lord moved toward him,
Draco’s hands trembled at his sides.
“You chose correctly in the end,” Voldemort continued with arms opened.
And something inside Draco finally shattered.
He raised his wand.
"SECTUMSEMPRA!"