words and things (ex_recursive906) wrote in bandinnabox, @ 2007-08-25 17:37:00 |
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Current mood: | discontent |
Second fragment for Femme
This doesn't really have a title yet, and it certainly hasn't been beta-ed, but it does have
Warnings: Spoilers for DH, angst
Pairings: none as yet
Rating: R-ish for implied torture and war
#1 here
“It is my mercy, and not yours, that matters now.”
Draco hated to think of him, but he was never far away. Dumbledore.
In Draco’s mind he was always Dumbledore on the edge of death now. Dumbledore challenging him to kill him now or admit he couldn’t do it – admit he didn’t want to do it. He should have, Draco thought. He should have cast the curse and taken the reward and saved his parents from this. This was all his fault because he’d not been able to cast that final curse, even with Carrow and the others urging him to hurry.
That smile. You foolish, ridiculous boy it said, soft in the green glare of everything then. “Draco, Draco, you are not a killer.”
Better that he had. Better that than everything since then. That was the last moment when there had been any chance of keeping them all safe.
“Killing is not nearly as easy as the innocent believe.”
The fear, the sour nausea, the shaking weight in his head and his throat and his hand and he could not lift that damned wand and it was worse than… yes, it was still worse even than this. Long long after anyone would think he was innocent. Maybe he had been then, so unready for Dumbledore’s eyes on him and the way he was falling slowly down the wall. Everything would be better right now if he could have just…
“Come over to the right side, Draco. You are not a killer.”
He should have done it. The sound and the texture of the curse rolled over and over in his mind yet again. It would have been so simple. And then the Dark Lord would have favoured him, would have favoured them all again, surely? The Manor would have been…
With the corner of one eye, Draco glanced at his parents, sitting together, pale, silent, stiff and as carefully blank as possible. They knew better than to look.
Draco closed his eyes against the powerful urge to glance up again. Her blank puffy eyes swung slowly past in his mind. Where had he seen her before? Laughing – bright eyes screwed up with laughter somewhere. Diagon? Hogsmeade?
It didn’t matter. She was a dead thing.
“No harm has been done, you have hurt nobody.”
They all were.
There had been no options then, whatever Dumbledore promised, trying to save his own life; there were none then and there were even less now. There was only staying alive.
“I can help you, Draco.”
Probably nothing would have been better even if he had killed Dumbledore. His father’s failure had doomed them all first, and there was no being secure in the Dark Lord’s good graces. Even Snape was always cautious.
Snape. Severus Snape. They were all dead things, hanging on desperately to the Dark Lord’s whims, and Severus Snape was watching and waiting in the background, an eye out for everyone’s weaknesses. Especially Draco’s weaknesses.
The old anger at Dumbledore, at himself, ebbed and flowed away. Draco opened his eyes. A wedge of shadow spun past across the polished table but Draco managed not to see it this time. The fear and despair and horror receded beneath a familiar surge of resentment.
Snape.