The Postcard



My name is Draco Malfoy, my birthday is June fifth, I’m a pureblood wizard and I work for the Dark Lord.

At least that’s what they told me, because I cannot remember a single detail from my life.

Well, that’s not entirely true – I can remember every spell I performed in my life, and when I meet someone who used to mean something to me I have that strange gut feeling. Exactly – I didn’t know my own name but I did know how to fix a Vanishing Cabinet. And I don’t even know what a Vanishing Cabinet looks like.

They told me I lost my memory when a spell hit me in this or that battle against the Order, and they told me that if I don’t get it back soon we’re all dead.

When I first woke up I didn’t think so many lives depended on me. But the Dark Lord gave me an important mission no one else knows about. The man that’s supposed to be my father (and I think he really is, because I resemble him a lot and I have that gut feeling about him) believes that it includes something like a mass murder of Mudbloods and blood-traitors.

That’s another thing I remember, what Mudbloods and blood-traitors are, and how much I’m better then them. I’m a pureblood, an aristocrat, and I shouldn’t let the filthy Mudbloods pollute our blood. Pansy, a girl who used to be my friend, smiled and said that I couldn’t possibly forget that when it was drilled into me from such an early age.

So since when I first woke up the people around me explained who I am, whom I socialize with and what I should do, I’m kind of disappointed. I’m a Death Eater, I’m evil, and I really thought that I was a better person.

*

Theodore, one of the persons who claim to be my friend, takes me for a walk. I don’t think he was my real friend, or that he meant anything to me whatsoever, because people who mean something to me usually seem familiar, and in the back of my mind I know that I know them. And there’s the gut feeling, of course. This tall, dark-haired man in front of me isn’t triggering a single memory, no matter how much time I spend with him. And that’s a lot.

We sit in a café, order two coffees, and talk. He shows me pictures, photographs, my old Potions essays from Hogwarts, but I can’t remember anything. The only thing I seem to react to is when a person who used to mean something is around me.

Theodore tells me about the current situation in the country.

There’s been a war going on for over six years, but known Death Eaters walk around freely because no one cares anymore. The Ministry is falling apart, the Death Eaters are falling apart, and everything else is falling apart. The Aurors don’t try to catch Death Eaters anymore, at least not much; their main goal is to feed the illusion the people are living in, to avoid mass panic.

And the illusions are sweet and most of the people choose them over the cruel reality – the illusions that there’s no war, no Dark Wizards, no threats to the wizarding world. Yeah, right.

The Order is still fighting, with a person called Harry Potter leading them. Theodore shows me his picture too, and says that I used to hate him a lot back at Hogwarts. Apparently I overgrew hating him, because no matter how long I stare in the skinny face framed with jet-black hair I can’t remember a thing.

Sometimes Theodore doesn’t come with me, sometimes I come alone in that same café, order only one coffee, and read a book or the Prophet.

In the evening, I attend the balls the Ministry organizes every night (most of the influential people like me do, and I have to live up to the expectations), smile to unknown people’s faces and pretend that I know them, pretend that I remember all the lovely times we spent together, pretend that they mean something to me.

Every day is the same, full of faceless, unknown people and forgotten memories I can’t recall.

And then I see her one day, a beautiful redhead, sitting on the opposite side of the café and drinking her latté. She is short, but curvy, definitely an hourglass figure, and the second I notice her I feel the familiar feeling that follows my encounters with people I cared for.

But she completely ignores me, with the exception of a few glances full of hatred, after which she studiously avoids my gaze and continues to read whatever she’s reading that day.

And my fingers itch to touch her freckled skin; my lips crawl to kiss her, to have her small body in my hands, to have every part of her just for me. I squeeze my hands into fists.

She is stunning, with her emerald green robes that make her hair look great, with her full, red lips she likes to bite. Sometimes she ties her hair in a ponytail, sometimes she lets it loose, and she’s wearing Muggle clothes under her robes.

I wonder how could I, a respectful bigoted aristocrat that I am (or was), associate with someone wearing articles of clothing made by Muggles. But in the end, I don’t think I care a lot about that particular fact.

I come to that café every day, and she comes too, after she finishes her shift at the bookshop she’s working in. That startles me too – the only Malfoy heir associating with a person who works in a bookshop? So maybe I wasn’t the person they tell me I was.

I keep coming, Theodore and Father desperately trying to trigger any memory in me, because the mission is in a week or so, and if we don’t find out what it is, The Dark Lord is going to kill us on a rather slow and painful way.

The Dark Lord. I know about him only as much as Father and Theodore told me, but I can still remember his name. I can remember it but I still can’t force the words to roll off my lips. I must have been very afraid of him before, because even when I think of that name it feels like I have something vile in my stomach.

And the days drag on and on and on…

The redhead keeps ignoring me, though sometimes she gives me a look so spiteful that it seems to me that she’s trying to restrain herself and not to stick out her tongue at me like a toddler.

So I sit with Theodore at that café, I stare at my cold coffee and listen to him going on and on about how I tried to kill Hogwarts’s Headmaster in my sixth year. It makes me hate myself even more, though I’m not sure if it’s because I helped his death or because I haven’t killed him personally.

Diagon Alley is crowded today – it’s the weekend and everyone’s going shopping. Still, you can see many makeshift shops, usually containing out of one old, dirty card box on the ground, selling talismans that look shiny and powerful with the sun reflecting on them though they’re nothing but a fraud, just like the whole shiny mask of the wizarding world. Or old toys, small figurines of soldiers and Quidditch players that were popular years a go proudly walking next to the faded stuffed animals, some with their body parts missing.

Drunken men lie in the dark corners of the Alley; beggars chase the rich and pureblood to give them something, oh at least something, at least a Knut…

And the sun shines above them all, mocking to their unhappiness…

And then she comes; carrying one of the books she loves orders a latté and sits in her usual chair on the other side of the café. The day suddenly becomes much brighter, and I stop noticing all the holes in Diagon Alley’s shiny mask.

“Who is she?” I ask Theodore, looking at the girl, and Theodore wrinkles his nose like she’s something hateful.

“She’s one of the blood-traitors,” Theodore says and I wonder how could I be associated, no, how could I want a blood-traitor, an enemy. I’m disgusted, but in the same time I hope that I wasn’t as evil as everyone thought. Honestly, what’s wrong with me? “Probably works for the Order. A Weasley.”

From the way Theodore said that word I judge that her last name is supposed to be something disgusting for me, but I can’t stop wishing to touch her, to kiss her, to hold her in my hands… the fact that she’s a Weasley, a blood-traitor, doesn’t mean a thing to me anymore. I’m not sure if I always felt about her that way, or if I developed that obsession with her when I couldn’t see all the dirt of her name and social status marring her beauty.

I want to come to her and ask her something along the lines of “have we already met?” but even I know that we shouldn’t be seen together. Death Eaters and blood-traitors don’t mix.

Besides, I think she’d probably kill me if I got closer then I already am.

*

I’m at one of those boring Ministry dances, in my best dress robes, and I’m sitting in the corner of the ballroom, watching her laugh with her friends, and that laugh is so familiar to me that I’m sure that once upon a time I cared for her, perhaps I even loved her, despise all the dirt of her social status.

Her laugh is so sincere, loud and honest, and it makes me wish to laugh too. It makes me wish to come to her and kiss her.

She’s wearing a lovely emerald green dress (she looks stunning in green… have I already mentioned that?), and looks at me every once in a while with something desperate to her eyes.

Every time she gives me one of those looks, a nagging feeling of guilt arises in me, though I can’t understand why.

And I can’t watch her anymore, I can’t stand watching her and suppressing the urge to run to the other side of the ballroom and apologize to her for whatever I did wrong (because I know that I did something wrong – I just don’t know how I know it). It’s absurd – I don’t even know who she is but she still has me wrapped around her little finger, making me want to run to her like an obedient puppy. So I push off the wall and go out of the room, just to avoid her pleading gaze and her loud, dirty laughs.

She seems to follow me, the Weasley girl, because the door opens once again after a minute or so, and she stands there, with her left hand on the doorknob, twirling a ring that’s awfully familiar to me with her right one. The ring is made of something that looks like platinum, with a small emerald in the middle.


“Draco…” she whispers, biting on her lip, and looks me straight in the eye as if begging me to do something. “Please, don’t do it.”

“Do what?” I ask her, and her brows furrow, like she’s saying “don’t joke with me in a serious moment like this”.

And the moment really is serious; it’s the loudest silence I’ve ever heard in my life (or at least the loudest silence I can remember of), as she refuses to look at me and looks at the spot over my left shoulder instead, looking as if she’s about to cry.

“You know what I mean, Draco,” and the word “Draco” rolling from her full, red lips sounds so good, even if it’s said in sadness and despair like it is now. “Please, don’t go to that mission.”

And then I realize that she knows what the mission is, that she knew all along and that she’s the one who can save us all from, the way Theodore put it, a “slow and very painful death.” I want to kneel in front of her and beg her to forgive me, beg her to save us all.

The little bint definitely used to have me under control.

I try to think of how to ask her what the mission is without raising her suspicion. Father advised me not to spread the news of my sudden memory loss, to act like everything is okay, because if the word comes to the Dark Lord… yes, slow and painful death.

“Remind me again, Weasley, what part of it shouldn’t I do?” I drawl, and from the way her face screws up into a grimace of pain I know I said something wrong.

“Weasley? So, I’m just ‘Weasley’ now? After everything I’ve done for you?”

Her high-pitched voice is full with hurt.

And I want to tell her, I desperately want to explain everything to her but I can’t even explain it to myself, not to mention that she was the enemy and father said that even our allies aren’t supposed to know this. I want to call her by her first name, but no matter how much I search I can’t find that information in my empty, useless brain.

And she’s crying, digging shards of ice in my heart all over again, warm tears rolling down her cheeks. It’s then when I realize that I used to love this witch, really love her, a beautiful blood-traitor with an hourglass figure and crimson hair falling out of her elegant bun at the moment. And she had me completely under control.

“Look… I’m… I’m sorry,” it’s everything I can think of, but she’s just looking at me with hatred in her chocolate eyes.

“Oh, you’re sorry! You’re sorry you’re risking your life for some fool’s twisted ideals, you’re sorry for trying kill dozens of people, huh?”

She’s taking large steps towards me until she’s so close I can feel her warm breath on my neck as she’s looking up at me, her face red. I find her attractive even with that blush that would look unattractive on any other girl.

“Well you know what, Draco Malfoy” she stabs a finger at my chest “I don’t give a damn about you. So as far as I’m concerned you can kill all those people and die afterwards, and I won’t feel the slightest bit sorry!”

She turns on her heels, almost tripping on her long emerald dress, and gets back into the ballroom furiously. I know she didn’t mean it. I know she will be sorry.

*

So I was in love with a blood-traitor?

It gives me hope that the whole evil-emotionless-icy-death-eater persona everyone considers me to be isn’t real. Or maybe the girl is just a Death Eater fetishist, huh?

But I got sidetracked…

The next morning I visit her bookshop, hoping that she will give me some answers. And I really just want to see her.

She’s behind the counter, checking the price of some ancient book. She notices me when I come in, but she ignores me like I’m wearing an Invisibility Cloak (I guess that’s a cloak that makes you invisible – Theo said the Potter chap’s got one)

“Good afternoon, sir,” she says, like she doesn’t know me at all “What can I get for you?”

“Look, tell me…” but I stop talking, because I meet her eyes that are screaming NOT HERE! “I was looking for a book… ehm…” My eyes wander across the shelves loaded with books, one big title in gold letters on the top of the shelf attracting my attention “The Rise and Fall Of The Dark Arts… Do you have it?”

She turns around, standing on her fingers and trying to reach the book. She’s so small, about five-three, and she eventually realizes she can’t do it, so she uses her wand to get it instead.

“Do you want me to wrap it for you?” she says in mock-politeness, though the obvious hatred oozes from every fiber of her being.

“No, thank you.”

“That will be a Galleon and ten Sickles,” she says and drops the book on the counter instead of in my hands, as if I’m something poisonous, something too vile to touch.

I push my hand in my pocket and drop the money next to the book. She wrinkles her nose, as if my money is too disgusting to touch too, and then turns to serve another costumer, a plump woman with dirty-blond hair.

“Do you want me to wrap it for you?” I note how she keeps repeating such phrases over and over again.

“Yes, please. It’s a gift for my husband,” the woman says pompously.

She takes some green wrapping paper and fusses around with it, her hands slightly trembling. Every once in a while she glances at me, as if checking if I left already. I wait, not giving up.

“No! Not green! Green reminds me of Slytherin, Death Eaters, evil, vicious, cunning snakes. My husband is a proud Hufflepuff so you could at least wrap it in something yellow.”

Weasley searches trough a pile of wrapping papers, biting on her full, red lip, and I watch her, waiting. She finally finds a wrapping paper that’s orange, but she starts wrapping the book (Magical Me, by Gilderoy Lockhart) anyway.

“That’s orange, not yellow.”

I hear her teeth clench like an acromantula’s.

“Well, we can use a bleaching charm on it” she says, taking out her wand again and grumpily murmuring the incantation. Then she wraps it up as fast as possible, avoiding my eyes. She probably thinks I can’t see it, that I don’t notice what she does at all, but I see every time she turns to see if I’m still here.

She pushes the package into the plump woman’s hands, grinning tensely.

“Have a nice day!”

Well, that’s not fair. She never wished me a nice day, and that injustice strangely stings. Like it was a wrong tune in a familiar song.

“Weasley…” I start, but she turns to me venomously, with a killing look in her eyes, and I stop. She leans forward to me.

“What do you want?” she hisses though gritted teeth “Leave… just leave, Draco…”

I lift a brow.

“I gave you two Galleons.”

We’re both silent for a second.

Her mouth forms an “o,” and she murmurs something that sounds like “I haven’t done it on purpose,” a blush working it’s way up to her cheeks. She messes with the green wrapping paper, trying to throw it away but it keeps sticking to her hand as she tries to find the money. She looks rather sweet when she’s nervous like that.

She bites on her lip again, and shyly puts the Sickles on the counter. She’s not looking at me; she’s looking at something over my shoulder again, studiously avoiding my gaze. I note that when she doesn’t want to face someone, she looks over his shoulder. It annoys me.

“Have a nice day,” she says with fake brightness, obviously expecting me to go, but I don’t.

“Draco, please go… I don’t want any troubles,” she hisses desperately. The hiss reminds me of a snake, although I can bet that she was a Gryffindor. And I can bet that she’d be disgusted if I voiced my thoughts to her.

“Why are you pretending you don’t know me?” I say in a voice so low that she’s getting closer to me in order to hear it. I can feel the sweet scent of vanilla surrounding her.

“Well, you can’t expect me to act like nothing happened,” she’s staring at the silver Sickles on the counter now. I think she looked every thing or person in the shop but me so far. “It’s confusing. Draco, you say we’ll be together forever, but you know we can’t last. You say that you love me, but you’re betraying me for ideals you barely believe in. You say you’d never harm me and there you are, pulling a mass murder at tomorrow’s ball, and killing my best friend first as an example!”

Tears fill her chocolate eyes, and I feel strangely sorry, although I should feel happy – she just told me the better part of what I’m supposed to do. She just, not even knowing it, saved our lives. Still, that part of our conversation doesn’t seem important at all, because the only important words she said are “You say that you love me”.

I used to love her. The plain blood-traitor with her stupid Muggle clothes and the stupid expensive ring on her finger. And now I betrayed her and she hates me. Except that she’s not plain. She’s really pretty. And the ring is wonderful. And I don’t think she really hates me. But the Muggle clothes are stupid. They take all the wizarding pride out of her.

“Just go… please.”

Unlike the other times she said it, this time the “please” sounds honest, like she’s really begging me to leave – not just from the bookshop but from her life too. Like she’s begging me to leave her alone and just let her live. But there’s a knack in her little plan: I suddenly realize that I don’t want to.

My hands clench into fists and I turn on my heels. I look at her furiously, and she keeps looking at something over my shoulder. Like I mean nothing to her, like I’m a common Mudblood.

“Have a nice day” I say briskly and get out of her blasting bookshop.

*

“You remember Weasley, don’t you?”

Theodore lifts his brows so high they get lost in his hair.

“Which one?”

”What do you mean which one?” I furrow my own brows.

“There are seven of them.”

I stare at him incredulously. So not only that her family is dirt-poor and full of blood-traitors, they have seven children too? Wait… how do I know they’re dirt-poor?

“The one I showed to you weeks ago.”

“The girl, you mean?”

“Yes! Well, the mission is to kill everyone but the Death Eaters on tomorrow’s Ministry party, and to kill her best friend first, as an example”

“Her best friend…” Theodore runs his hand through his dark hair “That would be the Granger bint… the Mudblood.”

“Why her? I mean, I get that she’s a Mudblood,” I add when I see Theodore’s incredulous face “But what’s so special about her?”

Theodore’s nose wrinkles, and his face suddenly becomes darker. I narrow my eyes, finally realizing why so many people consider Theodore dangerous – except for the little tattoo on his left arm, of course.

“She’s mocking. us. She’s successful, she’s intelligent, she’s a skilled witch, and she’s marrying into a pureblood family. She’s a mockery of everything we stand for. She deserves to die.”

Now, that does sound a little bit extreme. Why would a couple of purebloods, such as Theodore and myself, pay attention to some common Mudblood whore?

“How does she look like?”

“She’s the bushy one” Theodore doesn’t even try to hide the loathing in his voice as he searches through thons of pictures on his desk in order to find the one of Granger. “Ah, here it is!”

He drops it on his desk and I grab it. Granger is a girl with warm brown eyes and bushy hair; she holds a large book and waves to the photo. Behind her, with his arms wrapped around her waist, is a red-haired man with freckles… he’s smiling too, pointing to the photograph.

My stomach makes an unpleasant twist.

”How did you know about that? Remembered anything?” Theodore asks.

“Don’t ask anything, mate, because I’ll have to lie to you if you do…”

Before he manages to ask any further questions I storm out of the room.

A plan is already half-formed in my head, I can already count all the spells I will use the next evening…

*

The next morning, the morning before my mission, I sit at that café again. But this time, the Weasley girl doesn’t ignore me. She gives me a serious look and makes a small motion with her index finger. Then she points at the small, dark passageway between Diagon and Knockturn Alley, behind her bookshop.

She wants me to follow her.

I wonder what’s wrong with her – one day she’s stalking me, begging me not to kill all those people (I feel like I’m going to throw up when I think of what I’m supposed to do), the next day she’s begging me to leave, and now she’s telling me to follow her. What’s going on with this witch?

So I stand up, haphazardly pick up my things, and follow her. She walks through the crowd, slipping between people loaded with bags, and I can barely keep up with her. When I think I lost her, because she’s so small and easy to lose between the tall people around her, I see her crimson hair and continue to follow her.

Finally, I elbow my way between two old witches and she’s waiting for me, leaned against the dirty brick wall.

“Draco, please don’t do it.”

She walks to me and grabs my hands with her small, warm ones.

“Why?” I ask bluntly.

“Because of me… because of us.” She laughs at her words, but it’s not the same booming laugh I heard at the ball. It’s sad, like she’s stupid for even thinking I care for us.

I must have loved her so much, because even while I can’t remember her name I still do care for us.

“He’ll kill us.”

“It doesn’t have to be that way… We can flee! Remember how you used to tell me about all the places you’ve seen before the war? Remember how you used to promise me the world?”

An honest answer would be “no” but I don’t say anything. I just stare at her brown eyes full with unshed tears, I just stare at her long and hard and she doesn’t stare at some random spot for the first time since I can remember (which is not too much, if you think about it). She looks right at me, and I can just feel how important it is to her. It has to be – it’s her bloody best friend.

She starts to cry, sobbing so hard her legs can’t support her anymore, and so she falls on her knees. It’s a pitiful sight – the small, proud redhead kneeling in front of me, in the dirt, begging me to do something that’s equal to suicide and murder of many people that were important in my life.

And I want to listen to her so desperately, I want her to tell her that I’m sorry and that I won’t kill them and that we’ll flee and live happily ever after like in a fairytale but I don’t. I force myself not to in the last possible second. Merlin, she keeps trying to manipulate me and I can’t do a thing about it.

I think that if she’d slit my throat, my last words to her would probably be an apology for bleeding on her robes.

I think rationally. I know, no matter how much she’s trying to convince me that it’s otherwise, that killing a bunch of nameless and faceless people is better then killing myself, together with my whole family and a few family friends. I know that if she really loves me, she’d accept that I have to do this. I know that if she really loves me she wouldn’t want to see me dead, and I know that I’m probably just means to an end to her.

Because, let’s face the facts: how could someone like her, innocent and beautiful and pure, love someone like me?

Now she’s shaking on the ground, still holding my hands in a desperate, white-knuckled grip.

”We won’t live to see the world” I try to explain her. I try to stay impassive and not to show how much her tears hurt. “No one ever escaped the Dark Lord. If I do this… we can both survive.”

“I won’t be able to live knowing how much my life cost.”

“I’m doing this for us,” I lie. Or is it a lie after all?

“I don’t want you to do it.”

”I have to.”

My last words seem to awake something in her because her face screws in a grimace of disgust and pain.

She stands up with the reflexes of a cat and lets go of my hands like they’re something filthy.

“Then you can kill ‘em all and die!”

And I can’t control myself anymore; I drag her to myself and kiss her. Her lips are hot and wet from tears, and she forgets of all the hatred and threats, runs her hands through my hair, making small, strangled sounds in the back of her throat.

The tears continue to roll down her cheeks, and I wrap my arms around her small frame, hoping that she’ll stop… Merlin, just make her stop, just make her forgive me and let us be happy…

I can’t think clearly because her kisses are like a drug to me, so passionate and so familiar, like I tasted her sweet lips millions of times before…

And then she freezes; her hands get out of my hair. She pushes me away, her eyes wide and red from crying.

“Do not do that ever again!”

Before I can say a thing, she childishly stomps her foot and leaves the dark passageway. Leaves me to stand like an idiot, panting and wishing for more, wishing for her cherry lips.

*

My hands shake, and I clench the glass of firewiskey in my hands to hide it. My eyes focus on one person only – the tall, bushy girl in her fashionable aquamarine dress laughing at the joke another redhead just cracked. I observe her all night, waiting for a right moment to attack, and someone else observes me.

I see another girl the second I come in – Weasley, in that pale gold dress that does wonders with her garish hair. She gives me a discrete look, and then looks away, talking with a girl with dirty blond hair. Her blonde friend looks ridiculous in her shiny shocking pink robes, with something like rodents on her ears. How can someone so beautiful socialize with such… well, scum?

Time passes much slower then usual.

I can feel her eyes on my back the whole evening. I try to ignore it, but it’s not working. So I get back to stalking Granger.

My father appears behind me once in a while, hissing encouragement in my ear.

“It’s time soon, Draco, be ready.”

I nod and stare at my reflection in the surface of the firewhiskey I’m drinking. I have dark bags under my eyes. I look shabby. He leaves.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I’m aware of the fact that I’m stalling, but I don’t do anything about it.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I’m aware of the fact that a mass murder, even if it includes killing a lot of Mudbloods, isn’t as easy as I thought of it before.

But I just choose to discard my thoughts. From the easiness I do it I wonder have just how often have I consciously suppressed emotions before. Apparently not often enough to stop myself from getting into a sordid affair with an Order member.

I close my eyes, not wanting to watch my first target. I can pretend that the rest of them are faceless and nameless when as soon as my backup joins me I don’t have to really do anything to them. But I have to torture and kill this one myself – it’s more personal. I feel like my stomach is in knots when I realize that the girl in the aquamarine dress is a living, breathing human, but that it doesn’t matter much. She’s just a living corpse, walking around and laughing, unconscious of her rather shortened lifespan.

“Tonight, Draco, is when you become one of the Dark Lord’s favorite minions”

Who cares? I don’t want to be his minion at all. At this moment I really wish to flee with my witch, even if the Dark Lord kills us both after less then twenty-four hours.

I turn to Weasley. It’s like she’s burning holes through me, with her pleading, desperate looks. I feel like throwing up.

She’s far from me, but I can see every tear that’s about to roll down her cheeks, every shiver of her body, every frantic shake of her hand. I can see her casting wary glances at Granger once in a while; I can almost make out the thumping of her frightened heart.

I smirk at her, trying to look as cold as ever.

It seems to disturb her so much because she drops the glass in her hands, the sound of the shattering crystal echoing through the room. I wonder how could something so small make a sound so loud.

Everyone in the room turn to her, a small girl in her golden dress that’s about to cry, and I can’t stand it anymore.

My head starts to get horribly dizzy, and I’m suddenly hyperaware of everything around me: the worried murmurs, the shoes of people coming to help Weasley against the cold floor, the music starting to slowly play again, Father’s soft murmur:

“Get ready, Draco, your time comes soon. The attack will soon begin.”

I swallow my saliva, avoiding his gaze until he disappears between a Hogwarts teacher and a professional Quidditch player. I can’t do it, I can’t kill them all, so in a split second I decide to run and die a painful and slow death when I get caught.

But someone grabs my arm. It’s Theodore, holding me firmly with one hand and loosening his tie with another.

“Where are you going, Draco?” he whispers “Don’t you remember about the miss—“

I don’t care. I don’t care about the mission, I don’t care for the fact that I’ll die, and that they’re all going to die: Theodore and Father and Mother and Pansy… I suddenly don’t care for anything. I’m as dead as Granger is – we’re just a couple of dead people whose hearts are still beating.

There, it’s her way again, and I hope she’ll be happy when she reads of my death in the paper, I hope that she’ll be happy with her freaky friends…

But let’s face the facts; I’m not a really good person, am I? And I don’t want it for her at all.

I want her to feel guilty, I want her to cry over my dead body, and I want her never to be happy again for doing this to me. I want her to remember me forever – a person she held wrapped around her little finger all the time, a man who died because he loved her. I know I’m supposed to hate her for doing all that to me, but I just want her to miss me, I just want her to remember me and love me forever.

My heart is thumping so hard that it seems that it’ll broke my ribs as I walk out of the room unnoticed. Theodore is trying to call me without dragging attention, but he fails. So he runs to find someone, probably Father, to tell him that I betrayed them all. Everyone is staring at her, because she cut herself on the blasting crystal, and I lean against the wall and let go of a tortured sigh.

I stand there and gaze at the painting on the opposite wall as the minutes pass by and nothing happens, and then someone runs out of the ballroom, heels clicking against the marble floor.

It’s the Weasley girl – her hand bleeds and warm tears glide down her cheeks and smear her make up. Her hair completely fell out of the bun she had it in, and it now falls freely on her bare shoulders.

Now this is the last thing I want to see, no, to touch, before I die. Her soft, freckled skin under my fingers. I want to see it, I want to smell it, I want to touch it, I want to sense it…

“They’re going to start without you, Draco,” she says in a shaky whisper and I snap out of my boyish fantasies “I saw them, I saw them taking their wands out. They’re sick of waiting… Draco, the massacre’s about to begin.”

Her eyes widen in fear as we both start to hear noise from the other side of the heavy wooden door. Her whole body is shaking like she has some kind of a panic attack.

She has me wrapped around her little finger all over again, with her innocence and her tears and her morals that are stopping me from saving myself, from saving us both, so I run to her and hug her. She hugs me too and squeezes me with strength I didn’t knew a creature so small could have. I hope that it’s enough to make her stop crying, but she cries even harder, sobs wracking her small frame. It doesn’t make sense at all.

She’s leaning against the wall, looking for support, and I can’t resist again so I lean forward kiss her, and I feel her clinging to me like there’s nothing else in the world. That kiss makes me forgot of everything, makes me feel like we don’t have a single worry in the world. Her small hand is on my face, smearing it with blood.

She makes me feel like a teenager again, she makes me remember the feeling of it, if I can’t remember anything else about my boyhood.

“He’s going to kill me,” I whisper between a couple of kisses, getting us both back into reality. She glances at the door – we can hear people screaming now. “See, Ginny, I’m a dead man, and I’m doing all this for you! It’s all for you Ginny, can you realize it now, can you realize that I love--”

She starts kissing my cheeks, my chin, my neck. I think I’m starting to shake too.

“I’m – sorry. I – love – you – and – I’m – so – sorry” she almost moans, kissing my neck after each word. I can feel her hot, shaky breath on my neck. Then she finally abandons it and gets back to my mouth.

It’s one of those moments when everything is so clear and perfect, when I know why I’m doing this, why I’m dieing. I know it’s from the right reason, I know that just one of her kisses is worth thousands of lives. Dieing for someone like her is an honor, a privilege, and I know that I don’t deserve her at all. I don’t deserve to have this last, passionate kiss; still I wish it could last for eternity.

But the next second the door open with a loud bang and dozens of Death Eaters and their victims run out of the ballroom, lifting their dresses and dress robes so they can run faster, flinging curses at each other. The dark hallway is suddenly much brighter, red and green and purple lights are flying across the room like a creepy lightshow. Weasley’s lips are still firmly on mine when a curse hits me, cutting my chest.

“Draco!”

She tries to catch me but I fall and hit the marble floor. In my useless, completely wrecked brain, I can remember that this isn’t the first time I’m on the receiving end of that curse.

”Draco! Draco I love you!”

“Gin…” I murmur, almost instinctively, and I can suddenly remember everything, like someone turned the lights on in my head.

I remember her, Ginny Weasley, kissing me, Ginny healing me when I got hurt, Ginny confiding me her deepest feelings and darkest fears, Ginny making me laugh the way no one else could.

She used to be my only comfort and I hurt her… I hurt her with the blasting mission and it’s like someone’s digging knives through my head when I remember her tear-stained face in front of me, swearing that I’ll regret.

I can remember everything: who I am and what happened to me and how a vanishing cabinet looks like, but somehow all the other memories are suppressed by the ones containing her. I think that it has something to do with the fact that her face is in front of me, getting blurrier and sharper and blurrier and sharper and blurrier all over again as I’m floating on the edge of consciousness.

It’s dark in the room, the light of the only candle dancing on her crimson hair.

I’m next to her on the floor, and she traces the Dark Mark on my hand with her small, warm fingers. The ticklish feeling makes shivers run down my spine in a not so unpleasant way.

“So what did you wanted to do with your life, before the war started?”

I shrug.

“I don’t know. I never had the slightest idea… how about you? I mean, the dream of your childhood couldn’t possibly be working in a bookshop.”

She closes her eyes and laughs – that honest, booming laugh that echoes through the room and makes me wish to laugh too.

“Don’t laugh, okay?”

I shake my head, and a few locks of my hair fall over my eyes. I quickly move them from my face so I can see her better; cursing the day I stopped gluing my hair back.

“I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to write a book, but I never did. Maybe I’m just not talented – I could never find the right thing to write about.”

“But what did you wanted to write about?”

“Don’t laugh!”

”I’m not going to laugh!”

“Okay… I wanted to write one of those cheesy romance novels… but there’s too much of them and all the ideas sound stupid even in my head… So I guess I still don’t know what to write.”

“You can write about this. About the war. And after the war you can publish it and become famous.”

She laughs again, but her laugh is sad now. It sounds strangely artificial to me.

“I don’t think any of us will survive the war”

“Of course we will,” I say briskly although I don’t believe in it myself. She seems to notice that too, so I kiss her to reassure her. “And we’ll be happy. We’ll stop hiding and we’ll be happy.”

“Draco, I don’t think our families will ever support this, even after the war.”

I kiss her again and wrap my arms around her.

“Then we’ll flee. We’ll flee far away from them all, and you always wanted to travel.”

But she’s starting to cry, and I wonder what have I did wrong. She shakes her beautiful head and murmurs something about not living long enough to do it.

I let go of her and cup her face with my hands.

“Ginny, we’ll flee” I say loudly, convincing her even though I know it’s not true. “I’ll show you the world… You always wanted to go to France, to see Paris, to climb on the Eiffel’s Tower…”

“Draco, I’m not a fool! We’ll die and you know it so face the reality!”

And I know it’s the right moment, so I take a certain ring out of my pocket and put it in her warm hand.

“Ginny… I promise you we’ll flee. I promise you, we’ll flee and be happy… Marry me”

She suddenly stops sobbing to look at me.

“Are you— are you serious?”

“This is the engagement ring that’s in my family for centuries. My parents would kill me if they knew that a Weasley is going to wear it on her finger. The Dark Lord would want me dead for betrayal.”

”All for that little ring” she murmured, staring at the emerald stone on it. “Draco, you know it will get us in trouble.”

“I’m willing to take the risk.”

“Draco, you know that we won’t live to get married.”

“I don’t want to argue about that again.”

“Then what’s the point of this?”

“Do you love me?”

“What?”

Merlin, I feel like I have something rather large stuck in my throat.

“I love you. Do you love me?”

“Well… I…” she blushes “Yes.”

“Then answer yes to the other question too.”

“Yes.”

And I put the platinum ring on her thin finger. She leans to me; she’s so close that I can count every freckle on her face--


--My head hurts like hell, and Ginny is bending over me, her face sharpening again. I think I’m bleeding, but I can’t feel anything but my head.

“I’m sorry…” I whisper to her “I’m sorry I’ll never make you happy…”

But she puts her index finger, red from blood, on my lips. I can feel the taste of blood in my mouth.

“Draco, don’t say that way!” her voice is high-pitched and desperate. “Draco, we’ll be happy. We’ll flee, and you’ll show me the world… You’ll take me to Paris, right? And I’m going to publish a book and, oh, Draco, we’ll be so happy… Can’t you see it?”

She’s using all the sweet white lies to comfort me, but I know that she doesn’t believe in it any more then I do. I shake my head, and my vision is starting to get blurry again.

“Draco, don’t think that way!” she’s cupping my face with her hands in an absurd mockery of what happened months ago, staining it with blood.

And then a cold voice in front of us says “Crucio” and she falls over me, screaming in horror.

“I’m sorry, Ginny,” I whisper in her ear as she clenches my robes “I’m sorry I’ll never make you happy…”

I feel like I’m going to die all the things people say about death are plain lies. I don’t see any white lights, and I can’t see my life running in front of my eyes. I can’t even see Ginny – all I know is what a ridiculously painful way to die this is, on the floor of the Ministry of Magic, bleeding, with the girl I love lying over me and vainly trying to fight the Cruciatus until she passes out. And I can’t do anything to change it – my helplessness hurts more then the cuts on my chest.

And the manic laugh of our attacker is the last thing I hear before I pass out.

*

It turned out that Draco’s attack was supposed to trigger Death Eater attacks all over the country and finally defeat the forces of the Order. Exactly thirty-two hours after that event Lord Voldemort was killed by the hand of the Chosen One, Harry Potter. So much for his clever plan.

The celebration lasted for weeks. Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy both survived. Lucius managed to excuse himself with being Imperiused one more time. “The wizarding society never learns anything from their mistakes,” Narcissa said about that one day. Molly and Arthur Weasley survived too. Arthur finally got promoted and they finally got some more money.

But when the wizarding world counted the survived and the fallen, two of them were missing – the seventh child of the Weasleys, the first girl in seven generations, and the only Malfoy heir.

They weren’t found, dead or alive. Week after week the Aurors looked for them, among other people, all over Britain. They were one of the rare people that couldn’t be found. Lucius and Arthur eventually joined forces, but the only thing they managed to find was the emerald ring, the Malfoy engagement ring her family saw on Ginny’s finger so often but never knew what it meant. It was covered in blood, in front of the ballroom in the Ministry of Magic.

Unlike some other families of missing people, they never believed that their children are dead, they never dug empty graves, they never put tombstones with Ginevra Molly Weasley, a great daughter and a loyal friend, or Draco Malfoy, the only heir of the Malfoys.

When the postcard arrived, they were glad they didn’t.

*

So turns out I didn’t die after all. Ginny managed to clear her head and Stupefy whoever was casting the Cruciatus on her. She suspects it was Theodore Nott. Then she clumsily healed the cuts on my chest and dragged me through the Ministry until I got conscious again. A bit after that, she fainted yet again so I had to drag her the rest of the way. It’s so like her, leaving all the hard work to me.

None of us is sure what happened then, but we think it was the moment when Potter defeated the Dark Lord; so all the limits when it came to Apparating were broken. And so we fled.

It’s almost a year since then now, and Ginny listened to my advice and stopped trying to write a cheesy romance novel. She wrote something that rather much resembles our life stories and struggles through the war instead.

I bought a big house in Provence. That’s in France. I showed her the world, just like I promised her I will. I think that’s the only promise I ever fulfilled in my entire life.

Anyway, we never said anyone where we were, and Ginny thinks it’s about time to do it. So we’re sending them a postcard and a copy of Ginny’s now published book. No, a copy of Lady G.M.W. Malfoy’s published book. (She hates that name; she thinks it’s absurdly long)

We tell them to get Ginny’s engagement ring back too. We know they have it.

Hopefully, they weren’t too worried. It had to be that way; they’d never accept it otherwise. We needed to give them time to understand. I don’t know, maybe we even come back to England one day.

No, we definitely will come back to England, because if I ever have a son (and I know that I will) I want him to go to Hogwarts. I want him to win the Quidditch Cup for Slytherin, like his… erm, grandfather did. (Potter always used to beat me in Quidditch…) Beauxbatons is a school for Nancy-boys anyway.

*

That postcard was enough to make all of their dead and long buried hopes come to life.

It had a photo of Eiffel’s tower on it, with only two sentences on the other side:

We’re sorry it had to be this way, but we’re happy. And we want the Malfoy engagement ring back on Gin’s finger – please send it with this owl.

Love,

D&G

The owl brought a package too. It was a book. Mistakes We Knew We Were Making, the title imprinted in silver letters on black leather said.

A story about the war, the mistakes the government was making at the beginning, the mistakes two young people were making, and the mistakes they’re all glad they didn’t make.

It was a very realistic book about the war, and two completely different people from different sides of the war falling in love with each other. It was about the mistakes they both made, including an enchanted diary incident and becoming a Death Eater to protect one’s family. Hell, it was their children’s life story.

They were alive, they were alive and happy, Molly murmured to Narcissa in the parlour of the Manor. The two completely different women became friends, each other’s comfort in their misery, and now they were both crying from happiness and relief, hugging each other. The postcard lay abandoned on the small table. They weren’t dead, they were happy somewhere out there, and they just fled so he can show her the world.