Chapter Forty-five
The Meaning of Numbers
I didn't say it was my fault. I said it was my responsibility. I know the difference.
Rose Walker in The Kindly Ones
Harry was a watch.
The gears inside of him were that of human nature; and because of this his timing was impeccable. If he wanted to pass by unnoticed, Harry would wait for someone’s attention to slip. He could know the rhythm of a person’s heart, and match it with the tap of his own fingertips so the echo would drive a person mad. He could tell exactly how long it would take for before a man would break down and reveal his secrets.
But lately he had been aware of a change in the air. A pressure had been building for some months now, and it only got worse when Sirius died. As a result, Harry had begun to carry the bag of sand in his pocket.
He was certain he would need it.
Soon.
Harry was very aware of the odd tension in the room the moment he walked into the Friday meeting. He ignored it, hoping that the pressure and unease he felt was a product of his imagination. But soon enough, as people began to pair up and drift into their own conversations, he could see that it was real. Everyone’s motions were too practiced, lacking that odd pause right before conversation. And there was a hesitance in Hannah’s shoulders even as she marched towards him.
“How are you Harry?” she asked as she tucked her skirt under her thighs in nervousness.
“I’m fine,” he replied. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that Ron, Hermione, Daphne, and Blaise were gathered in a circle nearby. Considering their highly contentious friendship, Harry found this seating arrangement suspicious. He was willing to bet there was an Extendable Ear under his chair, so they could listen to his replies.
Hannah looked at him. “When I heard what happened, I thought it was awful. I only met Sirius Black once, but he was really a lot of fun.”
“Hmm…” Harry hummed in reply. Why was she telling him this? “Yes, well. It’s a war. We always knew that there was a possibility.”
“I haven’t really told anyone this, but a few weeks ago my mother was attacked by Death Eaters. It was luck that she survived, your godfather was there at the time. It was getting late, and if they had arrived five minutes later,” Hannah’s voice became very small, “she might not have made it. I don’t know what I would have done if she was killed.”
Harry looked at Hannah impassively. There were tears in her eyes, the drops clinging to the lashes. “You probably would have cried.”
He heard a snort of laughter from Ron, followed by the sound of Hermione smacking him.
Hannah rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. “Sirius Black was a good man and I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you, I guess.”
“Urgh! What do you mean you guess?” Hermione called out, revealing her eavesdropping.
Harry shrugged. “I’m fine,” he repeated. They continued to look at him with doubt, so he smiled his practiced method for putting people at ease. But the people before him didn’t seem to buy it. “I’m not lying,” he said, affronted by their looks of concern.
“Of course you are telling the truth,” Daphne replied, “you don’t tell lies. But it’s not a lie if you believe it. However, it doesn’t make you right.”
“Ideas,” Harry said tersely, “shape reality.”
“A reality that can be torn apart by a single grain of truth,” Blaise argued. Harry glared at him.
Hannah cleared her throat. “Don’t get mad at us Harry, we’re only worried about you. Friends help each other out.”
“I appreciate it, but it isn’t needed.”
Ron spoke up. “Yeah, we know. That’s sort of the problem. Most people aren’t so calm. It’s not… normal.”
Harry stiffened. “Oh, I see. Well, in that case, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be leaving you and you normal people alone.”
“Harry, Ron didn’t mean it like that,” Hermione said in exasperation.
“I know exactly what he meant by that,” Harry said icily. And with that he left the room, closing the door with a firm snap. He didn’t need to be chastised because he wasn’t grieving. Sirius was fine. He was fine.
And there was nothing more to it than that.
The matter was dropped, although Harry could tell it was a conversation that Hermione was eager to continue. But every time that look came upon her face, Lavender would give her a gentle nudge and Hermione would turn away. February gave way to March, and it had only been a couple of weeks since the aborted intervention he was approached once more by someone else.
“Why did you pick me?”
Harry swore as Theo cornered him as he was coming back from a bath. Harry had managed to avoid his classmate for some time, but now that Theo had been released from the hospital wing it in was inevitable.
He eyed the doorway; trying to figure out the odds that he would be able to escape or for Theo get the hint and drop the subject. Harry glanced at Theo’s face, and saw determination, and sighed.
“I sat in that bed for days trying to figure out why you chose to save me. You killed my grandfather. Not you, The Prophet, or anyone else can convince me that it was an accident. Black was your godfather, so why me? You owe me an answer.”
Harry clenched his eyes as he searched for the correct response to Theo’s question. There were a number of reasons to why Harry had acted as he did, some of them Harry himself was uncertain about. He wanted to save Sirius and tactically an adult wizard with dueling experience who was better than a decent but barely-of-age wizard. But Sirius was an adult and had already known his time was limited. He had accepted the risk of fighting the war, not once but twice. A great deal of Sirius’ life had been sucked out by the dementors and time had not healed the wounds in him.
In the end, it was Harry’s chocolates that caused Theo to be poisoned. When Harry said he hadn’t killed the elder Nott for revenge he meant it. Truth be told, Theo Nott had done nothing to have his life ended. And Harry only came across this revelation because he had used the Resurrection Stone. Theo reminded him of Regulus. Perhaps if Harry had not used the stone he would have picked otherwise. It was too late now, and he was left with a dead godfather, and an ungrateful classmate.
“I saved you because I hate the idea of feeling guilty every time I wake up and see your empty bed.”
“And Black?”
“He knew what he was getting into,” Harry replied. Having to repeat this was getting on his nerves, why didn’t people believe him? Theo must have seen the irritation on his face and he excused himself quickly, leaving Harry alone with his thoughts.
Harry kicked a nearby chair in frustration.
Harry received the summons for his next meeting with Dumbledore in early March. He was grateful for the message, he longed to get back into uncovering the truth of Voldemort’s past, and to stop the feeling of desperation that was in the air. Unfortunately, there was something he needed to accomplish before then, and that was to talk to Slughorn. He had barely spoken to his Potions professor since the incident. Most of the classes they ignored each other, neither brave enough to speak to the other, which suited Harry just fine.
When Slughorn answered the door, the affable face immediately tuned grim, and he moved from the doorway to allow Harry inside without a word. Harry stepped inside and noticed that Slughorn had bought a new rug since he last visited.
“I was wondering when you would come here,” Slughorn said as he handed Harry a drink. “You don’t have to worry about any poison in that; I have the house-elves sample the drinks now.”
Harry frowned into the glass. “You shouldn’t do that, their lives matter as well.”
Slughorn looked at him shrewdly, “Is that what you believe?”
“We all die in the end,” Harry replied. He meant for the statement to come out profound, but the dour atmosphere made it sound nihilistic. “I suppose it doesn’t matter, whoever poisoned the drink won’t be making that attempt anymore.”
“Yes, true.” Slughorn rattled the ice in his glass. “Still, I’d rather risk their lives than mine.”
Harry let the statement go, too exhausted to argue. “I need the memory.”
“What will you give me?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The last time you promised that I could keep the recollection to myself. You are going against your word. Nowadays, that is the difference between a friend and an enemy.”
Harry looked at Slughorn aghast. “I am not going against my word.”
His professor continued to look at him with narrowed eyes. “I fail to see how this is true.”
Harry stood up; the glass clutched in his hand tightly. “Things change,” he growled. “When I told you that you could keep the memory, Sirius was still alive. He died here!” Harry pointed to the rug that he was certain covered the stain left from the poisoned mead. “There were two people dying and what did you do? Nothing. You did nothing!”
A strain of anger had entered Harry’s voice and he hated the show of weakness. Now that he started speaking of the incident, he couldn’t help but recall the look of desperation in Sirius’ eyes. He had wanted to give the bezoar to Sirius, but the Resurrection Stone taught him otherwise. And so he had turned away, and refused to look at Sirius even when he was certain that the man was dead. Instead, Harry had rushed to the hospital wing to get some help for Theo and reported the incident to Dumbledore. By the time he had returned to Slughorn's office, Sirius had been moved. “You could have done something to slow the effects of the poison, and I could have gone down to get another bezoar. I can run fast, you know. ”
He swallowed hard.
“But instead, you just stood there. And you made me choose between my godfather and a classmate. And if I hadn’t been there, both of them would have died. Inaction can be a death sentence.”
Slughorn looked at him with a pale face, his hands clutching his expensive alcohol. Harry hated everything about the man at that moment, for making him show the weakness of emotion, Slughorn’s attempts to gain a favor, and how the man’s rotund belly were the signs of a soft life. Harry threw his glass in anger, and it whizzed just above the professor’s head, and it shattered in the fireplace with a satisfying crash.
“Things change,” Harry repeated once more.
(He was unaware of the double meaning in his words, that this was the lesson the Prodigal had taught him. That every new beginning meant the end of something. If he had, Harry would have been aware of his own slow ruin, and fled; because cowards make poor heroes.)
Slughorn looked at Harry with watery eyes, and then nodded. He walked over to his potions kit and withdrew a small vial, depositing a wisp of something silver. Slughorn gave it to Harry with a squeeze to his arm.
“I’m sorry.”
Harry drew back, unable to speak. The room felt too small and he felt slightly claustrophobic in Slughorn’s room, so he tucked the vial in his pocket and he left.
He walked back to the Slytherin Common Room, only to pause at the Entrance Hall. He didn’t feel like going inside, it was still the weekend, so people would be louder than normal. Blaise would probably rattle in his ear with some gossip he had lifted in attempts to help to Harry’s mind off of things. But he didn’t feel like hearing gossip, he felt like…talking.
Harry leaned against the wall with a sigh. Perhaps he could go to the Room of Requirement and use the secret exit to visit Ariana. Seeing her smile would remind him of things he had forgotten. Perhaps explaining some lessons of the Endless would help make everything better. Or he could visit Phineas, Harry knew the portrait would be distressed his family line had ended. And Phineas would be willing to slap Harry out of his own self-flagellation and bring focus.
Harry looked at the vial on his hands once more.
At what point had his closest confidants become portraits?
The next day, Harry placed the vial on Dumbledore’s desk without a word, and the Headmaster beamed at Harry.
“Excellent, I knew that you could do it. We will view that memory properly later, but first I have two more to show you. This shows part of Tom Riddle’s life as he left Hogwarts. The first is a memory about a woman named Hepzibah Smith taken from her house-elf.”
Harry noticed the flash of red in Tom’s eye when he saw the Hufflepuff Cup, the man’s career choice making sense.
“More trophies?” he asked Dumbledore, never removing his eyes from Riddle’s form.
“One would guess,” the Headmaster confirmed.
“What happened to the woman?”
“Like many of Voldemort’s victims, she was murdered. The house-elf admitting to lacing Hepzibah’s tea with something and the matter was settled, although the locket and cup were never found.”
“And if one is suspicious of Tom Riddle, the ending is incomplete but somewhat predictable,” Harry responded. Sirius had known of more of Umbridge’s death simply by knowing Harry’s nature and reading a headline from the paper. At the time, Harry was amazed, but now that he was doing the same thing to Voldemort. He was yanked from his thoughts as Dumbledore poured another memory in the Pensive.
“This second memory is one of my own, in which Tom Riddle came to ask for a job as the new Defense Professor.”
A shudder ran down his spine when Voldemort entered, his face drastically different from the young man Harry had seen minutes ago. Gone was the charming young man, cautious but greedy. This was the emergence of a Dark Lord, arrogant, greedy, and cruel. He and Voldemort were a lot alike, but now Harry could see the statement and its multiple meanings.
It was a clue, an observation, an advantage, but mostly it was a warning.
Dumbledore cleared his throat, breaking the silence of Harry’s thoughts. Harry looked up to see Dumbledore giving him a look of curiousity. “And now we watch the memory from our own professor Slughorn.”
“Wouldn’t it be better, make you stronger, to have your soul in more pieces, I mean, for instance, isn’t seven the most powerfully magical number, wouldn’t seven-?”
Harry swore. He already knew that Voldemort had split his soul, Slughorn had confirmed as much. But seven? That was far too much.
Harry clenched his hands tightly in shock at the enormous task before him. He thought that Voldemort had made only two. The diary was just as much a weapon as anything. It certainly had a risk of being discovered for what it really was. He had assumed that Voldemort had created a spare to ensure his safety. But he had never dreamed that he would have gone so high to place the rule of magical numbers on it.
“He made seven Horcruxes,” Harry said dazedly when they exited the Pensieve . He looked up to Dumbledore, hoping that the man would correct him.
“It is my belief that Voldemort intended to create six Horcruxes, letting the seventh piece of his soul reside in his body.”
“Oh, so I’m off by one.” Harry’s mistake was a small victory, but it did little to ease the growing despair. He shook his head, trying to clear his mind and focused on something he understood. “Right, if he had made seven Horcruxes that would have given him eight pieces of his soul. Eight is the most magically unstable number. It would be a catastrophe to split one’s soul that many times. He wouldn’t be able to control the outcome. ”
“Precisely, this leaves us the task of finding the Horcruxes and destroying them. I myself, have found one already.”
“What?”
“Over the summer,” Dumbledore shook his hand, “I believe that you recall the ring that sat upon the table. That was a Horcrux. Unfortunately, the method I used to destroy it was not very efficient. As a result I received this injury. A worthy price, but not one that I would care to repeat.”
Harry thought of Regulus Black and how he had failed to destroy the Horcrux, but had lost his life. Dumbledore had been lucky.
“He found himself here, in Hogwarts” Harry said in a dull voice, recalling his conversation with the diary. “The cup became a Horcrux as well as the ring and necklace. What else?”
“I believe you noticed the close relationship he shares with his snake?”
“Living things can be Horcruxes? That’s not a very good idea, if the snake dies I suppose the bit of soul would go with it. That leaves a few more, and even then we still have to search for where they are.”
Harry drifted off as he recalled the yellowed parchment written by Regulus’ hand.
Gringotts
Hogwarts
“There’s one here,” he said with absolute certainty.
Dumbledore shook his head. “I thought so as well. But I have searched for it, and I did not find it. I do not believe that Lord Voldemort would have placed such a valuable piece of himself so close within my reach and it such an obvious place.”
Harry resisted the impulse to swear at the man, annoyed by his assumption. “That is exactly why he did it! Of all the places in the world, he felt like he belonged her most of all. You admitted that there were ulterior motives for him applying to the Defense post. That was it!”
Harry began to pace the room in a circle, half mad with reason.
“He would have been arrogant enough to assume you would not find it, like the Chamber of Secrets. Or perhaps it is hidden in plain sight so you could look at it everyday and never know you are protecting him. He has more than one Horcrux, so he could take that risk. He would also place one in Gringotts, there security system is top notch. Just reading the protection spell locks the whole place down so it’s impenetrable.”
“You are forgetting that the Gaunt family had nothing to leave him, and thus he does not have a magical vault of his own.”
“Yes, but he had followers with ancient vaults. He would have asked one of them to place it in Gringotts”
“Yet, if find it hard to believe that he would trust anyone with that information.”
Harry stopped pacing and stared at Dumbledore. Not true, his mind whispered, Voldemort trusted Lucius Malfoy with the diary. At some point during their exploration of Voldemort, he had left Dumbledore behind.
Harry felt very alone.
He was jerked from his thoughts as Dumbledore began to speak once more. “I think that right now would be a good time to end this session, Harry. You give this information more thought and we can continue this at another time.” Harry nodded and left the office and headed for the Room of Requirement. Once inside, he searched for the diary and gingerly lifted the cover. It was such an unassuming object, but yet, it was one of the most dangerous things in existence.
Next time he would show the diary to Dumbledore and explain how he had learned of it and the Horcurx. Harry’s original intentions for keeping the diary secret were founded on a mix of pride and distrust. Dumbledore had caught Harry’s sly question of the elder wand, and it was possible he knew of Harry’s curiosity. As a result, Harry had not broached the subject anymore, although he was fairly certain that his suspicions were correct.
What Harry had wanted to do was reveal his knowledge about Horcruxes and Hallows with smug satisfaction. Harry had wanted to prove to the old man that he was better, and the concern was not needed or wanted. That he wasn’t as flawed as the Headmaster had been, and he knew the difference between power and the idea of power. Harry had wanted to show Dumbledore that he was cleverer than the man had given him credit for, and wouldn’t he just tell the damn truth already instead of sending Harry around in circles?
Harry had wanted to see the shock on Dumbledore’s face when he revealed that he discovered a Horcrux already, and he knew where another one was. He had looked forward to the apology that would come from Dumbledore’s lips.
But now those wishes felt shallow, and there would be no apology or admiration from Dumbledore. Because even though three Horcurxes were found, they were only half done. The pride had ebbed away and all that was left was the weight of the task pressing on him.
Harry felt tired.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Harry fidgeted impatiently once more in the Headmaster’s office, his foot keeping time.
“Will you knock off that racket, Potter?”
Harry twisted in his chair to look at Phineas. “Sorry, I can’t help it. I’m a bit impatient right now.” Harry longed to start the meeting, there was so much to cover that he was certain he would be in Dumbledore’s office for the rest of the night.
“Well, I believe that Dumbledore has his hands full what with the Malfoy boy getting caught last night.”
“What?” Harry had no idea what Phineas was talking about. Last he heard from Blaise was that Malfoy was in the hospital wing for a burn accident.
“I don’t know what happened, the meeting took place at another part of the castle. I probably shouldn’t be mentioning it anyway. Not that I liked the boy, I always thought he was a whiny thing.”
The portrait was interrupted as Dumbledore entered the room. “Harry, I was wondering if we could postpone this meeting. There is an unexpected conflict occurring in the forest between the centaurs.”
“Does it have to do with Hagrid’s half-brother?”
Dumbledore’s raised his eyebrows in surprise, “Unfortunately.”
“Oh. I guess this can wait.” Harry looked at the setting sun. “I suppose it will have to be tomorrow?”
“Next week would be better.”
Harry shook his head. “No, this is fairly important.” Dumbledore scrutinized him and Harry blinked back at him. “Please?”
“Very well then. Tomorrow.” The look of concern did not disappear from the Headmaster’s face as Harry left the room.
Made curious by Phineas’ statement, Harry searched for Draco’s name on the Marauder Map, and found Draco’s dot as it exited the school. Looking out the window, Harry could see Draco as he crossed the school grounds. It looked like he was going towards the private area behind the trees, an unusual choice at the time of night. Harry took a shortcut through a secret passage and a window.
Draco was sitting alone behind the tree, staring at a watch. Harry walked up behind him, hearing the ticking of the pocket watch that held Draco’s rapt attention. “I’ve heard about what you did.
Draco yelped, and scrambled away. “Potter! Did you…?” Harry’s classmate turned around; Dumbledore was off it the distance on his way to the Forbidden Forest. “I suppose you know then. I didn’t mean to.” There was a note of panic in Draco’s voice that screamed guilty.
Harry rolled his eyes. “You didn’t mean to. I don’t believe you.” He took another step forward.
Draco raised his palms up. “I swear, Black’s death was an accident.”
Harry drew back as if he had been slapped, gaping at Draco as he continued to babble.
“I realized how wrong I had been when I almost killed Theo. I mean, he’s my friend. But I had no choice, and I’m sorry. It doesn’t matter anymore because I was caught, but please don’t tell Theo.” He clutched Harry’s robes in plea.
“Don’t touch me.” Harry shoved Draco away from him with force, causing Draco to land heavily on the ground.
The blood was roaring in his head; and his heart was beating fast and he longed to strangle Draco with his bare hands; and to feel the gasps as he crushed Draco’s vocal cords; but he couldn’t because there was a familiar, clinking noise ringing in his head that matched another familiar clinking noise as something fell from Draco’s pocket onto a nearby rock.
“What is that?” Harry asked. He had to ask, he had to ask because questions brought answers and the answers might be the a reason that Sirius was dead; and it wasn’t his fault; not that it was his fault because it was his responsibility. And he was aware of the odd tension in his shoulders, a pressure building and building and building, even as he stood still and let Draco talk.
“The coin I used to communicate with Rosemerta. I got the idea from my father.” Draco said this bitterly as his played with the coin in his hands. “I tried to kill Dumbledore by making her put poison in the wine. The Dark Lord made me, he was after my family.” Draco’s voice took on a desperate note as he continued. “We were fine. We were fine. And then one day over the summer... The Dark Lord was angry and he made me. I didn’t want this…” The coin fell from Draco’s hands, landing on the grass, and he clutched his wrist were the Dark Mark was hidden.
“There’s no such thing..” Harry said numbly as the full weight of the epiphany landed on him.
The panic on Draco’s face turned into confusion. “What?”
“There is no such thing as a one sided coin.” Harry lurched back. “Oh, god.”
He had warned Theo of this precise thing. “Sometimes your actions can hurt unintended parties, so make your choices carefully.”
There was a deep irony in Harry’s own warning; he never realized the juxtaposition of his own words versus his actions. Not only did it make Harry a hypocrite, it made him a fool. He actually believed that he had seen all angles possible when he had arranged for Lucius to be his spy. But he was wrong. When Harry revealed how he discovered the Chamber of Secrets in The Daily Prophet he was still under the assumption the black book was just a diary.
But it was a Horcrux.
Harry tortured and blackmailed Lucius, and the Dark Lord punished Lucius by giving Draco a task; so Draco Imperioused Rosmerta into poisoning the mead that Sirius drank, forcing Harry to choose, so it wasn’t Harry’s fault; but it was his fault, because Draco gave the command through a charmed coin; a method Draco learned from his father, used when Harry tortured and blackmailed Lucius, and the Dark Lord punished Lucius by giving Draco a task.
If it weren't for Harry's own actions, Sirius might have lived.
And the pressure that had building these few months proved too much.
(In a realm of labyrinths, the eldest member of the Endless walks a path.)
He could feel the weight of The Endless in his head, and how they shaped the universe. Pressing and folding and molding and shaping and breaking.
Tempus Fragit
Harry began to laugh. It was an odd sort of laughter, crazy and desperate. It did not match the laughter in his head, nor did it replace the thump of his heart, or the ringing bells in clocks or that clinking noise like a thousand coins falling to the ground that made a song. Harry laughed because he could see. He had always claimed that he could see everything. The universe lined up, as series of cause and effect over and over and over and and and…
It was too much.
Harry Potter would recall what happened next only in brief snatches of color and sound. He would speak of it only once and he never described how he felt.
Harry lunged towards Draco, and pressing him against a tree “He gave you asylum?” The words came from Harry’s mouth easily, as if he was reading a book.
Draco Malfoy reached for his wand, but Harry Potter knew the action was coming and removed it from Draco’s hands, because he could see things as if he were reading the words out of a book.
Draco’s wand in his hand, Harry let go, and ran towards the Forest. He knew that Draco was behind him, scrambling to catch up with Harry.
And Harry Potter knew that he was faster.
“Is it true?” Harry cried out as he reached Dumbledore, who was at the edge of the forest. “You forgave him?”
“Draco Malfoy did not have a choice,” said Albus Dumbledore, his face with concern as he looked at Harry Potter.
“Draco Malfoy did not have a choice.”
“You couldn’t forgive him! It wasn’t in your power to give. It was mine!” Harry cried. “It was my revenge, my forgiveness, my godfather!”
Harry Potter was aware that he is not as fine as he has always claimed; the guilt had not yet faded from his soul. And the careful control he practiced was gone, making him impulsive and wretched. And he didn't care.
“Draco made an attempt on my life. I do have some say in the matter,” Dumbledore replied.
“Why? Why is Draco here if you knew?”
“A person will only change their ways if they experience regret. I believe that Draco has reached a point where he was unwilling to follow the path he was set upon.”
There were bells ringing in Harry’s head, laughter that was not his own, the persistent beating of a heart, and time was ticking away and lost from him. Harry stuck his hand into his pocket and felt the familiar sand at his fingertips.
“Harry?”
Malfoy crashed into a nearby shrub, causing Dumbledore to spin around. Harry twirled Draco’s wand in his hand as he pulled out a handful of sand.
Harry knew what must be done.
Harry knew what must be done, and he could have chosen another path. But the one before him was tragic, ironic, beautiful, and it was…
It was Destiny.
“Avada Kedavra.”
8 8 8 8 8 8 8
Draco stopped in shock as he saw Harry standing over Dumbledore. He had to be seeing things, Potter would never… he had heard that they got along well. Dumbledore promised he would talk to him.
A bright light flashed, and the sky was illuminated with the Dark Mark. Draco looked to Harry only to find he had disappeared. He felt something like dust thrown at his face, but when he went to wipe it away, it was gone. He heard a crashing noise behind him as someone approached. Draco looked on around and saw his wand lying next to…
Draco snatched his wand and tore out of the forest, even as the half-giant came his way. Not a second later, he heard a roar as Hagrid discovered…
He needed to leave. He wasn’t safe. Hagrid was much larger and Draco knew that soon he would be caught. “Accio Broomstick”
A Cleansweep came barreling out of the nearby broom shed and he climbed on top. Draco glanced over his shoulder, terrified of what he would see.
“Git back here, you Death Eater scum!”
Draco kicked off the ground, barely evading Hagrid’s meaty fist. He ascended higher into the sky, the wind blowing fiercely and buffeting him so that he could barely keep his eyes open. He gave a yelp when Hagrid had released one of the arrows from his crossbow, the weapon grazing his leg. The light of the Dark Mark illuminated his way as he left Hogwarts.
Draco's hands wrapped tighter around the handle as he realized exactly what Potter had done.
He was spotted at the scene of a crime and Potter used his wand to kill… to kill…
(a body on the forest floor).
No one would believe him if he said that Potter did it. Not that he could say anything. If the Dark Lord found out he failed, his family would be killed. Draco soared through the air towards a home that was a prison, unaware of his own sobs, only aware of a cruel truth.
Potter had succeeded where Draco had failed, and managed to protect Draco and damn him in one deadly action.
Despair settled in Draco’s heart.
8 8 8 8 8 8 8
Destiny reads of Dumbledore’s death. Once again a new beginning is about to commence.
Desire smokes a cigarette, amused that Harry has given in to his wants.
Del sits in a field, braiding a crown of flowers in her hair. Her eyes match.
Dream becomes aware that Harry has used the sand once more as the sky of The Dreaming grows dark.
Destruction (yet not) fails one more time at making something new.
Despair watches Draco through her mirror, his face wet with tears.
Death walks in a forest.
A/N: Taa Daa!