Fractured Reflections

“Well done, Draco,” Voldemort praises him.

Well done. It has been a long time since he has heard these words, and it is the Dark Lord himself who speaks them. Some would say it is the highest honor one could receive, but Draco feels only disgust.

Disgust as the Dark Lord gives him an embrace, mocking him as if he were a child. The sickening aura of his magic surrounds Draco, making him want to throw up. The hissing voice, ever- present in his nightmares, fills his ears.

He stands stiff as a board in the Dark Lord’s arms, in front of everyone — his classmates, the whole school, and his family. Inhumane laughter escapes the Dark Lord, sending goosebumps across his skin and activating his flight reaction. But there is no escape from all this.

The Dark Lord pulls him tighter, pointing his wand mockingly over Draco’s shoulder at the rest of the school.

Draco thinks he might actually vomit. Imagine that — throwing up on the Dark Lord. He would be dead before he could even say Protego. Worse, his father would likely be the one to cast the spell. But the Dark Lord is merciful, at least for now, and releases him from the suffocating embrace.

Draco stumbles towards the Death Eaters. His mother quickly grabs him as soon as he is in her reach, hiding him behind the others. His father remains proudly in the first row.

But Draco doesn’t feel proud. He feels ashamed. He can’t bring himself to meet the eyes of his former classmates. This should be the end — it is, somehow, reassuring. The Dark Lord has won, and he is with his family on the “right” side.

Draco’s lips curl into something that might be a sneer if it didn’t feel so hollow. He stands, his pulse hammering in his ears, watching as Neville Longbottom faces down the Dark Lord with nothing but a torn, bloodied school uniform and a voice that doesn’t waver.

But standing there now, watching Longbottom, it is impossible not to feel the sharp sting of comparison. That trembling, terrified boy he used to mock has become someone Draco could never hope to be.

It isn’t just opposing the Dark Lord part — though that, of course, is beyond comprehension. It’s the sheer audacity of it, the refusal to stay down even when the battle seems already lost. Draco’s courage — if it could even be called that — has always been about survival. Keeping his family intact. It has never looked anything like this.

He clenches his fists, his nails biting into his palms. A bitter taste rises in his mouth as he realizes how many chances, he had to defy his fate. The first time he watched someone being tortured. The moment he has been told to take the Mark.  The days, the weeks, the years he spent following orders he didn’t believe in because it was easier than risking himself.

His lip twitches as he watches Longbottom’s defiance ripple through the crowd, and something twists inside him — anger, maybe. Not at Longbottom, but at himself. At the boy who had every chance to stand up and never took it. At the man who will probably die without ever trying.

He hates Longbottom a little for it, for showing him what he could have been if he weren’t so craven, so weak. But mostly, he hates himself for knowing the truth and never doing anything about it.

Longbottom’s speech is moving but, in the end, he is a fool.

There is no honor in fighting, no honor in death.

And then the unimaginable happens.

Potter comes back to life.

Draco’s breath hitches, the world narrowing to the impossible sight of Harry Potter standing there. Always defeating the odds. Always coming back when he shouldn’t.

For a moment — just a moment— Draco feels the faintest flicker of relief. He hasn’t realized how tightly his chest has been wound until now, hasn’t dared to hope that Potter, of all people, could make it through this. Yet some desperate, irrational part of him has clung to that hope, even when it felt foolish. Because if anyone could end this nightmare, it’s Potter.

And yet, as that spark of relief dims, it is swallowed by a wave of despair so deep it leaves him trembling. How can there still be more? How can it still not be over?

Draco’s hands curl into fists, his nails biting into the skin as he forces himself to stay still. His knees feel weak, his stomach hollow. He wants to scream at the sky, to rage against the sheer futility of it all. Potter is alive, yes, but what does that even mean? Will it make a difference, or will this just drag on and on until there is nothing left of any of them?

It is never enough. Not for Potter, not for anyone. He has seen it, hadn’t he? Watched Potter fight and scrape through every year at Hogwarts, barely surviving, only to be thrown into another impossible battle. And still, here they all are — Potter, Voldemort, and the endless cycle of fighting and dying that seems to have no end.

Draco’s jaw clenches as he stares at Potter. He hates him a little for it, for always coming back, for always dragging them all into one more round. But at the same time, some small, flickering part of him is grateful. Because even if Potter’s return means more fighting, more death, it also means that there is still a chance.

And isn’t that what Draco has been holding on to all along? That Potter will win. That Potter will do what he can’t, what no one else can. Because the truth is, as much as he despises the Boy Who Lived, he has always believed in him too.

The despair doesn’t go away. It settles in his chest, heavy and cold. But beneath it is something else — smaller, quieter, but no less real. A sliver of hope.

Because if Potter can defy death itself, maybe — just maybe — Draco can find a way to get out of this.

His mother takes his hand, pulling him away from the crowd as the battle begins anew. They are almost off Hogwarts grounds when Draco resists her grip.

Once they nearly crossed the bridge, they slow down. It doesn’t even take a minute before pain strikes him.

His head snaps to the side, and he tastes blood on his tongue. His father has hit him.

“When I tell you to come, you follow. You humiliated us before the crowd. Thankfully, the Lord has mercy,” his father says coldly, each word clipping something inside Draco away.

He cradles his face with his one hand, while his other remains in his mother’s tight grip.

Something inside him breaks.

“LET ME GO!”, he screams, heart-wrenchingly. His mother’s nails dig into his skin, breaking it and drawing blood.

Narcissa drops his hand as if he has burned her. She steps back, keeping her distance, acting as though he is a wild animal.

He sobs uncontrollably, hands trembling as they pull at his hair.

“Malfoys don’t cry. Get it together,” his father hisses. Even now, on the battlefield, he has to play the patriarch of the Malfoy family. There was no escaping this.

Draco laughs out loud, tears streaming down his face.

He isn’t quite the Malfoy his father wants him to be. He could have ended it all back then. He could have spared himself the pain. He just should have told the truth back at the manor to his aunt. Only one word would have changed everything. He still doesn’t know why he had lied.

When he can’t sleep, he thinks of a future that might have been. Nowadays, sleepless nights are frequent; expectations weigh so heavily on him that his thoughts can’t be silenced. Various voices fill his head. His mother’s loving tone grows quitter whenever his father’s sharp words intervene, and then there’s Harry Potter’s voice, always insulting him.

Fuck Potter.

Why couldn’t Potter have vanquished the Dark Lord at the beginning? Why resurrect him and make him live in Draco’s house for nearly two years?

Draco has been living in constant fear. Nowhere is safe. Home is where the Dark Lord resides with the Death Eaters who escaped Azkaban.

He shares a hallway with his aunt Bellatrix. He lives among murderers and psychopaths. And though he wants to say that he is different from them, when he looks at himself in the mirror at night, he sometimes can’t see the difference.

There is madness in his ears and the Dark Mark on arm. He has tortured people and watched countless others killed in unimaginably brutal ways. He is scared of himself. How far will he go before he finally says he can’t do it anymore? How many lives will it cost?

There are already names on his conscience.

Dumbledore, Crabbe.

Everyone who dies today will join that list.

Draco doesn’t want to feel scared anymore. Yet he can’t see an end to this. He can never escape the clutches of the Dark Lord. Even if he took his family and fled, the Dark Lord would find him.

Summon him.

Ash gets in his lungs, and he coughs.

He hates his life.

He fucking hates his life.

His shoulder is probably dislocated, and his skin feels like it’s been burnt off. His jacket is singed from the Fiendfyre, not even a Reparo could fix it. His impeccably styled hair is disheveled, ash clinging to the strands.

“I have to go,” he says instead, his voice void of emotion. The presence of his parents suffocates him.

His mother looks at him worriedly, but something in his eyes stops her from asking.

His feet carry him back to Hogwarts. He had done this to her. The destruction, this death — it’s his fault. Spells of all colors fly through the air. Mostly it’s green. Draco once took pride in the color green, wore it, decorated his room with it. But now it’s enough to make him sick.

Flashes of green and red.

Death and unimaginable pain.

Bodies of students and Death Eaters litter the ground. Laughter is replaced by screams of agony and grief.

Draco steps over them numbly. He has no wand to protect himself. The wand of his mother is probably burned to ash by the Fiendfyre. His own wand? Who knows what Potter did to it. The thought that someone else is in the possession of his wand should unsettle him.

A wizard without his wand is as good as death.

But Draco doesn’t care.

He doesn’t care if a stray spell hits him. There is nothing worse that could happen to him after this.

Shards of glass litter the ground,  loudly crunching beneath his steps. He doesn’t recognize the person he sees in their reflection. It is a stranger starring at him, even though he looks exactly the same.

Or maybe it is him.

Broken into pieces, stepped on, impossible to put back together. Nobody could see the whole picture now — nobody who hadn’t known him before.

It doesn’t matter if Potter wins or the Dark Lord.

The Dark Mark is proof of that.

Either he will be imprisoned and sent to Azkaban, or he will fulfill his duty as a Death Eater.

He doesn’t know which is worse. Both are pure misery.

Lost in thought, he finds himself at the Astronomy Tower — the same place where he watched Dumbledore fall to his death.

The irony is almost laughable.

Dumbledore never cared about Draco Malfoy. He knew everything but chose to look the other way, deeming him a lost cause.

No one ever asked him what he wanted. Everyone forced their opinions, their ideals, onto him. They put him in a box and shoved him aside.

He is one of many. Not worthy of his own story, a second glance.

But he had done all this. He had played a part in killing one of the strongest wizards of all time. He had helped the Dark Lord invade Hogwarts. He had done the impossible.

Draco had proved them all wrong.

And now, he will do something that is truly his choice. Something that will help him escape all of this. Escape this uncertainty.

He lets himself fall, spreading his arms to feel the air rush past him.

Draco has never felt so free.

The sky has its own beauty. The smoke pollutes it, but flashes of green break through the ash clouds, granting him a glimpse of the blue hidden beneath.

He hits the ground the same moment the Dark Lord falls, and the Dark mark on his left arm pulses.

And then there is pain, but Draco Malfoy doesn’t die.

It would have been too easy. There is no escape from this nightmare.

Beneath him, there is no debris, no ash. Instead, healthy grass tickles his fingertips.

Perhaps he is wrong. Perhaps he is dead.

But shouldn’t pain end with death?

Draco blinks, trying to gather his thoughts. He doesn’t move, even as shadows fall over him and voices wash over him. Someone is talking to him, but he doesn’t listen.

He doesn’t listen because the sky isn’t the same.

There is no smoke. No flashes of green. No ash.

He lowers his gaze, overwhelmed by the number of people rushing toward him.  Through their feet he catches a glimpse of a building.

A glimpse of Hogwarts before the war. Before Draco helped the Death Eaters invade it.

He loses consciousness.