Sorry about the delay on this chapter everyone, but some unavoidable stuff came up and I've been away from my computer for a while. But here is chapter 2 and I hope to have you all vote for me in the Elder Wand competition. And please review, I thrive off of your opinions. The only thing I ask is that you first think about my ideas in the context of Deathly Hallows. I received one review concerned about McGonagall knowing about what Narcissa had done. There were many people on the hill when Voldemort tried to kill Harry that could have put two and two together to figure out what had happened. But please, praise, constructive criticism, I want it all.
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Harry stood in the window of the Astronomy tower, looking out on the Hogwarts grounds. It still seemed almost ethereal. There was a thick fog in the almost morning gray, lingering over the smoldered ground. If he listened closely, he could still almost hear the noise from the battle the night before. The screams, grunts of pain, but also of victory. There were holes, where curses gone awry had struck the ground, digging burrows in the soft dirt. There was now dew, dampening the grass that was left, somehow managing to give everything a new look, despite the vast damage that the battle had caused. It looked like a new world, fresh, bright, hopeful.
But Harry didn't think of it that way for long. He was too absorbed in his guilt to fully understand what he had accomplished by defeating Voldemort. Instead, he chose to dwell on the losses, and all he could think of was that if only Dumbledore had told him at eleven that the only way Voldemort could be defeated was to willingly walk to his death, he could have spared so many lives. Tonks, Remus, Sirius, Fred, Dumbledore. Those were only the ones that he had been close to, that he would miss terribly. Mad Eye Moody, Hedwig, those too brought pangs in his stomach as he thought about the solid white owl and the wizened old Auror who had both died for him.
If only he had known seven years ago what it would take to kill Voldemort. If he had known, he could have saved them. The thought filled Harry's eyes with hot tears, blurred his view of the grounds, of the new world that he had created.
But even as he wished desperately that he had known, he doubted that he would have been able to do what would have been needed of him at age eleven. The world of magic, of Hogwarts was so new, so bright and shiny, with so many things to learn and explore, that he logically knew that he would have wanted to stay there. As a boy, Harry hadn't been selfish, but he had been greedy, wanting to soak up as much as he could before it was over and he was jerked back to the cupboard under the stairs as he had constantly feared he would be. And in his greed, he doubted he had the capacity to square his shoulders, wave goodbye and willingly walk to his death, having decided not to defend himself, but to allow the Killing Curse to strike him, to kill him.
No, Harry thought, he couldn't have done that then, as much as he now wished he could have. He had needed the years at Hogwarts to experience life, to know what Voldemort was capable of, to become so desperate in his quest to destroy the dark wizard that even death seemed a small price to pay. It was only then, in desperation, fury and selflessness that he could do what was required of him and walk to his death.
He shouldn't blame himself for being young and naïve, for wanting to experience and absorb rather that fight at the young age of eleven. Then, he had viewed it more as an adventure than anything else. It hadn't been until fourteen, when Voldemort had really come back, had taken on a human form, distorted as it was, that it really became real, and he had really come to the realization that he couldn't just let it go during the summer and go back to Privet Drive, the return to Hogwarts in the fall for yet another adventure. That fighting Voldemort was going to become his life, and school, Privet Drive, they were just breaks in the fight, not the other way around.
"Harry?"
Ron's voice had Harry turning from the window. "Hey. I thought you went home with your parents and the rest of the family."
Ron shrugged. "I did, last night after things settled down. But it didn't feel right, being there with everyone crying and mourning, especially without you and Hermione."
"Hermione had to go get her parents, replace their memories and everything."
"I know, but she promised to be back tomorrow to help with plans for the funeral and everything. Remus and Tonks have their funerals the day after Fred, so there's a lot to do. Harry, we want you to come."
Harry shook his head. "How can you want that? When I caused all this? When I'm responsible for their deaths?"
"Harry, mate, if you hadn't done what you did last night, we'd all be dead. Remus, Tonks, Fred, they all died doing what they thought was right. With or without you, Voldemort would have found a way to come back. And if you hadn't been around, there wouldn't have been anyone to stop him." Ron stalked to the window, leaned heavily on the sill. "I miss my brother, Harry. He was my brother but he knew what he was doing, and he wanted to do it. We all understand that. No one is mad at you, everyone thinks you're a hero. You are a hero."
Harry shook his head, running one hand through hair he hadn't yet washed, dislodging dust that still resided there from the battle. "No, the heroes are the ones who died for what they believed in. You, Hermione, Ginny, everyone who fought, you're the heroes. I'm the Boy Who Had Seven Years to Kill Voldemort and Couldn't Do It."
Ron slugged Harry in the shoulder, hard enough to make his friend wince. "Stop it. Now I know Hermione's normally the one to pull you out of your depressions when you get like this, but I'm the only one who's here right now, so I'm going to have to do. I don't like doing things like we did last night. I left you and Hermione high and dry because I got sick of searching and figured we wouldn't ever find what we were looking for. But I know one thing for sure, Harry. If we hadn't been there with you last night, you would have fought by yourself. Every single person who was here made their own decision to stand for what they thought was right, and we were all willing to die for that. You didn't force anyone to do it. And no one else may have been the Boy Who Lived, but we had just as much at stake as you. So you can stop feeling guilty and get on with your life anytime now."
Harry stood gaping at Ron, completely unused to tirades of that sort coming from him. After a long moment, he shook his head, fighting a smile for the first time in days. "You've been taking notes. Hermione would be proud."
Ron grinned back, surprising them both. "Did it work?"
Harry lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "I need a shower, some food and a nap, but after that I'll go back to the Burrow with you, so I guess it did."
**
Draco Malfoy paced. It was the only thing he could think to do, so it was what he did. Well, that wasn't exactly true. He did pace, but he had a cigarette - nasty Muggle invention - in one hand, and a snifter of Ogden's Firewhiskey in the other. So he paced, he smoked and he drank.
He'd returned to Malfoy manner with his parents, taken a long, hot shower for the first time in weeks, charmed himself a hair cut and a shave, dressed in expensively tailored black slacks and a matching black turtleneck. He'd thought that doing normal things would make him feel better. The shower had done it's job, making him feel slightly more alive, but the clothes, and the hot meal he'd choked down hadn't. The only thing he'd been able to think about was how all the people who died would never have another hot meal, hot shower, or wear good clothes again.
On a basic level, he knew he really wasn't to blame. Voldemort would have done what he did with or without Draco Malfoy. And he had hated what he'd been assigned to do anyway. Torture, maim, kill. He'd been looking forward to taking the Dark Mark since he'd first learned about it a decade earlier, but once he had taken it, once he had been ingratiated into what it really was that Death Eaters did, he had hated it. He would have preferred what his father had done. The political side of things, quietly bullying and threatening until he got his way, not cursing helpless Muggles into oblivion.
But he still felt the guilt, still wondered about what was lurking inside of him that made him capable of doing what he had done. He wanted to forget, he wanted to drown it all out and forget everything that he had done, everything he had witnessed. The screams, the whimpers of agony he had caused and seen.
Draco angrily stubbed out the cigarette, only mildly disappointed that tobacco hadn't done anything to ease the tension in his muscles. He hadn't ever given much stock to Muggle things, and the cigarette had just solidified his previous notions. The Firewhiskey, however, that was another story all together. With every drink he took it eased his muscles, it fuddled his mind, relieving him of the memories, if only for a little while.
He didn't want to get drunk, just wanted to be able to clear his mind enough to ponder what would come next. There was a good chance that when the Ministry reformed all the Death Eaters would become fugitives, those who were caught would be tried and sent to Azkaban. A part of Draco thought that he would deserve that fate. He had done horrible things, had witnessed things even worse. But a larger part of him craved freedom, to be able to have a normal life. He was of age, could practice magic. He could have a career, a life. Things that had always seemed trivial to him - he'd always thought he would just live off of the Malfoy fortune and travel, do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted to do it - they were the things that he most wanted now that the battle was over. The most surprising thing, however, was that he was glad they had lost. Glad that Voldemort was dead.
Draco laughed bitterly, took another deep swallow of alcohol. If only Potter could see him now. If only Harry Potter could see what Draco Malfoy had turned into. He'd thought of himself as the next right hand man to Voldemort, sitting at the place of honor, doing whatever the Dark Lord needed done. Instead, he'd thrown up the first time he'd had to torture information out of someone, he had wanted to run away the entire time he'd been a Death Eater, and now he was trying to make himself forget with Firewhiskey. He was pathetic, disappointed in himself at his inability to be as evil as he'd fancied himself, yet glad that Voldemort had died and he might now have a chance to be what he had always hated. Normal.
Disgusted with himself, Draco threw the snifter into the wall, alcohol spattering, glass shards flying everywhere. He was confused, he didn't know what to do, where to turn, who to be. Everything he had known was gone, what he thought he wanted, he wasn't sure he could get, who he'd wanted to be all his life, he wasn't. And yet, he could still feel the battle waging inside of him, between the animal that had relished the horrid things he had done and seen, and the larger part that abhorred it. And yet he knew, if that small dark part ever got loose, he would be as bad as Voldemort had been. And he knew that if he didn't pull out of the depression he was in, if he didn't figure out a way to pull his life together and deal with everything that had happened, that would be exactly what would happen to him. And that was one thing that he knew he didn't want.
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Hope you enjoyed this. Next chapter up soon, don't forget to review and to vote.
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