(no subject)
Who? Draco, Pansy
What? Funeral for a Friend
Why? Because she died to save him. He's pretty sure that was a mistake.
When? After Harry delivers her body to him.
Where? Where she can't be hurt ever again...not even by him.
I wonder if those changes
Have left a scar on you
Like all the burning hoops of fire
That you and I passed through
You're a bluebird on a telegraph line
I hope you're happy now
Well if the wind of change comes down your way girl
You'll make it back somehow
-Elton John
Draco buries Pansy high on a hill in Wales. It's a place his father had told him about visiting as a boy where wild horses still run and he finds that fitting.
He turned down Harry's offer to help bury her for a couple of reasons; the first being the fact Pansy belonged to him in life and the same was true in her death, the second reason being simply that Harry had looked like fresh hell and Draco didn't think that he wanted to be around when Harry Potter finally, deservedly lost his fucking mind.
It never occurred to him to dig the grave with his own hands, and even if it had, he would have heard Pansy laughing at him in that rich, dark, earthy laugh.
Once it was done, Draco pressed his lips to her forehead, and lowered her into the dark earth and covered her with his robe. When it was done he produced a small box from his pocket. Inside was a round disk roughly as large as his palm. It had been a gift from his father when he was a boy. Draco waved his wand over it and two glittering dragons appeared to fly and swoop around one another. He enchanted it so that the two would play forever and placed it at the head of her grave. After all, Pansy's patronus had always been a little dragon. He could remember when she'd first produced it, she'd been flushed with happiness and accomplishment and he could remember thinking she'd never been more beautiful.
A child's toy and a solitary grave. The only things he could give her. The hell of it was that she wouldn't be disappointed. Pansy never asked him for anything.
Draco leaned against the trunk of a tree and lit a cigarette. Pansy would be proud he'd started smoking and could smoke properly. After all she'd been the one to teach him 7th year to inhale when she'd caught him behind the Quidditch pitch surrounded by stomped out cigarette butts and burned down matches while he hacked up his lungs.
His eyes stayed on the playing dragons unblinking until the smoke stung, at least that was the lie he told himself - the smoke is what made them hurt and water.
He doesn't really know what keeps him there past sunset but he can't bring himself to leave. So he keeps a silent sentry watching as the dragons danced.
Draco was indulged, sneaky, dishonest for the most part, a snob and most definitely a fool - but he wasn't actually stupid. The longer he stood there the better a picture of the night's events he got in his head. He'd known that the minute Pansy made her statement and got him released from prison that her days were marked. A part of him had hoped that when the order came his father would give him some warning, but Draco knew that was a foolish hope. There was no way his father would involve Draco in something so potentially messy. And out of the group likely to go into Azkaban Draco had a good idea who would understand that a quick death was the best that could happen to Pansy.
A quick death was supposed to be painless.
Somehow he doubted that was the case.
It was typical, the more he thought, the worse things were. Leaning against the tree he could see every moment, every decision, every misstep that led him here. Pansy's mistakes boiled down to one, a simple mistake, something she was hardly the first to believe: she thought Draco was worth saving.
All of his life Draco had been thought worthy of being spared some unpleasantness or the other. As far as he could see there was no reasoning behind it, it was just the way his life worked. His father certainly had done everything in his power to keep Draco safe and untouched by the ugliness surrounding him. Snape, he had looked out for Draco from the first Sorting and beyond. Snape had taken on a terrible task with both he and Dumbledore both operating from the faulty assumption that Draco had a soul and that if he did, it was worth preserving... the foolish flights of fancy of old men.
The truth was, the only thing lurking beneath the surface of Draco's skin and bones was a black hole. No one escaped him unscathed. Not his Father, his wife, his son, Mother, Severus, and certainly not Pansy. They'd all been sucked in and bled dry for their efforts.
It had to stop.
He had to be the one to stop it. It was time, past time to 'quiet that heart Mr Malfoy'. He would. He would conduct himself like a true Malfoy regardless of the damage he'd already done to the family. He would quiet his heart and protect the people around him. It was too late for Pansy but he wouldn't let her sacrifice remain for nothing.
"I-" Draco opened his mouth, and shut it again with a snap, because anything he wanted to say Pansy already knew.
He gave the two dragons one last look before putting out his cigarette and vanishing into thin air.
What? Funeral for a Friend
Why? Because she died to save him. He's pretty sure that was a mistake.
When? After Harry delivers her body to him.
Where? Where she can't be hurt ever again...not even by him.
I wonder if those changes
Have left a scar on you
Like all the burning hoops of fire
That you and I passed through
You're a bluebird on a telegraph line
I hope you're happy now
Well if the wind of change comes down your way girl
You'll make it back somehow
-Elton John
Draco buries Pansy high on a hill in Wales. It's a place his father had told him about visiting as a boy where wild horses still run and he finds that fitting.
He turned down Harry's offer to help bury her for a couple of reasons; the first being the fact Pansy belonged to him in life and the same was true in her death, the second reason being simply that Harry had looked like fresh hell and Draco didn't think that he wanted to be around when Harry Potter finally, deservedly lost his fucking mind.
It never occurred to him to dig the grave with his own hands, and even if it had, he would have heard Pansy laughing at him in that rich, dark, earthy laugh.
Once it was done, Draco pressed his lips to her forehead, and lowered her into the dark earth and covered her with his robe. When it was done he produced a small box from his pocket. Inside was a round disk roughly as large as his palm. It had been a gift from his father when he was a boy. Draco waved his wand over it and two glittering dragons appeared to fly and swoop around one another. He enchanted it so that the two would play forever and placed it at the head of her grave. After all, Pansy's patronus had always been a little dragon. He could remember when she'd first produced it, she'd been flushed with happiness and accomplishment and he could remember thinking she'd never been more beautiful.
A child's toy and a solitary grave. The only things he could give her. The hell of it was that she wouldn't be disappointed. Pansy never asked him for anything.
Draco leaned against the trunk of a tree and lit a cigarette. Pansy would be proud he'd started smoking and could smoke properly. After all she'd been the one to teach him 7th year to inhale when she'd caught him behind the Quidditch pitch surrounded by stomped out cigarette butts and burned down matches while he hacked up his lungs.
His eyes stayed on the playing dragons unblinking until the smoke stung, at least that was the lie he told himself - the smoke is what made them hurt and water.
He doesn't really know what keeps him there past sunset but he can't bring himself to leave. So he keeps a silent sentry watching as the dragons danced.
Draco was indulged, sneaky, dishonest for the most part, a snob and most definitely a fool - but he wasn't actually stupid. The longer he stood there the better a picture of the night's events he got in his head. He'd known that the minute Pansy made her statement and got him released from prison that her days were marked. A part of him had hoped that when the order came his father would give him some warning, but Draco knew that was a foolish hope. There was no way his father would involve Draco in something so potentially messy. And out of the group likely to go into Azkaban Draco had a good idea who would understand that a quick death was the best that could happen to Pansy.
A quick death was supposed to be painless.
Somehow he doubted that was the case.
It was typical, the more he thought, the worse things were. Leaning against the tree he could see every moment, every decision, every misstep that led him here. Pansy's mistakes boiled down to one, a simple mistake, something she was hardly the first to believe: she thought Draco was worth saving.
All of his life Draco had been thought worthy of being spared some unpleasantness or the other. As far as he could see there was no reasoning behind it, it was just the way his life worked. His father certainly had done everything in his power to keep Draco safe and untouched by the ugliness surrounding him. Snape, he had looked out for Draco from the first Sorting and beyond. Snape had taken on a terrible task with both he and Dumbledore both operating from the faulty assumption that Draco had a soul and that if he did, it was worth preserving... the foolish flights of fancy of old men.
The truth was, the only thing lurking beneath the surface of Draco's skin and bones was a black hole. No one escaped him unscathed. Not his Father, his wife, his son, Mother, Severus, and certainly not Pansy. They'd all been sucked in and bled dry for their efforts.
It had to stop.
He had to be the one to stop it. It was time, past time to 'quiet that heart Mr Malfoy'. He would. He would conduct himself like a true Malfoy regardless of the damage he'd already done to the family. He would quiet his heart and protect the people around him. It was too late for Pansy but he wouldn't let her sacrifice remain for nothing.
"I-" Draco opened his mouth, and shut it again with a snap, because anything he wanted to say Pansy already knew.
He gave the two dragons one last look before putting out his cigarette and vanishing into thin air.