Shattered Hearts

The sound of running water cut off as Dracaena Malfoy finished rinsing out her mouth and washing the last of her lunch down the sink. She took several deep breaths, then looked at herself in the mirror. Merlin. She looked more like a ghost than the translucent dead girl floating anxiously at her shoulder.

Pale face. Paler hair. Shadowed eyes. Lifeless gaze.

A thin trail of vomit tracing from one lip.

Not for the first time, she considered making the appearance reality.

Mother. Father.

No.

Duty, as always, stayed her hand. It wasn’t her own life that mattered most. But what difference did it make?

She’d already failed twice. And the second time she’d almost…

He’ll never forgive me. I almost killed Ron.

“Dray, please just tell me what’s wrong.” Myrtle, for once, sounded more concerned about someone else’s misery than her own. “There has to be someone who can help.”

Dracaena bit her lip and wiped her mouth with the sleeve of her shirt. Tried to comb her hair into something with a little more order with her fingers.

“There’s no one, Myrtle. I’ve already done things they’d send me to Azkaban for. Do you think the ministry will step in now and keep my mother safe?” She let out a dark laugh. “Do you think they even can? They’re all worthless.”

Myrtle floated around and tried to look into Dracaena’s eyes. Dracaena refused to meet her gaze.

“What about Dumbledore? He can fight… you-know-who…”

Dumbledore. The man she’d tried and failed twice to kill.

Just the thought of him, of what she had to do, of what it had already cost, made her stomach twist and rebel again. There was nothing left, but it still tried to find something to send up.

“He’s the last person I can go to.”

“Then what about…”

Oh hell. NO. Don’t say…

“...Harry? He’ll help you!”

Dracaena squeezed her eyes shut as the memories surged up and her bile with them.

Harry, staring at her like she was the only thing in the world as they spun together at the Yule ball, his eyes like a pair of sparkling emeralds that existed only for her.

Leaning against his warm chest, that damnable golden egg on her lap and his finger tracing the shell of her ear as they hid together in a tucked-away study room they’d found on that map of his. His gentle voice as they talked together about what it could mean.

Her heart beginning to beat again when Harry broke up out of the lake with Ron and Fleur’s sister.

The smell of the expensive broom wax on his robes that he used to maintain his Firebolt. The way his hair never quite settled no matter how much she combed it. The way his muscles felt when she wrapped her arms around his chest on a tandem flight. A hundred other small memories.

Her father screaming at her of how much trouble Harry would bring to their family.

Harry collapsing on the ground with the cup and Cedric’s corpse, screaming that the Dark Lord had returned.

Harry kissing that horrible Ravenclaw girl while Dracaena looked on through a keyhole, the sight burning into her worse than any other pain she’d ever felt.

What would he think when he found out? When he saw the mark on her arm? When he knew… how far she’d gone?

She squeezed the cold porcelain sink until her knuckles ached. “I can’t ever tell Potter anything, Myrtle. If he ever finds out…”

A footstep sounded on the tile. Myrtle gasped.

“I know what you’ve done, Malfoy!”

She opened her eyes and saw him in the mirror over her shoulder. Harry Potter. Standing in the doorway in his school robes, his eyes filled with anger. Accusation.

Betrayal.

She felt her heart crack.

She couldn’t…

She couldn’t…

Her chest felt tight. So tight. She couldn’t seem to catch a breath. Had to. She pulled in a gasp. Fumbled on the cold mask she’d learned to wear since childhood. The mirror told her it was missing pieces.

Wretched glass.

“GO AWAY, POTTER!” she screamed at his reflection. Her vision wavered and a hot trail ran down her cheek.

No. She would NOT cry in front of him!

She pushed the tears away as he took a step toward her. Her knees shook and she forced them to bear her up as she spun around to face him.

“Harry, wait!” Myrtle cried out.

“No! She hexed Katie Bell! She poisoned Ron!”

His eyes dropped to her arm. She glanced down and saw that her sleeves were still rolled up, showing the black skull and snake. When she met his gaze again, he didn’t look surprised, just grim.

“She’s a Death Eater.”

It felt like he’d kneed her in the stomach from across the room. She hid the pain by instinct and spat out a response.

“A muggle-raised halfblood like you would never understand, Potter! Some of us have family!”

The words hurt him. She saw him wince and her heart cracked a little more.

No. She couldn’t break. Not here. Not in front of him.

She drew her wand.

“It’s over, Malfoy,” he said as he drew his own. “I’m taking you to Dumbledore and I’m telling him everything.”

Everything.

Dracaena raised her wand before she knew what she was doing. Time seemed to slow down. She heard Bellatrix’s voice whispering in her head, memories of the two months of dueling lessons her mad aunt had forced on her after she got the mark.

“Keep your spells short, sharp, and painful.”

“Diffindo!” Dracaena snapped.

Harry dove to the left, almost not fast enough. A mirror behind him shattered as it bisected. When he straightened up, she saw a bloody rent in the robe covering his shoulder.

Her heart jumped into her throat.

“Stupefy!” he shot back.

“Protego!” Dracaena swatted the red bolt aside on instinct. She ran for cover and fired an Incendio back at him.

He blocked it and they began exchanging spells while Myrtle screamed at them to stop. Bolts of all colors lashed back and forth and the bathroom dissolved, sinks, mirrors, and faucets shattering. Within moments water sprayed through the air in arcs from broken taps.

Dracaena, crouching behind a stall for a moment, saw red at the edge of her vision. Her heart was hammering in her head. It felt like her body was moving on its own.

“Just go away, Potter! Leave me alone!”

“Keep moving,” Bellatrix whispered, her dark eyes dancing like those of a rabid weasel. “Never stop moving. Never stop attacking.”

She dove right. A blue binding charm flashed through the air where she’d been and crumpled a lamp on the wall behind her.

“I’m not letting you do anything else, Malfoy! It stops here!”

Dammit, Harry! Stop being a hero!

Why wouldn’t he just leave her alone? Why was he hunting her like some mad hound?

She hated it. She hated him.

Why wouldn’t he just back off?!

“Keep your balance,” the weasel cooed. “Keep your head, and attack when your enemy commits.”

“Shut up, Potter! shut up!”

Harry raised his wand and she saw the word he was mouthing. She saw where he was aiming. She slowed for one instant, drawing fire.

“Expelliarmus!”

She tilted her head and Harry’s spell sizzled past her ear.

“Expulso!”

Harry dodged too slow and the spell caught him, spinning him into a stall door. He bounced off and crashed to the ground.

Got you!

“Once you have the advantage, keep attacking, niece. If you aren’t going to kill them, break them!”

Why couldn’t you just leave me alone, Harry? Why did you keep trying to find me?

“I prefer Crucio. There’s nothing like it for breaking someone’s will.”

Dracaena raised her wand and pointed it at Harry. He pushed up, saw her aiming.

“But you have to really hate the person to use it.”

Dracaena gathered the magical energy, shaped her anger into a spike to drive into Harry’s face. Time crawled as she worked.

She mouthed the first syllables. Saw his eyes go wide. Saw him raise his own wand.

“Cruci….”

A single memory bloomed in her mind. From their second year. Harry looking down at her, holding her tight, safe, on the day that bludger Dobby had set on him had knocked her broom out from under her. One moment she was falling from two hundred feet up, the next she was clutched against his chest. He had abandoned the Snitch for her without a thought.

She could never hate him. Not really.

Her spell fell apart.

“Sectum Sempra!” Harry shouted.

Impact. Cool, precise strokes across her face, chest, abdomen, all landing in the same instant with the weight of a swordblow.

Then pain. Pain everywhere.

She fell back, heard the water splash as she hit wet tile with a shock and her breath whooshed out of her. Her head hit hard and the world vanished into darkness and stars.

Reality came back some time later.

“MURDER!” Myrtle was screaming. “MURDER IN THE BATHROOM!”

Dracaena’s ears rang with pain. She felt weak in ways she had never imagined. Someone besides Myrtle was yelling. Screaming. Was it her? No… She blinked. Felt hands hot and hard on the pain burning across her middle. She opened her eyes, saw a blurry figure.

Messy hair, glasses.

Harry.

So, you hate me too, Harry.

He was screaming.

”Dracaena! Stay with me! No no no…”

Oh. It’s bad, isn’t it?

Her vision focused. She saw his face, crystal clear, two wand lengths from hers. Water droplets and dust on his eyelashes. He was crying. Ugly crying. Tears running down his face and falling on her.

“Please! Somebody help! HELP US!”

She knew that face. Those eyes. She’d been staring at them in the mirror a minute before.

Desperate. Hopeless.

Broken.

”PLEASE!”

She tried to speak, but her throat wouldn’t work. Most of her wouldn’t work. She felt fabric under the fingertips of her left arm and clutched, dragging at the sleeve of his robe.

“DON’T DIE! PLEASE, DRACAENA! HOLD ON! STAY WITH ME!”

He sounded like his soul was being ripped out.

So that’s how you really feel?

She kept holding onto his robe as he held onto her life. It seemed the one thing she could do as cold spread through her, like her life was soaking into the icy water covering the bathroom tiles. Everything was fading.

She saw it then, in those green eyes that saw only her and shone with terror.

The moment the boy who lived wished he hadn’t.

Oh no…

Oh Harry…

I’ve broken you, haven’t I?

The last thing she saw was someone pushing Harry away. Then she knew no more.

#Malfoid #Yearning