He nodded in response, but it was only a mechanical response. For the first time in his life he had no idea what to do, what to say or how to act or even if he should breathe or not. It sure as hell didn’t seem appropriate. “Thanks,” he heard his own voice, vacant and hollow sounding. “You too.” For a moment his psyche jerked, as if he’d said something wrong or given something away, and then he realized what the problem was. He’d meant the disarming spell, not the attack on Harry!
“Sorry about that,” she said, easing his mind a little as she was obviously talking about disarming him, with the way her eyes trailed for a moment on his fallen wand. “I didn’t want you to mistake me for someone else and finish me off the way you did this idiot.” She stepped distastefully over Neville’s body, and for a moment it seemed like she’d taken a special effort to trod upon it.
That was it!? Draco thought furiously. No explanation, no greeting, no indication that anything was odd or out of the ordinary at all?? He didn’t care what she or the others in Voldemorts army had thought of him, he couldn’t read minds and he wasn’t all that bloody brilliant! Sometimes he needed thing explained to him, and he needed to hear some things said instead of just knowing that the person meant to say them, that they thought them in their heart. It was such an overflow of emotions it was like a rush, and he suddenly snapped, mentally if not physically, and yelled into the completely silent hallway so that it echoed and rebounded through the old wooden corners. “What did you do to Harry!?!”
Salazar blinked for a moment, looking confused, but then her beaming smile spread once again across her face. “Stunned him,” she said, sounding proud, “a very strong version of the stunner I developed myself, better for knocking someone out without a sound, even if it is a good deal more painful.” She finished that last part in a way that it was obvious she didn’t find that to be a drawback of any kind. “He’s actually quite awake, just disabled. His muscles and nerves are all contracting and acting up, so he has to stay completely still. He can’t even scream.”
Oh god! His little sister had made that? It was a cruiatus curse but worse, because you couldn’t even fight, couldn’t scream, couldn’t do anything to lie to your mind to tell it that if you just keep lashing out that the pain will stop in a minute. His mouth worked wordlessly, before he managed to yell out again. “Why!?”
“It’ll make it easier to kill him,” she answered quickly and almost sweetly, like a little girl telling her older brother why exactly shed gotten him the Christmas present she had. Kill him, Draco thought, feeling sick. Of course Flint had been a liar, or at the very least had been misled... they could never leave Harry alive, not the boy who lived, not one of the two people who’d done the most damage to the Dark Side of all time, side and side with Albus Dumbledore.
“No!” he practically choked.
“No?” she asked quizzically. “I’m sorry brother, but I really have to. It will only take a moment, and then we can be together again. Do whatever we want, without even parents to tell us what to do!” She giggled then, though he had no idea why. “So Ill just do it and we can be on our way. Its not like you have your wand right now anyway.”
Panic flared through his system, and he looked over his shoulder to see his wand. He had no idea what to say, no clue how he should stop her. “Ill kill you later!” he yelled out randomly, and he realized he sounded absurd, like when a child made that threat. Everything seemed to be like when they were kids...
Now her smile was gone, but it lost none of its shine. “Oh, Draco, no you won’t,” she said, “and it wouldn’t be smart anyway. Didn’t Mum and Dad ever tell you, brother? We’re life bonded. Its how I knew you were still alive even when everyone else in the world said you weren’t. If you kill me, you’ll die to. Just let me take this Mudblood, dear brother, this foul and disgusting waste of life, and we can leave. Together.”
To Draco’s own horror, he found himself nodding and took a step back. Not towards his fallen wand, but simply to get out of the way of whatever curse she had planned... whatever curse indeed. He knew damn well what curse she has spelled. Avada Kervada. She raised her wand.
“Avada Kervada!”
Once again the hallway was filled with green light, and a body hit the floor, stiff and lifeless. Long flowing blonde hair fell limply around blank, glacial eyes. And then another body, slower, struck down by a different kind of magic. Draco went to his knees, the second wand he’d bought from Ollivander simply to avoid a problem with Harry, clenched tightly in his fist. His fading eyes locked briefly with Harry’s, that were wide and electric with pain. Could he really tell what was going on? And then Draco knew he could... for all the pain Harry had been going through as his body fought itself, it was only now that a green tinted, crystal tear fell from his eyes and ran down his nose. Draco managed to fight his weakening muscles and stretched his mouth to form the sounds, pumped his lungs with all his effort to produce the voice.
“I love you.”
And he hit the floor.
Authors Note: Ok, who didnt see that coming? Be honest! This one goes out to you Clarkedraven (hehe) , who aside from being my most faithful reviewer gave me the perfect idea for how to end this story. Ill have just one more chapter, which for obvious reason, will bring this little semi-series to an end. -Tiger