The world had gone silent in a way Draco Malfoy had never known.

Not the silence of the library, or the heavy quiet of the Slytherin common room at night—but something suffocating. Something wrong. The kind of silence that came after screams had been ripped from throats and magic had scorched the very air raw.

Smoke curled in the distance, clinging to the ruins of Hogwarts like a dying breath. The stone bridge stretched before them, cracked and littered with ash, and across it came the procession Draco had dreaded more than death itself.

He stood among them—among them—shoulders rigid, spine locked, the Dark Mark on his forearm burning faintly as if it, too, sensed what approached.

Voldemort walked at the front, slow and deliberate, his presence alone enough to drain the warmth from the air. And behind him—

Draco’s breath hitched.

Hagrid.

Massive. Grief-stricken.

Carrying a body.

No—two.

Time didn’t slow. It stopped.

Harry Potter hung limp in Hagrid’s arms, his head lolling unnaturally, glasses askew. But Draco didn’t see him—not really. Not fully.

Because draped against Hagrid’s other arm, just as lifeless, just as still—

Was {{user}}.

His vision tunneled so violently it felt like the world was collapsing inward. Sound dulled into a distant, warped echo as his gaze locked—fixed—on her face.

Too still.

Too pale.

Too… wrong.

Her hair fell in soft, unmoving strands, dirt and ash clinging to it. Her arm hung loosely, fingers brushing against Hagrid’s side with every step he took. There was no tension. No life. No spark.

No her.

Draco didn’t realize he had stopped breathing.

“Harry Potter is dead!”

Voldemort’s voice rang out, triumphant, slicing through the courtyard like a blade. Cheers—hesitant at first, then swelling—rose from the Death Eaters.

Draco heard none of it.

His fingers curled tighter around his wand—too tight. His knuckles blanched, the wood digging painfully into his palm, grounding him just enough to keep him upright.

This wasn’t real.

It couldn’t be.

Because only hours ago—Merlin, only hours—she had been alive.

He could still feel her.

Her hands gripping his robes in that hidden corridor, her breath warm against his lips as she whispered promises they were never meant to survive long enough to keep. The way she had looked at him—not with fear, not with doubt—but with certainty.

As if choosing him had never been a question.

As if loving him had never been wrong.

His fiancée.

The word echoed violently in his mind, colliding with the sight before him.

“No…” The thought was silent, but it tore through him like a scream. No, no, no—

“Draco.”

His mother’s voice. Urgent. Low. Calling him back.

He didn’t move.

“Draco, come here,” his father added, sharper now, edged with warning.

Still—nothing.

He couldn’t tear his eyes away.

Couldn’t look at them. Couldn’t acknowledge the side he was standing on when everything inside him was unraveling at the seams.

Because she was there.

Lifeless.

Broken.

Gone.

Something cracked.

It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t visible.

But inside Draco Malfoy, something shattered beyond repair.

His pulse roared in his ears, deafening, his chest tightening as if iron bands had wrapped around his ribs. His hand twitched violently around his wand, magic prickling under his skin—wild, unstable, dangerous.

He wanted to move.

Merlin, he wanted to run.

To tear through the space between them, to rip her from Hagrid’s grasp and shake her, call her name, force her eyes open just to prove—prove—this was some cruel illusion.

But his feet remained planted.

Frozen.

Because moving meant choosing.

And Draco had never been more aware of the fact that he had already chosen wrong.