Watching

Watching

Chapter 32

I stayed in bed for three whole days after the battle. I couldn't bring myself to move, until now. Draco's funeral.

I stood next to the hole in the ground while family and our closest friends stood behind me. Dumbledore was there, Harry, Hermione, our fathers and Narcissa (and her new family), Blaise Zabini--Draco's best friend.... There were a few Order members as well, but not very many.

I knelt down as they lowered Draco's coffin into the cold hard earth. I wanted to throw everything away in that moment and jump in after him. I wanted to be with my dragon until the end of time.

I stayed long after the others had left. Somehow I knew my father still stood behind me.

I felt his hand on my shoulder.

"I had hoped you would never feel this pain," he said softly. He knelt down next to me and handed me a folded piece of parchment.

"What is this?" I asked.

He sighed. "Draco wrote that," he said. "When he was fifteen. Did you know he had the Sight?"

"The Sight?"

My father nodded. "The ability to see things that have not happened yet," he said. "Draco could see the future."

"And this?"

"He saw that when he was fifteen," he sighed. "I think it would do you good to read it."

He stood up and walked away, leaving me with my dead husband and his vision of the future.

I unfolded the parchment and read:

1.2.95

I'm going to have a son I'll never meet. I just saw it. I'm going to die at the Final Battle of the war and my wife--hopefully Athena--is going to have a son, but it's after I'm gone that she has it.

I saw myself die, I saw her give birth, I saw him grow up.

At least I know that the Malfoy line does not end with me.

A teardrop fell and hit the last word, blurring it.

If you knew you were going to die, why did you go?

I looked up from the parchment to the darkening sky. The pain was too much.

I let out an agonized scream then crumpled in on myself sobbing.

The next morning I woke up in my bed at the manor. Confused, and not knowing how I got home, I got up and pulled on a robe and walked down to the kitchens. My father and Lucius were talking and Harry and Hermione were eating in the dining room.

"Athena!" Lucius said, clearly surprised.

"How did I get home?" I asked, groggy.

"I went back for you," my father answered, pulling me into a hug. I let out a sob, wishing that I could be with my dear dragon.

"He knew," I sobbed. "He knew!"

"Knew what?" Lucius asked.

I buried my face into my father's chest and he tightened his arms around me, as he had never done before.

"He knew he was going to die," he answered, knowing I was not capable of doing so myself.

"He did?"

I nodded.

"How?"

I pulled away from my father as he explained that Draco had been psychic and had Seen it. I walked into the dining room and sat down across the table from Hermione.

"How are you?" she asked.

I shook my head and felt more sobs rise. I buried my head in my arms and let myself go.

I don't know how long I sat there, but I know Harry and Hermione did not stay. Eventually my father came in for me and I clung to him as I cried. I wanted Draco back, more than anything I wanted Draco back. I couldn't go through this on my own. I needed my husband back!

"What did it say?" he asked after I had calmed down.

"I'm going to have a son," I whispered.

"Shall we test you?" he asked.

I nodded, and he led the way to his laboratory.

Fifteen minutes later, the potion turned blue.

"He was right," my father said.

"Why did he go?" I asked. "If he knew he was going to die, why did he go?"

My father shrugged. "Draco was a very smart man, Athena," he said. "He probably knew enough to know that it wasn't a good idea to try and change your fate. Who knows, maybe you would have died if he had stayed."

I wanted to protest that, but then I realized that if Draco had not been standing where he was, the curse that had killed him would have hit me instead.