Immortality

Because I could not stop for death...

I was being chased. It was not a pleasant feeling, but it was familiar. Like the throbbing pain of an old wound I knew I would miss if it were gone.

I was being chased by a thin, pale man with untidy black hair and piercing green eyes. Every time I looked over my shoulder I saw him following, stalking, chasing. He represented the life I did not choose and he heralded my certain death. So I ran. As much from one as the other. I could not bear the choices I had rejected. Death is transitory but regret haunts you for eternity.

Yes, I did regret. I regretted my stubbornness and my naivety. I... of the multitude, I had been handed a new life on a gleaming silver platter by a King. And I... in my stupidity had dashed the tray from his offering hands and laughed in dumbstruck green eyes.

And now I pay the price. Now I run. Death stalks me but I dare not stop and see the reproach in his green eyes.

He kindly stopped for me...

I will not stop. At times it seems an impossible task to catch a snake, but I will not stop till I have him in my grasp. I do not fear him; his venom already courses through my veins. He has done his worst to me and I have survived. That is why he runs; he knows he can't hurt me anymore.

Snaring the snake shall be my redemption. All debts will then be paid and I can retire to a life...

A life of what?

It doesn't matter; all that matters is to catch him. My beautiful golden snake with the storm-colored eyes.

I had hoped desperately that it would be enough.

It hadn't been.

I should have known then that nothing would have been enough to keep the snake. Silver flecked eyes mocked my offering, making me think it pitiable, pathetic of me to actually think it tempting to one who had it all.

If he had asked me then to mar my flesh for him I would have.

But he never asked.

My world crashed.

For years after I led an empty existence, flirted shamelessly with death, but he would not take me. And now I know why. The account has not been settled. The snake must be caught or I shall have no redemption. So I follow. And I will not rest until he is within my grasp.

The carriage held but just ourselves...

Time is master of all things; it can old wounds or break them open with a look, a touch, a word. We are all allotted a certain amount of time, and mine had just run out.

So I stopped.

I did not go to him, I let him find me. It was the least I could do.

I heard his footsteps on the stairs; I stood with my back to the door through which he must come, caressing my wand, preparing it for what I must do.

He burst in, shattering the thin wooden door. He needn't have bothered, I had left it unlocked. I turned to face him, my wand cradled in both hands. So beautiful... scarred and bruised as he was. His wand outstretched towards me, mouth grim. Green eyes blazed hatred and pure fury.

I could not look.

Those eyes had once looked at me with undisguised love and adoration.

What had I done?

Instead, I looked at the wand that had served me faithfully for years. Gripping it with both hands I took a deep breath and snapped it in two.

The sound echoed around the deathly silent inn-room. I felt my hand tremble as I lowered my wand. He looked up at me as his hands dropped the shattered pieces. His head thrown back in defiance, silver eyes glittering triumphantly. He had lost, and he had surrendered. But anyone who saw him now, backlit by silver moonbeams would have excusably thought him the victor. Years of war and our deadly cat and mouse game had done nothing to mar his perfection.

Yes, he was beautiful, beautiful as an intricately wrought steel blade. As beautiful and as lethal.

We took him in a closed carriage, I and six other Aurors on thestrals. The cavalcade of a Prince, the escort for a cold-blooded killer. Even without his wand he was considered dangerous. After all he had killed with his bare hands to escape Azkaban before. But I had to see, had to know. The rest followed us.

Draco and I... alone. Like we used to be a lifetime ago.

He looks at me... searching. For the boy he had once loved with all his shining white soul. That boy is no longer alive, but then his soul no longer shines. The man he sees is not worthy of his love anymore. His soul is not capable of love anymore. Green eyes narrow as he imperceptibly shakes his head. A gesture of incomprehension and confusion... I remember.

"What went wrong?" he asks.

"The world," I answer.

And I am partly right. If the world had not gone crazy, if we had not been forced to choose sides, would we ever have come to this?

No.

"Shifting blame," he admonishes curtly.

"There is plenty to go around," I reply and painfully hitch up a corner of my mouth in that renowned Malfoy smirk. Even while traveling to my doom I must play the part.

I have been trained well.

"You might have chosen a different life."

His voice is a whisper, but his words hit me like a shout. My soul cringes.

"So might have you," I remind him. He turns his face away from me to the shuttered window of the rumbling coach.

"You never asked me to." The voice is low and strained, piled with myriad emotions. And I realize with a jolt that the time has come to confess.

"And I never would have." The words barely scrape past my throat and I turn away from him as his head snaps around in my direction, green eyes wide. He understands.

I understand.

He had known what my answer would have been, so he had withheld the question. He had not let me make a decision he knew I would regret.

He had saved my life.

And now I must destroy his. My body freezes even as my mind screams at the injustice, the pure malice that surrounds our lives.

We had stood together once and then the earth had shattered and we found ourselves facing each other over an infinite chasm. Had we even been given the right to choose?

No.

We had both been born to a pre-ordained existence. We had faithfully played our parts and destroyed ourselves in the process.

Yet there would be no respite. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes, as I tasted defeat.

I had won the war... and lost everything else.

I see he realizes the truth of our lives.

Truth!

It is not a shining temple of righteousness; it is a muddied tomb of lost hope.

They say the truth sets you free... what do they know?

Ask me, I have seen Truth. An ugly, stunted thorn bush. I have lived in its shadow all my life.

The truth is I was born a Malfoy.

The truth is I was born to darkness.

The truth is I fell in love with the light but knew that it would destroy me.

Darkness and light do not merge. And yet one cannot exist without the other. He was my better half, I loved him, adored him. Knew him to be everything I wanted but could not have. And so we lived our lives, apart and forever incomplete.

That is Truth.

To think that I could have turned to the light is simplistic. It would have destroyed my very being, slowly but surely. He soul would have seen it but been helpless to stop it. Maybe that would have b preferable. Maybe a slow painless death at his side would have been better.

We will never know.

We are woven of the same substance, he and I; yet are fundamentally opposite. That is the only way this world can function.

Good must have evil to fight.

I was chosen to be evil and he was chosen to be good.

So we fought.