Wednesday Morning, Three AM

Wednesday Morning, Three A.M.

He lies awake listening to the sound of rain drumming on the roof. He lies awake knowing that there is not much time left, a few hours if he's lucky. But Draco Malfoy doesn't give a damn.

Pansy lies next to him, asleep. Blissfully unaware that she will probably never be free again. He watches as her chest rises and falls when she breathes. The moonlight reflects off her hair, colouring it golden.

He thinks back over the past few hours that have decided his future, decided that they must leave. He wonders how he was recognised, he wonders if he even was recognised; he has taken great pains with his appearance since the picture in the Daily Prophet and the Muggle papers. Obviously he has not been careful enough.

Pansy sighs in her sleep and turns over. She is now facing him, a small smile on her face. It must be a good dream she is having. He wonders how long it has been since the last time she smiled. It feels like an age.

Draco wonders if he should wake her up and start getting ready to go. He wonders where they will stay now. Malfoy Manor has been seized by the Ministry, as has Pansy's home. They have been moving from hideout to hideout, never being able to stay too long in one place. They have, apparently, stayed too long here.

He thinks back to when his father first told him that soon he would have to accept the Mark. The feeling, once again, that his life had already been planned out for him. He wonders now what would've happened if he had refused. Been killed, most likely. Surely that justifies joining, justifies everything?

A sudden noise outside makes him jerk up and listen intently for any other sound, anything that might signal the arrival of Aurors, or indeed anybody else. Nothing. The night is as silent as the grave. Not that it makes him feel any better.

He remembers his initiation. He had had to perform all three Unforgivable Curses in front of all the other Death Eaters and the Dark Lord. He remembers the tingles of fear running up and down his spine. The fear that he would fail. He disliked failure immensely.

Clouds drift across the moon, but the glare of the street lamps outside means that it goes for the most part unnoticed. Draco notices though. The light from the moon had reflected off Pansy's hair, making it look almost golden. Now it is just brown.

Memories of brown. He had stood in the circle of Death Eaters while they fetched her. He had to have someone to perform the curses on. The ring had opened and they had brought her in. Somehow they had got to her. Her hair was brown, but it had become matted with blood. Blood dried brown. He remembered her. The Mudblood girl. Hermione Granger.

He looks down at Pansy. She is pretty, yes, pretty. He loves her. He does love her. She understands, after all didn't she go through the same rigmarole? The same procedure? Draco shakes his head to rid himself of the thought that Pansy hadn't.

He had to perform all three curses on her. First, Imperius to control her mind. She had had a beautiful mind. And a strong one. It had taken him two tries before he could gain complete control. Then when he got command he was at a loss as what to do with her. He had panicked then. His mind had filed through various ideas- things to make her do. Then he had vaguely remembered his father and Professor Snape discussing potion ingredients. Something about fingernails. So he had made Granger rip out her own.

He gets up from the bed. The room has turned cold, now bereft of the warm sunlight. He has half a mind to go for a walk. Maybe he will be caught. At least it would be over and done with. Many of his friends have been caught and sentenced, some to life in Azkaban, some to the Kiss. The Ministry wasn't listening to any excuses this time around. Last time the Imperius Curse had been his father's excuse. But of course he hadn't been under that. Not like Granger.

He'd made her rip out her fingernails. The Death Eaters in the circle had laughed. She hadn't noticed. She hadn't been given the permission to notice. She was fully concentrated on the task he had given her. He would have made her rip her toenails too if the sound of the tearing flesh hadn't made him nauseous.

Had Pansy accepted the Mark? Draco had never seen it branded on her arm- a supposedly permanent reminder of whom they had allied themselves with. What if she hadn't? Why, then, did she come with him? Was it only because she had agreed with their cause? Or did she think that it was romantic to be on the run? If she had, then the last few weeks had surely dispensed her with that idiocy. He briefly considers leaving her. He does not need idiots now.

Granger hadn't been an idiot. Far from it. He had lifted the curse and watched as she had surveyed her ruined hands in horror and agony. This had only made those assembled laugh even harder. She had looked up at him, pleading mixed with hatred in her face. Hooded and masked, he was faceless to her. She had understood that she would get no mercy from him, that she would die and that she could do nothing about it. The pleading expression had been replaced with a determined look. She was determined to die well. Then he had cast Cruciatus on her.

The reality and hopelessness of his situation disturbs him. The memory disturbs him even more. You have to want to cause pain to cast Cruciatus. He had wanted to hurt her, to destroy her, that much was clear. How else had he been able to use such a curse? The rain has not stopped or slowed, it continues with a monotonous drumming.

Her screams could have been called monotonous. One eternal shriek of anguish that had been etched into his mind. The pitch hadn't varied, it had just continued on and on and on while she writhed on the ground, clawing at it with her nail less and bloodied hands in an attempt to stop the pain. He never understood why she might have thought that that would make things better. But pain does strange things to you.

The rain reminds him of an old children's rhyme. Rain, rain. The rest of the words remain somewhere at the back of his mind. Rain, rain. The words have left him. Draco wishes his memories would do the same.

He had stopped before she lost her mind or he lost his nerve. She had lain there, shaking on the hard earth, tears flowing down her cheeks. He had suddenly wanted to be sick. He had felt cold and shaky as if he had a fever. He hadn't wanted to go on. But death was all that awaited him if he refused to continue.

He paces the room; Pansy shifts in the bed. He looks out the window over the small town they had chosen to hide in. He knows that he will be condemned to life imprisonment. If he's lucky. His father had turned his wand on himself when the Aurors had come for him. Avada Kedavra.

Surprisingly for him the Killing Curse had been the easiest one to administer. A desire to end the horror he had created had eased the casting. Granger had known what was coming and had somehow managed to pull herself upright with her last reserves of energy. He had felt the power rushing through his body, had heard his voice intone the words, and had seen the green light fly from his wand into her body. She had crumpled instantly. Looking at her body he had felt a deep remorse. He had tried to push the feeling away with no avail.

The cold starts getting to him. He walks over to the bed and climbs into it. The mark on his arm is barely visible. After He was destroyed it started getting fainter and fainter. They had told him that that would never happen, that the Dark Lord was so powerful that he could never be defeated. They had lied. That was why he was running now. That was why he had killed her.

The rest of the evening had passed in a blur of misery and disgust. It's difficult, looking back, to know what is real and what is imagined. The acrid stench of scorched flesh as the Mark was burnt into his arm was real. As was the pain. As was the knowledge that he would kill and torture again. Everything else could have been the product of his imagination.

He lies awake listening to the sound of rain drumming on the roof. He lies awake knowing there is not much time left, a few hours if he's lucky. But Draco Malfoy, reliving Hermione Granger's death over and over again, doesn't give a damn.