The Pale Faced Doll

@The Pale Faced Doll@

by:GoldenSilence

----------------------------

The man bowed before his lord, black velvet cloak turning the distinct angles of his face into patches of shadow. He was indistinguishable from the other young people gathered on this occasion, only one falling lock of pale blond hair giving a clue as to his identity.

To the woman who watched, he was the only focus of attention. So many gathered tonight all for the same purpose. It made her feel somewhat insignificant, to be a part of so many speaking as the others did, their voices resonanting in the dank chamber as they repeated oaths.

The whole ceremony was full of tradition, as everything about the death eaters unsurprisingly was. From father to son, from mother to daughter, for years upon years, until the lineagewas steeped in deep rooted belief and obedience to Voldemort. Pansy's family was one that was as such, as was Draco's. Pansy's parents had other important traditions, as well. There were codes Pansy was trusted to follow, one of which that she would get married to someone with good standing and wealth.

Pansy did not hold a grudge against her family for their ideals. They were simply looking outfor their own interests. However, when her parents had tried to make her marry Draco, shehad disobeyed them. She would have married Draco if it had been only for the benefits it gave her and her family, but as it stood her reasons had become more complicated. Marrying Draco would have been far more a risk than a benefit, though Pansy figured her parents were too dense to see it that way. Good.

If they knew what Pansy really felt...

Pansy was no fool. She knew that any disobedience here tonight, any second thoughts like the kind she had about marrying Draco, would be paid for dearly, and she was terrified of a change of mind. She had to remind herself that to be here tonight was her choice, for her own benefit, her own ambition, and that it would continue to be so.

The chanting part of the ceremony over, those to be intiated spread apart, men to one side and women to the other, as Voldemort stepped down from his throne. This was it. One by one, names were called and each individual walked past all the others, watched by a hundred eyes as they faced their own personal test of will and faith.

They were not drones, those that stepped forward one at a time, greed and fear written across their faces. Whether followers out of stupidity or cunning, it comforted Pansy to know that for all of them, it was their choice. It made her feel more in control, more herself, to think of this as something she chose to do.

She was not becoming a blind servant to be stabbed in the back, Pansy told herself, but a wise follower, who kept her back hidden, putting herself first.

******

Draco despised them all and despised himself still more for feeling just like them, full of fear and anticipation at once. He may have felt like them, but that did not make him one of them, Draco convinced himself with a smirk, but this was an empty sort of comfort. Draco saw the eyes of the cowled faces that brushed passed him, walking towards Voldemort, some looking frightened out of their wits, others seemingly unaffected by what was happening, either because they weretoo stupid to fully comprehend or full of too much amibition to care. Of these, the latter caused Draco the most unease, though he couldn't have really said why.

Draco was amibitious too, only as far as amibitious meant looking out for your own well being but he had no real motivation to be overly amibitious. His father had taught Draco lessons that had become engrained in his mind and had shaped Draco into much of who he was. He followed his father as a blind man follows a line, clinging to it for salvation with no knowledge of any possibilities outside of it. Draco chose not to change, so in a way was his choice. He didn'tknow what lay outside the path lined with gold that he walked on, and didn't want to.

It was a peculiar sort of laziness.

"Malfoy, Draco."

Fighting a crazy urge to raise his hand and say 'present', Draco stepped out from among the ranks.

He could feel all eyes watching, but this did not make Draco self-consious in the slightest. The attention was of course deserved, and Draco was hardly going to be one to push it away. However, as he walked, Draco fought a moment of brief hesitation, rising unbidden. All this, was it worth it?

Viewing the ceremony from the balcony above, Draco's father stood imposing even when shadowed on either side by the two formidable giants that were Goyle's and Crabbe's fathers. One look at his father's face was all the answer needed. Lucius nodded tersely at Draco, face lined with impatience, but with a hint of approval. Unconsiously, Draco held his head a bit higher.

They always did say that was was hardest to win was always the most treasured.

Draco stopped in front of Voldemort, mantaining a respectful distance. He tried not to shiver as Voldemort gave him a discerning look, eyes searching for something. Voldemort's gaze.. it was not human. There was nothing in those red eyes that spoke of anything. They reflected the world like twin empty mirrors of stained red.

Eventually, Voldemort apparently found whatever it was he had been searching for. Draco was not sure if what he found was to his liking or not, but at least Voldemort stopped staring and for that, Draco was grateful, as much as he was ever grateful for anything.

"Are you ready, boy?" Voldemort questioned simply.

Draco opened his mouth, an answer of assurance already composed lost in his throat. Draco was horrified.Why now did his courage dissapear? He felt..afraid. The empty tolerance he had been taught had vanished like fog and exposed what lay beneath.

This was no time for second thoughts. The fall was all but completed and the bottom of the pit black. Draco's mind reeled, stretched thin like taffy in a thousand different directions. This was no longer the pictures conveyed with empty words, empty as his father's face. . .Experience brought another side to this reality that simply intimate knowledge couldn't do. Draco had heard it all since birth, born into a world of corruption and evil, a world he had intimate knowledge of, but this world now hit him with a more resounding force than it had before.

In the face of reality, you could no longer remain empty, neutral the way Draco's father had always told him to be. Draco caught his father's icy glare from the balcony above, a glare that would melt hell itself. His father no longer held Draco's solution.

Draco composed his face as best he could. Don't think, he told himself. Thinking is the weak man's device to convince himself that his cowardice has merit. First your father, now you, as it has been with generations of Malfoys. This is your destiny, your priviledge.

Draco met Voldemort's gaze, trying to show he had nothing to hide. " I am ready," he said.

"Indeed? I am inclined to think you are not." Voldemort's voice was mild, but it was a deceiving kind of mild, like honey layered thick over a poisoned apple. Draco's heart dropped down to his very toes at Voldemort's words. Still, Draco tried to maintain his quickly vanishing facade.

"My lord, you would not question my obedience, out of all people? I know that there have been recent-" here, Draco coughed delicately-"issues, but I was quite sure that my actions had proved worthy of speaking for thems-"

"Silence!" Voldemort hissed. "Your actions have proved nothing of importance to me."

Voldemort began circling Draco, a smile on what remained of his lips. " You are sadly misguided if you think I am in need of assurance, my boy, for I already possess all the confidence I need in you.Can you tell me why this is?"

Draco gulped.

"Well? I do not ask questions just to hear my own echo."

Draco opened his mouth and closed it a few times in response.

"It is in your hesitation, in your eyes." Voldemort pulled out his wand and brushed Draco's blonde hair from his face with it. "They tell me I cannot trust you, as I could not trust your mother. Tell me what is running through your head...doubt? I cannot have that. It would not do to have you betray me as your mother tried to do."

If the abandoned castle had been silent before, it was nothing compared to the stillness that froze the room. Time itself seemed to hinge on an outcome.

Voldemort placed his wand at the hollow at the base of Draco's throat, whispering his curse gently, like a lullaby being sung to a baby. Draco's eyes fluttered shut. He fell to the floor with a strange grace, like a feather being blown backwards by the wind.

Not yet a Death Eater, her nerves and anticipation mixing inside her in a jittery frenzy, Pansy saw it all. She clenched her palms so tightly that her long fingernails cut into her skin. Pansy's feet rushed forward of their own accord the minute Draco hit the floor. She kneeled at his side, covering his body with her hands, trying to protect him though it was too late.

"You are Pansy Parkinson."

Pansy turned to Voldemort, still kneeling. There were no tears on her face, a matter of will.

. "Yes, my lord."

"And why do you run to him?" Voldemort gestured to Draco lying prone.

"If it pleases my lord-" began a voice Pansy was positive was her mother.

"-It doesn't," Voldemort said sharply in retort, and that was that. Wormtail whispered something in Voldemort's ear, stretching on tip toe to say it. Pansy wished every toe would break from the weight of Wormtail's plump figure. The man annoyed her no end.

"I see." Voldemort returned his attention to Pansy. "You are engaged to Draco Malfoy?"

"Was, my lord," said Pansy pointedly, thinking of her mother.

"You had best answer me honestly. Do you still love him?"

The word 'love' sounded alien coming from Voldemort. It was quite obviously a word he had not had the priviledge to use often.

Pansy willed herself more courage. "Yes."

Voldemort sneered. "I do understand why. He is weak and truly pitable, no more than Wormtail here." Wormtail made a sound of complaint that was stifled by one of Voldemort's hands. "Do you not value courage and power? This spineless worm exsists only to be crushed beneath my and his father's heel. However, he no longer needs your assistance. I have given him a sort of, ah, armor. Get up and away from him."

Pansy rose slowly, trying to keep hope out of her voice. "Then he is still alive?"

Voldemort's method of answering was to pull Pansy to him by her robe. "You should thank me. I have saved your pitiful obsession from death. Love is a weakness, always remember. He never loved you, I know that. He never would have. In that way, even he was stronger than you.You would have scraped as low as need be for his love." Voldemort grinned. "Foolish child. You would no doubt even have betrayed me if he asked it, wouldn't you have?"

"No, ne-"

"-You lie.That is what love does to you. It hurts until it bleeds, it betrays. I have saved him but you I will make live with the pain. I show no mercy, girl, never forget. Your life shall be worse than your death could have ever been. And you will not betray me, not while I hold him and I will always hold him. I took away his doubts, his feelings, his weakness. All these complications are...gone. I took his soul. You would have followed him wherever he went. Well, will you follow him now?"

Pansy glanced at Draco. His was now sitting up, eyes open. The irises of them were for an instant hazy, but then they became clear. Draco's eyes flicked over to Pansy briefly and Pansy was reminded of Voldemort. Draco's soul was truly gone and for that instant, Pansy felt hers was, as well.

"I will follow you," Pansy said to Voldemort.

"Good."

*********************

Pansy stood facing the window, scratching idly at the frost that covered it, a fashion magazine lying forgotten in her lap. Draco would be home soon and right then, Pansy's thoughts were turned to him. They always were when he went on his "outings" for the dark lord's benefit the kind of secret missions that required him, and him alone.

As a child, Pansy had clung to Draco like a child to a blankie, for the money, for the goods.

Only slightly did Pansy pay attention to Draco due to actual interest. He had been kind of boring actually, in his predictability, always going on about Potter this and Potter that, but Pansy put up with it for what it gained her. Pansy knew that was why Draco had done the same to her.

Yes, in the beginning, she had everything to gain. It was just a game, but one that easily turned dangerous. Invest in something too much, and you never get it back. Somehow, without even anticipating it, without purpose or intent, Pansy had cared about Draco. They had become friends then, her and Draco and Millicent. It was a peculiar sort of bond they shared, somewhere between convenience and neccessity. It was a dangerous bond that Pansy broke when game ended and became reality.

Voldemort had said it was a weakness, Pansy's loving Draco, and he was right. Her love was a hole in her heart that could be filled with acid, or poison, and was every time Draco walked in the door, every time she saw his empty eyes, listened to his empty talk.

He might never love Pansy,but she loved him anway, through it all. As Millicent put it in her succinct way, it wasn't as if anyone else ever would.

A chill hit Pansy, wind stirring up the ashes in the fire that was dying down in the fireplace.

Pansy continued to stare out the window, knowing instintively that Draco had come back. He never would bother to knock on the door.

Pansy could practically see Draco raising his eyebrows at the back of her head. "Five minutes has passed.You can stop fighting the urge to jump on me out of pure joy now."

Pansy got up and went to the kitchen, still not looking at Draco, partly out of obstinancy to disprove what he had just said, partly out of not wanting to face those eyes again. "You seem quite energetic. Get a good workout?"

Draco came up behind Pansy, breathing into the back of her neck, one arm curled around her shoulder. Pansy willed herself to stone, trying to ignore everything coursing through her. He did things like this all the time, not out of any genuine feeling, but to irk her. He of course knew she loved him, and used this fact any and every chance he got.

"I killed fifty, thanks for being so concerned."

"Concerned?" Unable to hold it in any longer, Pansy pushed away from Draco, hitting her back sharply against the sink's edge. Pansy laughed. "Why would I be concerned for fifty dead?"

"I meant concerned for me, of course." Draco gave her a rakish smile.

"You can take care of yourself." The bitter truth of the statement rang in Pansy's ears.

"Oh yes, but it is so convenient to have someone to take care of all the neccessities."

Convenient. The word slapped Pansy in the face. Draco only stayed here, only put up with her because it was convenient. It was always obvious, but just sometimes, if Pansy closed her eyes and her mind...

Draco hand snaked towards Pansy. She hit it away. "Get out-" she began.

Without a second glance, Draco turned on his heel and made to leave the kitchen. It had happened time and time again. His footsteps would get farther away and farther away, softer as they reached the carpet at the door...

"-Of the kitchen," Pansy finished her statement, voice slightly shaking. "I'm making dinner and I don't want you prancing about."

Draco realized the truth of what she had meant, of what had happened, and Pansy hated him for knowing her so well, finding her while she had lost him.

"As you wish."

Draco walked out of the kitchen. Pansy could hear him plop down on the worn out sofa. Pansy took her time putting together supper, not wanting Draco's presence at the same time as she desired it.

She had tried to make him leave the house before, tried to make herself stop loving him.

She would stop if she could, but this feeling couldn't be ripped, couldn't be torn. She loathed herself for it, wanted to wash it away like grime on the cover of an otherwise clear pool. She could have tried to let him go, but Pansy kept him because she was selfish, as damned selfish as he was. She had to keep him with her, because just every once in awhile, what was human in her kept him seeming human somehow.

*********

When they sat down to dinner, for a minute it was the phantom vision of an old married couple, Pansy passing dishes and Draco eating ravenously, but then the vision was shattered in the face of its own irony. The dream was of a phantom world, Pansy thought to herself, that she could never be part of, a world that Pansy despised as much as she secretly longed for it.

Pansy and Draco ate dinner in silence, Draco with both feet spread out languidly, Pansy uptight and staring off into the distance.

Draco was the one to break the silence. "Tut tut, not even going to ask me about my day? Where have your social graces gone to, Pansy?"

"Why should I ask? It's not as if there is anything there to ever talk about."

Pansy knew Draco wouldn't question what she was getting at, and so she went on. "Your day is like a list in the day of the world's most organized force of evil: Killed a Muggle. Got coffee and had a donut with Voldemort. Killed a few more Muggles. Carried out assination of a wizard and hung his entrails outside ministry."

Draco actually looked something verging on offended, but Pansy put that down to her imagination. He never felt anything. "Are you saying I'm boring?"

Pansy ground her teeth. "WHAT I AM SAYING is that you never feel anything, or have you forgotten?"

"Oh, that. You shouldn't miss my having a soul. I certainly don't." Draco gave a feral sort of grin. "Everything is so easy. Power, it's right within my grasp, Pansy. I can kill whoever I want to, whenever I want to and feel nothing! I could kill you if I wanted to, right here, right now." Draco's voice got dangerously low.

"That's not funny," Pansy snapped.

Draco reflected. "I thought it was."

"Well, it's bloody not. Don't think killing gives you any power over me to take my life. I kill just as much as you do."

"Yes, but I feel nothing. The more I look at you and the other Death Eaters, the more I pity you lot. You want to know why?"

"No."

Draco continued, anyway. "Because you are weak where I am strong. Your stupid emotions blind you to everything, tangle you and choke you. Your soul, your conscience is always holding you back, isn't it, Pansy? The nightmares you have, silly things that take away your victories. Killing isn't as simple for you as it is for me. You would let me kill you if I wanted to, if only it would make me love you."

Pansy's insides seemed to collapse upon one another in an implosion at Draco's words. They were true, every last one of them, and it hurt like hell. Pansy hated Draco as strongly as she loved him, so strong she wanted to break him to pieces, crush every bone in his body, so that he could feel pain, feel something. She killed as he did, but he wasn't like her. He wasn't condemned by dreams, or conscience, or doubts.

Pansy jumped up abruptly from the table, and shoved it sideways, plates crashing as they clattered to the floor. Grabbing the heaviest object in her immediate range (a chair) Pansy threw it at Draco. She put all her emotions, all the emotions he would never have again, into her voice.

"I HATE YOU!!"

Pansy ran from the room, not caring where, until she felt far enough away from his words from him, to crumple. Unfortunately, he had followed her. Pansy let him stand beside her not having the energy to move away. When Draco spoke, his voice was flat as it always was.

"Why do you love and hate me when you know it's pointless?"

"Don't talk to me about love or about hate. You know nothing about either one. You don't kill people out of revenge or out of a sense of pride, or anything! You just kill! How's that for totally pointless?"

Her dig had no effect. They never did, as there were no emotions to stir, but Pansy kept trying. It made her feel better that way, to know that she wasn't entirely giving in to Draco.

"I kill to cleanse the world of what is impure and what doesn't belong, and to give me power."

"Naturally. Everything is so black and white for you, you've got nothing to gain and nothing to lose. I wish I had been the one to lose my soul, as you did. I wish I could do things without thought, without conscience, without the doubt and the pain, and the weakness. To not feel...what I would only give not to feel."

Pansy wiped swiftly at tears beginning to fall. Tears were as much a weakness as love was.

Pansy was angry at herself for crying in front of Draco, until she realized he was nowhere in sight. Somewhere during the course of things, Draco had left.

With no one to stop her, Pansy fled to her room, hid herself beneath the covers up to her nose, and stared at the bumps on the ceiling, not letting a tear fall.

She could have been married by now, could have had potential as a Death Eater, like Millicent did but instead she was falling, dragged down by the weight she bore. She knew she cared as much about his well-being as her own, would die for him like a stupid Gryffindor, though she didn't fully understand why.

She lived in pain to love him, gave up her ambition to rise. She loved him when there was nothing left at all to love. Pansy had chosen evil. Draco hadn't. He was the bringer of hell with no motives, only orders to give him strength. He was strong, and he hurt her, but he was also weak.

He couldn't ever hate, not like Pansy could, not like even Voldemort could. He couldn't care, one way or another.

*************

When Pansy awoke in the middle of the night as she always did, Draco had fallen asleep in the bed next to hers. He lay there, ashen bangs falling across high cheek bones, blood staining both his clothes and his blankets. Pansy wasn't surprised. Draco usually took his time cleaning up after each one of his exploits, not relishing the blood so much as not giving it any attention, too lazy to cover it. There was no facade, no lies like Pansy's parents had, between Pansy and Draco.

Draco didn't even care enough to lie, to make Pansy believe he was anything other than than what he was, to put up an image the way he had in his childhood. It was just as well, for lies could not hurt Pansy. She had been lied to all her life, perhaps, but she didn't lie to herself.

Pansy reached out tenatively, and touched Draco's hand, that cold hand, as if it could give and not take.

He lay there like one at peace, innocent looking in spite of the blood. He was innocent in his acceptance of everything, feeling no guilt or sin.

So many people doomed his soul or attempted to save it when there was nothing to doom or save, and nothing to love, but Pansy persisted to love anyway. Somewhere, buried within, there was Draco still, and somehow, Pansy was determined to free him.

Pansy didn't even have to walk outside that room to find a weapon. Her wand was always beside her, even in sleep. Two spells to end it all, a clean death, a clean end, one for her and one for him. Pansy's hand shook as she pointed her wand at Draco.

He couldn't rescue Pansy, couldn't do anything for her, just as Voldemort said, and in that way she was stronger than him. He was a wound in her body, raw and open, the truth of him open to her eyes.

She couldn't do it, and leave Voldemort with the satisfaction of such a thing.

The wand clattered to the floor. For awhile, Pansy sat beside Draco, simply holding his hand, until the first strains of daylight broke through the window.

By the time the sun had fully risen, Pansy was long gone.

***********

When Pansy rang the doorbell to the apartment, Harry answered, hair tousled and still half asleep. He squinted at her for a moment before he recognized her. Seeing Potter's face, Pansy was reminded of just how much she hated him. He was one of many people who believed what they believed, whether for evil or for good, and was content because of it. They were like Pansy, for she had no convictions either way, only the doubt that came from no faith.

All Pansy had been taught, it crumbled in the face of what she felt for Draco. She'd been taught what was right according to her parents, like every child, but what if what they had taught her was right was really wrong, as Gryffindors would believe, as others would?

Draco's mother betrayed him and his father to death for what she believed was right. His father raised Draco with codes of conduct in place of love, all for what he believed was right. If doing what you believed was right, then Pansy must be a saint, an angel of death that followed her lord wherever he went.

Pansy wasn't even sure that what she was doing now was right, only that it was what best served her purpose and his.

"Pansy? What do you want?" Harry questioned.

"I need to talk."

Harry blinked at her in utter confusion. "Do you realize what time it is?"

Pansy rolled her eyes. "God forbid a Gryffindor entertain a girl at seven in the morning. Why, what with those dancing Chudley Cannons socks of yours, I might really start to get ideas."

"Oh." Harry looked down at his socks and blushed.

"Can I come in?"

Harry's face was wary. "I don't think so, no, sorry."

"Fine then, you'll just have to come out."

And with that, Pansy pulled Harry out the door and slammed it behind him.

"There, much better."

"Just what are you trying to pull?" Harry had his wand out now.

"Put your wand down. I have information I think you might be needing. What if I said I could tell you the exact location of Voldemort? And provide a list of all his followers?"

Harry gestured to the door. "By all means, let's go inside."

***********

The information had been given, the harm done. Pansy stirred her tea and set it back down.

"So why do you tell me all this?" asked Harry.

"For many reasons, not all of which are your business. You have faith that what Voldemort does is wrong?"

Harry's eyes darkened. "He killed my parents. He killed thousands of inn-"

Pansy nodded impatiently. "Yes, yes, I get it. The point is you have faith in what you believe and me..I don't have anything."

Harry didn't speak for a long time, but when he did, it was to put a hand on Pansy's own. "I think you should probably leave now."

**********

"I have been betrayed!" Voldemort thundered to a much subdued group of followers. Harry and what Pansy had privately come to think of as just ThoseOtherTwoBrats were in full showdown mode, wands at the ready.

"What a way he has for stating the obvious," Draco commented to no one in particular.

Voldemort's eyes narrowed in on Draco like homing missiles. "You! It was you that betrayed me!"

Draco's answer was succinct. "No."

"How could he betray you, my lord? He has no soul, no motives, no ambition to cause him to do so.You have said so yourself."

"So good of you to point that out, Pansy. He does not, you are correct, but you do. Perhaps you had more potential than I thought, more ambition. I am afraid now all your ambition shall have been for nothing. What did you hope to gain for Draco or yourself by turning traitor That you would become heroes for the force of good? Hah! You are both worms, worms that will follow me crawling to the end, because you are despised by everyone else. Harry hates you, hates us. He sees black and white because I murdered his parents."

Voldemort smiled. "Motives..motives are everything. In a world of disgusting humans, I made the one you loved a god, a ruler without feeling."

"He is no ruler! He is nothing but what you make him, like a stupid doll!"

"Temper, temper. I never would have expected it of you."

"I have nothing to lose now that I know. This is not my future. Following you, there is no future. You want to know why? Because you will die." Pansy gestured to Harry." He will kill you, and I'm glad, because I at last know that you are evil, beyond perceptions."

"Because of what others think? But what do you think? You were born into evil, it bred you."

"Fuck what others think. I only know what I believe. And I believe that you are damned, as much as I am, as anyone else is."

"You would die for him, then, the boy who lived?"

"No," Pansy retorted. "I would die for Draco."

"For love?"

"Because I choose to. It's all about choice. You took that away from him and for that I will make you pay."

Voldemort laughed. "You cannot ask me to pay, girl. Never give without seeing what you will get in return. Never ask for what you do not already know the answer to. You hate me for taking away his soul, you think this makes me a villain? See for yourself what the heart does.."

Harry tried to attack Voldemort with his own wand before Voldemort could cast his spell on Draco, but it was too late. Harry's spell stunned Voldemort, but not before his spell had hit Draco.

. Once again, Draco's eyes closed and he fell. Once again, Draco's eyes opened to rest on Pansy by his side. However, there was a change to the pattern of familiar events, a change Pansy saw the minute Draco looked at her in confusion.

It had to be too good to be true. Had to be, had to be....Pansy's head was swimming.

"Good to know you're still alive." Pansy's voice was as flat as Draco's could ever be, for as long as she could hold everything in, which wasn't long. "Oh, damnit...I give up..."

Pansy grabbed Draco by the face and kissed him. It was not the best moment, what with the yells of pain and the Death Eaters being rounded up in the background, but still..

"There," she told him, a bit breathless,"now do you feel anything? Hate? Love? Anything?"

Draco looked at Pancy. "You should know that when I was without my soul, the things I said...just forget them. They were true, but there were other true things that I couldn't..."

"-You! I am going to kill you!" Ron interjected, Hermione and Harry right behind him, trying to prevent him from lunging.

"Don't go all rabid now," Draco commented. "You'll start drooling."

"You killed my sister!"

"I most certainly did not!"

"Ron," said Harry, in a tone of authority Pansy had not heard on him before, " please be quiet.

Now, which one of you admits to being a Death Eater?"

Only one? He thought only one of them was a Death Eater?

Pansy had not told Harry that she was a Death Eater, but had concocted another story. However, Harry could have seen through it...

That was when Pansy realized just what Voldemort was hoping to accomplish. Even in his ruin, he was going to make sure he dragged them down with him. With a soul, Draco could die from the dementor's kiss just as Pansy could. However, Voldemort had left it up to them to decide who would die. It was a game, and Voldemort loved nothing better than making people pawns to his whimsy.

Pansy knew the punishment for being a Death Eater was harsh, usually Azkaban, or for the worst, a dementor's kiss. Both Pansy and Draco were of the worst sort.

"It's-" Pansy began to say, ready to say 'me', but Draco spoke hastily before she could finish.

"-Don't Pansy, it's all right. There's no need to turn me in. I'll do it myself. I'm the Death Eater."

"Right," said Ron. "Let's see the arm, then."

Draco pulled his sleeve back. Hermione branished her wand, ready to say a spell to tie Draco up but he put a hand up. "Wait a minute. Can I have a last word with Pansy here? I won't be able to say much at the trial or execution, anyway, what with the-"

"Enough of the speech." Ron's eyes glared. "As much as I'd like to kill you on the spot, without warning, the way your kind did to Ginny, I'll give you your chance. Be glad I'm merciful."

Ron walked with Hermione and Harry out of hearing distance, the single strongest force of will he'd ever showed.

Pansy had never been much of one for hugging, but now she threw her arms around Draco, pulling him so tight it hurt, willing herself to memorize each and every curve and nuance of him.

"Damned to heaven or hell, I'm following you," she whispered.

"Don't do this, Pansy." Draco traced the outline of Pansy's face, fingers that had always been graceful now shaking. Pansy grasped Draco's other hand.

"Why not?"

"Because I.." Draco began to kiss Pansy over and over. He whispered untelligible promises against her lips. Pansy could feel the tears, but she let them fall this time, feeling they washed her clean of something she had long been hiding.

"Are you done yet?" came Ron's sulky voice.

"I'm done." Draco put his forehead to hers.

"You know?" he questioned.

"I know."

When they took Draco with them, he looked back at her as long as he could, and Pansy met his gaze with her own until his eyes became the center of her consciousness, swimming amid the tears.

*********

Draco said he wanted that time he was without a soul forgotten. She would forget, then, for him. She tried to remember what was good, and slowly that covered the bad. She felt that he never got a chance to live, he died before he really could.

Draco always had been better with actions than with words. He didn't fully say it, but Pansy knew he had loved her, he showed it in his death for her. He died so that she could have a chance.

At first, she had hated him after that, hated him for being brave, and yet also for being a coward, because ultimately, to live with the pain felt so much harder. She hated him for beating her to the sacrifice she had been ready to make.

Then Pansy remembered that he wanted her to live. It was the only thing he ever had given her, her own life. So for this, Pansy kept on living, trying to enter a world that she had never been part of before, for him. She believed now in more than what she had been taught or what others said, but in what she felt. It took strength to live with the responsibility and the guilt, but the important part was that she lived, full of endless choices.

In death, Pansy hoped Draco was at last free. She'd kick fate in the face a few times for him, no worries. Those who said they had no choice in fate were not only liars, but fools as well because in saying they had no choice in fate, they left their life to be mishandled in the hands of those eager to shape it.

****fine*****