When Harry Potter Died

When Harry Potter Died

When Harry Potter died, the whole of the wizarding world mourned.

His funeral was a magnificent affair, held outside near the cemetery where his parents were buried. A bunch of very important people, none of which Harry knew or even particularly liked were there to give impressive speeches. There were hundreds upon hundreds of seats set up, for everyone wanted to pay their final respects to their legendary hero. No less than fifty Aurors surrounded the area, in case of a possible Death Eater attack.

In the very back of the seating area, there was a hooded figure bathed in shadow, silently watching the events before him. The hood was to cover his easily recognizable hair, and the shadows were essential to hide his pale, nearly translucent skin. You see, if anybody were to find out that he was in attendance… well, he didn’t want to think about the (most likely) deadly consequences.

Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic himself, was currently standing at the podium, next to the open casket. After endless minutes of blathering on about what an icon Harry was, both in life and in death, was now commenting on how ironic his death was. How ironic it was, the figure agreed. Harry didn’t die by what wizards would classify as a "normal" death. It wasn’t from a curse, a potion, or even a spell gone horribly wrong. It wasn’t from any magical ailment of any kind. To everybody’s great astonishment, the great Harry Potter had died simply because a blood vessel in his brain had burst. It had been in the middle of the day, near the end of his seventh year at Hogwarts. He had died instantly, experiencing no pain. It was exactly the kind of death that Harry deserved.

The dark figure jerked himself out of his thoughts on concentrated on the funeral once again. "It is a cruel world," Fudge was saying, "to allow someone so promising to die so young."

Yes, it’s a cruel world,

the stranger thought. But it is us who make it that way. The figure let his detached eyes wander over the other audience, blocking Fudge’s irritatingly ignorant speech from his mind.

The front row was taken up by a line of redheads. The mother was sobbing into a handkerchief, her husband by her side, fruitlessly trying to comfort his poor wife. The oldest redhead, the one with the earring, sat next to them, wearing an expression of glum despair. Another two of the Weasley’s, the old Head Boy and the one who wore a dragon pendant around his neck, were staring blankly at the speaker, not really seeing him or processing the words being said. The twins were holding each other, and tears were streaming silently down one of their faces. The shadowy figure’s eyes now rested on the youngest Weasley boy, who did not look so young anymore. He had his arms around two girls seated on either side of him. One was a small girl with long red hair, who was crying earnestly into his shoulder. The other had bushy brown hair – Hermione Granger. Both she and Ron both appeared to be in shock, not truly believing that their best friend was really gone.

Headmaster Dumbledore was there, staring mournfully, yet somehow looking very determined, at the stage. There along with him were Professors McGonagall, Sprout, Flitwick, and most of the other teachers, including Snape, to the stranger’s surprise. They were all wearing expressions of sadness. Rubeus Hagrid’s black mane easily stood out in the crowd. The big man’s shoulders were heaving as tears the size of snitches ran down his face to gather in his thick facial hair. The Astronomy professor was trying to hush his loud, strangled sobs, but the giant paid her no heed.

The dark figure also thought he saw his old Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Remus Lupin, there, still dressed in shabby, hand me down robes. He was trying to hold back his own tears as he consolingly petted his shaggy black dog that was seated on the ground next to his chair. Even the dog knew that something was wrong; his ears and tail were drooping, and the cloaked man swore that tears were just about to spill over his dark eyes.

The figure thought that Harry’s Muggle relatives had also been invited to the funeral, but had declined. They didn’t care much for their nephew, if the figure remembered correctly. In fact, he was sure that the fat one (what was his name?) was probably throwing a block – wide party at this very moment to celebrate the departure of their burden. The aunt would be calling all the neighbors by now, and all would simply have to attend, even thought they didn’t know what the occasion was, but this was the kind of party that would be talked about for years to come and you’d have to be really daft to miss something like that.

Among the rest of the hundreds of attendees were a couple dozen reporters hired to cover the somber event. They rudely interrupted the funeral with the constant bright flashes of lights from their cameras, and the scratching of their quills distubed the near silence.

The figure directed his attention back to the front. The Minister was just finishing up his excruciatingly long speech that no one was really paying attention to.

After the Minister stepped down and took his seat (near the very front, of course) next to his entourage, Granger stepped up to the podium. Knowing her, she probably had an impressive speech prepared. But she took one look at the body and immediately burst into tears. Ron jumped up, hurried toward her, and led her off stage.

Several other people then went up to the podium to deliver more speeches, including Professore Dumbledore, and then, it was over.

People stood up and moved slowly over to the casket to say their last goodbyes, weeping and holding tissues to their eyes before leaving. The figure waited until they were all done before taking his turn. He strode up to the casket and took a quick look around to make sure no one was paying attention to him. No one was, for the remaining groups of people were halfway across the area, conversing tearfully to each other in quiet tones. The cloaked figure turned back to the casket and at last pushed the hood away from his face, revealing platinum blond hair, and a sharp, angular face.

He stared down at the body, at the familiar round glasses frames, the gangly figure, and the raven hair that was messy even in death. He stared down at the body, remembering.

Yes, everybody loved Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy thought to himself. But not the way I did. Not as much as I did. I loved him enough to kill him.

Draco turned away, the first traces of wetness beginning to appear in his grey eyes. He heaved a deep breath and Apparated home.

* * *

No one was really surprised, when barely a month later, Hermione Granger and Ronald Weasley announced their engagement. Of course Harry Potter’s two best friends would find comfort in each other.

In the following days, a painting of Harry Potter was placed in the entrance hall of Hogwarts for all to see and remember the great deeds the young boy had accomplished.

In Diagon Alley, a stature was erected to memorialize the boy hero. A hundred people visited it daily, some leaving flowers at the base, some kneeling at it’s feet, some simply staring up at the familiar face of their dead savior.

Far away from Diagon Alley, in the middle of the countryside, up the road from a small town, a dark cloud loomed over Malfoy Manor. It was a very important day for the Malfoys. Narcissa Malfoy, the mother, was in a frenzy downstairs, running around and making sure everything was ready. Lucius Malfoy, the father, was standing completely still, staring coolly up the grand staircase, looking like he was waiting for something. Or someone.

Draco Malfoy was the person the father was waiting for. The son was in his room. It was a rather large and majestic room. It was a dark shade of green with heavy black drapes, and it contained everything you could possibly think of, yet somehow it did not seem like his own. It was completely devoid of any personal possessions, or anything that made the room truly his.

That was because all of his prized possessions were contained in a box that he kept hidden underneath a loose floorboard. He was sitting on his grand bed, looking at them now.

They consisted mostly of moving pictures that had to be taken in secret. The pictures themselves were mainly of two boys, Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy, at various places in various poses.

A picture taken just outside of the Forbidden Forest at Christmastime. Snow was swirling through the air, and the boys were red – cheeked, grinning happily at each other.

A picture taken in the Gryffindor common room, in the wee hours of the night, when everybody else was asleep. Picture Harry was asleep on the floor next to a roaring fire. His bare chest moved up and down with the slightest of breaths, while Picture Draco watched him intently.

A picture of the boys in an empty classroom, locked in a passionate embrace. This was this one that Draco treasured the most.

A picture taken in a cold, stone hallway. Picture Draco, with an incredibly sad expression on his face, staring at Picture Harry who had a loan tear running down his face. Everytime Picture Draco reached a finger up to wipe it away, Picture Harry jerked away. It was this picture that Draco feared the most; for this was just a day before Harry’s death. This was the day that Draco told Harry that he loved him, just before he broke things off.

None of them loved him the way I did, Draco thought to himself once again as he traced a finger over the picture.

He loved Harry very much, so much that it hurt. And that was why he had to kill him.

You see, Draco was about to become Death Eater. This has been his destiny, his fate, since birth. Even during the years when Voldemort was vanquished, his father still planned on him becoming a Death Eater. Back then, Draco thought that it wouldn’t be so bad.

But then Voldemort had risen again, and Draco knew it would worse than he originally thought.

Each Death Eater inductee had his own mission to fulfill, before he could enter Voldemort’s inner circle. Only a week before Harry had died, Draco’s father came to visit him at Hogwarts to inform him of his mission: he was to capture Harry Potter, and torture him long and hard before finally destroying him.

"Won’t it be simply marvellous?" his father had asked him excitingly.

"Oh yes. Marvellous," Draco had answered somewhat weakly, hoping that he was conveying enough enthusiasm.

Draco had locked himself in his room that night, and thought about the situation. Lucius had no idea about their relationship, of course. Both he and Harry would have been long dead before now if he had.

He couldn’t go to anyone with his problem, because they would just tell him to take Harry and go into hiding. Draco had thought about this already; there was no way that they could go into hiding. Voldemort would find them and kill them both.

He couldn’t tell Harry, because he would probably immediately run away from Hogwarts. Once the news got out, his father would demand that Draco go after him, find him, and torture and kill him where he was.

Draco had curled himself into a ball on his large bed. It was a depressing situation, one with no hope. He went through what felt like a thousand possible solutions for this problem, rejecting each one. He fell more and more into despair as time went on. How could he torture poor Harry, his only love? How was he expected to do this? There had to be a way out.

He slowly came to discover that there was only one real solution, the only one that would work.

With that realization, Draco cried himself to sleep.

The next morning, Draco started brewing an incredibly complex potion that had to be consumed orally. It was a fast acting potion that would cause a painless death, one that Draco had developed himself. Once it’s objective was completed, all traces of it would disappear from the body.

The night before Draco confessed his love for Harry, and then ended things between them. That fateful morning, Draco forced a house-elf to pour the potion into Harry’s pumpkin juice, which Harry drank at lunch. Within the hour, Harry Potter was dead.

Now Draco stood up, and put the box back in it’s hiding place, for the last time. He looked into the mirror and straightened his collar.

"Draco, it’s time!" he heard his father’s voice from the staircase.

"Yes, Father!" he called back.

He took one last look around his room, then left, shutting the door behind him with an audible click.

Since Harry Potter was no more, Voldemort no longer had any immediate objective for Draco to complete. Therefore, on the promise that he would find something for him to do in the future, he decided to proceed on schedule with Draco’s Death Eater induction that night.

Little did they know that Draco had a plan. He had prepared a spell the night before. Practicing and practicing the incantations until he got everything right.

This was a spell that, when put into effect, would slowly and deliberately kill everyone within a mile radius, except for the caster, of course. The caster would die a quick and painless death. It was a suicide spell, only used in wartime when things got hopeless.

Draco smiled as he descended down the stairs, tucking his wand into his pocket. His father assumed the reason he was smiling was because of what he would soon become. But Draco was smiling because of the knowledge that before the night was over, the world would be rid of great evil, he would be reunited with his lover, in the one place where they could live happily together.