Is It Better to Have Loved and Lost?

"Lie back. This will only take a moment," said the voice, reassuring for once in its hard, cold life. Draco did as he was told, and came to rest flat on the fence-board that was floating in mid air. It felt awful; a sharp splinter prodded his neck and a knot in the cheap wood rubbed uncomfortably against his thigh. The room was bare and cold; the green curtains and patchy rug gave off the only colour to be seen, apart from a few red splodges that looked suspiciously like blood.

He did not feel nervous, although perhaps given the current situation he ought to have. How many wizards did he know who would not feel nervous if they were alone, unarmed and floating next to Lucius Malfoy, who was wielding a particularly pointy stick? To an onlooker, the scene in the small room would have appeared very odd, but Draco did not care. His mind was buzzing, his body aching, his soul felt gaping and empty. It felt like there was a hole, deep down inside himself, right at the very core.

He knew he had every right to feel this way, but he couldn't accept it at all. He knew he was perfectly entitled to be taking a year off from everything, but it felt lazy and wrong. Maybe if this worked, things would be easier. He could continue to recuperate, or maybe even go back to work. He could do all sorts of things that he had always dreamed of doing. Learn a musical instrument, write a book. Settle down, get married, have children. His heart throbbed painfully at that thought, and felt his spine go rigid. That couldn't happen anymore. That was no longer an option.

The second war had cost him a lot. More than most people have to lose. The physical signs were still visible, from his skeletal frame and his pale, sallow face to the large, mottled welt on his back and the thick, jagged slash that ran from his left elbow to just above the wrist, but none of these compared to the marks the war had left on the inside. No scar or burn or mark was anything like as horrific as what he had seen, what he had done, what he had endured. What he had lost.

It amazed him that his father had been willing to help him, although he supposed the man had changed. After the Dark Lord's demise, his father had lost much as well, although in different ways. Lucius had lost power, authority, leadership, and he had lost most of his freedom as well. Forced to move from his magnificent Wiltshire mansion to take up a hermitic existence in a comparative hovel, there was no denying what the man had lost.

Draco had used to pity his father. Lucius had sold his soul to Riddle many years before, and he had never truly loved. Draco's mother, Narcissa Black, had been just a useful tool for continuing the noble Malfoy blood, never an object of comfort or affection. No longer did he pity the man. At least he had never known what it is to have loved and been loved. Is it better to have loved and lost, he wondered, than never to have loved at all? Maybe, maybe not. He had never thought about the similarity of the situation between his father and himself, but he supposed that to Lucius, losing power and wealth was comparative to Draco himself losing everything he had ever known and cared for.

Harry was dead, to begin with. Harry, his enemy, Harry, his friend. Harry, who had agreed to be the best man at Draco's wedding in the summer. Harry, who would have been putting on his best robes tomorrow and holding the rings. Harry, who lay beside his parents now, in a casket six feet under the ground. Then Hermione, Harry's fiancée. And in the lead-up to the second war, another of Draco's closest friends. He had always wondered what they saw in each other, because as a couple they seemed unsuited to each other. Their relationship, he supposed, was down to the mystery of love. Love. The greatest magic in the universe. The reason to get up in the morning, or the reason never to get up again. For love, as Draco had learnt, is among the cruellest of the fates. When he had been in love, a time that seemed long ago now but was in reality mere years, life had been worth living. Now, now that death's parting had robbed him of that, life seemed hardly so.

He had tried talking to Dumbledore, to Lupin, to Molly Weasley and even, in his desperation, to Professor Snape. Each had said the same, but in a different way. Dumbledore had been cryptic and sorrowful; Lupin calm and feigning cheer. Molly had been the best of all. She had been almost motherly towards him. What was more, Draco was sure she had enjoyed it. She rarely got an opportunity to mother anyone anymore. Ron and Ginny were gone, massacred at the final battle. Percy languished in Azkaban, jailed after he was found at Death-Eater revels. Bill was in Russia now, on work for the Order, and Arthur and Charlie were still in St. Mungo's. Only Fred and George were left now, and although they had moved back to the Burrow to be with their mother, it was hardly the same as having her whole family there. She had offered to let Draco stay with her for a while, just until he felt a bit better, and he had spent a week at The Burrow, but it hadn't worked. Everywhere he turned, he saw reminders of the war. Harry's socks, casually lain on the bed that he had spent his last night in, ready for him to wear when he returned. He never had. Hermione's nightdress neatly folded and placed on the back of a chair in her temporary bedroom. Almost all of those who had died in the final few battles had stayed at The Burrow. It was friendly, welcoming and close to the battlefield. Even reminders of Ron, with whom his friendship had never been very strong, cause silent tears to spill from his pale eyes. They had never been the best of friends, but so what? His life was still another innocent one wasted, his blood needlessly spilt. He had only spent a week there, moving back to his own, now empty, flat in Hogsmeade.

His father had finished pacing the floor and muttering to himself, which Draco took to be a sign that he was ready to proceed.

"Close your eyes, and think of something you long for, or love," said Lucius, his voice echoing throughout the cold chamber, and the empty space where Draco had once kept love. No more, though. He was too bitter and twisted to love again, in his present state. This charm of his father's was his only chance at leading a relatively normal life again. He had been surprised when Lucius had come to his house one day, offering a cure, a release. He had been mistrustful at first, but finally accepted the need to move on, even with the aid of a man he detested.

Following his father's command, Draco closed his eyes and focused one the one thing he wanted more than anything. Luna. Her long, blonde hair, large deep eyes, and her way of making him feel infinitely special no matter what. It had been she who had saved him from a life as a Death-Eater, a life like his father's one misty summer morning, and it would be her who would save him now. Luna, although irreversibly gone, could save him from the numb shell he had become, incapable of feeling, thinking, or even grieving.

His father lifted his wand and muttered an incantation. Draco's heart stopped for a second. Why hadn't he seen this coming? Why hadn't he suspected it before? Why had he ever trusted...but he thought nothing more, as a ray of green light surged through him, cutting off his life and body, killing him entirely...