My Life

I held him the night she died. I held him in my arms as his body shook with sobs he couldn't release. He was so small that night. So small, vulnerable and lost. I'd never seen him like that before, and never since either. He refuses to acknowledge any emotion anymore. I've often wondered if he is even capable of feeling, but I hold on to that memory and I know he is worth all the pain I've suffered.

I'm going to die tomorrow. Not just die, I'm going to end in the most final way possible. The only punishment for a captured Death Eater these days is the Kiss. I suppose I should be grateful I got a trial. I know our side would never have done the same, but I'm not grateful. Not at all. It's not as if they could have passed any other verdict. That Mudblood was sitting in the gallery for the whole trial. She tried to save me once before, but this time her evidence condemned me.

"I, Hermione Granger, swear that I saw Pansy Parkinson on the night The Burrow was destroyed."

One sentence was enough; the rest of the evidence was just for show. It amuses me that the only evidence they could find is from the one attack I really took no part in. Oh, I was there, but not taking part. If I had been one of those who had attacked the house, and killed those redheaded vermin, I would hardly have been recognised. No, those involved were masked as always. I was only there as punishment. I tried to warn Cara, a Beauxbatons witch, a friend from my childhood, not to get involved, not to marry the eldest Weasley. Draco insisted I watched as they killed her, and her child, and all the rest of the family there that night. I was lucky; anyone else would have been killed alongside the filthy Muggle-loving scum.

If Hermione knew, I'm sure she would have tried to save me again. She persisted in believing there was "some good" in me, ever since we were paired in a Charms class, and I forgot to be obnoxious. She just wasn't worth the effort and my mind was on other things. She refused to believe that I really wanted to become a Death Eater, or that I would become one purely for his sake. She was wrong on both counts.

Lord Voldemort is insane. We all know that. We'd all pick another to lead us if we could, but if he is the only one who will lead the wizarding world back to purity, then so be it. I've known of our superiority to Muggles all my life; a self-evident fact to anyone brought up with magic. How can those freaks be equal to us? They have NO magic. They ARE below us. As for Muggle-born witches, well I can take them or leave them. They wouldn't exist if the pure wizarding blood hadn't been debased, and so are inherently unnatural, but if there is talent and they understand the cause, then I welcome them.

Whilst all this is true, I do not know if I would have followed our Lord without Draco. I am loyal to the pureblood cause, but I do see who our leader is. I would have waited for a better saviour, for a pureblood to lead us. I followed because Draco did and he is my life.

I've known I was meant for Draco since my tenth birthday. We were formally betrothed the week before we started at Hogwarts. I was eleven years old and I knew whom I was to love for my whole life. To the first years of school I must have seemed like an idiot with a crush. I know I'm not the prettiest witch ever to grace the halls of Hogwarts, or the cleverest, and I know that Draco felt he deserved more, but I was what he had. I thought I loved him from the start. I cried when he was injured, I hated those he hated, cursed those he cursed, and would have protected him from any hurt if he would have let me.

By the start of our fifth year he started to talk to me. I was as loyal as Greg or Vince but, unlike them, I understood what of he spoke. By Christmas we were lovers, it was what I had dreamed of. I knew he didn't love me, I thought he didn't love, but it was enough that he was there. For the rest of the year we continue much as before, I would adore him endlessly and he would sleep with every pretty witch he could, but there was a crucial difference. He was starting to use me as a partner, a sounding board, someone to talk over his decisions with. My opinions didn't matter to him, but gradually he came to me with every decision he had. Gradually we started to build a relationship that might have created a marriage.

It was the summer before our seventh year that changed our easy alliance. I began to get anxious. Was this really the right choice? Could Lord Voldemort really save us? Weren't we heading towards certain destruction? When I was paired with Granger, I was at my most vulnerable, and she nearly had me. My head was whirling with thoughts, and all Draco ever did was remind me of a fate that had been planned out with no thought to my wishes. I almost stopped loving him, and then...then she died.

The announcement came one morning, splashed across the front of the Daily Prophet.

"Narcissa Malfoy killed in a raid on Malfoy Manor."

She tried to defend her home and they killed her, a victim of an overzealous Auror. A casualty of war, one who no one would miss. She had few friends, even fewer who would admit an attachment now she had died at the wrong end of an Auror's raid.

By the time the news came, of course Draco had known for several hours. He had tapped on the door of my room in the middle of the night, clutching a letter with his father's crest on it. Lucius has never been affectionate, and this letter was a study in coldness. It told Draco of his mother's death and then reminded him of his "duty" as a Malfoy to remain untouched before the world and that Narcissa would be remembered best, by her son "ridding the world of the filthy scum who killed her." He sat silently as I read and when I finished he fell into my arms without a word.

The grief on his face pierced me to my soul. He loved his mother. Whatever she may have been, he loved her. His eyes were empty. No, not empty but full of a bottomless pit of pain and hurt and anger. He couldn't cry, he'd learnt the hard way that Malfoys don't show emotion, so he lay in my arms, racked with tears that wouldn't come. I pledged my life to him that night. I promised that no one would hurt him that much again. He was worth my time, and my love. I would follow him anywhere to keep him safe. I would even follow him into service of our Lord.

My history since then has been one of service to the man I love. Hermione couldn't comprehend that love. She is independent of Ron, even if they become man and wife she will make her life her own. My life is not my own, it was sold at the age of eleven to Draco Malfoy. That is why I will go to my end tomorrow, because I failed him. In trying to warn Cara I went against his wishes. I got caught because my face was uncovered, watching the consequences of my actions. I will die tomorrow, unbowed, because I know I deserve death for failing him. I was his, and when I broke from him I became nothing.

Draco Malfoy was my life. I will not betray him. They taunt me, asking why no one comes to save me. I know I failed him, and so I am lost. I do not fear death for myself. My only fear is for him. When I held him in my arms and kissed away the pain of his mother's death, I knew I could not let him be hurt that much again. When I die, will he be hurt? I fear he will. I fear that I reached behind his barriers that night. I fear the fact that he openly says I am the only woman in his life since her. When I die, who will hold him?