The Scarlet Tide

The Scarlet Tide (1/1)

***

The dark of night was swiftly fading, the inky black curtain giving way to a murky blue, the moon's glow faltering in the morning light. Draco Malfoy was awake, eyes set on landscape of Wiltshire and the outer-lying county. He liked to watch the sunrises and sunsets, not sure which he liked better - orange fading to red until finally being taken over by the black, or the reverse. They were both beautiful, entrancing - the dark fighting against the light until the light returned, pushing brilliant colours into the lack thereof.

Draco sighed against his knees, which were drawn up to his chest, his head resting upon them. It was close to the dawn of day, close to the dawn of a war.

Most in the Wizarding world were still set on denying it. Though Fudge had conceded that, indeed, Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter were telling the truth, that Voldemort was back, he still managed to cover up the severity of the situation. Time was too far removed from the Cedric Diggory affair; people just couldn't seem to connect the idea that Voldemort was back.

Draco knew, of course. He'd known from the moment that Harry Potter disappeared in the center of the maze fourth year. He understood what his father's absence meant. He was with him.

Draco was meant to revere him, he knew, but he didn't. He hated Voldemort; hated him like no other - Harry Potter had nothing on Draco's hatred of him. Voldemort may have killed Harry Potter's parents, leaving him orphaned, but Voldemort didn't have the courtesy to orphan Draco. Instead, he left Draco with the shell of a parent, an infantilized lapdog that loved his Master more then his own son.

He talked big ideas to his followers and made promises of glory, but in the end only he would be glorious. His followers saw victory, but not the war. They could see an end, but not the means by which they would have to go to get it. War would be the end of them all. And if - if - the war was won, the rest would be dead in Voldemort's stead. Lucius would be dead. Draco would be dead, too.

As Draco pondered these things, he began to understand war. Men - great men, poor men, fathers, brothers, sons - were beyond their own decisions; caught up in the mechanism of swindlers who act like kings.

They weren't people anymore, they were casualties of war. Dead men walking.

Like Potter. He would die, too. And his blood would flow with the others' - brilliant scarlet against the black night. The scarlet tide, trickling down through the mountains, across the valleys, to the end of the world. And then they would all be the same - Gryffindor, Slytherin, Mudblood, Pureblood. The dead, after all, have no titles.

And what if he joined Potter? Would that save him? Or would it even matter? Sunrise will always follow sunset, infinitum ad nauseam, It didn't matter what side you were on, only when you aligned yourself to the one that was winning.

So maybe he would march on the side of the light; humble himself before that senile old fool Dumbledore and Saint Potter. He'd give them information about his father, Voldemort; anything he could do before they realized that he had nothing singular to offer. He was just another soldier on the battlefield, no matter the army.

Then one day he would come face to face with his father again, and they would fight. Draco would have to kill his father, whether it would be out of anger or mercy, he did not know. On the other hand, why kill a man who was already dead, already lost to Draco. Why wound him, just to lose him again?

Draco thought he heard a black bell toll. He had to go; he'd be leaving soon.

He remembered his father's parting words before he was taken to Azkaban. He expected to see Draco at Voldemort's side by year's end. He would not return to Hogwarts.

Must Draco accept his fate? Did he have a choice? Someone once said that the first casualty of war is the truth. Draco knew that the second was choice. Man has no choice when he wants everything.

Draco left the tower and headed downstairs; the Hogwarts Express would be leaving at eleven, he didn't want to be late.

Finis