End Of

It's the filth that kills him the most. When Draco dreams, it's of the gleaming rooms at Malfoy Manor, the never ending expanses of marble and oak. Beds piled high with feather mattresses and blankets and pillows and coverlets. His bathroom with the tub set into the floor and scrubbed each day by unseen house elves. The sitting rooms and offices and parlors and the ballroom, all spotless and severely beautiful.

He imagines them as they must be now- the west wing burned to the ground and the rest falling slowly into disrepair. His mother wouldn't have had time to leave instructions before the wards were breached and she was killed.

His mother is dead.

His mother is dead and his father is dead.

His mother is dead and his father is dead and he is stuck living in a dilapidated building with Snape.

At first he hadn't understood why, after killing Dumbledore, they hadn't returned as heroes to Voldemort. And when he realised, when he finally understood, that Snape was not at all who he thought, not the mentor or confidant or even true Death Eater, it shattered him. He spent six horrible days straining against the bonds holding him- both magical and physical- while Snape paced and conferred with cloaked figures and ranted and tried to explain to Draco why they were where they were.

But now, his mother is dead and his father is dead. And he knows the men and women who did it. He screamed his throat raw when Snape finally told him. He vows to get revenge on his aunt Bellatrix, his crazy aunt who led the attacks on both of his parents, so desperate was she to gain her master's approval that she would kill her own sister and brother-in-law.

So he stays with Snape and tries to wrap his head around the new life he finds himself leading. Because the Order and the Death Eaters both want them dead, they are living magic-free in an abandoned one room flat over a pizzeria in Muggle London. Snape leaves occasionally and brings back supplies and information from both sides. He refuses to tell Draco where he gets his information, which makes Draco's hackles rise, but he accepts what Snape is doing for him.

And has been doing for him for years. Draco has uncovered many secrets during the stretches of time they are stuck together in the flat. He learned of the Unbreakable Vow between Snape and his mother and cried bitterly. Because his mother didn't trust him to do what he needed to. Because he hadn't done what he needed to. Because his mother loved him enough to risk her life, and because she is now dead.

Draco doesn't like to think of the future, where no matter which side wins, he will be a wanted man. There is no future for him outside of the room he sits now, where the walls smell of oregano and pepperoni and Snape comes and goes with a quiet intensity and increasing frequency.

There will be no wedding with Pansy, no pureblood children to carry on the Malfoy name. It will die with him, in this room he cannot leave.

He looks back along the timeline of his life, trying to pinpoint exactly what led to this place. This can consume hours of his time. He can spend days traveling back through his memories and following them back up to the present. He sees so many places where a different decision, a different turn of phrase, would have led him to infinitely different surroundings. He wonders if Potter, with his red-headed girlfriend and Mudblood friend both dead, ever lets himself dwell on the same thing.

His wand is hidden in a vault in Gringotts and he will never be able to retrieve it. He pictures the wood rotting and splitting over time, the goblins speeding by in their carts, uncaring and unknowing, the whole world going about their lives as Draco Malfoy, marked Death Eater and supporter of the Order, pureblood, sits alone and trapped, magicless, in this unmerciful dirty room.