Fallen Angels

Fallen Angels

Death is everywhere
There are lambs for the slaughter
Waiting to die
And I can sense
The hours slipping by
Tonight

Fly On The Windscreen - Depeche Mode

When Draco was little all his dreams were about flying. He would dream of soaring high in the sky, watching the world below him rush by. He would dream of the feeling of the cool wind caressing his skin and the way the wind turned to tiny piercing needles when he dove down trying to capture the tiny golden bird that always eluded his grasp. The night before he left for Hogwarts was the first time in his dream that he caught the Golden Snidget. That night was also the last time Draco ever had that dream. The night after his first day at Hogwarts, Draco was no longer flying in his dream. He was falling endlessly towards the ground as the Snidget flew mockingly above him. Years later, lying in a bed in what was once the fourth year girl's dorm of Ravenclaw Draco could not dream. There was no more hope of flying and still no end to falling.

Draco betrayed his family at the end of his sixth year. Draco never chose the losing side and it looked to him like the boy he hated would defeat the master his father obeyed, no matter how much he wished it wasn't so. He betrayed his family and in doing so sealed his fate. Harry Potter was defeated and Draco was on the losing side. He had chosen wrong and would pay the price.

If Draco had been a Ravenclaw, he imagined that he might have found the dorm comforting. It looked like he imagined it would have back when fourth year girls still occupied it. There where four beds, two of which were unoccupied now, all decorated in deep blue that hadn't faded or lost colour and was completely untouched by the war that raged around them.

He remembered a time when the other two beds had been occupied, one by Bill Weasley and the other by Terry Boot. Both were dead now. The only other occupant of the room now was Fred Weasley. Draco wasn't sure exactly how Boot or Weasley had died, he remembered few precise from the point Potter died onwards. The only clear memories he had were of green lifeless eyes staring out at the world and corpses and freckles shining in the dark. Sometimes when he closed his eyes he could see the corpses littering battlefields. Draco wasn't so much out of his mind as people liked to tell themselves. Draco saw more and remembered more than most, just not what people expected him to see. He remembered the way things were before the war. The hate he felt for Potter, the hate he felt for Weasleys. Back then he would never have found himself sharing a dorm with a Weasley. Draco sometimes smiled and told himself that he lived in the past and fought in the present. After betraying his family, Draco couldn't go back. So he fought, and waited for the day when someone would kill him.

Draco has seen Fred Weasley fight in the battles. That was one of the only things Draco liked to watch. At first Draco had thought Weasley fought with the same indifference as himself, but after closer inspection he noticed it was with a cold pleasure. Weasley loved watching them die. He hid it well, probably for the sake of his father's fragile sanity. Arthur Weasley still threw up after every kill.

Draco looked up as a sliver of light appeared between the curtains that surrounded his bed, and Fred Weasley's pale face appeared. The moonlight hitting his face in a way that made his freckles glow.

"I hate your freckles," Draco said, with distain, pretending things were still the way they had once been.

"I hate you," Fred's voice was cold and quiet.

Draco eased himself out from underneath the heavy covers as Fred slipped off his clothing in a few graceless movements and joined him on the bed, carefully pulling the curtains closed again. With practiced ease Fred's hands found the top of Draco's pajama bottoms in the dark and began to pull them away from Draco's form, crushing his mouth against Draco's hungrily as he undressed him. There was no love or affection in their kisses. There was only desperation.

"Weasley," Draco gasped as Fred ran his tongue along Draco's collarbone, hating and loving the way Fred made him feel, "this doesn't change anything."

"It never changes anything," Fred had successfully removed Draco's pajama bottoms and his hands were now roaming around the body whose every inch he knew by heart.

"I hate you," Draco whispered, as Fred's hands caressed him.

"You need me," Fred replied into Draco's neck.

He was right and Draco knew it. They needed eachother more than anything. Draco needed to feel something and Fred needed to hurt someone.

It only lasted several minutes, before Fred climaxed and left without a word, leaving Draco to finish himself off to imagined pictures of red hair and bright green eyes that Draco would never see again.

In the morning it was as though it had never even happened. It was always like that. They would never mean anything to eachother. They were meant to be on opposite sides. Draco lived in a world where Weasley's were still the enemy. He told himself he only watched Fred to find his weaknesses and exploit them, yet he knew every movement Fred made by heart. He knew that Fred never looked in Charlie's eyes, because they were eyes that Fred had never seen anywhere else except in the mirror and the face of his dead brother. He knew that Fred avoided mirrors at all costs, but sometimes he would go into the bathroom and find the mirror smashed to pieces. Draco still had a sliver of glass imbedded in his foot from the first mirror Fred broke.

Draco knew the glimmer of pride and satisfaction that entered Fred's eyes when he killed, and he knew why Fred hid it. Once you fell in love with murder, you could never go back. Fred killed because he hated, Draco killed because he could do nothing else. Draco murdered Death Eaters, and waited for the day when someone would hit him with the Killing Curse and he would cease to exist. Fred murdered and waited for the day when someone would tell him he had worked enough and he could have his brother back.

Draco told himself that when he was dead, Fred would find someone else to replace him, he told himself that he and Fred would never be anything to eachother because Weasleys and Malfoys could never be more than enemies. With the world crashing down around them, that mattered more than anything else. It mattered more than Fred's whispered promises on the rare nights when he stayed and lay shoulder to shoulder with Draco, their bodies barely touching except for their knuckles, which met gently, caressing. Fred's murmured promise of an end to it all. The words echoed softly in Draco's mind, warm and inviting.

"After I rip out Voldemort's heart, I'll kill you to give you back yours."