All\'s Fair In Love And War

It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.

There were suppose to be warnings. Time to call in the Order, the Aurors; at the very least, the Professors and the DA.

There were supposed to be planning sessions. Strategies. Battle plans.

There were suppose to be NEWTS. Packing. A Leaving Feast.

It wasn’t suppose to happen in the middle of a Saturday afternoon, weeks before the end of school.

There weren’t supposed to be children involved.

But there were.

Looking back now, it seems almost unreal.

The four of us - Draco, myself, Hermione and Ron - had gone to Hogsmeade together. Things were still a bit strained between Ron and Draco. Truth be told, they were a bit strained between Ron and myself as well. He was trying though, and that meant more to me than anything.

We had taken a table at The Three Broomsticks in the back corner and Madam Rosmerta had just served us our drinks when we heard the first explosion as it rocked the small tavern.

I managed to push my way through the crowd and out into the street just as the next one hit. Draco and Ron were right behind me. Hermione had stopped to help an elderly witch who had fallen in the scuffle. I think Draco may have pushed her down in his haste to follow me, but I can’t prove it, and it hardly matters now.

I looked up the street to where the noise had come from and I swear my heart stopped; Honeydukes was all but destroyed. There was smoke billowing from the wreckage, people were stood still in their shock and grief, bodies, some belonging to the third year students of Hogwarts, littered the ground.

Then the Death Eaters came.

People began screaming and running; it was complete chaos.

I looked back to where Draco and Ron stood, back to back, as masked and robed figures formed a circle around us. I have never been more proud to call Ron Weasley my best mate as I was in that moment. Without question, he trusted my lover to watch his back.

I should have been watching out for them.

But I got distracted.

Voldemort apparated in, not ten feet in front of me.

Our eyes locked.

Our wands raised.

We lost focus of everything and everyone else around us. There was only me and him.

He threw the first curse. A Diffindo. I blocked it, mostly, but it still cut my arm up a bit.

I retaliated with the Conjunctivitis curse. His block was more successful than mine had been.

After that, we threw a great number of hexes and curses at one another. Some hit, some missed, some were blocked and some were not. I won’t go into detail, I don’t think I’ll ever be ready to tell this story in it’s entirety.

Suffice it to say, in the end, I won.

But I also lost.

I beat Voldemort. I cast the AK at him and became the killer I never wanted to be. It was almost my last cast.

As I was bent over, trying to recover from the loss of strength, Walden Macnair took aim at me with his wand. He would have killed me if he hadn’t intercepted the spell.

I didn’t even see it happen.

I had my eyes closed.

I heard Hermione scream my name, I looked up, and my eyes met his as the green light enveloped him and he fell to the ground.

Dead.

I don’t know what came over me in the minutes afterward. I just… exploded with rage.

He was gone. Dead. Because of me.

I saw it in his eyes as his life drained away before me.

He loved me.

He loved me enough to die for me.

The first boy I ever loved. The one who gave me his innocence. The one who left me. Who joined my enemy. The one who broke my heart. The one who still loved me enough to save me.

I cut through the remaining Death Eaters in a frenzy of confusion, anger, and grief. I saw Mulciber, Nott and Dolohov as they tried to escape. They didn’t make it.

When the end finally came, when the streets were filled only with Aurors, and the Order of the Phoenix had converged to speak quietly in front of the Post Office, when Draco’s arms were wrapped around me, and mine around him, when Ron and Hermione were in a similar state standing beside us - Hermione clutching her injured arm to her chest and Ron a sickly shade of green and barely staying upright - I noticed that although the other Death Eaters that were suppose to be in Azkaban were present, Lucius Malfoy was not.

I didn’t give much thought to it at the time though.

I was otherwise occupied as the medical professionals arrived and began to heal the wounded. As the wizards from the Magical Disasters Unit began to sift through the wreckage of Honeydukes, pulling out the bodies of my fellow students. As Cornelius Fudge was dragged by an enraged Remus Lupin to look down upon the body of Peter Pettigrew and told to clear Sirius’ name of the crimes he did not commit. Or else.

I don’t remember how I got back to Hogwarts, but I know I have Draco to thank for it.

There will be a ceremony of mourning in the courtyard tomorrow to grieve for those we lost. Terry Boot, Michael Corner, Owen Cauldwell, Kevin Whitbey, Graham Pritchard, and Tracey Davis to name just a few.

There were others, students I only knew by face, some I didn’t know at all.

All of them are dead.

Because of me.

Draco keeps telling me that it isn’t my fault. That the blame lays solely with Voldemort and those who followed him.

I wish I could believe him.

I want to believe him.

But the truth is, Blaise died for me.

Only me.

And I don’t know how to feel about that.