For the Want of a Nail

Through the pouring rain I watch the coffin being lowered into the grave, wondering for perhaps the hundredth time why it isn't me. Why it wasn't my life to be taken. Mine, which has caused enough suffering, enough death, already. This should be my punishment, not his. Never his.

I look beside me and see Dumbledore standing there, his face unnaturally expressionless. Mine can't stay that way. Even though there are about a hundred people at this funeral, I can do nothing to hide the tears running down my face. Ron stares at me as if though he doesn't really know what to believe of all of this, while Hermione is looking at me with unconditional sympathy. Somehow that disgusts me to no end.

I crouch down to scrape up a handful of sand and dust, before taking a deep breath and letting it slip through my finger on to the hardwood coffin. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Dumbledore says a few words which I pay no mind to, for I know what whatever he has to say makes no difference. Nothing will bring Draco back to me. No one else says a word for him, not even me. Perhaps I should apologise for that, but I won't. For who am I to dishonour his memory by telling his secrets to strangers? He would hate me for that.

Once the ceremony is over, the people clear out one after one. I watch the grave keeper fill the grave, watch Draco being buried by rocks and soil. Soon the work is done, and I am left alone with my Draco.

Feeling the air being drawn out of me, I fall onto my knees to the ground. "I'm sorry, Draco. I am so sorry." I croak, burying my fingers in the rain-softened ground, imagining I can reach him through it.

"This wasn't how it was supposed to be." I sniff, feeling my nails scrape the dust and mud and stones below. "I was supposed to die in that battle. You were supposed to live on. And years from now, you would remember. You were supposed to remember...!"

I wipe my teardrenched face with my knuckles, feeling my dirty fingers draw lines of grime across my cheek. I stare numbly at the gravestone. The wind blowing through the grass whispers Draco's name. I fight to focus on that instead of on the falling rain, the sharp thuds marking every second of our time together, falling into oblivion.

"I won't forget." I whisper into the rain, waiting for an answer.

Waiting for my absolution.