Choices

Standard Disclaimer: I make no money off this story. I am merely borrowing the characters that other lovely people have created to use in my story.
Title: Choices
Author: Shini/Anaknisatanas
Rating: pg-13
Warnings: character death and end of a battle, some angst
Pairings: briefly mentioned DM/HG
Notes: Should I write another pov to continue? Or leave it at this?
Choices. is a poem I wrote that is called Choices. The poem is mine!!


Everyone will tell you that I\'m certainly no saint.

Draco Malfoy was crouched in front of a fallen figure as smaller battles continued on around him. He looked into the figure\'s face, offering no words of comfort to the fallen. He never wasted his words and certainly wasn\'t planning to on a battlefield let alone to someone he hated with every fiber of his being.

Most of those on the \'other side\' were fallen like this one but not in the same ironic manner. None of those other fallen had had such a large impression on Draco as this one did. Those still left standing were on the side of Light, and he supposed that he was one of them as much as he could be. But unlike many who fought he did not do so because it was right, he did so for revenge and for a vision that he had.

I hate without malice.
I love for this perfect hate.

The fallen figure was his father. A man, who was so smart and cunning, brought so low by his only heir, his only son, his only child. Somehow it was rather fitting that Draco had delivered this blow to a man he had once respected and loved above all others at one point in his life.

But love is closely related to hate. And love can be used as a mask to that hate. This he had found to be a very useful lesson and he had learned it well. But he did not hate out of anger or spite. His hate was pure, one of the few things that could be called pure in relation to Draco Malfoy.

\"Why?\" His fallen father asked, confusion clouding his Malfoy silver eyes as the shock of the pain was no doubt spreading like wildfire through his nerves and body.

\"You should know why,\" Draco betrayed nothing to this dying man, not even his hate. \"If nothing else you should at least know why.\"

Lucius Malfoy let out a gasp. Draco could see Lucius was in pain. He did nothing to ease it, spoke no words and made no gesture on his part. He did not bother wasting breath to call a healer. He wanted to witness his father\'s dying breath and he wanted him to feel pain. But, he would answer that question, why?

\"You joined a madman,\" Draco said calmly, the answer relatively simple as all complex things naturally are. \"And you were stupid in your choices after that. I don\'t want what you want. I never wanted what you want.\"

And I\'ll never let anything penetrate my mask,
I\'m a perfect imitation of the Malfoy\'s past.

\"What are you going to do when I\'m dead?\" Lucius asked, breath becoming shallow as the pain and slow death began to pull at his magic and life.

\"What else?\" Draco looked him in the eye for this answer was simpler than the rest. \"Rule the Slytherins.\"

\"You don\'t have it in you,\" His father gasped out as another spasm of pain wracked his broken body.

\"I do,\" Draco was unruffled by his father\'s words because Draco knew exactly what he was, just as he had known exactly what Lucius was before he had killed him and make no mistake Lucius was going to die here in the mud. \"I\'m more of a Malfoy than you. And I know what it means to have that name, more than you ever did. You\'re a disappointment to me Lucius.\"

Draco was pleased to see his father look briefly disappointed. But he was a Malfoy and his pleasure was not shown or voiced in any way, to do so would be base of him. He maintained his indifference, even his silver eyes held an indifference that was perhaps the harshest thing of all, a perfected living copy, a perfect fighter.

He had no qualms about killing the man he had once called father. Lucius had given up that right when he had killed Pansy and Blaise. He had given up that right when he sacrificed Narcissa to the Dark Lord. He had given up that right when he had joined the Dark Lord before Draco was even born, it had just taken his mother’s death and then his two friends’ deaths for his eyes to open and see what he had ignored. There was no saving Lucius Malfoy.

It\'s more than just upbringing,
Or even the weight and price of blood,
It has to do with leadership and fellowship.

Draco silently admitted that Lucius had been a good leader, as much as that was worth which at the moment was very little. But he lacked fellowship among his Slytherins. Something Draco did not lack in any of the younger generations.

And naturally most of them had followed his lead when he had defied his father and taken a stand against Voldemort by joining Harry Potter’s side. It was more than just his upbringing or his blood that had made him what he was now. He was a Malfoy. He had made that name count for more than darkness and evil and he would see that the name did not fall to evil and ugliness again. The dark was not always evil, but Lucius had been unable to differentiate between the two. A waste of what had held the promise of a good man, a good leader.

\"You know,\" Draco said conversationally as though he were speaking to someone while sitting on a park bench. \"You sullied the name Malfoy. You were not only a disappointment to me but to the name and meaning as well. The name Malfoy had a dark past but not an evil and ugly one, not until you Lucius.\"

Lucius said nothing.

Draco continued to maintain eye contact with the dying.

I\'ll let you die in battle without another thought.

Draco Malfoy watched as the shadow of a great but evil and cowardly man seeped away into nothingness.

\"Maybe if you hadn\'t killed them it might have ended differently for you,\"co sco smiled, just barely. \"For anyone else would have at least spared you of this pain. But I find that I enjoy your pain Lucius, by the way, Pansy says hi. And before you die I\'ll tell you this, you once were a great man. But you\'re a coward now.\"

\"I didn\'t expect this of you,\" Lucius whispered attempting a wry smile that was only a grimace of pain. \"I never saw it.\"

\"No you didn\'t,\" Draco said in all seriousness. \"But it is not betrayal, merely righting old wrongs. You deserve death now Lucius, anything less I cannot give you. Death is here staring you in the face and you will embrace it, even if you don’t want it. I can’t take that from you.\"

\"Wouldn\'t ask it of you,\" His father managed a slight smile this time. \"The My nay name is yours now. It will be judged by what you do and who you are.\"

\"I also thought you should know,\" Draco continued. \"I\'m married now to a Muggle, Hermione Granger, one of Potter’s friends if you recall. And I\'m going to be a father. If you can\'t give me your blessing I understand.\"

I won\'t give forgiveness unless you beg me,
And I won\'t say I\'m sorry for anything.

\"You have it,\" Lucius said carefully. \"Can I have your forgiveness?\"

\"You can have it,\" Draco finally said. \"But I still hate you.\"

The sun beat down heavily. The smell of blood and death and decay was burning in his nose and throat. It was rank and vile but he endured it. He had to see his father die. He had to fulfill his promise and he had to make sure that this wretched abomination to his ancestry was destroyed with no hope of resurrection.

Draco watched impassively as Lucius Malfoy, his father and faithful servant to the Dark Lord, drew in one last gasping breath. The body stilled and still he waited watching it intently. The temperature of the body cooled and he finally stood feeling his knees crack and pain shoot up his legs but none of that mattered.

He looked back and on the other side of the field the survivors were gathering. Draco looked down at his father\'s body before turning resolutely and walking away. He had made his choices, he could live with them.

Choices have been made by greater men,
And lesser men as well.
But I know that as a Malfoy the line has already been drawn and I won\'t go back.