Sorting Priorities (a Romione/Dramione Fic)

Chapter 19 • Saved by the End

Okay, So I realize I'm pretty unreliable when it comes to updating...Sorry! I don't mean to be bad about it, and I know I've promised to get better, but I really am just a horrible timekeeper. Updates will be spontaneous and most likely slow, but the story is coming to a close...Please comment and vote if you liked it!

Dedicated to cheezyfriez because she wanted me to.

Draco squeezed his eyes shut as a set of four feet approached him and Hermione. He could hear the robes swishing around their feet; the sharp clacks of the hard heels of their shoes. With every step, he could hear his fate drawing closer, cornering him against the cold stone wall. Finally, after a few seconds of eternity, the steps halted before him.

"Draco," an unexpectedly warm voice said. "Draco, Draco, Draco. If you could stand up?" The command was posed as a question, but Draco knew that Dumbledore was not to be trifled with. He shakily stood up, finding himself standing before Dumbledore, McGonagall, Snape, and Filch. Hermione stood beside him still, her eyes blazing out at the teachers, daring them to hurt him. He was too grateful to feel ashamed that a girl was protecting him.

As Draco looked silently upon the headmaster's lined face, McGonagall's, stern, thin lips, Snape's upturned nose, and Filch's greasy skin, he felt a wave of remorse crash over him, causing his already weak facade to crumple. "Oh, God," he whispered, tears spilling down his cheeks again. "Oh, God. What have I done? What have I done?" He whimpered and his hands shook, and Hermione reached out to him again, pulling him close to her.

"Shh," she whispered, stroking his hair. "Shh."

He stood like that, the teachers watching and Hermione holding him, for what felt like both forever and barely a second at the same time. When he looked up again, he could hear a few distant shouts, but forced down the worry and made himself stay calm. "What do you want, Dumbledore?" he asked, his voice wavering. "I can' t--I can't stop this. It's already happening." He felt Hermione squeeze his hand.

"I know, Draco, I know," Dumbledore said. "I've come to protect you. You're such a promising young man. The Order could keep you safe. I have scouts out here; don't think your arrival went unnoticed. You may be killed tonight if your Death Eater friends see you with Miss Granger, or indeed myself. I want to help you." Dumbledore looked gravely down at Draco, his half-moon spectacles glinting brightly in the soft firelight of the torches lighting the alley. Draco shifted uncomfortably before speaking.

"I can't," he said, his voice catching. "I just....I can't. What if he finds out that I abandoned him for the other side? I can't risk that. My family..." He trailed off, and Hermione took his hand again.

"It's okay if you don't take us up on the offer, Draco," Dumbledore said. "Just please consider it. We can offer you, and your family, even better protection than even the ministry could offer."

Even Snape seemed to be taking the severity of the situation seriously, completely ignoring the fact that Draco was holding a Muggle-born's hand.

Hermione leaned over to whisper in Draco's ear.

"Take it," she said. "You really will have the best protection offered. They'll keep you safe. Come on," she prodded, perhaps sensing his reluctance. "Just take it. It's better than dying, isn't it?"

But she didn't understand, Draco thought. Didn't she see? Didn't they all see? He wanted to die. He'd finally lost the one thing in his life he'd cared about in the last year, and he was broken. Hermione had been the one who'd tied him together, a binding rope that had saved him from falling apart, but now she was gone, and he was broken, and he had nothing left to live for. "I can't," Draco said simply, gently pulling away from Hermione and taking a step back. "I just. Can't." He turned away and tucked his chin to his chest, pulling his wand out. "I'm sorry." He walked away, fingering the wood of his wand, the wand that had been so good to him.

As he made his way down the alleys, towards the shouts and yells of battle, Draco felt...nothing. He knew what was coming, and he yet he still felt nothing. Years of narcissism and self-absorption, of carefully crafted hair and reputation, all washing away, and in ts wake rested what had been there all along, what he'd always known, deep down, would be the death of him. Nothing. He was empty.

Draco walked onward, and he could hear the battle more clearly now. He could make out Bellatrix's maddened screams; a teacher's final cry. He finally came to the open square of the fight, and it was Hell.

Killing curses were flying left and right, ricocheting off of walls and rebounding from shop signs. Blue and green and red and purple, all blending into a rush of color that Draco could barely see through the filter of his tears. He took a step forward. nobody saw him. He raised his wand. Bellatrix could see him now. He took a shaky breath, a hysterical laugh escaping his lips. His mouth formed around a short incantation, and maybe Bellatrix could tell what he'd said, because she let out a shriek and ran over as the shower of blue erupted from his wand, hanging eerily above the battle like stars in the sky.

"What are you doing, fool?" Bellatrix cried, wrenching his wand from his hand. He didn't reply, only walking forwards into the thick of the fighting, waiting. "What are you doing?" she repeated, angry more than worried. "Get your sorry wand into the fighting, coward!" She spun away, firing a Killing curse at random. Draco saw his chance. He ran and leapt in front of Bellatrix's wand, momentarily seeing her expression of disbelief as her curse ripped through her nephew, illuminating his face in a sickly blast of green light, throwing him across the square. Then she screamed, stopping everything along with his heart.

Draco was dead.