DRACO arrives at Voldemort's Lair and is forced to watch a family of four getting tortured by him, bound to the pillars. The man, his eyes filled with anger and his mouth bleeding from the cut across it, hisses at Voldemort as he grabs his daughter. Her mother cries out in protest and her brother stays unconscious on the floor, knocked out by the Cruciatus Curse that was cast upon him.
"Leave her alone!", her father screams, with all his might and his rage and his helplessness pouring out into his voice.
Voldemort chuckles at it and grabs the girl tighter by her neck, throwing her onto the floor, away from her family. She whimpers and shakes, her whole face having gone pale with pure fear. He turns to Draco, evil that could outmatch Satan himself glinting in those snake eyes. "Draco", he calls, his face lighting up ten times more, as if he has found more amusement than the torture session he is conducting right now. "These fools have dared to open their home to rebels- a group of people who desire to kill me." He laughs, his voice echoing through the whole place as he steps down on the girl who tries to crawl her way back to her parents. "Not only did these people make a grave mistake by giving them food and shelter, but they now refuse to even speak of their names and is willing to sacrifice their own lives to save them."
"Let her go, you motherfucker", the girl's father continues to shout at him. But it only makes him step on the girl even harder, causing her to scream out in pure pain. She doesn't look older than ten. A mere kid. He is doing this to a mere kid who's whole life is before her.
He laughs again, ignoring the cries and the shouts, his eyes solely fixed on Draco. "What is the deemed punishment to the people who try to oppose me, Draco?"
The little girl manages to tilt her head and look at Draco. When he takes in her eyes, there is a glimmer of hope in them- like she thinks that maybe he'll save her and her family- that maybe he'll end their strife and help them get out of here. Dreadful chills travel down his spine at that as he steers his eyes upto Voldemort and forces the word out of his mouth. "Death."
The hope in her eyes dissipates into thin air.
"Death, it is ", Voldemort says, smiling with a malice no human being could ever possibly hold. But then again, he is not really human, not with all the awful things he has done. He is an entity who wants to strip this world of any remaining happiness in it, making the sky go cold and grey forever so that no light could ever shine upon someone's life. He wants to ruin everything he lays his eyes upon. He wants to destroy everything good. And with those two words, he also tries to destroy the last remaining piece of Draco's mind that is kept sane. "Kill her."
Draco's blood runs cold. "Wha- What?", he stutters, blinking and not being able to, or rather not wanting to comprehend the order directed at him.
Voldemort lifts his leg and kicks the girl again, breaking her knees, leaving her in horrible agony. He walks up to Draco and halts in front of him, with mere inches between them. "Kill", he says, his words laced with poison, the most potent kind.
"My Lord, Nagini-"
"Nagini!", he shouts, lifting his wand and pointing it at Draco's neck, "will have her full. She has three whole bodies to go around. She would'nt care about this tiny little thing."
"But, my Lord-", Draco tries to speak but Voldemort cuts him off again with a shush, digging the wand deeper into his skin.
"Just think about it, Draco. You're really just saving her a lot of pain. If Nagini strikes her, she will die a painful and slow death. If she is thrown into the dungeons, she will be torn apart by the men of vultures there. Toyed with. Starved. Raped. Her sufferings will know no bounds." Voldemort pulls back and walks behind him, leaning into his ears and hissing in them words he think would encourage Draco but in reality it's just making him want to pull out his insides and bleed out on the floor. "You're not harming her, son. You're just showing her mercy."
Mercy? In the form of death?
"She'll die anyway. You get to choose how."
Voldemort then walks upto his dias and takes his seat at the throne, watching Draco intently. But he just stands there, unable to move, unable to breath, unable to think. He can't kill. He surely can't kill. That's the only thing his guilt can't eat him up over. That he hasn't taken another person's life by his own hands. And he can't do this.
"Choose, Draco", Voldemort's voice is loud, clear, impatient. He taps his fingertips on the armrests as a sign for him hurry up with his decision.
But how could he even decide?
"I can't", he chokes out, his eyes dropping to the floor.
"Tsk tsk tsk. I thought you were better than this, Draco", Voldemort says, getting up. "Very well then. Berling!", he calls for his man. "Come take this pretty little girl to the dungeons. Let her be your dessert."
Berling walks up the stairs wearing a wicked smirk on his face, his eyes disgustingly running all over the poor girl. Her mother wails in protest, the sound of her shattering heart pounding in Draco's ears.
"Come on, you little bitch", Berling mutters into the girl's ears as he bends over to pick her up from the ground. "Let me get a good taste of you."
Feeling absolutely repulsed, Draco has to look away. But the girl's father calls out to him, making him snap his head at him. "Malfoy", there are tears falling down his face as he speaks. "Kill her."
"What?" It's a mere gasp.
"Please", the man meets his eyes, begging with everything that's left in him. "Just please kill her."
The mother lowers her head onto the floor and sobs, knowing there is nothing she can do to save her child. "My baby. My lovely little baby, no. Please, no."
Voldemort laughs again drawing Draco's attention to him. "See", his voice is proud and vicious. "Mercy, Draco. She's at your mercy."
His whole self shaking, his mind collapsing, Draco reaches into his pocket and takes out his wand. With every breath he takes, he finds himself wishing it were his last. He struggles to keep his eyes open as he points the wand at that little kid, his soul raging inside him, telling him to not do this. But he has to.
If he doesn't end this little girl's life right here, she'll face a fate worse than death. She'll fall into the revolting grasp of a man who is blind enough to take advantage of her and tear apart the body and mind of a child who could easily be his granddaughter.
Voldemort might've made it seem like Draco has a choice but really, there isn't one here. He has no choice. He'll forever be the boy who had no choice.
"Avada Kedavra", he mutters, not even trying to close off his mind knowing that's impossible right now. No skill of his could possibly hide the guilt and pain tearing through his bones as the mother's scream reverberates through the pillars and the floor. It plunches a hole deep into his heart, a forever un-healable wound. The father stays silent with tears cascading down his face but even his silence is too loud for Draco to handle.
Voldemort claps from upon his dias. "Well done, Draco! Well done!", he says as if Draco had made an excellent meal or won a dueling competition. But in reality, it is murder that he has committed. Unforgivable Murder. Draco stares at what he has done. He stares at the parted lips and the unmoving hands. The corpse's lifeless eyes pierce into his body and his mind and his soul and he knows that it will haunt him for as long as he's alive.
Taking a life always comes with a cost. A deadly cost.
Berling rolls his eyes and makes to retrace his path back to the dungeons. But Voldemort calls out to him and makes him stop. "Take her with you."
The disappointment in his face completely vanishes as he walks up to the dead body and throws it over his shoulder. The girl's mother screams at him to let her child go. She looks at her husband, begging him to do something. "Atleast she won't know it", he says, not having it in him to even look up from the ground and face his wife. And that's the moment Draco realises his attempt to save that child's dignity was futile.
Because it is the curse bestowed upon the female kind to not be safe from the lust of men even in their deaths.
"You can go now, Draco", Voldemort says, dismissing him.
"But, my Lord-"
"No."
"You said-"
"Leave, Draco", Voldemort bellows, sending petrifying chills deep down every single one of his veins.
He nods, uprooting his limbs and forcing himself to walk and get out of that damn place as quick as he can. As soon as he's out of Voldemort's sight, he runs. He runs straight out of the castle and into the open, gasping for air. His throat closes up. His heart screams. The wing rages around him.
He looks at his hands and he sees blood.
He runs with everything that's left in him. He runs out the apparition borders, desperately needing Zilliah. But he can't get to her right now because how could he even face her having done what he had? How could he even look at her knowing she would be looking back into the eyes of a murderer? How could he?!
He can't. He cannot do that.
So he forces himself to apparate to his apartment. On reaching there, he pulls himself up the stairs, barely even breathing. He opens the door and stumbles through, praying he doesn't have to encounter Narcissa.
His prayer is answered.
But he feels all the more crushed at it.
He falls to the floor, his limbs giving out completely and his heart beating too fast. His throat threatens to rip itself apart with all the screams it holds in. He crawls to his bedroom and pushes open the door that is unlocked. He crawls and he crawls until he meets the full length mirror, and taking in his image, he is perplexed. He stares at himself in it, in horror, in repulsion.
There is blood tainting every inch of him. Stupid is the one who coined the phrase 'blood on your hands'. The blood of the dead doesn't stop there. It seeps into your whole being, your whole existence. It corrodes your heart, never reversible until you're six feet under too. It seeps and it seeps like acid rain falling upon your skin, burning you alive.
And the worst part is that the rain doesn't stop. Neither does the blood wash away at it.
That's what happens when you kill someone.
The universe will never stop reminding you of the grievous sin you've committed. It lives with you, in you. Forever.
He sends his fist flying into the mirror, breaking it. The broken glass cut at his knuckles but he feels nothing at it. He is in too much mental pain for a few stupid little cuts to mean anything to him.
He crawls further to a corner of the room and pulls his knees to his chest, burying his head in between them. He can't get his breaths right. He can't get the shaking to stop. He can't forget the look in her eyes. "I was just showing her mercy", he mumbles to himself over and over, as tears break free of his barriers and flow down his face, his guilt and his pain eating him up alive.
He didn't want this. He didn't want to be born into this. He didn't want to become this.
But here he is, a murderer, a monster.
Just like the man he swore he'd never be.
Just like his father.
"I was just showing her mercy.. I was just showing her mercy.. I was just- mercy. It was mercy. I- I showed.. it's mercy.. sh- show.. I didn't- just.. just mercy-"