The Same Mistake

Draco sat bolt upright in his bed, sweating beading his forehead. Swinging his legs over the side of his bed, Draco bent forward until his head was between his knees. He took deep breathes counting back from one hundred. It was a dream. It had just been a bad dream.

Falling back on the bed, Draco stared at the top of his four poster bed. But it had seemed so real. Draco forcefully rubbed his eyes, trying to erase the terrible images from his eyes. Ellie, lifeless, lying at his feet, her eyes staring blankly up at him, her mouth open in fear. His mother crumpled before a gravestone that bore his father’s name. Ellie slumped over, once more staring blankly at him, but this time her mouth moved, and the words she spoke frozen his soul. “You’re the reason, the only reason. This is your fault, all your fault.”

Draco ran a distraught hand through his hair, rumpling it beyond repair. Was she right? Was the dream Ellie right? Would Draco be the reason she died, would he be the reason his parents died?

It was too much. Throwing back the curtain’s surrounding his bed, Draco leapt lithely to the floor. He had far pressing matters to worry about. Slipping into his clothes, Draco left his dormitory and silently made his way to the Room of Requirement. He paced before the bare wall three times. When the door appeared, he took a deep breath and stepped inside.

He needed to fix the cabinet. Once he fixed the cabinet, things would start to make sense again. The sooner he got rid of Dumbledor, the sooner this would all be over. He would leave Hogwarts until everything had settled, Ellie would be safe from him.

Draco knew Ellie would never willingly leave him. He wasn’t sure that had it in him to try and convince her to leave him alone. He wanted Ellie around, he’d meant it when he said Ellie made him feel like a better person. She knew where his loyalties lie and she didn’t judge him. She still loved him, or at the very least cared greatly for him. But he wasn’t any good for her. She was in danger every day that they grew closer. The Dark Lord would use her against him if Draco failed his task; Draco knew this.

So he had to find a way to force Ellie to let go of him, to decide she would be better off without him. But she had sworn to never leave him and he doubted if there was anything he could do to make her change her mind. Unless , unless he did something horrible, something utterly reprehensible.

Draco’s heart ached. He didn’t want it to come to that. He would hold off, until there was no other choice. If he could just fix the cabinet in time, then maybe Ellie would never have to know. He would never have to push her away, since his success would surely push her away more successfully than anything he could do to her personally.

Draco dropped to his knees before the cabinet, heart aching, head throbbing, and knowing all the while that neither choice was preferable since either way, he would lose Ellie.