The Same Mistake

“Run, Draco!” Snape had whispered urgently, shoving his student down the stairs before himself.

Draco stumbled down the last of the stairs from the Astronomy Tower, his mind literally numb. He could think of nothing. Absolute despair gripped his thoughts. All around him, spells were exploding, sparks lighting up the smoke filled air. The intensity of the battle was muted to him.

Until his vision caught on something powerful enough to break the wall of ice surrounding his mind. A crumpled body, blonde hair dripping with blood, blue eyes staring blankly up at the werewolf.

“No!” Draco screamed, dodging away from Snape and toward the broken figure on the floor. Whipping his wand from his robes, Draco pointed it with a shaking hand at Fenrir’s back. “Don’t touch her!” The tip of his wand jabbed into the werewolf’s back.

“What are you doing?” Snape hissed, grabbing Draco by the crook of the arm and dragging him forcefully away from the snarling Fenrir.

Snape took off, running through the fighting students and Death Eaters, pulling Draco behind him. “Let go!” Draco shouted, twisting against Snape, but failing to escape his professor’s grip.

Fenrir bent back down over the unconscious, at least Draco prayed she was unconscious and not dead, Ellie. Snape’s grip never faltered and Draco moved steadily away from her.

For the first time in his life, Draco preformed wordless magic. Bright white sparks shot from the end of his wand, slicing into Fenrir’s back. Blood oozed from the three wounds on Fenrir. He arched back, howling in pain. Springing to his feet, he tore past Draco, in search of whomever had cursed him.

Snape had either not seen or chose to ignore Draco’s highly questionable actions. He wrenched Draco around a corner, taking them away from the battle. Draco’s visual of Ellie was lost behind the corner of a stone wall.

Draco was agonized with worry and disgust at himself. His heart broke in his chest. He could not live without Ellie, yet it was because of him that she was injured, that Fenrir had the chance to – he couldn’t think it. He would literally be sick if he allowed himself to believe, for even one second, that Ellie had been bitten by the werewolf.

“Release me!” Draco screamed, yanking away from Snape’s grip, but the older man only held on tighter.

“Absolutely not!” Snape threw Draco down the stairwell in front of him. Draco slammed both hands onto the walls on either side of him to prevent himself from fall down the flight of stairs. His feet skidded over the steps, he faltered before righting himself at the bottom.

“She’s hurt!” Draco’s mind was frenzied. He needed to get back to Ellie, there had to be a way to get back to her. She was injured, possibly dying, and it was his fault, all his fault.

“That is none of your concern!” Snape said harshly, shoving his wand painfully into Draco’s back to keep him moving. Behind them, Draco could hear the rest of the Death Eaters beginning to follow. “If you had done your job with the girl in the first place, there would be no need to worry. But you failed and she is no longer within our jurisdiction.”

Snape propelled Draco through several hidden passages, disappearing through the castle walls to keep them moving. Other footsteps pounded after those of the Death Eaters. The passages wound suddenly, sending Draco ricocheting into the walls, scrapping his elbows, hands, and knees. As Draco stumbled, Snape shunted him out of the passage and back onto the main stairwell.

“I have to help her!” Draco argued after he finally caught his bearings enough to know how to get back to Ellie. Again Draco tried to escape from Snape, and again he failed. They were coming down to the Entrance Hall now, Ellie impossibly far behind.

With a flick of his wand, Snape blasted open the heavy doors. “You must do nothing except leave! She is safer without you. You’re a Death Eater, Draco, it is your task to kill witches and wizards like her. Witches who choose to fight the Dark Lord’s loyal ones instead of join them.”

His fellow Death Eater's words snapped him into reality. Draco was a threat to Ellie; he had always been a threat to her. It was only foolishness that let him think they could be together. Ellie would never be like him, she would never be able to choose loyalty and life over friendship and love.

His gut wrenched. Everything he did put Ellie in mortal danger. And he had never bothered to stop, to let go of her before it was too late. Now she lay on the stone floor, dying. He had done that. He had opened the Vanishing Cabinet, invited in those who would harmed her. He had worked the entire year to get to this point, to kill the old man. It wasn’t his wand that struck Dumbledore from the tower, but it was his deceit, to Ellie and everyone else in the castle, that had enabled Snape to kill the headmaster, to start this battle.

Now they were running across the lawn, slightly damp with dew. Two things played over and over in Draco’s mind. Dumbledore falling, limp as a rag doll; Ellie face down on the stone floor, blood covering her. What had he done?

The other Death Eaters rallied behind them, including Draco’s deranged Aunt Bellatrix. She was laughing. Laughing at the destruction they had caused, at the life they had stolen, at the pain they had inflicted. Is this what he had chosen?

It all seemed so surreal. Draco didn’t even notice when Snape fell back from the group. His feet continued to pound against the lawn, his Aunt gained on him, her black skirt twisting in the wind. Draco followed her, away from Ellie and the castle and all the empty promises that echoed in its deserted halls. Because this was his life. Draco was a Death Eater and Ellie was nothing more than a silly girl. It was his mistake to ever think love could change that.