Set Fire to Rain

I opened my eyes. Sun was shinning all around me, making the field I was sitting in seem golden. I sat still for a moment, before slowly moving my hands over the golden grain, brushing the stalks with my finger tips. They felt soft against my skin, like whispers across my fingertips. I stood up and walked slowly, feeling how soft the ground was. The grain kissed my skin and I closed my eyes for a moment, relishing the sun’s warmth and the feel of the world. I remembered this field. Draco and I had come across it when traveling for Christmas one year- Narcissa wanted to go somewhere warm.
“Do you remember it?” a familiar voice called out. I opened my eyes and smiled, heart warming at the sight of Draco. He stood in a t-shirt and jeans, so simple yet perfect. His blonde hair was ruffled and standing up in some places, but somehow looked like it was meant to look that way. His ice blue eyes stared right into mine, a light dancing in them that I missed.
“Of course I do. We ran through the fields shrieking like little demons, playing hide and seek in the stalks.” I walked up to him, looking up at him, and brushed my fingertips over his face. “I could never forget a memory with you, Draco.”
He smiled, which was so rare. “How about we guess cloud shapes like we used to?”
I laid down in the field next to him, letting him pull me into his chest. Our fingers twined together like vines, and for a moment all I could do was inhale his scent. The smell of his aftershave, the smell of peppermint, it was intoxicating. I felt the steady rise and fall of his chest has he took in breaths of air, and I couldn’t be happier in that moment.
I don’t know how long we lay in the grass, guessing what shapes clouds were, kissing and talking. My heart was soaring with happiness. And then a new cloud came. It was darker than the rest, and looked like a blob at first. It grew bigger and darker, until the cloud took form in the shape of a skull and a snake began to slither through the open jaw.
We both sat straight up then, staring at the sky. My arm tingled and my eyes flashed down to where my dark mark was inked on my arm, although a moment ago I could have sworn it hadn’t been there. The black smoke appeared then, as death eaters began to land in the field in puffs of black. We stood up, rigid and unsure. I recognized many of them- Dawlish, Snape, Bellatrix, Crabbe and Goyle. Draco’s mother and father showed up last. Narcissa looked as if she had been crying.
I watched the sky as it thundered and storm clouds covered the sun. Voldemort was coming. And come he did, in a tornado of storm clouds. He landed and walked towards us with a serpentine grace. I didn’t mean to, but I laced my fingers with Draco, trying to give myself comfort. Something told me this was not going to be a happy meeting.
“Do you fear me?” he asked softly, looking at me with his red eyes. I hesitated to answer. This could be a trick question.
“I do not fear that you would hurt me, but I fear that if you chose to, you would do so very easily.”
A cold laughed escaped him. “You are the perfect little death eater, trained to answer everything correctly… to bad you defied me.” He didn’t look very sorry. “Your alliance with you brother just cost you his life.”
When Voldemort said ‘his’ I had thought he meant Harry. Without a moments notice, Voldemort raised his wand, pointing it at Draco and screaming, “Avada kedavra!” Green light blinded me and I screamed on top of my lung, ripping the flesh in my vocal cords. Narcissa screamed with me, so distressing that my heart shattered in a million pieces just at hearing her. Draco dropped. No stumbling, not sputtering. He simply collapsed on the floor like a sack of potatoes.
I fell next to him. “Draco!” I screamed, shaking him by the arms. “DRACO!” Tears spilled out of my eyes and over my cheeks in rushing streams. My body racked with grief, my arms shook, my hands trembled. A whole began to eat at my chest as my heart died, turning black. His skin was cold already, and his blue eyes stared into nothingness, like empty glass. I kept screaming and choking then, and could no longer pronounce his name.
Arms tried to pull me but I lashed out with a feral anger that sent them stepping back. Narcissa was next to me on the ground, I knew, but she shared my grief. I did not try to push her away. She was all I had now.
I hugged Draco’s hand close to me, holding onto it for dear life, as if letting go would result in never getting him back. The pain was so raw and thick that I couldn’t even find anger to get up and attack the snake that had just killed him. It was my fault. All my fault and I deserved to die with him. I wanted to die. In fact, I did die with him, the moment the killing curse took the breath of life from his lungs.
This was Harry’s doing, my brain told me. he was supposed to help you.
No another part of my brain said. Harry couldn’t help you. You did this. Draco is dead because of you.
Harry wanted Draco dead. He had no reason to help you.
Harry is all you have left.
Kill him.
Save him.
“STOP!” I screamed on top of my lungs, the scream ringing out. I pulled at my hair as the voices got louder and louder, then Draco’s voice telling me I had to avenge him, and then another Draco telling me that it was my fault he was dead. There were so many voices, so many fighting. I cried harder, trying to drown them out, trying to block out the cackling voice that I didn’t know.
Everything went black.
*

My head was pounding. I lifted it weakly, looking around. I was in a dungeon, hanging by my wrist. Draco stood in front of me, hatred written across his face. His arms were across his chest, wand in hand. He had come to save me! But no… he was dead. I had seen him die. Was I dead to then?
“Am I dead?” I asked him. He just stared back at me, eyes hard. “You’re dead.”
“I’m dead because of you,” he hissed at me, his eyes narrowing as he began to prowl back and forth like a predator. “You got me killed. It’s your fault, do you know that? You will now. Crucio!”
I yelled out in agony and surprise. I deserved it, I knew I deserved it. Draco was punishing me for what I had done. He had too. But did he had to do it by his hand? I couldn’t believe that he was hurting me this way, when he had sworn to protect me against anything and everything. I was wrong about that. I was wrong about everything… maybe Draco wasn’t really who I thought he was, and all those times that he talked about how hard it was to be a death eater, he was lying.
He hurt me over and over again, screaming at me that it was my fault. I wept all the while, scared of him, and scared that he wouldn’t love me anymore. But he was dead. Or was he? Was I dead?
Nothing made sense anymore.