Green Eyed Monster | Draco Malfoy

107. Loose Ends

Chapter 107 – Loose Ends

It would have been impossible to try to stop the tremors that were running through my muscles like small jolts of electricity. My hands, still covered in my mentor's blood, were trembling so badly that they were dripping all over my clothes. How many layers of blood coated my skin now? How much more blood would coat these hands before this battle was finished?

I pulled away from Snape only after Harry had closed the Death Eater's eyes and broken the stare between us. It made it somehow official – Snape was dead. Like Thuban, like Dobby, like Daphne, like Montague, it was like the spark of life leaving him had been tangible – something that slipped through my fingers as he faded away.

The shock was not subsiding. I felt like I was drowning within my own thoughts and while I felt numb to everything else, it felt like my chest was on fire. I couldn't tell if it was because of the weight of knowing I had lost another loved one, or if it was because I was finding it so difficult to breathe...either way, I was struggling with the very concept of surviving past this moment.

How many more people would die today? How many more lives would slip through my fingers because 'the power that he knows not' was a power that I apparently could not control? For such a formidable power, it seemed pretty useless when I couldn't use it to save...only to destroy.

I felt the oncoming battery before I heard it. Voldemort's voice, as high and clear as it would have been if he was still standing in the room, echoed around the group of us. It seemed to reverberate off the very walls and anger something deep in my mind, waking me from the shock that had settled over my skin.

"You have fought valiantly. Lord Voldemort knows how to value bravery," the voice explained to us. I vaguely found it within me to wonder whether everyone else heard how ingenuine he sounded. "Yet you have sustained heavy losses. If you continue to resist me, you will all die, one by one. I do not wish this to happen. Every drop of magical blood spilled is a loss and a waste—"

And yet he had created all of these losses. And yet he had spilled the most loyal of magical blood because of this massacre of school children and educators...something deep in my chest, something more toxic and acidic than rage, began to burn as I was finally able to turn my eyes away from the corpse of the Snake's right-hand man.

"Lord Voldemort is merciful. I command my forces to retreat immediately," he commanded , pretending he was actually contrite. "You have one hour. Dispose of your dead with dignity. Treat your injured."

Injuries he had caused. Deaths he had demanded...

"I speak now directly to the Potters, and particularly to you, Harry. You have permitted your friends to die for you rather than to face me yourself. I shall wait one hour in the Forbidden Forest. If, at the end of that hour, you have not come to me, you have not given yourself up, then battle recommences. If your sister attempts to flee with you, to or to pull any mischief in the meantime, the hour will be cut short. And at that point, I shall enter the fray myself, Harry Potter, and I shall find you, and I shall punish every last man, woman, and child who has tried to conceal you from me. And you, Audrey Potter, you shall be my first victim...unless you deliver your brother to me."

Hermione's bushy hair bounced as her eyes flew to me, wide and terrified.

"I will promise that if you bring me your brother, I will spare your life. If you bring me your brother, none of your other loved ones shall be harmed. I will welcome you into our graces with open arms – the arms of your mentor, your lover, your friends..."

Of course, Voldemort was not aware that we were already here. He was not aware that I had been present for Snape's dying breath. Still, the disfigured man spoke to me in a tone that suggested he was trying to be reasonable.