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Draco Malfoy was dying.
He knew it from the ache in his muscles and bones, the heaviness in his chest – tired out because of the several coughing fits he had over the few hours since he started to fade away. Even breathing was starting to feel like hard labour as he tried his best to sink down to the bedsheets and pray for the stagnant air inside his lungs to clear up.
He knew it from the way his throat had so long been closed up in soreness. He couldn’t even muster enough force to swallow his own saliva from the sheer pain that threatened to choke him and kill him even faster.
He knew it from the way his head felt as if it was filled with cotton and lead all at the same time. His burning eyes struggled to keep themselves open due to the horrible lightning flash that invaded his room every once in a while from the raging storm and with every thundering sound that followed, a knife twisted inside his brain drawing out a pained moan out of him.
And he knew it from the way his entire soul withered in misery.
The trees outside shook with the winds and rain that poured relentlessly from the thunderstorm that witnessed his slow death.
Draco knew for a fact that it was only half-past midday, but with the heavy dark-grey clouds covering the sun away his room had ended up being bathed in cold and darkness that mirrored pretty much how he felt.
Merlin, how he wished he could tear down those shaking trees, stop the pouring rain and do away with those bloody clouds. How he wished he had the strength to cast warming and silencing charms to keep himself comfortable.
And how he wished he could relax enough to just settle himself in his bed and sleep.
Was a dying man not entitled to some peace in his final moments?
He wondered if dear old Lucius also felt this poorly when he was being faced with the terrible talons of the Grim Reaper taking his soul away in a cold cell in Azkaban. Gods – Draco bloody hoped so.
Someone like him hadn’t deserved a peaceful death at all.
Another lightning flashed through the large window panes – so close, he could’ve sworn it had hit one of the apple trees in the gardens – and the thunder rattled the walls of his room so violently, for a second he feared they would cave in and fall on his head.
(Oh, but wouldn’t it be fitting for him to die and be buried in the very same Manor where he was born and raised in? Well, barring the fact that the burial per se would be with the sad rubble of his collapsed Estate).
No , the Gods laughed with each rolling thunder, a wicked man like you deserves to die in misery – slowly being consumed by disease and misery.
A wicked man.
He repeated inside his weary head as he shivered and coughed his lungs out, with tears prickling in his eyes at the end of his sharp heavings. His tongue darted out to his chapped lips and he attempted a bitter smile.
A wicked man. That’s all he’d ever be.
Ever since he was a child he had been this way, really.
Born with a silver spoon in his mouth and spoiled rotten by his parents – it wasn't surprising that he had turned out to be a shitty little kid. He had become a bully and a tormentor on the first opportunity he came across and acted as the top dog as if some Higher Power had put him in that place.
(And in a way, it did... If you counted piles of old money back at the bank and the high-status that came with his heritage a Higher Power).
He had stirred up trouble for students, professors and hippogriffs alike just because he felt like it – just because he wanted to prove that the blood that ran inside his veins truly was superior. More powerful. More deserving of magic. More pure .
Just because he wanted to prove to no one in particular that he was a force to be reckoned with.
Except that he wasn't – not at all.
Draco was a fool. A wicked fool at that.
For while he acted as if he was a king walking among peasants during his time at Hogwarts, his own father was poisoning his mind and moulding him into becoming a bloody monster . And for years he truly believed that his pure bloodline gave him the moral right to wish ill and bring harm to half-bloods, muggleborns and muggles alike.
But worst of all… Because of his own foolishness Lucius had decided to turn him into a mere servant.
A servant for a blood-thirsty Dark Lord that was a hundred times more wicked than any man alive. (Which made him wonder just what he felt like when it was his time to die. Draco bloody prayed it hadn't been peaceful).
Then he had been branded like cattle with a dreadful Dark Mark that would never fade away no matter how hard he scrubbed the pale skin of his arm raw.
And as the wicked man that he was, Draco had hurt a lot of people in his short time as a Death Eater. He knew that people had died because of him – he’d carry the weight of his actions forever in his conscience, and it would haunt him until the end of times (just like now, when he was on his death-bed, struggling to pull in one breath after the other).
But perhaps the most wicked thing he’d ever do in his life would be… To die far too early, well before his time – barely even reaching the age of forty – and leaving his poor wife all alone with their two so young, so precious, sons.
No wonder why the Gods refused to let him die in peace. What kind of wicked person would just abandon their family out of nowhere?
The image of his wife manifested itself in his head as another pained groan emerged from his sore throat.
He thought about how her brilliant amber eyes adorned with golden specs glinted in delight whenever she went on to talk about a book she had just started while he smiled back at her and soaked up all the little details from the novel she liked to gush about.
How her smile would widen from ear to ear as soon as Draco held her by the waist and spun her on the floor in an impromptu waltz on lazy Sunday mornings.
How her voice would soften to a melodic cooing whenever she tucked their children for the night – a voice perfect for storytelling, lullabies, and crying Draco's name when lost in pleasure.
How her soft, petite hands fit so perfectly in his when he used them to pull her back to the bed and tuck her under his chin to a prolonged embrace early in the morning even as she protested, in between fits of laughter, that she needed to go to work.
(His silly witch! No matter how much he assured that they had enough money to last the rest of fifty lifetimes she still insisted on working. Stubborn as a Manticore, that one was. But she was still the love of his life – The witch of his dreams).
And her hair!
He thought about how much he loved that wild mane of curls with the colour of rich dark-chocolate that cascaded down her waist and saturated their pillows and sheets with the sweet smell of lavender and citrus. Oh, how he loved to bury his hands, his nose, his lips on her soft hair.
And then he thought of the life he and his wife created together.
He thought of his boys – both so young just under the age of seven – both carrying bright pools of silver eyes still full of innocence and optimism that Draco couldn’t recall ever having in his own youth.
Sweet Circe – Just thinking about those eyes made his heart tighten with emotion.
Draco still remembered just how terrified he had been back when he found out that his wife was pregnant for the first time – how terrified he had been when he found out that he was going to be a father.
He remembered how he had passed out seconds after glancing down the muggle pregnancy test showing a positive result. And when he woke up sometime later, he dissolved in a fit of tears while his wife soothed a hand down his back and reassured him that everything was going to be fine.
Not his greatest moment in life, he could admit that much, but could anyone blame him!?
What if he messed everything up? He had no bloody idea on how to properly parent a child!
What if he ended up being such a shite of a father that his child ended up hating him for it? The Gods knew just how much he resented Lucius for the piss poor job he had done!
And what if the wicked blood that ran in his veins seeped out into his child and made them as evil as he was?
The mere thought of another young Malfoy heir roaming the Hogwarts Halls, spewing out hate-speech and tormenting other students over social or blood status made him sick in his stomach. (Well… sicker , anyway. He really did want to throw up, but oh how undignified it’d be for his last moments to be covered in puke!)
But his wife had been extremely patient and forgiving with him (a feat that he would eternally admire – he couldn’t even fathom trying to work with someone as dramatic and bullish as he was).
And she had tears in her eyes back then as well and her own set of doubts about her abilities to be a mother, but her smile had been the most brilliant, most enthralling thing he had ever laid his eyes upon.
His wife had been right beside him when he started to pick up every single parenting book he came across in the bookshops.
She had grasped his hand tightly in every healer’s appointment, when they got to see their little baby growing inside her abdomen. She held his hands when they received a very thorough lecture about parenting from the elder Weasley couple (which was actually quite enlightening and helpful. Who’d guess that having seven children would make a pair so wise?).
And then when their firstborn finally arrived – all red and clammy, dissolving in a fit of wails that pierced right through his eardrums – Draco fell in love with him instantly.
He felt quite foolish for ever imagining that one there would be even a molecule of malice inside his tiny body.
By the time his wife announced her second pregnancy, he was much more prepared (but no less nervous). He had already learned how to change dirty nappies and how to pat a child on his back to make him burp after feeding. He had learned how to make funny voices for storytelling and how to soothe down a baby when he was teething.
But most importantly, he had learned that he was, in fact, capable of loving someone so much, he’d gladly sacrifice his own life to save his own family, if necessary.
Which is what led him to be bed-ridden in the first bloody place.
In the middle of the coldest November day, his boys – being young and inexperienced, of course – decided that it’d be wise to wander too close to a river that neared the Malfoy’s property, when the entire family was out on a quick stroll through the woods.
He and their mother were there, watching the two energetic kids playing tag with the family dog while the adults enjoyed the fresh air. They had only taken off their eyes from the kids for less than a minute – just enough for him to give a quick peck to her lips and whisper something saucy and entirely unimportant at the time – when disaster struck: They heard a sharp, frightened cry coming from his oldest child and when Draco looked over, his younger brother was getting pulled down by the river.
At that moment, Draco was sure his heart had stopped in its place.
Faster than lighting, he hauled himself over the freezing cold waters without a second thought, feeling the sharp sensation of a thousand knives digging through his skin as he swam through the waters to get to the kid before he could get dragged away.
He was quick to cradle him to his chest and return to land, casting as many warming charms as humanly possible while his wife hugged them both with relieved gasps and tears, begging them to just go back home and rest before they got sick.
By nothing short of a miracle, his son was completely fine after he got out of the water (if only a little spooked). However, when it came to his own health, Draco hadn’t been as lucky.
Now, because of the freezing waters, he was dying.
Hence why he was now musing about his impending death and the life he lived until then.
Merlin! He couldn’t begin to imagine how much he would miss his family when he was descending down to the reign of Hades.
As if summoned by his fears, another fit of coughing racked through his throat and he convulsed in a helpless wail. No, the universe couldn’t let him forget that he was a dying man, not even for a second.
His chest ached and his limbs shivered from the cold as melancholy and despair took a hold of his heart. Suddenly – either by the sheer force of nature, or by spite of destiny – the storm managed to burst the glass windows open with a terrible growl coming from the winds along with the cackling of a murder of crows invading his room.
A bad omen, if he ever saw one.
Now, Draco was never much of a religious man. He had come across, lived through, and even participated in too much cruelty in his short lifetime on Earth to believe some benevolent, all-powerful and all-knowing creature watched over him.
But at that moment, he cared little about his past doubts. He just prayed for someone – anyone – To listen to his last pleas.
Gods, please! Just let him live another day! Please don't make him leave his wife just yet! His children! They were so young! How would their mother explain to them what happened to him?
“Daddy?” An angelic voice called to him, barely above a whisper, from the creaking door that was slightly ajar. Big grey eyes looked up to him as the sound of pitter patter echoed in the room as he ran to where his father was laying. “Are you wakey?”
He forced one of his eyes open and shifted uncomfortably on his large bed – the silk sheets had grown damp with all the buckets of sweat he had produced over hours and hours of high fever that never seemed to fully break. The window now hanging open allowed the cold water of the storm to invade his room and bring the temperature down even further, making Draco try his best to wrap himself around the sheet to stop his teeth from clattering.
This wasn’t a place for his youngest son to be.
“Antares, buddy,” he croaked out after clearing his throat. It wouldn’t be wise for him to get too close, or else he ran the risk of also catching this deadly malady. And yet, even after warning to stay away, the four-year old still clambered over the bed. “What are you doing here?”
“I want to play,” Antares pouted, kicking the air with his little legs. “But mumma said I can’t! It’s raining! Can you make the sky stop crying? And can you play with me?”
His heart tightened with the innocence of the kid – would there ever be anyone else in the world that whole-heartedly believed that he had enough power to control the weather? Piffle! If he did, he wouldn’t have ended up on the brink of death.
“Sorry kiddo,” he tangled a hand on his curly blond hair, with the corner of his lips tugging into a fond smile. “Daddy can’t play. And I can’t make the rain go away – I’m sick.”
“Momma said you caught the sniffles.”
“Yeah, I did.”
“But you play with me when you get better, right Daddy?”
He felt his eyes prickling as he watched his son looking up to him so expectantly. Merlin – he wanted so badly to say yes. He wanted to play with his son, even for one last time. But his legs felt heavy and boneless and he couldn’t even gather enough strength to even sit up in his bloody bed!
He was dying. And his son was right there, begging him to stay.
How many hours did he even have left anyway? Would he be able to make it through the night? Would the Gods give him a chance to kiss his boys and his wife goodnight one last time?
Or were they going to deem Draco unworthy of this last wish? Damn them if they do! He’d be willing to sacrifice his own soul away to any devils listening just so that he could have a little more time with his family before his terrible death!
"Ares…” he started in a heavy voice. His words struggled to surface both because of his sore throat and because of the meaning behind them. “Be happy, okay? Make sure you and Scorpius take care of mommy for me, okay? Promise me," Draco lifted his gaze to meet his eyes, but his son seemed more interested in a crow that had landed on the windowsill (probably a sign from the Gods, seeking to remind him of his fate).
“Daddy, look! Can we have a pet bird?!”
Blessed be the innocence of children… And their short attention spans.
Maybe it was for the best that his youngest wasn't too focused on his withering father anyway.
He opened his mouth to respond, but someone else shouted out his name first. “Antares Crius Malfoy!” A voice full of warmth and life echoed from the other side of the room. A voice that belonged to the woman that had stolen his heart and his breath away everytime she stepped inside the room. “Didn’t I just say not to disturb your father? He needs to sleep to get better!”
She looked like a valkyrie, sauntering in the room wearing only a light-blue robes with her hair tied up into a bun that Draco wasn’t entirely a fan of (how could he play with her curls one last time in his life when they weren’t freely available to him?).
With a quick stomp, she shooed the black bird away from the window (ignoring their child’s pleas to keep it as a pet), right before she promptly closed and locked the blasted thing, making the entire space even warmer by reinforcing the warming charms she had cast earlier. Then, she placed a tray of a warm cuppa next to him, allowing the aroma of the fresh ginger to clean up his clogged sinuses.
“Sorry mummy! I just wanted to play with daddy!”
“I know, baby – You’ll play with him soon, okay?” She smiled as she kissed the top of his blond head. “Now, why don’t you go play with Scorpius for a bit? He’s dying to show you his new toy truck!”
“Okay!” He grinned excitedly, hurrying away to wherever his older brother was just so that he could carry on playing on a rainy day.
Meanwhile, Draco stood gaping at his wife while she looked back at him and smiled – looking brighter and more beautiful than the sun itself. “Hermione –” he coughed out her name. One hand extended a little upwards with the rest of the strength he still had last in his bones. He needed to touch her – Even if for one last time. “Hermione, my love.”
“Oh dear, you must be truly feeling poorly,” she exclaimed. “You only call me Hermione when you want to flirt or when you’re upset,” she knelt next to him on the bed. Pulling out her wand, she scanned for his temperature, and scrunched up her nose a bit, but didn’t comment on the results. “How are you feeling?”
“Like shite,” he moaned, mixed with a pained groan as he slowly sat up on the bed to drink his tea. His head felt as if it weighed a ton as he struggled to battle against gravity and ultimately, he gave up after only a couple of sips. “I'm dying, Hermione.”
“Are you now?” She hummed with a raised brow and a teasing smile. “Well, at least you don’t have a fever anymore – and you look a bit more rested. Do you have a headache? I brought some aspirin if you want, along with some chicken soup.”
Draco didn’t dare to feel hopeful by her observation. He remembered his grandmother telling him about this once in his younger years, when Abraxas had suddenly perked up from his own deathly illness – he had started to eat again, and joking around looking livier than ever – but not even a day later was gone.
End-of-Life Rally, he recalled his grandmother telling him that miserable evening.
He felt her soft hand pressing on the planes of his chest, tracing down the Sectumsempra scars that travelled down to his ribs. He groaned when the thunderstorm outside roared alive once again, making his ears ring painfully. Who would’ve guessed that dying took so bloody long?
“Listen, Hermione…” He started in a whisper, begging her to approach him so that he could bury his nose in her mane of hair one last time, tugging the elastic that held her bun together and letting it cascade down her back. “I want you to be happy, okay? Even after… After I’m gone.”
“Malfoy –”
“I know. I know. But rest assured, I won’t resent you from moving on after my death you know? The boys… They need you to be happy. I need you to be happy. I’m just sorry I can’t be with you until the end of times like I promised.”
“But Malfoy –”
“I don’t know what made you want to marry a wicked man such as me, Hermione. I didn’t deserve to even breathe the same air as you do – I’m unworthy. We both know that –”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Malfoy! I married you because –”
“I don’t want you to waste your life away because of someone like me,” he breathed out, ignoring her annoyed glare. “Promise me you’ll find someone – anyone – that will take good care of you. I just don’t want you to be all alone having to take care of Scorpius and Antares. I love them to pieces, but Merlin knows how they can be too energetic for their own good –”
“Excuse me? I don’t need anyone taking care of me!”
“ – Anyone but that slimy little weasel though. He can go kick rocks. I swear on Salazar’s beard that if I find him flirting with my fucking wife again I’ll drag him back to Hell myself.”
“Good Godric, Malfoy! He wasn’t flirting! He’s just a friend –”
“ – And fuck Potter, too! I don’t want his grubby hands all over you, even if I’m dead.”
“Malfoy!”
“I’d give you a go ahead to Blaise or Theo, if I didn’t know that they are two hedonistic prats that would definitely cheat on you in the first sodding day of marriage – So they don’t fucking deserve you either... Actually, you know what? No one fucking deserves you. So don’t you dare move on. You’re mine, and I’ll haunt you for all eternity if you dare to replace me with a fucki –”
“Draco!” She shouted suddenly, lunging forward to capture his lips in a vigorous kiss that definitely awoke his weary body in a way that he never felt before. In a moment, he was pulling his wife into their bed, and rolling her over so that he hovered above her with her pinned on the mattress with his hands while he attacked her neck with his teeth and tongue.
(Did an End-of-Life Rally entail horniness? Because he was definitely up to one last go before his untimely demise).
“Listen to me, you drama queen ,” she huffed as she wrapped her legs around his waist and looked him in the eyes. “You’re not dying.”
“But –”
“You just have a common cold!” She interrupted him this time, pinching the skin of his naked arse and making him yelp in surprise. “You aren’t going to be dying anytime soon! Also, I love you because you are a wonderful man that has grown quite a lot since we were kids and you are an incredible father and husband! And I don’t want to be married to anyone else either, you jealous fool!”
He blinked, in loss of words and silence reigned in the room.
The storm outside seemed to finally go away as the clouds dissipated and soft sunlight seeped through the windows – no doubt the two little terrors that he called sons would come barreling down the hallways to beg him to take him out on a quick broom ride, but he still had a good ten to fifteen minutes of peace with his wife before they did that.
Not nearly enough time for him to do what he actually wanted, but just enough for him to capture her lips again and sink into the bed in a fit of relieved laughter. “So…” He smiled, into her skin, pawing at her robes to show her collarbones. “You said you love me?”
“I married you!” She laughed, rolling her eyes. “And I had two kids with you. What do you think?”
“I think that I feel better already!”