Chapters 201-210

So Long, Thanks to the Fish

Draco scattered a few flakes of fish food over the water in a corner of the fish tank. Predictably, the lobalug removed itself from its lair, drifted towards the surface and began gobbling up the flakes.

Quickly Draco reached into the water at the other end and stuck his hand inside the little gate, all the while keeping his wand trained on the lobalug with the other hand.

One wrong move, and you’re filet, he thought full of smug satisfaction. There! Something. It felt like a pebble. A lonely little stone on the gravelly floor of the aquarium. With a sharp, jagged edge and way too smooth for an ordinary rock. His fingers curled around it.

He’d almost pulled his hand out of the water again, when the lobalug noticed that there was something amiss in his estuary.

From one second to the next, Draco felt as if his hand was enveloped by fire. Screaming, he jerked back. But his arm wouldn’t move. His hand felt like so much lead. Searing, scorching, liquid lead flowing through his veins, burning its way up to his shoulder and his heart. He stumbled, helplessly clutching at his left arm. A choked cry constricted his throat.

I should have gotten that expert after all, he thought before he blindly lurched backwards, his arm pulling the fish tank over the edge of the shelf.

Water splashed over his body, drenching his robes, but it didn’t put out the fire that was screaming through his arm. Flailing in agony, he fell over backwards and hit the floor with a thump. Instinctively, his right hand curled around the part of his body that hurt most—his left arm and left hand, which was still curled around a small black pebble.

Just a second later, the fish tank crashed down on Draco’s chest.

oooOooo

‘That’s the most stupid way to die I’ve ever heard of,’ Hermione sobbed. She dashed at her eyes with the heels of her hands, but the tears just kept streaming down her cheeks. ‘That bloody idiot! He never listened in Care of Magical Creatures! Whatever possessed him? He should have called for help! He should have simply pushed the bloody tank over and emptied it, lobalug and all! Why did he have to go and stick his stupid hand into that fish tank? Why? Why?’

With every question, her voice grew shriller, until her last ‘Why?’ turned into a helpless, wordless wail, with her face buried at Severus’ chest.

Severus held her, staring dumbly at the fire that was still tinged with the green echo of a Floo call. Draco, dead?

He hugged his wife, held her as she clutched him and cried for a young man she’d barely come to call friend, while he…Severus remembered Draco—as a—well—a bright little—brat.

Yes, Draco had been a brat. But he’d also been a child, and one of his own, one of his little snakes. As such, Severus had known him, had known him well, his talents and weaknesses, his dreams. Both the good ones and the bad ones.

Draco’s worst nightmare had been a door. Just a door. A heavy, closed door. In Malfoy Manor, down in the cellar. The room his father disappeared into with his mother when she’d displeased her husband. A room Draco never entered.

Severus had known when the boy fell in love for the first time. A little Hufflepuff girl of all people had caught the boy’s fancy. Draco hadn’t dared to breathe a word—to anyone. In the following months his behaviour, especially towards girls, and most especially towards Gryffindor girls, had been more atrocious than ever.

But Severus had noticed. And for the first time he’d entertained any hope that Draco might turn out more than merely his father’s son.

During the last year, Severus had come to believe that this hope may have been justified, that Dumbledore had been right after all, that maybe the nightmare of the Astronomy Tower had been worthwhile, that this one soul had been saved.

Separated from his parents—most of all from the influence of his father—Draco had suddenly begun to grow up. All on his own.

Severus closed his eyes. The soft weeping of his wife echoed in his ears.

Draco. He’d come to like the vision of the man that had started to shine up within the boy. Who would have been a friend, had he lived. Who’d shown the promise to grow up a calm, intelligent man, with a wry humour and a sense of self-worth tempered by acknowledgement of his weaknesses.

Draco. The damn idiot who’d still been so desperate to prove himself to his friends that he’d never stopped to bloody think about what he was doing…

oooOooo

‘I am very sorry for your loss,’ Severus said slowly.

The acting Minister of Magic had asked him to meet her the day before her nephew’s funeral.

Now he stood in her office, facing a witch bitter with too much grief. Her posture was rigid, dressed in stern black robes her appearance was strangely similar to his own. For a moment the harsh lines in her face deepened, then softened again into an expression of weariness and regret.

‘Thank you,’ Andromeda said. ‘He shouldn’t have attempted to simply scoop the Stone out from behind the lobalug. Every school child knows that lobalugs are dangerous and that the XXX classification has more to do with diplomatic relations with the merpeople than with how dangerous lobalug poison really is.’

Severus sighed, but remained silent. Every school child except Draco, who’d thought that being taught by a half-giant was beneath him.

‘We’ll miss him, Teddy and I,’ Andromeda stated softly. ‘In spite of all our arguments, I did love my nephew. He would have grown up to be a fine man, I’m sure of it.’

Then she took a deep breath. ‘But I did not ask you to meet me here to accept your condolences, Severus.’