“Pansy, I’m leaving to serve the Dark Lord. Tonight.”
Those words chilled Pansy Parkinson’s bones, and she quietly sat down on the chair in front of her to steady herself.
“I’ll come with you---”
Draco immediately shook his head violently, looking into her eyes and taking a step towards her.
“No. I can’t let that happen. I’ve chosen this life for myself--- to see you perish because of it would kill me.”
“But, Draco---”
“I said no, Pansy.”
The most deadly silence imaginable followed. Pansy stayed rooted to the spot, her eyes staring into Draco’s, waiting for someone to jump out in the corner and yell, “SURPRISE!” but it didn’t happen.
“How long do you have to serve?”
Draco tried but failed to hide the grin across his face. “My lifetime.”
Pansy reached over to him and her hand slightly grazed his. He jumped back as if she was something disgusting or he had never seen before.
“What’s happened to you, Draco?”
“I’ve told you. This.” He pulled back the ripped, dirty sleeve of his grey shirt, and it showed her the Dark Mark. She gasped in spite of it.
“But . . . But I love---“
“Pansy, please don’t.” He choked on a sob despite his love for her. He had to interrupt her. It would just make this that much harder.
She reached up that same soft hand and put it to his face, leaning in closer and closer until their lips met.
After a brief kiss, Draco pushed her away and a silent tear rolled down his cheek.
“Draco, just run. Please. For our sake.” The look that penetrated his from Pansy’s eyes made his heart melt. He wanted so badly to stay with her--- but he had a job to do. A horrid one at that.
“I can’t. I won’t. I’m not a coward, Pansy.”
“Yes! Yes, you are! Don’t you see?” She was positively shrieking now. “You’re a coward, Draco Malfoy. You didn’t kill Dumbledore when asked. You ran away from Hogwarts with Snape--- a coward as well. It won’t matter that you run again. Just take me with you.”
Draco stared at her oddly, realising what she was saying, but he chose to not accept it.
“I’m . . . changing my ways. I’ve told the Dark Lord I’d be on time---“
“No, you’ve told Snape you’d be on time. You haven’t spoken with the Dark Lord, Draco. I know you haven’t. You’re not important enough.”
“He’s . . . He’s going to kill my family. I know it. The Dark Lord has more power than you could possibly imagine. Do you want that to happen?”
“At least we will have tried. At least we will have run, and that will have given us a chance. You could have taken that offer Dumbledore gave you all those years ago.”
“It was too cowardly.”
“It will be better for us to die together early, then for me to live an entire life, waiting for you to return home. Or maybe, one day I will hear that you have been murdered by one of his other Death Eaters because you didn’t complete a task. That would break my heart, Draco. I can’t live without you.”
“It won’t be like that.”
Pansy shook her head. “Draco, please.” She looked into his eyes once more, and the expression of sadness upon them was something that he could not ignore.
“Pansy, you know that I can’t! I love you, but it can’t happen.”
“See! You do love me! Why will you not stay?”
“Because you will be killed!” he suddenly outburst, breathing in deep, gasping breaths. She looked taken aback at his ferocity, and she looked away, tears suddenly forming in her eyes.
“All those times you’ve said you loved me . . . they meant nothing to you? Did I mean nothing to you, all this time? At Hogwarts? At---“
“Pansy, it’s not like that.”
“Then what is it?”
He shook his head and suppressed a laugh. He didn’t know why she wasn’t getting this! He loved her, but since he had chosen to serve the Dark Lord so he and his family wouldn’t die, he had to leave her. End of story. She was just being a persistent little bitch, like always.
“I don’t know what to tell you.” She was really starting to make him angry. He didn’t even know why he put up with her. All of those times he had told her he loved her--- they had mattered to him, but he didn’t know what to do now. He couldn’t stay with her.
“We still have one night.” Her words held so much meaning; they could do so many things; spend so much time in one night, just twelve hours. It could mean the possibility of life and death for the woman standing in front of her.
“I’m not a little girl anymore, Draco.”
“I’ve told you, I’m leaving tonight. Not tomorrow morning, Pansy.”
Silence followed.
“What are you going to do while you’re . . . serving him?”
“Murders.” He shuddered at the thought. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it.”
“That’s why I think you should stay here.”
“You know that I can’t!”
“Then you risk being murdered yourself.”
“I risk being murdered by not taking the assignments I’m given.”
“Then you shall have the strength you want by thinking of me. I don’t know you anymore . . . I don’t even know if you want to stay.”
“You know that I do. I just don’t want to run anymore. I don’t want to be a coward.” He stepped over to her and put his right hand in hers, lifting her from her seated position.
“I will come back for you, Pansy.”
Pansy closed her eyes and leaned on him to support her weight. If she didn’t, then she would have fallen to the carpeted floor in a soft heap.
“I have to go now. My first assignment waits.”
“Who is it?”
Draco looked at her unexpectedly, his eyes widening. His smirk became more pronounced. He spoke only one word:
“You.”
Tears soon replaced the hurt expression on Pansy Parkinson’s face.
“You’d kill me? Murder me for a life of servitude to the Dark Lord?” She pushed him away and went to the other room. He charged in right behind her and grabbed her arm forcefully as she cried out in pain.
“I hate you. I’ve hated you since the day we met. At that damn Wizarding School.”
“No! No, you’re lying!”
“I’m afraid not.” He pulled back his wand.
“You’re under the Imperius Curse!”
Draco shook his head violently, then fell to the floor with a clatter.
Pansy went into the corner of their kitchen and grabbed onto the wall to get as far away from him as she could. He was gasping violently. He suddenly snapped his head up and looked at her in the corner.
“Dr-Draco?” she asked fearfully, still clinging to the wall.
“Pansy.” He carefully picked himself up and went over to her.
“Is it . . .”
“It’s me. It looks as if the Dark Lord is already trying to take over me. He knows where I am.”
“Then run with me---“
“He knows where to start. He just possessed my mind; he knows what I think.”
Pansy opened her mouth to beg again, but she knew that it would be of no use.
“I need to go before his trust for me wavers.”
She blinked, and he suddenly appeared . . . odd. His breathing had changed; he looked at her with evil etched in the wrinkles of his forehead.
“Pansy.”
“Draco . . . Draco, fight it! Please, fight them! For me!”
“My assignment has been waiting.” His smirk once again filled his face, and his eyes narrowed at her, crawling along the floor to get away. Her eyes stared into his, searching for her lover.
He was no longer there.
“Draco! Draco, please! Try for me! Please . . . I love---“
But she never finished her sentence. The man in front of her raised his wand and muttered a curse. One that she had only heard of the most evil people in the world using--- one that she had only read about in books.
She knew that he could never snap out of it. He would be like this for the rest of his life; it was the only way the Dark Lord could guarantee his servitude and trust.
If she couldn’t be with her love, then life wasn’t worth living, anyway.
She beckoned the green light.
The Beckoning Light by Ron x Hermione
Chapter Notes: This was originally written as a drabble in Marie’s NEWT-level romance class, but I chose to make it into a one shot for another assignment in the class.