A/N: Well. Did you know Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince just came out? Have you read it yet? Because it's splendid, and now, your faithful author looks down at her own work using (exploiting/abusing?) the Harry Potter characters (which aren't hers- cough) and sees how empty her work seems in comparison. So, here's a (most likely) temporary ending until she can think of what to do with her life. Sigh. I wish I hadn't finished the book quite so fast. /

Did you notice my change from third to first character? Ah, well, on with the chapter. And please laugh, and don't hate if you actually really really liked this story. It's sort of a joke. Like my LIFE. /flails/

Chapter Ten: An awakening in many ways, or The End of the Story.

Draco looked down at the skull etched in to his skin. He wasn't even sure how they did it. However, did it matter? There was a skull on his forearm. A skull with a snake. He didn't even really like snakes. He didn't like anything they stood for. He didn't like Slytherin.

Okay. Now he was just being sullen, and he knew it.

Draco sighed. Life is hard. "I don't really feel up to living," the boy stated matter-of-factly to the roof. He sighed again. He glanced around the room, skipping from one piece of furniture to another. He was alone.

So he spoke to his surroundings.

"I suppose he'll make me a spy at Hogwarts? Killing, mischief. Whatever," Draco whispered. He couldn't imagine himself saying the Killing Curse to anybody; he couldn't imagine what it would feel like to spit out the words and have the malevolent energy gush out of him and at another person.

Would it tickle?

"Avada Kedavra," Draco whispered to the room. It sent chills up his spine.

Chills of excitement, perhaps, a voice asked in the back of his head. A voice that was horridly familiar. And then he remembered what his father had once said, about the Dark Lord being a mind reader.

Sleep, Malfoy, the voice commanded.

And he did.

In his dream, Draco was walking through a corridor filled with all sorts of colorful moving photos, or perhaps paintings or windows, he wasn't quite sure nor did he care. He entered in to a large room, perhaps an entrance hall, and could hear his footsteps echoing.

Draco rotated in the center of the room, peering at every wall as if looking for something. He made almost a complete turn before he stopped, and when he did stop he disregarded one of the first rules of the stage.

He broke character and peered at the audience through the fourth wall. "Ergh, how long have you lot been there?" The boy seemed peeved at the idea of an audience watching his every step. "Well, wouldn't you? And how- who is- there's a narrator?"

Draco turned around once more, looking for the source of commentary. "Of course I'm- why are you repeating everything I do," he demanded angrily. "I'm not angry, you dolt, I'm"- panicking? "I- no- I'm- fine, I'm angry." He thought for a moment. "Will you stop," he asked forcefully. "Yes I'm angry. I've just been forced in to the ranks of an army I don't think I ever really wanted to join. I wish"-

I wish I were somebody else, he wanted to say. But he didn't, because he didn't want-

"Well I suppose I might as well have said it," he huffed, scowling, "if you're going to be reading my thoughts." He stared at the audience through the invisible, fourth wall, and tried to make eye contact with the faceless lot. Which was rather hard. "You can say that twice," he muttered. He shook his head, as if to regain focus, staring in to the eyes of a person sitting in the front, looking like the director of this play. "Yes, exactly," he said, nodding. "Focus. Make me somebody else. Give me a different life. And if I wake up the same boy with the same life so be it, I'll just have a little less faith in the gods."

He wasn't sure if he was joking.

"I suppose nobody is," he replied softly. He could have sworn he heard somebody in the audience muttering softly, but he didn't care because at that moment he was waking up.

And of course he woke up in a different area than where he'd fallen asleep, but he could barely even remember where that had been. And he might have woken up a different person. He might have been another boy in another life, in a different part of the world where Voldemort had yet to reach with his power-hungry hands. Like in the South American jungle.

Or maybe he was the same boy, but with a different life than he'd thought he had. Maybe he hadn't even been slightly dead for some six or seven chapters- err, weeks- with only Harry Potter as company.

Either way, he got out of bed, and he lived without narration for the rest of his life. Or at least until his rightful author released her next book. Or another temporary author was somewhat bored.

Whichever came first.

(Exeunt DRACO MALFOY)

And…the End. Return for curtain call, and then go back to your rightful story, folks.