A/N: Another story finished! Thanks to all those who stuck with me until the very end. Enjoy, and if i may be so bold, my other WIP chapter fic: "To See a Thestral" is severely lacking in hits and reviews, so if you like my writing, please go read/review there as well! Thanks again, and see ya next fic!
Running as if, oddly enough, for his life, Scorpius knew it would take days before he'd reach Hogwarts. Not to mention when he arrived, there's be thirty Aurors waiting to pounce on him. But they all wanted him dead, and that was the entire reason he was going back. To be with Castora again. If he could not be with her in life, then maybe he could be with her in death.
He was almost at the border of Wales, where the wide but shallow, fast-moving river separated Wales from England. The light was growing dimmer as twilight set across the land, but Scorpius ran. Darkness wouldn't stop him from accomplishing his final mission in life. Had the grief of what he'd done to her cousin driven her to madness? If so, that would make him responsible for his own wife's death. He was never worthy of being her husband. He wasn't worthy of living anymore.
His breath was short, shallow, and panting as he finally caught sight of the river. Once down the bank, across the river, he would be back at Hogwarts by Saturday evening. He just needed to stay out of the sight of Aurors.
The river bank was steep, and he had to inch his way down the side. But he lost his footing after hearing a loud 'bang' and tumbled all the way down the bank and fell right at the river shore. Looking up into the sky above his head, he could see red sparks light up the plain. Aurors. They'd sensed he was here and were coming for him. They couldn't have been more than ten minutes away from where he was.
"Shit," Scorpius muttered. Then he screamed. "SHIT!" Was the entire world against him now, as punishment for upsetting the balance of society by falling in love? Was he not even allowed to die beside Castora in a final act of love? Shaking, Scorpius was blinded by the tears in his eyes. He could barely see shapes, and everything was getting hazier as the sky grew darker purple.
Scorpius looked at his feet, being licked by the very edge of the water. He looked across the river. He saw the form of someone standing above the bank, but couldn't make out anything else about the person.
'Well," Scorpius muttered to himself. "If I cannot make it home, then I'll be brief," he said. He took out his wand, and got to his knees, pressing the wand against his stomach. Should he use the allegedly painless Killing Curse? No, he decided in a split second. He deserved to suffer his last few minutes of life. Then maybe, for the first time in his life by someone other than Castora Dursley-Malfoy, he would be taken seriously for his own thoughts. No one had ever cared to know his opinion before her. His father acted like he knew what was best for his son, his friends always managed to talk him into or out of things with a few well-chosen words. Well, this was it. His first, and final, opinion that was completely his own.
Scorpius looked up through his tears one last time. The figure on the other bank seemed to be rushing towards him now.
"SCORPIUS!!"
"Sectumsempra!"
Castora could hear the loud explosion and red sparks of an Auror's signal to another in the distance. The red light illuminated the entire valley in red, as it was getting dark out. Castora had made it, at least. She was at the Welsh river. After a full day and night, she was finally here. Castora took out her wand and began walking towards the bank that led down to the narrow shore lining the river. Well, if the Aurors were closing in on her (and Professor Longbottom had surely told them about her using the Imperius Curse on him by now) she would have to make quick work of it.
"Shit….SHIT!" cried a sudden…and all too familiar voice. Castora couldn't have been hearing properly. The voice…if she didn't know better, that was Scorpius' own voice! She ran up to the edge of the river bank and stood, looking down the steep edge at a young blonde boy, on his knees, shaking uncontrollably.
"No," she whispered. "Impossible…it's can't be," she said, just standing and staring at her husband. How could he possibly be alive? Castora, in shock, just stood on the river bank for a few seconds. Scorpius looked to be in terrible emotional pain. Had he…had he heard about her faking her death? Or did he just hear that she'd drowned? Castora finally registered that he was planning to come back to Hogwarts to throw himself in the Black Lake after her. Knowing this wasn't good, Castora began quickly running down the bank in an effort to make it quickly to Scorpius as he stood tall on his knees and pressed his wand to his chest.
He was going to do it right here. Castora couldn't find her voice as she desperately tried to run faster. She finally found the effort to half-scream, half-breathe out a warning.
"SCORPIUS!"
"Sectumsempra!"
Castora fell into the river just as she heard Scorpius holler the curse. Without bothering to think rationally until she got to the other side, Castora ran, waste-deep, through the water, struggling to get to the other side. The water was freezing, and her lower body numbed after a moment.
Finally, Castora rolled herself out of the river, to find Scorpius lying on his back, blood gushing from his body and flowing in a skinny little stream into the bigger river. He was breathing shallowly and quickly, as if suddenly regretting his decision. Castora, her lower body still numb, crawled with her arms to his side, and scooped him into her grip.
"C….Castora?" Scorpius whispered. "Am I in heaven already?"
Castora shook her head. "No. You're still alive, and so am I. Please stay with me. You'll be okay," she promised, taking off her outer coat and pressing it over his terrible wound.
"Won't do any good…." Scorpius said. "But…you're dead."
Castora took Scorpius' ice-cold hand in hers and shook her head, tears coming to her eyes. "That was just a story I made up so I could escape and come to you. Now I'm wanted for using the Imperius Curse on Professor Longbottom so he'd help me."
Scorpius shook harder. Castora looked at the sky. More red sparks. The Aurors were coming closer.
"Castora….I love you," Scorpius muttered. "And I'm sorry…"
"Shut up," Castora hissed. "Don't give up. You need to try and stay with me…please?"
"But what about the Aurors? We're both criminals," Scorpius said, every word becoming more painful to say.
"We'll find a way to run away, start our own life. Maybe my father will let us live with him in the Muggle world. But…if we have to, we'll share a cell in Azkaban. Because it'll make a life sentence worthwhile if you're there with me."
Scorpius smiled. "Castora, I don't deserve to keep you."
Castora shook her head. "Don't tell yourself that. It's both of us. Neither of us belonged in our worlds. Not when we have our own waiting for us…somewhere…"
Scorpius used his last bit of strength to lift his cold, delicate hand and touch Castora's cheek. Castora put her still warm hand over his hand. "You're so cold!" she exclaimed.
"And you're so warm…" he muttered in response.
Scorpius took one last deep breath, the smile still on his face. Suddenly, she stopped shaking. He became colder. His breathing stopped, and his eyes closed. His hand dropped from Castora's cheek and landed at his side. Scorpius Malfoy, the last heir to the House of Black and the House of Malfoy, was dead.
Yet, Castora didn't cry. Her eyes were dry from all the crying she'd done over the past five days. She ran her hand along her dear husband's eyebrow, studying how handsome he looked, how peaceful he seemed, in death. Although she didn't visibly cry, Castora was no longer sane. One couldn't see it, but her heart was now hard. She was a madwoman cuddling her dead spouse in her arms.
"Shh, Scorpius, good idea," Castora muttered with a heightened voice, looking into the sky. Along the horizon, she could she Auror broom flying towards her. "You go on ahead. I'll be right there." Her eyes were wide, her pupils dilated.
She leaned down and gave Scorpius one last kiss, a long kiss, passionate as any other she had shared with him. Her lips remained locked on his for a full minute. The hums of the Auror brooms became audible as they moved in closer. She had only seconds left at the most.
"Scorpius, we're almost there," she muttered, standing up on her knees and taking his wand from his hand. Castora smiled. She was almost there. At last. Castora put Scorpius' wand in her ear.
"Avada Kedavra!"
As the Blood War generation grew to adulthood, no story was more widely told as an example then the story of the Slytherin and the Gryffindor who'd died for each other, their bodies found slumped over each other's. How if they'd waited just five minutes longer, they'd have been a happy-loving couple celebrating their fifteenth anniversary this year. Some of the Aurors said to this very day that they found both bodies smiling, but that was just a rumor.
Draco Malfoy, both heartbroken and ashamed, left England soon after his son's death. The last anyone had seen of him, he was boarding a ferry that would take him across the English channel to France.
Dudley Dursley, being a Muggle, mourned with his family as all Muggles did.
Professor Longbottom was asked to testify several times in front of the Wizengamot as a witness to crimes commited that led to the deaths and the continuing of the Blood Wars. However, the memories proved much too painful for him to relive, and he eventually just went back to his first love: teaching Herbology, begging the courts and media to leave him alone. He named his first and only child with his wife, a daughter, Castora Scorpia.
Minerva McGonagall retired from her post as Headmistress at the end of the school year following the deaths, and she died two years later of natural causes and old age, but not before declaring that the four Houses of Hogwarts be permanently disbanded, forming one united Hogwarts, just with four separate dormitories.
Kingsley Shacklebolt, determined to use the tragedies as an example to prevent future Blood Wars, insisted that portraits of Castora and Scorpius hung in the Hall of the Honored, beside the cluster of portraits labeled "The Marauders." No matter what he did, however, the guilt of having been blind for so long followed him for the rest of his life.
Duncan Finnegan went on to become a news reporter for the Ministry of Magic and married Lucy Weasley, daughter of Rose's uncle Percy Weasley. He has no children to date.
Lily Luna Potter never forgave herself for spitefully dispensing the information that led Castora to kill herself, but she did move on with her life, going on to marry a Muggle and having two sons, Albus Severus II and James III, the former being magical and the latter being a Muggle.
Rose Weasley's guilt, however, took over her life for quite few years, knowing that she'd played a major role in both her friend's deaths and the preventability of them. After graduating Hogwarts, she moved into her own apartment in the Muggle world.
Brady O'Toole insisted on moving in right across the hall from her, to protect her and to make sure she didn't worry herself into illness. After four years, they moved in together. After four more years, they married. The wedding made headlines all over the Wizarding world. Professor Longbottom insisted he perform the ceremony himself. Rose and Brady are just now expecting their first child, seven years after their marriage.
In the Wizarding History books, every single edition of every single book, the chapter that covers the Blood Wars opens with this line…
"Never was a story of more woe…"