Title: Call It Courage

Disclaimer: I don’t own anything

Summary: Courage is not the absence of fear, merely the decision that something else is more important.

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Call It Courage

In Diagaon Alley, the Boy Who Lived taunts her. She clenches her hands into fists, her nails biting into the skin of her palm and she struggles to maintain her proud façade.

He taunts her son and mocks her husband and she wants nothing more than to kill him then and there.

But she says nothing. Her lips turn up into their thin smirk. A carelessly cruel comment falls from her tongue as she pulls her son from the shop.

She steps out onto the pavement of Diagaon Alley, blinking in the sunshine, and swallows back the anger that swims through her.

He calls her husband a coward, and implies that she was one for not attacking him then and there, and she walks away.

---

Her breath catches in her throat and the world spins around her. She is terrified, so terrified, and she wants nothing more than to make it all stop. She would give her life, her soul, to take back the loyalty she and her husband have sworn to this man. She would give anything he asked of her, anything at all, if it would protect her son.

But it is too late, she knows that now, and the wind that howls around them reminds her that there are some things that cannot be undone.

He is angry, and her son will pay.

The two walk away, the boy proud, the mother scared. She reaches for his hand, but he does not take it, and she knows he never will again. He has outgrown the age when a simple reassurance from her would set all the problems in the world right.

He has outgrown her.

But she has not outgrown her need to protect him, and she will take whatever risk is necessary to make sure that he lives to see the end of the year.

No matter what it costs her.

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She comes back to her home, to the great Malfoy Manor, and sinks into one of the chairs. She leans forward, resting her head in her hands, and tries her very best just to breathe.

But it is so hard and she is so tired.

She is tired of fighting. She is tired of living with the world hating her, she is tired of constantly fearing for her son. She is tired of waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat and having to get out of bed and stand in the doorway to her son’s room just to reassure herself that he is still there. She is tired of watching her dreams, her family, her everything slip away from her.

And she is tired of being powerless to stop it.

She is just so…

Tired.

But she is not weak.

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In Diagaon Alley, the Boy Who Lived taunts her.

Perhaps she is a coward. She does not question that possibility, because she knows it may very well be true. Perhaps she has fallen too deep into something that she never truly understood, perhaps she is not cut out to follow her Dark Lord. Perhaps her fear is making her weak, perhaps her love is ruining her son’s chance at fame.

She turns and glances back at the Boy Who Lived. The papers all claim that he is the Chosen One, the one who can defeat the Dark Lord. Perhaps that is true, the Dark Lord certainly seems to think so.

The entire world thinks he is so brave. The Daily Prophet is tripping over itself to fawn over him. He is facing the final battle with suchcourage and strength.

Her lips press into a thin line.

Does he even know what courage is?

He tells her, tells her son, that they are cowards, and she turns and walks away.

---

There was a time when the name Malfoy commanded respect in both circles. Her husband’s money bought her a place in the greater wizarding world, while his allegiances bought her a place in the hidden elite society of Death Eaters.

Her husband can no longer offer either of those benefits.

The name Malfoy is scorned and hated by the wizarding world, now that her husband is in Azkaban. Now that everyone knows who he is and what he believes in…

And yet, despite the fact that his loyalties are known, she is not safe among her old friends, or even her family. Her husband’s failure to complete the task laid out by the Dark Lord, his careless destruction of one of the Horcruxes, these two mistakes have cost them all.

She is alone now.

---

Well, not quite alone. There is still one man left in the world who can help her, and it is to him that she runs in terror. On the banks of the filthy river her sister tries to stop her, and with a sudden sharp movement, she brings her wand down on the other woman’s hand, the flash of red burning the skin and signaling just how far she is willing to go to protect her son.

There is nothing I wouldn’t do anymore!

He opens the door and allows her into the house. She shivers, unnaturally cold in the warmth of the room. She falls to her knees, begging for kindness from this man she considers a friend.

He tells her what she is doing is a betrayal of the Dark Lord. He tells her the Dark Lord is very angry. He implies that her son is meant to fail, meant to die.

And he tells her he will help.

Her sister creates the bond between the two, the Unbreakable Vow. For a moment, the flash of light that curls around their linked hands illuminates the room, and the sudden inexplicable wave of fear that sweeps through her leaves her trembling.

He says he will help, but can he? Or will she lose her son and her only friend this year?

He tells her this is a betrayal of the Dark Lord.

She does not care.

---

In Diagon Alley, the Boy Who Lives taunts her.

Oh, it is easy to look in from the outside and say what you would or wouldn’t have done if you were in someone else’s shoes. It is easy to say you would never be swayed by the thirst for power when you have never even tasted that power. It is easy to say that you would never trade in your life and your dignity to follow someone else’s twisted plans.

But once you are on the inside, standing in those person’s shoes, tasting that power, and following your Lord’s plans, then it takes so much more courage and so much more strength to walk away.

In Diagon Alley, the Boy Who Lived taunts her.

He calls her a coward and she walks away.