The Echoes Of Yesterday

The Echoes Of Yesterday…by Samayel

Chapter 12: Ron Gets An Earful

What a perfect storm of a week it had been so far. Despite John Prewett’s best efforts, Harry still woke to vague memories of his Draco, as he looked twenty years ago, calling out Harry’s name in the mist of dreams. With whiskey out of the mix, Harry had been vaguely tense, but at least the potions did away with the unpleasantness of withdrawal. His sleep was sound enough, but each morning, as the potion faded, flickering memories and wishes took over, fickle and cruel, making Harry’s mornings a time he dreaded.

He’d invited Ron over early this morning, expecting shock and surprise when he announced the parts of his past he’d long concealed. Instead, Ron had calmly sipped his tea, nodded his head, and answered Harry soberly.

“’Bout time, mate. I wondered if you’d ever come clean about it.”

Harry’s reaction had been less than calm. “What!? You knew? Are you kidding me? I kept this to myself for twenty years…and you knew?”

“What?” Ron shrugged. “We’ve been best mates since we were eleven. You stood up as the best man at my wedding. You think I was blind? I knew you and Malfoy played about on the side years ago. You were keeping mum about it, so I kept mum. I figured the wee shit would wind up going his own way eventually…and he did. I hated the bastard for hurting you that way, but you didn’t say a word and got on with your life, so I kept it shut. No one needed to know your private business, and they’d have needed more than Veritaserum to make me say anything that would hurt you. If it hadn’t been for you, Hermione and I would be dead in the basement of Riddle Manor, not married with five kids. Just glad you’re getting this off your chest, mate. No one should carry all that around alone. I just figured it was up to you to decide if and when you were ready.”

“Bloody hell!”

“Oy! Don’t act all surprised on me, Harry. I’ve only been kicking your arse at chess for what…two decades? I’m not all that thick. I figured there might be a chat like this coming after the Malfoy brat showed up. You looked like you’d seen a ghost, mate. You seem like you‘re holding up alright now though. The only reason I didn‘t tell Hermione years ago is because she‘d have been breathing down your neck with questions a minute later.”

Harry gathered his shattered train of thought at the mention of Draco as a brat. Having gotten to know the lad at least a little, Harry couldn’t quite bring himself to think of the boy in derogatory terms anymore.

“Okay, okay…I’m fine…or better anyway. But about young Malfoy…he’s…he’s alright. Not really all that much like his father…except for the sharp tongue…and he’s working on that. Give him a break, Ron. Let him prove himself one way or the other, but at least find out who he is before you dismiss him entirely as a clone of his grandfather. I can tell you think I was daft for being with his father at all, back then, but what you can’t know is what Draco was really like, under the surface.”

“I don’t have to, mate. ON the surface, he cracked the wards and let a pack of bloody handed psychopaths into the school. If it hadn’t been for the potion you left behind, a lot of people would have been killed. You’re the one who saved the day on that one. That portrait in the office, Dumbledore’s, that’s a tribute to Malfoy ingenuity. One dead headmaster. Not to mention the scars on Bill’s face. Good thing Fleur thinks it makes him look like a fierce war hero, or he’d resent it a lot more than he does. He’s been milking those scars for sex for two decades! That’s why they have nine kids! Point is, I haven‘t forgotten anything…but you might have.”

“No. No. Don’t even go there. I forgot nothing, but I know things you couldn’t have guessed at, and I admit I never shared them. Not until now! Draco deserves this being said aloud. The only thing he ever cared about was keeping his parents alive. Voldemort made a sick prank out of keeping his parents hostage for Lucius’ fuck ups. Draco got Marked and handed a suicide mission because Voldemort expected to kill his parents anyway. As much of a shit as Lucius was, Draco tried to save them. All he ever wanted was to have his family back, and he sacrificed his life and his reputation to get them. He wound up watching them die anyway. That’s why he came to our side. He never asked for forgiveness, because even he didn’t think he deserved it. He just came, did what was asked of him by the Order, and waited for the world to end.

I got him off the hook with the Ministry. Not because we were fucking, but because there was nothing they could do to him that was worse than what he’d been through. He left me because he was still obsessed with fulfilling his duty to his family, and the only way to do that was to give up me and find a wife from a pureblood family that would still marry a Malfoy. I knew him like no one else ever did! What he thought, what he felt, what he believed. You never, never knew him like I did. He was almost suicidal with guilt when he got to Grimmauld Place! He couldn’t sleep for the first week he was there. He woke up crying every night. I got Tonks to smuggle me in a nightlight without telling anyone, because he wasn’t allowed a wand and he was scared of the dark! Believe me when I fucking tell you that you never knew the person I was in love with!”

Ron was stifling outrage, purpling and biting his lip while he waited for Harry to stop.

“Love? We were barely old enough to shave! You shagged him…fine…you liked him…fine…but don’t call it love! He wasn’t capable of love! Don’t even dishonor what other people have by comparing him to it. Love is sticking with someone through war, five kids, three jobs and nearly twenty years! You fucking Malfoy’s lily-white arse wasn’t love, or he’d still be with you! You’ve carried a torch for him so long you’re delusional! And let’s not confuse the issue…I’ve nothing against you left-footing it! I’ve wished for years that you’d take up with someone decent and have a good life together, and I don’t give a good damn if they’re a bloke or not, but Malfoy was bad news from day one, and so is his sneaky little spawn!”

Harry’s dander was finally up, and he rose, clutching the table for support, largely to keep his hands from going for his wand. He leaned carefully over the table and stared penetratingly into Ron’s eyes.

“How…fucking…dare…you. Don’t you ever…ever fucking dictate to me what love is or isn’t. Here’s a tidbit they never told you from the hospital, after Voldemort nearly fucking did me in, topping himself off in the process! The only reason I lived…the only reason you can disrespect me to my face instead of laying flowers on my grave…is because all I thought of when that spell hit was Draco. I loved him. Absolutely. Completely. Voldemort’s spell rebounded because all I had in my heart was love. My love for him won the war, and no one…no one ever knew. You…all of you…owe your lives to Draco Malfoy. Whatever you think of him, don’t ever imply that what I felt wasn’t real, because I know it like no one else alive today ever could. Love is why I’m alive. Maybe it didn’t work, maybe it wasn’t enough, and I’ll never be able to do more than guess at Draco’s motivations for leaving, but I know what we had was good, and right, and fucking decent. You can have your opinion…but you can keep it to your bloody self, and you‘ll still be wrong!”

Both men were flaring nostrils, red-faced, and pinched with anger. Silence hung over them while Ron chewed his lip, sneering and grinding his teeth. Then Ron took a deep breath, exhaling loudly, and spoke with determined calm.

“Alright. I accept…that what you felt was real. You’re right. I didn’t know that bit. You never told us. We figured the curse rebounded because of your mum again. Boy Who Lived and all that. How’d you find all that out, anyway?”

Harry slipped back down into his seat, not quite mollified and still bristling with fury.

“While I was out, they ran tests, spells for memory and consciousness, trying to figure out if I’d ever wake up. They found the memories of those last seconds. What was in my heart…what was in my mind when the curse hit me. They told me after I woke up. It was too personal…then. Even more so after Draco left me. He wanted me to see him on the side from his wife, like a dirty little secret we’d keep to ourselves. I couldn’t believe it. That he’d even ask that of me. They told me he used to sneak into the hospital ward to be with me while I was out of it and still healing. Every night. He left at dawn so others wouldn’t find him there. After all that, he still had the nerve to ask me if I’d accept sneaking around on the side. I went ballistic, Ron. I think I chased him off. That’s when he left. With me cursing him up one side and down the other. That’s why he left. That was the last I saw of him until he…until he died.”

Ron let out a long puff of breath again. “Fuck all. I’ve hated him for years, Harry. I can forgive a lot, but the way he walked off on you and never looked back was the last straw. Not Bill…not Dumbledore…you. I’ve only ever had one best mate, and he punched a lorry sized hole in your heart. Forgive me if I can’t just let that go. I remember when he passed on. I wasn’t exactly dancing in the streets, but I really thought you’d get on with your life, and I can tell you honestly that I wasn‘t a bit sorry for him. Sorry for the lass that married him though. Now their kid is a thorn in all our sides. I don’t like the look of him, Harry. Something about the eyes…like he’s hiding something…always thinking. I don’t like it one bit. We’ve got another dragon by the tail with that one, no mistake, and you can quote me on it later when things hit the fan.”

“We’ll see about that, won’t we? Until then, I’m asking this of you, as a teacher, and as a mate. Give the boy the benefit of the doubt. Not for Draco, not for me, but for him. He’s his own person, and he deserves the same chance Dumbledore would have given any of us. Try being decent to him and see how that works, or if you can’t do anything else, at least try to keep that look off your face when you see him. You make me think of Snape and me twenty years ago. It isn’t right and you know it.”

Ron threw up his hands. “Fine! Alright! I’ll pretend he’s the salt of the earth until he proves otherwise. Good enough? I may not believe it, but I can fake it if I have to.”

“Good enough. There are other things to talk about, and I hope you can be fair while you listen, mate…because there isn’t much of it that’s pretty.”

“Shite! It gets worse than what we covered so far? What…did ya blow the whole of Slytherin in a chorus girl outfit, humming old show tunes all the while?”

“No, god damn it!”

“Just kidding, mate! I was trying to lighten the mood a little! Easy there. Go on then. Might as well have it all…in for a Knut, in for a Galleon.”

Harry rubbed his temples slowly. This was a bit rougher than things had been with Hermione, primarily because Ron really was his best mate. Twenty-five years of joking around and backing each other up when needed still hadn’t prepared them for a conversation like this one. Hell…what could?

“I’ll just bloody say it then. When Draco died, I slipped off my trolley. Not a little, Ron…a lot. I hunted and killed the people that murdered him, along with Theo Nott, who gave the bastards Draco’s location. They covered it up and threw me off the Auror force, and I took up drinking heavily about then. I’ve…I had it under control…mostly…except at nights, but Prewett tells me my liver was on its last legs. He’s brewing cures for it. It’ll take a few months, but they can fix it. That’s why I’m telling you all this. You and Hermione. Already spoke to her. No one else needs to know this stuff. Prewett said I needed to get this out of my system, and to do that, I need to talk about it, tell the truth, and tell it to the people that deserve to hear it. That’s what’s been going on. The last thing I need is extra stress over a student whose father I fucking killed for. For the love of Merlin…just go easy on me, by going easier on him. I just want to get through this year with my sanity intact, alright?”

Ron was dumbstruck, and fiddled with his tea while trying to get his voice back. It came hushed and low, while Ron pulled his hand across his chin, collecting himself.

“Jaysus. That was you. I remember hearing about those deaths. I should have guessed it. I dismissed them completely. Couple a dead Death Eaters, right? No loss. I didn’t know that was you. At least the Ministry did right by you…for once. Shite. You’ve got my word, mate. We’ll give the kid a chance, Malfoy or no. Whatever makes this easier for you is good by me. Just keep your eyes open and your wand handy. That’s all I ask.”

“Thank you.” Harry let a sigh of relief slip out, sipping his cooling tea at last. “That’s more than enough, mate. More than enough.”


TBC!!!