The Echoes Of Yesterday

The Echoes Of Yesterday…by Samayel


Chapter 25: Lamentations and Exhortations


‘That wasn’t so bad…I suppose. Not really. Considering.’

Draco Malfoy mused quietly as he headed back to his suite. Professor Weasley was alright…in a bumbling kind of way. Ham-fisted oaf. The apology had been…unpleasant, and not particularly well received. Mostly, the other students for the second seventh year class had glowered at him all the way through, still smarting from having their wands handed to them so easily by a Durmstrang student.

It must have been embarrassing for them, being defeated that easily, but at least no one was willing to try anything stupid after seeing the duel against Harry Potter. Draco had been left to his own devices, sorting paperwork on Ron Weasley’s behalf while the class was taught, and he took no real part in it, only taking notes out of a vague sense of responsibility to his own grades.

At least he’d have a grade. He was still here, for now, and Prewett had been right. Ron Weasley was hard to get along with, but not completely impossible. Draco still rankled at the implied insult of his lying about his memory capacity. It hadn’t been easily believed in Durmstrang either, but it had been seven years since someone had challenged him on terms that simple. It still chafed when someone proclaimed him a liar rather than face the truth that they were dealing with someone gifted in ways they weren’t. Arrogant pigs.

He’d dealt with incredulous or downright insulting people all of his life. From his grandparents to his teachers and classmates. Eidetic memory was an aberration…like albinism. In nature, when a creature was visibly different from the rest of its species, it frequently found itself driven away, out of a built in need to protect the rest of the population by getting rid of the one who drew too much attention and risked the notice of predators.

But nature wasn’t the same for humans, and his difference was purely internal. What then was their excuse for labeling him as weird or a liar? Some pathetic need to raise themselves up from the muck by pulling everyone else down into it? He’d never spoken of these things openly, to anyone, and there had never really been anyone to speak to about them.

Tomorrow morning, however, would be different. That morning would bring his first meeting with Master Prewett…for counseling. The very word made his flesh creep. The very notion of sharing his personal thoughts or past experiences was onerous in the extreme. The idea of doing so with a nearly complete stranger was even more so. There were things that, in all honesty, he knew set him apart from others, but wasn’t a person entitled to their privacy?

Privacy. The word conjured memories of Harry’s lecture on the subject. This wasn’t the privacy of a room or of personal boundaries of space. This was a deliberate intrusion into his thoughts and feelings. Things he had no desire to share. His grandparents would have sneered at the entire concept. Nothing in his mind was worthy of examination by another…and it was better kept to himself anyway.

Harry. He’d been calling him that…just to himself…lately. Prewett had said that Harry didn’t want company yet. No one had seen him for two days…except Prewett. It was intolerable! There were things he wanted to say, and writing a letter seemed woefully insufficient for these kinds of things.

His room was ahead, and in that still quiet he studied and wrote, always pushing to exceed any expectation that might be placed upon him. Tonight was no different. A request of the elves for dinner, quickly eaten and barely savored, and study until dusk. The calm rote of study was soothing, stripping away layers of thought that clamored to run wild. In here, adrift in text after text, drafting inch after inch of parchment, he was free. Free from the imagination that whispered promises that could never come true.

The pen was put aside when the hour grew late, and the elves had already conjured away the plate and silverware. Draco never read books more than once. He remembered them all…always. Every word he’d ever taken in was still with him, immortally etched into his mind. There was only book for which he made an exception. His book. His refuge.

It wasn’t mere words. It was a tangible feeling when he held it to him. Like a warm blanket on a cold night. Love. It echoed off the pages and through the covers and binding. Love. The only way he’d ever felt it. Real and alive and all around him while he pored page by page over words he already knew. A misty dream of another time, a story with an ending he already knew and should have been able to put down long ago…but he didn’t.

He was a freak. An accident. A terrible mistake, and the progeny of evil. That’s what he’d been told…what he’d been taught long ago. Durmstrang had borne up the opinion of his grandparents, quickly finding him unsatisfactory on some level no matter how hard he’d tried to be better…to be worthy. He’d believed them absolutely…until he found the book.

He was not an accident. His parents had loved him enough to leave him where he was safe…even while it terrified them to do so. His father had wanted a son, and loved that son in spite of everything. He was too young to remember anything of them. Just pictures and clippings from a vanished time, but he had this. This was his legacy. The truth. It hovered in the air near it, so vibrant and strong that it could be felt heart and soul.

Love was real. It existed. It wasn’t an illusion of a mistake of fancy. It could happen. He wanted it to happen. Somehow…someway. Even to someone who might not be worthy of it.

The book found its way back to his trunk, with the same hesitation he always felt when parting with it. Spells for locking and warding. Clothes gave way to pajamas. The mage-light winked out. It was time for sleep, but it didn’t come quickly or easily. There was a way to speed the transition, from restless turning to drowsy slumber, but it was something turned to in embarrassment, knowing that it was weak and shameful.

But it would have to do.

The drawstring was pulled open in silence and Draco slipped the pajama bottoms down to the middle of his calves. It didn’t take more than a second or two to reach a state of arousal, given that, at eighteen, his body responded when the wind shifted! Logically, he knew this was a pointless ritual of adolescence, and practically beneath him, but the physical need was still there. This was simply one of those things that had to be done…or sticky sheets and crusted clothing would result.

It wasn’t as if he hadn’t done this almost weekly since his second year at Durmstrang. It wasn’t a mystery as to why people did it. It felt good, particularly at the finish, but pain and pleasure were objectifications of the flesh…states of mind that people allowed to control them. It was insipid to say the least…but it did have a draw.

Draco’s mind was largely blank of traditional thoughts while his hand worked distractedly below the sheets. Most people probably would have been inundated in lusty imaginings. Classmates or coworkers, handsome or pretty passers by, lovers past or potential, but not Draco. It was just a bodily function…a necessary source of relief that triggered a predictable state of relaxation afterwards, easing the arrival of needed sleep. His mind flicked through calculations and class work, future plans and recollections of past study.

When his teeth clenched softly on his bottom lip, and his legs shuddered reflexively, and moisture trickled onto his stomach and cooled quickly in the night air, Draco clenched his eyes shut and stifled a gasp. His mouth became a pinched and bitter line while he felt the calm of post-orgasm creep over him. It came softly while he spelled the mess away wandlessly and pulled up his pajamas with businesslike detachment.

It made so little sense. Such a waste of time on an animal impulse. Unfair, that he should be ruled by impulses and needs that wasted time and distracted thought.

And unfair that he should have only a stolen kiss to remember at that last moment. Warm lips against his own, gently tugging at his with a hungry insistence that was lodged at the forefront of his memory. Closeness so intense that it made his face burn with shame. That such a small thing could make his stomach turn and flip. Make legs suddenly tremble and arms ache to reach out. To grab, to hold, to submerge himself in another and be lost in them.

Unfair. ‘It wasn’t me he wanted. And he never would. Just like everyone else.’

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The room had piled up with card and flowers and whatnot, until it barely seemed like a proper room, and more like some kind of storage for the leftovers of some grand party. Except that Harry was alone and wanted to stay that way. Prewett had insisted on letting the elves bring in the evidence of people’s concern for Harry, but the man didn’t grasp that it was all meaningless.

Their affection was built on a fiction. The person they adored wasn’t real. He didn’t exist. What had passed for that man was here in this room, surrounded by petty examples of ‘love’, living and breathing without the love he wanted. The love he’d killed for, violated even his own ethics to avenge, and finally, after all these years, mauled a student over. Not just any student…but Draco’s own son.

Harry turned and tossed his second evening through. Prewett had badgered him rather gently to talk today, but he’d stubbornly refused. So many years, contained, controlled, emotions carefully veiled and restrained. Now they ran free, like wildfire scorching the dry plains of his soul. He hadn’t wanted this, but it had been pushed upon him until the dam broke inside and nothing could be easily held back anymore.

It hurt. Badly. Harry knew inside, somewhere rational and calm, that the scar tissue covering the wound in his heart had been cut open, and the infection that had festered inside for so long was belching forth like stinking pus. It felt like the life was slowly leaking out of him. The iron will that had held him upright no matter how much he’d endured was gone…irrevocably gone…and without it he could barely stand…and didn’t really want to anymore.

The footsteps in the hall were John Prewett, of course, coming to deliver tonight’s doses of potion. They all worked. Harry was calm, and didn’t feel unhealthy, but none of them changed the subtle claws that tore at him during waking hours. Dreamless Sleep offered sweet relief, but only for as long as Harry slept. The rest of the time, he had his own mind to wrestle with, and that took as much strength as he possessed, leaving nothing for maintaining his image in front of friends or well wishers.

“Hey, Harry.”

The door had opened and closed to reveal Neville Longbottom instead of John Prewett. Harry’s brow wrinkled in irritation, given that his request for privacy had obviously been ignored. Still, Neville had been a friend for a long time, and a good one at that. It was impossible to muster anything but vague annoyance, and anger was beyond Harry’s current level of energy. He simply felt tired. Drawn out, thin and weary. He nodded to Neville and grudgingly replied.

“Nev. Probably didn’t get the word from the others. Not…not really up for company yet. Sorry, mate. Just leave us be for awhile longer. I suppose I’ll be alright in a while.”

Neville stood still and quiet a moment, then fixed his gaze on Harry and stood up to his full height. It wasn’t really all that impressive, but the effort was clear.

“Then I guess you’d better bloody well get used to it, because I’m not leaving until I’ve said my piece! I forged Minerva’s name onto a slip commanding John to let me in, and I didn’t waste all that effort for nothing! You’ll hear me out or you’ll get no peace at all. So how’s that?”

Harry’s eyebrows raised while he suppressed a cough of shock and surprise.

“Nev? You forged something?! Over this? Look, mate. I appreciate it, but I just want to be left alone. I…what I‘ve done…Nev…I don‘t think I belong here anymore. ”

“Well…yeah…so!? I kept mum about all this the same as Minerva has, but it doesn’t mean I know any less of it. Got it secondhand and minus a few details I reckon, but close enough to know I should have said something to you before! I mean, shite, Harry! I know I’m not Ron or ‘Mione, but maybe that…that’s just as well.

“You haven’t any business sitting on your duff feeling sorry for yourself! You’re Harry bloody Potter for Merlin’s sake! Not ‘cause you’ve got your scar and all that, but because you always came through for everyone else, and it’s a perfect crock that everyone is handling this with kid gloves because they love you so much! It ought to have been said before now.

“You bollocksed this one up, but good! So bloody what! It just means you’re finally one of us! The rest of us cock up about twice a week when we’re lucky! You haven’t any right to lay about cursing yourself for finally dropping the ball! Welcome to being a fucking human! You really think we’d all turn on you just because you aren’t perfect after all? Rita Skeeter maybe, but not anyone who counts.

“If you up and quit before getting out of that bed and trying again…I swear I’ll…well…well I don’t what I’d do, but you won’t like it! And I mean it! Just because I teach Herbology don’t go thinking I won’t dot both your I’s and cross your T’s if you turn tail on everyone who’s pulling for you! The only person who’s forgotten anything is you!”

Harry sat in gob-smacked silence. Neville hadn’t cursed anyone a blue streak like that since a seventh year Herbology student turned loose a carnivorous plant during class a decade ago.

“Okay! Okay! You win! I surrender. What else do you want? If it’ll calm you down, it’s yours!”

Neville paused a moment, unsure of exactly what else to say. He was still recovering from his own explosion of temperament, and not being used to them, needed a little longer than most to adapt.

“I…uh…I’m not sure. Just…you know…get well…you prat. It isn’t the same without you. Oh…and let your bloody friends in, ’cause if ’Mione and Ron find out I did this and saw you before they did, it’ll be my arse! Never minding Minerva hearing bout forged papers! ’Kay?”

Harry chuckled weakly. “Okay, Nev. Get well first, friends second, work third. I have my marching orders. Did anyone ever tell you that you should have been an Auror instructor? I was waiting to be given a hundred push ups for dereliction of duty.”

Neville blushed furiously. “Heh. Nah. But seriously, mate. We miss you, perfect or not. Get back to work, you lazy bum. Before Ron dies of apoplexy teaching your classes with young Malfoy as an assistant.”

Harry’s eyes popped wide open, and his pulse quickened half a heartbeat later.

“What!?”

Neville turned back to the door and was almost out of it while Harry waited for his answer, then left Harry with a final comment to chew on before his potion and rest.

“’Struth, mate. If you don’t like it, then get back in the saddle again and run those classes yourself like you ought to! G’nite.”

Harry sat upright in bed after Nev had gone, shaking his head in shock. Ron Weasley and young Draco teaching his courses in DADA…together?

“Well bugger me sideways and running. If I’ve nothing else to get well for…I have to see that!”

TBC!!!