Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

The Echoes Of Yesterday	By : Samaelthekind Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male Views: 17654 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 36
- 37
- 38
The Echoes Of Yesterday....by Samayel
Chapter 37: In The Diary of Draco Malfoy

Draco may have cursed himself for falling prey to the mirror's power, but what truly worried him was the unpredictable impulse that had almost made him reveal his beloved book on more than one occasion. In Prewett's office he'd nearly felt...compelled to speak of it. It was uncannily like the compulsion he'd felt in Harry Potter's office...the day he'd nearly broken the man's spirit. It was a day that still filled him with guilt and chagrin. He had been the author of his own failings...again...just as he had at Durmstrang.
So many things came to him so easily, language and spellcraft and knowledge. These were things where superb intellect and natural power gave him a potent advantage. But in matters of the heart...he was a hopeless naif! Always...when he desired someone...to see him as attractive and good and worthy of their affection...always he failed them...sometimes spectacularly. And in the end he returned to his book. The one time and place he could always be sure of. When his face burned with shame, when his heart ached, always the book gave comfort. In its presence he felt cherished, wanted and loved...as though warm arms were around him and no doubt or fear could reach him.
This was such a time. The words in the book were once strangers to him, but now he knew them by heart, and if he'd wished he could have recited its contents to others word for word with scarcely a misstep. It wasn't that the words needed to be seen again...it was that feeling he craved, that sense of belonging and closeness. When he opened the book he felt it all around him, even as he went through the meaningless ritual of scanning the text, it was the time spent in the presence of that feeling that made him return again and again. It wasn't the words that drew him, but he read on just the same.
“Being an Account of My Own Thoughts and Musings...by Draco Malfoy, Esq.

That looks so high handed in the old script. Makes me want to laugh at myself. I'm doing this...this diary...because of Claire, my wife. We've been together almost a year now. Little Draco is two months old. Our child. My child! It barely seems believable that I could have been a part of making something so miraculous, so tiny and perfect and utterly right. I'm scarcely worthy of such an honor. I've often wondered if the universe slipped up in letting me be a part of anything so good or so beautiful.
Claire knows the anniversary coming bothers me. Not ours. I told her...almost everything. All that was important. We were married out of pureblood convenience...but I have been more fortunate than anyone I've ever known. She is gentle, and kind, and possesses empathy and compassion far beyond what would be expected of her for her age. She told me to do this. Because it was so hard to speak of what I've done, or of the mistakes I've made. She did not like to see me weep by the window at night, or toss in my sleep when memories haunt me. The parts I told her...did not upset her at all. She felt for me, truly. She cared enough to only desire that I find peace.
The mother of my child. An utterly amazing young woman. When I think of her, of the support she has given me without complaint, even when she learned of my failures and their costs, I feel a great need to guard and protect anything this wonderful, this pure. I want to be the kind of man she deserves so very much. I want to be the kind of father mine should have been. I want to make things right, and never fumble or falter again.
But I must put the things that follow this prologue down before they choke me, lest they pull me back into despair. I can't afford to fail now. Others depend on me for their well being. I understand that now. I accept it. I know that I have a responsibility to the people around me that care for me most. I will not abandon them or leave them sorry that they embraced me or were entrusted to me by chance or fate. I will not let that happen again.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I told her about Hogwarts. About my father. The Dark Lord and the Mark. The cabinet and my scars. Snape and Dumbledore in the tower. The war. What happened to my parents. I told her all of it, and she cared for me still. And I told her about Harry. Of all the things I have done, the questionable, the foolish and intemperate things I have done, what I did to him I regret most. She knows that he was my first and only love. She knows what I am...or what I would have been if I hadn't felt the pull to seek a wife and a child...and she knows why. All this she forgives. Is it any wonder that what I feel for her is adoration? If I have chosen a prison because of my nature, I am not miserable in its confines, and that is because of her. Little Draco will have a truly blessed life, with a mother as good as she.
Harry. It hurts even to write his name. I must have written it a hundred times. Letters I tore up or couldn't bring myself to send. He is the living witness to my cowardice. I wronged him. Savagely. If I told him everything, he would forgive me. I know he would. That would be crueler to him than even this. He is that good. That decent. That appallingly Gryffindor. He would forgive me, and I would never be able to resist him. And he wouldn't be able to resist me. What we had was too intense, too powerful to ignore or lay aside. We can't be together now. I would never be able to meet these responsibilities if I let myself have that closeness with him.
It changes nothing, though. I still desire him. He completed me. Made me whole. He opened my heart like no other could have, made me care and want. Made me love. That prophecy he told me of...the one that Dumbledore claimed was about love...was true. He IS love. So much of it that it bursts from every pore of his being. He has the gentleness of a saint, and the strength of a great warrior. The passion and drive of a madman, with the vulnerability and innocence of a child. There is no finer person I have known. I was fortunate just to have his presence around me, guarding me, protecting me, comforting me. That I betrayed someone so good, so just and fair and generous, is a crime I know the universe will make me answer for someday.
I loved him madly. I never said it to him once. I showed it. In the ways I knew how to, but the words terrified me. I was barely eighteen. It wasn't that long ago. It was a terrible time in my life. I'd lost everything that mattered to me, and he gave me something worth more than all of it combined. I could feel it flowing from him. He'd try to say it sometimes. That he loved me. I hushed him and wouldn't let him say it so many times. How I loved hearing it, and hated it. I thought... How do I say this? I imagined that if I dared to let it be real, to say it aloud and let it simply be, that it would be taken from me like everything else was. That the Gods or nature or whomever might see my hubris after the things I had done wrong and punish me by destroying what I loved. I was scared.
Perhaps I was superstitious. I'd seen torture and death and struggled to survive until he found me dropped in his lap as an extra mouth to feed. I'd been horrid to him before then, and still he showed me mercy. When I was terrified he offered me comfort, in spite of all I had ever done to earn his contempt. Somewhere deep in me there is still the belief that I have no right to happiness. I haven't earned it. I struck upon it by chance...twice. No one could or should be so fortunate without some cost. At that time, then, I believed with certainty that I'd been given some brief fleeting gift that would be torn from me painfully. I'd already lost so much, and hurt so badly. It was better to tear myself away somehow, make it end on my terms, anything but have something so fine and good ripped from me like everything else.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I never told him that I loved him. Or that he had made it possible for me to even admit that such a feeling was possible. That is my regret. He's with the Aurors now. Fighting the good fight even though he deserves rest and peace. He has endured more than anyone should have, and still he struggles to protect others. I want to be that noble. That worthy of respect. I want to tell him all of this, but if ever do, he'll look on me with forgiveness and with that gentle, noble heart and those glorious green eyes, he would tell me that he understood. And I would crumble. I have no doubt of it. I would fall on my knees and beg for him. I would surrender everything to be by his side even for a moment. And I would hurt those I now care for, just to have what I desire. I would commit another act of cowardice. I would be less worthy of his affection then ever before.
So I cannot ever tell him what I feel. If we should meet, I can never tell him these things. I suspect I was right after a fashion. This is what I deserve. I am being punished. Maybe it is by the universe, or the Gods, or perhaps it's by my self. It doesn't matter how it came to pass, but this is my penance. This silence. This journal to expiate my sins.
Claire was right, as she so often is. I feel better. I've thought these things while brooding, dreamed them and woke weeping, but I've never spelled them out so clearly. The relief is palpable. At least I can do this. When it grows too heavy for me, I can vent into this, and then go to look upon my infant child.
However it came to happen, whatever wrongs I committed that brought me to this day, I can say that where I stand now is a comfort to me. A salve for my wounds. I look at those perfectly formed hands and feet, those beautiful eyes, and I swell with pride. I have a son. A beautiful and perfect son. I have a reason to endure, to last and prosper. I have a wife who gives her heart and soul without a thought, just like Harry did, and a son I owe my very sense of self worth to. I won't fail them! If I have done one thing right in my entire, sorry existence, it was bringing that life into the world.
I'll write of other things. Later. There is much to do, and much to be concerned with. These are still dangerous times, but I'll leave apart a portion of my evenings for this, if it will give me this sense of peace. I'll write it all, even if no one ever sees it but me, and it will last even after we're all gone.”

TBC
- 36
- 37
- 38
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

The Echoes Of Yesterday