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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
- 39
- 40
- 41
The Echoes Of Yesterday...by Samayel
Chapter 40: The Hor-Crux Of The Situation
Harry stood dumbfounded, paralyzed by shock and barely able to comprehend what he was seeing. So many thoughts were rushing through his head that he couldn't voice them all properly, or even separate one from the pack and vocalize it clearly.
“You...you...you're...”
Draco smirked while standing in the doorway and leaning against the frame. “What? Dead? Alive? Not much difference in this place. I'm sorry to surprise you this way, lover, but it's funny how these things work out, isn't it?”
Draco suddenly looked sad and serious, his smirk fading to a worried and tired expression that seemed out of place on a face that was still that of a young man.
“I know what you're thinking. You don't have to worry. I didn't do anything evil to make this happen. There are two ways to make a Horcrux, Harry. I was there when you learned of the last one. In Grimmauld Place. You can only power the spell with death...that's why its evil. Only loss of life can forge the chance to make a vessel for a piece of a person's soul. Voldemort killed others. Well...I was murdered in cold blood after watching my wife die, knowing my child would be orphaned. I was standing near where you are now...and when the Killing Curse took me I felt my soul ripped from my body. All I could think of was how desperately I wanted to see you again. I didn't want to leave, or die, or move on...I just wanted one last chance to see you, to speak with you again. The closest object with a strong relationship to me was the book I'd made into a journal. I grabbed hold of it with my spirit and flowed into it, and it gave me a tether to this world and a house for my spirit.”
Harry felt tears burning trails down his cheeks. He couldn't bring himself to move, or even turn his eyes away from the living spirit in front of him. “I'm...I'm...so sorry...Draco...I failed you...”
Draco stepped forward, smiling yet looking a little teary eyed himself, and slid into Harry's arms, as real in this place between worlds as if he'd never died at all.
“Stop that.” Draco whispered, holding Harry close and speaking softly into his ear. “You would blame yourself, wouldn't you? Savior Of The Wizarding World, and still such a big, dumb kid.”
The world swirled around them and the cottage dissolved, and Harry found himself in a vast and superbly decorated ballroom, still alone with Draco, still in the arms of his lover. Music played on charmed instruments in the background, and Draco had twined his fingers into his hand.
“Let me lead, Harry. I used to daydream about this when we were in Grimmauld Place. I never told you. This is the manor. It would have been mine. We could have danced here, together, whenever we wanted. I wanted so much to do this with you someday.”
The tempo of the music was slow, and Draco moved them carefully, guiding a mute and desperately confused Harry across the floor with small steps. In the unreal world of the Horcrux, Draco was the shaper of reality, and their bodies turned with the notes of some long forgotten song. Harry slowly came back to himself, even with tears trickling hot trails down his face. He stopped them in mid-dance, pulling away enough to look into Draco's eyes. His lover of years before had a bittersweet expression of mingled joy and grief.
“It was really you, wasn't it? The dreams? John's potions worked...but I was seeing you. The bottle...that was no vision. You manifested...in the real world. I was seeing you...not your son...when we kissed. It was you all along.”
The music dimmed and faded, until they were just two figures on a vast black and white checkered floor. Draco smiled a careworn smile.
“Yeah. You have no idea how hard it is to do those things from here. I have no real body. The effort costs me...dearly. Some things are easier than others. Shaping this realm is easy, but sending anything, even feelings, out into the world is tiring for me. Just a moment.”
The world dissolved and reformed again, and now they were in Grimmauld Place, sitting on the edge of the bed they'd shared so often then. Draco turned to face Harry, never having let go of his hand.
“At first I was numb, blind and mute in this space between realities. Not dead or alive, and unable to do anything of note. I felt you, you know? When you and the Aurors were in the cottage. I could feel you near. I just couldn't do anything to make myself known. The book was already magical...it's sealed by my blood and name. To open it requires those things. No one could tell there was something more to it than a magically sealed diary. Such things aren't unheard of among wizards and witches.
Then you were gone, and I sat for years in a trunk in the attic of the DeLune estate. I had time to start flexing my spiritual muscles, but I could only shape the space I dwelt in...here. I couldn't do much else. My son, Harry, I could feel his sorrow near me. His loneliness and grief. One day it became so powerful that I feared for his life. I thought for sure that if he hurt like that, he'd take his life or take someone elses. I projected what I could...feelings, hints, wisps of emotion. He found me. Because he needed it, and because I could give him nothing else...I projected love. Everything I could. As much as I could make flow from what's left of me in this book. I didn't know he'd open it someday...but I could sense his closest thoughts, and one day he worked out the basics of Wizard locking a diary like this. His name IS my name...the bloodline makes his blood as mine. It opened for him. I'd never even considered the ramifications.
But he needed it, Harry. My child, my darling son, they left him alone in his rooms for days! They were wrapped up in their grief and they all but abandoned him to be cared for by house-elves! They sent him to that abysmal pit, Durmstrang, out of nothing but spite! They fed him nothing but hate for my family and the name he inherited! I had to give him something. He was on the edge of self destruction, but I got him through it by feeding love to him, the sense that he was loved and wanted. I always meant for you to find me, for this to find its way to your hands, but he needed me, Harry. I only learned to take influence over the material world because he brought me everywhere with him for years. It was reading this diary that set his sights on Hogwarts.
I only just learned to manifest through him and take action while we've been here. It was really more of an act of desperation. I tried to reach you in your dreams, but the way was mostly blocked by potions. Can't say I blame you for taking it the wrong way though...given the circumstances. I felt your pain when you told my son what happened all those years ago. I could feel your heart crying out in anguish. I made him get help. I tried to appear and do more, but physical manifestation is exhausting. It was easier to use him as a conduit. Maybe I shouldn't have kissed you with him as my vehicle...but even I have limits to my ability to stay neutral. When it comes to you...I lose my head...just like always. I've ached for a chance to kiss you, to be near you, to say all that was unsaid...for so long. I'm not sorry for being a little weak for a moment. I stole a kiss with lips that weren't my own. I tried to make him surrender the book to you, but he actually fought me!
He never knew I was a real part of this book, all he knew was that someone might take the book away if they found that it was magical beyond what a normal wizard diary would possess. I didn't dare let him be saddled with the knowledge of Horcruxes or what they're capable of...I want that knowledge to die with our generation...so I stayed silent. If he had known this book was really me...I'd have been called on to interfere constantly, not just subtly. It would have been a massive disruption of his life...with the added risk that someone might find out about this book and ultimately prevent me from getting to you. I've been his only solace for years. I can't blame him for struggling to keep me near and refusing to give in and hand me over to you. I actually had to entrance and possess him just to get the book here to you.
I am sorry he read some of the chapters on our time together. They weren't meant to be shared, but he is more like me than I could have guessed. Even so, if I'd known that my teenaged son was going to read through this, I definitely wouldn't have waxed eloquent about what a glorious prick you have or how gifted you were when you put it to work in me! Almost a third of the pages in this thing aren't fit to be read by anyone not properly of age!! For Merlin's sake, there's an entire entry dedicated almost entirely to how much I loved sucking your cock!
He may be the smarter of the two of us, yes, but he is his father's son. He was attracted to men even before the book, even though he was only just coming to terms with it. At least it assured him that he wasn't the only one, that what he felt was a thing that simply happens in life, like so many other things. It helped him, I hope, because I know it wasn't easy for me. I was terrified of my own feelings at first...and I doubt I'd have faced them at all if I hadn't been with you. I suppose the pages in this thing may have tilted his interests toward heroic, world saving, wizards with glasses and scarred foreheads who happen to be incredible in bed...but I can't really blame him for that. I have to agree that you're still quite a catch!”
Harry reeled under the flow of information, then was suddenly aghast when he thought of the younger Draco. “Oh God! Your son...I wouldn't...I never...”
Draco silenced him again. “Oh, come off it, Potter! You're so thick it's almost comical! I know EVERYTHING from him...through him. You've tried your best to look out for my child. You haven't done a thing to him beyond rattling his cage a little...in spite of every reason to have done quite a bit more than that! He all but threw himself at you, and all you could concern yourself with is making sure he was well and safe with his virtue intact. Be his godfather, watch him for me, don't let him always brood alone. Do what you think is right. I trust you. You're my hero...you always were and you still are. You did the honorable thing...like you always do. Maybe its the Slytherin in me, but to blazes with the bastards who killed me, and to hell with Nott, too! I would have wanted vengeance. They were psychopaths and they laughed while they killed my wife in front of me. I was almost paralyzed from the Crutiatus curse when they killed me! Fuck what all the others may say...they deserved what they got! They'd have only rotted in Azkaban anyway...and you...you avenged my family.”
Harry calmed and flopped back onto the bed, feeling oddly like a teenager again, in this environment of the mind that perfectly echoed his happiest moments in Grimmauld Place. He sighed deeply and closed his eyes.
“This...this world. This place between places. I've been in one before you know? Voldemort's first Horcrux was a book. He made Ginny open the Chamber Of Secrets through that book. When I confronted him...it was him as a teenager...a piece of his soul leftover in a journal he'd left behind in the hopes of gaining influence over others someday. He aimed to live forever. To cheat death. I can't...this can't last. To live again you'd need another body. I'll lose you again...because I can't let you take another person over.” It hurt to say such a thing. Harry's face was a grimace of discomfort, and his words slipped from him haltingly.
Draco curled softly beside him. It felt so real, the way the bed creaked from age just like it had then, with the weight of another beside him. Harry felt a head resting on his chest while Draco's arm curled around him. Draco was silent a moment, making the happy, contented sounds of a person who was just where they had always wanted to be.
“I know, Harry. I don't want to live again. I never did. You may be the dutiful protector of the world, but don't worry about this one. You may not have grasped it yet, but this book...holds ALL of my soul. This isn't some tiny, crazy sliver of a power crazed lunatic. This is all of me that's left. When I let go...which the Dark Lord would NEVER have done...I'll be gone for good, and there won't be any coming back. This...this is what I wanted. This was all I ever desired...to be like this, again, with you. I can hold myself to this place for a time, as long as you want me to...but when you're ready to leave...I'll be leaving with you, and this will only be a book full of words I left behind.”
He could say it. Harry knew in his heart that he could finally say it. Like this, here in some shadow creation of Grimmauld Place, with his hand stroking through Draco's hair like he'd loved to do in those rare times when they'd had the freedom to just be close.
“I have missed you. I've missed you so much. In some ways...you were the strong one. You made me better, stronger, more able. Without you...I've hurt...I've been...so alone...and I...I couldn't let anyone take those memories away. I fought off death to be with you. I should have told you...The Killing Curse...the one the Dark Lord cast...it didn't take...it killed him because...” and then his voice began to break.
Draco leaned up and kissed away the tears that were leaking down his lover's face. Harry was shivering from tension and the effort to keep deep sobs from wracking his frame.
“Shhhh...Harry...I knew. Even then. I was in the hospital. They thought I didn't know, or hadn't heard them when they found your thoughts. I was near. I didn't let you down because of something you didn't say, or something you didn't do. It was never, never your fault. I adored you, I hungered for you, I died a little every night that I sat up waiting for you to wake, and died again every day that I waited alone until everyone else had left.
I was just eighteen years old...and I was a scared kid. When I thought...that I might never see you again...I almost couldn't make it. Maybe I gave you strength...but you were almost all of mine. Without you I was lost. Sitting in a room every night praying for you and sitting there helpless to make a difference. I almost went mad. I kind of hoped you'd even die, because then I could take my own life and hope to find you again. Anything but that constant wait beside a still and silent body in a bed.
Harry...when you came back to me, my heart soared and leaped! You didn't do anything wrong. I was unhinged. It was a stupid teenage test. All of a sudden it was real, and our lives were our own, and it was all in front of us. I couldn't believe I had the right to be happy. After the things I'd done...I thought I'd lose you someday and it would destroy me like it nearly did by that hospital bed. I did want a family...but I was torn between wanting to make you push me away, so that it would end on my terms...and hoping you'd never let go of me. I couldn't have kept up the act for long. You fell for it, you didn't see it as a bluff from a half crazed, traumatized teen, and you had every right to be angry.
It gave me the momentum I needed to do the only other thing I felt I owed my family...which was to give them a child to carry the name. I'm not sorry about having a son, and I truly cared for my wife...but Harry James Potter...of all the people I have ever known, I have only ever truly loved you, even if it was in my own failed and flawed way. That's what I wanted to say, that's what made this place possible. I wanted to last long enough to say it, because you so deserved to hear it. I love you. I loved you so much that I couldn't think clearly when you were near. I am so glad I had those moments with you...every last one of them. I love you dearly, I loved you in life, and even after it. I love you, Harry. I never said it when I was alive, and I carried that regret with my last breath. I want to shout it a million times, loud enough for it to echo through eternity! I love you, Harry. Thank you for everything you made me feel. Thank you for loving me, for giving me love when I didn't even know what it was or how to show it. I love you.”
Harry's tears were from purest joy, mixed only with the bittersweet knowledge that eventually this time and place would cease to be. It did not trouble him greatly...because the hole in his heart that had been dug so long ago was full now, the empty and aching place had been salved and healed. The poison had been drawn and he could not feel doubt or regret anymore. His hadn't been a vain or wasted love, it had only been a tragic one, a victim of the circumstances of life and the impetuousness of youth. It hadn't been unrequited...it had been the genuine and very real love of two very young, very fragile, terribly confused kids that would have made their peace eventually, if the cruel realities of the post war world hadn't intervened. There was nothing to regret, nothing to lament, nothing to revile or turn his back on...it was only something to be cherished and recalled with reverence, even if it's time had passed.
The world shifted and twisted once again, and now they stood hand in hand in the little cottage on the coast once more. It didn't feel like a gravesite anymore. It seemed more like a beginning than an end. Perhaps it was just that Harry now saw everything through the lens of undiluted joy and relief. Draco wouldn't be here, trapped in this place between places forever, and life would go on, but he'd heard the words his heart had pined for during twenty long years of grief, and now he could let go of the bitterest moments of their past.
Draco stood beside him, staring out into the waters of the Channel, where the sun sparkled on waves capped with white foam. He leaned close, as warm and as real as the pleasant feel of sunlight on skin, one arm around Harry's waist, the other gently caressing Harry's chin, pulling their eyes together at the last. There were no more tears between them, and Draco smiled impudently with mirth twinkling in eyes that hadn't had cause for joy in decades.
“When you kiss me, the world will melt away. You've always had that power over me, Harry. Are you ready, love?”
And Harry turned into lips that waited to greet him, let his eyes close, and savored their softness and hunger one last time, and felt it all begin to whirl and pull away.
And one last time, echoing through his heart and mind, through his very being, Harry heard his lover's voice.
“I love you, Harry.”
TBC
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The Echoes Of Yesterday