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
- 43
- 44
The Echoes Of Yesterday...by Samayel
Chapter 44: Brave New World

Draco, Lord Malfoy, looked out the frost rimed window of Malfoy Manor with pleasure. You could see the Quidditch pitch that had been set up years ago from this vantage, and from here it was clear that several people flew above it in an impromptu match. Harry was still the very devil himself on a broom, and Ron Weasley, great ape that the man might be, was no slouch, either. Draco's own son, as well as several of the young Weasleys, also alternately bobbed and soared above the pitch. Draco himself had retired from the match early, chilled to the bone and more in the mood for a brandy before dinner.
It wasn't uncommon at all, these grand gatherings. What a madcap life it had been, but how fine it had all turned out in the end. No one would have predicted Weasleys feeling at home visiting the Malfoy residence, or a Malfoy lord feasting on holidays at the Burrow, but there you had it. Wherever Harry Potter was involved, miracles seemed to happen in abundance.
To look back on the decades that had passed, well, it sometimes stung, but not badly. Claire's picture hung in the halls, and he missed her humor and warmth as dearly as he had when she'd been killed, but in time he'd found a new peace with Harry, and their love had blossomed and grown without interruption for almost two decades. They had raised young Draco together, which had been offsetting for Draco the Elder at first, until he grew used to being called Father, while Harry received the less formal honorific of Papa. Such things they'd seen! Parenthood had proved a forge in which they were tested and tried, raising an uncommonly gifted child with an uncompromising mind. Little Draco had eventually become a Ravenclaw prodigy, recognized even in his first year as exceptional beyond all expectations.
His heart swelled with pride when he thought of his sole worthy accomplishment. He'd been some part of raising his wonderful son into an outstanding young gentleman, alongside Harry, who had been there every step of the way in spite of dogged determination to remain an Auror. In twenty years, Harry had slowly earned his way to the very head of the service, now presiding over a peacetime that had settled comfortably over the Wizarding World and which required quite a bit less of his efforts than it had in the bad old days just after the war. Together they had raised a marvelous person, working and lecturing and publishing in his field at a pace that left other scholars agog with incredulity.
It didn't rankle in the slightest that his son turned out to be a bit more like his father than they had guessed. Perhaps the Malfoy line would pass into antiquity, taken up by some distant cousin or by whomever young Draco might name his heir in the future. Such things meant very little after a life so fine and full. Young Draco had emerged as gay and comfortable with it during his school years, and while his father and Harry had asked cautious questions about whether it was a matter of infatuation or something about having it impressed upon him by his parents somehow, the lad had rather clear-headedly spelled out his exact feelings on the subject, leaving little doubt that he was sure of his preferences and at peace with them.
Of course, they'd had to nurse their son through a couple of broken hearts, but in due time they had the pleasure of seeing their now grown child with his partner, a virtuoso musician from the Continent who had settled in England after regular performances in both the Muggle and Wizarding world (always careful to leave the magical augmentations out of the Muggle shows, of course.) Antonin, with his dark curls and intense gaze, made a strangely perfect counterpoint to young Draco's perpetual smirk and paler countenance. His son's happiness was paramount, and Draco the Elder was sure that it had been achieved.
But he'd come in from the cold for another reason. Nearly twenty-five years before, a miracle of sorts had happened. He'd been on the brink of death, consumed by sorrow and loss, holding his dead wife and gritting his teeth in agony as he made ready to be slain just as she had been. A man in grey had killed the Death Eaters responsible for it all, with barely any effort, and had then healed Draco as best he could, left behind a letter and a Portkey to the Ministry, and then vanished with only a few words having passed between them. He'd never even known the man's name.
He'd told Draco things that no one should have known of, and he promised that Draco would know instinctively when it was time to open the letter. Curiosity had bedeviled him many times over the years, but he'd never once sensed that it was somehow right to read the leather bound parchment still sealed and sitting in a box in his den.
Until today.
He'd been playing Seeker against Harry, each of them leading teams of youngsters against one another, laughing madly in the wind and chill of outdoors in late fall. Young Draco was as well wrapped against the weather as the rest of them, but the cap and heavy scarf wound around his face left only the eyes visible. Grey eyes, more the color of lead than his father's lighter cloud grey, slightly red rimmed from the cold and high emotions in mid game. At that moment he'd looked at his son's face and faltered, nearly falling from his broom in shock, only to recover momentarily and beg off, insisting that he was just a little winded and would step in for a brandy.
And so he came here, to his den, weirdly certain that this was it. The time. It 'felt' right, and the mere realization that something clearly involving his son and that letter was afoot...well...it made the hairs on his neck stand up with fright. Perhaps he shouldn't be alone for this, perhaps he should have told Harry, but he'd always known the contents of this unopened letter were meant for him, not for the eyes of others.
He'd placed the box on the desk of his study, drawn himself a glass of his oldest and finest brandy, and sipped at the snifter while calming his nerves. In the box, the leather wrap remained untouched and unopened after twenty-five years. It took but a moment for Draco to unwrap the parchment within and properly unroll it for reading. He'd been told it would all disappear shortly after being opened and read, and so he wasted no time in finally making known the secrets that eluded him for so long.
The handwriting, well known to him, was what shocked him first, and as he read he knew that his faintest suspicion had been correct, and that somehow, someway, it had come to pass that his child and this letter were inextricably linked, though not in any way he could have imagined.
<i>If you are reading this, at some distant point in the future, then I have succeeded in my quest, and a new page is now written where an old one has been made blank. If my calculations and assumptions are correct as well, then you are reading this at the precise moment that I started this process of change, some twenty-five years after the events of that night on the coast.
Dearest Father, though it may vex you to imagine something as outrageous as what I put forth here, the man who writes this letter to you is not from your time, or from any future you will ever know, but you should know that I love you just the same, and that is a part of why I have done what I have done.
The world in which I was raised no longer exists, and never will, and the son you love will be a different man than the one who penned this missive. In the world I inherited, you and mother were slain, and it was Harry, beloved to both of us, who took revenge at the cost of his career and his self respect, left to mourn without ever having known of your feelings, while you became a shade, a mere message, trapped in a book, and I was left to a life in the shadow of your loss, only to endure an isolation that I fear has made me a broken man, despite my accomplishments and the love of others.
In my research I found hope, of all things, in the matter of time. Much has been speculated, but little proven, and I have unraveled its secrets as no other before me, but what I have learned is too dangerous to share with the rest of the world, lest they do as I have done, and act selfishly or out of passion when caution ought to be exercised instead. To be frank, I have changed time itself, and given the people I loved most a life that holds some greater chance for happiness, and in doing so I have unmade all which came to create me, and effectively erased the research I wished to ensure goes unused.
Suffice it to say, time is like unto a river, flowing inexorably in one direction, and yet connected in all ways, past, present and future. Some think it impermeable and unchangeable, but this is not entirely so. In truth, limited change is possible, and does not result in paradox, but rather (again like unto water) moves around the changes made like a stream around a rock, all minor disruptions prevented or quietly absorbed, with only those major ones changing the events in the new stream. In my way, I have become a rock cast into that stream, intervening to spare the lives of at least one or both of my parents, and making certain that Harry would never commit a crime for which he would be ashamed.
In doing this unspeakable act, I knew that I would be erased, for the experiences that formed me would simply cease to be, and in the new stream of events another person, hopefully whole and rational, not besieged by grief and loss, would come into being in my place. This letter represents the last evidence of my actions, moral or immoral, and because you of all the persons involved were present, you have the most right to know what I have done, and the knowledge is yours to share or conceal as you see fit. It indeed may have been wrong to have fundamentally altered the experiences of many people, only to relieve a few of a burden of sadness and unrealized potential, but I accept it as my crime and mine alone. I would only ask that you not hold these actions against my other self. He is blameless, the inheritor of a future I reshaped for his benefit as well as yours, while I now exist only in your memory.
You should know, even though we met only briefly, that I found your journal in my youth and came to know you through it, and through that book, I knew that you and mother loved me with all of your heart. I do not know if its contents have ever been shared with another, but I knew its pages by memory before my thirteenth year was passed, and it was all that spared me from absolute madness. What I learned within drew me to Harry as soon as I was old enough to find my way to him, and I found a man ruined by the crimes of vengeance he'd committed to avenge you, then scarcely able to function, never again able to love as he once loved you.
In spite of all that had passed, he still found in him the strength to care for me, to guide and protect me, just to honor the memory of you even while he ached in loss at the sight of me. I love him dearly, because he has been a light in my darkness, a beacon in the trackless ocean of my existence...and he has done so all for you, but he will never be truly happy, never have another at his side, never know the warmth of another love. You are, and always will be, in this time or any other, the only one for him.
So this is my gift to you, and to him, crime that it may be. I cannot know the future that will unfold after my intervention, as it's all yet unwritten, but since this letter was to be handed to you I can only assume that at least you are now reading its contents, and I hope with all of my heart that you have found peace and joy in your lives, and that you and mother and Harry have no rancor between you, only friendship. Take every opportunity to savor all that you have, make the most of the love around you, and care for the ones you love as passionately and without compromise as you dare, and what I have done will not have been wasted.
With love, the son you could not have known, Draco the Younger, Lord Malfoy</i>
As the last words settled into Draco's mind, he saw them begin to fade, and soon after the parchment and even the leather wrap had vanished into nothingness, whatever magics that had held them in reality having already begun to unravel. Tears were streaming down Draco's cheeks while he grappled with what he had brushed against, and he fumbled for the brandy and drank the entire draught in a single gulp, hoping to calm rattled nerves and restore his focus.
It was staggering to imagine! Another time, another world, a place where he had indeed died and Harry grieved alone, while his son was left to who could guess what fate? Whatever that fate had been, it had shaped a man willing to alter the fabric of reality to accomplish a single, somehow both selfish and noble goal. This was the grey-eyed man in robes that had saved his life those years ago, and there could be no doubt, knowing as he did that the man had possessed an uncanny knowledge of Draco's private thoughts and deeds.
Whoever that man had been, he was now gone, part of a world that had been erased to make way for the one where Draco now dwelt in peace. The journal on the shelf of his den was just that, a journal, one not read in many years because it seemed so meaningless in a world where he'd had the love of his dearest friend and companion by his side across decades. He'd rebuilt his life and reputation through years of service and philanthropy, as well as cementing his decency in the eyes of the public by having spent near twenty years devoted absolutely to his partner, now the actual head of the Auror Service, Harry Potter. Harry had helped him during the years he grieved for his wife and raised his son in the isolation of the Malfoy estate, secured against attack while the Aurors slowly eliminated the remaining clusters of Death Eaters. They'd watched Theodore Nott sentenced to Azkaban for life for his part in the murder of Draco's wife.
Before long, the world was a more peaceful place, and Harry became a regular visitor at the manor, enjoying every moment with the rather cheerful imp of a son that Draco doted on without shame. It wasn't long after that when they took the peace and friendship between them to another level, finally letting the shades of yesteryear be forgotten in the face of a newer, stabler relationship between grown men who were no longer afraid of the consequences of their affection for one another.
Twenty years. It seemed like the blink of an eye. Draco wiped the tears from his face and tried to comport himself. Dinner would be served soon, and there were guests about. Perhaps he'd tell Harry of all this later, or perhaps not. Would any purpose be served by this hidden knowledge becoming known? Or was it like the secret of the Horcruxes, something to be carried to one's grave in silence, not out of shame, but to protect others from the harm that knowledge could wreak.
“Anything wrong, love? You look a little peaked. Dinner's almost ready, and the kids have worked up an appetite on the pitch today. Wore me out, they did.”
Harry had slid up behind him like a ghost, silent on the thickly carpeted floor of the study, and Draco simply leaned his head back against Harry's chest while seated in the fine old chair at the desk of his forefathers. It was a comfort just to feel his lover near him.
“Not at all. Just...you know...woolgathering. Thoughts of yesteryear, and how far it's all come since then. I'm so very happy, Harry. I wouldn't trade this life for anything. Can I ask you an odd question?”
Harry was still red cheeked from the wind and garbed in a thick sweater of red and gold, colors that had initially sent the portraits in the estate into conniptions, and occasionally merited hints of scorn or acid comments from Draco himself, but after twenty years he'd discreetly grown rather fond of the hideous thing, as long as it was Harry wearing it. Harry leaned down and kissed Draco's brow with solemn affection.
“Of course. As if there were such a thing as something you couldn't say to me? Ask away, love.”
“That day on the coast. The day of the attack. What if I'd been killed, too? Would you...would you have avenged me? Would you have killed for me, even though we'd been apart, and under such horrible circumstances? Would you have done something like that, even though you're an Auror?”
Harry's brow furrowed in concentration, and he was obviously puzzled as to why Draco would even ask such a question, but he was a man given to brutal honesty, and the answer didn't surprise Draco at all.
“I would love to think I couldn't do that, even for you...but I suspect I would have. I'm thankful it never became an issue. Then, without you, it was a dark time in my life. If you'd been taken from me...the way things were between us then...I can't say what I've have done, or what lengths I might have gone to. I doubt it would have ended well. I'd still like to shake the hand of the man that splattered those two bastards all over the hillside in Calais. Let's just agree that hurting you is a great way to get on my bad side and leave it at that. Such a dark question. What brought that on?”
Draco smiled a small mysterious smile, and Harry couldn't help but smile in return.
“Nothing that really matters any more, my love. C'mon...let's not leave the table unattended for too long or the Weasleys will be chewing on the plates from sheer hunger after that Quidditch match. I don't want to be thought a bad host. Besides, if we're done in time I can watch our child absolutely pound Ron at Wizard's chess. You know how much I inwardly gloat every time someone with the name Malfoy beats him at his favorite game.”
“You're incorrigible!” Harry chuckled, “But if it's any comfort, I can't help gloating a little, too. Someone has to keep Ron in check or his head would swell until his hats didn't fit!”
They strolled down the halls of the Malfoy estate toward a table filled with proof of a life well and wisely spent, a family and friends, abundance and comfort, respect and happiness...and most of all, love. When Draco looked at the bright and mirthful eyes of his son he did not flinch, because there was no echo of some terrible yesterday or tomorrow in them. The boy he'd raised with Harry was largely a stranger to sorrow or grief, and would never be the man that penned that vanished letter.
And in the silence of his heart, while he feasted beside the people he loved most dearly, Draco offered his private thanks to a man who didn't exist and never would. Right or wrong, moral or immoral, he'd been given some heaven sent second chance at happiness, and he'd since lived a life so wondrous that he could scarcely accept that it was his own and not some illusory dream. However it had come to pass, Draco loved this life, the man by his side, the son they had raised, and the friends they had gathered about them through the years...with a passion that was unfeigned and undiluted after decades. All that the man in grey had asked of him and wished for him had come to pass, and if some shade of that tormented man existed, Draco hoped that it knew its actions weren't in vain.
At the head of the table, he glanced at the man beside him, not a murderer or broken by regret, confident, literate and gentle, the husband and fellow father that had marked the last two decades of his life as memorable for their excellence, and Draco leaned toward Harry's ear.
“I love you, Harry.” He whispered below the dull roar of dinner conversation. His lover turned to face him with a grin.
“I love you, too, Draco. You know...in twenty years...I've never tired of hearing it. I've said it before, but it's still true. No one, nothing has ever made me happier than being with you.”
Draco basked in the warm glow of Harry's words, and the way his lover's green eyes showed every innermost thought and spoken word as true.
“I was thinking, love. After the crowd has gone, let's open the ballroom up again. I think I'd like to dance with you tonight.”
FIN.

“Once upon a time, I dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was myself. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.”

― Zhuangzi, Butterfly as Companion: Meditations on the First Three Chapters of the Chuang-Tzu
- 43
- 44
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