Put the Past Away

Put the Past Away

I wish you would step back

From that ledge my friend

You could cut ties with all the lies

That you've been living in

And if you do not want to see me again

I would understand.

Lightning flashed above the ruins that had once been the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The Astronomy Tower alone stood tall out of the rubble, a bitter reminder of the days before the war. The slim figure standing by the window-ledge was soaked through, but somehow he could not bring himself to care. It was over. The long, bloody war was over, and it had all been for nothing. At least it is over, he thought. I'm sorry I failed you, Mother...

She'd died before the war, one of the first to fall. She hadn't been recorded as murdered, and there had been no Dark Mark flashing above her home. After all, he thought, fully appreciating the bitter irony, you were killed by your own husband, Mother. It's not like anyone suspected foul play. You always have the perfect excuse for everything, impeccably rehearsed, as though you had been planning for months. Were you, Father? he asked the sky. Were you planning her murder from the very day you exchanged wedding rings? And how about all the students? Were you planning their deaths too? The sky didn't answer. He sighed, and looked down again. It was a long, long way to fall.

In the end, all of the plans had been perfectly executed. Dumbledore had been killed, quickly and efficiently. The powerful wizarding families had been slaughtered, one by one. And then he'd moved on Hogwarts...

No one was surprised. It was the obvious checkmate, and the Dark Lord was nothing if not a shrewd tactician. Even the students had acted as though they had suspected nothing less. No one had even screamed. No one, except the Mudblood, and only because she was the first one to go.

The angry boy a bit too insane

Icing over a secret pain

You know you don't belong

You're the first to fight

You're way too loud

You're the flash of light on the burial shroud

I know something's wrong.

Hermione had fallen to the ground, screaming in pain. Voldemort had laughed, and had cut off her shrieks with a few short words. Avada Kedavra. Two words, and one of his best friends was gone, as though she'd never been. 

Ron had stared, in white-faced shock that held him frozen, for a moment. Then he'd leapt out of his seat, lunging for the Dark Lord. A wave of his wand, and Ron, too, was gone, following the girl he'd loved to wherever people went when they were cursed out of existence.

Sirius and Remus had died together. He found some comfort in that, knowing that they had gone out together, so neither had to grieve. So many dead friends, gone for nothing, so that all he had left was his grief...

The professors were dead. The students were dead. It seemed to him that he was the last one left alive in this graveyard. He had done nothing, been able to do nothing, as he watched from his saferoom in the tower, where the professors had locked him.

'It'll be fine, Harry,' they'd reassured him. 'This is just a precaution, that's all.' But they were dead, and they'd lost the war.

Well everyone I know has got a reason

To say put the past away

I wish you would step back

From that ledge my friend...

The man tore his eyes away from the ground. Cold, grey eyes, that had once glowed like icy beacons. The fire had been extinguished, and his eyes were now flat, glassy and dull, reflecting the pain of the world, but closing all windows into his own soul. He looked down once more. The drop- it must have been a good hundred feet or more. Onto cold, gray stone. With a kind of masochistic pleasure, the man imagined falling into the paving stones, his blood flowing black under the cold December sky. It would be painful, he knew that, but he welcomed pain, anything that would get him to feel something other than this cold, hard emptiness that had swallowed him up. His muscles tensed as he prepared to take his final leap.

'Draco? What are you doing?' The man spun. He hadn't noticed the small brown bundle with its mop of unruly black hair when he first entered the tower. Not that he was surprised. The black haired man always showed up, eyes and scar blazing, wand raised, to save the day. Or even just get in the way. 

'What's it look like, Potter?' Draco snapped, but his voice contained none of the malice that he had formerly been renowned for. It was dull, lifeless, and made Harry realize that Draco really meant to jump.

'Draco?' Harry asked, and for a moment Draco was reminded of the small eleven-year-old he had met in Madame Malkin's. He almost smiled at the memory, but schooled his features into a neutral born of seventeen years of practice. Harry continued, regardless, 'please don't jump.'

'What do you care if I do? All I've earned is death.' He laughed hollowly.

'That's not true,' Harry contradicted him sharply. 'You fought as best you could, and that's all that could be expected of you.'

'It wasn't good enough,' he replied bitterly. 'And really there's nothing to keep me here. Mother's dead, and I couldn't save her or avenge her. She was the only person who would have cared, anyway.' He looked away, and whispered, more to himself than his companion, 'Mother loved me.'

Harry gazed at him sadly, remembering the too short time they'd had together. It had been the only time he'd ever seen Draco smile and mean it. He wished, more than anything, that he could see Draco smile, one last time. 'I care.' He hesitated, then added, 'I love you.'

'You?' The sneer was back in Draco's voice, and it cut Harry to the bone. 'You're the Boy Who Lived. The fucking personification of Ultimate Good. I was just another charity case. Another bad boy for you to reform.'

'Yeah, but where was I when they really needed me?' asked Harry quietly. 'At least you tried.' Draco turned to look at his one-time lover, and was struck by the pain in his green eyes. He's...hurt, he realized, and, for some reason, the knowledge pained him. He's lost people he loved too...

'I'm...sorry.'

Well he's on the table and he's gone to code

And I do not think anyone knows

What they're doing here

Harry stood stock-still, like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car, watching Draco out of wide, startled eyes. 'You don't have to apologize,' he said gently.

'Maybe I don't have to,' he agreed. 'But I want to. So I'm sorry, because I hurt you, and you didn't deserve it.'

Harry's face crumpled, and he appeared to be struggling not to cry. Draco hesitated, then pulled Harry into a tight hug, resting his cheek in the shorter boy's hair. 'Please don't cry,' Draco whispered. 'Harry, please don't cry.'

'I'm so damn tired,' Harry breathed with tears in his voice. 'You're all I've got left. The rest... They're all gone.'

'I'm still here, love,' Draco murmured softly. 'They're still here.'

'No, they're not.' Harry's voice choked on a year's worth of repressed sobs. 'You think I haven't looked? Haven't called for them in the middle of the night? I want to see them again, Draco. I want to tell them about us.'

And your friends have left you

You've been dismissed

I never thought it would come to this

And I, I want you to know

Everyone's got to face down the demons

Maybe today...

Harry and Draco stood, hand in hand, looking down at the ruins of Hogwarts below. 'I love you,' Draco told him quietly.

Harry smiled the sweet smile of a child in pain who knows that his pain will be over soon. 'I know. I love you, too.' He stood on tiptoe and kissed his lover gently.

'Goodbye.'

'I'll see you when we arrive.' Draco gripped Harry's hand even tighter.

They jumped.

...you could put the past away

I wish you would step back

From that ledge my friend

You could cut ties with all the lies

That you've been living in

And if you do not want to see me again

I would understand

Draco stirred, and whimpered. 'Mother?'

'Yes, Draco.' He could hear the love in her voice. Harry's fingers tightened on his, and he opened his eyes. She was there, smiling down at him. 'Welcome home.'

Can you put the past away?