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my_thestralPairing: Ron/Draco
Word count: 4336 (this part)
Rating: PG-13 (language)
Disclaimer: Dear characters - it was nice pretending I owned you for a while there, but all illusions, as sweet as they are, must once come to an end. And this is the end. Of this time. I'm proud to say I didn't make any money of you, that was never my intention anyway. ;)
Merlin, his lips tasted good. Even like this, in his immobile state, they were soft, strangely fresh, though just a bit chapped and above all – familiar. These were the first lips he had every kissed and to Ron familiar meant good; it meant safe and happy and his own. But it wasn’t until he felt a quiver and sensed them responding, that he realized how pulled into the kiss he had become. This was his Harry, his only poison for the longest time and it felt good and right kissing him.
And then he felt his body stirring underneath him, the bony fingers sinking into his hair, the lips responding warmly, coming alive, opening up for him, granting access, the sweet mouth deepening the kiss and whispering a string of broken words straight into Ron’s own gently caressing mouth:
“Ron? Merlin... I thought I’ve lost you!”
And only when he felt the flutter of long eyelashes tickle his cheeks, telling him that Harry had opened his wonderful eyes, Ron broke the kiss gently - and finally, he knew why.
Because for as good as it had felt, it was also all wrong. It did not reflect what he felt for Harry any longer. It was a goodbye indeed. A goodbye to his youthful dreams, a goodbye to passion and belonging he once felt for Harry, a goodbye to the hopes of the past, a ghost of what could have been.
So he smiled at Harry from close proximity, though not without a hint of sadness in his eyes, and answered truthfully:
“Only as a lover, Harry. I’m still here.”
He saw his eyes turn incredulous, desperate and stormy and felt Harry’s fingers tighten in his hair:
“Then what was this right now, Ron!? Don’t you think I felt it?! You kissed me, kissed me right and proper, like you used to! We’re not over, we can’t be! You can’t be toying with me like that!!”
As the room trembled slightly with the force of Harry’s pent up magic, Ron’s hands slipped without hesitation on top Harry’s wrists and he freed himself from the angry grip of his best mate, but kept his tiny fingers in his big hands, as if he wanted to make sure, they weren’t going to hurt anyone.
“The kiss was... necessary,” he explained hesitantly and with no small measure of embarrassment. “I would have done this and more to bring you back, Harry. You were hit with a curse, as unfortunate as it was, and this was the only cure, as cruel as it may seem.”
But Harry’s eyes were no longer on his face, they had gotten impossibly big at the sight of Ron’s wrists, peeking from the long sleeves and displaying clear marks of burns.
“Merlin... who?... I’ve done this to you!” he exhaled miserably as the memory hit him. “You’ve got this... because of me... Sweet mother of god... No wonder you don’t want me any longer! A right monster I am!”
“No, Harry.” Ron slipped one finger under Harry’s chin to make sure that the clearly distressed youth looked him straight in the eye. “You got this all wrong. I’d take this and more for you, any time. I just... love you that much, Harry, I always will... but I can no longer give you my heart. And I’m asking you to be fine with that.”
When he saw a defiant, tortured expression cross Harry’s face, he spoke quickly, knowing he had to ride the moment when his best mate couldn’t find the words to respond:
“Last time we spoke like this, face to face, I asked you to love me. To let go of it all, for me. And you couldn’t do it. And you were right not to,so right! Because I had no right to ask you that. I had no right to tell you where to take your heart... as you have no right to tell me where to take mine, Harry. “
“But Malfoy, Ron, Malfoy!” Harry interrupted feverishly. “I… understand that you don’t want to be with me anymore, god knows don’t deserve you, but Draco Malfoy… that’s just… it’s a stretch too far. How do you even…” He stopped, because he had no words to tell him how very wronghe found the idea of Ron together with the hated blonde.
But Ron just smiled a tad sadly: “I once hoped you and I would end up together... and we did. As best mates. Not quite what I imagined, but I supposed I never imagined loving Draco either. But I do, Harry,” he looked him deeply in the eye as if he wanted to make it perfectly clear to his wounded best-mate that he had no doubt about his choice.
“And I know he loves me, too. I’ve never asked you for much - and you still gave me all that and more - but right now I’m asking you to let me make this choice. No matter how wrong you think it is, even if it is a downright mistake - you have to let me make my own. I cannot follow your shadow any longer, Harry, I have to cast my own and with him, I can. He makes me shine, Harry, he adores me. I never felt so loved and appreciated in my life and he’s not afraid to show it either. Just earlier this evening he kissed me in front of my own mother, imagine that!”
The expression of hurt on Harry’s face said more than any words could how much he would have loved to be the one kissing Ron in front of everybody and the redhead ran his fingers nervously through his hair, before he took a firm hold of Harry’s numb hands once more.
“Shit… I’m so pants at this… Look, Harry,” he said as softly as he could because his heart was cracking open when he saw his best friend so down and completely devastated. “I’m not going to say you had your chance and you wasted it, because that’s not entirely true either. It was not a fairchance, not with what you stood to lose. And for all it’s worth, I think you made the right decision. I would never be able to look your little ones in the eye again if I took their dad from them.
I was being selfish and hurt and I made a foolish call to challenge you and your heart. I never meant to break it; it was not supposed to come so far. If I was thinking straight that evening, I wouldn’t have forced you to make a decision; I’ve always thought you’d make one on your own, eventually.
But you did, Harry, you did in the end. Perhaps you can’t find it in your heart to appreciate it now, because you didn’t chose what your heart desires, but that just goes to show that you’re a much better person than I am. If you had chosen me… that would have made me proud over the moon… - but in a long run, it would have lost me a great portion of Harry I had come to love; Harry who can be exceptionally proud of what he achieved, of his life, of his family. You could never be whole again if you abandoned your kids, I know you, Harry Potter. That’s why I came to love you and that’s why I’ll never stop loving you for as long as I live. Your life, your love is a blessing to so many others, not just yourself.
But I don’t have what you have, Harry, I never did. I don’t have that feeling of importance, of mattering to the world and to myself. I… was never enough. Mostly to myself. I always felt as if I was lacking something – when I was a child, I thought it was money or talent for Quidditch or my magic, which was never anything out of the ordinary. But as I grew older and I gained all those things, the money, the skill, the importance in the eyes of the world – that hole was still there. As if part of me was missing, a void gaping in the middle of my soul, sucking in all my achievements like giant black hole, as if they were nothing.
And I desperately wanted you to be the one to fill it. My shiny new, all mine, best friend. Someone who everybody admired, someone who choseme to stand by his side from an army of willing admirers. It still makes me swell with pride, to this day, it does. But it didn’t fill up the hole in me, as much as I wanted it to, it had only made me more aware of it.
And then I met him, really met him, Draco, the man behind the insults and the pompous family name. Someone ten times more lost and hungry for love than myself; someone who hides his every insecurity, every heart-felt desire behind a smirk and a sneer, because he can’t keep it together if they were out in the open.
He’s so fucking vulnerable, Harry, the real Draco is, that once he shattered to pieces in front of me, my every instinct drove me to wrap myself around him and just hold him. And somehow, when I reached out to him and he responded to me - violently, truthfully, in all honesty, naked and raw, as I asked it of him - and offered me his heart... this was the first time in my life that I felt that hole inside me heal itself and disappear. As if somehow, miraculously, it was in the shape of his heart this whole time and only his heart could fill it perfectly. I can’t explain, Harry, but he makes me feel whole. I know he was a bastard to me once – but he’s my bastard now.
And now I have to ask it of you, to let me go, not entirely, not completely, just my heart. So I also have something to give him. I wouldn’t dare offer him anything less.
If you do this for me, Harry, my Harry, I’ll still be with you, if you’ll have me, every bloody day of your life. I swear you won’t be able to get rid of me if you hire a pack of Death Eaters to plot my demise! I’ll be your best mate until the day I drop the bucket and beyond; I’ll be your Ron, the keeper of your secrets, someone who knows you inside out, someone you can fall on with all your weight if life ever knocks you over and someone who will always make sure you land gently.
Please, Harry… Just this one thing… Make me someone who can shine by your side, not merely drag his feet in your shadow. Will you do that for me, Harry? Will you give me a chance to be my own person, to make my own choices, perhaps my own mistakes, find my own love, make my own happiness? Will you, my green-eyed muse?”
And he kissed the tears from his jet-black eyelashes gently, kissed them away from his quivering mouth, kissed away a lost whispered “Ron…” and waited his reply patiently.
His gentleness and his sincerity had taken all the fight out of Harry and he couldn’t utter a word for the longest time. He never felt so broken in his life, so hard pressed to even breathe. The only thing that kept him together was a feeling of large warm hands holding his own, sheltering his bony shaking fingers, making him feel as if he wasn’t completely left alone and abandoned after all. He tried squeezing them, if only to see if he was still alive and not cast in stone as he felt - and he ended up gripping them viciously, as if they were his only life line.
When he spoke, his voice was ragged as if he wasn’t speaking in years, and in fact, the man who spoke now, perhaps never spoke to Ron before:
“I won’t say you don’t know what you’re asking of me, because you do… you know very well. You know that I’d blow my life to smithereens right now, to be with you, every last bit of it… but you came to tell me, you won’t have me… and I have to accept that. Don’t even ask me how it feels, cause you know… you know it burns like acid through my heart and I’ll never be the same Harry you came to love again. You’ve broken me, Ron, god knows you have broken me… Right now, I don’t know how to go on, so I have to take it slow…”
At this point his voice cracked and he pulled out his hand from Ron’s grip abruptly and furiously wiped the tears from his eyes with a gesture of a little boy, who wouldn’t be seen crying and it broke Ron’s heart to see the mountain of despair in the bottom of those beloved green eyes. But his hand was back promptly, his fingers slipping in between Ron’s and intertwining, holding on for dear life. His voice was clearer, but more feverish as he continued:
“But the one thing is clear to me: I can’t survive this without you by my side. These past few days, when I thought I’ve lost you… like really, reallylost you, for good, not only as my lover, but also as my friend, my… other half, as your… as this Malfoy you insist on calling yours so acidly put it… those last few days have been unbearable. And they had made me realize how much more you’ve become to me. My world is… off balance when you’re not around and I can’t ever have that again. I will do anything not to lose you again. For all it’s worth…”
Harry looked his best mate straight in the eye: “I love you, Ron Weasley ; let there be no doubt - I’m in love with you. God I wish I had said that years ago and not now, when it’s too late. I love you with all my heart… and I release you.
Because you asked it of me and because if I don’t, I risk losing you and I can’t afford to ever lose you again. If I had it my way, we’d walk out of this room hand in hand, but I’ve only got myself to blame to have lost you and I guess the Universe wants justice. Merlin knows you waited long enough, gave me chances enough, offered yourself to me time and time again and I just took and I took and I took, I never once gave back what I thought was mine…
I should have known Ron, all those years ago, when I first climbed into your bed, that I’ll never get anything more precious than what you were giving away so generously and that this priceless heart of yours should have been my final destination… But you see, I always was a blind fool in more ways than one and I didn’t realize that all that taking and never giving anything back was going to leave a hole in your chest…
And now you’re telling me, you found someone else to fill it… And it’s killing me… It would have killed me if it was the worthiest, the most loving person on the planet, someone who was well-deserving of you and your wonderful loving heart – but it’s him, the Malfoy, the one person I can’t see any worth in! And you’re asking me to trust you – so I must. On your word alone. And because I know your heart has a way of telling the truth that’s hidden from plain view. That’s why you chose to sit with me that first day on the train to Hogwarts and I trust your heart more than I trust my own judgement.
I have to believe Malfoy will make you happy like I couldn’t – and I will do my best to try. Though right now I just feel like strangling him from taking you from me… and I feel like hurting him and you with him and myself for being so bloody foolish for losing you…. I had died once and it hurt less than this, I swear on Merlin’s name it did… but I’ll take it, for you. You’re just worth it all to me, Ron Weasley, always was.”
At this point Ron hugged him fiercely and held him tightly and kissed the top of his unruly hair a million times, whispering “thank you, Harry, thank you… God, I wish I could do this without hurting you…”
And Harry just let himself be held, pressed against the chest, against the beat of the heart he just gave up, soaking up his warmth and willing for his sobs to subside and his tears to dry out.
“You know…” he sniffed in the end, when his eyes were red and hurting and his chest finally stop heaving enough for him to breathe, “…if this all ends badly, you’re going to have to suffer through me telling you “I told you so” a million fucking times, you big ginger oaf - ” and he moved away to look him in the eye and saw him smile through his tears, “ - but I’ll be there to say it, Ron, because I’ll never let you slip away from me again. I hereby swear to cherish you, appreciate you and respect to your choices – as long as you promise you’ll never give me up completely. I don’t care if your boyfriend turns permanently green in jealousy, I don’t want to be your “once-best friend Harry Potter”, I want to be your “best mate Harry Potter, the one I got shit-faced yesterday with” and you’re never allowed to leave me behind, understood!?”
“Oh, Harry… you bloody idiot…” Ron had to wipe his own tears cause it looked as if he had an inexhaustible warehouse of them ready at first sight of Harry’s misery. “As if I could ever leave you behind, you four-eyed twat! Man, you really are blind if you can’t see I miss your stupid scarred face like crazy! Of course I’ll never leave you behind, you dork, how could I?! I may be in love with another, but changing a best friend – or losing one, what a daft idea! – was never on the menu, not in this big ginger oaf’s life. I’m not sure it’s even in my vocabulary.”
“Hmp, he’s in love with a Malfoy for a total of 3 seconds and he already talks like him – “daft idea” indeed!” mumbled Harry and tried to awkwardly dry his tear-streaked face with a sleeve, before he remembered he was supposed to be this fucking greatest wizard of his time and he just grabbed a wand to do the job.
“Now, take me to this shithead boyfriend of yours, so I can count his teeth and negotiate with him just which ones he is willing to lose if he as much as puts a hair out of place on your head!”
But when he tried to stand up, his face grimaced in pain: “Mother of god, what the fuck was that curse I was hit with? There’s someone in my head taking dancing lesson to the drum solo of Weird Sisters!”
“Something called Talia curse,” Ron said quietly. “I’ll tell you about it, if you wish, but if don’t care one way or the other, I’d rather not. The headache is just a minor complication, this could have gone seriously awry…”
“She did it,” Harry suddenly said. “She did it, didn’t she? Malfoy’s wife… Draco’s mother. I saw it on her face, just a glimpse and it was gone, but I knew I couldn’t trust her. Does Malfoy – oh, bloody hell, too many Malfoys in my life now – does Lucius know?”
And Ron merely shook his head, for once relieved that he didn’t have to lie to his best mate.
“And I would appreciate it, if you didn’t mention it to him,” he said quietly. “I know she was meant to help you – and in the end, she did, if not exactly how you planned. She did what was the best for everyone.”
And Harry really didn’t have anything to add to that – it was true. Ron took his hand, purposefully ignoring what it would look like if they came out of the room like that. Fuck them, what he just let go off was nothing compared to a moment of other people’s distress; he was entitled to hold his Harry whenever the fuck he felt like it! But right before he opened the door, he looked at Harry pleadingly:
“Ginny, Harry… she really missed you. I had to promise to never touch you again and she would be heartbroken if she heard about… this, about how I had to break this curse. Can we…”
Harry’s eyes got comically big in mocked shock:
“Weasley, you’re bloody mental if you think I’m going to submit myself to years of screeching accusations if she ever found out about this! For god’s sake, I’m going to spend the rest of my living days with this woman and her Hungarian-Horntail-temper, why would I shoot myself in the leg like this?! No… this… moment of ours… it’ll stay between us - ” he looked at Ron with a small smile and suddenly added with unexpected softness: “ … - but I’ll never forget it, I’ll cherish it all my life. It’s all I’ve got left.”
He looked at his best mate with big green eyes and Ron read in them all those things Harry will never be free to say again. So he hugged him fiercely, kissed the top of his head again and whispered:
“Let’s go, Potter, before I melt at your feet and you’re going to have to explain to my boyfriend why you delivered me in a vial… You’re the most precious friend one could ever have, you know that?”
“Hmp… let’s see what you think of me after I tell that bastard of yours what I think of his courting strategies!” mumbled Harry, his eyes still sparkling in the memory of how magnificently manipulated they all were by the unscrupulous Slytherin.
“Now, Potter, play nicely! No harassing my boyfriend in my presence… or behind my back, for that matter!” Ron warned, suddenly flushed with the silliest sense of panic.
Bloody hell, Potter and Malfoy in one room… repeatedly... for the rest of their lives… that can’t end well! What had he done!? Harry’s magic was magnificent and only half predictable; one could never know which way it would explode if he felt provoked! Merlin, he hoped Draco had better sense than trying to go poking Harry into his soft spots! He could not see how he could possibly stop his wound-up and pissed-off ex-lover-reduced-to-best mate going for his jugular! And what if…
“Ron, stop projecting!” Harry said sternly. “I know you’re thinking up a thousand and one scenarios with bloody limbs flying around the place in your head, I can always tell when you do that! Your eyes get impossibly big, like you’re watching a Muggle horror movie and I can almost hear you tripping over yourself trying to think of all the possible outcomes! I’m not gonna hurt bloody Malfoy… much… oh, OK, stop looking like you’ve seen Voldemort return – If Molly left all of his teeth intact, I reckon she had a good reason and I dare not attack one of her guests. Though I have a distinct feeling I’ll be sorely tempted…” he murmured to himself, when Ron opened the door to Fred’s all room and not one, but two blond heads turned in unison to greet them. And for once Harry Potter could not hold back his shock:
“Bloody hell, Malfoy, you’ve been cloned!”
“Language, Potter!” hissed Draco as he got up abruptly, but his eyes were no longer on the raven-haired youth as if he couldn’t care if he vanished on the spot. Instead they were glued to Ron’s face, the worry and the fear in the grey eyes barely concealed, scrutinizing every detail as if trying to discern the verdict. His heart leaped in his chest when he saw the redhead had clearly been crying, but a moment later Ron crossed the tiny room with all but a couple of strides and cupped his face with his long fingers. For an endless agonizing moment he looked him deeply in the eye, ignoring his best mate who all but froze at his place at the door as if he knew what was coming; ignoring the awed gasp of a small blond boy who looked at him with big round eyes as if he just stepped from his high place in Heaven because he had surely never seen more magnificent a man…
Oblivious to the world and to everything around them, because this was… it, this was their moment, he finally took a big gasp of air and told him in a shaky determined voice:
“It is done, Malfoy. I’ll take that reward now. Everything you've got… Draco.”
It was all the warning the blond got, before Ron kissed him fiercely, passionately, with love and abandon, with near despair, as if he needed to draw warmth and strength from him, when his own was so terribly depleted. And Draco didn’t consider denying him, not for a moment. The wave of relief and all-encompassing love that hit him was so overwhelming that for once he dropped all reservations, all pretences and just dug his fingers deeply in the warm mass of silken fiery hair, held on for dear life and let himself be ravaged.
“Ron,” he managed somewhere in between two kisses with a voice that was embarrassingly close to a sob. “God Almighty… all these years… mine at last.”
~ End of Part 17 ~Next: ( Choices, Part 18 )
See also:
( Choices, Part 1 )
( Choices, Part 2 )
( Choices, Part 3 )
( Choices, Part 4 )
( Choices, Part 5/1 )
( Choices, Part 5/2 )
( Choices, Part 6 )
( Choices, Part 7 )
( Choices, Part 8/1 )
( Choices, Part 8/2 )
( Choices, Part 9 )
( Choices, Part 10/1 )
( Choices, Part 10/2 )
( Choices, Part 11/1 )
( Choices, Part 11/2 )
( Choices, Part 12 )
( Choices, Part 13 )
( Choices, Part 14 )
( Choices, Part 15/1 )
( Choices, Part 15/2 )
( Choices 16/1 )
( Choices 16/2 )
