Ixion
(calliope14 again, posting for the lj-less Pale Rider)
Title: Ixion
Author: Pale Rider
Rating: PG
Pairings: Draco/Ron, Harry/Ron
Warnings: Angst
Summary: Ixion's hands and feet are fastened to the rim of a mighty wheel that does not stop its
spinning. His muscles ache endlessly from holding one position, yet his body rebels with nausea
from the constant motion. He wishes to move; he wishes to stop. He may have one desire granted, but
he hates both aspects of his fate so greatly that he cannot choose. Thus he is trapped into
allowing both tortures to continue, until the day the gods take pity and make the choice for him.
Notes: Sequel to "Tantalus" and response to the Harry/Ron Fuh-Q-Fest challenge: "Harry leaves the
Wizarding World and Ron goes to find him"
Disclaimer: Not mine, JKR's
IXION
With a resigned sigh, Harry dumped the pills into the toilet and flushed. Muggle medicine had
failed him too, it seemed -- he'd have no relief, no respite from the pain from now on. The pills were
useless, potions and spells were useless, and the only consolation he could feel was that he would
certainly be dying soon.
Moving slowly -- he could move no other way -- Harry grabbed his cane and left the room, leaning
heavily on the strong oak as he shuffled down the hall to the kitchen. The fireplace there was was
burning merrily, and as he collapsed into the plush armchair placed right in front of it Harry
could feel just the tiniest bit of warmth seeping back into his limbs. He always seemed cold now...
his heart was weakening, his body was slowing down. His blood took too long to flow out through his
limbs, and never got warm again when it returned to his chest.
Harry glanced down at his unwrinkled hands and sighed again. In a sense it was unfair that he
would die like this, alone in a tiny, anonymous cottage years after his last battle with darkness. At
the same time, it pointed to a near triumph of consistency. Harry's life had never been fair. His
loving parents were murdered, those who adopted him were abusive, and his Godfather fell in battle
and was still regarded as a villain. The school he loved was a source of danger the whole time he
was there. The teacher he trusted deceived and manipulated him. He'd had two dear friends, but one
had died at his side, and the other -- the one Harry loved most in the whole world -- fell in
love with his schoolboy nemesis.
So it was fitting that Harry should die of old age just a few months after his 22nd birthday.
Harry knew what curse was destroying him, had studied it in school: _Decrepitus_. It caused the
body to age rapidly on the inside, more or less retaining its youthful appearance on the outside.
Voldemort had cast it on him during the final battle. But Voldemort was dead, and the curse was not
supposed to work without a wizard's will powering it constantly. Even then, it should have been
easy for mediwizards, or even some muggle drugs, to break. Yet nothing had worked. Another unfair
fact piled on an unfair life -- Harry would be almost glad to see it go.
Almost.
He only regretted that he wouldn't be able to see Ron again. Harry lacked the energy to apparate,
or the strength to cling to a broom, and he didn't know what he'd say in a letter. He had nothing
to say, really -- he only wanted to know that Ron was happy. He wanted to know that he'd made the
right choice by leaving so that Ron could be with Draco. If Ron had a good life, even if it was
with that loathsome ferret, then that would make up for all the unfairness.
After all, he'd had one night with the man of his dreams, even if it had been awkward and over all
too fast. With his kind of ill fortune, Harry couldn't expect more than that.
***
"Damn!" Ron Weasley swore as he made his way across the overgrown lawn. Whoever lived in the tiny
cottage -- and Ron was only convinced that someone *did* by the thin ribbon of smoke rising from
the chimney -- certainly hadn't mowed the grass in at least a year. The grass, of course, was the
least of it; brambles grew thick in the greenery, covering most of the stone path. Ron extricated
his ankle from a loop of vine and muttered a quick spell to heal the three small cuts the thorns
had made, but he didn't have a clue how to mend the pants, which meant Draco would have another fit
about his 'improperly dressed husband'.
Then again, Ron realized with a grin, those fits usually ended with Draco forcefully removing said
'improper' clothing, and that usually led to a tiring, but entirely satisfying, evening.
Ron shook his head and continued up the path. There was no time to think about that now. Some poor
muggle had been hit with a _Decrepitus_ curse, and he had to break it before the muggle health
authorities started to ask too many questions. The doctor involved had already been Obliviated, his
office searched from top to bottom so that no traces of Evan Lilly's visit remained. Even the
druggist had earned a blank spot in his memory, and now the only thing left to do was cure Mr. Lilly
himself and assess the degree to which he needed *his* brain scrubbed.
Ron just hoped that the unfortunate victim had given his real address when he went to get his
prescription filled. It would be a terrible shame to go through all the trouble of crossing this
jungle of a lawn just to find that the young man had lied. Not only that, but without any leads on the
victim's whereabouts, Ron would be forced to stay here for several weeks and keep an eye on the
morgues -- not a pleasant prospect in this remote and rainy corner of Scotland. How *anything* had
managed to grow as dense and wild as this lawn in the apparently perpetual cold rain around here
was beyond Ron's understanding.
Finally, however, Ron managed to reach the cottage's front door, and instantly noticed a clear
path out to the street from the side door. Resisting the urge to bang his head against the wooden
frame, Ron instead firmly pressed the doorbell. He heard a faint ringing through the door, but
nothing else. Ron waited for a moment, then pressed the doorbell again. Then there was another pause in
which nothing happened. As Ron was about to hit the bell again, he heard a shuffling in the house,
and so he lowered his arm just as the door opened.
There was yet another pause in which nothing happened.
Then Ron asked, "Harry?" as Harry asked, "Ron?"
And then Harry fainted dead away.
With reflexes borne from three long months of training in the St. Mungo's trauma ward, where
family members were as likely to faint as patients, Ron lunged forward and caught Harry before he hit
the ground. The scarred man was feather-light, and Ron had no trouble cradling him in his arms as
he looked around for a couch or bed. Finding nothing, he stumbled down a short hall until he found
a bedroom, then carefully lowered Harry onto it. Ron grabbed the pillow out from under Harry's
head and placed it under his feet. Then Ron sat down on the bed and waited, trying to suppress the
emotions that were already starting to boil inside him.
A few moments later, Harry stirred slightly and murmured, "Wanted to see you again..."
"Merlin, Harry... you know better than to go to muggles for something like this!" Ron exploded.
"You're dying, and instead of getting proper medical treatment, you're hiding away in this hovel,
hoping for some muggle miracle!"
"You think I... didn't use... magic?" Harry whispered. "I had good mediwizards... come here.
They... all failed. So I... Obliviated them."
"But _Decrepitus_ is easy to break!" Ron protested. "Here... _Rejuvenate!_" he cried, performing a
simple motion with his wand.
The effect should have been immediate and obvious, particularly at this late stage of the curse
progression, but Ron couldn't see any change. "Nothing works," Harry said. "Tried everything... no
good."
"You've given up," Ron realized.
"No point... fighting," Harry wheezed. It was odd to hear such labored speech coming from such a
young person. Then again, new advances had made _Decrepitus_ so easy to break that Ron had never
seen such an advanced case. Rumor had it that back in the dark times, Voldemort had used a version
of _Decrepitus_ that worked in hours rather than years, but Ron had never seen that either.
"Look, I'm sure there's something that can be done. If I get you back to St. Mungo's..."
"No!" Harry cried, almost reaching normal speaking volume.
"So you just want to spend your last days in agony?"
"Going to Mungo's won't make any difference," Harry replied. "Stay or go... I still die in agony.
Here is familiar. I stay." His head lolled over so that he was looking directly at Ron. "Now go."
"No," Ron replied, almost before he'd processed Harry's command.
"You can't help me," Harry whispered. "Watching me die would hurt you. So go."
"Never," Ron replied. "Maybe you don't remember, or maybe you don't care, but I love you, Harry
Potter, and if you think now that I've found you I'm going to let you die alone and in pain, you
have another thing coming."
"How'd you find me, anyway?" Harry asked, changing the subject.
"Your Muggle doctor submitted a communication on your case to _The Lancet_," Ron explained. "The
Ministry has a whole team of mediwizards that read over them to catch magical maladies that have
made their way into the muggle population. I've been working for the Ministry's Department of
Magical Medicine, and I got handed the case. Your doctor and druggist already have new memories."
"All for nothing," Harry said. "Their pills didn't even ease the pain."
"Pain?" Ron asked. Pain wasn't a usual symptom of _Decrepitus_.
"Pain," Harry confirmed. "My whole body hurts all the time... like I've just run into a swarm of
angry bees."
"Let me help you," Ron said. "Let me at least try."
"If you try and fail..."
"Then I'll at least have been with you at the end, Harry. Look, I never understood why you left,
and maybe I never will. But I still love you. And now that I've found you, I'm not giving you up
without a fight."
"Suit yourself," Harry whispered, his eyes closing again. "I'm in no condition to stop you."
***
The owl that brought the note seemed vaguely familiar, but despite his prodigious abilities with
names and faces, Draco had never been able to remember birds very well. Pigwidgeon -- or 'the
annoyance', as Draco preferred to think of him -- greeted the newcomer in an enthusiastic and almost
familiar way, but he seemed to do that for every owl that passed by. Draco shrugged and tossed the
snowy owl a few treats, then sat down in the Manor's owlery chair to read the letter.
'Draco -- mission will require a few more days. I'm fine -- R'
"Blast," Draco muttered, tossing the letter towards the fire. It fell short, but one of the
house-elves popped out of thin air and obligingly tossed it the rest of the way before popping back into
thin air again. Draco had planned to go clean out the West Dungeon this weekend, but he definitely
needed an extra pair of hands to help with all the torture equipment he wanted to dispel and
dismantle. Draco stood and descended the mansion's stairs until he reached the main level, then strode
down the long hall to the study. The fire here was roaring too, and he snatched an urn full of
Floo Powder from the mantle and tossed a few grains in.
"Gringotts Cursebreaker Division!" he shouted, and a goblin's ugly head appeared almost
immediately.
"Can I help you, sir?"
"Mr. William Weasley, please," Draco replied.
"Right away."
A few moments later, a head, which eerily resembled Ron's except for the long hair and earring,
appeared in the flames. "Bill Weasley," the head said.
"Hullo, Bill," Draco announced. "Are you free this weekend?"
"Probably," Bill said. "Fleur's back in Paris with her family."
"Lovely. Fancy a go at some nasty stuff from my father's dungeon?"
Ordinary men would have cowered at the thought. Lucius Malfoy had changed sides fairly early in
the second war against Voldemort, but everyone knew about his deep entanglements with Dark Magic.
The average wizard would have instantly declined. Bill Weasley, however, truly loved his job, to a
degree that few cursebreakers could rival.
"Sure," he said eagerly. "Need me to bring any of my equipment? I've got a lovely new
diagnosticator I've been itching to try out."
"I expect it will all be straightforward," Draco replied, "but feel free."
"How's my brother getting on?" Bill asked.
"Out on work," Draco replied, frowning. He was still upset that Ron had decided to take a paying
job -- it was unseemly for the spouse of a Malfoy to do something as menial as *work*, even if it
was for the Ministry.
Bill grinned; this argument was something the entire family knew about. "Will he be back for the
weekend? I want to tease him about the Cannons again."
Draco shrugged. "He said something came up," he answered.
"Well, it's probably nothing serious," Bill said. "I'll see you on Saturday morning."
"Bright and early," Draco replied.
*****
A scream yanked Harry from the world of dreams and into the darkness of his little cottage. He
bolted upright in his bed, then rolled out as the scream was repeated. Harry blindly grabbed for his
cane, then stumbled out into the hall. Adrenaline accelerated his motions as he hobbled towards
the kitchen, where yet another scream was sounding.
Ron, lying on a pallet of blankets, was tense and rigid, his eyes squeezed shut as he screamed yet
again. Harry collapsed on the floor beside him, and tried to shove him awake. His motions were
feeble however, and Ron did not respond except to scream "NOOOOO!"
"Ron!" Harry wheezed, "Ron wake up! It's just... ah... ah..." The words wouldn't come. The
adrenaline surge was ebbing away, and with it almost all of Harry's strength. He collapsed against the
redhead's chest, fighting for breath. He wondered whether this might be the end.
But then Ron was awake, muttering spells that eased the passage of air into Harry's lungs and
restored some of the energy to his exhausted limbs. Harry closed his eyes and felt himself being
cradled against Ron's broad chest. "What are you doing in here?" he asked.
"You were screaming..."
"Again? Damn, I'm sorry... it happens a lot."
"Nightmares?"
"Yeah..."
"What about?"
"Different things... I saw a lot of bad stuff when I was working at St. Mungo's, you know."
Harry shook his head. "That's not it, though," he countered, still to exhausted to make a more
complete refutation.
"No," Ron agreed. "Most of the time, I have nightmares about *you*. I've been so worried,
Harry..." He squeezed the smaller man lightly for a moment. "You have no idea how hard it's been for me,
not knowing where you were, whether you were all right..."
"I've been okay..."
"But you haven't, Harry! You're ill, and as long as we stay here, I can't do anything more for
you."
"Won't be so bad..." Harry protested. He'd probably die soon no matter what, and then Ron would
move on -- Ron would have closure, and a happy life with Draco. That's all Harry wanted for him
anyway... happiness.
"Harry..." Ron sighed, then gently stroked Harry's face. "You still don't understand, do you? I
love Draco, you know I do, but as much as I care for him, he can't replace you. Ever since you've
left, I've felt like a part of me has been cut off. There's a great bloody hole in my life, and it's
you, and sometimes I just want to stop where I'm standing and cry because it hurts so much. The
only thing that's kept me stumbling forward is that I might be able to find you someday... it's been
hell for Draco, too, 'cuz I go off every other weekend to search small towns for signs of you.
Four more weeks and I would have come here -- if I'd searched Britain north to south instead of the
other way 'round, I might have found you years ago."
Harry wanted to say something, but his heart, pounding stronger than it had in months, had
inexplicably moved from his chest to his throat.
"If you die, Harry... then the one hope I live for is gone. I know it's not what you want out of
life, and it's not fair of me to ask you to accept it, but I love you, and I want you in my life...
I *need* you in my life. Please, Harry... please come back with me. Don't... don't take that part
of me away forever."
Harry felt tears on his face, and couldn't tell whether or not they were his. Then lips that
definitely belonged to Ron were pressed against his forehead, and Harry's resolve shattered... as he
knew it would. He couldn't deny Ron anything, but he didn't trust himself to speak. So he nodded.
"Thank you," Ron whispered, hugging Harry closely, but gently. "Thank you."
***
"Well, it's not ideal," Ron muttered as he pulled the thick wool robe's hood over Harry's head.
"I'd much rather use the Floo, but hooking up your chimney would have been a dead giveaway, I
suppose."
"Thnn Mmrry," Harry grunted, any words he'd intended to say totally muffled by the heavy scarf Ron
had wrapped around his neck, his chin, and half his face.
Not that Ron needed any interpretation when Harry's eyes were twinkling like that. "I haven't
turned into my mother *yet*, thank you," he replied, "Not nearly enough kids." He grabbed his
overnight bag and Harry's old trunk, which had been shrunk for transport. Despite the intervening years,
everything Harry considered important in the cottage still fit into the container he'd used at
school -- packing everything had only taken half an hour. "Well, let's go," Ron said, and hoisted
Harry into his arms. The other man was still too, too light, but Ron had been shovelling some hearty
meals into him, so he'd recovered a tiny amount of weight.
Taking the clear path this time, Ron made his way to the street. "Can you stand for a moment?" he
asked.
"Shrn."
Ron set Harry down, then reached out with his wand hand. Almost immediately, there was a loud bang
and a clatter as one of the most hideous vehicles ever conceived exploded out of thin air. Ron
hoisted Harry again, and stepped into the Knight Bus. "Hullo, Dennis," he said.
"'Lo Ron," Dennis Creevey said from the driver's seat. "That one for St. Mungo's?"
"No," Ron replied, glancing towards the floor. "He's a relative. I'm taking him to the manor.
We'll need a bed, though."
"Plenty empty ones around," Dennis replied. "We're awfully short of business for a Saturday. Well,
things are picking up. Got your fare?"
"Sure," Ron said, dropping some coins into the box. They were his... Harry's money was all in
muggle form. He carried Harry over to one of the beds and laid him down, but Harry had already fallen
asleep. Just as well, really... Harry needed to conserve his strength as much as possible.
Ron flopped down on the bed next to his friend. It occurred to him, a little later than it should
have, that he probably ought to have told Draco he was bringing a visitor. Well, there was no help
for it now.
***
"You don't suppose he's found a lead, do you?" Bill asked as he levitated the ashes of an
unpleasantly enchanted stretching rack into a dustbin.
"Eh?" Draco asked, studying a pair of thumbscrews. The eyes engraved on the screwheads glared at
him. "You mean Ron?"
"Yup," Bill affirmed. "You need a hand with those?"
"Please," Draco said. Sentient torture devices were much harder to dispel and destroy than the
ordinary kind. Having Bill around had proven to be extremely helpful for destroying them. "What kind
of lead?"
"About Harry, of course," Bill said, walking over to stand beside Draco. "Oh this one *is* a bit
of a tangle," he commented, looking at the thumbscrews.
"Potter," Draco muttered, running a hand through his hair. He'd cut it short recently, and
discovered he rather liked the way it sprang back into place on its own without any assistance from gels
or potions. He was seriously considering keeping it this way, pending Ron's approval of the idea.
It would require going to the salon more often, but Draco never begrudged himself such
indulgences.
"You don't approve of his part-time detective work?" Bill asked cautiously.
Draco shook his head. "I want Ron to be happy," he replied, "and without Potter, he isn't... not
entirely, at any rate. So I *want* him to find Potter, of course."
"But you're afraid what will happen to your relationship if he actually *does*."
Draco just stared at Bill for several moments. "I didn't think he'd ever told anyone..."
"He didn't," Bill interrupted. "But I could always tell... the way they looked at each other, the
way Harry would smile at the least little joke Ron made, the pat on the back that lasted just a
moment too long... they loved each other, at least. Perhaps they were even in love."
"Not officially," Draco said, turning his attention back to the thumbscrews. He flicked his wand,
and they glowed with a reddish light for a moment. "Hrm," he commented, "it's all tied together."
"Well, something has to be the lynchpin," Bill said. "Let's give the diagnosticator a go at it."
"Fine by me."
Bill removed a small device from his pocket that looked roughly like a long cylinder made up of
almost twenty thick, ring-like segments. He held it up to his eye and it began to whirr, various
segments of the tube rotating in opposite directions. "This might take a moment," Bill said.
"We have the time," Draco replied. "Everything up to this point has gone much faster than I
anticipated."
"Good, then." A pause ensued, then Bill said, "So you're afraid that Ron brings Harry back, it's
love all over again, and you get left out in the cold."
Draco turned away. He didn't want to have this conversation, not really, but Ron was just
bullheaded enough to actually find Harry someday, and so he'd have to have it anyway. Better to have it
now with Bill than later with Percy -- or worse, Molly or Ginny. The Weasley men could be annoying
and gallingly persistent, but the women were outright dangerous... and very fond of Potter. "I'm a
bit more selfish than that," he finally admitted. "It's not that I think Ron will leave me
entirely -- I *know* he won't. I just... I've grown used to having him focusing on me *all* the time, or
as much of it as he has free. I want to keep that. I want him to love just me. Only me. As long as
Harry's gone, or just some phantom out in the world, I can have that. If he comes back... well...
then it ends. I go back to sharing the number one spot."
"And Malfoys aren't used to sharing," Bill concluded. The diagnosticator abruptly stopped and he
said, "Ah! There's a... well I'll be damned... it's a _Sonorus_ charm that's got the whole thing
pinned." He drew his wand and said, "_Quietus_!" The thumbscrews glowed with the red aura again, but
this time it seemed to writhe and twist for a moment. The thumbscrews started to smoke, then
caught fire and burned white-hot for a moment. The wood vaporized, and the metal bits slumped into a
pool of slag. Then it was all over, and only the slightest hint of an engraved eye hinted at the
lump of steel's sordid past.
"Good work," Draco said. "And you're right. I want Ron all to myself... I suppose you think
that's..."
"Selfish?" Bill asked. "No, seems to me that Ron's the selfish one here. He's in love with two
men, and can't -- or won't -- choose between them. And both of them are too in love to make the
choice for him."
"Harry wasn't," Draco commented.
"Harry *was*, Draco," Bill countered gently. "He left because he thought Ron would be happier with
you. That's what the note said."
"Well of course, but who really *believes* that kind of tripe?"
"You never knew him well enough to understand this," Bill explained, "but I talked with Harry a
good bit during the last two years of the war. He honestly believed that his being alive made other
people's lives worse. He never really recovered from the way his aunt and uncle treated him as a
child, you see... somewhere inside, he always believed he was a 'freak', disgusting. I don't think
anything can ever really change that. So he truly believed that you would make Ron happy, and he
would make Ron unhappy. So he left."
"Well, he was wrong," Draco snapped. "Ron tries to hide it but there's always... always some part
of him that's sad. Something I can't reach. I wish sometimes that he'd just find Potter and get
the misery over with. Then I think of what that might mean and wish that he never does..."
"I understand."
Both men were silent for a moment, until Draco said, "Enough of this. Let's grab a bite of lunch."
"Good idea."
Draco led the way up out of the dungeons and through the main foyer, shouting instructions for the
house-elves to prepare sandwiches and soup. Halfway to the informal luncheon parlor, he heard an
incredible noise from the front of the house. Glancing at Bill, and wondering why the explosion
hadn't set off any of the mansion's alarms, Draco drew his wand and ran back to the foyer.
Ron was just entering, kicking open the door as he backed his way into the house. Draco sheathed
his wand and crossed the room to help him, but stopped short halfway when Ron turned around and it
became apparent that his arms were busy holding someone wrapped up in a heavy cloak.
"Who..?" Draco whispered, but then the cloak's hood fell away to reveal familiar unkempt black
hair and an unforgettable scar.
"It seems your wish is granted," Bill commented.
_And at the same time, denied,_ Draco thought as Ron carried Harry up the stairs.
Title: Ixion
Author: Pale Rider
Rating: PG
Pairings: Draco/Ron, Harry/Ron
Warnings: Angst
Summary: Ixion's hands and feet are fastened to the rim of a mighty wheel that does not stop its
spinning. His muscles ache endlessly from holding one position, yet his body rebels with nausea
from the constant motion. He wishes to move; he wishes to stop. He may have one desire granted, but
he hates both aspects of his fate so greatly that he cannot choose. Thus he is trapped into
allowing both tortures to continue, until the day the gods take pity and make the choice for him.
Notes: Sequel to "Tantalus" and response to the Harry/Ron Fuh-Q-Fest challenge: "Harry leaves the
Wizarding World and Ron goes to find him"
Disclaimer: Not mine, JKR's
IXION
With a resigned sigh, Harry dumped the pills into the toilet and flushed. Muggle medicine had
failed him too, it seemed -- he'd have no relief, no respite from the pain from now on. The pills were
useless, potions and spells were useless, and the only consolation he could feel was that he would
certainly be dying soon.
Moving slowly -- he could move no other way -- Harry grabbed his cane and left the room, leaning
heavily on the strong oak as he shuffled down the hall to the kitchen. The fireplace there was was
burning merrily, and as he collapsed into the plush armchair placed right in front of it Harry
could feel just the tiniest bit of warmth seeping back into his limbs. He always seemed cold now...
his heart was weakening, his body was slowing down. His blood took too long to flow out through his
limbs, and never got warm again when it returned to his chest.
Harry glanced down at his unwrinkled hands and sighed again. In a sense it was unfair that he
would die like this, alone in a tiny, anonymous cottage years after his last battle with darkness. At
the same time, it pointed to a near triumph of consistency. Harry's life had never been fair. His
loving parents were murdered, those who adopted him were abusive, and his Godfather fell in battle
and was still regarded as a villain. The school he loved was a source of danger the whole time he
was there. The teacher he trusted deceived and manipulated him. He'd had two dear friends, but one
had died at his side, and the other -- the one Harry loved most in the whole world -- fell in
love with his schoolboy nemesis.
So it was fitting that Harry should die of old age just a few months after his 22nd birthday.
Harry knew what curse was destroying him, had studied it in school: _Decrepitus_. It caused the
body to age rapidly on the inside, more or less retaining its youthful appearance on the outside.
Voldemort had cast it on him during the final battle. But Voldemort was dead, and the curse was not
supposed to work without a wizard's will powering it constantly. Even then, it should have been
easy for mediwizards, or even some muggle drugs, to break. Yet nothing had worked. Another unfair
fact piled on an unfair life -- Harry would be almost glad to see it go.
Almost.
He only regretted that he wouldn't be able to see Ron again. Harry lacked the energy to apparate,
or the strength to cling to a broom, and he didn't know what he'd say in a letter. He had nothing
to say, really -- he only wanted to know that Ron was happy. He wanted to know that he'd made the
right choice by leaving so that Ron could be with Draco. If Ron had a good life, even if it was
with that loathsome ferret, then that would make up for all the unfairness.
After all, he'd had one night with the man of his dreams, even if it had been awkward and over all
too fast. With his kind of ill fortune, Harry couldn't expect more than that.
***
"Damn!" Ron Weasley swore as he made his way across the overgrown lawn. Whoever lived in the tiny
cottage -- and Ron was only convinced that someone *did* by the thin ribbon of smoke rising from
the chimney -- certainly hadn't mowed the grass in at least a year. The grass, of course, was the
least of it; brambles grew thick in the greenery, covering most of the stone path. Ron extricated
his ankle from a loop of vine and muttered a quick spell to heal the three small cuts the thorns
had made, but he didn't have a clue how to mend the pants, which meant Draco would have another fit
about his 'improperly dressed husband'.
Then again, Ron realized with a grin, those fits usually ended with Draco forcefully removing said
'improper' clothing, and that usually led to a tiring, but entirely satisfying, evening.
Ron shook his head and continued up the path. There was no time to think about that now. Some poor
muggle had been hit with a _Decrepitus_ curse, and he had to break it before the muggle health
authorities started to ask too many questions. The doctor involved had already been Obliviated, his
office searched from top to bottom so that no traces of Evan Lilly's visit remained. Even the
druggist had earned a blank spot in his memory, and now the only thing left to do was cure Mr. Lilly
himself and assess the degree to which he needed *his* brain scrubbed.
Ron just hoped that the unfortunate victim had given his real address when he went to get his
prescription filled. It would be a terrible shame to go through all the trouble of crossing this
jungle of a lawn just to find that the young man had lied. Not only that, but without any leads on the
victim's whereabouts, Ron would be forced to stay here for several weeks and keep an eye on the
morgues -- not a pleasant prospect in this remote and rainy corner of Scotland. How *anything* had
managed to grow as dense and wild as this lawn in the apparently perpetual cold rain around here
was beyond Ron's understanding.
Finally, however, Ron managed to reach the cottage's front door, and instantly noticed a clear
path out to the street from the side door. Resisting the urge to bang his head against the wooden
frame, Ron instead firmly pressed the doorbell. He heard a faint ringing through the door, but
nothing else. Ron waited for a moment, then pressed the doorbell again. Then there was another pause in
which nothing happened. As Ron was about to hit the bell again, he heard a shuffling in the house,
and so he lowered his arm just as the door opened.
There was yet another pause in which nothing happened.
Then Ron asked, "Harry?" as Harry asked, "Ron?"
And then Harry fainted dead away.
With reflexes borne from three long months of training in the St. Mungo's trauma ward, where
family members were as likely to faint as patients, Ron lunged forward and caught Harry before he hit
the ground. The scarred man was feather-light, and Ron had no trouble cradling him in his arms as
he looked around for a couch or bed. Finding nothing, he stumbled down a short hall until he found
a bedroom, then carefully lowered Harry onto it. Ron grabbed the pillow out from under Harry's
head and placed it under his feet. Then Ron sat down on the bed and waited, trying to suppress the
emotions that were already starting to boil inside him.
A few moments later, Harry stirred slightly and murmured, "Wanted to see you again..."
"Merlin, Harry... you know better than to go to muggles for something like this!" Ron exploded.
"You're dying, and instead of getting proper medical treatment, you're hiding away in this hovel,
hoping for some muggle miracle!"
"You think I... didn't use... magic?" Harry whispered. "I had good mediwizards... come here.
They... all failed. So I... Obliviated them."
"But _Decrepitus_ is easy to break!" Ron protested. "Here... _Rejuvenate!_" he cried, performing a
simple motion with his wand.
The effect should have been immediate and obvious, particularly at this late stage of the curse
progression, but Ron couldn't see any change. "Nothing works," Harry said. "Tried everything... no
good."
"You've given up," Ron realized.
"No point... fighting," Harry wheezed. It was odd to hear such labored speech coming from such a
young person. Then again, new advances had made _Decrepitus_ so easy to break that Ron had never
seen such an advanced case. Rumor had it that back in the dark times, Voldemort had used a version
of _Decrepitus_ that worked in hours rather than years, but Ron had never seen that either.
"Look, I'm sure there's something that can be done. If I get you back to St. Mungo's..."
"No!" Harry cried, almost reaching normal speaking volume.
"So you just want to spend your last days in agony?"
"Going to Mungo's won't make any difference," Harry replied. "Stay or go... I still die in agony.
Here is familiar. I stay." His head lolled over so that he was looking directly at Ron. "Now go."
"No," Ron replied, almost before he'd processed Harry's command.
"You can't help me," Harry whispered. "Watching me die would hurt you. So go."
"Never," Ron replied. "Maybe you don't remember, or maybe you don't care, but I love you, Harry
Potter, and if you think now that I've found you I'm going to let you die alone and in pain, you
have another thing coming."
"How'd you find me, anyway?" Harry asked, changing the subject.
"Your Muggle doctor submitted a communication on your case to _The Lancet_," Ron explained. "The
Ministry has a whole team of mediwizards that read over them to catch magical maladies that have
made their way into the muggle population. I've been working for the Ministry's Department of
Magical Medicine, and I got handed the case. Your doctor and druggist already have new memories."
"All for nothing," Harry said. "Their pills didn't even ease the pain."
"Pain?" Ron asked. Pain wasn't a usual symptom of _Decrepitus_.
"Pain," Harry confirmed. "My whole body hurts all the time... like I've just run into a swarm of
angry bees."
"Let me help you," Ron said. "Let me at least try."
"If you try and fail..."
"Then I'll at least have been with you at the end, Harry. Look, I never understood why you left,
and maybe I never will. But I still love you. And now that I've found you, I'm not giving you up
without a fight."
"Suit yourself," Harry whispered, his eyes closing again. "I'm in no condition to stop you."
***
The owl that brought the note seemed vaguely familiar, but despite his prodigious abilities with
names and faces, Draco had never been able to remember birds very well. Pigwidgeon -- or 'the
annoyance', as Draco preferred to think of him -- greeted the newcomer in an enthusiastic and almost
familiar way, but he seemed to do that for every owl that passed by. Draco shrugged and tossed the
snowy owl a few treats, then sat down in the Manor's owlery chair to read the letter.
'Draco -- mission will require a few more days. I'm fine -- R'
"Blast," Draco muttered, tossing the letter towards the fire. It fell short, but one of the
house-elves popped out of thin air and obligingly tossed it the rest of the way before popping back into
thin air again. Draco had planned to go clean out the West Dungeon this weekend, but he definitely
needed an extra pair of hands to help with all the torture equipment he wanted to dispel and
dismantle. Draco stood and descended the mansion's stairs until he reached the main level, then strode
down the long hall to the study. The fire here was roaring too, and he snatched an urn full of
Floo Powder from the mantle and tossed a few grains in.
"Gringotts Cursebreaker Division!" he shouted, and a goblin's ugly head appeared almost
immediately.
"Can I help you, sir?"
"Mr. William Weasley, please," Draco replied.
"Right away."
A few moments later, a head, which eerily resembled Ron's except for the long hair and earring,
appeared in the flames. "Bill Weasley," the head said.
"Hullo, Bill," Draco announced. "Are you free this weekend?"
"Probably," Bill said. "Fleur's back in Paris with her family."
"Lovely. Fancy a go at some nasty stuff from my father's dungeon?"
Ordinary men would have cowered at the thought. Lucius Malfoy had changed sides fairly early in
the second war against Voldemort, but everyone knew about his deep entanglements with Dark Magic.
The average wizard would have instantly declined. Bill Weasley, however, truly loved his job, to a
degree that few cursebreakers could rival.
"Sure," he said eagerly. "Need me to bring any of my equipment? I've got a lovely new
diagnosticator I've been itching to try out."
"I expect it will all be straightforward," Draco replied, "but feel free."
"How's my brother getting on?" Bill asked.
"Out on work," Draco replied, frowning. He was still upset that Ron had decided to take a paying
job -- it was unseemly for the spouse of a Malfoy to do something as menial as *work*, even if it
was for the Ministry.
Bill grinned; this argument was something the entire family knew about. "Will he be back for the
weekend? I want to tease him about the Cannons again."
Draco shrugged. "He said something came up," he answered.
"Well, it's probably nothing serious," Bill said. "I'll see you on Saturday morning."
"Bright and early," Draco replied.
*****
A scream yanked Harry from the world of dreams and into the darkness of his little cottage. He
bolted upright in his bed, then rolled out as the scream was repeated. Harry blindly grabbed for his
cane, then stumbled out into the hall. Adrenaline accelerated his motions as he hobbled towards
the kitchen, where yet another scream was sounding.
Ron, lying on a pallet of blankets, was tense and rigid, his eyes squeezed shut as he screamed yet
again. Harry collapsed on the floor beside him, and tried to shove him awake. His motions were
feeble however, and Ron did not respond except to scream "NOOOOO!"
"Ron!" Harry wheezed, "Ron wake up! It's just... ah... ah..." The words wouldn't come. The
adrenaline surge was ebbing away, and with it almost all of Harry's strength. He collapsed against the
redhead's chest, fighting for breath. He wondered whether this might be the end.
But then Ron was awake, muttering spells that eased the passage of air into Harry's lungs and
restored some of the energy to his exhausted limbs. Harry closed his eyes and felt himself being
cradled against Ron's broad chest. "What are you doing in here?" he asked.
"You were screaming..."
"Again? Damn, I'm sorry... it happens a lot."
"Nightmares?"
"Yeah..."
"What about?"
"Different things... I saw a lot of bad stuff when I was working at St. Mungo's, you know."
Harry shook his head. "That's not it, though," he countered, still to exhausted to make a more
complete refutation.
"No," Ron agreed. "Most of the time, I have nightmares about *you*. I've been so worried,
Harry..." He squeezed the smaller man lightly for a moment. "You have no idea how hard it's been for me,
not knowing where you were, whether you were all right..."
"I've been okay..."
"But you haven't, Harry! You're ill, and as long as we stay here, I can't do anything more for
you."
"Won't be so bad..." Harry protested. He'd probably die soon no matter what, and then Ron would
move on -- Ron would have closure, and a happy life with Draco. That's all Harry wanted for him
anyway... happiness.
"Harry..." Ron sighed, then gently stroked Harry's face. "You still don't understand, do you? I
love Draco, you know I do, but as much as I care for him, he can't replace you. Ever since you've
left, I've felt like a part of me has been cut off. There's a great bloody hole in my life, and it's
you, and sometimes I just want to stop where I'm standing and cry because it hurts so much. The
only thing that's kept me stumbling forward is that I might be able to find you someday... it's been
hell for Draco, too, 'cuz I go off every other weekend to search small towns for signs of you.
Four more weeks and I would have come here -- if I'd searched Britain north to south instead of the
other way 'round, I might have found you years ago."
Harry wanted to say something, but his heart, pounding stronger than it had in months, had
inexplicably moved from his chest to his throat.
"If you die, Harry... then the one hope I live for is gone. I know it's not what you want out of
life, and it's not fair of me to ask you to accept it, but I love you, and I want you in my life...
I *need* you in my life. Please, Harry... please come back with me. Don't... don't take that part
of me away forever."
Harry felt tears on his face, and couldn't tell whether or not they were his. Then lips that
definitely belonged to Ron were pressed against his forehead, and Harry's resolve shattered... as he
knew it would. He couldn't deny Ron anything, but he didn't trust himself to speak. So he nodded.
"Thank you," Ron whispered, hugging Harry closely, but gently. "Thank you."
***
"Well, it's not ideal," Ron muttered as he pulled the thick wool robe's hood over Harry's head.
"I'd much rather use the Floo, but hooking up your chimney would have been a dead giveaway, I
suppose."
"Thnn Mmrry," Harry grunted, any words he'd intended to say totally muffled by the heavy scarf Ron
had wrapped around his neck, his chin, and half his face.
Not that Ron needed any interpretation when Harry's eyes were twinkling like that. "I haven't
turned into my mother *yet*, thank you," he replied, "Not nearly enough kids." He grabbed his
overnight bag and Harry's old trunk, which had been shrunk for transport. Despite the intervening years,
everything Harry considered important in the cottage still fit into the container he'd used at
school -- packing everything had only taken half an hour. "Well, let's go," Ron said, and hoisted
Harry into his arms. The other man was still too, too light, but Ron had been shovelling some hearty
meals into him, so he'd recovered a tiny amount of weight.
Taking the clear path this time, Ron made his way to the street. "Can you stand for a moment?" he
asked.
"Shrn."
Ron set Harry down, then reached out with his wand hand. Almost immediately, there was a loud bang
and a clatter as one of the most hideous vehicles ever conceived exploded out of thin air. Ron
hoisted Harry again, and stepped into the Knight Bus. "Hullo, Dennis," he said.
"'Lo Ron," Dennis Creevey said from the driver's seat. "That one for St. Mungo's?"
"No," Ron replied, glancing towards the floor. "He's a relative. I'm taking him to the manor.
We'll need a bed, though."
"Plenty empty ones around," Dennis replied. "We're awfully short of business for a Saturday. Well,
things are picking up. Got your fare?"
"Sure," Ron said, dropping some coins into the box. They were his... Harry's money was all in
muggle form. He carried Harry over to one of the beds and laid him down, but Harry had already fallen
asleep. Just as well, really... Harry needed to conserve his strength as much as possible.
Ron flopped down on the bed next to his friend. It occurred to him, a little later than it should
have, that he probably ought to have told Draco he was bringing a visitor. Well, there was no help
for it now.
***
"You don't suppose he's found a lead, do you?" Bill asked as he levitated the ashes of an
unpleasantly enchanted stretching rack into a dustbin.
"Eh?" Draco asked, studying a pair of thumbscrews. The eyes engraved on the screwheads glared at
him. "You mean Ron?"
"Yup," Bill affirmed. "You need a hand with those?"
"Please," Draco said. Sentient torture devices were much harder to dispel and destroy than the
ordinary kind. Having Bill around had proven to be extremely helpful for destroying them. "What kind
of lead?"
"About Harry, of course," Bill said, walking over to stand beside Draco. "Oh this one *is* a bit
of a tangle," he commented, looking at the thumbscrews.
"Potter," Draco muttered, running a hand through his hair. He'd cut it short recently, and
discovered he rather liked the way it sprang back into place on its own without any assistance from gels
or potions. He was seriously considering keeping it this way, pending Ron's approval of the idea.
It would require going to the salon more often, but Draco never begrudged himself such
indulgences.
"You don't approve of his part-time detective work?" Bill asked cautiously.
Draco shook his head. "I want Ron to be happy," he replied, "and without Potter, he isn't... not
entirely, at any rate. So I *want* him to find Potter, of course."
"But you're afraid what will happen to your relationship if he actually *does*."
Draco just stared at Bill for several moments. "I didn't think he'd ever told anyone..."
"He didn't," Bill interrupted. "But I could always tell... the way they looked at each other, the
way Harry would smile at the least little joke Ron made, the pat on the back that lasted just a
moment too long... they loved each other, at least. Perhaps they were even in love."
"Not officially," Draco said, turning his attention back to the thumbscrews. He flicked his wand,
and they glowed with a reddish light for a moment. "Hrm," he commented, "it's all tied together."
"Well, something has to be the lynchpin," Bill said. "Let's give the diagnosticator a go at it."
"Fine by me."
Bill removed a small device from his pocket that looked roughly like a long cylinder made up of
almost twenty thick, ring-like segments. He held it up to his eye and it began to whirr, various
segments of the tube rotating in opposite directions. "This might take a moment," Bill said.
"We have the time," Draco replied. "Everything up to this point has gone much faster than I
anticipated."
"Good, then." A pause ensued, then Bill said, "So you're afraid that Ron brings Harry back, it's
love all over again, and you get left out in the cold."
Draco turned away. He didn't want to have this conversation, not really, but Ron was just
bullheaded enough to actually find Harry someday, and so he'd have to have it anyway. Better to have it
now with Bill than later with Percy -- or worse, Molly or Ginny. The Weasley men could be annoying
and gallingly persistent, but the women were outright dangerous... and very fond of Potter. "I'm a
bit more selfish than that," he finally admitted. "It's not that I think Ron will leave me
entirely -- I *know* he won't. I just... I've grown used to having him focusing on me *all* the time, or
as much of it as he has free. I want to keep that. I want him to love just me. Only me. As long as
Harry's gone, or just some phantom out in the world, I can have that. If he comes back... well...
then it ends. I go back to sharing the number one spot."
"And Malfoys aren't used to sharing," Bill concluded. The diagnosticator abruptly stopped and he
said, "Ah! There's a... well I'll be damned... it's a _Sonorus_ charm that's got the whole thing
pinned." He drew his wand and said, "_Quietus_!" The thumbscrews glowed with the red aura again, but
this time it seemed to writhe and twist for a moment. The thumbscrews started to smoke, then
caught fire and burned white-hot for a moment. The wood vaporized, and the metal bits slumped into a
pool of slag. Then it was all over, and only the slightest hint of an engraved eye hinted at the
lump of steel's sordid past.
"Good work," Draco said. "And you're right. I want Ron all to myself... I suppose you think
that's..."
"Selfish?" Bill asked. "No, seems to me that Ron's the selfish one here. He's in love with two
men, and can't -- or won't -- choose between them. And both of them are too in love to make the
choice for him."
"Harry wasn't," Draco commented.
"Harry *was*, Draco," Bill countered gently. "He left because he thought Ron would be happier with
you. That's what the note said."
"Well of course, but who really *believes* that kind of tripe?"
"You never knew him well enough to understand this," Bill explained, "but I talked with Harry a
good bit during the last two years of the war. He honestly believed that his being alive made other
people's lives worse. He never really recovered from the way his aunt and uncle treated him as a
child, you see... somewhere inside, he always believed he was a 'freak', disgusting. I don't think
anything can ever really change that. So he truly believed that you would make Ron happy, and he
would make Ron unhappy. So he left."
"Well, he was wrong," Draco snapped. "Ron tries to hide it but there's always... always some part
of him that's sad. Something I can't reach. I wish sometimes that he'd just find Potter and get
the misery over with. Then I think of what that might mean and wish that he never does..."
"I understand."
Both men were silent for a moment, until Draco said, "Enough of this. Let's grab a bite of lunch."
"Good idea."
Draco led the way up out of the dungeons and through the main foyer, shouting instructions for the
house-elves to prepare sandwiches and soup. Halfway to the informal luncheon parlor, he heard an
incredible noise from the front of the house. Glancing at Bill, and wondering why the explosion
hadn't set off any of the mansion's alarms, Draco drew his wand and ran back to the foyer.
Ron was just entering, kicking open the door as he backed his way into the house. Draco sheathed
his wand and crossed the room to help him, but stopped short halfway when Ron turned around and it
became apparent that his arms were busy holding someone wrapped up in a heavy cloak.
"Who..?" Draco whispered, but then the cloak's hood fell away to reveal familiar unkempt black
hair and an unforgettable scar.
"It seems your wish is granted," Bill commented.
_And at the same time, denied,_ Draco thought as Ron carried Harry up the stairs.