Harry couldn't face breakfast. Not with what he had to do this morning. He waited outside the hospital wing for Hermione to arrive.
"Are you ready?" she simply said when she got there.
"Yeah" Harry replied reluctantly.
"Harry, what happened wasn't your fault. It does no good to beat yourself up over it. Just say hello. He'll love seeing you again." Hermione told him.
They went in to the hospital wing and along to the special room that had been built for Ron all those years ago. Harry went in first at Hermione's urging. Ron lay in the bed he had occupied for over twenty years. His one eye moving over the ceiling until he saw Harry. A twisted smile came to his lips on the side of his face that wasn't paralysed.
"Hi Ron. How are you buddy?" Harry asked looking down at what was left of his best friend.
"Look who came to visit darling." Hermione told Ron as she came into the room and up to the bedside. She stroked his cheek lovingly.
Harry did his best to seem cheerful but it eventually got too much and he left. Outside in the hall he broke down sobbing like a baby.
"Get up Potter, crying isn't going to help." The dragon told him as he appeared from nowhere.
"Shut up Malfoy," Harry told him angrily. "You don't know what it's like being the one responsible for that."
"I am responsible for that too, or had you forgotten. It was my information that led to his capture and torture. And it was my information that kept leading you into traps when you tried to rescue him." Draco told Harry.
"It wasn't your fault. They were on to you as a spy by then. You couldn't know they were feeding you information that they wanted you to pass on to me." Harry replied staggering to his feet.
"I should have worked it out sooner. There were just too many coincidences, too many last minute changes by dear old dad. And all of them just what was required to turn the tables on you and the others as you attacked." Draco replied. "It is more my fault than yours."
"No, we used you to feed them false information at the start of the war to ambush Death Eaters. We killed hundreds. This was just payback. And each time a rescue mission failed as well as the casualties, they would send back a piece of him. A leg, an arm! Voldemort kept him alive as they butchered him, until all that was left was a torso and a mutilated head, just to torture me. All because of me!"
"In the end you won though. You killed Voldemort and found Weasley." Draco said.
"How does the quote go? And the fruits of victory will be ashes in our mouths. Look at us, does this look like victory to you. It doesn't to me." Harry said. After a moment of silence Harry spoke again, "I need a drink. You got any booze around here?"
"Yeah," Draco replied and led the way to his room where a bottle of Ogden's Old Firewater whisky awaited them both. It would not survive the day.