Chapter Forty-Six

"Rubens, but everyone called him Rubino. He was one of our trainers. I met him the day I joined the team, but he'd been there longer than me." Daniels eyes began to look all misty, and not just from the dim light of the kitchen. I could tell this was hard for him, remembering. My hand, still on top of his squeezed it gently to try to impart some confidence.

"I didn't really plan for anything to happen."

"I don't suppose you ever do, do you?" My answer had been a bit cryptic, as I thought about it later, but no less true.

"It was all so innocent. He would look after us after the matches and after training, and while you know that International rules allow for magical help to heal from serious injuries, the everyday sprains and strains are supposed to heal on their own, otherwise how could anyone look on us as athletes?" I nodded. I'd spent many a night ruing the pains of Quidditch practices, to say nothing of the time in Miss Pomfrey's infirmary. "I don't even remember which one of us made the first move. It was just his hands lingering on me a little longer than required for the application of potions, or the working out of sore muscles, shared confidences, and exploratory questions about 'who are you seeing?'."

"It was just one night, I held back, I don't know why, till everyone else was gone from the locker room except him and I. The screaming ladies outside had gone home, the press was gone, and it was just us. Small talk just seemed so painful then, and I just ended up asking him if he was attracted to me. When he said yes I just kissed him."

"We kept things a secret for the rest of the season. I'd never felt so happy Harry, even with all the subterfuge. But it all crashed down around us, when we got caught by one of the coaches. He lost it. Dragged me into his office, told me I was letting down the whole team, said that if it ever got out that I was a, well, I can't even say the word he spat at me, that the whole team would suffer. Told me I could quit or he'd fire me, but no way was he going to let that news leak out."

"So you made up the story about retiring?"

"Yeah, not my finest moment."

"Why?"

"I loved him Harry, Rubino, I should have been strong enough to just stand up and say it, but I didn't. I gave in."

"What choice did you have?"

He just shook his head. It was obvious he'd had that conversation with himself dozens of times over. I let it drop.

"We managed about a year after that, keeping each other happy, but keeping a low profile. I thought about moving away, but Rubens had family back home, and he didn't want to get uprooted. It was bad enough he'd walked away from his job when I'd left; I couldn't take everything away from him. He got more and more bitter, not that we wanted for money or anything, but my lack of courage, at least when it came to coming out began to eat at him. As so often happens, his anger found an outlet, one that he hid from me, or that I failed to see in my own selfishness. You see I enjoyed not being in the spotlight finally, I was content to stay home, and just be in love with him, and play house with him."

Everything he was saying made me feel eerie, like I could have been looking at my own future.

"It was about the time that the Dark Lord began to rise here in the UK. Groups were forming all over the wizarding world that embraced his philosophies, and my darling was recruited, and they turned his anger towards me and towards those who had pushed us away into something evil. He'd try to speak to me about it, but it was abhorrent to me, and try as I might to convince him that his views were misguided, those Death Eaters gave him what he needed: validation, power, and belonging."

"I can understand that." The voice was small, neither of us had even realized Draco had come back into the room, nor had we any idea of how much he had heard.

"Power is intoxicating." He continued as he sat down beside me, staring at Daniel. "Belonging is the same. Being part of a group that pretends to value you, and trust me, it is all a pretense because they will toss you aside when they have no further use for you, gives you a high that is hard to leave behind." He rolled up the sleeve of his robe to show off the dark mark. "I know."

"You walked away." Daniel's voice sounded so sad, just laced with regret.

"No I didn't. I was thrown away. And only then did I start to see the truth." I could see Draco's lower lip beginning to tremble, I knew the stories, I seen the tears. "What happened to him?"

"I killed him." Daniel's voice was flat and his words hung in the air for a good few seconds. I tried to suppress the punch of the shock that hit me in the gut, so I didn't make a snap judgment without hearing the rest of Daniel's story.

"I didn't know it was him. When he left me for them I got angry. My anger led me to the street militia in my neighborhood, and to trying to protect the Muggles and Wizards alike from the Death Eaters. We received word that a group was planning an attack at a football match; it's a Muggle sport." I waved my hand, I knew all about football, not that I'd ever been to a game or anything.

"We ambushed them, and they put up quite a fight. I was so charged with hatred for them, for their beliefs, for what they were trying to do, and for the fact that they had taken Rubino from me that I did not restrain my spells. When I saw one, wrapped in his dark, cowardly cloak trying to flee I cast a terrible spell at him, which took him to the ground. I felt good about what I'd done, I felt like a bloody hero, I felt power over them all, until I pulled back the cloak to see Rubino's face and everything in my world just fell apart."

I'd had a bad feeling that his story was going to go that way, and to give him credit he got it all out without his voice wavering. It was easy to see now where all his lessons about the evil in each of us came from.

"I'm so sorry Daniel." But the words did nothing.

"I couldn't let the anger go after that, I was numb to everything but rage, nothing mattered. I volunteered for every dangerous sortie that came around. I didn't care if I died and so I took chances. People started to call me a hero, and it just made me sick, but still I couldn't take ownership of what I'd done."

"But you survived." Draco added.

"Only because the war ended before I had a chance to get killed. Everyone praised my skills, my daring, and when the offer came from Hogwarts it seemed like providence, a chance to get away from everything that made me remember him. It was a chance to let the evil go, but I still wonder what would have happened if I had not succumbed to it."

"You cannot play games of 'what if' they will paralyze you. You cannot know what might or might not have happened because of your actions. If my parents hadn't died, if I had been sorted to Slytherin, if I had let the evil embrace me so I could use its power, what then? I've asked myself the same things over and over, losing sleep, losing time, losing strength. Letting that uncertainty go was the only way to live past the war. I see that now."

"But now, I don't know what is going to happen. Bad enough that I've assaulted a student, but if anyone finds out that I fell in love with another man, a Death Eater no less, I don't know what they'll say."

"Probably the same thing they'll say to me." I answered. "But then there'll be two of us, so it'll be easier."

"What? I don't understand Harry." He wrinkled his brow and looked at me oddly, perhaps understanding, perhaps questioning what he thought?

"I'm in love with Draco, and we've been together for a few months now." I smiled over at the man sitting at my left. "And I'm not scared anymore."

"Harry?" Draco looked at me with unexpected surprise, I suppose I probably should have asked him before I outed the both of us, but I sort of felt that it would be okay. "I thought we were going to keep things quiet still school was over?"

"Daniel needed to know that he's not alone, and I needed to prove something to myself. It isn't as though I'm going to broadcast it over the whole school, but if it gets out I won't deny it."

Daniel was smiling, and chuckling to himself just a little.

"I could learn so much from you Harry Potter."

"We can learn from each other Daniel."

"I have so many regrets. I didn't even go to Ruben's funeral, I couldn't say goodbye to him."

"Maybe you still can. There's a mirror, hidden away in Hogwarts, I'm sure we can find it."

"The Mirror of Erised?"

"You know it? Yes. It let me see my parents, maybe it'll let you see Rubens one more time, the way he was, so you can say goodbye to him. We'll find it as soon as we get back."

"If I get back, there's still Ginny to deal with."

"Not really, no" Draco piped up. "She'll wake up with a terrible headache, far too much wine last night, she won't remember a thing. I promise you."

"Why would you do this for me, both of you?"

"Because the war is over, and it is time to heal, for all of us." I smiled, squeezed his hand, and took Draco's. "And if anyone has a problem with the three of us, I'm sure we'll be able to take care of it."