You Jump, I jump
Written by StrawberryGirl87
Hogwarts no longer feels like home, it is time to move on but Harry has nowhere else to go. Standing on the precipice of uncertainty he finds a helping hand from the most unlikely of people. Someone who is willing to stand by his side when things seem bleak.
Author note: Happy Birthday to the one and only Harry Potter and J. , the Queen to all of us Potterheads! I take it as a good omen that I have a job interview on this day. My good luck charm!
To my reviewers: Thank you so much! I hope I continue to please you with the coming chapters. It is your comments that keep me writing and encourage me to update quickly. :-) Enjoy!
Chapter Twenty Two
St Mungos emergency department had been inundated with patients. Due to the media attention that had flocked to the hospital upon learning that the boy-who-lived-twice was there. Ron and Harry had been put in a room together and told that while they were there no harm could be done to each other, accidental or purposeful so there was no use in even trying. In fact this was the case throughout the entire hospital. They had no chance of continuing their fight here. The healer, irritated by their sudden appearance and own stupidity for brawling in the street was in no rush to heal them and relieve them of their pain.
The healer left them alone for over an hour as he had other more serious cases to tend to first, George too was in no mood to deal with either of them and had gone home to fetch his mother and tell her what had happened. This left Harry and Ron very much alone in a magically protected room in St Mungos with nothing to say to one another. Silence had descended upon them for what felt like an age. Harry felt utterly humiliated and beaten, he couldn't even bring himself to look at Ron as he lay gingerly on the bed, winching in pain at the cracked ribs.
"I'm still mad at you," Ron said into the silence, Harry hadn't been expecting him to talk at all and had had his eyes closed against the glare of the florescent lights above him. He thought that he could feign sleep, pretend not to have heard him. He didn't want to make things any worse with Ron but then again if they didn't talk about it then they would never be able to fix it either.
Sighing Harry carefully sat himself up to look at his former best friend who wasn't looking too hot either, though he knew that he was bound to look a whole lot worse. Ron had a lot more brawn to him than Harry giving him the edge that he would never have in a physical fight. "I know," Harry responded, "I don't blame you for being angry."
"You don't?" Ron asked looking confused.
"No, you have your reasons. You've lost a lot and the deatheaters are responsible for that and I helped two of them go free."
"Why did you do it?" Ron asked and Harry could clearly see that if the room wasn't magically warded to prevent people attacking each other then the two of them might have ended up in a worse state then they were already in. He counted this as a blessing as he wasn't sure he could take another hit.
"The past few days that I've been with Draco, he's shown me so many things, we shared a lot. There was a lot more to it than what we saw as children, I've seen proof that the Malfoy's were coerced into serving Voldemort. I know that they did a lot of bad things but Narcissa saved me in that forest, she risked her own life, gambling with that of her families and she sided with me to save me."
"I want to know how they were coerced!" Ron demanded from him, Harry could hear from his tone of voice that he still wasn't sure about what Harry was telling him. He wasn't ready to forgive the slimy git, Ron doubted that he ever would be, not even for his best friend. He even had the overwhelming urge to punch and kick Harry repeatedly for even thinking that the narcissistic, stuck up, pure-blooded Draco Malfoy could ever be trusted.
"Draco wasn't an only child. He had an older sister, she was killed shortly before Voldemort tried to kill me and destroyed himself doing it. It wasn't reported at all, everyone was too focused on me and the fact that he was gone. Very few people knew about her."
"How do you know Malfoy didn't make all of this up to trick you?" Ron snarled, Harry just sighed lying back down on his bed, the pain in his side excruciating.
"He took me to the grave yard, I saw her headstone. I believe him because I heard him when he told me about it, about her, the hurt and the pain in his voice, you can't fake that." After a pause Harry then added, "I know you're mad at Hermione for helping me too but she had her reasons, do you think that even if you can't forgive me could you at least forgive her? I know she misses you."
"Do you regret what you did, do you regret saving him?"
"No," Harry responded at once, "Neither of them killed anyone. Lucius did and he'll stand trial, I won't save him from Azkaban, he deserves to be in there. He was cruel and even though it was the death of his daughter that brought him into the fold he didn't hate being there, he relished it despite his fear. Narcissa and Draco followed him out of fear, they didn't want anything to do with him."
"I'll think about it," Ron said and Harry looked over at him confused, "About Hermione," He clarified and Harry nodded, closing his eyes once more. He doubted that things would ever go back to normal with Ron but he at least could hope that they wouldn't try and kill each other every time they ran into each other. "Do you love him?" Ron asked suddenly.
Harry didn't even hesitate before he answered. "Yes," He said but didn't get a chance to say anything else before a rather irrate Molly Weasley bustled in looking very red faced, glaring between the two of them in a very uncharacteristic way. Very clearly she wasn't very happy with either of them.
"Fighting in Diagon Alley, what on earth were the two of you thinking?" She shouted at them, neither of the young men replied, they knew better than to interrupt Molly Weasley when she was shouting at them. "The two of you went gallivanting around the country on the run for a whole year, helped destroy he-who-must-not-be-named and then you start punching each other in the middle of a public place! How could you be so childishly stupid? I expected better from the both of you!"
"Sorry mum," Ron said sheepishly, going red in the face.
"Sorry Molly," Harry said, sounding equally as embarrassed, he wasn't childish enough to point out that Ron had thrown the first punch, no matter how much gratification he would get from doing so. He wanted to fix things with Ron not make things worse.
"I should think so!" She said in a huff, "I hope you have apologised to one another," both Harry and Ron turned to each other and mumbled apologies at one another. "Now, what was all this about and I want the truth?" There was a tone of warning in her voice as she spoke, glaring at both of the boys whom she considered to be her sons.
"I testified in defence of Narcissa and Draco Malfoy so they didn't go to Azkaban," Harry said when Ron remained very quiet, his arms crossed over his chest refusing to speak. He had remained sat up in his bed, glaring hatefully at the wall. Harry remained on his back ,trying not to move as even breathing seemed to hurt. He couldn't wait for the healer to come and fix them so he could leave. All he wanted to do was hit a pub, start drinking and not stop until his sorrows were well and truly drowned.
"So I heard, why did that cause a fight between the two of you?" Ron looked to his mother in shock, an undignified look on his face as he spluttered his shock that she didn't believe that he was justified in his actions.
"They're deatheaters mum!" Ron said in outrage, "And he dragged Hermione into helping him too!"
Molly held Harry's eyes for a long time before speaking, "I've come to learn why Harry did what he did, Arthur was told what happened during the trial. I can understand that Narcissa Malfoy was scared for her child, I don't believe that there was a parent who wasn't in either war. I lost my brothers in the first war and a son in the second, I know what it's like to lose the ones you love. However it isn't okay to let innocent people get hurt because you are afraid. It wouldn't have been forgiven if Arthur and I turned you over to Voldemort because we were scared for our children. Being scared of anything, even him, isn't an excuse to do evil." As she had spoken her gaze had never left Harry's.
His stomach had lurched as the truth of her words washed over him. If the Weasley's had acted like the Malfoy's then he would have been dead long before he had a chance to defeat Voldemort and the Dark Lord would have been able to take over and rule Britain. His confusion must have been evident because Molly reached out to him and pulled him into her wordlessly cradling him in her arms. Despite the physical pain from her actions he felt himself relax into the embrace of the only mother he had ever known.
A few moments passed before Molly released him and sighed, looking at him with sympathy in her kind eyes. "Forgiveness is a fine thing Harry, if you want to forgive them then that is entirely up to you but you can't expect for everyone else to do it or even want to try. The only difference I can see between Lucius and Draco is that Lucius was successful at murdering those he set out to and causing maliciously intended damage whereas Draco was simply incompetent at it. The reasoning behind why they did what they did is meaningless to their victims but I imagine you are finding that out the hard way after the article in the Daily Prophet." Molly stopped and sighed, running one hand over Harry's head of messy raven hair that would never lie flat no matter what was done with it. "You're a good boy Harry and we'll love you no matter what."
Harry simply nodded at her gratefully, however before he could speak she had turned a grim eye on her youngest biological son, glaring at him. "As for you, you can be angry all you like and I won't tell you that you're wrong for feeling that way but I won't have you brawling with one of your brothers in the middle of the street like a hooligan. The two of you have been friends for a long time, too long to let the Malfoy family come between you, so sort it out." When Ron looked as if he might argue Molly shook her finger in his face. "I didn't say you had to like them or even have anything to do with them. I certainly don't intend to either but you'll let your best friend live his life like he wants to, even if you don't agree. I don't suspect that Harry will force you to get along with them or even spend time with them, will you Harry?"
Harry shook his head, "No," He answered.
"Good, now you two get taken care of, I imagine the healer will be back in a moment to take care of your injuries. I'll wait for you outside Ronald."
With a hug and a kiss to the top of the head for each boy she casually left to take a seat in the waiting room to wait for Ron to be finished. However before she left them to be healed in private she turned to Harry with a sigh and said, "Harry, the wards on the Burrow would be particularly harmful to anyone with the Dark Mark, I just thought you should know." And with that she was gone, her final message sinking in that Draco Malfoy would never be welcome in their home, even if they could accept that Harry loved him, they would never accept him into their family as one of them.