Drown in the Pain
Buried Secrets Prologue: Drown in the Pain
Hello again. Be aware, this is a tear jerker so get the tissues ready....
Also be aware that I haven't finished 'Hidden Truths' yet but it is the back story to this one. If you haven't read both it, and 'Glamours' then you won't get it.
That being said, I am still a poor University student who owns nothing, least of all J.K. Rowling and Joss Whedon's incredible works and I'm not making money off writing this....
Enjoy and get ready, because if you thought 'Glamours' (my first piece of fiction and the first in this trilogy) was an emotional roller coaster ride, you were wrong, because 'Buried Secrets' looks like it's going to be worse.....LOL
I also have a yahoogroup: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/firegoddessHPBtVSfanfiction/
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It had been 4 years that Ron Weasley had been doing this. 4 years in which he had gone out to pick up the pieces of his best friend on New Years Eve. And, as was traditional on this night, he had gotten a floo from Sirius, asking him to go out in the first place after Sirius had received a floo from Rosmerta over at the Three Broomsticks. Harry, in now typical New Years tradition, was drunk and Rosmerta was concerned.
And so Ron went, spurred on by Hermione who was currently at home watching their three children, Brianna, Michael and Jason, to find their grieving and inebriated best friend. Indeed, it was on this day 5 years ago that Harry and his now deceased wife Willow had been married.
It had always confused him why Harry didn’t do this on the day that Willow had died but Sirius had cleared up this confusion several years ago, on another New Years Eve. Harry, having had no memories of good birthdays in his childhood thanks to the Dursleys, didn’t want to do the same to his girls, Lily and Lucy. And so, he mourned the love of his life on their anniversary, taking care to make sure that he had proper childcare for that day and evening because, as he had explained to Ron a year ago when Ron asked why he let himself get into the state he got himself into, ‘he didn’t want his children to see their father this way.’
Ron sighed as he entered the Three Broomsticks. Harry was always so strong emotionally that no one ever faulted him this moment of weakness that he yearly indulged himself in. He and Hermione had taken the kids for the day and for tonight, knowing that not only did they all get along, frequently having sleepovers together, but also that Harry would need to be alone, no matter what his children said to the contrary.
Now that they were a little older, James, now 5 and the girls, now 4 respectively, they knew what the day signified and wanted to comfort Harry. Indeed, despite the state Ron was sure to find his friend in, he was a good father and his children loved him fiercely. The bond between father and children was very strong, Harry having been forced to become both mother and father to his kids after Willow’s death, only accepting Sirius’s offer to help with the three of them last year, when he had been promoted to Head of the Auror Division and therefore had longer hours.
“He’s over there,” Rosmerta said softly to him, pointing to one of the secluded corner tables, as Ron reached the bar.
“Thanks,” he murmured in return. “How much does he owe you?” he asked, prepared to pay whatever Harry owed.
Rosmerta gave him a sad smile. “He doesn’t. He always pays up front since the first time just in case…”
Ron frowned, remembering that first year. He, Remus and Sirius had searched Hogsmeade high and low, afraid that Harry had done something stupid in his grief. They had found him here, speaking quietly and drunkenly to Rosmerta about his wife, what she had meant to him and about his children who, according to him, were becoming more like their mother every day. The owner of the Three Broomsticks had exchanged a teary eyed look with the three men that had come to collect a grieving Harry and firmly waved off any payment of the drinks that he had consumed that evening. Needless to say, Harry hadn’t been amused the next day and apparently had remedied the payment situation since then.
With a sigh, Ron weaved his way through the crowded bar and sat down next to his friend who was nearly passed out at his table. “Hey Harry.”
“Hello Ron,” Harry slurred drunkenly. “Do you know what today is?”
Ron’s heart broke as he say the tearstained face of his best friend. Alcohol always DID make Harry more emotional. “Yeah Mate, I do.”
“Did Sirius send you?” he asked, taking another drink from his tumbler of what Ron thought was probably firewhiskey.
Ron nodded affirmatively, watching as Harry finished off the glass and lifted the nearly empty bottle on the table to fill it again. “Um, Harry, don’t you think you’ve had enough?”
Harry shook his head, frowning. “No. I can still think about it and therefore I haven’t. Did you know that today would have been our 5th anniversary?” He asked, changing the subject rather transparently.
“No, I didn’t.” Ron said heavily, realizing that tonight would probably be as bad emotionally for him as the year after Willow had died in childbirth. That year, Harry hadn’t waited until New Years, putting the children to bed and then going into his study to drink himself into a stupor. Luckily, Sirius and Remus had been with him, refusing to leave on such an important date.
“Well, it is.” Harry murmured. “I loved her so much…” He trailed off, the tears that had stopped only an hour ago falling anew. “The kids talk to her you know. They tell me that she comes to them in their dreams, stopping the nightmares.” He laughed bitterly, ignoring the sad and shocked look on Ron’s face, continuing. “And yesterday, I got an owl at work from Lily and Lucy’s teacher. They’ve been doing wandless magic. Then, when I asked them about it, they said that Willow’s been teaching them when they’re asleep.”
Ron didn’t know what to say to this. He had known that Harry’s children were exceptionally good at wandless magic but he hadn’t known that Willow- in whatever form she was in right now, be it ghost or simply imagined- was the one teaching it to them. He watched as Harry’s tears grew into sobs and he drained the last of the bottle. It was time to go home. “C’mon Mate,” he said, getting up and helping Harry to stand. “Let’s get you home.”
“No, I can’t let the kids see me this way. I’ll just…I’ll just stay here tonight or something. Sirius is at home. He’ll take care of them for the night.” Harry slurred, leaning heavily on his best friend as they walked toward the exit, the other patrons watching sympathetically as the Boy-Who-Lived was helped to the door. Indeed, the inhabitants of Hogsmeade knew of Harry’s tragic loss and had come to expect this behaviour from him once a year.
“The kids are at our place tonight,” Ron said sadly, remembering the fuss that James, Lily and Lucy had made at the missed opportunity for a sleepover with their godparents children, and a frazzled Sirius who had stopped by with them soon after Harry had left. Looking back on the haphazard decision, it was probably a good one. The Potter children shouldn’t have to see their father so drunk and the adults all knew it. The fact remained though that Harry only did this once a year and it was getting increasingly harder to keep it from the younger generation of Potters. He would have to stop this indulgent behaviour soon, and if Ron and Hermione had anything to say about it, tonight would be the last time. They would talk to him in the morning about it. For now, Ron simply concentrated on keeping Harry upright until they got him home. “You have nothing to worry about. They’ll never know.”
“Thanks Ron, you always know what to say to make me feel better. Alright then,” Harry replied as they stepped out into the night air. “Do you see that star up there?” He said, pointing shakily to the sky.
“Yeah mate,” Ron agreed, not really looking up, the effort in supporting his best friend distracting him.
“That was our star,” he paused, wincing as the world spun slightly as he looked up. “We used to lie on the lawn when she was pregnant with the twins and look at the stars. One night,” the tears were starting again now, and not only on Harry’s part. Ron was beginning to feel distinctly watery himself. “She wasn’t feeling well,” He laughed bitterly, muttering. “Wasn’t feeling well…we should have known, it was Voldemorts influence and she died the next week,” his voice grew louder, but Ron had still heard Harry’s mutterings. “So we went out onto the front lawn and lay back and we looked at the stars and she pointed up,” he pointed again. “And said to me that whatever happened to us, we would always be together, at least in spirit as long as we had that moment, that perfect moment, just watching the stars. And then we picked one, just for us.”
Harry was crying openly now. “But she left me anyway. God Ron, I miss her.”
Fortunately for Harry’s best friend who was now trying desperately to hold back his own tears, the walk from the Three Broomsticks was mercifully short, Harry having picked a house for Willow and he to live with their growing family right on the outskirts of the small wizarding town the summer after Willow’s second year of teaching. The twins, Ron remembered, had been a surprise. Harry and Willow hadn’t thought that they were capable of having another baby so soon after James had been born, especially considering the fact that Willow was still breastfeeding, albeit sporadically as James had embraced solids rather earlier than expected. Apparently, they had been wrong because a little over a year from the day James had been born, Lily and Lucy had entered the world and Willow had left it, the hours of labour she had endured catching up to her body, forcing her to fall into a haemorrhage induced coma that she had never woken up from. She had died that evening, slipping away peacefully as Harry had been checking on the babies in St. Mungos neo-natal ward.
After that, things had fallen apart. Ron and Hermione had come to the hospital expecting to find Harry and Willow happily enjoying the new additions to the family, and instead had found that Willow had died, and Harry had fallen off the deep end, going after the man who had taken his parents and now his wife, away from him. Indeed, it had been the curse placed on Willow when she had been shopping in Hogsmeade sometime in her 8th month of pregnancy by the Dark Lord that had started the haemorrhage in the first place, lying dormant in her system until after the babies were born. Needless to say, Voldemort hadn’t stood a chance against Harry’s wrath.
It had been an enraged and grieving man that had single-handedly taken on Voldemort, stripping him of his power and transferring it to himself using the spell that Willow had taught him only a month ago, before casting the killing curse on the man. Harry had then gone back to St. Mungos, the dark magic dripping off him in powerful, black waves, where he had promptly passed out from the power transference. Several weeks of therapy later, he had realized that the best way to honour his wife’s memory was not to fall to pieces, instead, choosing to take back his life and look after his children the way he and Willow had always talked about.
Ron was broken out of his thoughts as he climbed the steps to the door to Harry’s spacious 3-story home and opened the door to the dark house. He turned his head as he heard a noise. It was Hermione.
“There you two are,” Hermione said impatiently, as she stood up from her position sitting at the porch swing. With a sigh, she took in her inebriated friend. “Oh Harry.”
“Oi Hermione, help me out here,” Ron motioned to Harry who was losing his balance rapidly, on the verge of passing out.
“Sirius told me you were bringing him back,” Hermione said as she took Harry’s other side, closing the door behind them.
“Is he with the children then?” Ron asked, starting up the stairs.
Hermione nodded. “Um-hm. Remus, Tonks and Noah came with him,” she paused, remembering how she had been interrupted from a good chapter of her book after putting the kids to bed by the arrival of Sirius, Remus, Tonks and Remus and Tonk’s son. Indeed, Noah was 4 now, born a few months before Lily and Lucy and his arrival wasn’t anything new. After all, Noah was one of the usual sleepover crowd that at least once a month would gather in either the Potter or the Weasley homes. This made a lot of sense, seeing how Ron and Hermione had moved next door to Harry just last year, after Hermione had gotten the Transfiguration position at Hogwarts.
“Sirius remembered after he flooed you that this would have been their 5th anniversary, and decided that it would probably be best if Harry’s best friends were with him.” She continued sadly.
With a deep sigh of sorrow for their best friend, Ron walked with Hermione and a now passed out Harry to the Boy-Who-Lived’s bedroom, gingerly setting Harry down onto the bed and watching as he slumped over onto the pillows.
“Should we cast a sobering charm on him?” Hermione asked sadly as she and Ron set about taking off Harry’s shoes, socks, shirt and pants, leaving him in his boxers and placing the comforter over his tired body.
Ron shook his head. “No. Let him have his oblivion. He’s going to feel bad enough in the morning as it is, he might as well have a few hours of forgetfulness.” And with that, the two of them left the room, leaving Harry to his sorrow, and the temporary forgetfulness that the firewhiskey was providing for him. He and Hermione would stay in the guest room tonight, checking on their best friend periodically throughout the night to make sure he was all right, as they had that first tragic evening after Willow had died.
