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[icarus]

Stand in the Ruins
by Icarus




We never considered just how little warning we'd have before Dumbledore's forces attacked the Death Eater-run Ministry. By which I mean — none whatsoever! The plan, such as it was, went all to hell, and I was forced to improvise all night with my heart in my throat. I could only imagine how much 'improvising' Draco had to do.

Which is why he didn't meet me at the checkpoint, I'm sure.

Well, that and the fact that our checkpoint didn't exist anymore. I more or less found the pile of concrete blocks that had once been the front guard station. I think. No doubt Draco was as confused as I was.

But after an hour, and then two hours passed… I'd say I started to worry, but that wouldn't take into account that I'd pretty much worried from the day we started our plan, months ago. Hell, even the day I saved Draco in the Arena. He worried me from the start. When you know how to plan, to think of contingencies, well, that's just great — but it also means you never stop thinking the worst.

Like now, while I waiting for Draco. You get close to a bloke, you know? Even Malfoy.

He had the more dangerous job, of taking out the Minister of Magic, Lucius Malfoy. I couldn't stop thinking that.

There was smoke and bodies and rubbish everywhere. All through the battle the night sky had lit up in flashes, like some kind of weird storm. Now, the grey morning fog around me was tinged with eerie magical colours, shifting lights; a magical holocaust, the centre of which was the Ministry Building itself. The fog was probably poisonous, but I stayed where I was. Lucius had rigged a lot more traps than I'd known, not that I was at all surprised. My recon was good, but I warned the Order that I didn't know everything. Even Percy, as close as he got to Lucius, didn't know everything. Lucius Malfoy was too smart.

I leaned against the remnant of a wall that shifted behind me a little. The wand in my hand felt strange after nearly a year in house arrest without one. I almost felt like I didn't know how to use it. At the same time my hand curled around it like an old friend, though it was too thick, 'liberated' from a Death Eater who really was eating death right about now.

Don't look at me like I'm callous. These people killed my friends. And maybe more, but I refused to think of it right then.

Draco and I had disentangled ourselves when the first blast hit, scrambled out of bed swearing as we threw on clothes — thank God he's a light sleeper, 'cause I can sleep through, well, a war. We meant to be ready, to sleep dressed, but with the two of us… heh, that never lasted.

Three hours.

There were a million useful things I could be doing, should be doing. I could be with Percy, herding the last of the liberated prisoners. That trap spell of Lucius' had come as quite a shock. Should be hunting down Death Eater stragglers. Making sure the 'dead bodies' really were dead. But I was waiting for Draco. I promised. And ignored the fact that even if I hadn't, I'd be here anyway.

My mind still burned with the last image of him, looking serious and scared, his jaw tight and his eyes huge in the dark; usually they were grey, but they seemed black right then. He gave me this sarcastic look, and I could almost hear him think: 'What are waiting for, Weasley? A goodbye snog?' The fact he didn't say it… I just squeezed his shoulder. I couldn't speak either. He nodded, once, then set off down the hallway at a run.

He went the wrong way at first. The twit. I bet he hoped I didn't notice. Draco acts so sharp, he's so damned quick, and then he messes up like that. No wonder I worry.

I should never have let him go.

Three hours and fifteen minutes.

Of course, there's not a chance anyone could have stopped him. Draco with a plan… and I couldn't even get him to do the dishes.

Three hours and twenty minutes. That's it. I left the checkpoint and picked my way through the rubble to the Ministry Building, property of the Death Eaters, Incorporated no longer. I was telling myself I was an idiot the whole way: Draco would show up and find me gone, the building would collapse on me… and those were the nicest scenarios I imagined.

Pillars leaned dangerously to the left and right of me, and bits of plaster cascaded over my shoulders as I jerked the front door open as far as it would go. It scraped my chest as I squeezed through, and I really hoped that the building would hold up just a little longer, please? I'd learned the meaning of 'scared shitless' tonight, and anyone who calls themselves 'brave' during a war, I'm going to laugh at from here on out. Brave is for dueling. Not for when a firebomb roasts the guy right in front of you and you're alive just because you slipped on a pebble.

I held up a small, enchanted mirror in my left hand. It was set to reflect an illusion of an empty hallway to anyone looking at me from that side. Maybe it wasn't necessary to reflect nothing to the portraits that lined the corridors, with all those empty eyes that I'd learned saw everything. Maybe no one was left to guard the halls, as they had for the last year when this was a prison. But why take stupid chances? I like to think that I'm alive still because I'm careful, and try not to recall all the blind luck involved.

My wand was ready, and I turned every corner, fast, and low. A hastily thrown spell almost always went high. Draco had taught me that. Funny Lucius Malfoy had trained so well the one who was going to kill him.

No one was there.

Only twelve hours ago this corridor had been bustling with smooth, efficient activity. Prisoners going to their jobs at the Ministry, to run a government held by the Death Eaters. Now plaster dust was everywhere and I coughed, as quietly as I could. For the second time I saw the Ministry leveled, deserted. The destruction was even worse than when the Death Eaters captured us last year. Déjà vu. There's a lesson in there somewhere.

Heh. Like don't work for the Ministry of Magic. In my mind I turned in my resignation, thank you very much, I quit.

Stairs were dangerous. Exposed. Every instinct in me freaked out as I tried to keep an eye above, below, and to the side over the banister. I could almost hear Draco's voice whisper: don't forget to look up, and I glanced up, too. He taught me a rough lesson on that one, dropped on me from the fucking ceiling! I'd had a shitty day at work, opened the door to our flat and Wham! the crazy bloke I lived with was on top of me. I was really pissed at the time. But last night I'd learned how important that lesson was. When I found him I was going to thank him — after I wrung his neck for worrying me and making me go look for him.

All the wards were down, and I didn't need a single one of Percy's passwords to get to the Minister of Magic's office. I don't know why that scared me.

I edged open the heavy mahogany doors to the Minister's office, getting low, wand ready.

The first thing I registered was that the blonde hair was short, and it wasn't Lucius Malfoy who was dead.

The next was the fact that dead bodies didn't sit there with their arms wrapped around their legs. I don't think. But Draco didn't move or look at me.

The third was an open closet door. Inside the closet on the far wall was another door that opened on a lovely garden scene with eerily clear blue sky. Eerie, because I knew it was grey outside. Draco stared at it.

Traces of magic, broken wards, crackled around him. My mind and its damnable contingencies thought it pretty likely Lucius had set a trap spell or bomb here.

"Draco?" He didn't turn towards me. "We've got to get out of here."

He sighed and put his head in his hands. "Fuck off, Weasley."

Gladly. Now stand up and we can both fuck off, sod off, whatever you like. So long as we're not here. But six months with a high-strung Draco Malfoy had taught me not to set off that bomb. I just stood there, and waited. Quietly ready to wet myself.

"All right. I didn't do it," he spat at me.

Yeah. I'd kind of guessed that. He sat staring at the floor between his legs, like he was waiting for me to give him shit about it. As if I would.

"So… fuck off. Get out of here, Weasley."

I squatted next to him and said, "I don't believe any of your bullshit any more. Just so you know." If we die, we die. I couldn't live with leaving him.

"I despise you."

"Uhm-hmm. Things like that."

I followed the direction of his eyes. The garden scene was quite lovely. "So he went in there?" I wondered why Draco hadn't chased him.

"No. He went through that door, but that's not where he went."

No, it made no sense to me at all, but I decided not to press the issue.

He squeezed his eyes shut. "I couldn't do it."

I nodded. I didn't say it out loud, but I was glad he didn't kill Lucius. For his sake. "I think there's some things you can't do without becoming a monster."

"I already am a monster." He turned to me and his eyes flashed. What he said should have shocked me, but like I said, I'd been with Draco a while.

"There you go with the bullshit again." God. Did I have to pick someone so neurotic? Something cracked and sizzled behind me. But I knew better than to argue with him and just put an arm around his shoulder.

Without thinking I pulled him close. "I love you, you little bastard," I said into his hair.

I don't know why I said it, why I would I would leave myself wide open like that, I mean, this was Draco we were talking about. Maybe I was already bleeding — what's a little more? The victory was hard to take. I didn't know who was alive or dead, my life of the last year was in a shambles around me, my last tenuous hold on security was reduced to rubble. I felt like I was going to pieces all of the sudden. I didn't feel free. I felt lost. Scared. And humiliated, that I felt this way. Some practical — and I'm always practical — voice in my head pointed out that it would pass. But somehow Draco understood.

"Ron." Draco's breath was hot on my shoulder, his voice unnaturally tight. "If you ever cry in front of me… don't make it now. Please."

It was the hardest thing he'd ever asked me to do, to be strong right then. He always asked too much of me.

"Die and I'll kill you, Draco," I said in a hoarse voice. Now there was a believable threat. "Let's get out of here."

Draco nodded meekly and stood. But instead of following me, he walked over to the door inside the closet, and closed it. And then opened it again. It opened on a beach now, with a sunset gilding the water. He shut the door and opened it once more. A jungle at night.

"Haven't seen the same place twice," he said absently. "I opened and closed it for… I dunno, I guess it was hours." Draco wasn't exaggerating, I knew. You couldn't say he wasn't focused. "He's gone."

His father. I was well aware Draco would never admit how much he missed him already.

"C'mon." I pulled Draco gently away from the door. I wasn't worried about trap spells anymore. Opening and closing that door would have set off everything in the room. Trust Draco not to think of that.

When we finally got out of the Ministry building that had been our home and our prison for a year, no, make that million years — I found myself out in a world that was too wide and open. The sky had cleared a little, though the acrid tang in the air made my eyes burn. I blinked it away as we picked our way down the long, broken Ministry steps. There wasn't a soul around. Well, not a living soul anyway. There were plenty of bodies.

I swung an arm around Draco's shoulders, and sighed. Nothing had exploded. "You know what? The first thing I'm gonna do is find something to eat. I'm starving!"

"You're always hungry." He rolled his eyes.

I ignored that. "And you know what I'm gonna do after that?"

"What?"

"I'm going to fuck your brains out."

Draco burst out laughing. "You're sick, Weasley." He gave me a brilliant smile, and I grinned. "I'll take that in the opposite order, thank you."

"What? You need energy!"

"I have plenty of that." He looked around as if he expected a bed to appear right there for his convenience. Probably had, for most of his life anyway. "So. Where are we going to sleep? Or, well, whatever. Our quarters are roughly over there, in that pile of rubble." He pointed to the north wing. It was weird seeing our prison from the outside. It seemed so… small.

"Oh, uh… I — I don't know… I didn't think…."

"Tsk. Typical. Weasley, how does your family manage to survive? Is it like turtles? Mass produce so that one or two might bumble on to breed?"

"Spoken like a bloke with a truly small prick." Annoying prat. He'll pay for that!

"Crude, Weasley. You always hit below the belt."

"And you don't?!" I dragged him into a headlock, until he squirmed free. All right, all right, I let him go. But, shh! Don't tell him that. I pointed out reasonably. "If we find Percy, we'll find Dumbledore. If we find Dumbledore, we'll find food. There's simple logic for you. Even you can manage it, Malfoy."

"Food, and a place to… sleep?" Draco smiled a very dirty smile at me. Did I mention he has a one-track mind?

I laughed and wrapped my arm around him again. "Yeah. Sleep."

I didn't even look back at the Ministry.

Months later, Percy offered me my job at the newly reformed Ministry, after our father was properly reinstalled as the Minister of Magic. The same position and authority I'd held under Lucius Malfoy. Percy told me what great work I'd done, all my qualifications and skills as a manager, they'd be happy to have me, blah, blah, blah.

Then he named a very impressive salary. One that would keep Draco in silk for, well — a week knowing him — but anyway, it was a lot. Quite a lot for a bloke who was only twenty-years-old, too. I'd been poor my whole life, and before Lucius Malfoy, I'd had no prospects really, once the Auror Academy turned me down. (Ahem. Twice.) To be asked to head the Office of Personnel for the entire Ministry of Magic was quite something. Even if I had held the job for a year already. And it would be pretty easy. I knew what was involved, and it had been a cake-walk, really.

Quite frankly, I'll have to admit, I wasn't tempted for a second. I love Percy, but I laughed in his face.



Finis.