Ron pressed the door open to the Hospital Wing and eased inside; even at the door he could hear Malfoy arguing loudly with someone who kept on speaking in hushed tones, early-minted sunlight shining through the high windows and spilling across the tiled floor.

"I'm perfectly fine," he was growling to Madam Pomfrey. "I feel fine, and I remember –"

"Mister Weasley," said Madam Pomfrey, and bowed.

Ron, brought up short, froze.

"Weasley," said Draco, gaze darting from Ron to Madam Pomfrey and back. "What are you doing here?"

"Checking up on you," Ron said, striding the rest of the way forward as Pomfrey retreated to her office. "How do you feel? Are you all right?"

Draco gazed into his eyes before leaning back on the pillows. "Maybe not," he said, slowly.

Ron pulled a chair up to Draco's bedside, now truly concerned. "What do you remember?"

Draco stared. "How did you know I was forgetting things? Does this happen a lot? It is still fourth-year?"

Ron sighed in relief. "Yes, it's still fourth year. Merlin, Malfoy, I thought you were back to the Vanishing Cabinet again."

"I… don't remember a Vanishing Cabinet," Draco said, in a small voice. But then he looked up at Ron, and his expression cleared. "But I do remember something odd," he said.

"Yeah?" said Ron. This careful picking his way forward through memory was a familiar game with Draco Malfoy.

"You told me," said Draco, frowning. "You told me I was having nightmares about what would happen if Potter didn't win." His gaze clouded over. "I was," he said. "Having… nightmares. Potter. Potter was… strung up. Death Eaters everywhere. And he… he killed Professor Snape. And I knew, I knew it was… the end. Of everything." He looked up at Ron again. "Am I going mad?"

"No," said Ron. "No, you're right. It would've been… very bad if he won. But hasn't anyone told you? He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is dead."

"Dead!" Malfoy echoed, incredulous. "Dead."

"It's hard to believe."

"But I trust you," said Draco, warily.

"Shocking," said Ron.

"Last I checked, I didn't have an older brother," Draco huffed.

Ron laughed wetly, and reached out to ruffle Draco's hair. "So, you remember that much," he said.

Draco warily smoothed it back, but he didn't even try to slap Ron's hand away, and something in him seemed more settled at the casual affection. Ron would have to remember that; it wasn't as though he'd been able to toussle Malfoy's hair when he was a ghost.

"Did I take Hermione Granger to a dance?" he blurted.

"Yes," said Ron.

"What the fuck," Draco whispered to himself and Ron couldn't help but laugh again.

"Sorry Malfoy," said Ron, grinning so hard his face hurt. "It's just that I'm pretty sure you're going to be okay." He suspected that much of it would emerge over time… or at least the parts where Draco had been at the helm.

"That makes one of us," Draco grumbled.

"But maybe Madam Pomfrey's right, and it's best you stick to the Hospital Wing until your memories have settled a little," Ron suggested.

"Huh," said Malfoy. "Er," he added, staring at where he'd suddenly reached out to grip Ron's sleeve.

Ron looked down at where Malfoy's hand clutched at him.

"Pottercentric circles," Draco said, suddenly.

"What?" said Ron.

"Maybe," Malfoy said, frowning in thought. "Maybe… it's only when what we do is centred around the people we care about… that we end up doing the right thing, in the end." He looked up at Ron, eyes focusing again. "Does that make any sense to you?"

Ron brought his right hand up to close over Malfoy's. "I think it does," he said. "Thanks, Malfoy."

But Draco was blinking. "Did you just say something?"

"Just that you should probably sleep, some," Ron said, quiet. "You've got a lot of memories to accommodate. I'm sure when you wake up, everything is going to be clearer."

"Merlin, I hope so," Draco muttered, and closed his eyes.

Ron gazed down at him for another moment or two as his breathing evened out; it took mere seconds, as though Draco were only waiting for permission to surrender consciousness.

What did they say? That a ghost only stuck around when it had unfinished business – and unless Ron missed his guess, Draco Malfoy's business here was (finally, finally) finished.

So Ron said a silent goodbye to his chess partner, his reality check, and his best friend of the past three years – the friend who had nearly become a murderer so he wouldn't have to. He should have been an expert at saying goodbye; it shouldn't hurt so much, anymore. But as he watched the boy's features relaxed in sleep, lashes fluttering from untroubled dreams, Ron felt bitter and cheated, although he thrashed against it: a sour selfishness that wanted Malfoy to stick around, even if his fight was finally over and he should have been welcome to his rest.

What was left that was his? Ron thought. It seemed he'd fixed things for everyone but himself.

"Mister Weasley?" Madam Pomfrey called.

Ron looked up to see Madam Pomfrey standing at the Hospital Wing doors, hands held close to her chest, looking poised to… something. And the figure of Albus Dumbledore stood at the aperture.

Severus and Hermione Snape were busy when Ron knocked, but a harried Hermione still let him in through the door to their personal quarters. Suitcases stood open on every flat surface: the coffeetable; the couch; the hearth rug. Books danced into an open case, clothing into another, and Potions ingredients into a third.

"Going somewhere?" Ron inquired.

"Oh, hullo, Ron," Hermione said distractedly, as though she were not the one who had greeted him at the door; as though she had not pointed her wand at him a mere handful of hours before. "Yes, we're moving."

"Moving?" said Ron.

Severus turned. "Ron," he said.

Ron felt a smile stretch across his face at the familiar greeting. "Severus."

"Yes, we're moving," Severus said, raking his hair out of his eyes with one hand as he leaned down to scoop up a book with the other, peering at its cover contemplatively before gazing back up at Ron. "We cannot stay here," he said, glancing surreptitiously at Hermione out of the corner of his eye.

Without looking to her husband, Hermione added, "you mean to say that there are more Death Eaters to kill; and besides, you hate it here, and now there is no more reason to stay."

"True enough," Severus said, slowly, "I can leave, now. And I wish it."

"Ah," said Ron. "Well, you've done your duty, Severus, and then some. You could always leave the Death Eaters to the Ministry." He stuck out his hand.

Severus took it in the standard manner, but then clapped his other hand to cradle Ron's, dark eyes narrowing. "Will you be all right?" he said.

Ron withdrew and stuck both hands in his pockets. "Yes," he said. "Being all right is what I'm best at."

Severus's lips thinned.

Hermione emerged from a broom closet to stand beside Severus, wrapping her arm around his waist. "Goodbye, Ron," she said. Her expression clouded over, suddenly, and she said, "I'm sorry… I thought the Diadem would help me do better, see more clearly, I thought I could fix it, but… I'm sorry I'm like this," she blurted. "I don't mean to be."

Ron walked over to her and kissed her cheek, and when he withdrew, her eyes were wide and blinking. "I know," he said, warmly. "C'mon, Hermione. I know that."

He clapped Severus on the shoulder one, last time, only to be pulled forward as he'd been at Christmas, tucked snugly between them.

"Run far," Ron said, pulling back. "And run fast. I hope to never see either of you again."

"That's a terrible thing to say!" Hermione chided him.

"He means because you may be wanted for attempted murder, Hermione," Severus said fondly, then flushed.

"Look after yourself. Look after each other," said Ron, but Severus was still staring at Hermione as though it were the first time he'd ever clapped eyes on her when Ron quietly closed the door behind him, where the Headmaster was waiting.

"Finished, Mister Weasley?"

"Not yet, sir," Ron said. He paused. "Thanks for your patience."

"Not at all, not at all," Dumbledore said, serenely. "After all, we owe you a great debt."

"Ron!" Hermione exclaimed when he stepped through the portrait into the Gryffindor Tower Common Room. "Where have you been all morning? We've been…" She brought herself up short at the look on Ron's face. "What is it? Are you all right?" Her brown eyes widened and she clasped her hands together.

"Yeah," Ron said. "I'm ready to explain. If you could get Harry? And Neville, too."

"We've guessed some of it, but… yes, all right," Hermione said, and fetched the boys.

Together, they traipsed to the Room of Hidden Things. Ron strode back and forth three times and let them in. Ron breathed in the scent of books and must, the smell of thousands of students' secrets.

Of his own.

Then, he began.

"First of all," he said quietly, "I'm the Curator."

Hermione clapped. "I knew it!" she exclaimed. "You were just too nervous about it…"

Ron smiled weakly. "I was looking for the Diadem – the crown we destroyed last night. And the other Horcruxes." He explained, as best he was able, what a Horcrux was, how Voldemort had made them, and how they all had to be destroyed in order for Voldemort to be defeated.

"But how did you find all of this out?" Harry demanded. "Did Snape tell you?"

Ron looked to Neville, who shrugged.

"Go on," Neville said. "We know a great deal of it, anyway."

"All right," Ron said, then had to think carefully about how to begin. "I lived through Voldemort's War once," he began. "And I had a chance to go back to try to change its course." He paused to let that sink in. None of his friends looked as though they disbelieved him; but then, they had a lot of evidence, already.

"Did you use a Time-Turner?" Hermione blurted, shattering the silence.

Ron shook his head. Leave it to Hermione to want to know the mechanics straightaway. "No," he said, "they were all destroyed during the... uh, they would have all been gone by next year. There was a spell. That probably won't happen, now."

"How far back?" Hermione demanded. "How much older are you, really?"

"Er, just under ten years," Ron said. "Uh... eight. And a half." He cracked a smile. "Gin decided it was my birthday just before I left... But it was arbitrary. We hadn't been counting the days that close in awhile." That sounded really sad said aloud, actually. "So we made a cake and had a little celebration..." Worse. He subsided.

"And I died?" Harry said. "Because you came back, and I didn't."

Of course all three of them would've gone together if that were possible… and if the spell were limited to one person for some reason, Ron and Hermione probably would have waved Harry goodbye with tears in their eyes. They were so used to him taking care of things.

"And Snape died protecting him," said Neville, suddenly; and it was so close to the truth that Ron felt himself pale. "When you're not thinking straight, you call him 'Severus'. So you spent time with him – a lot of time. And I know him well enough that if one of us were in that much danger, he would jump in to save us."

Ron's breathing hitched, and he turned to face one of the long, warmly-lit bookshelves of the Room. "Yes," he finally said through a tightening throat. "Little good it did us."

"But Malfoy survived," Harry pressed, as though it were some kind of personal affront.

"Draco died at seventeen," Ron said, pushing it out of his mouth as fast as he could. "His ghost was at Hogwarts. That's how I know him," Ron tripped on. "We played chess and shouted at one another a lot once I settled there. For awhile he was – my best friend, though neither of us would have admitted it, I think." Ron scratched his nose. "It was Malfoy who insisted on coming back to save the world, and it was Malfoy who made it happen. He thought you had to die for that, Harry, but obviously that's not true." He smiled. "It was Snape's Defense exam that let me know it, actually, that even though you were made a Horcrux, it ought to have dissipated long ago."

Harry's gaze went faraway. "Malfoy," he said. "Draco Malfoy was willing to do all that?"

Ron frowned, but Harry didn't elaborate, falling quiet instead.

"For my part," Ron said, "I wanted to thank you."

"For what?" Hermione queried.

Ron thought of Hermione's sweetness, Harry's stubbornness, Neville's determination. His brothers, his sister, his parents, his Professors, his classes, the Great Hall, filled with food. The fresh white snow against the earth. "For helping me to remember what it was like – even if it's not the same, even if you're more like little brothers and sisters just now –"

"Oh!" Hermione exclaimed, blush climbing her neck and finding a home in the apple of her cheeks. "You're eight years older than me," she said.

Ron huffed a breath and smiled. "Yes, Hermione, eight whole years."

"But that's like kissing Bill!"

"Wait, whoa, you kissed?" Harry sputtered.

"I kissed him," Hermione clarified primly, "and he let me down very, very, gently, and Ron Weasley I could slap you right now! Do you know how much I cried?"

"I'm really sorry," Ron said again.

"And you tried to tell me!" Hermione groaned. "You said I wasn't mature enough, and you meant it literally?"

There was a beat of silence.

"I'm mortified," Hermione announced, drawing her knees to her chest and burying her red face there.

"Don't be," said Ron. He blinked, trying to sort out what to say. "I think – I mean… Ronald Weasley, aged fourteen would have been, er, more than flattered."

She poked her head up, blink-blinking. "Really?"

"Yes," said Ron and Harry in unison.

"Well," she said, staunchly. "I do feel a bit better, then." She blinked rapidly. "But I'm still mortified. I may be mortified forever."

"Well, we're on the same page, then," Ron said. "And I was trying to say what I've wanted to say to each of you since I arrived here three months ago. How much I missed you."

"Oh," said Hermione, faintly.

"We… can't say the same," said Harry.

"Ha bloody ha," Ron replied.

"Is the danger past, then?" Hermione wanted to know. "If you were here to prevent He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named from rising again… If that's it, if you were successful…"

"Am I going back?" Ron asked, gently.

She bit her lip, but didn't gainsay him.

"I understand," Ron said, forestalling Harry when he would have spoken. "I'm not exactly who you remember." He pressed his own roiling guilt flat and forged ahead. "I've spoken with Dumbledore, and the thing is…" He cleared his throat. "The thing is, we don't know what happened to Ron Weasley, aged fourteen. To his consciousness. Malfoy was a ghost who possessed himself; it's not the same. Suppose I try to go back to my own time. What then?"

"Then if you go back, everything should be the way it would have been if He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was defeated?" Neville said.

"Well, then I'm tossing out that bloke's consciousness," Ron pointed out. "And even beyond the moral considerations, the past eight years would be a blank. I wouldn't know how things had gone in the interim." Part of Ron exulted at being able to use in the interim without checking his vocabulary, his intellect rising up and stretching like a cat. "The worst thing is, what if I – displaced teenaged Ron's consciousness instead of taking temporary occupancy?" Ron said, lowly. "I could go, and you could be left with nothing at all."

Hermione's eyes widened and filled with unshed tears.

"That puts me in something of a moral quandary," Ron finished. "I can't stay, but I also can't go."

His friends fell silent, Hermione frowning and eyes dancing as she sought the way around the problem, Harry gazing off pensively into the distance, Neville reaching out to squeeze Ron's shoulder.

"You've already found a way," Harry said, evenly. "I can see it on your face."

Ron looked into Harry's beloved features: sombre eyes, snapping green, narrow nose, faint freckles high on his cheeks, madman's hair. "Right as usual, Harry," he said. "I've got to leave without going, don't I? So you'll get your own Ron Weasley back."

Harry and Neville frowned, but Hermione gasped.

Quick as always, he thought, fondly.

"You can't do that," she said, hysteria building behind her words. "You can't. You could damage yourself permanently, Ron Weasley! I won't let you."

"It won't be that bad. It'll be Dumbledore doing it, not some third-year with a broken wand," Ron said.

"That's like an elective lobotomy!" she shouted.

Understanding kindled behind Harry's green eyes, and his face went grim.

"Enough," said Ron. "It's no such thing, Hermione. And it's my final decision."

"But," said Hermione, desperately – "the things you know… so much will be lost!"

"We all have to face our futures without a guidebook," Ron said. "I won't be any more disadvantaged than you."

"I don't like it," said Harry.

"I sure as Merlin don't, either," said Neville, "if you're talking about Obliviation. And I think you are."

"Has anyone, no matter how skilled, ever removed this many years from anyone's memories?!" Hermione shouted, voice going shrill. "You do this, Ronald Weasley, and I'll never speak to you again!"

"But Hermione," Ron said, gently. "I won't even know why you're upset."

She stared at him, features frozen, for a long moment. She blinked. "I," she finally said. "I'll be infuriated with you anyway. I don't care if you know why, or don't know why! I have a right to be angry!"

"This is what's fair," Ron said. "To his family. And to you."

"I can wait!" Hermione said, and Harry averted his eyes. "I'll be seventeen in three years, Ron! You're right, I'm young now, but I won't be forever! And if that's why you're doing this –"

"It's not," Ron said, though he felt as though his throat were closing, and his eyes burned. "I've done what I came here to do: the changes I've made here will outlast me. And Hermione," he said. "Look me in the eyes and tell me you don't wish you had the Ron you knew at the start of the school year. The boy who was falling in love with you, who was awkward and didn't know what to say to you, but stuck by you. Tell me you don't miss him. Go on," he said, mercilessly. "Tell me you like me better like this."

Hermione's eyes filled with tears, and spilt over. "I hate you," she said, passionately.

Ron stood. "If you have to, I understand that," he replied. "I get it. I do. But I've got to say goodbye, now."

Ron squirmed under the ringing silence that followed. He'd just barely put his weight on the back foot to leave - accepting, achingly, that this was the last he'd see of them - when Neville clambered to his feet and stuck out his hand to shake, eyes shiny and features squinched.

"Neville," said Ron.

Neville blinked at him, then said, "I think you were my favourite Professor," suddenly, then coughed and withdrew his hand.

"Thank you, Neville," Ron said, thunderstruck.

Harry stood with a strange half-smile and shook his hand as well. He didn't say anything more, though.

Ron thought: of course.

Harry Potter would understand sacrifice better than anyone.

Hermione continued to weep and couldn't say goodbye, and Ron didn't blame her even a little, even as his heart broke.

On the threshold, Ron turned back to the Room of Hidden Things that had kept his secrets so well. He thought of evenings organizing and reading and sorting, Potions and novels and childhood toys. "Thank you," he said, patting the doorframe warmly, and closed the door behind him. The sound of Hermione's weeping muted as he joined it to the jamb.

"Are you ready?" said Albus.

Ron tried to say that he was, but when he opened his mouth the words wouldn't come.

In the end, he could only nod.

"Are you absolutely certain, my boy?" Dumbledore inquired. "The knowledge you have gained, the person you have become… your experience has been awfully hard-won."

Ron looked up and found his voice, finally. "Thank you sir," he said, "but on the contrary. The past eight years have been a heavy burden, and I'll be grateful to lay them down and finally rest."

Ron Weasley awoke to the bright whiteness of the Hospital Wing, the scent of disinfectant charms wafting through the air. He turned in bed, vision resolving to…

Draco Malfoy.

That couldn't be right.

Ron blinked, and blinked again; but Draco Malfoy remained in place, seated at Ron's bedside, arms crossed, looking his usual elegant, posh self.

"Oh good, you're awake," Malfoy said, in precisely the sort of bored tone Ron would've expected of him – though of course, Ron wouldn't expect Malfoy to be at his bedside in the first place.

"What are you doing here, Malfoy?" Ron growled, struggling into a seated position – but then the Hospital Wing began to spin.

"Easy. Easy!" Malfoy ordered, and pressed him back down. "Not so fast. You've been here days, everyone began to wonder if you were going to awaken at all."

Ron gazed about the Hospital Wing, but it was empty. He looked up again at Malfoy, warily, to find that his studied nonchalance had been replaced by worry.

Ron swallowed. Could Malfoy have cursed him? Was he checking to see how successful it had been? Or Malfoy had gotten in trouble, maybe, for hexing Ron so badly? That could account for the seeming concern…

"You don't trust me," Malfoy said, slowly. He leaned back in his chair, features smoothing to blankness. "At all."

Ron lay there, aware that if he moved, the Hospital Wing was going to start spinning again, pinned in place by illness and circumstance; but his heart hadn't picked up its pace and he hadn't thrashed when Malfoy had pressed at his shoulder. He hadn't demanded to see Harry or Hermione or to know what was going on.

He just… didn't understand it.

Malfoy must've seen the conflict on Ron's face, because he huffed a breath and one side of his lips quirked, and Ron thought that might've been a relieved laugh in anybody else. "I know you won't know why, but I'm glad you're all right," he said.

"Why're you here?" Ron pressed. He wasn't sure what was going on, but it was entirely possible that Malfoy had Charmed him to stay still, or not… shout at him, or to… put up with him for undisclosed reasons.

Malfoy's features sobered. "Apparently, we played chess together, and kept each other company. They tell me you looked out for me and I won't forget it, no matter what else happens to my memories," Malfoy said, fiercely. "And listen," he added, suddenly intent.

Ron struggled upright against a wave of dizziness and pressed himself back against the pillows, gazing at Draco Malfoy keenly. Everything felt strange, like the scene before him was passing through water, or as though echoes pressed into the walls and bounced away, but Malfoy's eyes were strangely steadying, and Ron held.

He held.

"The Dark Lord is dead and you were the one most responsible. Professor Snape has disappeared and your memories of the school year so far are wiped and mine are full of holes," Malfoy said, the rhythm of his voice even and resolute. He swallowed. "Do you believe me?"

"I," said Ron, because he did – but that was mad.

Malfoy's lip quirked a second time. "You do: good. I'll summon your coterie, then. They've been waiting." He folded a tiny paper crane and breathed onto it and it flew out the cracked Hospital Wing door. He caught Ron's stare and said, "clever, isn't it?" with a cheeky, practised smile.

"Somehow, in the past few…?" said Ron.

"Months. It's February," said Malfoy.

"Somehow in the past few months, we buried the hatchet," said Ron, slowly.

"I think so," said Draco Malfoy, features squinching as though he were trying to picture it. "It feels that way."

"Yeah," said Ron. He paused. "What's this about you and me and chess?"

But then the door to the Hospital Wing was flying open and Harry and Neville Longbottom were spilling through.

"Ron!" Harry exclaimed, and wrapped him up in a strong embrace; startled, Ron clapped him on the back a few awkward times. When Harry pulled away, he was grinning and his green eyes were damp. "We're so glad you're all right!"

Ron looked up to see that Neville was exchanging a significant look with Draco Malfoy of all people, and that afterwards, Draco relaxed back into aloofness, folding his arms across his chest. Neither Harry nor Neville seemed surprised to see Malfoy there with Ron.

"Me too," said Neville. "We were all so worried in Gryffindor."

Neville stood strangely taller, and was clearer-eyed than before: confident, Ron thought. Like he'd gone and grown up.

"So," Ron said, arranging himself carefully on the pillows and readying himself to watch for gaps and half-truths. It couldn't hurt to listen to Malfoy, and just see if he were right. Just this once.

"What did I miss?"

A/N: Sacrificing the exchange is a counterintuitive move in chess: it means to sacrifice a piece of greater value for a piece of lesser value.

Why would a player ever do such a thing? From the perspective of one pair of moves, it's a terrible idea. In view of the full game, it is sometimes the smartest move a player can make, confusing one's opponent, clearing away a seemingly-minor piece in a vital position, or just yielding a clearer board in general. Only master players pull it off consistently well.

Now onto our final problematic trope: 'and then he woke up'.

The worst offenders have the alien invasion, the ultimate betrayal, or the explosion of one's home planet be "all just a dream", but I'm referring to any in-world retcon that unravels recent exciting events in the story. People who write continuing series use it when they want to write something exciting or earth-shattering without damaging their overall plot arc. Generally speaking, this is hard to do well because the audience feels cheated. You made them invest in this strange, new world and then you pulled the rug out from under them when you told them it wasn't real even here. They may keep watching or reading, but they also may never again invest as much of themselves into the narrative as they did before you pulled this trick.

Multiple aspects of this chapter break my heart, but we couldn't escape a story like this without some bittersweetness.

Thank you so much for joining me in this; I'm scarcely able to believe we have as many kudos as reviews on Archive of Our Own. I've really appreciated the comment discussions on time travel and the nature of morality. Bless you all for sticking with this, and see you next time,

-Kirinin