Title; Family Remains
Author; Tarklovishki
Rating; T
Warnings; Canon character death, mentions of murder and rape, severe bullying, homophobia. More warnings will be listed as each chapter comes out.
Spoilers; Well, if you're new to Harry Potter (I can't see this happening unless you've been deaf, blind and living under a rock these last fifteen or so years) then the entire series.
Summary; Hogwarts school after the war is supposed to be a haven. A place for everyone to call home. Except the dark forces that Voldemort controlled are returning to seek vengeance for his death. Draco Malfoy, as he works furiously to prove that he deserves to be free, is the only one who can stop them. Bellatrix Lestrange isn't as dead as everyone thought.
Authors Notes; I wasn't expecting my re-entry back into the Harry Potter fandom to be as sudden as when I decided to leave it, but whatever. I just really wanted to do a story about the 'what if Bellatrix wasn't killed?' idea that's been in my head since 2007. The title comes from season 4 of Supernatural, which happens to be the first episode I ever watched.
Edit; Fixed up the line breaks.
Family Remains
Chapter 1
If Draco had a choice, he wouldn't have come back to Hogwarts for his eighth year. Sadly, that had been part of his probation. He, Blaise and Goyle were the only Slytherins to return for eighth year. To be met with such open hostility from the rest of the school did not come as any surprise.
"What are they doing here?" Ron spat, glaring at the three Slytherins from across the Great Hall. "I thought we'd finally got rid of them."
"It's not like Malfoy has a choice," said Hermione. She didn't seem any happier about it. She kept her eyes trained on her food. "He had to come back."
"What, and you're alright with that?" Ron asked incredulously, turning to her.
"No I'm not," she replied. "I'm just telling it like it is. But I think this could be a good chance to mend the crumbled bridge. I mean, a large part of the reason why we've had two wars in the first place is because we've never tried for inter-house equality."
"You want to get along with a bunch of snakes? You're nuts." Ron nudged Harry rudely in the ribs. "Harry, tell Hermione she's nuts."
"Uh-uh. I'm not getting involved in this." Harry massaged the sore spot on his ribs, feeling very tired. Sleeping had come to be quite difficult lately, what with all the nightmares. "She's your girlfriend. You argue with her."
"Oh, Harry," said Hermione compassionately. "Nightmares again?"
"Every bloody night," he said, taking off his glasses so he could rub at his eyes. He doubted he'd ever felt so lethargic before in his life. "It's okay; I'll deal."
"I bet you having that slimy git is part of the problem," said Ron, tossing his head in the direction of the Slytherin table. "Don't know what the Wizengamot was thinking, allowing him to come back here. Nobody wants him."
"Malfoy is not part of the fucking problem, Ron, could you please stop talking about him?" Harry snapped, reaching the end of his tether so suddenly that it startled even him. He looked up to find Ron and Hermione staring at him like he'd grown a second head. "I'm sorry, guys. It's just that … well, I need a decent night sleep, which I haven't gotten since the night Voldemort died."
He just wanted dinner to be over with. The quicker he ate—well, perhaps not so quick that he gave himself a bad case of indigestion—the quicker he could go up to the dormitory and sleep until he had to wake up tomorrow for classes.
Ron and Hermione nodded in unison, wearing expressions of sympathy.
Headmistress McGonagall cleared her throat, rising from her chair. In seconds, the chatter in the hall quietened. "Let the Sorting begin," she said.
On cue the doors opened and Hagrid walked through leading a bunch of nervous first years. Harry swore they got tinier every year, as if someone decided that each generation could get smashed over the head with a large hammer to help stunt their growth. He couldn't remember if he'd been that tiny.
The problem—in the case of Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws—was that there was hardly any room to make for new students. Harry wondered if McGonagall overestimated the length of the tables and the fact that there were now double the number of older students sitting at them.
Except there were a few empty seats, ones that the new students couldn't fill. The people they lost fighting the war would never be forgotten. Never be replaced.
Harry was glad he sat between Ron and Hermione, because he was sure that if he hadn't, someone would have decided that they had an open invitation to sit on his lap.
He noticed, also, that with some of the new students getting chosen for Slytherin, they turned so pale it looked as if they were about to drop dead. It didn't help that the other three houses pointed at them and started whispering, no doubt making up some pathetic rumour that they were going to turn evil. Harry wondered whether he should tell the school that Slytherins hadn't been the only one fighting on Voldemort's side. With that thought, he remembered Wormtail and wanted to hit something.
"Welcome back to Hogwarts," said McGonagall, a small quaver in her voice. She raised her hands, holding them out to each side as if to embrace the whole hall. "Let the feast begin."
Ron started loading up his plate the second the food appeared, as if scared that someone else would get their hands on his favourites before he had a chance to.
"You and your eating habits are ghastly," said Hermione, playing for disgust but ending up sounding fond and amused. "Slow down before you make yourself sick."
"Can't," said Ron through a mouth full of food. "Hungry."
Snorting, Harry shook his head and started loading up his plate at a much more sedate pace. Next to him, Hermione sighed. Some things just never changed.
Halfway through dinner, Harry decided that he'd eaten enough and stood up. Instantly, all eyes swivelled toward him. Perhaps they thought he was going to do something remarkably, or stupid. Maybe even both. Instead, he said to Ron and Hermione, "I'll meet you back in the common room" and left before either of them could think to say anything to stop him.
To his surprise, he ran into Malfoy in the Entrance Hall.
"And here I thought I could leave without anything happening," said Malfoy, running a hand over his face. "Come on, Potter. I know you, of all people, want a good chance of cursing me. It's not like it hasn't happened enough on the train. Now is your chance."
Harry frowned. "I'm not going to curse you, Malfoy?"
"You're not? Now there's a surprise …"
"What are you doing anyway?"
"Practising my unicorn mating call. What do you think I'm doing, Potter? I'm going down to the dungeons to beat the rush out of here so I don't get myself cursed." Malfoy rolled his eyes. "I'm good at duelling, but not good enough to defend myself against twenty students."
Malfoy shook his head, giving Harry a look that explained quite clearly what he thought of him, before stalking toward the stairs that would take him down to the dungeons.
"Harry!" Hermione's sharp voice accompanied the echoing groan of the door to the Great Hall opening. As Harry watched, Malfoy's eyes flashed dangerously and he quickly retreated, his eyes somehow never leaving Harry as he walked down the stairs.
Keep your enemy in sight. Mad-Eye Moody's words burst forth in Harry's brain. He'd told it to him one night in fifth year, lips working around the top of his hip flask. Never take your eye off them lest you want to end up dead. Some people, Moody would say, never got the luxury of living without war.
A warrior's words, a fighter's actions.
"What were you doing with that scum?" Ron spat.
Harry jumped; Ron and Hermione stood on either side of him now. He hadn't even heard them walk up to him, too focused on watching Malfoy.
"Nothing," said Harry. "Kinda surprised myself."
"He didn't try and hurt you, did he?" Hermione asked worriedly.
"He wouldn't dare," said Harry.
Ron snorted. "Not unless there's another giant bully in the playground to hide behind."
"Come back inside, Harry," said Hermione, tugging insistently on his arm. "You barely ate anything off your plate. You're going to starve later on if you don't."
"No," said Harry firmly. "I'm fine. Not hungry."
He didn't want to tell Ron and Hermione that sometimes the thought of food made him sick. He knew that he'd be opening himself up to more worrying from his friends. Perhaps Hermione would even start researching eating disorders and insist that he go see Madam Pomfrey, when he knew that he did not have a disorder.
Life after the final battle had changed him. There was no cure in sight, and no easy answer. When your whole life has revolved around one task, leading up to one fight, how were you supposed to move on when you'd completed your destiny? What more could be out there for you?
Hermione meant well, but she didn't understand. Nobody did. Everyone, Harry knew, deals with war differently. This seemed like the only way Harry could deal with it. If he got hunger pains during the night, then maybe it would fill up this big, gaping hole inside him for just a little while.
"I'm going to bed," he said, disentangling his arm from Hermione's suddenly pincer-like grip. He could feel their gazes burning holes into his back. "I'll see you in the morning."
Harry knew that they were disappointed and frightened by his coping methods. Did they automatically think that being the war hero meant that he was exempt from battle trauma?
If they didn't like what he was doing, they would just have to learn to live with said disappointment.
Most people thought Malfoys couldn't feel. Draco wished they were right.
Being pushed into walls and other people (only for them to shove him right back) whilst walking down a corridor for Transfiguration hurt. Not what the people were doing to him, because fuck them with ten foot poles, but the fact that he couldn't defend himself against them.
If Draco so much as showed his wand to them, he'd find another twenty wands pointed back at him. They wouldn't think twice to cursing him all in one go. Wouldn't think twice about the fact that twenty combinations of curses could kill him.
"You should have gone to Azkaban."
"Where's your lord now?"
"How does Daddy feel, locked up in a prison cell?"
The teasing, bullying, taunting … it never stopped.
"Death Eater scum!"
"Murderer!"
"Coward!"
The teachers never stopped them. A week after term began, in Potions class, someone sabotaged his potion. He'd only ducked out of harms way just in time. Several other people got splashed with it and their skin immediately blistered like they'd gotten a really bad sunburn. Of course, Slughorn had seen exactly who had done it, and turned a blind-eye and warned Draco to watch what he was doing.
Fighting back only rewarded Draco with a detention.
Weasley smirked at him over his cauldron, stowing his wand back under his robes.
"If anyone is giving you grieve, Mr. Malfoy, I encourage you to come forward." McGonagall pursed her lips. "Bullying will not be tolerated here at Hogwarts."
Draco sat straighter in his chair. "I think I can handle it, Headmistress," he said. "Besides, if you haven't been able to walk through the corridors and see who is doing it, there's no reason for me to name names. I understand that teachers have to pretend like they care."
He stood up. McGonagall rose with him.
"Please do not think that I do not care," she said. "You have made mistakes in the past, yes, but you should not be punished for them. You have already paid the price with freedom. Allow me to help you. I am not the enemy, Mr. Malfoy."
"I'm standing in a school full of enemies, Headmistress, I'm sorry if I'm a little doubtful that there's someone in this school that stands on my side." Draco bowed his head respectfully to her. "Excuse me, Headmistress, but I've got a lot of homework to do."
As he left, he distinctly heard the portrait of Dumbledore say, "Ah, Mr. Malfoy is a bright young man. It is troubling, indeed, that he has been misguided for so long."
At night, Draco would wake up to the sound of Goyle screaming.
Goyle couldn't stop reliving the Fiendfyre in his head when he slept. He couldn't let go of the shadow of their friend, Crabbe, that now haunted him.
Draco would stumble, half awake, over to Goyle's bed and shake him awake, jumping back to avoid the vomit that would burst from Goyle's mouth as he rolled over. Grimacing, his heart hurting because he couldn't help a friend (one of the few friends he had) when he was hurting so badly, Draco waved his wand and vanished the vomit.
Then he would sit down on the edge of Goyle's bed and be an immovable figure. A statue. Offering comfort in silence while Goyle cried.
Blaise would lie awake on the only other occupied bed in the room. Draco could tell because he always breathed heavily when he was scared. Hyperventilating. Draco didn't begrudge Blaise for his inability to come and help Goyle.
Slytherins, not just Draco, were getting attacked left, right and centre by students who thought their time for revenge had come.
That's when little Evan Hassen, Slytherin first year, nearly died from being blasted out a second storey window. While Pomfrey healed his broken ribs, punctured lung and dislocated shoulders, she couldn't heal Evan's trauma of being attacked only because of what house he was in.
"Nothing!" McGonagall screamed at dinner, on the Tuesday of the second week of term. "Nothing gives any of you the right to attack Slytherin students! To think that I had expected this childish behaviour would have ceased by now. You are all lucky Mr. Hassen hasn't died!"
Harry couldn't believe that someone had actually thrown a first year out of a second storey window. He agreed with McGonagall that the violence toward Slytherins students was going too far. He felt guilty for all the times he walked across a Slytherin student being attacked and never stopping it.
"I want the culprit, or culprits, to step forward by Friday or else all the points from Gryffindor, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw will be taken," she said, holding her hand up when the students of the three houses started to complain. "Nobody has the right to try and kill another person. You all best hope that the attackers come forward. Start eating."
"I can't believe someone would actually do that!" Hermione cried immediately, as the uproar of chatter started, food appearing on the tables. "That poor first year!"
"Come on, Hermione," said Ron, rolling his eyes. "The Slytherins deserve what's coming to them."
"That boy hasn't even been in this school two weeks, Ron," Hermione snapped, shooting Ron a very nasty glare. "He wasn't here last year. Neither the second or third years should be blamed either. I can't believe that you just said that to me."
"Hermione, I—"
"Don't even talk to me, Ronald Weasley."
Harry heard Ron mutter about not getting laid tonight and winced, because there were some things he just didn't need to hear, and his friends' sex lives happened to be one of them.
He wondered if the culprits were sitting in here right now, scared out of their minds about the punishment they'd face if they decided to come forward. Scared because attempted murder could land them in Azkaban. Not to mention letters to their parents. Which, okay, seemed like a lesser punishment than Azkaban, but if anything he expected those letters to be around the same lines as the one Ron got in second year after they borrowed with the intention of giving back the Weasley family car.
If he thought that returning for his final year at Hogwarts was going to be a quiet affair, he had been horribly, horribly wrong. In Hogwarts, the words calm and quiet did not exist.
To Be Continued. . .