Author: eidheann_writes
Title: Safety
Pairing(s): Harry/Draco
Rating: R
Warnings/Content: past main (and minor) character deaths, some suicidal ideation, depression, grieving, AU after HBP
Summary: Comfort isn't safety, and safety isn't comfort. A remix of Comfort by lordhellebore.
Word Count: ~2200
Disclaimer: Canon characters and events are property of JKR and publishers. Non-canon events and some dialogue are property of lordhellebore
Author's notes: Thank yous go to my prereader and beta for keeping me on track, the mods for their unfailing reassurance, and especially to lordhellebore for creating something so lovely to work with. I tried to stay true to the feel of the original source, both in content and format, even though I couldn't manage to make this a drabble series.
The weather was unseasonably cold and drizzly for late May. Draco pulled his coat tighter, shivering under the slate grey sky. The gathered crowd was small; a dozen people huddled together in twos and threes, and Draco had never been more aware of the empty space around him.
Kingsley Shacklebolt droned on before them, and Draco let the deep rumble wash over him—yet another part of about the day to ignore. He kept his gaze on his shoes and the scraggly grass on which he stood, focusing on the familiar pain where his crutches dug into his arms and his hands wrapped around the grips, a constant bruising ache.
The grass, the crutches, the weakness in his legs, and the trickle of cold rain leaking into his coat and dripping down his neck—these were real. These were familiar. These brought him a strange comfort.
Grimmauld Place was empty, and drafty, and full of stairs. He returned anyway for lack of anywhere else to go. The Manor was long gone, destroyed late in the war on the raid that had killed Greyback.
Draco counted the exchange as worth it.
He didn't let himself think about the end of the war. Then, his future had been so precarious that he counted it in days. Even in the months locked in Grimmauld Place for his safety, he hadn't felt safe.
Well, he had, but only rarely. He'd felt the safety of another's arms, the comfort of not being alone. But he had always been aware that while the comfort was real, the safety had been an illusion.
Now the reverse was true. Days, weeks, months, years: all stretched before him, endless and safe.
He flicked his wand at the curtains covering his great aunt's portrait, opening them and letting her screams fill the silence.
"Don't die."
"I won't." The phantom touch of Potter's fingers carded through his hair, and then: "I won't. I promise."
Draco sat up with a gasp, looking around the study. Watery light crept through the dirty windows, and the bottle of Firewhisky he'd been drinking from the night before lay toppled on the floor beside his crutches.
There was a chime and the room flashed green. He frowned at the Floo, realizing the chime had woken him in the first place. He spared a moment to run a hand through his hair, pushing it back off his face before he crawled to the hearth.
He stared a moment at Lupin's head. Good morning wasn't accurate. None of the small bits of politeness that had been drilled into his head as a child were appropriate here.
Finally, Lupin broke the silence. "It's time."
Draco sat back on his heels. Then he nodded. "All right."
The public funeral was in all ways different from the private one the day before. Crowds were tight on Hogwarts' Quidditch Pitch, and the clouds had gone, leaving the sky bright enough to cause his eyes to water. He ended up crowded between Lupin and George Weasley, both still wearing their clothes from the day before.
The brush of their arms against his was strange, each feeling like a Stinging Hex, and he realized a month had passed since he'd been touched.
He shied away from that thought. It was too close to the reason he was here, listening to a constantly shifting stream of Ministry officials talking about things they knew nothing about.
Two hours, each going on about loss and courage and, most absurdly, safety. If Draco could have gotten out of the crowd, he would have Apparated in a heartbeat.
He was shaking when he fell through the Floo. The crowds had been tight and had only grown more restless as the funeral progressed. And everyone wanted to talk, as though words could ever...
Well. Words would never. Draco pulled his crutches close, levering himself back to standing. He eyed the spill of Firewhisky across the rug and had just pulled his wand to Vanish the mess when a green light flashed behind him.
He was shocked to see Lupin in front of the grate. Lupin merely raised an eyebrow at him. "I'll be in my room."
Draco let his wand fall as he watched Lupin retreat. He'd not honestly expected any of the remaining Order members to return to Grimmauld Place, even though he knew each had claim to a room.
It did make a sort of sense; Lupin was the only other member with nothing else.
Draco finished the Firewhisky.
He reckoned living with Lupin was easy. Easy as living alone, at least. Lupin was an occasional creaking floorboard above him. The pipes banging during a midmorning shower. The kettle half full and hot on the hob.
In short, Lupin was a slightly less obtrusive flatmate than Great Aunt Walburga with her curtains closed.
Just as well. Each day Draco climbed out of bed and hobbled downstairs. He didn't think about how much easier it had been with an arm to lean on, he simply made his way to the study's liquor cabinet, which was linked to the wine cellar in the basement with a charm.
Some days he wondered whether he shouldn't just stay in the study, wondered whether making his way up and down two flights of stairs every day was even rational.
But the feeling of falling into bed, the puff of air released from the pillow that still held onto a trace of the scent he couldn't forget. He couldn't give that up.
The best part about Lupin was he didn't talk much, saying nothing more than that the kettle was hot or the Owl had arrived with groceries. Even a month later, when Lupin seemed to decide the time had come to shake himself out of his grief and cling to a schedule, he was content to let Draco be.
It was a relief. The first time Draco had made his way to the study to find Lupin already there, he'd expected... something. Instead, Lupin had simply given him a weak half-smile, before turning back to the parchment spread before him on the desk.
Lupin wrote at the desk most mornings, and Draco found it helped him relax. The irregular sound of the quill joined the background crackle of flames in the grate, and for the first time in months, Draco found himself oddly comforted.
Draco had thought he was no longer capable of being surprised. That the addition of Lupin and his quiet routines marked the end of any changes in Draco's life. That nothing stranger than the bars of Honeydukes chocolates Lupin Owl-Ordered every few weeks would invade the stillness of Grimmauld Place.
Then George Weasley came through the Floo.
He brought words; Molly Weasley's strident voice carried through the open grate until Weasley cast an Aguamenti at the flames.
Draco and Lupin stared at him, faces equally shocked, and Weasley turned back to them. "I had to... I couldn't anymore."
While Draco's ears were still ringing from the sound, Lupin said, "I understand. Pull up a seat."
Draco wanted nothing more than to yell, to scream. Lupin had come and invaded his quiet, but Draco didn't want anyone else here.
But Weasley was already sitting.
Lupin and Weasley talked. Of course they did. Because even though Molly Weasley dragged him back to wherever they were staying after their home had been destroyed in the war, Weasley came back.
And Lupin and Weasley had been friends. Friends since Lupin had been at Hogwarts teaching Defence.
At first Draco huffed a sigh, grabbed a bottle of Firewhisky, and left the study.
He'd rattled around downstairs, trying to find someplace to settle, juggling his crutches and wand and bottle until he finally gave up and sat on the stairs and drank until he passed out.
He awoke the next morning on the sofa in the study, covered by a blanket that smelled nothing like his pillow still did, his head pounding and his eyes swollen nearly shut. Weasley was similarly covered, stretched out on the hearthrug, and Lupin was asleep on a chair.
After that, Draco didn't leave the study. He didn't participate, but he let their words wash over him, much in the same way he'd done with Lupin's writing. He stared at the fire, drinking occasionally and eating when something was pressed into his hands. Weasley arrived midmorning and left midafternoon. And he and Lupin talked.
Occasionally a word would catch Draco's attention, snagging him from the daze he so carefully maintained. "Harry" or "Fred" or "Dora" were guaranteed to drag him from the comfort of his Firewhisky, lancing through his chest like a Severing Charm, the pain as sharp and immediate as a knife.
He noticed Lupin looking at him sometimes. His expression not filled with pity or even sympathy, both of which Draco could have fought back against.
Understanding, however, left him no defence.
The first time Draco slept through the night was three months after the funeral. To awaken feeling rested and almost human felt very strange. He was uncertain what had changed, what had finally allowed him to sleep; the day before had been the same as each one prior. Weasley and Lupin had talked for hours, Draco had attempted to mostly ignore them, focusing instead on the bottle in his hand.
He remained in bed, as though the simple act of sleeping through the night was a betrayal. As though it marked the first step in moving on, something he wasn't willing to do.
When Lupin entered without knocking, but bearing a sandwich and mug of chocolate, Draco kept his gaze on the fabric of the canopy above his head. Lupin left them on the side table, reaching out briefly to brush his fingers through Draco's hair before leaving.
The feeling of Lupin's fingers, so much more immediate than the memory of Potter's, made Draco close his eyes and weep.
Lupin didn't allow him to remain in bed after that. Draco hadn't touched the food, a morbid part of himself pondering starving himself, but Lupin checked on him early the next morning.
Taking in the still-full tray, he'd simply flicked his wand and Levitated Draco from the bed and into the bath, twisting the knobs until the hot water stopped sputtering and was coming out in a steady stream.
By the time Draco had washed, wrapping himself in a towel, Lupin had remade the bed, the filthy sheets Draco had been sleeping in, the ones that smelled like Potter, a pile in the corner.
"We've done this long enough, all three of us. We're getting out of this house."
He ignored Draco's protests and struggles and, after Weasley's arrival, herded them both to the Leaky.
Draco hated the new routine. Hated that Lupin wouldn't leave him alone in his misery. That he wouldn't let him drink. That he wouldn't let him keep more than a single t-shirt of Potter's.
"I don't want to forget! I don't want to move on!" The pair of hags at the table nearest them turned to look, but Draco didn't care. "I don't want to get over it!"
"You never get over it."
Draco hadn't been expecting Weasley to respond. Lupin was staring into his mug and seemingly ignoring Draco's outburst. "You never forget. You just stop letting Voldemort win."
"Fuck you, Weasley. You don't know anything."
"Draco—"
"No, fuck you. Remus and I are the only ones who do."
It didn't get easier.
Getting up in the morning, because Draco got up now, showering, and eating. Self-care, even at the most basic level, was something he always needed to remind himself to do.
But if it never got easier, it also never got harder. Not beyond the individual days when he remained in bed, covered in sheets that only smelled like nothing but soap. He ate what Lupin brought him, and the next day he got up. And slowly, the days he remained in bed came less and less often.
The loneliness never went away, not really. Nothing ever filled the hole. But, oddly, over time, Lupin and Weasley helped. The fact that they were all missing such large pieces of themselves allowed them to fit together somewhat. As though their losses left only enough parts to make a single person.
He still thought of Potter every day. Still expected, if only briefly, to be able to turn and speak with him. To lean into the comfort of his arms. To be soothed out of a nightmare about his parents.
Eventually he learned. He adapted. He had friends, because his relationship with Weasley and Lupin became friendship. It was still, in some ways, better than he'd hoped for during the last year of the war.
He knew Potter would want that, as Potter'd always been ridiculously Hufflepuff in his optimism.
Some days, knowing Potter would want him surrounded by friends was enough, even though Potter would never have expected them to be Lupin and a Weasley. Knowing Potter would want him safe, too, Draco put one foot in front of the other.
Each day, a little comfort. One day at time. Safe.