Tribulation

Ch. 1

The day was the 7th of July, exactly one month after the end of the war. Harry Potter was sitting at the kitchen of the Burrow, contemplating life, as he did most days, when he wasn't helping the Weasleys.

The war didn't simply stop, there was, of course, the predicted "final battle" which, Harry thought bitterly, seemed to the eager young kids more like something from a sci-fi script than a life or death struggle.

The anticipation of what was to come had been worse than the battle itself, which hadn't exactly been fun.

But in the end, Harry Potter lived, and Voldemort perished, without their leader, his death eaters had been caught one by one.

All that was left for the survivors of this shaken world was to rebuild and let scars heal over.

The problem was a lot of buildings and homes had been destroyed in the last days before Voldemort died leaving thousands of wizards homeless.

There were, of course, shelters, but there were also volunteers that let people board with them free rent, while they found somewhere to live. One of these families, were the Weasleys.

When the Dursleys point blank refused to let Harry back into their house longer than it took to get his things and get the hell out. Nobody could convince them otherwise, luckily for Harry the Weasleys were happy for him to live with them. Others weren't so fortunate.

As well as Harry Mrs Weasley brought a tall dark haired girl called Joyce, whom she claimed was a distant relative. Joyce never spoke much, Mrs Weasley said it was because she had a disturbing "experience" in the war, no-one seemed to know what it was, and Mrs Weasley delighted in not telling. Bill, Charlie and Percy had all moved out and were helping the Ministry where they could.

Mr Weasley was doing some damage control for the Ministry overseas and had left the running of the house to Mrs. Weasley. Mrs Weasley had dragged the twins back home, so she could "keep an eye on them."

Nobody complained, everyone could use some comic relief, and the twins' optimistic attitudes were contagious.

Hermione was staying in Percy's room to help Mrs. Weasley where she could, and also so she could be with a wizarding family in case any news came in (Ron said she wanted to stay near Harry until she was satisfied that the war had left him with no psychological damage.) Surprisingly, Harry had never felt better in his life, there was of course the times when all that had happened came back to haunt his dreams, but he always knew he had Ron and Hermione.

He had lost the ever present sick feeling of anticipation, and he felt like a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders, for once in his life he could relax without the fear of Voldemort popping out of the nearest rose bush.

He had sold all he felt was appropriate from the house Sirius had left him, and donated the money and the house to the Ministry.

Harry, Joyce and the twins paid rent, despite Mrs Weasleys protests. One day, when they had finished all that was needed to be done at the burrow, they all decided to take a day off and visit Diagon Alley. As soon as they arrived, they regretted the decision.

There were a few shops up and running, but there were also a lot of looted stores and there were people huddled in alleys and on street corners. However they still needed to get a couple of potions ingredients and books for the coming year at Hogwarts. McGonagal had refused to close the school, saying that even if the students no longer had enough money to pay for school equipment they would be taken in.

Harry was grateful that some parts of his life were returning to the way they were before the war. All positive thoughts were driven from his mind as they passed a ministry official sitting behind a desk with a sign saying boarder registration forms.

Leaning over the desk was a familiar figure, a tall boy of about his age, clothed entirely in black, his white blonde hair falling over his face as he filled out the forms. "Malfoy?" he heard Ron say disbelievingly, Harry could understand where he was coming from, not only was Malfoy wearing ratty, inexpensive clothes, he was also painfully thin and filling out boarder registration forms, this was not something the cocky, arrogant Malfoy they were used to would have done.

At the sound of his name, Draco Malfoy straightened up and stared at them, he muttered something indiscernible, that Harry couldn't imagine was flattering.

Harry noticed that he had a large bag at his feet, and for the first time, the thought occurred to him that Malfoys parents would have been taken to Azkaban with the other death eaters, his house would have been repossessed, he would have nowhere to go.

He could see the exhaustion in his face before he turned sharply away from them and shoved the forms at the ministry official. Apparently Mrs Weasley saw it as well, because she moved towards him before he could walk away and started talking to him in a low voice.

Harry couldn't hear what she was saying, but he could guess by the 'hell no' expression on Malfoys face, the encouraging nodding of the ministry official and the way Mrs Weasley was speaking urgently and reassuringly smiling.

Harry knew she didn't like the Malfoys, no member of the Weasley family liked the Malfoys, it went with the family name, but she still couldn't bear to see a boy the same age as her youngest son with nowhere to live. Eventually Malfoy sighed and reluctantly nodded.

Mrs Weasley smiled encouragingly and the Ministry official beamed and told Mrs Weasley where to sign. Next to him Harry heard Ron groan, he was sure everybody was thinking along the same lines.

Joyce stood next to Ginny a vacant expression on her face, thoughtfully studying a display of colour changing tulips, oblivious to the tension in the air as Malfoy allowed himself to be dragged over to the group by a stern faced Mrs Weasley.

She gave them all a warning look before saying "I know you've all met Draco before, he will be staying with us for a while, until he chooses to leave."

With that simple statement went every possible complaint, everyone could see that there was a silent 'and that's final' attached to the end of that sentence, and nobody was game to make trouble over it.

They knew they would have to just find a way to ignore each other until school started again. They bought what they needed and went home in silence, everyone staring at Malfoy then looking away when he caught them.

When they got back to the burrow, Mrs Weasley ordered Harry and Ron to show Malfoy to Bills old room, which they did, in cold silence.

Malfoy straggled behind them, dragging the heavy bag, neither Ron or Harry offered to help him. Ron opened the door to Malfoys new room, a plain white box with a bed, cupboards and a writing desk, but not much else.

When Bill had been living in it the walls had been covered in posters, adding some life to the boring space, but now it was dead and unwelcoming.

Harry and Ron stood aside and Malfoy walked into the room, dumped his bag on the floor and slammed the door in Ron's face.