Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoat Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
A/N: Here's chapter 7! I'm sorry for the long wait, I went to see the latest Harry Potter with a friend and her family, then went over to another friend's house, so I only just got back home. But, to be loyal to you, I sat down on my laptop and instantly went back to fanfic. It's like it's calling me ;P Enjoy!
Chapter 7.
"Harry, please, just take it! It'll make a world of difference, so please. If not for us then for yourself!" Hermione was trying to coax Harry into making taking a dreamless sleep potion part of his nightly routine. Recently he had been having more and more nightmares (with a few Malfoy dreams as well) and he hadn't been able to have more than two hours of sleep without waking up screaming. Admittedly, it was probably annoying Ron by disrupting his sleep every two hours as well, but as of a few nights ago, Harry had made sure to put up strong silencing charms around his four-poster, so there shouldn't be a problem now.
Or at least that was what he thought.
According to Hermione, it didn't matter that he wasn't bothering anyone else, it was the fact that he was still having them that worried her.
"No. I won't start taking a potion every night for what is most likely a permanent problem."
"But why, Harry? Why not?" Hermione asked exasperatedly. "If you can't stop having nightmares the normal way, then this is the only solution left!" Ron, who was staying silent at her side, nodded his head furiously. Harry could feel the anger bubbling up inside of him, and he relished in the thought of finally releasing some of his pent up anger.
"And what is the 'normal' way, Hermione? Please tell me, because I obviously don't know, else I would have tried it by now."
"Well," She began, obviously preparing her speech, "normally, the cause of a dream or nightmare is due to the dreamer's subconscious, meaning that your emotions are a large factor of what you dream about and how you dream it. Normally, the way to overcome said problem to overcome those feelings." She paused, "What I'm suggesting Harry, is that you talk about it. You never had a chance before with Cedric – " Harry winced at the mention of his name, "With Cedric, you couldn't talk about it because the Ministry didn't believe that Voldemort had come back. But with the others, you can talk about it. You know you can. If not with us, there are post-war help lines that you could talk to." Anger was welling up within Harry and he knew he couldn't hold it in any longer. The final straw was when Ron looked up at him with pity in his eyes and nodded in agreement again.
"No, Hermione, I don't know that." Harry spat. "In fact, I know that I can't. It's exactly what I can't do. You, you had Ron, and Ron, you had Hermione. You guys could talk to each other about the deaths, you two could cry on each other's shoulders. Me? Who the fuck could I talk to? Everyone I know has lost someone in the war, everyone. They all had to do their own grieving, with what was left of their families. I don't have a family to talk to. In case you forgot, Voldemort took all of them away from me. The only family I could talk to were handling their own grief, they didn't need mine, too. They needed my condolences, but they didn't need my problems.
And help lines would do fuck all. Talking to some stranger who knows squat about me and my life other than what's in the papers, them pretending to be sympathetic while they sit there thinking that at least their lives are better than the fucked up person they're talking to? Yeah, if I need pity then I don't need to look any further than you two.
I'm not a kid, Hermione. I can take care of myself. Maybe, maybe once I did need to talk about it. But back then, no one was there for me to talk to. That time has passed. I'll deal with it on my own. I'm used to it. Being abandoned is something you get used to when it happens enough. That's a concept that I'm afraid neither of you would be able to fathom.
I'm not annoying anyone at night anymore, and I am not going to rely on some potion every day of my life, just so I can sleep. I can work off of a few hours sleep just fine. So kindly shut the fuck up and piss off." He vented, his voice low with anger and the air humming with poorly contained magic. When he felt a hand on his arm he almost snapped again, and had already whipped his wand out, ready to hex the balls off of the person who was touching him, but stopped and lowered his wand when he saw who it was. Draco. The look in Draco's eyes wasn't that of pity. It was understanding. A sad sort of understanding.
It was at that moment that Harry realised that perhaps the person who could understand him the most was Draco Malfoy. They were so opposite, yet so similar. Each had lost family members to the war, Lucius having been sentence to the Dementor's kiss, each had lost a part of themselves during the war, each had been made to fight with no other choice; the burden of other people's lives weighing heavily on their shoulders. Each had never had the chance to talk about how they felt.
Draco had pride, he had his mother to look after and he had his family name to restore. He couldn't open up to anyone, he wouldn't let himself seem so weak. Harry had pride, he had the rest of the world to look after and he had his mental state to restore. He couldn't open up to anyone, he wouldn't let himself seem so selfish. Both had yet to adapt back into normal everyday life, both expecting someone to come out of nowhere and curse them at any minute.
It seemed that everyone else had melded back in to the day-to-day life of school, work, friends, Hogsmeade trips…they had been left behind.
And only them.
It was them against the rest of the population.
Draco, Draco Malfoy, understood.
Harry heard Ron snarl in the background when he saw Draco. He couldn't stand Harry's newfound friendship with the blonde, refusing to see Draco as a human after what his father and his Lord did to his family, and after all the taunting that Draco had given him over the years. Normally he wasn't vocal about his feelings in front of Draco himself, but after the speech that Harry had just given, his emotions were not very restrained.
"Malfoy, take your hand the fuck off of his arm." He growled, wand already out and ready to fire. Harry felt his anger peak at the threat of having his best friend break the delicate relationship he had with the only other person in the world who could understand him. Rising and rising and rising, the blood boiled in his veins and then everything bleached.
His vision was clouded and white, movements barely visible as the white blinded most of his vision. He heard people screaming, and he saw people running around, bright white shapes moving to duck beneath larger white shapes. People were calling his name, telling him to stop.
Stop what? He didn't even know what was happening, so what was he meant to stop? Was someone attacking them? Was he meant to be stopping them, saving everyone? But there were so many people. So many voices calling for him. He blocked them out of his mind, shaking his head and vaguely recognising the sound of his own voice screaming in…in what? Agony? Anger? Why was he screaming? Was he being hurt? What was going on?
"Harry James Potter, stop it right now."
Everything was normal again. The colours were back. People weren't screaming. He wasn't screaming. People were emerging from under the sofas they'd hidden under. No one was attacking them. Someone was gripping his shoulders and looking him straight in the eyes. He tried to focus in on the person, but his glasses weren't on his face and he couldn't see properly. He recognised the blonde hair though and slowly asked,
"Draco?" He winced as his throat hurt to talk, his voice coming out like gravel. "What just happened?" Something in Malfoy's expression changed, but Harry couldn't see what it was through the blur of his unfocused eyes.
"You went ape-shit." He replied simply.
"Me? It was me? But, but I couldn't see anything, I thought – I thought someone was attacking us, and I had to stop them, but I couldn't see anything, so I didn't know what to do, I couldn't see." Harry cried. "Where are my glasses?" He asked, looking around as if it might help somewhat.
"Here." Malfoy said, pushing the frames into Harry's palm. "Everything around you was blowing up, and I thought that having glasses shatter on your face wouldn't be a good idea in case the shards went in your eyes." Harry nodded and pushed them onto his face and grimaced as he looked around him.
All forms of decoration were ruined. Ornaments were shattered, tables and chairs were overturned, people were hiding and eyeing him cautiously, Ron and Hermione looked terrified. He was guessing that he had exploded worse than usual to make them look so afraid, they had, after all, witnessed some of his more worse rages.
"You were clawing yourself, mate." Ron said quietly, but it travelled loud and clear across the now silent room. Harry looked down at himself to see clear nail marks on his arms, blood slowly seeping from the deep wounds he had caused himself. His own shirt lay in torn shreds around his feet, more bleeding scratch wounds on his chest.
"Yeah. And I wonder who it was that managed to get me so mad in the first place." Harry said, flatly, looking pointedly at the couple. They had the grace to look sheepish.
"Look, Harry – "
"No, Hermione. I'd rather not hear it right now." Harry interrupted. "I'm sorry, everyone." He called to the room at large. "I need to cool off. I'm sure the house-elves will be along soon to do something about the mess. I would do it myself, but I really don't trust my control right now." From the furtive nods around the room, Harry guessed that they didn't trust him either and would rather have him out, than trying to do magic anywhere near them any time soon. Draco replaced his hand onto Harry's wrist and nodded his head in the direction of the portrait hole. Harry nodded stiffly and crossed the room in 5 seconds flat, yearning to get away from the mess he'd caused. When they were out in the corridor Harry looked around disdainfully.
"Where to now?" He asked.
"Bathroom." Draco replied. When Harry cocked a quizzical eyebrow at him he said, "We need to clean your cuts and heal them. Unless you want to go to Pomfrey and explain to her, which will get McGonagall involved and then – "
"Yeah, okay, I got it." Harry cut in. "Bathroom it is."
They made their way along the corridors of the castle, Harry hiding behind Draco to conceal himself from anyone they passed, Draco still holding Harry's wrist in his hand as if he were a kid that was going to run away at any point and needed to be kept close in case he got lost. Normally Harry would have protested to the condescending connotations in that grip, but, seeing as it was the closest he was ever going to get to holding hands with him, he decided to let it go.
They reached the sixth floor bathroom that was the closest to the tower they were staying in and slipped inside unnoticed.
"We always seem to come back here, don't we?" Harry murmured, looking around his surroundings that were becoming all too familiar. Draco sniggered and moved over to the stalls to grab some loo roll and dampen it in the sinks. He moved over to Harry and held out his hand expectantly.
"Give me your arm. I'd rather not have to use any more magic than is necessary in case it goes wrong because of your magic, which you are still doing a crap job at containing by the way. A healing charm's the only thing I want to risk." Harry grimaced,
"Sorry, I've always been crap at it. I blew my aunt up once, bloated her to an even more grossly huge size than she already was. She floated away during tea." Draco looked at Harry's expression for one second before bursting out into fits of laughter, having to clutch at the sink for support. Harry frowned disapprovingly, "It's not that funny. I was seriously worried that I'd be done in for underage magic. It was only because the Ministry was worried that I'd be killed that year because Sirius had escaped and they still thought he killed my parents – " Harry stopped when he heard Sirius' name come out of his mouth. Draco had started to swab gently at the cuts on Harry's arms sometime during Harry speaking, still snickering under his breath. He paused and looked up when Harry stopped, all signs of laughter gone. Then said very slowly as if he were calculating every word he spoke,
"You know, I don't think Granger was completely wrong." At the look on Harry's face he hastily continued, "I think it might help, y'know, to talk about those sorts of things." After considering the things Draco said, with a calm and rational mind, Harry realised that he was probably right. He conceded this point silently with a sigh. Draco continued to look at him and added quietly, "If you don't want to talk to Granger or Weasley, but you don't want to talk to a complete stranger either, then I don't mind if you want to talk to me." He paused. When Harry didn't reply, he flushed and went back to scrubbing Harry's wounds, "Not that you have to of course, I'd completely understand if you didn't want to, I know we've hardly been on good terms until recently and it's hard to overcome past prejudice, but the option's there if you – "
"Draco." Harry interrupted. Draco fell silent. "I'd love to." He said, watching as Draco, almost comically, looked up with saucer-wide eyes. Wondering how far he could go with this, Harry ploughed on. "I think you're the one person I would want to talk to about this stuff. You're the only one who I think would understand. Understand the situation. Understand me." He was acutely aware that Draco was now dabbing absentmindedly at the scratches on his bare chest, while still looking at Harry and leaning in close to hear his quiet words. "I think we've both realised that we had the wrong impression of the other person all along." Draco's hand was now limp on Harry's chest, and he was so impossibly close to Harry's face that Harry could feel the warmth of his breath on his lips. "I'm really glad that I've got to know you, Draco. It means that I could start a relationship like none I've had before." He finished, looking Draco in his half-lidded eyes. He decided that if Draco hadn't moved away in the next 5 seconds then he would breach the distance and kiss him right there in the bathroom.
"Relationship…" Draco repeated under his breath. Then, more firmly, he said, "Friendship." He began to clean Harry's wounds again and moved his face back down to look at what he was doing. "We're friends now. Friends."
Harry cursed himself internally at his choice of words. He had been so close to overcoming the 'just friends' barrier, and he had ruined it with his wording. But now he knew that at least Draco wasn't completely opposed to starting a relationship with another man. And that he wasn't completely opposed to starting a relationship with Harry.
Now that he knew this, though, Harry couldn't help realise just how much he wanted Draco. It was different when he thought it was merely a fantasy. Now it was a possibility he was struggling to stop himself from opening his mouth and confessing his feelings. That was, until Draco efficiently finished cleaning this cuts, healed them with a flick of his wand and left the bathroom before Harry could even start on his loving and moving confession.
He was alone in a bathroom with only the bloodied remains of toilet paper to remember the past few minutes by.
Chapter End.
A/N: Ooooh rejection! Burn baby burn! What will happen next? Let me eat my supper and you'll find out ;P