A/N: Huge, huge thanks to Frumpologist and scullymurphy for being amazing alphabetas.

Ch. 3 A Fable Agreed Upon

When you were here before / Couldn't look you in the eye / You're just like an angel / Your skin makes me cry /… But I'm a creep, I'm a weirdo / What the hell am I doing here? / I don't belong here…

- Creep, Radiohead.

On returning to Hogwarts, Draco had known that getting through his eighth year was mostly going to be a matter of damage limitation: keep your head down, avoid confrontation, do what you're told, pass your NEWTs, then get the fuck out of there. But it was only the first day of lessons and his school year was already turning into one almighty clusterfuck.

First, there'd been that Merlin-awful fracas that Finnigan had started, which Draco had not been able to stop himself getting involved in because there was no bloody way he was going to see Blaise get fucked over for fighting on his first day. Thank Salazar he hadn't used his wand.

Then there was the fact that, due to said fracas, he'd forgotten he had his first mind healing appointment of the school year smack-bang in the middle of his DADA lesson. 'I know it's an inconvenient time to meet,' Alethea, the mind-healer, had explained a few weeks ago, when the appointment had been made, 'it's just that things are a bit frantic at the beginning of term. After that, we can meet during one of your free periods.'

Back in May, before the dust had even settled over the final Battle, his mother had insisted that Draco meet with a mind healer. He'd reluctantly agreed, knowing there was no point in arguing, but also knowing that his mother's intentions were not solely related to his emotional wellbeing. He was aware that the Wizengamot would look upon him more favourably if he was engaging in 'talking therapy'; if he showed some capacity for remorse, for reflection, for rehabilitation. Well, he had the former two in spades. The latter, however, he wasn't so sure about.

And so he'd met with Alethea Allerton, Professor of Mind Healing, for eight long, torturous appointments over the summer. And as if that wasn't enough, the Wizengamot had made it a condition of his sentencing that he continue to attend healing sessions whilst at Hogwarts.

But the DADA scuffle had swept the appointment from Draco's mind and it was only when Granger had done her surly diva-move and stormed out the classroom that he'd remembered he was meant to be somewhere else. Then, as he'd hurried down the corridor to get to Alethea's office, he'd seen Granger flouncing down the hallway in front of him, her hair bouncing irritatingly as she did so. Merlin, he'd never met anyone with such irritating hair.

He didn't quite know what had possessed him to stop her and goad her like he had – an uncomfortable ripple of self-loathing simmered deep within him as he remembered it. He'd wanted to say other things – less...aresholerish things to her – but his mind had totally failed him and he'd fallen into 'default dickhead mode'. And what had she said just before she'd stormed away? But he couldn't think about that now, he pushed the memory away because he'd arrived at the Alethea's office and this next hour was no doubt going to be enough of a headfuck as it was.

Draco took a moment to catch his breath and compose himself before knocking on the door.

"Come in!" a muffled voice called from inside.

Draco reinforced his emotional battlements, schooled his features into practised indifference, and pushed the door open. Alethea stood in the centre of the room by two armchairs that were separated by a low coffee table. Beyond her, by a window, was a small desk and a wooden filing cabinet.

"Draco – hi!" she greeted him with a smile, the warmth and genuineness of which he still hadn't got used to. Much like he hadn't got used to calling her by her first name, but she always insisted, much to his chagrin; he couldn't help inwardly scoffing at the pretence of friendliness and trust this implied. She gestured to one of the chairs. "Take a seat."

The healer looked much the same as she had over the summer: auburn hair fell in waves over her shoulders, and she wore a loose fitting top with a long cotton skirt in sage green and dusky grey.

"Sorry I'm late," Draco apologised as he sat down. 'Damage limitation' had moved to 'damage control'.

"That's fine. Did you have trouble getting here? I did clear it with the teachers that you could leave the lesson early." Alethea sat down in the other armchair as Draco shifted uncomfortably in his.

"Yeah, no, the teacher was fine about it. Just Dark Arts – I mean DADA – got quite...intense. I forgot about the time," he explained lamely.

She smiled again. "No worries. So, I know we went over confidentiality when we first met but I thought we'd touch on that again because things are a bit different now we're meeting in this context," she began. In this context… did she mean at school, or the fact that the Ministry was now making him see her? Maybe both… "As you know, I'm going to be working here at Hogwarts for the next year. Similarly to what I explained before: nearly everything we talk about is confidential. I do keep some notes," she gestured to a roll of parchment and quill resting on the table between them, "but no one else will have access to them. They'll be kept securely in this room.

"The only time I may need to break that confidentiality is if I'm worried you might be at risk in some way – either from yourself or someone else – or if I'm concerned that someone else is at risk. And also..." She looked uncomfortable. "The Wizengamot have asked for some reports, which I'll have to provide them with. An initial one and then one at the end of each term. I will try and keep the information I share with them as limited as possible... Do you have any questions about any of that, Draco?"

Draco shook his head, keeping his expression neutral. He'd known it all anyway.

"Okay... Well, I also thought it might be useful to talk about how, back in the summer, it had been your choice to meet with me and now it's...not so much. So - I wonder how you feel about being here?"

Draco found his gaze drifting towards the window. He shrugged. "It's not something I'd be doing if I had the choice." He tried not to sound too churlish.

"Right," Alethea's tone was neutral. "So, as you haven't sought out this kind of mind healing at this point, it sounds like it would be important to think about how these meetings might be helpful for you. Maybe let's review the sessions we've had already. How have you found them helpful, if at all?"

Draco shifted in his seat, his insides tightening. As much as he'd found the sessions in the summer excruciating because they'd forced him to confront things he would rather ignore, he had to admit that they had been helpful to some degree.

He forced his next words out. "They helped with the terror-turns. And the flashbacks."

She nodded encouragingly. He could tell she was delighted that something had seemed to work, and probably relieved he wasn't being completely contrary.

"The panic attacks have reduced significantly since the beginning of the summer, haven't they?" 'Panic attacks' - the Muggle word for 'terror-turn'. Alethea often used Muggle terminology. Draco wondered if she was Muggleborn, but there was no way he was going to bring that up with her. "And we talked about how they can be triggered by intrusive thoughts and images. How often do you experience intrusive thoughts now? And flashbacks?"

Draco fisted his hand into the hem of his jumper. He hadn't realised how sweaty his palms had become. "The last flashback was about a month ago. The nightmares seem fucking relentless. I still get the intrusive thoughts, every few days, but they're manageable...with the techniques…"

Alethea nodded slowly, her face managing to convey sympathy without being irritatingly patronising. He wondered if nuanced facial expressions was something mind healers got trained in.

"And what techniques have been helpful in reducing the flashbacks and intrusive thoughts, do you think?"

Draco was, by now, aware of what worked for him. "The relaxation and breathing techniques, to an extent, but mostly the re-living stuff we did. And – and the grounding techniques."

"Great!" It was the most animated Draco had ever seen Alethea. Maybe she was starting to think that he wasn't a total hopeless case. He would need to dissuade her of that – he wouldn't want to raise her hopes for them to be disappointed again. "Okay, so flashbacks and nightmares seem to be things to keep an eye on. Going back to how these sessions could continue to be useful for you, Draco: if you left after a series of, say, twenty sessions and were able to say that they had been helpful in some way, what would be different?"

How was he supposed to answer that? Hadn't he just said he wouldn't be here if he had a choice? He let out an impatient release of breath. A huff. He'd just huffed. Like a petulant child. He wondered if he'd ever have a day when he wouldn't do anything that didn't result in a new wave of self-loathing to ripple over him.

The silence stretched out painfully.

"There's nothing you'd want to change?" Alethea finally asked.

"Of course there fucking is," the words tripped off his tongue before he could stop them. Then, "Sorry."

Alethea hadn't flinched at this stifled outburst. "That's okay, Draco, you can swear here," she said dismissively, like it was a moot point and she didn't want to get distracted with conversations about etiquette. "What would you like to change? If you could?"

He looked at her for several moments. 'What would he like to change?' Was she serious? Where should he start?

"It'd be quite nice to get this bullshit Mark off my arm," he raised his left arm slightly for clarity.

"Okay," Alethea said, seemingly unfazed by the admission. "If that Mark wasn't on your arm anymore, what difference would that make?"

Draco was caught off guard by the question. Because it might have made a difference if it had never been burned into his skin in the first place... although what kind of difference was debatable… And Draco had long since stopped thinking of 'what ifs', that way madness lay...but her questions about the future – would it make any difference if it disappeared tomorrow? Or the next day?

"I guess it wouldn't really. Make a difference. If I got rid of it now," he concluded.

"Hmm...so why is having that Mark now troublesome?"

"I suppose it's what it represents. What it means that I took it in the first place. What it means to others."

"And what does it mean to others?"

"A lot of your questions have obvious answers, you know that?" The familiar sneer returned to his voice and he mildly hated himself for his reaction. Again.

Alethea smiled plaintively. "I don't like to assume things. What do you think you having the Mark means to others?" she repeated.

"That I'm dark. Evil. Rotten. Corrupted."

"Is that what you are, Draco?"

The question glided about his mind, but he refused to think about it in detail. "Maybe.. but it doesn't matter what I think."

"Doesn't it?"

A prolonged, almost agonising pause followed. Draco looked out the window again. He saw a thestral flying low above the canopy of the Forbidden Forest. He noticed Alethea's eyes follow the flight of the winged horse too, and idly wondered who she'd seen die.

"Whose opinion does matter?" Alethea persisted.

Another silence. Brown eyes drifted into Draco's mind's eye; a mass of chestnut curls. He shrugged.

"None of it matters anyway. People aren't going to change their opinion of me. Not after everything that's happened. The war may have weakened some prejudices, but it's strengthened others. History's always written by the winners. 'What is history, if not a fable agreed upon?'" he quoted, and then immediately cringed at his own pretentiousness.

"Napoleon?"

Draco nodded imperceptibly, secretly respecting Alethea for recognising the quote. Growing up a Malfoy, he hadn't been able to learn much about the Muggle world, but his father had felt it important to learn the basic political history; 'Muggle politics nearly always impacts on Magical politics, so it's important to know your stuff. And knowledge is power,' his father had said.

"Often, the stories people have of us lead to certain expectations of what we might do and how we'll act. Sometimes, people's expectations of us are so heavy, we end up living up to them despite ourselves, even if they're negative expectations. Then we reinforce people's views of us and their expectations increase. It becomes a vicious cycle."

Draco was silent yet again. But this time it was because he needed to think over her words.

"Okay, maybe we'll come back to that at some point. Is there anything else you'd like to be different? If I waved my wand and cast a spell that couldn't change the past, or the present, but could control what happens in the next days, weeks, years, what would you wish for?"

An answer came to Draco easily and slipped out of his mouth before he could stop it. "Maybe for the nightmares to stop."

"Okay. Good. We can work on that. Do you mind if I ask a few more questions about that?"

"You've not asked permission for any other questions you've asked." He knew he was sounding petulant again. Merlin, he was an arsehole.

Alethea smiled wanly, seemingly unoffended by his animosity. Then she asked about his nightmares: how long has he had them? Since the beginning of the sixth year, he told her. How frequent are they now? Every other night at least.

"And do you tend to get one recurring nightmare, or are they all different?"

"There are a few that return again and again," he said in a small voice. He hadn't meant to sound so weak. He started to jiggle his foot up and down impulsively.

"Okay, maybe let's start with one of the recurring ones? Maybe the last one you had? If you're able to tell it to me in the present tense, like we did with the reliving work, that would be good? But if not, no worries." Her tone was soft, almost tentative.

Draco thought. The latest nightmare had been yesterday, the first night of term. He wondered if it had been triggered by returning to Hogwarts. It wasn't one of the worst, so he thought he would be able to tell her. He stared at a thread that had come loose from the rug at his feet and began to talk.

"I'm on the roof of the Astronomy Tower. Dumbledore's looking at me pityingly. My wand's drawn at him, my hands are shaking. I feel like I'm about to vomit. I need to kill him but for some reason I can't cast the curse. I look over at Snape who's smirking at me. He usually says something like: 'I can't help you, I'm dead now too'. So I do it. A jet of green light bursts from my wand and I feel something break inside me. Dumbledore falls backwards, over the parapets. I run to the edge of the battlements and look down. But it's not Dumbledore's body at the bottom. It's my own. My limbs are broken and bent at odd angles. People start coming towards my body but they stop a metre or so from it. It's as if they're repulsed by it, so disgusted by me that they can't come any closer. And so my body rots at the bottom of the tower because no one can bear to come near it...and that's when I normally wake up."

Draco's heart was pounding, his hands were curled into such tight fists they ached. He continued to stare fixedly at the loose thread, counting his breaths silently in his head, in and out, until his heart slowed. He finally raised his eyes to look reluctantly at Alethea. She was wearing her familiar sympathetic expression; there was a softness about her eyes and something else there too – something that was uncannily like Dumbledore's expression in his nightmare – something he didn't want to admit was pity.

"And do you think you're able to tell me what actually happened that night? Based on what you can remember?"

So he told her about the task he'd been given by the dark wizard that had been Tom Riddle, about the vanishing cabinet and the Death Eaters entering Hogwarts. About ending up on the Astronomy Tower, and how it had finally been time to carry out the impossible orders of a madman. He talked through the scenario with practised distance. He'd told the story so many times before – had practised telling it to his lawyer, so that he could recount it during his trial without falling apart. He relayed the words now, without really connecting to what he was saying, because it was safer that way.

"And how were you feeling during that time on the Tower, Draco?"

He shrugged.

"Brave? Exhilarated?" she suggested gently. "Determined? Excited? Scared? Anxious? Confused? Those are a few options. Which ones come closest?"

"Scared. Anxious," Draco admitted reluctantly. Fucking terrified, he added silently to himself.

"Hmm, I can imagine," Alethea empathised. But could she? Draco thought, quelling a rise of bitterness and resentment. Could she really imagine what that had been like for him? "And what was going through your mind? What were you thinking – or imagining – in order to feel so scared and anxious?"

Draco fought to keep his emotional battlements up whilst he tried to remember what had been going through his mind that night. He continued to recall it all with detachment, as if he were watching it through a Pensieve.

"Mostly I thought of my parents." Then he rushed the words out in the hope that if he said them quickly enough he wouldn't have to think about them too much. "About how he – Voldemort – would kill them if I didn't kill Dumbledore. Then about how he'd kill me. About how Dumbledore was one of the most talented wizards ever and how the fuck was I going to murder him, especially when I didn't really want to anyway..." Draco finished weakly.

"So, you experienced a real threat to your life that night, and to the life of the people that probably mean the most to you in the world – your parents. Hence, it makes perfect sense that the feeling associated with that night is one of threat," Alethea spoke in a soft, matter-of-fact tone. "As we've talked about before, anxiety is a response to threat. If part of our mind thinks there's something threatening – something dangerous – about a situation, it sets off an anxiety response.

"And we evolved to feel anxiety because ultimately, although it's a very unpleasant feeling, it can actually keep us safe. When our mind recognises a danger, it urges us to run away or fight it – fight or flight. Hence, all the physiological reactions we might experience when we're anxious is our mind and body's way of gearing us up to fight and flee. For example, our heart and breathing quickening – that's to get more oxygen to our muscles. Adrenaline is released, which means we might feel a bit sick or nauseous."

Alethea had explained a lot of this to Draco before and he let her repeat herself without interruption because, he had to admit, it was helpful to hear it all again. The concepts had been hard to get his head around at first, and it had been difficult to admit that he genuinely and unreservedly related to the experiences she described. That had meant admitting that he'd spent most of the last year of his life feeling terrified, which was a hard thing to accept; his father had always said that fear was a weakness.

They went on to discuss, once again, the nature of trauma memories. About how, when an experience is very traumatic, the mind does not process it properly at the time it's happening. Hence, the memory of the event gets stored in the mind in the 'wrong' way – in a way that means that, later on, the mind cannot tell that the event its recalling is actually a memory – and so a person thinks they are experiencing it again, and will feel the same emotions they felt at the time, often to the same severity. And how, because the memory is not stored away 'neatly' in the mind, it keeps 'bouncing' back into consciousness, when someone's mental defences are down – like during sleep, in the form of nightmares – or during waking hours, in the form of intrusive thoughts or flashbacks."

"Right," Draco acknowledged shortly.

"Do you do anything or not do anything to manage how anxious this particular memory makes you?" Alethea asked.

"I – I can't go to the Tower without having a terror-turn. So I had to drop out of my Astronomy NEWT. I can climb up to the top of the Tower's stairs, but can't go outside onto the roof."

Alethea nodded, her face neutral, as if it was perfectly normal for a eighteen-year-old boy – man – to be made incapacitated by an innocuous tower of an ancient castle.

"So, part of your mind associates the Astronomy Tower with danger and threat, and therefore wants you to avoid it to keep yourself safe."

Draco grunted in acknowledgment. He appreciated some kind of logic being applied to the darkness that paralysed him, a kind of logic that made it seem as if, maybe, his feelings weren't a sign of a fundamental weakness within him.

"Do you remember how we talked about, and practised, habituation and graded exposure techniques?" Draco nodded, but Alethea continued to explain the concepts again regardless. Again, he didn't mind – maybe it would be a chance for him to calm his increasingly pounding heart. "We know that a way of updating your mind – so that it no longer associates the Tower with danger – is to provide it with new experiences of the Tower not being threatening. The principles are the same as when practised exposure over the summer: going forward, if you were to expose yourself, subtly but frequently, to the Tower over time, and nothing untoward happened, your mind will have lots of experiences of it being unthreatening, and so can update its belief to 'the tower is safe', for example. That's called 'habituation'."

Draco had known this was coming – had expected that she may suggest 'exposure' as a technique for reducing his nightmares of the Tower. It had been something they'd practised over the summer with certain rooms in his home – it had basically been a necessity for him to do it in order to carry on living there.

"But, as we also discussed before, it's important not to do this gradually, rather than marching up the Tower's roof, going straight to the edge and peering over. If you did that, it's likely you'll experience a high amount of anxiety, and it'll be re-traumatising. But we know that doing it in small stages – small steps – can be helpful. For example, the first step might just be climbing to the top of the stairs and just looking out, but not going out on the roof, during the daytime. Maybe with someone else – someone you trust."

Draco's insides recoiled slightly. It was one of the parts of the technique he found the hardest – to have someone with him when he confronted his fears – for others to see him so weak and vulnerable.

"And doing that several times, until your anxiety reduces to a tolerable level," Alethea continued. "And then the next stage might be doing it on your own. And then taking one step out onto the roof. Etcetera. And that's what we mean by 'graded exposure'," she finally finished.

Draco nodded curtly. "I remember," he said shortly.

"Do you think it's something you'd like to try?"

"Yeah. Yeah, sounds good." Because he knew this year would be hard enough without having to try and avoid the fucking Astronomy Tower. And if it helped with his nightmares... And it was something practical, something concrete to do.

"Okay. Let's plan out a graded hierarchy," Alethea reached for her parchment, "What do you think your first step would be?"

"Erm..maybe, like you said, just going up to the top of the stairs, then standing at the top step, looking out onto the roof…"

"Okay. Great. How anxious do you feel about doing that? Out of ten, where ten is the most anxious you could feel?"

Seven. Six on a good day, Draco thought. "Maybe four. Or five." The lie flowed easily from his lips; his father's voice still echoed at the back of his mind, scathingly declaring any display of fear as weak and repellent.

"Would it be less if you did it with someone you trusted?"

"Yeah, probably by a point or so."

She nodded. He couldn't tell whether she could see through his bullshit or not. Her neutral, kindly face gave nothing away.

"Okay, so do you think you could do that once in the next week – go up to the tower, and stand at the top for a period of time, with someone you felt safe with? Your anxiety will rise, but you have the techniques to manage that. I would be happy to do that with you Draco?"

Although Alethea had been within him in the summer, through the agonising sessions when he'd re-taught his brain not to be terrified of some parts of his ancestral home, Draco inwardly shuddered at the thought of people seeing him walking around the school and up the Astronomy Tower with the new mind-healer. "Erm...I think I'll do it with a friend."

Another nod, as something flickered in her eyes. He supposed she was relieved to hear he had friends.

"Who's that? And when do you think you'll do it?" Merlin, she was thorough. As if sensing his agitation, she continued, "Sometimes, it helps to really define our goals. If we do that, we're more likely to carry them out."

"Probably with Theo...maybe Saturday evening," he suggested uncertainly. Because she was right: saying it out loud made it more real – more like something he had to do.

She smiled. "Great. Okay. We're meeting once more before then. Maybe, during that session, we can go over the events of that night again, possibly do some re-living work? Update the memory cognitively, so that your anxiety will be lower when you go to the Tower. But Draco, this is totally up to you – it's a hundred percent your choice whether you do this or not, and there's no shame if you decide it's too soon."

Draco wasn't thrilled at the idea, but he agreed to do it. Because maybe, if it worked, he wouldn't have to put silencing charms around his bed every night, and Theo and Blaise wouldn't hear him cry out at the relentless shadows that haunted his dreams.

A/N: 'Talking therapy', including working with people that have experienced traumatic events, is something I do in my day job. The concepts mentioned in this chapter, such as 'grounding techniques' and 'reliving work', are real concepts from trauma theory/therapy.

A good therapist would make sure they've done as much work within the therapy sessions as possible before suggesting the exposure therapy that Alethea has here. Their assessment of Draco's difficulties would have been much more thorough too. However, I wanted this to be read for entertainment, and not as a PTSD treatment manual, so how Alethea conducts her work in this fic may not be exactly how it would be done in real life, although I hope I never misrepresent therapy either.

There are many techniques and approaches that are used with trauma survivors. What's mentioned in this chapter, and later in the story, is only a glimpse and not exhaustive.

Accurately representing mental health difficulties and their treatment is important to me so I am more than happy to discuss questions/thoughts in the comments. :o)

Your thoughts, reviews and comments are cherished and treasured.