AN I don't own HP or any of the characters! Written for round 2 of the IWSC Season 3!


Story Title/Link: Calm My Fears

School and Theme: Beauxbatons' theme: Control - Write about a character who tries to gain control or is losing control over a given situation.

Mandatory Prompt: [Word] Paranoia

Additional Prompt: [Genre] Hurt/comfort

Year: One

Word Count: 2483


Harry began to count again—slowly, this time, as if that would make a difference—in, two, three, four… Out, two, three, four… His feet were flat on the floor, his breathing was as deep as humanly possible, and his hands gripped the arms of his chair as if the material could anchor him. Why wasn't it working?

Immediately, his mind conjured an image of a cursed object slipped in among his quills or adhered to the underside of his desk. Panic swelled in his chest, but he forced himself to stop. An object cursed with... what? Some homemade spell that would render his grounding exercise and anti-anxiety meds useless when he was in range?

The fact that a small part of him paused to consider that possibility as a possibility was concerning. He was being ridiculous—logically, he knew that he was being ridiculous—but the panic never listened to logic, so it stayed lodged in between his lungs.

Focus on your surroundings, he told himself. Remember where you are and, more importantly, where you're not.

He was in his office at the Ministry, sitting behind his desk in the chair that was not remotely anchoring, counting to make himself breathe. He was not in a forest with rain-soaked shoes, Snatchers on his tail, and a crippling inability to use his wand. Reminding himself that he wasn't in the past was supposed to make him feel better, but instead, it just reminded him of how similar the panic felt. Back in that forest, though, he'd been able to run. Here, he was stuck to his chair and bound by the eyes of every Auror and Ministry employee outside his office door.

Trapped.

Harry knew, in the part of his brain that recognized what was happening to him, that he was feeding the panic rather than stopping it. Feeding it… His stomach lurched, and for a moment he was overcome with the need to hoard as much food as he could physically fit inside his office. It didn't matter if he could waltz down the hall and buy as much food as he wanted. Deep down, instinct said the Dursleys might not be so lenient tomorrow. He needed to prepare.

A noise outside his door made his eyes shoot up. Instantly, all emotion was pushed to the background, and Harry became hyper-aware of the stark silence in the room in contrast to that noise. His gut screamed threat, and he sat, measuring his breathing with one hand on his wand, waiting to see the door handle turn. It didn't move, though, and the rustle of paper being pushed through his mail slot overtook the silence.

Right. It was just a Ministry Postal worker stuffing memos into his mail tray. He was in the Ministry, and here, people not only sent him mail, but they gave it to him. There was no little tap-tap of a knuckle on the wall beside the mail tray, though, the way Li always knocked to alert any occupants to the delivery. No tap-tap meant no Li. Maybe the man had simply called out sick? Or maybe his replacement had been hired to do something to his mail that Li had refused to do.

His eyes locked onto the receiving side of the mail slot and then, when nothing came, onto the plastic tub the slot emptied into. This was getting out of hand. And yet, he kept a tight grip on his wand and refused to blink as if he might miss the flare of a cursed object being activated.

No one had cursed his mail in a long time. He compromised with himself, letting his eyes stay glued to the bin while forcing his mind to take stock of his body. His breathing was quick and shallow—survival breathing, his Mind-Healer had called it—and he tried desperately to sync it to his counting again.

In, two, three, four… Out, two, three, four… It still wasn't working. What if something had happened to Li? Or, even worse, what if something had happened to Li because of his connection to Harry? True, the man was merely the Postal worker assigned to this floor… But what if someone had tried to get to Harry through Li?

Harry felt sick. He had at least three more meetings this afternoon and the patience to deal with absolutely none of them. When had talking to people become such a chore? Somewhere between life with the Dursleys and life after Hogwarts, he reasoned, people had become too much of a risk.

He wasn't going to get anything done like this. Being productive wasn't his main concern—being able to bloody breathe would be nice—but it made him feel less pathetic if he could find a work-related motive for one of his coping strategies. The idea of walking down to the Ministry basement, showing up unannounced and mumbling: "I was about to cry or have a panic attack, so here I am" made him physically nauseous.

It was easier to pretend this wasn't about his emotions or self-control. Instead, he could waltz down there like he owned the entire building, throw the door open, and declare: "I have this really important report to do, so let me use this corner of your lab."

Taking a deep breath in, he left his chair and did exactly that.

"Oi Malfoy, I need to work on this. Mind if I stay here?" The blond looked up from the cutting board in front of him where something was wiggling, still half-alive, and shrugged. This was hardly the first time this had happened, and Malfoy had yet to say no.

Grateful, but careful not to show it, Harry sank down to the floor with his back against the wall in what he now considered 'his corner'. He'd first chosen the spot because it seemed the most unused of all Malfoy's workspaces, but now the cool cement and smooth, spill-proof panelling spelled safety. Taking a deep breath, Harry tried to identify the ingredient that Malfoy was currently cutting.

"Is there a reason you can't use your own office, Potter?" The voice, in any other situation, would have made him jump. Here in the basement, though, things rarely startled him the way they did under the fluorescent lights upstairs. When they did, though, it was generally some kind of potion mishap that quite literally exploded and which made Malfoy jump too.

"Ron's taking a power nap." Ron was not taking a nap, and they both knew that, but Draco merely nodded and turned back to his work. With that small pressure finally lifted, Harry began to breathe for real.

Walking down there had been a struggle in itself, and if his hands hadn't been clenching his stack of files hard enough to crumple them, he might have had to duck into a bathroom to hide halfway there. As it was, he still felt the eyes on him magnified tenfold, and he was extremely conscious of the potions laboratory's typical smell. In the back of his mind, he tried to tease apart the different scents and determine if anything new or out of place had been added.

"Should I send Ames a note?" Malfoy had finished his cutting, Harry realized, and was drying his hands beside the sink closest to him. He sighed. Amy—whom Malfoy had somehow become close enough to nickname Ames—was Harry's secretary. The same secretary whom he had failed to notify of his little excursion to the basement, and who was likely trying to hunt him down in time for his two o'clock meeting.

"Yeah. She likes you better anyways."

Malfoy huffed out a small breath, but that was as close to a laugh as Harry ever got in response to anything he said. So the git knew that Amy liked him better than her own employer.

"She likes that I tell her when to cancel your meetings."

Harry glanced up, noting the angle of Malfoy's arm as he bent to scribble a memo to the secretary, but he saw no annoyance or malice. It wasn't a jab or an accusation, merely a fact. He was loathe to admit it, but Harry appreciated the blond's factual attitude in these situations. It helped keep up the pretence of a business-like space-sharing agreement.

As if he weren't a paranoid mess of a human being.

"So," Harry started, trying to fill the silence. "What are you working on?"

"A potion. It kind of comes with the job description."

Harry glared, but it was half-hearted at best. Git, he thought, but he didn't say it. Malfoy never went easy on him, even if he looked like he was two seconds away from a complete breakdown. Strangely enough, it usually seemed to help.

"Are you going to work on that oh-so-important report, or do you want to help me chop roots?"

He'd gotten lost in his head again. Malfoy's voice pulled him out of it just enough to comprehend that the blond was waiting for a response. Chop roots? Oh, right.

Harry stood, leaving his little stack of papers on the ground in his corner. He rolled up his sleeves and washed his hands—the proper way, mind you, with scalding hot water because Malfoy was watching—before picking up the knife. His palm moulded to the cool metal handle as if he were born to wield a blade rather than a wand.

For a split second, his mind was filled with the image of him ramming the knife into Voldemort's limp corpse over and over again. He recoiled, disgusted by the imaginary squelch and warm blood. Would he be able to do that to someone? A curse was one thing, but a knife—

"You remember which way to cut them?" His body refused to nod when his mind was still wrapped around the idea of hurting someone with the knife. Malfoy glanced at his face. Immediately, the knife was taken from his hands.

"I forgot I already cut too many roots this week. Longbottom says I'm supposed to ration them until he can get me more. You know how it is."

Harry shrugged but went along with it as if he did, in fact, know how it was. He doubted that Draco had actually cut enough roots, but he also didn't mind an excuse to not hold the knife. His Mind-healer called them intrusive thoughts. Having a name for it didn't make it any less horrifying, though, and it didn't make him feel any less like a monster in disguise. Could Malfoy see through that disguise?

"Potter, I asked you to knead the sealing clay." There wasn't a hint of reproach or judgment in the potion-maker's tone. He didn't sound angry or disappointed. Instead, it was a simple reminder to focus on the task in front of him. Funny how Malfoy's reminders to his brain always seemed to work better than his own.

"The clay, Potter." Right, he was getting distracted again. Malfoy always used his name more when he was drifting off in his own head, as if the word alone could ground him. Without a word, he set to work pulling and squishing the clay so it would be soft enough to seal potion bottles with. Malfoy preferred clay to cork, he remembered, because the clay wouldn't absorb any vapors from the potion or affect any of the ingredients.

He heard footsteps in the hall outside and had his wand ready before he realized what he was doing. Someone was coming. Malfoy merely glanced at the wand, then at the door, and then back at him.

"The door's locked like always, Potter." Of course. Malfoy always locked the door to his lab when Harry came to hide here in case Amy—or Merlin-forbid Kingsley—should come looking for him. Harry knew from experience that he locked it well, too, with many overlapping charms. No one would get in, even if they were coming.

Malfoy trusted the Aurors and Ministry employees even less than Harry did.

"Oh, before you leave today, Potter, I need you to help me move that desk." With his hands busy, the blond gestured with a tilt of his head to a desk that lived in the far corner of the lab. It was always covered in jars of ingredients, but, Harry noted, today it was clear. How had he not noticed that?

"Where to?" His words were deliberately short because he didn't trust his voice not to waver. If it did shake a bit over the syllables, neither of them said anything about it.

"There," Draco answered, nodding to Harry's corner of the room. "You need a place to work that isn't the floor."

Harry almost dropped the hunk of clay on the floor. A place to work? Malfoy was giving him a place to work in a lab that he technically wasn't even supposed to be in?

"Don't you need that desk?"

Malfoy shrugged and held out his hand for a small piece of clay. Harry twisted it off and gave it to him, but he was still struggling to understand. Why would Malfoy give him somewhere to work down here? Wasn't he annoying?

"Well, to be completely honest with you, Potter, I don't want to listen to you whining about a sore back in a couple months. Since Ron seems to be making this power nap thing a habit, I'm willing to consider it an investment in my future peace of mind."

They both knew that wasn't the reason, but Harry was unbelievably grateful that the blond was letting the problem go unquestioned. Thank Merlin. Malfoy was letting him pretend it was a productive issue and not a screwed-up-mental-state issue. Harry couldn't tell if the blond knew why he came down to the lab, but he knew that an unnecessarily large supply of sealing clay had appeared soon after he'd developed the habit. Maybe Malfoy didn't need to seal that many potion bottles, but it helped.

"Hey Malfoy?"

The potion-maker looked up, eyeing the clay as if he was ready to grab more the moment Harry ran out of stuff to knead. There were at least six more tubs of it in the closet. Harry still had plenty left to mould, though, so the blond just raised an eyebrow as if to ask what he wanted.

"I just.. Thanks. It's getting better. I know it doesn't seem like it, but—"

"Recovery isn't linear, Potter, and you don't have to justify your presence with progress."

That sentence hit Harry like a punch to the gut. He tried to swallow the sudden lump in his throat quick enough to reply, but Malfoy beat him to it.

"Besides," the blond muttered. "It works. I'm the only person you're not scared of, and you're the only person in this bloody place who isn't scared of me. Now give me another bit of clay and then we can move the desk."


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