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Author's Note:

Huge thank you to everyone for the comments and PMs—I really appreciate the support and the kind words. Hope you continue to enjoy the story!

TW on this chapter for compulsions/OCD tendencies, references to past physical abuse, and graphic descriptions of pain/suffering.

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Draco scaled the 156 steps between the Great Hall and the new eighth year student dormitories, heart thumping more heavily in his chest than his feet thumped against each new step.

Headmistress McGonagall had stood up directly after the feast and announced that the newly appointed prefects would be leading each year of students back to their dormitories. Granger and Longbottom, who Draco induced had been the two students appointed, immediately stood up with cheery smiles on their faces and began to corral all of the unprecedented eighth year students out into the stairwell.

Draco had followed directly after them, hoping to make the trek as quickly as he could manage and finally get settled into his own space for the night. The thought of encountering his old Slytherin classmates for the first time since everything had transpired that summer made his stomach twist into knots, which he quickly channeled into cardiovascular effort on their surprisingly vertical journey.

The inside of the castle looked markedly different from how it had prior to the war, even with the obvious attempts to rebuild it into a facsimile of its former state. Everything just felt a bit off—the stairs seemed to shift positions a bit more slowly, the overhead lights seemed dimmer than they once had, and the scarce few pictures that did still adorn the walls felt markedly devoid of their old activity.

Part of him wanted to look back over his shoulder at the expressions of the incoming first years and see if their faces still shared the dumbfounded glory that his undoubtedly had during his first day at Hogwarts.

Was that just growing up? he wondered. Does everything just continue to darken and fade with repetition until you're eventually swallowed up by the shadows?

He swallowed the thought and kept his gaze forward towards the chestnut-haired young witch and the war hero who still hadn't managed to quite shake off his adolescent awkwardness.

Granger and Longbottom seemed nothing but eager to get into the dorms; Draco wondered if they had seen the setup of their accommodations already. The two were talking animatedly about something—Granger more so than Longbottom, frequently making large hand movements and pausing to laugh heartily at something the boy had said while he mostly just grinned sheepishly.

If either of them were feeling apprehensive about returning to a place that was no doubt shadowed for them as well, they did a wonderful job covering it up.

For now, Draco was content to silently and methodically continue up the 156 steps, eavesdropping on the conversation happening between Weasley, Lovegood, and Potter behind him.

"Bloody nice of her to warn us," Weasley grunted, clearly starting to feel winded already as his voice gained a ragged edge of intook breath.

"About the shared dormitories or the stairs?" Potter quiffed, and Draco realized that it was the first time he had really heard a smile in Potter's voice since they had joined each other on the train.

"Ouch—hey!" He heard Potter protest as commotion happened behind him that he had assumed was the Weasel playfully punching his friend in the shoulder, but it did nothing to stop Potter's chuckling.

"I don't mind the stairs so much." He immediately recognized the faint, subdued voice of Luna Lovegood. "And I think the shared dormitories will be just swell—don't you, Harry?"

"At least maybe the Nargles won't steal my shoes quite so much," she added thoughtfully.

Draco didn't need to look back to know that Potter and Weasley were exchanging a glance. He couldn't help but to roll his eyes a bit at the interaction with Lovegood—oh, to be so softly dissociative and blissfully unaware of how intentionally cruel some of their classmates were.

Granger and Longbottom stopped when they approached a large set of black double-doors and turned around to face their peers.

"Uh—hi, everybody," Neville began timidly, seeming surprised at his own capability to cause a hush to fall across the several dozen students still making their way up the last flight of stairs.

Longbottom cleared his throat, seeming a bit more reassured at the display of respect that he was just shown by his peers. "In just a moment, we'll enter the new eighth year common room. The password for entrance is epoximise—"

A few students near the back of the group could be heard snorting in derision, and even Draco had to admit that the administration was laying on the whole "unity" thing a bit thick.

Longbottom looked a bit rattled at the interruption, causing Granger to take over confidently.

"For those of you who may be so juvenile as to take personal offense to something as simple as a door password—" she started, her tone cutting but professional, "you'll be happy to know that it will rotate out on a fortnightly basis. Obviously, please don't share the password with your friends in younger years—they're more than welcome to visit, but will need to be let in and accompanied by one of us."

"The dorm assignments are posted on each wall of the common space. Please attempt to find your dorm number and locate the room as quickly as possible so as not to create a bottleneck," Granger finished.

Dorm assignments?

We aren't choosing our dorms this year?

Well, that's a load of rubbish.

Draco could hear the protests start in grumbled tones behind him, but Hermione was already turning on her heels and opening the doors to the common room, causing a rush of students to flood in behind her.

The room admittedly had a very cozy atmosphere and was quite decently furnished, Draco noticed. Warm fires raged in multiple hearths, each surrounded by several dark grey couches with black and white pillows and blankets thrown lazily across the backs of them.

The center of the room held multiple rectangular tables made of dark chestnut, each with a collection of chairs scattered around them. The walls were lined by expansive bookshelves and paintings of miscellaneous parts of the castle in black and white covered any open spaces.

There were sets for dragon chess and other games strewn about the room in boxes and it all had a bit of a nostalgic feel to it. Even the scent of the room—mahogany and smoke and subtle vanilla, like someone had been baking—seemed to convey a sense of warmth and comfort.

Draco wondered for a minute if the room had been charmed to smell so inviting—he wouldn't put it past their new Headmistress, considering everything else that had been going on today.

As everyone seemed to get their bearings in the new space, Draco immediately made his way over to the posting on the wall and scanned for his name.

Malfoy, Draco: Room 8

Eager to avoid any unnecessary social interaction, Draco looked around and saw small engravings numbered 1-10 above the doorframe of each hallway that branched off of the common room, quickly shuffling off towards the hallway marked '8'.

Draco discovered that the hallway wasn't particularly long, opening almost immediately into two sections of four beds apiece—one on his left and one on his right—with a door to what was presumably a shared bathroom space in the middle.

A quick cursory inspection revealed that Draco's trunk and other belongings had been put into the bedroom on the right at the foot of the bed in the back right corner.

The room was fairly spacious with full beds as well as a dresser, a nightstand, and a desk that accompanied each bed. Draco went over to his trunk and unlocked it, immediately starting to offload his textbooks and other small items onto the desk.

Getting organized was a serene, almost religious experience for Draco—he liked to imagine that he was putting things to order in his head as he was meticulously alphabetizing his texts and color-coordinating his closet.

Someone clearing their throat in the doorway broke Draco out of the mental sanctity of his little ritual and he turned to find Michael Corner walking in and settling into the space across from him.

The boy looked differently than Draco remembered—he had cut his formerly shoulder-length dark hair up to his ears and had thinned out a bit in the face while filling out a bit in the shoulders. He was wearing a pale blue-grey button up and a sapphire blue tie under his robes, his former House color.

The two made eye contact and Michael gave Draco a small smile with a quick nod. Draco returned the smile with a quick "hey, Michael" before returning to his things.

He let out a small sigh of relief, but didn't allow his shoulders to relax entirely. Michael Corner was certainly not the worst person to be dorming across from him—not that Draco knew the former Ravenclaw well at all, but he had always seemed organized and rather reserved, which would likely bode well for amicably staying out of each other's way.

Draco suddenly regretted not staying at the dormitory posting a few minutes longer just to see who else would be entering this room with him. He was sure that the sight of him was likely not reassuring to anybody and he felt a twist of shame in his stomach at that conclusion.

"Seems like the Golden Trio has a new little parasite this year," came an obnoxiously booming voice from the hallway. "Seriously, he was on them like a leech all the way from the train platform to the dorms; it's pathetic."

Shit. Draco recognized that voice instantly—Vincent Crabbe was one of the last people that Draco was hoping to see, and he felt a modicum of consolation when he heard the larger boy's monstrous footsteps thudding into the other room in their hallway.

Well—that was a problem, but hopefully a problem for a later time.

As Draco turned towards the door, he saw a tall and slightly lanky young man with a black leather satchel slung over his shoulder and wavy brown hair framing his face. Draco's breath hitched in his throat once again and he felt himself brace for a reaction.

"Oh, Draco—hey," he drawled out, the small smirk on his face indicating that his surprise was counterfeit and that he had—unlike Draco—done the intelligent thing and checked who was in his dormitory before heading over.

As far as Draco knew, Theodore Nott had never really been a fan of him as a child, seeming to look down on the immature antics of his posse towards The Golden Trio. They had grown a bit fraternal towards one another during sixth and seventh year, when Draco had nixed the juvenile bullying with Crabbe and Goyle and had taken on much more serious responsibilities with the Dark Lord.

Theo had been plagued by similar burdens to Draco at the time, so the two didn't exactly have a friendly and congenial relationship, but they had certainly commiserated about restrictive Pureblood familial expectations and the suffocating weight of protecting said family in those terrifying times.

But that was before this summer—the summer when Draco had played a key role in sending Tiberius Nott to Azkaban for life by sharing his memories with the Wizengamot.

Unbeknownst to Theo, Draco had done his best to shield certain interactions that he had witnessed between Theo and his father in the prior few years from making it into his testimony. There was no need to add the humiliation of his acquaintance when he had more than enough supply of the elder Nott committing cruel and illegal acts towards those who weren't members of his own family.

And Draco understood that—it wasn't particularly easy allowing the Wizengamot to intrude upon his personal family business in that manner, either.

It was harder to extricate the memories of Lucius, though, since they were so baked into everything. Some of them would just resurface without his consent, like memory vomit.

"Thank Merlin I'm not dorming with bloody Crabbe again," Theo said, unclear whether the words were intended for Draco or just for himself, although he tried to make eye contact with the blonde. He had hauled his own trunk and his satchel onto the bed next to Draco's, beginning his own unpacking ritual.

Draco chuckled softly and decided to test the waters a bit. "I doubt he could define the word parasite."

Theo let out a laugh that was soft, but full—a real laugh—and Draco noted how much lighter he looked. "Yeah, I don't know where that man keeps his last two brain cells, but it appears that they don't rub together very often."

Draco sent a tight, grateful smile in Theo's direction and it was returned as the two went back to sorting through their belongings.

Well, at least Theo wouldn't be openly hostile towards him. That never was particularly his style, anyways. And if he wanted to be kind to his face and then say cruel things behind his back—well, then he could go right ahead.

Draco was a bit surprised when Longbottom came into the room to round out their little dormitory quartet. It would be an interesting dynamic—that was for sure—but Draco found himself grateful that he even felt capable of coming back to school while staring his past in the face.

That was the first step. Of 156. Not that he was counting or anything.

Harry woke up in a cold sweat, bolting upright and immediately clasping his hands together in the hopes that they would stop shaking so violently. Thank Merlin for silencing charms, he thought, wondering if he had managed to wake himself up before letting out a nocturnal scream.

His nightmare had been the same as it always was—he was in a room alone with the Mirror of Erised, gazing expectantly up at the fabricated image of his smiling parents. He was older now, not the boy he had been when he had first stumbled upon the mirror in his first year.

He's overcome with a premonitory feeling that if he were to touch the mirror, he'd be taken away from this life and transported somewhere else. As he goes over to the mirror and reaches his hand out, the image ripples like water that's had a stone thrown in.

Suddenly, his parents' jovial faces morph into expressions of unspeakable wrath. His father's hand reaches out to painfully grasp a tuft of his hair and he realizes suddenly that this man in the mirror isn't his father at all. There's only one person who had ever grabbed fistfuls of his hair and yanked him about like that—his Uncle Vernon.

He struggles earnestly to break free, but the man who is Uncle Vernon and somehow has his father's face yanks him backwards through the mirror and down, leaving him to splash into a pool of thick liquid that's cold and dark.

Looking around, he realizes that he's in the cavern that he and Dumbledore had entered when hunting for Horcruxes in his sixth year. He's splashed ashore just off of the center island and immediately starts to feel hands grasp up at him from the depths of the liquid, grotesquely skeletal fingers trapping him with a painfully vice-like grip.

It's then that he notices the people on the island—Sirius was typically present, often accompanied by one or both of his parents, sometimes Snape, or Lupin, even miscellaneous other Hogwarts students would occasionally make an appearance.

They'd each have a cup of that vile, life-sucking liquid that Dumbledore had drank.

They would start chugging the liquid, almost immediately crumbling to the ground in agony, writhing around in pain and moaning or shrieking or making horrific retching sounds—and Harry knew that they were doing it for him.

"S-stop!" He tried to choke out, attempting to army crawl towards his loved ones, but skeletal hands seem to grip him from all angles and persist in dragging his struggling frame into the dark.

Whoever was on the island would seem to get their bearings and reach for the cup again, continuing to choke down the liquid even as their veins protruded from their necks in effort and their breathing turned to ragged, pained rasps.

"They've got me—let them get me, stop hurting yourselves. It's okay!" He would try to scream, but could feel every angle of his mouth being torn open by the skeletal hands.

The thick, sanguine liquid would force its way down his throat, leaving him choking and gasping and feeling as though every breath that he drew just forced more sludge into his lungs.

It even starts to fill his ears and cover his vision in a sludge of black as he was dragged under, but he could somehow still hear the corporeal terror happening above him. He'd find some comfort in it, as the sound of the phenomenal suffering above meant that everyone is at least still alive.

The strangled noises rang in his ears like a bell, reverberating haphazardly around his skull until it all suddenly stops—and that's when he always wakes up.

Harry's hands instinctively scrambled over to his bedside table, feeling around until his fingers clasped around the wire frame of his glasses and he slid them indiscriminately onto his face.

Looking around, he noted that his new dorm-mates were all still sound asleep. He did a quick flick of his wand to check the time—2:47 AM. A rather inconvenient time for it to be, he thought, since he couldn't very well blame being awake just now on simply being an early riser.

He did a quick survey of the room and noticed that the two Hufflepuffs, Wayne Hopkins and Zacharias Smith, had made light work of making their spaces feel more homey.

Harry absolutely despised unpacking. In past years, he'd simply let the items he needed slowly overflow out of his trunk until the mountain of clothes and parchment and textbooks became so insurmountable that he'd start stuffing it all unceremoniously into his dresser drawers.

Even then, he'd only done it because he'd eventually grow concerned that he was inconveniencing the other people in the room with his disarray.

It was simply a concern that he'd never had at home—he didn't have enough muggle belongings to make a mess in the cupboard under the stairs, much less Dudley's second bedroom. So he didn't think about it much until it got to a point where others might be upset about it.

That was one of the bizarre advantages about traveling during Horcrux hunting—every absolutely necessitous item shoved into a backpack, too concerned with surviving to the next day to really pay any mind to alphabetizing your bloody belongings.

Hermione usually took care of that, anyways, when it became necessary.

Crabbe didn't seem particularly acclimated to his chunk of the room, either, Harry noticed. He was surely fast asleep—his large frame moved rhythmically up and down to the cadence of his breath and a rumbling, snoring sound could be faintly heard from his corner of the room.

Feeling a bit more connected to his surroundings after taking a few shaky breaths and surveying the space, he brandished his wand and whispered a quick accio for the Marauder's Map in the direction of his open trunk.

There was no real need to whisper, he knew, as the silencing spell would still be in effect, but that habitual redundancy to keep quiet had died hard.

Silently slinking out of bed with map in hand, he threw on a cloak and some shoes as well as the invisibility cloak. He made his way out of the bedroom and through the entrance to the common room, rotating his head between watching where he was going and checking the map for other signs of life.

There weren't any, really, as the vast majority of students and faculty seemed to be asleep in their living quarters.

Harry didn't really know where he was going—just knew that he had some time to waste. It was nearly impossible to fall back asleep after being rattled awake by that dream in particular.

He opted to just perambulate around the castle, not hearing much other than the soft thud of each footstep on the floor and his measured breaths.

The halls were dimly lit at this time of night, torches spaced several feet apart and casting a soft glow up towards the ceiling of each floor.

For some reason, Harry felt himself drawn to the Astronomy Tower. He headed in that direction, checking the map periodically for any straggling students or professors that may be out of bed as well, but he didn't come across anybody.

When Harry got to the top of the Astronomy Tower, he paused. This was one section of the building that looked nearly exactly as it had before.

Harry made his way over to the balcony and tucked himself behind a wall, checking once more on the map and over his shoulder before removing the invisibility cloak from his head and wrapping it around his slender frame.

The air was brisk and cool, despite it being the end of summer, and there was a breeze that almost nipped at Harry's face from this high up.

He didn't know how long he stood there, tracing the balcony's stone columns with his fingertips.

He recalled Hermione saying that she loved to come up to the Astronomy Tower to think about everything, but Harry honestly felt like he wasn't thinking anything at all—just that it was nice to feel the open air and that he surely felt better than he would have if he had stayed in his room and had sat there trying to suppress a panic attack.

Eventually, the sun started to peak over the horizon, a dim light that grew into steady streams of white, and Harry figured that it was probably time to head back to the dormitories.

When Harry approached the door to the common room again, it was nearly 5:30 AM—a much more appropriate time to be awake on the first day of school. Upon checking the Marauder's Map and seeing a couple names starting to stir about the common room, he did another cursory glance around and removed the invisibility cloak before saying the password to get inside.

He didn't pay much mind to the other students in the common room, seeming to be just a few Ravenclaw and Slytherin students starting to prepare for the day ahead.

Instead, Harry went back into his room with a small lumos spell on the tip of his wand, relieved to find that none of his roommates were among the early risers. He stashed away the map and the cloak before heading over to the bathroom, hoping to wash the sleep (or lack thereof) off of him.

Just as he was about to open the door, it swung open on its own and he nearly ran into a rather startled-looking Draco Malfoy.

He looked a bit disheveled—well, as disheveled as Malfoy could look. His blonde hair, which typically looked as if each strand had been meticulously arranged on his head, was slightly damp and hanging a bit over his steel grey eyes.

He didn't have a robe on yet, just a charcoal button up that was mostly unbuttoned and rolled up to his elbows tucked into black slacks. He carried a towel as if he had dried himself off manually rather than using a drying charm, his lithe arm muscles flexing around the material.

Harry swallowed slightly, shaking his head to free the thought.

"Oh, Potter—" he started, straightening up and gripping his left arm tightly into his chest. "You're in the other room, I presume?"

Harry just nodded, grimacing slightly.

Malfoy seemed to eye him up and down. "You're already dressed for the day?"

"Well…your approximation of dressed, at least," he added snidely, a small smile tugging at the edges of his lips as he leaned against the door frame.

"I was just out for a walk," Harry responded matter-of-factly.

"Out for a walk? At five in the morning?" Shit, was that weird?

"Er—you were showering at five in the morning?" Harry bit back lamely, cringing at how juvenile it sounded to still be trying to one-up Malfoy in this way.

The blonde just chuckled a bit, seeming to clock that something about his line of questioning had set Harry on edge. "Fair enough. I'm not judging, just didn't peg you as an early riser."

"Figured I should get in while I could," Malfoy continued, a bit of contempt sneaking into his voice. "If you haven't noticed, the students in our year aren't exactly a fan of me at the moment and I don't particularly fancy being jumped in the shower while my guard is down."

Harry just stood there unresponsive, still feeling lost somewhere else in his brain.

"Wouldn't be the first time I was cursed in a bathroom," he sneered at Harry, but his tone sounded more playful than vitriolic. "Anyways, I'll get out of your way. See you in Transfigurations."

Before he could respond, Malfoy had made a beeline back to his room.