#drarry ficlet
In the Hallway
This is a little present for @fw00shy as part of the Wheel of Drarry mini gift exchange. CW for bad dreams, nightmares as part of ptsd, brief mention of canonical deaths, brief mention of abandoned cats. Nothing really happens, it’s just a little group moving into Grimmauld and learning to live together and getting pets.
“He’s definitely dead, mate,” Ron says, pale under his freckles from another broken night, Harry screaming the whole house into wakefulness yet again. “You killed him, Harry. We all saw him die.” He crawls into bed next to Harry, already dropping off again as Harry tucks him in, curls around his big warm body until the shivers stop.
“You need to think about therapy,” Hermione tells him the next morning, not unkind about it but impatient, eyes shadowed with exhaustion and her mouth tight. Her hands tremble as she wraps clingfilm around her sandwiches, though when she slips into her new work shoes—sharp-heeled and shiny-reflective—she’s taller, more distracted, as though in her own mind she’s already walking out the door. She thinks Harry has to learn to help himself, and maybe she’s not wrong.
—
“I dream about him too,” Malfoy says. It’s just the two of them in the hallway at fuck knows what time of the night, but Malfoy doesn’t sleep much either, so he never cares about Harry’s nightmares. “It feels so real.”
Harry tells him that for all he knows, it is real; there he is, handsome red-mouthed Tom Riddle stalking the halls of Grimmauld, his smile just for Harry. The almost-relief of the familiarity of him, the way he’s lodged somewhere in Harry’s brain or heart or soul, maybe forever. Maybe Harry is his way back; maybe Harry is his anchor; maybe Harry could dream him back to life.
Malfoy considers that for a while, arms crossed firmly over his chest, the curling tail of a scar a distraction above the opened neck of his pyjamas.
“I suppose it’s not impossible,” he whispers finally, looking worried, and it’s actually a relief to be listened to for once, like maybe the worst hasn’t actually already happened. “But my Mark… my father’s never went away, before, but look—”
He holds out his left arm, fumbles with the sleeve until Harry takes over, pushing the fabric up and up until it bunches hard around the taut bulge of bicep. Malfoy’s arm is clear and unblemished, nothing but the faintest silvering of scar tissue where the Mark had been, and even that’s intersected by something more vivid, more vicious, where Harry’s Sectumsempra has never faded.
Harry’s rushed exhale ruffles Malfoy’s hair.
“Okay,” Harry says. “Okay, that’s a good sign.”
He’s still holding Malfoy’s arm, which is blissfully warm and solid under his fingers, and Malfoy looks at him like something has shifted, gone awry, and then licks his lips. He’s blushing.
When Malfoy kisses him, Harry wonders for a horrible second if this is just another dream. It wouldn’t be the first time, after all; Harry’s subconscious conjuring up Malfoy, long-haired and smiling as he pushes Harry up against the wall, one careless hand at Harry’s throat, the other in his hair; or Malfoy pinked up from bed-heat and rumpled from sleep, moving slowly over Harry in a bed that’s too comfortable to be a Grimmauld bed and too big to be anything but a dream bed.
But no, he thinks, in Harry’s dreams Malfoy doesn’t have tired lines around his eyes, and he doesn’t have any scars, especially not so many, flickering in and out of Harry’s vision with every shift of his collar as Malfoy moves restlessly, baring his throat to Harry’s mouth. In Harry’s dreams, Malfoy’s fingers are more sure, more demanding. Dream Malfoy always takes what he wants, but this must be real, because this Malfoy is cautious, waiting for Harry to move again, watching Harry from under his downturned translucent lashes that Harry has never seen this close up.
—
When Sirius shows up, he’s not a dream, Harry’s sure of it. Sirius is definitely real, he has to be. He’s in the corridor outside Harry’s room and his hair has the dull petroleum sheen of a night of running with wolves, and all his aristocratic bones are just a little too close to the surface of his skin. Every step is a sway, a concentrated roll from heel to toe, firewhiskey-graceful.
Harry knows he can’t be dreaming because he knows his own brain could never recreate Sirius so accurately, so cruelly. Nearly all the lights are off, and Harry tries to cast a Lumos, but he must have left his wand somewhere, and then Malfoy is beside him, sleek as a seal in his best travelling cloak, eyeing Sirius warily. Malfoy never drinks, doesn’t trust the letting go.
“I knew you’d come back,” Harry says to Sirius, though the minute the words are out he wants to steal them back. He can feel Malfoy looking at him.
Sirius laughs, puts a steadying hand on the wall, the row of house-elf heads staring sightlessly down at him, grotesque. Why haven’t they taken them down yet, Harry wonders.
“Harry,” Sirius says, sweet and smoky, but then he stops, stifled. Slowly his hand rises in front of his face, claws at something Harry can’t see, mouth caught fast on the start of the same old smile, before he starts to fall backwards.
Then Harry wakes, and Malfoy is still there beside him, but there’s no travelling cloak, just a cool moonlit expanse of bare skin, and wary wakefulness.
“Was he really here?” Harry asks, frantic with it, again and again, and Draco rolls him over, presses him into the bed, strokes him quiet.
“That one was a dream,” he answers, and Harry goes limp with relief. “They’re all dreams, remember?”
Harry does remember, but sometimes even in the daytime, even out of the house, he feels them rising in him, each ghost under the skin, in the cords of his larynx, something shifting in the spaces between each beat of his heart.
Too Much Pride To be Together by whyisislikethat
Oi! Potter! I wonder who’s going to go to the Yule ball with you, with that hair of yours. Must be someone really desperate, the worst of the worst.” Hearing that the young saviour swiftly turned on his heels to face the speaker, all the while rolling his eyes.
- hi guys i just finished my first fic on ao3 and would greatly appreciate of yall could check it out
- also im changed my @ from drarryismysoul to whyisislikethat so fyi
