Stuck With You / drarry

A Letter from Mrs. Malfoy

Three months later.

The summer had been very average. Actually, it had been a bit cooler than usually. The bright green leaves of spring were turning darker in shade, and the Prophet was forecasting a heat wave to hit the UK later in July. Kingsley Shacklebolt's re-election campaign was going strong with advertisements in papers, posters put up in the Ministry, and repeated public appearances, whether it was to personally visit young patients in St. Mungo's, or shaking the hand of some small business owner at Diagon Alley.

Permission slips were now flying about the Ministry in herds. Every move that wasn't strictly a day-to-day routine had to be signed off by someone else. It felt as though anything more drastic than going to the bathroom was monitored. 'There can be no side steps', Kingsley had announced in the weekly internal newsletter, probably not realizing that the system he had implemented was probably doing him more foul than good.

Harry was sitting in his office, which was simply covered with permission slips at this point, staring at one of them beneath his quill, not seeing anything. He had done that a lot lately, suddenly realizing that he'd been holding a quill for several minutes, or stared at the morning paper without actually reading it, or that his bath water had gone cold while he had been sitting in the tub for an hour. He wasn't thinking about anything specifically, he just kind of zoned out from time to time.

Lately though, Harry had been sleeping much better than he used to. He hadn't had a single nightmare in what was nearing to be three months already. Though now his dreams were filled with visions of a tall blond git, be it just flashes of his hair, or him mumbling Harry's name. Sometimes the dreams were memories, sometimes Harry dreamt that he heard a demanding knock at his door, and sometimes, though most rarely, he dreamt a conversation. Nothing special, just the two of them talking, laughing. After those dreams, Harry usually just stayed in his bed, trying to remember as much as he could. Occasionally, when he felt like it was all too much, he rolled over in his bed to occupy the place where the man had once lied, all those months ago, and tried to imagine he was still there.

Despite them both having been extremely busy with work, even Ron and Hermione had noticed that something was wrong. They had only seen a handful of times lately, but some weeks ago, Hermione had appeared in Harry's office, catching him once again drifting off, staring outside his enchanted window. She had asked what had happened between him and Malfoy, and why Harry was acting so strangely once again. He had reluctantly given a very vague description of the events preceding Malfoy leaving for Italy, and leaving Harry to sleep. Hermione had promptly diagnosed Harry with love sickness, and suggested he'd reach out to Malfoy.

After that, Harry had been sitting in front of the writing paper on his drawer, staring at the blank page. But no matter how long he tried to compose a letter in his head, it never came out as anything he would dare to owl the man. There was nothing to possibly say to change the situation, and Harry didn't want to send a letter, leaving himself to wait for a response that might never come. He wasn't sure whether he should be resigned from the situation, but trying to salvage it seemed like a futile effort, so now he was stuck, dreaming about gold streaked hair and lips so relentless Harry woke up, gasping, with a raging hard on.

On a Saturday in early July, Harry had decided to pull himself out of whatever cycle he was in enough to clean his house. Maybe it would make him feel a bit better, he thought, as he once again pulled out Practical Household Magic from his dusty bookcase. However, it turned out that cleaning his house would have to wait, as while arranging the things in his hall he came across a white envelope addressed to him in cursive letters. Harry had forgotten about Narcissa's letter entirely, even though the Dittany now sitting on his bedroom windowsill reminded him of Malfoy every time he laid his eyes on it. A while back, Harry had contacted Neville, asking for tips for caring for Dittany's, and had received an enthusiastic reply. This had prompted an exchange of letters between the two, and Neville had even paid a visit to Harry, checking on his garden plants, and on him. Seeing Neville again had been very nice, Harry always forgot how much he liked his friends, and how stupid he was for isolating himself.