𝐃𝐑𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐘 𝐇/𝐃/𝐒 𝐁𝐄𝐋𝐓𝐀𝐍𝐄 2008

At The Edge Of A Spell

Title: At The Edge Of A Spell
Author: lire_casander
Pairing/Threesome: Harry/Draco
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: EWE. Angst. Pre-slash.
Word count: 12344
Summary: After the war, the Wizarding World is in need of reconstruction. Just as Hogwarts needs to be rebuilt, everything has to be rethought, and even the alliances and enmities they all once believed unbreakable prove not to. Can the Voldemortless world Harry Potter imagined live up to what it actually is?

The nightmares appeared the night after he killed Voldemort, while he tried to get some rest at The Burrow. They weren't too clear at first, only shreds of memories and Fred's laughter. They visited him every night, without fail, and he could only wait for them to vanish at daybreak, as if they were a complicated spell that washed off with the sun.

He learned to live with the dreams. He even tamed them, managing to sleep without any pills or potions, knowing that they would go away once he opened his eyes. Daybreak at The Burrow was beautiful, so he was not at all displeased by the fact he was forced to watch it dawn after dawn.

But soon nightmares became more vivid. He could almost feel how Hogwarts disintegrated around him, the walls falling once and again, and Fred's laughter becoming an echo. He used to wake in a sweat, clutching his head even though the scar didn't hurt anymore. The nightmares wouldn't go at dawn, his moods started to swing, and his friends learnt to avoid him during the mornings. Finally, Hermione recommended him to visit a Muggle doctor in London who was well known for his remedies against the illnesses of sleep.

He got an appointment and he started seeing him. For a couple of weeks the pills he swallowed kept the nightmares at bay, and after that, even though they returned, the dreams were similar to the firsts he had suffered – vague and almost abstract.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Draco looked around his room in shock. Not even a couple of hours before, the Great Hall had been falling down to pieces all around him while his parents gathered him in their arms and they hugged him in a way they had never hugged before. His mind kept wandering back to the moment when his life had hung suspended from a thin line, when Fiendfyre licked at every small detail in the Room of Requirement, when a broom had appeared out of nowhere and strong hands had taken him out of the hell of flames and annihilation that was destroying everything surrounding him.

His room seemed to have remained the same as he had left it in September. His bed stayed in the same lonely spot, right below the windows facing the French gardens; his desk was still dusty and worn out. The Quidditch posters stuck to the walls greeted him, the players saluting from their brooms, the audience cheering at him as he approached them. With a low growl and tears in his eyes, he tore the papers from their places leaving just strips of foil where the posters once stood, ignoring the screams from inside the images.

Everything he had loved, everything he had learned, everything he had admired, had been taken out of his reach leaving him empty. His parents had not talked to him during their trip back to Malfoy Manor – a trip void of any kind of magic – and they had not said a single thing when they had arrived home. All he wanted to do was break down in tears and sobs, but he knew better than to show weakness to his father.

He stayed in his room, sat on the floor where had had slid down fighting a fit of teardrops, until one of the many house-elves climbed up the stairs and knocked on his door to announce dinner. Draco went downstairs with a mask of indifference over his tired features, concealing the bags under his eyes and the fear in his gaze, in time to witness as a bunch of Aurors burst in the Manor, wands in hand and badges on their chests, looking for Lucius Malfoy.