Drarry One Shots

Shell Cottage

A/N A story set at Shell Cottage and because Molly and Narcissa have become friends after the war... by special request from @lottie_marauder_xx

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There is so much noise. I feel like it never quietens. There is a ceaseless clamour wherever I go. Days... weeks... months... merge together in insistent celebration and sorrow. The year since the war has been endless; people crying out for me, telling me stories, wanting my compassion, demanding my response to their anger. The Ministry wanting my verdicts, the Wizengamot wanting my judgments, the Press wanting my version of events. The thunderous noise calls after me. Perpetual. Commanding. Pleading. Claiming. And the more it requires of me, the more I lose my voice because I realise I can't really be heard beneath all the words.

I feel like the only time I was actually listened to was during the Malfoys' trial. At first, that too was a Ministry circus, a public braying for blood, a show of juridical power. And I sat in that court, listening to the lies and defamations that were being spread around the room purely because the officials felt they needed their corrupt convictions.

'I want to speak for them...' I spoke into the uproar and the arguments that swirled around me. It was like whispering into a storm. 'I want to speak for them...' I said again. A few heard me and turned to look. 'I want to speak for them...' I repeated and a stillness finally fell for the first time in months as the dissenters lost their threads and the angry words fell away into a disappointed silence. They would not be getting their blood that day for the Great Harry Potter had spoken and there were few who would openly and directly challenge me.

Of course, as soon as I left the courtroom, the commotion began again. Everyone wanted to know why. Why would I defend that family who had caused me so much pain and trouble? I didn't know the answer. Not then. Not beyond it was the right thing to do because I spoke the truth. Plus, the relief I felt was palpable because I couldn't stand the thought of Draco being locked away in Azkaban, so cold and alone and isolated.

And since the court case, they all stare too. Their eyes contain only questions and curiosity. It is not just the noise but the looks that suffocate me. I see the inquisitiveness when their prying gaze is drawn to the prominent white streak in my hair that appeared overnight after the court case. The questions and queries come unabated alongside the gawping but I have no answers. I don't understand why beyond the understanding that it is an aftermath of the trauma of war and what has happened to me over those seven years.

And the noise and the looks continue. They deafen me, defeat me, deaden me. I feel hollow and numb. But there is no rest. Every day I train with the Aurors and I go to interviews and functions and on visits to orphanages, hospitals, cat-sanctuaries or wherever my presence is demanded, day after day. And after a year, I want it all to stop. Even here at the Weasleys where Molly insists I stay and where I was added to the clock long ago. Because here, Molly commands that she feeds me and stipulates I have clean clothes and persists so that I get to the Auror Corps on time and orders me to bed at night so that I have to face the unruly racket of my nightmares.

The nights are the worst. There, the noise is different because in my nightmares I see his face and watch the blood seep into the water. I notice the pain in his grey eyes and witness his life slip away and I want it to stop because I can never reach him in time. I can never reach him because the scene always turns black and I can't find him, even though I know he is there.

The noise doesn't stop. All I can hear, as I sit by the empty fire grate in a lumpy armchair, scrunched into the smallest ball I can make myself into, is Ron yelling at Charlie as the Wizarding Chess demolishes its pieces in explosive outbursts. And George and Ginny and Angelina are arguing over illegal Quidditch moves because of the match playing loudly over the radio. And Bill is trying to sooth a hungry Victoire who is refusing her bottle. And Mione and Percy and Arthur are discussing the latest Ministry rulings and the lack of democracy or some such politics. And Celestina Walbeck is warbling on the kitchen radio where Molly and Andromeda are making so much noise with pots and pans that you would think they were feeding the entire Wizarding population of Cornwall and then Teddy is crying and Molly is yelling from the doorway, 'Harry, dear, would you like roast potatoes for lunch, or would you prefer mash?'