Demons » Drarry

19 | Trust

Chapter 19: Trust

Harry stumbled in the wet grass, disoriented, heart pulsing with adrenaline. His felt his stomach drop as he recognized the house in the distance and the tombstones surrounding him. I have to warn Cedric. Before he could form the words, he was struck by blinding, white-hot pain erupting from his scar. He collapsed to his knees in agony, desperately fighting to find his voice.

"Kill the spare"

"Avada Kedavra!"

Harry still saw the vibrant flash of green with his eyelids clenched shut. He heard the hollow sound of Cedric's body hitting the ground beside him, echoing hauntingly through the cavern of his mind. He opened his eyes to see the now lifeless body of his friend in the grass to his left. His grey eyes stared blankly up at the sky, his chest eerily still, the warmth of his spirit garishly absent. Harry felt a chill as the realization sunk in.

Cedric is gone.

Harry let out a strangled cry, thrashing against the pain in his heart and the searing sensation that throbbed in his forehead. Helpless, he felt himself thrown against Tom Riddle's tomb. Then he was shaking. Over and over, he kept shaking.

'Harry, wake up! You're having a nightmare, you're okay, wake up.'

Draco. Harry opened his eyes to find the blonde perched on the edge of his four-poster bed, a pale hand grasping his bare shoulder. His chest was heaving and the coolness of the thin ravines tracing his cheeks informed him that he had been crying. Hopefully not too loud.

'I've got you,' Draco loosened his grip on Harry's shoulder, eyes softening as the shorter boy curled into him, a sniffle escaping.

'It's my fault. I told him to take the cup, I'm the reason he's dead,' Harry's body shook with the quietest of sobs— he had learned to stifle his tears from a very young age.

"It's not your fault," Draco whispered sternly as he pulled the smaller boy into a tight embrace. He buried his face in Harry's dark hair, pressing a firm kiss to the top of his head. The blonde used one hand the rub soothing circles against the exposed skin of the crying boy's back.

'But you can't say that, you weren't there, you don't know... I was stupid and made him grab the cup with me because I wanted us to win together. I'm the reason he ended up there. It wasn't supposed to happen...' Harry paused briefly before he started to cry harder into Draco's t-shirt. 'It should've been me that died, not Cedric. I'm the one Voldemort wants. He should be here instead of me.'

'You didn't know what was going to happen, Harry. You couldn't possibly have known. That never should have happened to you, either,' The blonde felt tears stinging in his own eyes upon hearing Harry's thoughts. 'It's not your fault that Voldemort tried to kill you, and Cedric was unlucky to have gotten caught in the crossfire. But you can't blame yourself for him dying— you had no idea anything was even going to go wrong.'

Harry continued to cry for a while longer, but his sobs grew fewer and further between. Draco shifted so his back was leaning against the headboard and the raven-haired boy settled beside him, head resting on his thigh. No further words were exchanged between them, but both boys understood that Draco would be staying in Harry's bed tonight. The blonde used his wand to draw the curtains closed around the bedframe before he settled into a fragmented sleep.

///

Harry awoke to the soothing sensation of Draco absently stroking his hair. His neck was stiff from sleeping awkwardly on the blonde's thigh all night, but he didn't mind— the contact seemed to help him calm down. Normally, Harry wouldn't have fallen back asleep after a nightmare of that intensity, but he felt strangely safe when Draco was there to hold him.