Painkiller - A Drarry Fanfiction

Part 015

There's eight feet and silence between us again. Harry watches the rain, I watch him watching the rain.

In my hand is my wand. I glide my thumb over its sculpted handle—the same handle Harry had held only a moment ago. My head convinces me that I can still feel his warmth on it. I strain my eyes to catch every grove of Harry's thin fingers in the shadow of the tunnel, wondering what made him even look in the direction of my wand. He despised the very idea of me owning such a thing. What could have changed his heart?

"I think now's the best chance we're getting," Harry says.

I blink, catching up to his words. "What?"

He stands and brushes off his clothes. "The rain's thinning out. We're leaving now or spending the night here."

I stand, too. "Right."

Once we reach the entrance of the tunnel, though, Harry pauses. "I hate getting wet," he says under his breath, eyeing the leaking sky.

"I used to go on walks in the rain," I say.

He makes a face. "Why would you do that?"

I chuckle and step. Slowly, I feel the rain seeping through my clothes, onto my skin. It's cold—just the way I like it, just the way it had always been. "You won't die," I say, turning back to Harry.

"Why are you enjoying this? I mean, you can tolerate it, but—"

Before he can say more, I snatch his wrist and pull him forward. Unintentionally, though, he almost falls. He makes a little surprised noise and I laugh at him, maybe a bit too hard. I reach with my other hand and catch him by the shoulder before he actually does. I feel his fingers around my wrist, too as our grips interlock. He looks at me with mostly shock and a little disgust, wincing as his clothes also soak. I smile. "Was that so hard?"

He rolls his eyes and pulls himself free. "You're gonna pay for that."

Then we both run, splashing through puddles, tripping over our own feet, and laughing at nothing. Behind the raindrops spattered on his glasses, Harry's emerald eyes shimmer.

/////

The heat of running dies off and I realize how cold it is. Seeing Harry with his arms wrapped around himself, I think we're both thankful for the warmth of the house.

It's as I return to my room from a shower, clean and with a towel on my head, that I notice the time. My watch points to a bit over six. No wonder I'm getting hungry. I think about bringing food upstairs to have with Harry for dinner. It seems like a better idea than sitting with the Dursleys.

Or, perhaps I should take advantage of that time. Everyone in this house refuses to speak with me unless they're quite literally forced to and dinner might be the perfect opportunity. After all, there are... things to talk about.

And yes, I have no choice but to fail Harry's request to 'just forget about it.' Not only do I have my duties as a caseworker, but you would have to be the offspring of Satan or something to that effect to look away from a victim of violence who also happens to be dying.

I sit at my desk. My eyes land on the pages of the car crash case file. The wrinkles on the papers stir something in me again. I shove the whole file out of sight under other documents.

There aren't many caseworkers. I'm one of only a few. The job isn't very demanded, leading to less pay and less coworkers. And when no one is ever in the office, too, getting advice as a new member of the department is rather difficult. But there was one time with this woman around my mother's age. She was heading out for a case on my first day, and as she left, she told me to brace myself. What she did was warn me, really, saying that I'll be running into the very personal issues of any family I visit and that sometimes those issues will be... difficult to work with.