And Then There Were Three

Chapter 14

Harry stepped out of the floo and into Remus's parlor.

"Hello, Harry," Remus said, looking up from the record he was placing back in it's sleeve. He put it on the shelf with the others and asked, "How's Severus feeling?"

Harry rolled his eyes. "He feels good enough to get on to me every five minutes," he grumbled as he crossed the room and dropped heavily onto the couch.

Remus stopped looking through his records and turned to Harry with a frown. "For no reason?"

Harry dropped his head and picked at a loose thread on his jeans. "Maybe he had a few reasons."

"Ah." Remus crossed the room and sat down in his chair. "Do you want to talk about it?"

At first Remus was sure that Harry wasn't going to say anything. He watched as he seemed to debate with himself for a long moment before finally he said, "Everything's changing and I feel like I can't keep up."

"What do you mean, Cub?" Remus asked. "Is this about more than Draco leaving and the nightmares?"

"It's about everything. I want to believe that Draco is alright, and he seems fine from his letters, but how can he trust her? She let Mr. Malfoy shun Draco just because he didn't like that Draco was thinking for himself for once. How could she go along with that?"

Remus sighed. He leaned forward, letting his arms rest on his knees as he spoke, "Harry, can I ask you a question?"

Harry gave a single nod and looked up to meet Remus's eyes.

"Does this have anything to do with your relatives and how they treated you?"

Harry immediately looked away. "No."

"No?" Remus asked. "Nothing at all to do with how they ignored you? Pretended that you didn't exist unless it suited them to have you doing chores or whatever other miserable thing they could come up with."

Remus watched as Harry shook his head, continuing to look away.

"Draco doesn't deserve that," he said softly.

"No, he doesn't," Remus agreed. "And neither did you."

Harry turned back to him, his green eyes shining as he said, "I know that."

Remus sat back, deciding that it would be better to let Harry sort through his thoughts on his own for a moment.

"Why do they still effect me so badly?" Harry asked quietly. "I haven't seen them in a year, but suddenly I'm thinking about them more and more, and the nightmares are getting worse."

Remus shook his head. "Because healing is not linear, Harry. It's not always constant steps forward. Sometimes there are setbacks and triggers that come up out of nowhere, and often there's very little we can do about them. We just have to take them as they come and work through them one at a time." He stood and moved to sit on the couch beside Harry. "Only last year they were doing awful things to you, and you've handled it remarkably, you truly have, but as much as we would like it to, trauma doesn't go away overnight. Or even in a year. But talking about it helps. Surrounding yourself with people who love and care about you does, too."

Harry kept his head bowed, but he nodded to show he was listening.

"Are the nightmares still about your uncle?"

"Mostly," Harry said. He cleared his throat and swiped his hand beneath his glasses before he went on. "Sometimes lately, they've been about Dad though."

Remus's brows knit together in confusion. "What about him?" he asked.

Harry shrugged. "They usually start out with Uncle Vernon being horrible like always, but then things will shift around and it will be Dad there instead. Only he just looks at me and doesn't say anything at all. I try to talk to him and ask him for help, but he doesn't listen. He just turns around and walks out the door. He leaves me there." Harry's voice was thick and he sniffed hard. "Every time I start yelling for him to wait or come back, but he doesn't. He just walks away."