Skill and Seclusion [2] || Harry Potter x OC x Draco Malfoy

160. Isolated

DISCLAIMER

I do not own Harry Potter ... but if I did Sirius would have fully adopted Harry

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Harry Potter had most certainly experienced his fair share of crappy summers.

Living with the Dursley's had proven ... challenging since the first moment he arrived on their doorstep.

They made his life a living hell, but he was always able to be the bigger person. To get through his time under the same roof as three people he was convinced didn't have hearts or the ability to be kind.

He could do so because he knew two things.

The first was the knowledge that it wasn't going to last forever. He had a place to escape to. A place that was filled with people who did have hearts – hearts that beat for him. A place that was, for all intents and purposes, his salvation.

The second was those aforementioned people. His friends. His girlfriend. Those waiting for him at that place he would again return. The letters they would send him to remind him of the first thing, the good memories they had shared and the promise of ones still yet to be made.

Every summer he had to leave Hogwarts to return back to the muggle world and the Dursley's, he clung to those two things every single day and night until school started again.

He would return to Hogwarts, and he would see the people he loves.

But this summer was different.

Those two things had changed now.

Hogwarts was no longer the salvation he once believed it to be. Instead, it was a place that housed bad memories of torturous experiences, murder, regrets, grief and guilt. It was a place that brought forth reminders of what bad memories were still to be made.

The dark world they lived in, the evil that now walked amongst them, the stomach-curling sense of death and war and destruction looming right over everyone's shoulder, giving no indication of when it would pounce.

It led to paranoia, untamed nightmares, fear.

All things that had a possibility of being helped if the second thing hadn't also changed.

If Harry still had his friends to turn to.

But all summer, for three months, he hadn't heard a word from any of them.

Not one.

Not even from Bel.

He had been left alone in this dark world to face that paranoia and fear. He had been left clueless about what was happening in the wizarding world – what was happening to those he loves.

He had been left to wonder if they were still alive, if things had changed only for the worse, if he was going to return to hellish chaos rather than salvation this year.

He had been isolated, intentionally, by the one person who promised she would never do that.

Harry should have seen it coming. Especially after what Dumbledore had said to him at the end of last school year.

Bel had been given a duty in the wizarding world. Responsibilities that had burdened her since the first day she arrived there.

It was something she was prepared and trained to handle.

It was something she was aware existed, and was ready to take on.

And now, the time had come for her to be put to the ultimate test.