[Hope]

[4]

Harry woke screaming. In his dream, he had relived Sirius' death and it made his heart ache. In his angered haste the night before he had forgotten to take his dreamless sleep potion. When he calmed down he realised no one was in the dorm room, this was unusual as Harry normally woke early but somehow, he had slept through half of breakfast.

Even though he had slept in, Harry felt exhausted and knew he looked it as his eyes felt itchy and weighted. As if his concentration wasn't already terrible and now he had to do deal with fatigue in addition to his depressing thoughts.

Harry had a feeling that today was going to be terrible and Harry's gut feeling are usually right. He always knew when the Dursley's were going to beat him before the argument ever came, he always knew when his day was going to take a turn for the worst. With the knotting in the pit of his stomach and the nausea he felt as he walked Harry wouldn't be surprised if he made it to breakfast without stopping to throw up.

As he walked through the doors to the great hall, Sirius's pain ridden face wouldn't leave his mind.

When he saw, Draco's concerned yet angered face, Harry gulped nervously. Once Harry sat down Draco looked him up and down before sighing.

"You look like shit Potter" Draco stated with his usual insensitivity.

"Don't I always Malfoy." Harry joked as he picked up a single slice of toast and began to nibble on it as he didn't want to eat as he still felt slightly nauseous.

"I meant more than usual git, did you even sleep you look like you haven't slept in a month and you're pale too are you ill?"

"Yeah but I had anothe-" Harry stopped himself, he had told Draco that his nightmares had stopped to prevent the blonde from worrying.

"Had another what Harry?"

Harry looked at Draco with pleading eyes. Draco took in those eyes, the same eyes he had after...It wasn't long until realisation dawned on the blonde.

"Nightmare, you had another nightmare. Harry I thought those stopped... When did they come back?" Draco whispered.

"Honest answer?"

"Of course, I want the truth you ape" Draco scoffed.

"They never stopped...I-I Just started getting sleeping potions from the infirmary instead of having to see them." Harry said before looking at the floor in shame but also bracing himself for the verbal attack he was about to receive from his only friend. Harry had no doubt that his cowardice would probably end their friendship.

"YOU WHAT?! POTTER YOU AREN'T THAT POTIONS RETARDED THAT YOU DON'T KNOW HOW UNHEALTHY THAT IS..." Draco stopped to take a breath before resuming. "I CAN'T EVEN. YOU IMBECILE. STUPID... I KNOW THAT THE NIGHTMARES ARE PAINFUL BUT THEY'LL NEVER STOP IF YOU DON'T FACE THEM IDIOT." Draco saw that Harry was shaking with tears and calmed down immediately.

Draco mentally kicked himself. He knew Harry is sensitive to being shouted at and what did he do? Shout at him. Now he's crying and Draco had no clue what to do. He lightly placed a hand on Harry's shoulder who looked up at him with tear stained eyes. Draco's heart melted. Not caring who saw or judged them he pulled Harry into a hug and kept him there till breakfast ended.

***

Harry arrived at his detention with Snape in the dungeons exactly on time. He had been correct about his day being terrible, he'd had the incident with Draco, who had now confiscated Harry's potion, He'd accumulated three more detentions for not doing his homework and worst of all Ron Weasley and company seemed hate him a significant amount more today, so for the entire day his constant bullying was amplified by five. To put it plainly Harry was not in the best of moods.

"I'm here professor" Harry announced when he couldn't see Snape in the Lab, which was filled with dirty cauldrons that were obviously from the Professor's last lesson. Harry inwardly groaned but he wasn't surprised in the slightest.

This is Snape's usual detention setup. The professor doesn't see the point in having student's writes lines, he believes that students will learn the consequences of their actions better it he had them manually clean potions equipment.

It was five minutes before Snape swaggered into the room.

"Ah Potter, my apologies I assumed you were going to arrive late."

"It's okay Professor."

"I trust you know what I'm going to ask you to complete"

"Yes Sir." Harry replied.

Harry looked around the lab, the detention would take more than the two hours his Professor had set.

Snape smirked inwardly as he watched Harry realise his workload, he had made sure there was a decent amount of cleaning to do for this detention. Not for any cruel reason just purely so he could observe Harry as he had begun to worry a considerable amount about the Potter boy, he always looked so down and if he wasn't depressed he looked agitated or Ill.

As Harry cleaned cauldron after cauldron he noticed how exhausted Potter looked, the boy had dark circles under his eyes that were almost completely concealed by the Harry's wire framed glasses.

Throughout the whole detention, which was going a lot quicker than expected, Snape entertained the idea of asking Potter if something was bothering him recently. To ask the boy would've been extremely out of character for the professor in his late thirties but he felt the urge to help Harry, Lily would've wanted him to.

Eventually Snape decided against the idea, if Harry came and asked him for help he would give it but until then he thought it best to leave the boy alone. He doubted the boy would appreciate it anyway, he knew first hand stubborn that Potter could be. With that he left Harry in the lab and retired to the backroom to grade his students' homework. Coincidently the homework that Harry hadn't done, then again, the boy hadn't done any homework for potions in a while.

***

Harry made quick work of the detention once he got into the swing of it and finished in time for the detention to be two hours. His years with the Dursley's had given him a decent amount of manual labour experience so the work wasn't hard it was just bothersome.

Having finished Harry went into the backroom to tell his Snape that he was done. The quicker he told the professor, the quicker the greasy git would come and inspect his work and let him leave.

Hesitantly Harry knocked on the backroom door.

"Come in Potter." Harry opened the door and stepped inside.

"Professor, I've finished cleaning the equipment" Harry saw Snape's eyebrows raise before he looked at Harry with curiosity. After a while Snape nodded.

"You can leave, I believe you Potter." Snape said dismissively and then carried on grading

Just as Harry began to make his way out of the dungeons, overwhelming nausea swept over him almost causing him to stumble. Harry knew something bad was about to happen, he had to escape. He picked up his pace as he climbed the stairs into the castle, throwing nervous glances over his shoulder every couple of seconds to settle his nerves. Harry was so concerned with something being behind him that he didn't notice the band of Gryffindor's at the top of the stairs until it was too late.

"You aren't going anywhere Potter." Weasley spat as he raised his wand, aiming at Harry.

Frantically, Harry put his hand to his pocket to feel for his wand, which wasn't there. His eyes opened in realisation, he hadn't brought his wand as he knew Snape didn't allow magic in his detentions.

Hope fled from Harry's body, he had no way to defend himself so he stood still, waiting for the spell to be cast, Harry thought it was probably better this way... in the end he found himself thinking that he wouldn't mind if Ron killed him. He closed his eyes in defeat.