Drarry - Baby Steps

Seventh Step.

He still washes his middle-of-the-night-breakfast dishes by hand, he doesn't want to make all this progress too quickly. By the time he's done, a few birds started chirping outside in the softer growing dark. With every minute, the idea of him staying in this apartment by himself seems less likable. A change of scenery is long overdue for him anyway.

Reluctantly, he grabs his keys and a light jacket, then he locks the door behind him.

For a while he simply walks along the route he always took with Teddy: Streets, coffee shops, a small park. Some insomniac dog-owners cross his path but pay him no mind. Surrounded by trees he stands and waits, watching a squirrel steal a half-eaten sandwich from a rubbish bin. It fills him with the same estrangement he knows from his own apartment, from seeing Ron and Hermione as a couple, from Ginny's watery eyes as she forced back tears. Like he doesn't belong.

So he focuses on the one place where he wasn't an outsider for once. He focuses on memories of firelit evenings in the Gryffindor Common Room, of soaring above the castle's towers on a broom. Mostly, he focuses on the inside of a pub in Hogsmeade, the Hog's Head, where he knows a secret entrance into Hogwarts is hidden.

And he disapparates with a deafening bang.

Debris surround him. He barely recognises the pub any more. Most of the ceiling has come down, burying tables and chairs underneath. Harry sighs with relief as soon as he spots the portrait of Dumbledore's sister Ariana, which has been pushed up halfway, laying the secret tunnel bare. Ariana herself isn't in the portrait at this moment, making the whole room feel eerily empty.

Carefully, Harry makes his way through the ruins and finally disappears into the passageway.

On the other side, he stumbles out with no orientation until he reaches the giant staircase. The view downwards the grey shattered stone is vertigo-inducing, even though Harry never was afraid of heights. Watching his every step, he finds his way down across the steps that were left intact.

When he stands in the hallway where McGonagall first welcomed him among the other First Years he feels smaller than ever. Blank walls and abandoned portraits seem to be staring at him, and quite helplessly he thinks, so much for no more guilt. All this damage, all this loss...

"Well, look who we have here!" A squeaky voice screams, coming at him from above.

He takes a startled step back and tries to relax when he sees it's just Peeves, the poltergeist, swirling around him.

"Harry Potter, in the flesh! If you came for reconstruction purposes, please contact Minerva McGonagall or Neville Longbottom who work here with their team from noon to dusk. But as you have arrived before sunrise - " Peeves pulls an imaginary pocket watch from his pants, "AH, just at sunrise as I now see - you must've come for personal purposes."

Harry doesn't know what to answer. Until now, he also didn't know a reconstruction team existed.

"You probably want to be alone, eh? Most do, nowadays." The poltergeist continues, picking up a candle from the dusty floor and placing it back in its enormous chandelier, "Just be careful, yeah? The new ghosts around here aren't the only things residing in the ruins." Without his trademark cackle, Peeves disappears into the west wall, leaving Harry alone with the shivers on his back.

It's cold here, colder than a normal bleak summer in England. Unnaturally cold.

And he doesn't feel estranged but rather on the spot, as if a million vicious eyes are watching him. The feeling grows when he sets foot in the Great Hall, where rows and rows of bodies lay the last time he saw it, where he used to cheer without restraint when Gryffindor won the House Cup.

Now it's entirely empty.

The tables have been pushed to the sides and the podium is covered in ashes. The magic ceiling has disappeared, revealing chunks of the grey sky through holes in the damaged stone.

Harry stops in awe as the sunrise sends orange sparks through those chunks, and he notices tears collecting at the lower brim of his glasses. How could he ever not think of all those who aren't around to see another day begin? The tears keep coming silently and he lets them even though he knows they won't change what happened.

His eyesight blurs and he doesn't notice the movement behind his back. Neither does he hear the soft snarls through his own stifled sobs. The shadow approaches him in small, clumsy steps. It's almost too late when he spins around at the sound of a clear, composed voice shouting: "Petrificus Totalus!"

To his own astonishment he finds himself face to face with Draco, both of their wands drawn and crossed between them. The body-binding-curse didn't hit him but a creature that now lies motionlessly at his feet.

Harry blinks repeatedly, slowly making sense of the situation.

Lowering his own wand, Draco nods at Harry's: "I thought that was broken." He barely finishes his sentence before Harry, putting his wand down, asks: "What are you doing here?"

His voice quivers more than he'd like it to and he's surprised at how accusing he sounds.

"Saving your arse, apparently." Draco gracefully turns to survey the room, then he stores his wand away.

Taking a step back, Harry tries to identify the goblin-like being on the ground. Its green and rancorous facial features remind him of Sirius' house-elf, Kreacher, and it's about the same size, too. Only its eyes are red and inside its clawed clutches rests a big chunk of wood. "What is that?" Harry scrunches up his nose and averts his eyes from the creature's frozen stare.

"It's a Red Cap. It was going to bludgeon you to death." Draco answers matter-of-factly and Harry starts feeling cornered, exposed.

"Lovely. Thanks." He meant to be alone here, and suddenly being beaten to death by this ugly goblin's stick seems a nicer alternative to the nervous heat creeping up his neck. Trying to talk the tenseness away, he points at the Red Cap: "We haven't always had those, have we? I mean, Hogwarts... how did it get here?"

"They appear in places of bloodshed. Perhaps they came from the Forbidden Forest after the battle." Malfoy purses his lips and shifts his weight from one leg to the other.

Yes, Harry vaguely recalls Lupin talking about them in their third year.

"Anyway" the blond boy continues, "this place isn't exactly safe yet. We could head into The Three Broomsticks if you want."

For the first time today, Harry brings himself to look up into Draco's grey eyes, and it's like the past days come to life again in his mind, putting a funny feeling in his stomach. His heart beats faster as he swallows his pride, still not fully used to the fact that they're no longer on bad terms. "Yeah. I'd like that." He turns and Draco follows him wordlessly, making their way back into Hogsmeade.

"What did you come here for?" Draco picks up the conversation, climbing over debris onto the stairs after Harry.

"I don't know. To reminisce?" Harry, who keeps thinking back to his dream where Draco held his hand, replies briefly.

Silence wraps around them until Draco admits: "Me too."

His gentle voice makes the wide, empty hallways seem a little less eerie.