Where The Sun Drops | drarry post-war

nine | i must not tell lies

After two days of the haunting, Ginny's patience began to wear thin and she booked Harry in for an emergency appointment with Annie at the Summertown Mental Health Clinic.

Harry knew it wasn't much use arguing - Ginny was as strong-willed as she was beautiful, especially when she was terrified for him - so instead, he resolved quietly to himself that he would lie at all costs; anything to avoid getting sent to a hospital or concerning Gin further.

"It was a brief hallucination," he practiced saying mentally on the way there, as affably and calmly as he could manage with Malfoy lounging carelessly over the dashboard.

His hands gripped the steering wheel tightly as his thoughts raced. "I wasn't sleeping properly, I got a migraine ... it's over now. I know what's real."

Do migraines cause that type of hallucination, he wondered? Or would a fever be more convincing? He wasn't entirely sure, but regardless, it was the best excuse he had.

If he was honest with himself, the whole business was scaring Harry now. Why wasn't the bastard going the fuck away?

A small part of him was even beginning to think he ought to tell the truth, just on the off chance that there really was something mentally the matter with him, something Annie could reassure him on and maybe prescribe medication for, and then maybe Malfoy would finally disappear.

That didn't seem particularly likely, though, as he glanced over at the spectre before him.

Ginny, being a year younger than her boyfriend, still hadn't got her driving license, so it was unfortunately down to Harry to drive the car - a rather dangerous activity with Malfoy making such dramatic attempts to obscure his vision.

More than once over the course of the journey, Ginny commented on how slowly he was driving.

"I know it's a country lane, Harry, but you're allowed to do more than 10 miles per hour," she said, sounding confused.

"I'm trying not to kill us both," Harry muttered in response. We might end up like Malfoy, he added mentally.

Ginny didn't argue with that. "Are you still... seeing things?" she asked gently. "Is that why you're...?"

Her voice tailed off.

"No," Harry lied, pressing on the brakes even further as the little car rounded a bend. "I just like to drive slowly. It's not weird."

On a whim, he set the windscreen wipers going and watched as they sliced straight through Malfoy's form on the other side of the glass as if he wasn't even there.

In response, the blonde yawned and reclined further onto the dash, a lazy middle finger raised in Harry's general direction.

"I like to be safe," Harry continued airily. "You never know what you might come across around here."

***

"And this hallucination... it's lasted how long?"

Annie's voice was as calm as ever, her demeanour unruffled as she spoke, and for this, Harry was grateful. Ginny's concern was well meaning, he knew that, but there was only so much room for anxiety in their house as it was without her adding to it.

"I suppose since Monday night, on and off,"
he said tensely. It was about the fifteenth lie of the session; there had been no off in this 'on and off' hallucination.

There was certainly no off now, either, as Malfoy hovered behind Annie's head and laughed loudly at the words she was writing in her notepad.