Silent (Drarry) [COMPLETED]

Chapter 11

It took about another week for Harry to recover enough for him and Draco to return to lessons. It had been even less time before he realised that being called any pronouns but he/him made him uncomfortable, but they/them were less so than the others. For the time being, a group of NEWT students were teaching the younger years Potions while they looked for another Potions professor without leaving another subject without a teacher.

"Excuse me?" A high pitched voice said from behind them as they were heading to their first lesson.

"What?" Draco spat, as the group of them spun around, Blaise standing behind Harry in case someone tried to get to him from behind, Pansy and Draco standing guard from in front.

"Ah, um, I just wanted to apologise for Ron and Percy, they were only trying to protect me." It was Ginny who had called out to them. She looked terrified, and was acting as though they were well trained wizards with their wands pointed at her, probably trying to gain sympathy.

"Gin, we told you to apologise, not lie." A frustrated voice said from behind her, belonging to one of the Weasley twins, the one who had a slightly lower voice.

"We already have enough liars in the family." The other twin added. Harry wasn't sure if anyone else could tell the difference between the two, admittedly he wasn't good with which one was called which, but he knew how they were different.

"We apologise on our siblings' behalf."

"They were way out of line and shouldn't have done that to you."

"I hope you know that we would have done our best to stop it had we known."

Draco looked at Harry to figure out what the response should be, Pansy keeping her eyes on the Weasleys in front of them and Blaise keeping an eye out for anyone else trying to hurt him. They were all worried about the Weasleys trying something again, Harry didn't deserve what he had already been through before even coming to Hogwarts, let alone what had happened afterwards.

Harry gave a small nod, meaning that he would accept their apology.

"Fine, but we don't forgive what they did, and if either Percy or Ronald come anywhere near him we will take it as a threat." Draco said, his eyes cold as he glared at the Weasleys in front of him.

"We'll try, but Percykins is mum's favourite,"

"And we're her least,"

"So I don't think there's much we can do." Fred and George said. Harry didn't know how they knew when to talk, he didn't think it was a think all twins could do, but it could be a magical twins thing.

None of the second year Slytherins responded, Blaise looking at his watch before tugging at Harry and Draco's robes, jerking his head to say they needed to get to class. Nobody said another word as the Slytherins left the Weasleys.

Harry struggled to pay attention in lessons, he was lucky enough that it was still early in the year that most the lessons he had missed were mostly recap, and while he was stabilising in his room he and Draco had gone over some of the textbooks when it was only the two of them and Harry had shut down, or when it was only Harry, Draco and Lucius, so Harry wasn't too far behind on any of the new stuff, and was even ahead in some subjects.

It seemed everywhere Harry went he was followed by a rather large group of Slytherins, although most kept their distance for his comfort, lest some more terrible events befell him. Draco was never far from him either, which helped Harry feel more comfortable.

He couldn't help but feel the pang of guilt that flooded through him whenever he saw the empty seats at the staff table, or the bags under both Professor McGonagalls' eyes. Realistically, from what everyone told him anyway, Harry knew they would have all happened even if it wasn't for him, and if they hadn't more people would have been hurt, but that failed to really make him feel better.

He had been away from the Dursleys for a little over a year now, but the shadow of their presence in his life for around 10 years wasn't so easy to shake. No matter what anyone said, Harry often found himself not believing them when they said bad things weren't his fault, everything had always been Harry's fault, even if it was impossible for him to have affected it.

Dudley had a bad score? Harry's fault and the teachers got yelled at.

A neighbour hadn't complemented Petunia's choice in jewellery? Harry was to blame, how could he sully her property?

Dudley had come home with scrapes? Harry must have hurt him.

Of course, there were things that Harry realised after entering the Wizarding World probably was his doing, but he had no way of knowing that at the time. He didn't know magic was real, let alone how to use it.

He also found it difficult to understand that the bad things that happened to him weren't his fault too. He knew that all the people he was close to didn't think that, but Vernon had repeatedly taught him that he was a bad kid, and deserved any and all pain he got, even if it wasn't inflicted by Vernon, but by nettles in the garden, or stumbling, or because he was half asleep from hunger and fatigue doing his chores. Bad things didn't happen to people who didn't deserve them.

But bad things happened to Padfoot and Moony, and they weren't bad people, they had been framed by bad people. Harry still didn't fully understand how these things worked, much like he didn't understand how he was supposed to know when he loved something or someone, but he was trying his best.

He wanted to ask someone what love felt like, he hadn't asked when he had to stay in his and Draco's room, because Draco was there the whole time. He trusted Draco more than anyone, but he didn't like the idea of asking Draco.

If you asked him he wouldn't be able to explain it, but be knew Sirius and Remus were in love, while Lucius and Narcissa had a different kind of love between them. Harry understood the kind the Malfoy parents had between them to an extent, it was the love between Sirius and Remus Harry wanted to understand, and the idea of Draco having that kind of love for anyone made Harry have an uncomfortably heavy weight in his chest.