𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐖𝐞 𝐖𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐅𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐬

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐒𝐢𝐱: 𝐄𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐞 𝐀𝐰𝐚𝐲

Something about time wasn't moving quite right. In Harry's mind, the days lasted far too long for human function. The nights were gone too fast. He guessed, he wasn't used to sitting still for so long in classes.

Not that he hadn't done just that at Grimmauld Place, but he did it by choice. He could be left to his thoughts, with no other sound but that and the ticking of the grandfather clock. At times, he felt that it was slowly ticking away his life.

It was quite daunting, really. But he didn't mind it, because he knew that it had once done the same for his godfather. It ticked away his life. How wholesome. That could not be said for every clock at Hogwarts.

He had almost no connection, no blatant reminder of anything to do with his own history. Sure, there were plaques with his father's name on it from when he played quidditch. There were some lost pictures of Lupin' time teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts. There was forever a scorch mark on the common room low-table from where Lupin told him Sirius first learned the spell incendio; strangely enough, shaped similarity like a wolf.

If Harry's history wasn't at Hogwarts, then it wasn't anywhere.

No one really needed him anymore, and it wasn't like he particularly wanted them to. But he did still want a purpose. Some reason to live.

He just couldn't bring himself to find it. It wasn't in the dorms, nor the common room. It wasn't in any of the classrooms, the halls, the courtyard. It most certainly wasn't in the forbidden forest.

Months before, he would've said that his purpose was hidden somewhere in the sky, on the Quidditch Pitch. Flying among the stars and swerving between clouds.

But Harry's sky was dark now. What good was the sky if it was always dark? It was like there were millions of Dementors crowded together, blocking the sun, leaving no light to turn his black sky blue again. It used to be his friends, certain professors, the hope of a new day.

Lupin was dead. Professor Dumbledore was dead. Professor Mcgonagall was too busy with her promotion to Headmistress. All of his friends had their own distractions, relationships, something better to do than partake in a bland conversation with the boy who had once lived.

Harry dug his heels farther into the damp dirt under the tree he was leaned up against. The grainy soil turning his socks brown and his ankles a muddy mess.

But this didn't bother Harry. What bothered him, was his mind. Some would describe the headspace as a figurative home of some sort, with endless hallways and writing along the walls. But Harry's mind was not his home. A prison, perhaps, would be a more appropriate term.

He didn't necessarily want to make himself feel so lonesome (and, yes, he did blame himself), but the post-war pessimism had been talking away over his own inner monologue for months.

At first, he brushed it off as just a teenage phase, one that would leave him as he grew into his body more.

But now, here he was, long outgrown his youthful shadow and still not able to find something as simple as happiness.

He listened closely to the weak waves of the Black Lake in attempts to distract himself. The dirt was beginning to harden into a crusty outer shell to his skin.

No one seemed to hear his voice anymore, not in a way that mattered to him or anyone else.

Harry's black sky began to appear darker as the day was coming to an end. Another thousand Dementors, he thought.

They seemed to dip down even lower, right over his body, swirling around and leaving behind a trail of black smoke.

It was cold. So very cold. A cold even icier than a real Dementor could emit.

Harry leaned his head back against the ruff bark of the tree trunk, a little harder than he had meant to. Subconscious thoughts of that if he banged his head hard enough, the Dementors and the cold would go away.

Obviously, that wasn't how logic worked.

Thoughts about what had happened weeks before came over him. They had been standing right where he was sitting now, him and Draco.

Harry's voice had been heard that night. By no one but Draco Malfoy. He was the only one who knew of the horrific noises that haunted him at all times inside his head. And he had shown them to him, without a shadow of a doubt about it.

Before that moment, Draco had never meant a thing to Harry. He was simply another soul trying to tear apart his own.

But now... now he was something special. There was no changing that fact. It was inevitable, with a shared moment of pure vulnerability such as that one.

And just like how Draco knew of Harry's inner turmoil, Harry had also caught a glimpse of Draco's.

On the outside, Harry thought that Draco was seeming to fair off quite well after the war. He was nicer, funnier. Draco Malfoy was not a person to have a decent sense of humour.

Was it all a front? Was there also a cluster of Dementors flooding his sky? After that night at the lake, Harry was certainly given that impression.

In the present, there came a cluster of footsteps. One after the other, in a graceful rhythm, right towards where Harry was seated.

Draco sat down beside him.

A hundred Dementors flew away.