Through It All, Your Ferret ~ A Dramione Fanfiction (Complete)

Chapter 26 We're Already in Therapy*

I stood about 30 meters from the front door, a little more than halfway from the gates. I already had my mini panic attack at the gates, but now I just froze. A wave of nausea ripped through my guts as I doubled over but still couldn't move my feet. I didn't see the scattering of aurors as the rest of the family were escorted inside, nor the flurry of house elves managing the luggage we all had. I just stood, looking at the home of my nightmares, rooted in place.

I felt him reassuring me. I couldn't hear his words though. His breath was warm and inviting. The building ahead of me was anything but.

I felt him hold me. Harry and Ginny came up to me but I couldn't even look at them. I could only focus on the monstrosity in front of me. The double black doors trying to lure me in, but feeling like I would fall into a black hole of my fears if I do.

Draco lifted me up and carried me inside. By now I must be shaking, in the throes of a full on panic attack. I feel the tears streaming down. I still cannot hear or truly comprehend all the commotion around me. I know everyone here, most on a first name basis even if they aren't family members, but I cannot see or hear them. Draco continues his march up the grand staircase as I see the doors to the ill gotten room. I clutch onto him tighter and my eyes never leave the doors until they are out of sight.

Another flight of stairs on the left and down a long hallway before he pauses, stoops down slightly, and opens a door. My eyes, still fearful of what they have seen, have unfocused on my surroundings, all I can picture in my head is the doors leading to the room of my nightmares, the room of my torture, the doors that hold my final demon at bay.

I am lain on a bed alongside the man who carried me. I try and hold in my lunch from the Burrow as there was no way that I could have realized that it would affect me in such a way. Such an extreme way. He does nothing other than caress my hair and kiss me. I know he is trying to gain my attention, to bring me back. Right now I feel all the work the healers did, those many years ago, has failed. I have no coping mechanisms that will get me to function in this situation.

He says something to me, but I have locked my functioning brain away. I feel the bed move slightly, only then to realize that he has released me from his grip. I curl into myself, burying my face as far into my hands and legs as possible.

The day seems to not move, I cannot move myself due to the paralyzing fear. I truly understand the meaning of that phrase - paralyzing fear. The fear that completely envelopes you, shuts all function aside from breathing and your heart beating down, you cannot eat or drink. It is a fear that kills you. It is a parasitic fear as it destroys the host.

I feel a number of house elves come and go, I still cannot focus on anything other than those doors that lead to the room. Knowing what that room did to me and my friends. Dobby, the kindest most loyal house elf I have ever been blessed to meet, met his fate in that room. I nearly did also if it hadn't been for that elf.

A fresh wave of nausea and tears hits me again as I cry out in pain. In an instant I am in a room filled with loved ones and healers. I don't know exactly how I get here but it feels like when I had to be hospitalized. I feel my fog lifted, to experience another fog in it's place. I have Harry on one side of me with Ginny and Draco on the other, all with grave looks on their faces. "Sorry" I meekly say.

Harry and Ginny exchange concerned looks, Draco's eyes are the size of tea saucers. "Darling, I should be the one to say sorry. It was my idea. I'm the one that landed you here."

"We thought we could manage it alone Hermione," Ginny said nearly scolding Draco. "I never, we never..."

"The thing is Harry and you didn't know what she went through. I know." Harry gave him an indignant look, but he was right. Draco was standing there being forced to watch me get tortured. "Darling, I wish I could blast that room out of the house and all the memories it holds out. If I could I would in an instant."