A/N: It has been suggested that this chapter is confusing - that it is difficult to tell when things are happening. After rereading, I am not surprised. So. If it helps, we begin with Harry on Halloween, locked in his room, drinking to forget. Cut to a bit later, he's still sitting by the fire. Then, flashback to the previous spring when he realizes his memories have been tampered with and goes to Hermione. Brief cut to the present, where he's sitting by the fire, drinking. Then a dazed/drunken dream/vision/hallucination/whatever with his patronus. Then, finally, he passes out.
---
Tues, October 31, 2017
Halloween.
Harry hated Halloween. Not because of the ridiculous frivolity, the tricks and treats and mayhem – those he didn't mind, really. Those were just kids being kids. No, what Harry hated about Halloween was that to everyone else, it was a day of playing and laughing and feasting. While to him... to him it was the day that his parents died. The day that Voldemort destroyed the Potter family, dooming Harry to a childhood of being unwanted, forgotten, enslaved.
Harry dropped his head into his hands. At least he didn't have to teach today. Thank Merlin for that. Tomorrow he would have to teach, of course, since half-term break would be over. It wouldn't be pleasant, but that was a problem for tomorrow.
He stared morosely at his agenda for the day, lined up on the small table he'd scrounged from an abandoned classroom and pulled up beside his chair before the fire. Firewhisky, several small bottles - the strongest he'd been able to find - and, for later, a bottle of the strongest hangover potion money could buy. He poured a generous measure of firewhisky, held it up to the early-morning light. The light shimmered on the surface of the dark amber liquid, glanced off the cut glass panes of the tumbler.
"Happy Halloween," he said, voice rough with unshed tears, and raised the glass to the small photograph on his mantle where his parents stood, arm-in-arm. They smiled sadly back at him.
---
Some time later – he didn't know what time it was, but he was well into his second glass – he pulled out the small piece of paper he kept in his pocket and started to fidget with it, folding and unfolding the well-worn creases. He read again the familiar word, etched into his memory in letters of flame.
Potter
He crumpled the paper in his fist, sighing. Draco.
---
He'd dreamed it, the first time. Had awoken confused, soaked in sweat, with unfamiliar images dancing at the edges of consciousness. And one word, standing out sharply against the hazy background of the dream.
It had taken him ages to figure out that it was Draco he was dreaming about. Then ages more to realize that it wasn't a dream - not exactly. Little things kept repeating - things that were too consistent and specific to be mere coincidence.
He'd gone to Hermione, of course. That's what he'd always done when confronted with something that he felt he couldn't handle... and even without Ron, Hermione still filled the same role in his life. He trusted her, where he didn't trust anyone else. Not even Ginny.
---
Monday, March 13, 2017
"Ms. Granger? You have a visitor."
Harry forced a smile for the bouncy young secretary, who tucked a strand of bright red hair behind her ear and grinned at him as she replaced the receiver. "Go on in."
Harry smiled in earnest as he stepped into Hermione's office, and found her, as usual, nearly buried behind precarious towers of books, scribbling furiously. She held up a hand to stop him, never looking up. "I'll be with you in a moment."
YOU ARE READING
19 Years (HP - Drarry)
Fanfiction19 years ago, something happened between Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy - but the only one who remembers is Draco himself. He plans to carry the secret to his grave, but his careful plan is soon turned on its head. It's bad enough that Draco is retur...
