The Beginning
It’s been a year since the War but it doesn’t get any easier does it? I wake up, eat in the Great Hall, go to classes, study in the library and try to sleep at night without waking up screaming.
There is a fireworks show today and I will be awarded my Order of Merlin, First Class to mark a year since the War. I have to give a speech but what will I say? “Thank you for giving me this but I don’t want to meet you or everyone because the only people who I I genuinely want to meet are all dead and I wish I was too?” That would go over well. Rita Skeeter would have a field day. I can already imagine the headlines, “The Boy Who Lived, Can't Wait To Die?” These people are looking at me to say something that will make their pain hurt less for a while, how can I do that when I am hurting too.
People assume I’m some hero to be glorified and put on a pedestal because I survived a homicidal maniac. But how can that be true when I was never alone in my fight. I had Hermione, Ron and a whole group of people who cared for me and gave up their lives for me. Why should I be put on a pedestal if the ones who actually helped up are even now in a coffin six feet under. Why should I be glorified more than poor Colin Creevey, with his eyes full of hope and his hands full of his various equipments and inks and love and hope, so much of it, oh god! If Dumbledore were here he would say sometimes we have to do things that are hard but we should still do them because it’s the right thing to do but he isn’t even here anymore so who cares? Ron didn’t return, it was too painful for him to even think about it. Hermione advised me to still attend even if all I had prepared amounted to a whole lot of nothing.
There’s only a handful of 8th Years with me, most of them found it too painful to return. Among the Slytherins only Theodore Nott, Pansy Parkinson, Daphne Greengrass, Millicent Bulstrode and Draco Malfoy returned. The war had taken a toll on them too. Pansy Parkinson wore a surprising amount of Muggle fashion, Daphne apparently liked to read and had become friends with Hermione, somehow. Theo and Millicent kept to themselves mostly but Draco was the one who had changed the most.
His hair had always been slicked back by copious amounts of Sleekeazy’s but now it hung loose and had soft curls. It would fall over his eyes in a most distracting way during class but the most distracting thing about him was how he seemed to entirely avoid me. Their schedules seemed to have shifted enough that he doesn’t even see the blond in the hallways. Where he would always go out of his way to annoy the living shit out of Harry now he barely met his eyes and ignored him in the 8th year common room. It was driving him half out his mind that Draco hadn’t stopped him once in the hallway since the term had started. They had talked only once at the beginning when Draco had come up to him on the first day at the Common Room and apologised to him. Harry had been too taken aback to answer and by the time he came back to his senses enough to be able to talk, he’d already moved on to the other Gryffindors. During repair work, he would simply work on the complex magic security protocols with McGonagall, avoiding him entirely. It was driving him insane.
I was broken out of my musings about my oldest archenemy (can you be enemies if one of you has already apologised?) by the commanding yet comforting tones of Proffessor McGonagall.
“Now we invite Harry Potter to the stage to accept his Order Of Merlin, First Class and enlighten us with his wise words.”
In early September, McGonagall had introduced the Inter-House dorms the day before all the other years came back. We would all be paired up with another member of the same gender of a different house to “foster friendships that would last a lifetime.” Her words, not mine.
Hermione was paired with Pansy Parkinson and Ron was paired with Blaise. I suppose I should not have been surprised then when my name on the list appeared next to none other than Draco Malfoy. How do you room with someone who has been avoiding you for the better part of a year? Guess I was about to find out.
At first glance, the room was simple enough. We had a spacious room with two twin beds and two modestly sized desks. Unfortunately, there was only one bathroom. Our beds had rich drapings in the colours of our houses. I guess you can make house-neutral dorms but not house-neutral beds. As soon as I entered the room, I took in the view. We had a single large bay window between our beds which looked onto the Great Lake and further onto the rolling Scottish hills. Maybe I could tolerate this year yet.