Nightmares
The next few days passed with a similar routine. Draco woke before anyone else, grabbed a small breakfast, and headed to start cleaning. Between the two of them, they were almost finished with the main classrooms and had started on the small study rooms students would be able to use for group study. Despite his hesitations, Harry was a talented wizard when he put his mind to it and by the end of the second day, he was no longer breaking things with his spells.
Outside of cleaning, Draco kept to himself. Harry, despite being invited to the conversations, also preferred not to socialize with the other students who had shown up early. Although Draco longed to ask him what was on his mind, he refrained from prying into the other's thoughts.
When Draco woke up screaming on the fourth night there, he decided to calm himself by walking through the halls. No curfew had been announced and being of age, Draco decided no one would mind if he wandered around to clear his mind. He pulled on a thick robe over his night clothes and unlocked his door. The hall was eerily quiet and he quickly turned to leave the dorm area to avoid accidentally waking any of the other students.
The rest of the school would be arriving over the next two days. Their arrival was staggered to avoid any Muggles noticing the influx of people at the 'abandoned' house, although the closest residents were well over five miles in any direction. Draco tried to imagine the halls filled, picturing how different this would be from Hogwarts. A part of him ached that he wouldn't finish his schooling in that building which had been his home for so long, even as he was glad not to be forced back there.
The nightmare that had woken him had been of the battle at Hogwarts. He'd been separated from his parents and everywhere he turned were Death Eaters hurting his classmates. He tried to cast spells to defend them, but one by one his classmates fell and there was nothing he could do to stop the death and destruction. At last, he'd turned a corner and saw his mother's broken body on the ground, blood spilling from her lips and the Dark Lord himself standing over her. "This is for betraying me. Everyone you love will die."
He woke up with the Dark Lord's words echoing in his mind. Even though he knew the man was gone for good, the ever-present fear stayed with him. For most of his life, his father had espoused the Dark Lord's return. It was impossible to believe that the last death he suffered was truly the last, although he had seen it with his own eyes when Harry had won.
After walking up and down the halls for at least an hour, he decided he needed to go back to his room and at least try to sleep. He was out of his potion to stop the dreams, but usually, they didn't plague him more than once a night. He was just about to his room when he heard another voice crying out, ending in a whimpered sob that had Draco's heart racing.
It was easy to find the room the sound was coming from and Draco knocked sharply on the door. It opened faster than he thought possible and revealed Harry Potter standing in an overside shirt and sweatpants, glasses askew on his face, and sweat gleaming on his brow. Draco almost took a step back, but before he could move, Harry had fallen into his arms, holding him in a hug that threatened to suffocate him.
Draco unsure of what was expected, wrapped his arms around Harry in return and within a few seconds, the other boy's weight fell on him and almost took him to the ground. Harry had fallen asleep and his gentle breaths sounded against Draco's cheeks. They remained frozen like that for a long moment before Draco reached one arm out and grabbed his wand which he'd shoved in his pocket. He cast a spell to lift Harry off the ground and guided him back to the bed.
In typical Harry fashion, the room was a mess with clothes and books flung everywhere. To Harry's credit, it looked like he'd been studying advanced Defense magic before falling asleep. Some of the spells were ones Draco had never dared attempt and he wondered how Harry was doing with it. It had been well known that Harry learned to cast a Patronus at only thirteen years old, something most grown wizards struggled with. Draco had not known anyone - aside from his mother - who had successfully cast one.
Once he got Harry to the bed, he tried to lower the other wizard down gently but the arms around his neck were as ironclad as ever. Unsure what he could do, he lay down beside Harry, stiffening as the arms were removed from their vice grip. Just as he moved to roll away, an arm snaked out around his middle, and Harry mumbled something he couldn't understand as he pressed his face into Draco's arm.
Deciding the best course of action was to wait until Harry's grip loosened again, Draco stared up at the ceiling and started reciting all the spells he knew. He was somewhere around Expelliarmus when his eyes got unbearably heavy and he decided to rest them just for a minute.
Draco jolted awake sometime later to find Harry had rolled away and was facing the wall. He slid out of the bed, careful to minimize the bounce as he removed his weight from the bed and placed his feet on the floor. Moving across the room was a challenge as he navigated piles of clothes, books, and other objects strewn haphazardously around but he made it without waking the wizard sleeping on the bed.
"Thanks, Draco," he heard the voice behind him and he spun around, finding Harry sitting up in the bed, legs pulled under himself as he looked directly at Draco. "I...I've had nightmares. I normally take something but I guess it didn't work tonight. Sorry for waking you up."
"You didn't wake me up," Draco said. "Didn't the Potioneer warn you not to use Dreamless Sleep too many nights in a row? It starts to lose efficacy as you build up tolerance. If you want, I can help you soundproof your room in the morning."
"Oh," Harry said, and Draco couldn't help but find the sleepy and confused expression to be endearing. "That would be great. I don't think I know that one."
"It's not a common spell," Draco explained, feeling the need to reassure Harry that the gap in his knowledge wasn't his own fault. "I learned it this summer to help...I just had to learn it this summer."
"I'll let you go back to bed now," Harry said. "See you in the morning, Draco." With that, he lay back in bed and Draco wondered if the boy had even been awake at all or if he'd been sitting up asleep.
He walked out of the room and into the hall, making it to his own room without seeing anyone and finding himself with too much pent-up energy to go back to sleep. A quick Tempus told him it was only quarter to five, but he pulled out a book on rare plants and started reading, noting each one down along with potions they could be used in and suggestions for other uses.
The time passed much quicker than he anticipated and when he next brought himself out of his studies, he heard people walking in the hall outside. Putting the book down with a quick spell to mark his page, he pulled on his clothes for the day and headed out to get his breakfast.
In the Dining hall, he found himself ravenous for the first time in months and he piled his plate with sausage and toast and eggs, pouring a steaming cup of hot chocolate as well. The rest of the students were sitting around, talking merrily about who they hoped would show up first, but Draco didn't feel like being excluded so he took his plate and cup to go.
He had yet to explore the outside, but he remembered seeing a small terrace around back with some tables and chairs. Sure enough, he walked out, and just to his left was a snow-covered group of tables. Setting his hot chocolate down on the ground, he cast a quick spell to melt and dry the snow on a single table and chair and the ground around it before moving over to set his plate down. He also cast a bubble of warmth to keep out the worst of the cold as he started eating.
The greenhouse was about a hundred yards away, but in between was a wonderland of snow. A few tall trees towered here and there and would be great shade in the summer, but their branches were draped with snow that would inevitably fall on anyone who walked under them and disturbed them. It was not even close to the natural and dangerous beauty of Hogwarts Castle and grounds, but it seemed fitting after the chaos that marked the end of their last year there.
Unlike many of his classmates who would be returning, Draco had mostly completed his seventh year. Although with the sadistic instructors the Dark Lord had put in place, the curriculum had been far from standard. He cringed remembering the Dark Arts classes - no Defence Against. He had been made to use dark spells and curses on animals and fellow students alike. As the only Death Eater in the class, he had been singled out to demonstrate more than his fair share.
Those classes also made up a good chunk of nightmares, although he was relieved to know the Carrows were dead and could no longer torture anyone. They were even worse than Dolores Umbridge. He shuddered thinking of her and remembering how desperate for power he had been back then to fall into line with her. Hardly eighteen and he already had so many regrets it made getting up in the morning and looking at himself in the mirror impossible.
With a firm grip, he forced his thoughts away from the past. He had already spent many months spiraling into a pit of despair at what a disgusting person he had been. But this was his second chance and he would not waste it. The alternative was to give up and off himself, and while that had seemed tempting, there were too many things still to live for. As he glanced back at the door to the manor, he saw one of them walking towards him.
"Hey Draco," Harry said, giving a not-so-subtle glance at the still-half-full plate in front of Draco. "Terry said you'd come out here after getting breakfast. Why didn't you want to eat with everyone?"
"Unlike you, most people don't want to associate with me. Though I can't blame them, I try not to subject myself to outright disdain any more than I must." He took a pointed bite of a piece of toast before thawing and drying another chair and levitating it over to sit across the table from him. Harry set his plate down and dropped into the chair.
"That's ridiculous," Harry said. "We're all here for a second chance. Surely your apology was enough -"
"Harry." Draco cut off the other wizard's sentence before he could finish. "Not everyone is willing to forgive me over words. In case you've forgotten, while I may not have wielded the wand, my family housed the most evil wizard of our generation along with his followers who killed hundreds - if not thousands - of wizards and muggles. I will spend the rest of my life making up for that, and even then I don't expect most of my peers to ever welcome me back into society."
He had never spoken the words to anyone outside his family before and he found them easier to speak to Harry than he'd thought. There was something about the boy that put him at ease and encouraged him to be vulnerable. Perhaps it had always been that way and it had just taken the destruction of his entire life for Draco to realize it.
"Let me tell them what you did for me," Harry said. "If they know that, surely they'll understand why I - why you should -"
"One good deed doesn't erase everything else I did," Draco said. "You weren't there the last year, but I'm sure your friends filled you in on what they did - what I did. Even though I knew it was wrong, I didn't stop them. I appreciate you wanting to stand up for me, but I know that I am beyond redemption."
"Why bother trying then?" Draco looked up at Harry, blinking. "If you truly believe you can't be forgiven - can't be redeemed - why are you bothering? I'm sure you could have stayed home. You didn't have to come back this year. Why did you bother?"
Draco could have retorted back an answer about trying his best or making amends but those weren't the truth. The truth was something dark and twisted. And while he didn't want Harry to look at him with pity or disgust, he also didn't deserve the trust that was being placed in him by someone who had been so firmly good.
"Because if I didn't come back, I would have killed myself," he said. It was a simple truth. Being locked in Malfoy Manor with his mother had driven him to a despair so deep, he hadn't thought he'd be able to get out of it. "When the letter came, I decided to take the chance and come back. Anything was better than staying in that prison and remembering."
He expected Harry to be horrified and recoil so he kept his gaze on the greenhouse in the distance. For several long moments, nothing was said between them and Draco could bring himself to look at the other wizard. With luck, Harry would just get up and leave Draco to his miserable existence and Draco could forget these few days of light in the bleakness.
"I'm glad you're not giving up," Harry said at last, a hand reaching out and settling over Draco's where it rested on the table. "And for what it's worth, I don't think you're beyond redemption."
They sat in silence for another few moments before Harry got up, promising to find him later. Only then did Draco let the mask slip and a tear fall from his eye. He could count on one hand the number of times he had cried, and most of those had been because of pain. This was a different kind of pain - the kind of pain that accompanied healing, and he was wholly unprepared for the raw emotions it exposed in him as he sobbed silently alone on the patio.