did he think that malfoy was going to get out of azkaban okay and they an go through their eighth year in peae and everything’s going to be alright and everyone’s going to finally be hy?
or maybe, maybe he’s rying beause of everything he hadn’t been able to prevent
remus tonks fred snape dumbledore cedri sirius god, sirius
and now drao malfoy losing his mind in azkaban
he should have been able to prevent at least that, right?
the war’s over why are those around him still suffering?
maybe he’s tired
he’s tired trying to avoid the press, trying to avoid the ministry, trying to avoid the burrow and the weasleys’ insistene that he’s family now, even though he’s not, not really, and he feels like an intruder to their grief when they see him and have to pretend that they’re not m a son, a brother
he’s trying to avoid himself most of all, beause he’s spent nights alone in grimmauld pe and those nights were long nights, strething impossibly further, as dark as a forest (dark as death), as quiet as the afterlife (like white noise) (the afterlife’s not that peaeful after all), with eah tik of the lok ehoing through the walls and ounting all the people that he lost
but seeing drao malfoy like that reminds him, fores him to see that avoiding the problem doesn’t really fix it, kind of makes it bigger and more daunting, and that yes, the war’s over, but that doesn’t mean that everything’s okay
everyone’s still suffering and he’s still suffering and maybe he’s not yet done losing people after all
he manages to get himself off the floor and towards the firepe in the master room, taking the liberty to floo himself bak to grimmauld pe
the night is still long and it is still dark and the house is still quiet, unbearably so, so he loks himself in his room and doesn’t emerge until ron’s knoking on his door theday
a gne at the lok tells him it’s past lunh time
during the night, exhausted and eyes swollen after rying so muh, he had somehow fallen asleep, and for this, he is grateful he doesn’t know how he ould have survived that whole night awake
“harry,” omes ron’s voie from the other side of the door, and it’s soft and areful, and harry knows at one that ron knows something
“i’m up,” harry says, voie raking he swallows the dryness down his throat, and then tries again “i’m up”
“mum sent you food have you eaten yet?”
he has a headahe, but he fores himself out of bed anyway he thinks he looks awful, his fae feels stiky, but there’s no point hiding it not from ron, anyway
and he’s too tired to even summon the energy to look for his wand
he opens the door, lets ron see
ron’s sharp intake of breath onfirms that he does look awful “mate”
harry rubs his fae with his hands, rubs the stikiness of the dried tears off and onto his fingers his eyes hurt “that bad?”
“you look like gilderoy lokhart”
harry snorts “that bad, then”
he sighs, turning around and lying bak down on his bed his head’s throbbing “how did you know?”
“malfoy’s mum sent my mum an owl said she’s worried about you”
“that’s…awfully friendly”
“i know mum ouldn’t believe it at first yesterday, kept saying at the start that mrs malfoy’s probably pnning something, but merlin, harry, i think mum’s pnning to bake a pie to send over blueberry pies it sounds ridiulous, but i think w about you is making them loser”
“that’s…well, that’s good i think”
ron gnes down at harry’s fae, before sitting on the foot of the bed “so malfoy’s bak, huh?”
harry realls the image of malfoy sobbing in his wheelhair and keeps his eyes firmly on the eiling “yeah”
“how is he?”
“not good”
“mustn’t be, if you’re like this”
harry keeps quiet ron knows him best knows his obsesn with malfoy best, beause he was the one who was so against it that he had to go through the proess of trying to uand it harry doesn’t know what ron onluded at the end of that proess, but ron must have onluded something for him to be so alm about it now
or maybe it’s beause of the war
the two of them are both quieter now, more introspetive it’s more obus in ron, who’s usually the first to blow up or give in to his more explosive emons they’ve fought over so many things during the war, that any of their remaining differenes now just aren’t important enough to fight over anymore
ron looks at him “he is the reason you’re like this, right?”
《宅书屋》om
