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Harry had dealt with many difficult things growing up. He had been locked in a cupboard for the majority of his life, he had been ruthlessly ridiculed by his relatives, and he couldn’t even remember his parents. All he had was their image in the Mirror of Erised and some photos to look at and try to pull any recollection of his brief time with them from. He had fought a basilisk and a dragon, but none of it prepared him for the immense guilt he felt after Cedric’s death.
It seemed like the only people truly grieving his loss after the Triwizard Tournament were Harry, Cho Chang, and some members of Hufflepuff house. While there were plenty of whispers about what had happened, everyone seemed content to quickly push past the incident as if it were just a minor unpleasantry instead of a murder committed by a psychopathic serial killer, and summer holidays gave them all a convenient excuse to forget.
Even Ron and Hermione didn’t seem to feel the weight of Cedric’s passing like Harry.
“It truly is terrible.” Hermione said when Harry tried to talk about his feelings on the matter at dinner one night.
“Yeah, mate, but it wasn’t your fault.” Ron clapped a hand on Harry’s shoulder and gave him a hardy shake.
But it was, and that’s what no one seemed to understand.
It was Peter Pettigrew who sacrificed his hand to summon Voldemort. Harry had had him right in front of him, sniveling and cowering like the rat he truly was. He had let himself be swayed by sweet words about what his parents would want for him. If he had simply let his godfather take his revenge, perhaps Cedric would be alive.
As much as Harry despised living with the Dursleys, he had looked forward to a break from Hogwarts. Everywhere he went, he was reminded of Cedric: the halls, the courtyard, even the Great Hall. To be away from the school was a relief. At least then the only place Cedric could haunt him was in his dreams.
That all changed when Harry returned for fifth year.
Flashes of green were ever present in his nightmares. Robes of black, masks of silver, and maniacle laughter usually appeared as well, and Harry would wake up and find himself drenched in sweat, his hands fisted in his sheets. He had to start casting muffling charms around his bed before sleeping so he didn’t wake the other boys with his screams.
It became easier to not sleep at all.
He found himself routinely sneaking out of the dorms only a few days into the new year. The invisibility cloak became his best friend as not only prefects roamed the halls but Umbridge’s inquisitorial squad as well. He tried to avoid any places that could evoke memories of Cedric, so he began to spend his nights in the Astronomy tower. The view of the night sky calmed him when nothing else seemed to, and he would spend hours lost in thought while creating his own constellations from the stars he could see.
He was always careful to return to his bed before the sun rose, pretending to wake up with everyone else. No one had seemed suspicious of his actions so far, but Hermione had always been too perceptive for her own good.
“Harry,” she stopped him in the hall after classes, letting everyone else filter past them before biting her lip and staring up at him with concerned eyes, “have you been sleeping alright?”
Harry had looked at himself in the mirror that morning as he was brushing his teeth and had seen how dark the circles beneath his eyes had become, how sallow his skin appeared, and knew there was no point in lying to one of his best friends.
“No.” He sighed. “Not since Cedric.”
Pity filled her eyes quickly, and Harry cursed himself lightly. It wasn’t enough for him to be miserable. He had to drag others down with him.
He forced a smile. “Don’t worry, ‘Mione. I’ll see Madame Pomfrey about getting a Sleeping Draught.”
She nodded but didn’t look thoroughly convinced. “Should I go with you?”
“I’ll be fine. You have to study, anyway.”
Harry didn’t know this for sure, but it was always a sure guess with Hermione. She looked torn for a moment before nodding again.
“You promise you’ll head straight there?”
“I promise.” He smiled again and hoped the lie wasn’t as obvious as he felt it was. It wasn’t like there was a potion to rid him of these feelings. Or maybe there was, but Harry knew that his guilt was the price he had to pay for failing Cedric.
He felt eyes on him constantly. Students spread rumors that Harry had killed Cedric and was lying about Voldemort’s return, and Umbridge seemed to scrutinize him at every turn for an opportunity to belittle him. She had given him detention the first week of classes and forced him to write lines. Her magical quill ended up carving her words into his skin, but he was too exhausted to do much in retaliation.
He was tired of everything.
He didn’t feel like studying or focusing in class. He didn’t feel like eating and laughing like everything was alright in the Great Hall. He didn’t even feel like responding to Malfoy’s taunts.
At first, Malfoy had thought that Harry’s silence was an attempt to rile him up further. He had increased his insults accordingly, but after a week or so of Harry ignoring him, he resorted to other tactics. He tripped Harry in class or shoved him in the hall. Harry just picked himself off the ground, dusted himself off, and continued on. Malfoy stole his books off of his desk or grabbed his bag off his shoulder and hid whatever he had taken all over the castle. Harry didn’t even bother trying to find his things, and luckily for him, the house elves saw fit to place his missing items on his bed at the end of the day.
It was a few weeks into the year when Harry was finally caught sneaking around.
He had gone up to the Astronomy tower after a particularly hard day. He had gone to put his broom back into the storage shed after Quidditch practice when he found Cedric’s old broom. A wave of fresh guilt hit him as he thought of how the young boy would never fly again, of just how much he would never get to experience.
He had managed to keep a lid on his feelings until the evening, but he felt the need for release bubbling just under his skin. He felt overwhelmed, rubbed raw. Every noise was too loud, and a steady pounding was building just behind his eyes. In order to calm himself, he dug his nails into his palms so hard that there were red crescent indents left behind when he finally managed to unclench his fists.
He almost sobbed in relief when his friends announced that they were going to bed.
As soon as he was certain everyone was asleep, he threw on his invisibility cloak and all but ran up to the tower. He threw off the fabric and took huge gulps of air as if he had been suffocating, the hands that were holding the cloak trembling. The silence around him was like a balm on a burn, and he finally allowed himself to feel.
He staggered over to the wall and slid down it, wrapping his arms around his knees and tugging them in close. He laid his head down and felt his throat tighten as tears flooded his eyes but didn’t spill over. Slowly, he began to rock himself back and forth, a habit he had picked up as a young child to soothe himself. That was when he heard him.
“Potter!” A voice broke the blissful silence, full of triumph. “I knew you were up to something! Sneaking around after curfew, are we?”
He didn’t want to look up, so he just tightened his arms around himself.
“You know, I thought it was suspicious that you were suddenly ignoring me. Now I know you were plotting something up here.” Harry heard footsteps growing closer then stop a few feet away. “What is it that you were planning up here? There’s not much to see except some old telescopes.”
Harry didn’t raise his head, but he heard how wobbly his voice was as he said, “Go away, Malfoy. Please.”
There was a brief pause before Malfoy spoke again, his words coming slower this time, less sure. “I’m afraid I can’t do that, Potter, seeing as you’ve broken the rules, and I’m a member of the inquisitorial squad. I’m sure Umbridge will be delighted to see you.”
Harry huffed a laugh as he finally looked up, his words cold. “God, would you just give it a rest?”
Malfoy took a step back, his eyes scanning over Harry’s face. Harry simply glared at him. Malfoy’s eyebrows furrowed, his tone losing its haughtiness as he asked, “Merlin, are you crying?”
“Shove off, Malfoy.” He scrubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand roughly. “I mean it.”
Malfoy looked around the room. “Where’s Granger? Or the Weasel?”
“Sleeping.”
Malfoy frowned. “So, you’re alone?”
Harry’s sigh was bone-weary. “I was.”
If Malfoy noticed the hint for what it was, he ignored it. He took a few cautious steps forward as if Harry was a frightened animal that might attack him if cornered too quickly and sank into a squat. He tilted his head down and to the side, catching Harry’s eyes from where he had been staring off to the side.
“You’re an ugly crier, you know. I thought as much at the Tournament but seeing it up close is so much worse.”
Harry growled and leapt forward, knocking Malfoy off-balance. He steadied him slightly by grabbing the front of his shirt, twisting it tightly in his fist.
“Don’t you dare talk about the Tournament!” Harry hissed in Malfoy’s face, a small part of him satisfied when his enemy looked slightly scared. It felt good to be angry. He had felt nothing but sadness for so long, that the warmth of fury was welcome.
Malfoy said nothing for a while, and the only sound in the room was Harry’s heavy breathing. Eventually, his rival wrapped his hang around Harry’s wrist and tugged at it lightly. He looked into Harry’s eyes with an expression that was hard to read.
“I think you need to talk about it.”
And just like a balloon, Harry deflated.
“With you?”
“With anyone.” Malfoy countered swiftly. “But I’m here now.”
Harry sagged back against the wall and regarded Malfoy coolly. “Don’t you have to turn me into Umbridge?”
“Pah!” Malfoy waved a hand through the air as if the notion was ridiculous, though he himself had mentioned doing so a few minutes earlier. “It’s not like it’ll kill her to wait a few more minutes. Unless it does. The old coot is so high strung she just might keel over from a heart attack soon.”
Despite himself, Harry chuckled. The sound drew Malfoy’s eyes, and the boy moved until he was sitting next to Harry beside the wall. They sat like that for several minutes as Harry gathered his thoughts and tried to will away the urge to cry again.
“It’s Cedric.” He started but paused when his throat tightened. Malfoy stayed silent and stared forward, and Harry felt as if the other boy was avoiding looking at him to give him some privacy. “It’s my fault he’s dead.”
Malfoy scoffed. “As if, Potter. It was the Dark Lord who killed him, so stop acting as if everything revolves around you.”
“You,” Harry turned to look at Malfoy, “you believe me? That Voldemort’s back?”
Malfoy flinched at the name but nodded. “Of course I do. There’s no way you had the balls to kill your competition or the brains to come up with a lie like that on the spot.”
Harry hummed, ignoring the insult. “Well, even if I didn’t cast the killing curse on Cedric, I still played a hand in his death. The Death Eater who raised Voldemort, Peter Pettigrew, is only alive because I spared his life. I had the opportunity to kill him, but I didn’t.”
Malfoy huffed, turned towards Harry, and grabbed his shoulder. “Listen closely, Potter. Even if you had killed Peter Pettigrew, there were so many other Death Eaters who could’ve and would’ve taken his place. You did a good thing, sparing his life. It was his choice to go back to the Dark Lord after that. You are not responsible for the actions of others.”
Harry let those words wash over him, his first instinct to reject them outright. He himself had tried to logic his way out of his guilt, but it never seemed to stick. There was always a little voice in the back of his mind that still whispered that he caused Cedric’s death. However, there was something different about hearing these words from someone who was meant to be his enemy. Something that made them a bit more believable.
“What happened isn’t your fault, and though I didn’t know Diggory well, I know that he wouldn’t want you sitting around wasting your life away because of some misplaced guilt. Instead, do something that does right by his memory, even if it’s something small. That’s the way to honor him, not this.” Malfoy waved at him with his free hand. “Not punishing yourself.”
It was exactly what he needed to hear. Unfortunately for Malfoy, and Harry’s pride, that meant that the tears Harry had been suppressing finally spilled out with a vengeance. His body shook with the force of his sobs, his breathing becoming harsh and choppy. He let gravity pull his body downward, his forehead coming to rest against Malfoy’s bony chest.
He felt Malfoy stiffen, but a moment later, his hand was rubbing up and down Harry’s back. He murmured soothing nonsense until Harry could breathe again and the front of Malfoy’s shirt was translucent from Harry’s tears. Even as he calmed down, Harry didn’t pull himself out of Malfoy’s half-embrace. It had been so long since he had felt comforted like this, and as Harry thought about it, it might’ve been the only time he had been comforted at all.
Harry hated burdening others with his problems. Perhaps it was because of his upbringing and how independent he needed to be to survive, but he often hesitated when it came to sharing his worries with Ron and Hermione. They were both great, but they were fixers. They tried to offer solutions to his problems instead of listening, and sometimes all Harry needed was a hug.
So, he let himself be a little selfish for once. Harry let himself linger in the other boy’s arms, breathing in Malfoy’s expensive cologne and breathing out his anxiety. Malfoy said nothing, just continued to rub circles along his back.
Without moving, Harry asked about something that had been bothering him. “How did you know I’d be up here?”
“Oh, please, Potter. You’ve looked unwell for weeks. Anyone with eyes could tell you weren’t sleeping properly, so I made it my mission to figure out why. I waited outside the entrance to Gryffindor, and when the portrait opened and closed by itself, I knew that it was you.”
Harry’s head jerked up, and he distantly noticed that his face was very close to Malfoy’s. “How?”
Malfoy’s hand never stopped its soothing pattern on Harry’s back. “Two years ago, when you so viciously attacked me and my friends in the snow, I knew you had some kind of invisibility cloak. They’re rare, but since you’re the great Harry Potter, I thought it would be just your luck to have one.”
“Oh.” Harry laid his head back down onto Malfoy’s chest.
They sat in silence for several more minutes, Malfoy’s motions causing Harry’s eyelids to grow heavy against his will. A jolt of anxiety raced through him as he realized he was close to sleep, close to nightmares filled with green light and laughter. Malfoy hushed him softly, and Harry let the tension that had caused him to stiffen to seep back out of him.
“You should go to sleep.” Malfoy said, his voice barely a whisper. “We can’t all just wake up and look like me.”
Harry hummed, his eyes already closed.
“Come on.” Malfoy tugged him up, and Harry followed easily. He bent to pick up Harry’s cloak from off the floor and pulled it over his swaying figure. “Can you make it back to your dorm alright?”
Harry nodded.
“Good. Go on, then.”
Harry shuffled out of the tower and down the stairs, exhaustion making him docile. He made his way to his dorms without running into anyone else and slipped into his bed unnoticed. Sleep claimed him almost immediately, and for the first time in months, he had no nightmares.
The next day, Malfoy acted as if nothing had happened, and Harry was grateful for it. They returned to their bickering, and Harry could tell that Ron and Hermione were pleased that he seemed to be returning to his normal self. He knew that he would never fully go back to being who he was before Cedric’s death, but he decided to take Malfoy’s words to heart.
With the help of his best friends, he decided to create a secret organization to practice spells in defiance of Umbridge’s refusal to teach the students of Hogwarts anything useful. He thought of Cedric as he gave a speech to his fellow classmates and knew that if the Hufflepuff were alive, he’d be a proud member of Dumbedore’s Army. It gave him the strength to keep pushing forward, to ensure that Cedric’s death would not be in vain.
Harry felt it then, just a small inkling of a feeling he was sure he’d lost: hope.