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“How long has it been since you’ve eaten?” Draco whispered into the quiet air of an abandoned classroom, watching as his much too small boyfriend shook.
“It doesn’t matter.” Harry insisted, looking down as his stomach filled with shame, a companion to the already existing anxiety. “I’m okay.”
“How long?”
“Only twenty-four hours, at 8:00.”
“So, you’ve missed breakfast and lunch, not to mention snacks?”
“Yeah, see. That’s not so bad.” Harry laughed in an attempt to really make it sound genuine. Anything to comfort Draco, to remove his fears, his knowledge.
“Bad isn’t the word I would use, because that would suggest you’ve done something wrong, and you haven’t.”
“So….So, you think it’s a good thing I haven’t eaten?” That hurt. That hurt more than anything Harry had ever experienced, and he had experienced a lot. Did Draco…think he needed to lose weight?
“No, I don’t think it’s good.” Being a Malfoy he had much experience with hiding his emotions, pretending to be calm, but that didn’t mean Draco wanted to be. Still, it was important now, for Harry. He wouldn’t want to scare or embarrass the younger boy more than what was impossible to avoid. “You need to eat. But, it’s not bad either.”
“Then what is it?”
“A relapse. You have an addiction, and now you’ve relapsed, that’s all. It is completely morally gray, not good or bad.”
Harry didn’t respond, so Draco took it upon himself to continue the conversation. “Dinner is in just twenty minutes, you can eat that, then talk to Madame Pomfrey afterwards.”
“I don’t want to eat dinner.”
“If you don’t, it’ll be over twenty-four hours between your meals.”
“Thirty-five-and-a-half, assuming I eat breakfast, at my usual time, tomorrow.” Harry couldn’t help his smile, though he knew it wouldn’t lead to a good outcome.
“Exactly, that’s too long. You know you’re supposed to eat every three hours.”
“That’s too much! I’m tired of eating three meals and two snacks every day. No one else does!”
“No one else has anorexia.”
“That you know of. We don’t exactly spend our time telling you all about it. We’re a very closed in community, for our safety.”
“Not telling people doesn’t keep you safe, it does the opposite, in fact. I’m not going to force you to eat or talk to Madame Pomfrey or schedule a sooner session with your eating disorder counselor, but I am going to strongly suggest it.”
“Eating disorder counselor? Do you not even know their name?” Harry grasped onto the first thing he could think of to change the topic.
“When I used to call them Doctor Adders, you said it was too personal. Now ‘counselor’ is too impersonal? Harry, can you please tell me what is really going on?”
“Why are you all trying to ruin my life!” Harry felt like crying, but wouldn’t, the Dursley’s fixed that long ago. “Why?!”
“Haz, babe, I know this is scary for you, but I promise we are not trying to ruin your life. We want you to be healthy and to do that you have to eat.” He desperately wanted to approach his boyfriend, offer a hug and soft words, but knew it would only frighten him more.
“I have to be small to be a seeker. They won’t let me be a seeker again until I’m small. I need to be a seeker.”
“No, Harry, they won’t let you be a seeker again until you’re bigger. Until you've gained weight and a better mentality around food.
“Seekers have to be small.”
“There’s a difference between being short and thin, and having malnutrition.”
“It’s only malnutrition if the weight loss was unintentional.”
“And yours was, is.”
“I’ve meant to lose every pound I have, meant to lose more, actually.”
“That’s just because you have an eating disorder.”
“So?”
“Your brain is biased. You are unable to make the choice of whether or not you want to lose weight because you have a disorder telling you that you need to, have to.”
“I just want my life back.” Harry slumped to the floor unable to handle anything anymore. “If I eat I’ll lose all my progress.”
“No, if you eat, you’ll make progress towards full recovery.”
“Who says full recovery is even possible? I’m always going to have to be careful about my food and exercise and the media I consume or else I risk relapse. And if I have kids they’ll have a higher chance of getting an eating disorder.
“How will you know if you don’t try?” Draco really hoped he wasn’t fucking everything up. “You know, everyone knows, eating disorders are rarely lifetime diseases. Either you recover, or it kills it.”
“It’s hard….I can’t even trust my own brain anymore.”
“The brain is a muscle.” Draco reminded, finally feeling okay enough to sit down next to Harry. “Right now, it’s still used to thinking you have to restrict, that you’re not worthy of food. But, if you keep working at it, you’ll eventually be able to change the way it works and decrease the thoughts.”
“It all made so much sense when I started….How did I end up like this?”
“I don’t know, love, but it’ll be okay.”
“How do you know?” Harry made, what he considered to be, a risky move and laid his head between Draco’s head and shoulder.
Draco couldn’t stop a small smile from forming, grazing his hand against the ravenette’s. “Magic.”