Work Text:
The day was supposed to be mundane.
Harry wasn’t quite sure where everything went wrong—maybe it was the way his socks felt rumpled the whole day, or the way his robes seemed to scratch against the scarring cut on his hand—but even if he was comfortably stimulated, he didn’t think he could have prevented a breakdown that day.
The last straw was in Potions.
Unsurprisingly.
Snape was prowling the aisles as usual, scolding the students for breathing too loudly or glancing at him out of the corner of their eye. Harry’s hands were trembling; he didn’t have an appetite at all that day (he never did these days) and it was almost dinner time. Hermione had forced some water into his system, but even that made him feel nauseous to think about.
He felt lightheaded, even before he entered the classroom filled with steaming cauldrons, sweaty teenagers, bug guts, and various disgusting aromas wafting from the different potion ingredients.
Harry was even more nervous than he usually was with Snape in the room. What if he fell forward into his bubbling cauldron and killed himself before Voldemort got to him all because his greasy Potions teacher was breathing down his neck?
Harry’s hands shook as he attempted to slice the maggot eyes into even pieces. Ron spared him a worried glance before hurriedly ducking over his baneberries after the professor barked, “get back to work, Weasley! Or is Mr. Potter too famous to keep your eyes off of?”
The Slytherins snickered.
Harry could hear Hermione’s breath hitch to the right of him at her table with Neville. He knew her eyes were trying to catch his; don’t do it , they would warn.
Harry didn’t think he could even open his mouth if he tried, much less make anything leave it unless it was vomit.
He was vaguely aware of his breathing picking up, but continued to stare pointedly at his maggot eyes as if they would spring up and sprint away if he didn’t glare at them hard enough. He was aware Snape was craving a reaction—all of Slytherin house was, in fact—but he just couldn’t bring himself to appease them.
See, normally Harry was all about people-pleasing, even if the people in question were mean towards him. It was all he had been raised to do. Aunt Petunia was hot? Get last week’s newspapers and fan her for the next hour, regardless of how your arms feel like they’re going to fall off. Uncle Vernon is under the weather? Chicken soup to be delivered immediately, and he should be waited on hand and foot afterwards. Darling little Diddykins wanted chocolate ice cream? Harry was to walk the thirteen blocks to the store with exact change clutched in his hand. He wouldn’t get any of the ice cream when he got home. It all went to Dudley.
Even if he was able to speak, Harry didn’t think he would. Well, he liked to think he wouldn’t, but knowing his big fat mouth, it would open anyways and let out abhorrent things, causing him to receive three month’s worth of detention.
Harry could feel everyone’s eyes on him.
Malfoy whispered to Blaise beside him and the two of them started chortling uncontrollably.
Harry stared at his maggot eyes.
They weren’t even properly diced.
Once the class was dismissed, Harry booked it out of there before anyone could grab his arm or Snape could have him hang around only to lecture him for not making eye contact.
He couldn’t help it. Eye contact made his skin crawl and the back of his neck tingle. Even though Aunt Petunia had forced him to make eye contact with her when he was younger, he still wasn’t in the habit. Harry assumed it was due to Hogwarts’ leniency. None of the teachers cared about that kind of stuff. Well, except for Snape. If you didn’t make eye contact with him he would fail you for the rest of the term. Harry found out the hard way, in his first year. He was honestly still surprised he had made it this far without getting expelled.
Harry could hear Hermione calling his name and Ron telling her to “just leave him be Hermione, he gets this way sometimes. Especially after… well, last summer; he’ll come find us when he needs us.”
Harry honestly couldn’t have asked for better friends, but they didn’t deserve someone like him. They deserved someone better. Someone who wasn’t destined to die at the hands of a murderous evil wizard but someone who could laugh at their jokes properly instead of nodding absentmindedly. Ron deserved someone who wouldn’t wake him up in the middle of the night with his kicking and screaming and Cedric, please NO don’t kill him, don’t kill the spare . Hermione deserved someone who she could turn to, someone who could properly offer her a shoulder to cry on.
But Harry was none of those things.
Instead, he rocked back and forth and stared at a fixed spot in class. He picked at the skin around his stubby nails and tugged at the skin on his lip until he bled. His glasses were always lopsided and his tie was always crooked and he couldn’t seem to smile quite right these days. There was always something off about him. He wasn’t the perfect person that Hermione and Ron deserved.
He was just Harry .
His shoelaces were undone and his robes were flying clumsily behind him but Harry didn’t stop. He continued his sprint until he was at the elm tree near the Black Lake, watching the giant squid occasionally resurface for air before diving back down to the depths once more.
God , he was so tired.
He missed Sirius. It was then that he wondered where Sirius was; would he be on a beach in China or in California as Padfoot, begging for scraps from vendors?
Sirius wouldn’t want him anyway. Harry didn’t think anyone wanted him these days; he was surprised Ron and Hermione still made an effort.
It was pathetic, really. Harry was pathetic and his friends were pathetic. They should’ve abandoned him the moment Harry arrived from the graveyard clutching Cedric’s dead body to his chest. Everyone should’ve abandoned him. He should have been exiled from the wizarding world. Maybe then he wouldn’t kill any more people. Maybe then everyone could be safe from him .
Cedric, please NO don’t kill him, don’t kill the spare, NO CEDRIC PLEASE—
Harry’s hands trembled. His socks were still rumpled. He could feel his dirty robe hanging off his shoulder (he didn’t have the energy to do his laundry these days) and his glasses sliding off the bridge of his nose. His scar pounded.
I’m sorry I killed you Cedric.
Cedric couldn’t hear him now. Nobody could. Nobody would listen to him these days. The Ministry of Magic said he was crazy and everyone at school said he was crazy and even Ron and Hermione thought he was crazy. He could tell by the way their eyebrows furrowed slightly when he slumped in a chair in the common room, rubbing his scar to the point it turned red and irritated. They thought he was crazy and he knew it.
Harry scratched at his arms. Aunt Petunia always said he was dirty; surely she was right. The graveyard last summer proved it. He was dirty enough to give Voldemort his blood so he could return. He was dirty enough to get Cedric killed.
( You didn’t have a choice. You couldn’t escape. You couldn’t have saved Cedric no matter how much you wanted to. You couldn’t take your arm back when Wormtail grabbed it and plunged a knife into your skin. You couldn’t have done anything. )
Harry could’ve done something.
Maybe if he had acted faster he could’ve pushed Cedric out of the way instead of feebly reaching out a shaky arm towards his falling body. Maybe Harry could’ve been the one to take the curse instead and Cedric—the hotter, cooler, wiser upperclassman—could have defeated Voldemort before he even rose. Cedric would be a better savior than Harry ever was. Cedric always knew what to say. Harry never did.
Harry’s legs collapsed underneath him and he fell to the ground, but his eyes remained glazed over. He was still staring at the squid circling the lake but he couldn’t see it. All he could see was a flash of green and Cedric’s shocked expression and Voldemort, ugly ugly Voldemort rising from the cauldron that held Harry’s blood, the blood Harry’s mother and father had died to protect and Voldemort just used it so easily to raise himself to life once more.
His mother and father would be disappointed in him. “ Really? ” they would say, “this is our son? Surely you’ve got the wrong person. ” He couldn’t be the son of Lily and James Potter. He was too bad .
Harry could vaguely hear footsteps plodding along softly in the grass behind him but the screams of his mother in his ear were louder.
I’m sorry Mum. Do I even deserve to call you that? Do I even deserve to know your name?
Harry thought he knew the answer. Why would his mother die for someone like him ? Harry didn’t have the answer to this particular question. He didn’t know a lot of things, but there was one thing he was certain of:
He should’ve been the one to die in the graveyard that night.
Cedric had infinitely more friends than Harry. Ron and Hermione probably wouldn’t have missed him long, if they would even miss him at all. They would probably celebrate. The Weasleys would throw a party and the whole school would be invited. maybe the whole wizarding world would attend. Everyone would jump for joy; Harry Potter’s finally gone! they would shout. That freak who tainted our lives is finally dead!
Voldemort would show up to the party, Harry thought. He would show up and everyone might be scared but then he would smile maliciously and rejoice with the rest of them. He would be so happy that his worst enemy, a fifteen year old boy, was killed.
Harry thought a bit more. With all that he’d done to thwart the snake’s plans, Voldemort wouldn’t let him die so easily. He would probably suffer under the Cruciatus Curse for ten minutes minimum, probably more.
His mother’s screams still echoed in his ear, but Cedric’s joined the cacophony.
Cedric didn’t even scream.
He didn’t scream.
Why could he hear him scream?
The only sound Cedric produced when he died was the hard thump that seemed to echo in Harry’s ears as the Hufflepuff’s body hit the ground.
Harry’s hands reached up, tugging harshly at his hair. He only got a few yanks in before there were hands on his, there were hands hands hands hands it was Voldemort’s hands on his and he was stroking his face and Harry couldn’t do anything because he was trapped trapped trapped and he could feel the deep cut on his arm steadily drip blood on the ground below him and Harry couldn’t breathe he couldn’t breathe he couldn’t breathe he couldn’t breathe—
“Potter!”
Harry gasped and flinched back when he opened his eyes (when had he closed them?) and the face of Draco Malfoy was in front of his.
His gray eyes seemed to be filled with worry, but Harry had to have been imagining things. He would kiss Voldemort before Draco Malfoy would even consider the thought of worrying about him.
Malfoy was crouched in front of Harry’s trembling body. He was still holding Harry’s wrists and though he knew it was irrational and stupid, Harry couldn’t help but fear that he would whip out a knife and reopen the scar Wormtail had left. A knife was too muggle for Malfoy. He would probably take out his wand instead and use some fancy cutting curse he would have learned from his Death Eater father (he was there in the graveyard that night. Lucius Mlfoy watched Harry get tortured and now his son was in front of his worst enemy, helping him calm down from a panic attack).
“If I let go of you, will you refrain from pulling at your hair again?” Malfoy inquired gently.
Gently ? When had Harry ever used that word to describe Malfoy ? That was an adverb he had never connotated to his worst rival.
But his voice was so soft and his eyes were filled with such worry that Harry couldn’t help but stare. He wouldn’t tug on his hair anymore if Malfoy would be this nice all the time. Although he didn’t understand what the problem was with pulling his hair (it was painful. he deserved the pain), he would do it for Malfoy.
Do it for Malfoy? Harry James Potter, what the fuck?
A few strands of loose hair fell into Malfoy’s face and Harry continued to stare. It was rude to stare. Aunt Petunia always slapped him when he stared. Harry couldn’t understand why she didn’t like him staring but didn’t like him looking away either. It seemed as though everything Harry did was inherently wrong.
He nodded his head, still in shock that Malfoy of all people had found him and wasn’t taking the opportunity to berate him.
God, Potter, you’re supposed to be the savior of the wizarding world, not some freak! and Merlin, you should’ve died in the graveyard. At least Cedric was competent.
Malfoy slowly released Harry’s wrists, maintaining eye contact with him the whole time. Harry didn’t like eye contact but he didn’t want to be hit. He didn’t even think he could stand, much less endure a few punches.
His skin crawled. It itched. It felt like there was something underneath it. Finally, Harry could stand it no longer and averted his eyes as he furiously scratched at his right arm, the one that had a scar on it from the night Cedric died.
Malfoy grabbed Harry’s left hand with one of his own, using the other to cover the arm he had been scratching.
“Potter.”
“Harry Potter, everyone, the Boy Who Lived!”
Harry writhed and screamed as the Cruciatus Curse covered him head to toe, seeping into his bones and lighting his blood on fire.
“Potter!”
Harry started to tremble. He could feel the phantom pain of the Cruciatus Curse coursing through his body.
Malfoy gingerly patted Harry’s cheek, but when Harry’s eyes focused once more, he let out a hoarse shout, scrambling away and breathing heavily.
Lucius Malfoy had the same hair color as Draco Malfoy.
It’s not as long , Harry thought. It’s not as long and Draco has the face of his mother. Draco wasn’t there in the graveyard. Draco wasn’t the one who tortured you. Lucius was the one, not Draco.
Harry brought his knees up to his chest, wrapping an arm around them, and began to rock back and forth. Malfoy leaned slightly closer to hear what the boy was murmuring.
“Not Malfoy, not Malfoy, not Malfoy. Lucius, Lucius, it was Lucius, not Malfoy, not Malfoy, not Malfoy.”
“Potter–” Malfoy paused when Harry flinched, so he tried a different approach. “...Harry, I wasn’t there in the graveyard on the night of the final task. I was in the stands, waiting for someone to come back to be declared the champion. None of us expected you to return with Cedric in your arms.”
At this, Harry let out a soft wail.
“I didn’t mean to kill him, I swear I didn’t mean it! I’m sorry I killed him, really I am, I didn’t know!” Harry’s eyes were glistening with tears as he stared at Malfoy, begging him to understand that he didn’t mean to kill Cedric.
“Harry, you didn’t kill him,” Malfoy said softly. “Was it your wand that cast the Killing Curse?”
The Gryffindor shook his head no.
“Then it wasn’t you,” Malfoy replied simply, sitting back on his haunches.
“ Yes it was !” Harry cried, stumbling a little as he tried to get up. He started pacing back and forth across the grass, hands automatically reaching up to tug at his hair.
“I killed him, Malfoy!” his breath hitched at the name. He couldn’t ever think of the Malfoy name without his mind wandering to Lucius writhing on the ground as he was tortured, circling Harry when he and Voldemort were dueling, shouting curses at him as he portkeyed away with Cedric’s body clutched close to his chest.
“ I was the one who wanted us to take the cup together! He insisted I have it since I got there before him, but I was the one who wanted us to win together! I could’ve taken it myself. I could’ve taken it myself and he would still be alive.”
Draco stood in front of Harry, gingerly grabbing his wrists to stop him from tugging at his already messy hair.
“Harry, look at me.”
His glasses were lopsided, Draco noticed. His cheeks were flushed from all of the emotions he was going through and his green eyes were vivid behind his lenses. When he did look up, Malfoy knew Harry wasn’t looking at him in the eyes; he seemed to be staring at Malfoy’s chin. It was good enough.
“You couldn’t possibly have known the Dark Lord was going to be waiting for you, much less have known that the cup was a portkey. Nobody blames you, Harry. You couldn’t have done anything to stop it.”
But he could have. Draco didn’t understand. It was all Harry’s fault and for some reason, Draco just couldn’t see that. Why couldn’t he see that?
“It is my fault!” Harry sobbed, trying to tug his hands out of Draco’s. His face was red and streaked with tears. His robes were too scratchy and his tie was too tight and his left sock was rumpled in his shoe that was too small and his hair was in his face and Cedric was dead. Cedric was dead and he wasn’t coming back and it was all Harry’s fault.
“Harry, Harry—Harry look at me!” Malfoy cried, moving closer to Harry. “I’ve done it, alright? I’ve done the backtracking and felt the regret and wondered what I could’ve done right and it does you no good . You can’t go back to the past—but you have control now .”
Cedric’s eyes were lifeless and Harry’s arm was bleeding and Voldemort looked like a snake and there were eyes on him, so many eyes on him. He could feel his skin crawling from all of the stares.
“I could’ve done something,” Harry mumbled, sinking down to the ground and consequently bringing Draco with him.
“You were fourteen,” Draco murmured, holding Harry’s hand in his. It was odd, holding hands with his school rival and his father’s worst enemy, but comforting. Draco found he liked the touch.
“I should’ve done something.”
“Harry, even grown, trained wizards can’t defeat the Dark Lord. You weren’t prepared for him, and neither was Cedric. You did everything you could.”
Harry was sick of people telling him it wasn’t his fault. Didn’t they get it? Didn’t they understand it was all his fault? Why couldn’t they get it?
It was then that the two heard hurried footsteps approaching them from the main entrance. Harry could hear Ron’s heavy breathing (he had never had good lungs) and Hermione’s worried pants. Looking back at Draco, he could see his eyes widen as he spotted the other two thirds of the golden trio rushing towards them and attempted to tug his hand away from Harry’s for fear of being ridiculed for helping him.
Harry didn’t think he could turn around to face his friends. Were they still his friends? Would they still love a murderer?
(Did they even love him in the first place?)
( Nobody could love you, freak. You’ll always be a freak. It was your fault your parents were murdered. Your perfect, innocent parents are dead all because of you. )
Harry could hear Ron’s heavy footsteps stop abruptly, but Hermione’s lighter ones continued on until she was right behind Harry, but it wasn’t her anymore. It was Voldemort purring in his ear as he was trapped trapped trapped over Voldemort’s father’s bones and his arm was bleeding and he could see Cedric’s corpse in his peripheral and Voldemort’s breath smelled like a rotting corpse and there were so many eyes on him and Harry couldn’t breathe he couldn’t breathe couldn’t breathe couldn’t breathe couldn’t breathe couldn’t—
“Harry!”
Draco’s silver eyes were staring intently at him but his eyes were silver like the death eater masks and his hair was blonde like the blonde hair that was visible under his father’s mask and his arm was bleeding again and Cedric was still dead and—
His arms were grabbed—not tight enough to hurt, but not light enough for him to zone out again—and Draco was boring into him again but he was talking. The Death Eaters didn’t talk. They jeered . They mocked . They didn’t talk .
Draco was different.
Draco wasn’t a Death Eater like his father.
“Harry,” Hermione said softly, and he finally got the courage to turn around.
(She would hate him. She would tell him that her and Ron didn’t want to be friends anymore. They hadn’t wanted to be friends with a murderer in the first place but they had tolerated him out of pity. Cedric was the final straw.)
Draco released his hands as Harry twisted around to see Hermione’s worried brown eyes scanning his face—taking in the tear tracks, flushed cheeks, tousled hair, crooked glasses, watery eyes—and gently wrapped her arms around him as she crouched, bringing him to her chest in what Harry imagined was a motherly embrace. She rubbed his back as Harry began to sob again, temporarily pulling him back in order to take his glasses off and tuck them safely away in her bag before bringing him towards her again.
Harry gripped the front of her robes tightly, afraid the first friends he’d ever had would leave him. He knew it was logical to leave, he knew it, but he just didn’t want them to . They were all he had. They should leave, they should run far far away and never even look at him again, but he wouldn’t be able to stand it if they did. He started crying harder at the thought of them rejecting him. It was selfish . Harry had always been selfish. He had always wanted a loving family when there were worse things happening to other people in the world. He was fine where he was. He would be fine without Ron and Hermione.
(Would he though? Would he survive without them?)
“I’m sorry,” Harry sobbed, trying to tug Hermione impossibly closer to him. He didn’t want her to go although he knew it was inevitable. Everyone would leave him eventually. “I’m sorry ’Mione, I really am!”
“Harry, hun, why are you sorry? You have nothing to be sorry for.” Hermione started stroking the back of his head, but Harry quickly began to shake it in denial.
“I killed Cedric and I let Voldemort come back and—”
“Haz,” Ron mumbled, pants still lacing his breath. “You didn’t kill Cedric.”
“You don’t know that!” Harry cried, pulling away from Hermione but still clutching her shirt tightly. She continued to rub his back, and although he liked it, he didn’t deserve it. Murderers didn’t deserve comfort for what they did.
“You don’t know that,” he repeated, rocking back and forth. His hands snaked up to his head to tug at his hair but Draco pulled them into his lap, gripping them tightly.
“Look—Harry, look —I overheard my father talking to Mother about that night.”
Harry flinched. Logically, he knew that other people knew about it, but it felt like an intrusion. That was selfish, too. Not everything was about him. He had to learn that sooner or later.
“I know, I don’t like it either. But when he described it, he made it very clear that Pettigrew was the one who cast the curse. The Dark Lord had Pettigrew recount the entire story to his followers after he got over the fact that you escaped.”
“But I was the one who brought him to the graveyard, I was the one who could have saved him—”
“Harry, mate, you couldn’t have stopped the Killing Curse a second time!” Ron exclaimed, sitting on the ground with the rest of them. “Mum thinks it was sheer luck that it bounced off of you the first time. She doesn’t know how—she says Dumbledore is probably the only one who might have a clue as to how you survived—but she’s thankful you’re here anyway. You know that, right? My family is always happy to have you stay over, whether it’s to get away from those horrid Muggles or just to hang out with us for the summer.”
“Your parents wouldn’t want a murderer around their children though, would they?” Harry asked rhetorically, staring intently at his and Draco’s intertwined hands.
“No, but you’re not a murderer Harry!”
He shook his head. “I killed Cedric,” he mumbled.
“Okay,” Hermione sighed, but not in a way that implied she was sick of him. It was a tired sigh more than anything else; tired of the endless fighting, tired of the stress, tired of the constant questions and the minimal answers.
“Harry, I want you to look at me.”
He didn’t want to. He hated eye contact. He hated eye contact and he thought Hermione knew that but maybe she just wanted to punish him because eye contact was The Worst Thing Ever and Harry would start sobbing if he saw anyone else’s pupils at the moment.
He had to do it though. For Hermione. If this was the last thing she would ever ask him to do, he would do it without complaint.
Slowly, slowly, Harry flitted his eyes up to her face. Her cheeks were stained red from sprinting down the hill, her unruly hair was frizzier than usual, and tears laced her eyes.
“Have I ever lied to you?” she asked softly, putting her hand on his cheek.
“N-No,” Harry choked, wanting to look away so bad but he couldn’t. He had to do this. For Hermione. But he couldn’t stop his eyes from darting to the side for a split second or so.
“Do you trust me?”
“Yeah.”
“Then listen to me when I say this: you didn’t kill Cedric .”
His eyes welled with tears again. Didn’t he? Wasn’t the Diggory family mourning their son all because of him?
Harry began to shake his head, but Hermione shook hers quicker.
“I refuse to listen to what you have to say. You did not kill Cedric and Cedric would not blame you for what happened to him. Didn’t you say he was always nice to you, even when his housemates weren’t? He told people to stop wearing those horrid buttons in fourth year—” she paused to shoot a hard glance at Malfoy, “—and helped you solve the egg. Would he blame you now? Would that boy, the one who stuck up for you even when others ridiculed him for it, blame you for something out of your control?”
Harry cried again . He sure was doing a lot of that these days.
He could feel Ron’s long arms circle his shoulders as Draco’s hands tentatively patted his thigh. Hermione’s hand continued to rest on his cheek and he could hear her whispering soft reassurances to him over his wails. Ron laid his head on top of Harry’s as he rubbed his hand on Harry’s upper arm, telling him to “take your time, mate” and “we’re here for you.”
They shouldn’t have been, but they were.
Draco remained quiet, but Harry could feel his hand and his presence there, never wavering. Maybe they were sworn enemies and had hurt each other in the past, but for now, all hostility was put aside. Maybe it would return in the next week when Draco inevitably got over seeing Harry cry his eyes out, or maybe it wouldn’t. He wasn’t quite sure. At the moment, he didn’t care. It was nice to have someone else there, even if he didn’t care.
(Maybe he cared a little . People who didn’t care didn’t stay. The Dursleys were proof of that.)
“We’re here for you Harry,” Hermione murmured, and he could feel Ron’s nod of agreement and Draco’s gentle pat on his thigh in silent assent.
He wasn’t better—far from it—but maybe with his friends (and Malfoy), Harry could be.
And that would be enough.