Tea and No Sympathy

Chapter 11

Draco feels the lurching disorientation that presages the day starting, re-starting. The same feeling he's experienced each 'morning' for the past endless repeated, relived days. He blinks, breathing deep and slow, trying to ground himself, to stop the hot sensation that's prickling at the corners of his eyes before he's crying again. Not that it matters. Not that anything matters. The sunlight has the same weak, gluey consistency it always has. The same pattern of light and shadow falls across the carpet, flickering through the roughly drawn curtains as a light breeze tousles them. The window's open, and the air smells fresh and sweet, with the tang of rain as if a thunderstorm is coming.

As if a thunderstorm is coming. Draco stills, breath caught in his throat. That's new. That's new! He tries not to overreact; maybe it's a figment of his imagination. Maybe he wants so much for the day to have changed, for something – anything – to be different that he's hallucinating. He surveys the room slowly, heart in his mouth. It all looks exactly the same, though. Bed rumpled in the exact same pattern as always. A forgotten sock, living out its eternal rest on the exact same spot of the carpet. A half full – half empty – glass of water on the bedside table, containing exactly 253ml of liquid. (He knows. He's measured it.)

But . . . But . . .

His limbs feeling heavy with lead, he turns. He doesn't want to look at his desk, to see the same thing he's seen every day – may see every day for the rest of forever. But there's a lump in his chest that's rising, and with the smell of rain in his nostrils it feels a little bit like hope.

He turns, and sees – nothing.

There is nothing on the table.

No tools. No paperwork. All his months of research – gone. His expensive, irreplaceable equipment – gone.

And the fucking time-turner, the bane of his life, the hated, wretched, awful, sodding thing – which has simultaneously trapped him in a waking nightmare and freed him from pretty much every bond of responsibility and tradition and duty that pinned him down and made him weak—

The time-turner is gone too.

Time passes as he stares at the empty table, at the absence of the time-turner. He knows it passes, because it must do, and he can hear birds outside the window, chattering irritably to each other, and the room lightens almost imperceptibly until it must be full daylight outside.

He can't celebrate yet; not when he doesn't know what, exactly, he'd be celebrating. Is he finally freed of the fucking thing, or does its absence just mean he's doomed to repeat himself forever, with no chance of freedom? And – where is Harry? Has Draco – the thought drops through him like a pebble into a dark well – only managed to eliminate Harry all together? The only thing worse than spending eternity trapped in a loop would be if there was no longer any hope at all of seeing Harry. The only thing worse than being forgotten, over and over again, would be knowing he could never even try to be remembered.

Without Harry . . .

Draco bundles that thought up and squashes it. Without Harry there would be no world. Ergo, he is out there. Whether or not he can remember the day before.

Draco tries not to feel the hurt lance through him at the thought. He takes a stabilising breath, and then another, and finally manages to force himself into action. He has time – all the time in the world, perhaps – but then again, perhaps not, so if this is the last time he has to do this, the last time he has to make it stick, then he'd better bloody well make it count.

He showers, as usual, and dresses – his head spinning all the while. If this really is the last time he has to do this, and it is, he knows it this, this time for sure, then he has to make it count. He has to be himself. He has to show Harry that, prove to him from the start, that he's someone who Harry can trust. Can have faith in. Can love.