Quarantined • DRARRY •

•Chapter One•

HARRY

"I just feel so horrible," Draco said, making sure his voice carried so that Harry, Ron and Hermione could hear it all the way across the Great Hall, "For the students who have to stay here over spring break because they're not wanted at home."

"Like anyone would want to go to your home, Malfoy," Harry muttered. "No one wants to watch your father drink mimosas and impulse-buy expensive art."

Ron snorted into his pudding, but Hermione pulled a face. "Why do you let Malfoy get to you, Harry? It's not like he's coming up with anything new."

"That's what I'm saying!" Harry protested, his voice at a normal volume now. "Voldemort's dead, we're all back at Hogwarts, and he's still on. The same. Bullshit."

          

"You always have to have a problem with Malfoy."

Harry looked at her incredulously. "He tried to kill all of us! Several times!"

"And he also saved your life!" Hermione's left hand twitched, and Harry knew she was thinking of the Mudblood scar carved into her skin, one which no amount of potions and elixirs had ever managed to remove entirely. "Maybe it's time to put all this aside."

"Fat chance, Hermione," Ron mumbled around a mouthful of kippers. "Malfoy's a whiny little bitch, and always has been." He took a massive swallow and continued. "I wouldn't put it past him to finish his master's little mission posthumously."

"I'm shocked you know what posthumous means, though since you're using it incorrectly, it really can't be helped." Hermione said nastily.

"Can the two of you stop bickering? I'd like some peace and quiet." Harry glared down at his pancakes. A part of him looked forward to spending the break alone, but the other part wanted to listen to Ron and Hermione bicker some more.

It would be so lonely without them. He wasn't sure he could handle all that silence.

Ron and his family were doing a retreat, a personal trip to talk about 'family matters.'

Harry knew it was about Fred's death, reconciling with Percy, trying to heal from all of the wounds that were still fresh after Voldemort's defeat, even though it had been nearly a year. But it still stung when Ron had awkwardly said he wasn't invited—the Weasleys had always considered Harry family before, what was so different now?

"It's just that Mum—she doesn't want you to feel guilty. And I know you will."

"Well-it was for me that Fred died."

"No it wasn't. It was for all of us. For a better future." Ron repeated the words his therapist had taught him with the same monotone voice Harry had come to recognize.

Harry's therapist had told him that it would take time for his friends to fully forgive him. That even though they knew it wasn't his fault, the link between him and their dead family members would remain. It was an invisible line, tethering him to their loved ones. For a while, all they'd see was the death he'd brought.