Pulvis Et Umbra Sumus - We Are But Dust and Shadow

Hello!

This is a slowburn, pretty experimental, abstract and poetic, with angst, attraction and eventual romance. Harry's POV

The story came to me in two images out of nowhere, transparently pale hands that ran with electricity, and Harry's fire stored up under the surface of his skin

A/N edit:

I had an impulse to change the title, not sure where it came from, not sure why, but Here We Are - I'm so damn neurotic that I can't commit to one thing for too long

Harry was captivated.

It had started about two weeks since term had begun. He, Ron and Hermione sat in the middle of the Gryffindor table for breakfast. Ron was bleary eyed but still managed to keep up the hushed, tight-knit conversation with Hermione, a slow smile tweaking up the corner of his lips. They had both leaned in close and Hermione was giggling. Harry was staring vacantly away, sitting opposite them, eating slowly. They had been like this since they got back. He could practically reach out and touch the invisible barrier between them, the one that was easy to ignore throughout the years, but now immovable and solid. A passive guest to the scene, he felt a sick, distant yet familiar ache slide down into his stomach. Because the barrier was growing stronger, and he was becoming numb to it. He didn't doubt the latter fed the former. Especially lately. He grew more and more distant, since the war ended, retreating into himself.

He was more withdrawn than ever. He was not spite and resentment and explosive anger, as he had been in the past when he'd feel isolated. Instead, he ghosted through conversations and classes, he was vacant smiles and stares, he was short replies and absent attention. And his friends let him. They gave him space, soft words of support and quiet company. Every day he sleep-walked through the school, yet entirely awake, body automatic. He took quieter and secretive routes and felt himself smile politely at adoring, insistent fans. And every night he felt himself curling and hollowing into himself, buried deep within his own mind. It was as if part of him died.

The first night back, the trio took in the surrounds. Stale and warm familiarity – fire lit rooms and raucous laughs filling up tall ceilings and the smell of old books, cooked food and rain-soaked long lawns. And the alienating difference – of empty seats and broken groups, tentative smiles and tears, hesitance. Post-War Hogwarts. Less than half of their year had returned after the war. An abundance of Gryffindors, Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs. Ron was not surprised not many Slytherins returned, he made familiar comments and scoffs. Hermione stopped frowning half-sadly and half-confused after a few days, and sunk into normalcy. Yet Harry felt their absence.

Two weeks in. At breakfast, his gaze shifted to Hermione's left side, where he could get a clear view of the Slytherin table, framing out the couple. There was a noticeable change – only a handful of Slytherins in their year. They huddled, with an air of gang-like camaraderie, leaning into a quiet conversation. Broken off slightly, from the loud bustling and movement of the Hogwarts breakfast scene, yet Harry could see they took comfort in each other. There was one exception.

The blonde was turned away from his gaze, as he had turned away from the scene. Hunched in, shoulders stiff and pulled into himself, head ducked. He was bordering the rest of the group, yet there was a noticeable and inarguable gap that separated him from them. Harry could see his back muscles tightly-drawn and contracting stiffly through his thin school shirt. As he watched, the boy drew a pale hand slowly, controlled, through normally incorruptibly neat hair. It mussed up slightly. A particular stray lock arched upwards, quivered in soft breeze, and shone off white morning light. It danced slightly, and defied gravity by sticking up. Harry's gaze captured it. And, achingly slow, it gave way and bent and leaned into place. A slow-burning lump slid down his throat and sat in Harry's stomach.

He felt a warm hand on his. He jerked, relaxed his gaze and met Hermione's. "What is it?"

Blank, he was entirely blank, and then he jerked his head again. "Nothing. What - what were you saying?" he said.

He felt himself nod and smile at the right points of the light conversation, and took in enough to give short replies. While his body tuned into the interaction, his mind was elsewhere.

Harry was unnerved slightly. A stiff figure shadowed his mind. Where Draco was normally the centre of noise and commotion at the Slytherin table, he was distinctly separate. He could flicker through countless memories, identical scenarios where Malfoy would be leading, effortlessly drawing in attention, his sneer fixed in place. The Slytherins seemed to orbit him. That familiar scene, of Malfoy talking animatedly, or calling snidely across the echoing Hall, or gesturing with loose waving arms and a wild smile, a unreserved barking laugh, always surrounded by appreciative onlookers. That did not exist in the same place with this strung-up, hunched boy.

Harry shadowed his friends that day, in the backseat of a classroom and the floor of a warmly-lit common room. But he couldn't quite shake off that lingering image, an unfamiliar person, but entirely familiar predicament. A burdened, wasted boy, cast alone.