#so this is a shitty lil piece of beginner writing

[tears-and-turmoil]

His Friend

Tell me that you love me Tell me not to go

They’re out on the Great Lawn again, lying back on the grass and staring up at the sky. Draco’s laughing at a shape he’s seen in the clouds, tracing the outline of it with his wand for his friend to see. A dragon, with light bursting out of its mouth like flame, wings stretched across the expanse of blue sky. He reaches up and draws a tiny lightning bolt into the creature’s forehead. Up in the sky, the cloud-dragon has one too.

He doesn’t seem to realise he’s stopped laughing.

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He’s in the common room, settled deep in a cushion-filled armchair. One leg rests over the other, and there’s a book in his lap. He stares at it incomprehensively, the thick red ribbon of a bookmark cutting through the middle of the text. His legs are warm but numb in the light of the fire. Giving up, he takes the book off his lap and tries to move his legs, wincing as painful prickling starts up his feet and through to his thighs. Not as bad as Crucio, but pain is pain, and- now it’s gone. He tucks the book under his arm and heads up the stairs to his bedroom, his companion trailing quietly behind.

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And he’s crying, tears running down his face as he tosses and turns in bed. With a gasp, he bolts up, mind still halfway in the nightmare that he can’t shake. He turns to his side, eyes frantically searching – there. There. He’s there.

Cold, clammy hands trail a path across bedsheets to rest against a dark shape on the covers. Muted green eyes look up, and he’s sobbing again, crawling forward over the covers to face him, eyes running over messy black hair and a tentative smile. He chokes back another sob, drops fully onto the mattress to stare at him.

He closes his eyes.

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They’re across the hall, two dining tables over, watching him as he folds his toast into a triangle and bites down on it with a smile. Rubs his fingers over bruised-purple eyes, sips his tea after blowing the steam away. He seems happy. Content.

Of course he would. He’s a Malfoy.

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He’s in an abandoned Potions classroom, dumping ingredients down onto the table. Pensieve shavings, mermaid tears and tens of other substances are spread across a single desk. He sets his cauldron in the middle, lights a fire, and gets to work. When he gets to the stag sweat, he grimaces. Harry wouldn’t have – doesn’t, he reminds himself, Harry doesn’t, like this part of the potion, but it has to be done. Two drops, and three clockwise stirs, then he caps the vial and drops it on the desk.

He sets a Stasis Charm on the bubbling mixture and looks back at the table. A jar full of a strange black substance is slipped on the surface from his pocket, and he uses tweezers to extract a single piece of the black from the container. He scowls up at the shape that’s sitting across from him, content and swinging their legs on the stool as they watch him work.

‘Why couldn’t you have had straight hair, Potter? I mean-’ his eyes widen, and he almost drops the tweezers.

‘Why don’t you? Merlin, it’s annoying, trying to pick a single one from here. And of course, it didn’t have to just be curly, you have no idea how to use conditioner, do you, so cutting it was even more of a job than it would have been.’

He continues grumbling as he tries to pick up a single piece from the jar. With a triumphant ah-ha! he finally has one on the end of the tools. Smiling, he spells the jar shut and lets go of the Stasis on the cauldron, dropping the tiny piece in. He turns back to the figure.

‘Still can’t brew a single potion without help, can you?’ He rounds the table, perches on the stool next to the figure, smiling as it leans towards him, resting its weight along his arm.

‘It’s alright. I’ll teach you.’

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He never speaks when he’s around other students. Well, not to Harry, anyways. Potter trails after him, by his side. Quiet. Unnoticed.

When they’re alone, though, they sit next to each other, Draco making shapes in the air with his wand or reading out loud to the figure cuddled next to him on the sofa. He tucks white-blond hair behind his ears, banters out loud to the boy with the green eyes.

His Potter. His friend.

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May 31st. He’s lying back on his bed, staring up at the charmed canopy of stars.

‘Draco, Potter. How many times do I have to – are you that blind, Scarhead? No, Eltanin’s that one. That one, Potter. Yes, there it is. Now, here…’

He traces patterns only he can see, pointing at the ceiling as he describes the constellations to his companion. His friend. Laughs, again, and jabs at the same star as he tries to explain – yes, Potter, this one – which is which.

And hours later, he falls asleep, a smile on his face.

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But the dream comes again.

He’s there, again, the forest a hundred metres away. Harry, right in front of him, cupping a face that’s dripping with tears.  

‘It’ll be alright, Draco. I’ll be fine.’

The smile is reassuring, but the eyes flicker with guilt, with worry, with apprehension of what’s to come. Draco shakes his head.

‘Don’t go.’

Harry grins at him, a quick flash of a smile that makes him want to grab the bastard and shake him, Apparate them somewhere far, far away, where they can stay, and keep this budding friendship that he’d wanted for so long. Keep Harry safe.

‘Hey, I escaped death once before, right? I’ll just do it again.’

He rolls his eyes, pulls the hands off his cheeks.

‘That’s not how it works, Scarhead, and you know it.’

‘Oh, it’s Scarhead now, is it?’

He gives a watery, tiny smile.

‘Always was.’

Flash forward now, like his brain can’t stand to remember what happened next, but somehow time slows as the giant form of Hagrid steps out of the trees, tears rolling down his cheeks in miniature waterfalls, cradling a fragile-looking shape in his hands.

A fragile shape that was once strong, a fragile shape that had once held on their shoulders the expectations and hopes of a whole world. A fragile shape that had, mere minutes ago, held their fingers against Draco’s cheeks, promising that he’d be fine.

Voldemort was dead. But so was Harry Potter.

 And when he wakes, he looks to the side and sees no-one. Clammy fingers scrabble at the bedside table, finding a glass vial and uncapping it, downing half. He opens his eyes, and looks to the side again, and there is Harry, in all his Gryffindor glory, tie askew and glasses balanced precariously on his nose. Messy hair sticks up from his forehead, and he’s smiling at Draco, the same grin he’d had before he’d left. And come back, Draco tells himself, capping the vial and dropping it to the table again. And come back, because he was here, and how else would he be here if he wasn’t alive? He shuffles up next to him, so that their shoulders almost touch – but they can’t, he reminds himself, they can’t. He smiles at muted green eyes, at messy hair, at the fingers that reach up to push Potter’s glasses back up his face like they used – like they always do.

His Potter. His friend.

[eijispumpkin]

good lord this is long i apologize, but hi hello, lovely human with a heart of gold, sweet creature who's full of love, i cannot thank u enough for being u! for sharing your amazing works and bringing comfort to so many people, everything u write is so magical and re-reading your stuff always makes me feel like i'm receiving a warm hug it's the best feeling out there, ik u're taking a break rn and i'm glad to see u taking time for urself, as cool as the internet is it can also be very shitty at times unf, pls take care of urself nd ur health qt ! plus ik we r going thru some rly scary times this year with the pandemic and all that too, ik it's rough, but i hope u're okay, and i wish u loots of happiness mwahh

if u're not accepting asks right now i'm rly sry! pls ignore this i hope u have an amazing day ♡ but if it's not too much trouble, how did u start posting online? bc god, the way my brain keeps convincing me it's stupid even tho ik it would bring me joy :c i see all the drafts and ideas i've had for years now but never got the courage to post or develop bc i always convinced myself that it's too late now, or like it only works if u've already done it for at least a couple years? and that i suck anw and "wanting to write what i'd like to see/read" doesnt really work when i haven't practiced much, sigh even if i gather enough courage smhow, idk wut i'd have to tackle first

you never have to apologize to me for saying long things, no worries my friend!! i am long-winded and rambly by nature, so i totally get it <3 and ahh thank you so much for your kind and lovely words, i appreciate it a lot!!!! i'm very glad to hear that you like my writing so much ♥

how i started posting... man, honestly? i first started posting fic on a tumblr account whose password i have long since forgotten, like eight or nine years ago at this point. it was an rp blog for a very obscure tolkien elf, and i was lucky enough as a young teen to find people who were really kind and encouraging about my writing, both in rp and as little side-ficlets and whatnot! that's how i first got into actual writing at all. tiny ficlets prompted by rp stuff were the first things i ever posted at all - in fact, my first fic posted on ff.net way back when was just one of those lil tumblr rp ficlets i crossposted!

as for your conundrum, i def hear you :( insecurity and anxiety brain can be a HUGE bitch, and i know it's easy to tell yourself that numbers like comments and kudos don't matter, but it still feels really bad when you really want validation and you don't get any. (though i will say, it is true that the numbers don't matter! it's totally a game of luck. some of my favorites of my own fics don't have nearly as many kudos or comments as the ones i personally didn't even like as much/didn't put as much work into. it's not that those fics aren't as good; it's just that popularity is kind of a roulette wheel. it's easy to internalize it as being your fault if something doesn't fly, but it honestly really isn't in your control at all.)

but heres the thing! everyone starts somewhere. when i first started posting fics, i can promise you i was nowhere near as good as i am today! i didn't pay attention to sentence variation, i hardly ever used any imagery, my character voices were underdeveloped, etc etc etc. that doesn't mean that no one liked to see my post, or that i shouldn't have posted! it just means that i was a beginner. and so are you! there's no shame in being new at something. it just means you have a lot to learn, and there's nothing wrong with that at all! in fact i would say there's a lot of joy in discovering your voice and how you like to write. the fear of peoples expectations can weigh you down, but you should write for yourself first, not for others, or else you'll just burn out, you know?

as for what you'd have to tackle first: i could give you a bunch of technical mumbo jumbo if you wanted, but really i think it is about writing what you'd like to see! not in the way that you seem to mean here though (and forgive me if i misinterpreted! i don't mean to put words in your mouth). i first started writing just by describing little daydreams i had about the characters. first and foremost, your creation process should be fun for you!! if you enjoy writing something, your readers will be able to tell, and it adds to the piece. but more important than that is the fact that you'll have had fun creating something. finding what makes writing fun for you is, in my opinion, the most important place to start!!