I'm sure this sounds incredibly daft, but I'm confused as to why dan doesn't just use a little magic? Like he almost killed people and almost got sent to askaban.. I get that he's trauma associated with using magic but surely the consequences far outweigh that trauma? Sorry if you take this in a bad way!! Maybe I just need to read it again fully to understand, I am loving the fic and the dynamic forming :))
I think being a step removed, it’s quite clear to us that the consequences outweigh him using magic. But to Dan? Not so much.
Trauma is a funny thing, it doesn’t really lend itself to logical reactions, especially not when you haven’t worked through it at all. Dan is still very much in the place of being affected by the things that make him not want to use his magic.
I am sure that he can, objectively, see that using a little bit of magic here and there would be far better than the stuff that he’s putting himself through to avoid it, or the potential for harming others, but subjectively he still just can’t.
It’s a bit of cognitive dissonance, knowing what the right course of action is but being unable to do it all the same.
But that’s part of his arc as a character, working through the association he has with magic from his childhood, coming to terms with himself as a wizard as well as a person and how those two things marry up.
In case anyone is confused by this, it’s in reference to my Dan & Phil potterverse AU As The Smoke Clears
