Draco

Once, when Draco was seven years old, when he was small and scrawny and still hadn’t learned how to use the power sitting right beneath his skin, he had walked to the edge of his neighbor’s pond and walked right along the edge, toes skimming the surface of the mud and muck like it was some sort of game. His mother had told him not to go in it because it was dirty, and his father said that it was dangerous, just as derelict and infested as the neighbor’s house was, but Draco had thought that it would be fun to go to a forbidden place just once. And it was fun, until he stepped forward onto the bank just a bit too far, entranced by the wave of the otherwise still water that was only the beckoning of a grindylow and toppled in.

He could not swim.

It was strange, in that moment, because he was thinking of all the things that he could do, all the people that his father had paid to teach him—the lineage of old houses, violin, calligraphy, dancing—and yet now that he was in immediate danger, he could not figure out how to move his arms or kick out with his legs well enough to bring himself back to the surface. There was only darkness covering up all the light and weeds brushing at his heels and the desperation building up inside him, where he would kick up off the murky bottom of the pond and burst into the light just long enough for one lifegiving breath of air before the depths pulled him back down under again.

Trying to wake up was something like that.

But he does wake up, eventually, after what must have been hours of drifting in and out of consciousness, where he would open his eyes only to be blinded by the light and taken aback by the fire in his lungs. His entire body ached, and even though each time there were voices he recognized demanding his attention (Hermione, asking if he was okay, Ge holding tight to his hand, even a blurry figure that he thought might have been Pansy), he found it easier to slip back inside himself instead, until he finally told himself that enough was enough and forced himself to keep his eyes open.

“Hey. Mate.” There were hands on his shoulders, forcing him back down onto the pillows. “Take it slow, will you?”

For a moment, he does not understand why he is there, cannot remember why everything hurts, but then he does—hands moving to wands that were not there, a flash of light spreading across her face as the chandelier sways, the man melting back into the background, the way he was the only one who understood in time to get to her—and the panic makes him surge the person in front of them, grapple against their hands to grip onto their shoulders.

It was Ge who he found staring back at him, coaxing him to calm down, to lie back before he hurt himself. Not Harry. Draco would like to say that he didn’t care who was sitting guard by his bedside, but judging by the disappointed feeling in his stomach, that was a lie. If he had been given time to think who would be the first person to meet him upon his return, he would have been expecting to see Harry. Maybe he was here, a voice in his head was saying, much more reasonable now that it was clear that no one was in immediate danger. It’s been forever, you really would want him to sit here without eating or changing his clothes or running home for a nap? And don’t you have more important things to worry about?

“Where’s Hermione?” Draco fell back onto the pillows, wincing as he did so. “Is she alright?”

“Penelope healed her in half a second after themotion was over. She’s just a little sore. You, on the other hand,” Ge gestured over the length of Draco’s body, and for the first time he really looked at himself, at the cuts and bruises and bandages. “Are going to be in here a while.”

“Couldn’t they fix these up?” Draco looked over his arms with some amount of concern, because if this was what he looked like after being in the hands of qualified healers for hours, how bad was he when he first came in? “It’s like, first level healing.”

“They got the bad things first. Put your body under a lot of stress to heal it, so they want to keep you under observation for a bit and let the rest heal naturally.” Draco must have made a face, because Ge’s hand is gripping tight to his, squeezing his fingers like he is keeping time with his pulse. It makes Draco look at him and see the worry in his eyes, the tightness in the skin around his mouth, like he is biting back the words of caution that he so desperately wants to say. “You were in a bad shape, Draco.”

It’s the name that makes Draco sober up and pay attention. They had spent so long addressing each other only by hurled curses and insults and a snarled, twisted version of their last names (Malfoy. Weasel.) that the sound of his name being spoken with that amount of fondness still makes him pause, and right now it’s long enough to realize that maybe, just maybe, watching one of his friends almost die was a pretty upsetting ordeal for Ge to have to go through. Enough that even though he had sworn off hospitals and guard duty for good, here he was, holding onto Draco’s hand and monitoring everyone thates through the door until he had woken up.

“Hey.” Draco made sure his voice was gentler this time. Kinder. Less demanding. “I’m alright. I’m not going anywhere.”

Ge stared at him for a long moment, then let go of him, stalking back to the wooden chair by the door and throwing himself into it. He was still in his clothes from the gala the night before (was it the night before? he honestly doesn’t know) only now they are ripped and disheveled. That,bined with the ugly look on his face, was making him look like someone you would cross the street to avoid being near.

“Don’t I know it.” Ge’s words were teasing but his eyes were still worried, darting around the room, and Draco wonders how many of them have fallen back into their war time habits where they checked in corners for monsters that were really only shadows and would not believe it when people promised that they were safe. “You’re one tough bugger to kill, Malfoy.”

Draco smiles. It’s not the best weing crew he could imagine, but it was nice all the same.

He goes through round after round of visitors.

Mrs. Weasley shows up with homemade brownies and flowers, peppering him with anxious questions about what hurts and how well he thought he was healing and if the healers were treating him alright, spending an unnecessary amount of time smoothing down the sheets and demanding that he let herb his hair with a wet brush to make it lie flat. She’s so unlike his own mother, but even that reminder of Narcissa makes a lump form in his throat, so instead of looking at her, he just stares at the wall as she prattles on about Percy and Penelope and how Kingsley responded spectacularly well to his first in-office crisis, asionally holding a ball of yarn for her while she knits. By the time she leaves two hours later, she leaves a small blanket spread over his lap, because as she put it, he was bound to get chilly sitting by that window and she couldn’t bear to leave him sitting there in those thin hospital pajamas.

Pansyes, too, pushing through the door to his room with her high heels clicking, marching straight to the window and perching herself up on the sill like she does it every day and starts to read from those gossip rags that she used to love so much, keeping him updated on people that he used to be friends with. He used to follow this stuff avidly, too, would pore over it with her during their breakfast at Hogwarts, keeping up with who married who and what scandals were going on and what kind ofpetition they were facing this summer. Now, it’s the sound of her voice that he likes, lulling him back into sleep as she chain smokes her filthy muggle cigarettes out the window.

“I don’t think you’re allowed to do that in here,” He says, finally, when she’s gone through half a pack and the butts are sure to be littering the ground outside, falling onto unsuspecting muggles. “Seems like a hazard.”

He found it disgusting, actually. It smelled, and even if she thought to leave the window open, the smoke would stay. “That’s funny, Draco.” She stared at him over the top of her magazine, and he noticed for the first time how much heavier her make up had gotten. Still pretty, but now she was making it noticeable, like glittering with every twist and turn was her version of armor. “But I don’t remember asking.”

Penelope checks in on him personally, and Lunaes to show him the newest edition to the Quibbler (she had taken over in the absence of her father, and due to some influence of both Hermione and Ginny, it was now something of an academic marvel, printing all kinds of things about new spells and medical advancements and reports on dangerous creatures that aren’t actually that dangerous), spreading the magazine out in front of him and asking for his advice on the formatting. “Hagrid’s a respected breeder now? Of what?”

“Blast ended skrewts,” She answered, looking up from drawing on his dark mark, so now that instead of a snake, it looked like it was spitting out mouthfuls of flower petals. “They’ve be quite popular over in Egypt.”

Lee Jordanes for an interview, which Draco says no to, and then stays to eat his way through the pile of chocolate frogs on Draco’s bedside table. Dean and Seamus show up to pop in and wish him well, but leave too fast for a real conversation. Even Ginny drops in, holding a squawking Teddy on her hip and dropping him into Draco’s arms the first chance she gets, claiming that she’s too tired to do so for even another moment.

Gees, too, even though he doesn’t talk, just sits in that same chair and stares, asionally answering when Draco asks him a direct questions, but that’s alright. Draco likes the quiet.

It’s the third day before Hermione shows up, her hair pulled back into a braid that was already starting to fall out. She doesn’t say anything, just edges into the room with her hand spread across her ribs, and Draco was reminded of everyone’s mentions of how sore she was. “Hey.” He scoots back into the bed so he is resting against the headboard. “How are you feeling?”

“Oh, Draco,” She says, moving her hand from her ribs to cover her mouth and staring at him, eyes wide. He barely has time to think about how easily she cries before she is bursting out in tears, sinking down into the chair beside his bed and bawling into her hands, letting out hitching little gasps that reminded him of how much it must hurt her to breathe. “I’m sorry—” She shook her hands out in front of her like that might calm her down, wincing at the movement. “I promised I wouldn’t do this, I told myself, I said, he doesn’t need this, Hermione, you’re just going in to have a nice visit, but—” She lets herself look at him again and bursts into tears, this time wheezing with the effort of continuing to take in deep breaths. “Oh, Draco.”

He was stupid not to have expected thi

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