Draco winced as he shifted in his bed, his throat raw and tender. He opened his eyes to the sun filtering in through the window of his hospital room at St. Mungo’s. She’s been by, he thought. No one else would have thought to open the blinds so that a new, shiny day would greet him upon waking. His parents had scarcely come to see him since the day they brought him here. He’d been next to death, or so he’d been told. Draco wished they’d let him die. That is until she came.
He remembered the exhaustion that over took him just after the final battle; they’d reached his house and his mother had seen him off to bed. She stayed for a while that night, just as she used to when he was a child, before Hogwarts, before his father’s incessant rantings about blood and honour, before the war. It was comforting and he was tired, so tired of everything that he wanted to curl up in her lap and slip off into fathomless sleep.
When he woke, he was in this room and he couldn’t speak. He’d tried to call out but even the mere attempt to inhale sent a thousand splinters of glass into his lungs. He’d been told later that he’d damaged them and his throat from exposure to heat and smoke. The FiendFyre had claimed Crabbe and had done its best to take another victim. If not for Narcissa staying with her only child that night, he surely would have succumbed to it.
He had few visitors over the past week and when he finally inquired, by quill and parchment, where his parents were, it was that vile cow Pansy who’d been with him. She’d told him that the reporters were everywhere and that his father was wanted for questioning, so they were keeping a low profile. They paid heavily for daily reports of his recovery and sent assurances through Pansy that they would come as soon as they could.
He didn’t care. His life wasn’t worth saving. During his slumber, Draco had seen his existence for what it was, and it wasn’t what he wished for at all. His past wasn’t his; it was what his father made for him. His future held nothing because for the first time he was alone to choose it and he didn’t even know who Draco Malfoy was. Was he Prince of Slytherin House or progeny of the great Lucius Malfoy or Death Eater?
He just wanted to be Draco, a boy with no past. That’s why being with her was such a seduction.
She didn’t care who he was. She treated him just as she did everyone else. As each day went by her visits lasted a bit longer, or so it had seemed to him. At first, she would just come by to see if he need anything, as all of the hospital volunteers did. Then, one day she had stopped by while he was sleeping and picked up the parchment he’d been sketching on earlier. She gave an embarrassed smile when she saw that he’d woken and was watching her, and began to comment on his style and aptitude. Draco could do nothing more than sit mutely and listen to her prattle on, but she was all he really needed: a friend, someone with no ties to his family or past, who just saw him for him.
She’d come by again and he gave her a sketch he’d made of the flowers she’d brought the day before. It was the first time she’d touched him. She smiled that smile he’d only seen from a distance. One full of sincerity and something else he couldn’t quite pin down. Hesitantly, she leaned down and brushed his cheek with a chaste kiss in thanks. They both knew it wasn’t appropriate for her to do this, and yet it hadn’t been awkward either.
Today, the door to his room opened and turning towards it, Draco was surprised to see Hermione Granger tentatively stepping in. Panic set in, as he lay there vulnerable in his bed. He pushed himself to the edge and began to stand for the first time in quite a while.
“I’ve come to you about Harry – “ Was all Hermione could get out before Draco’s legs gave way beneath him. She rushed over to him and as he twisted to right himself, pinned her beneath him. They were scrambling on the bed, when he heard the gasp.
She must have come in just after his fall, and with her hand to her mouth, turned and ran out of his room.
“Astoria, wait!”
Those where the first word Draco had spoken in over a week.
