Darker Side of Me

Darker Side of Me –Chapter 26

Everything was bright and white and comfortable. There was a soft humming in the distance and the air was warm. His hair tickled his cheeks softly as it brushed over them. There was a wonderful sense of listlessness in this place. There was no one around him. There was nothing to hurt him, nothing to taunt him, nothing to judge him. He felt free and happy. He felt…he felt…

He felt.

Draco opened his eyes a slit to get a glance around him. The room was softly lit but there was some invasive white light coming from his left. His muscles were stiff and there was a numbed pain stinging his chest. He tried to sit up but couldn’t bring himself to.

Opening his eyes a little more fully, he groaned softly at the acute pain he felt because of the light. He turned his head slightly and saw a window. The blinds were drawn and the sun was shining outside. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky.

He turned his attention back to the pain in his chest. His torso was covered in tight white bandages. They were stained red in a few spots but were otherwise untainted. The sheets were pulled neatly over his stomach and he seemed to be wearing some sort of generic gown.

He looked up around the room. The wallpaper was muted and serene. The door was off to the right and there was a little square window over the handle. To his right, Draco saw a curtain with an ugly floral pattern, pulled all the way across to shield the next bed from view.

He was in the hospital.

For a moment, he let the whole idea sink in and calmly accepted this reality. The next moment, his heart began to race and his head spun. He remembered being in the clearing with Voldemort and Harry appearing. He remembered fighting and cursing people. He remembered perhaps a little less than he would have liked, but he did have the distinct impression that there was something wrong with this picture. He had taken the blow of the killing curse for Harry.

He should be dead.

His mind slowly started tempting different possibilities –such as this is what the afterlife was like, or he’d hit his head hard and imagined the whole scenario, or even that he was completely mad and committed to St-Mungo’s interminably for his insanity –when a nurse walked through the door.

“Oh! Mr. Malfoy, you’re up!” she exclaimed cheerily. She walked over to him and began to arrange his pillows so that he might sit up.

His whole body ached as though he had spent his life holding up the earth. He grimaced and leaned forwards to let the pillows fall comfortably. Draco had to take a moment to recover from the movement before he remembered his confusion.

“W-where am I?” he asked, stammering. By the look on his face, he expected the worst.

“You’re in the hospital, Mr. Malfoy,” she explained, mildly worried for his memory. She held a hand to his forehead just to make sure he wasn’t running a fever. “I’m the nurse at your service for today. My name is Fiona, if you need anything.”

Draco stared at her for a moment as though he couldn’t believe she was acting so normal. There was something seriously out of whack with the whole situation and he wanted to know precisely what. His mouth hung open and his eyes expressed a great deal of dissatisfaction. At least it must have because the nurse frowned at him.

“Why am I here?” he finally asked, hoping to get a better response. She looked incredulous.

“You were badly wounded,” she explained, nodding to his bandages. “Near fatal, actually. You were very lucky.”

Draco frowned and screwed up his eyes. He shook his head and ran his fingers through his hair in a manner that suggested he was attempting to wake himself up from an unbelievable dream.

“Ok, let’s try this a different way,” he murmured, looking up at Fiona again. “Last I remember I was in a massive battle with You-Know-Who, his Death-Eaters and Harry Potter. Now I’m here and I would really like to know what happened during that whole time because I’m pretty sure I took a curse for Harry, to save his life. As far as I know, I should be dead. My question is now, what am I doing here instead of, say, in the afterlife??”

The nurse blinked at him and then pursed her lips. She clearly did not appreciate the attitude in his tone. She replaced his file at the end of the bed and walked up to him.

“To tell you the truth, Mr. Malfoy, we’ve no idea why you are here and not dead,” she admitted. Her expression softened, as though she was looking at a family member. She smiled. “As I said, you were very lucky… but I won’t tell you all the details. Someone better informed will be coming to tell you all you need to know.”

“But-…Who?” Draco asked. He perked up a bit and hope shone in his grey eyes. He hoped very dearly that Harry would be the one to come see him. She looked pensive for a moment.

“I believe it’s Dumbledore himself who is coming to see you,” she said, smiling happily. He sat back, crestfallen. “I’ll be back to check in on you later.”

“Wait!” Draco cried, motioning for her to stay. “What happened to Harry Potter?”

She paused and stared into his face as though looking for some unkind motivations. Seeing that there didn’t seem to be any, she looked at the floor briefly before walking back over to him.

“We don’t really know what’s happened to him either,” she replied quietly. Without another word, she turned and left.

Draco stared at the spot in which she had stood for a very long time after she was gone. His eyes were distant and lost. He felt empty and cold now, despite the warmth of the room. He felt isolated and alone, despite the fact that he knew there were other patients in the room with him, just behind the curtain.

He had failed. His attempt to save Harry’s life must have failed. He must have missed or something. That was the only possible explanation for his still being alive. He didn’t actually get hit by Voldemort’s killing curse. He was hit by something else and fell unconscious. He fell unconscious and Harry got the full blast of the curse and died. He was gone…

“He’s gone…” Draco murmured. The air caught in his chest and the pain increased but he didn’t care. He had made the most heinous mistake of his life and had lost the only person he’d ever really cared about for it.

“Our loved ones are never really gone from us,” a wise and comforting old voice said. Draco looked up to see Dumbledore standing in the doorway. His face was pleasantly calm and almost happy. He walked over and sat next to Draco on one of the hospital chairs. “As long as we have memories and love for them in our hearts then they shall be with us forever.”

“Professor, I-” Draco whispered, wanting to apologize for his foolishness. He half hoped that Dumbledore would get very angry with him and berate him for having triggered the events of Harry’s downfall.

“Draco, you must know that none of what happened in the clearing was your fault,” the old wizard interrupted immediately. He smiled at Malfoy.

“But it was! I went on my own will! Harry came to save me and now…” he couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence. Dumbledore placed a soft hand on his shoulder.

“None of that matters, Draco,” he whispered. “Harry did what he did because of his love for you.”

“But I betrayed him… again…” Malfoy mumbled, staring at his fingers as he wrung them. “I should have died…. I tried to save him and yet… I’m still here…why am I still here??” He looked up at the ceiling, his eyes filled with tears.

“You are still here because of Harry,” Dumbledore explained. “The protection he was for you was stronger than any magical charm we could have used. You didn’t die for the same reason he went to rescue you. He wouldn’t have made a very good hero if he hadn’t managed to save the one person he’d gone for, now would he?”

“But I didn’t deserve rescuing!!” Draco exclaimed. “And he said he hated me… how could his love have protected me?”

“People say many things in the throws of anger that they do not mean in the slightest,” he replied. “Love is definitely not something that can be waved away so easily. Even if Harry was angry with you, or felt you betrayed him, the defense his love gave you was always just as strong. You didn’t die because you couldn’t die…not with him near you.”

“I still don’t understand,” the blonde muttered, frustrated and hurt. Dumbledore nodded.

“No one really understands the finer aspects of love,” he admitted. “I daresay we never will. But we can learn to embrace it and cherish it when we are so lucky as to have it.”

“Professor,” he whispered, thinking about what he had just been told. “What happened…that night? After I got knocked out, or whatever…”

Dumbledore looked up for a moment and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He thought for a few moments, considering Draco. He nodded.

“Lord Voldemort was destroyed,” he answered. “Harry killed him, though he did have to pay a high price for it. Within moments of that, the Order wizards appeared, along with Ministry officials, and caught the rampant Death-Eaters. They were the ones who brought you here, Draco.”

Draco was in shock. He turned over his arm and stared at the Dark Mark. It was already fading away, the magic that bound it there having been destroyed. He felt simultaneously like crying and laughing. Harry had done it… he had managed to kill Voldemort, after all. An immense sense of pride grew in Draco’s chest as he though of Potter. He smiled very slightly, tears streaming from his eyes.

“Well hello there, Albus!” Fiona had returned. She greeted Dumbledore cheerfully.

“Good morning Fiona,” Dumbledore courteously responded. He smiled warmly at her.

“Mr. Malfoy! What’s wrong?” she asked, noticing Draco’s tears. He was holding his head and shaking from the mixed impulses to laugh and sob.

“He did it. He actually did it!” he said, his words coming out in chunks between his gasps and heaving sobs. “I’m so proud of him… but… but I can’t believe he’s…. I can’t believe he’s dead…”

The words hard hardly escaped him before he let everything go and let his sadness wash over him. He wanted to hit himself for being the cause of it. He wanted to scream and throw himself out the window, but there was something else in his feelings. He was happy. He was overwhelmed with joy at knowing that Harry had managed to defeat the darkest wizard of all time. He had managed to save the world… he really was the hero everyone had seen him as. Draco thought of his face and couldn’t help but cry harder.

“What are you talking about, Mr. Malfoy?” Fiona asked, quite confused.

“Harry Potter…” he whispered, realizing he hadn’t specified.

“Yes, that’s just it,” she agreed, the same look of confusion on her features. “He’s not dead.”

Draco’s head snapped up and the tears stopped. His face was wet and shining from crying. His eyes were red and contrasted terribly with the cold grey of his irises. He shook his head at her, lost and out of the loop.

“You said you didn’t know what happened to him!” he said, staring at her.

“We don’t know what’s happened to him,” she admitted. “But he’s certainly not dead.”

Before Draco could say a word, she pulled back the curtain next to his bed. There on the next hospital cot, lying as motionless as a corpse, was Harry. His glasses were off, folded on the table next to him, and his eyes were closed. He didn’t seem to be hurt at all but he wasn’t moving and didn’t appear to be breathing. Draco sat frozen in his position, staring at the boy he loved.

“Harry…”

A/N: I would just like to remark that this is not the last chapter, either. Eheheheh I also hope you didn’t hate me too much for my messing with their lives there. Eheheh the next chapter should be up soon. Probably tomorrow, it’s almost over. Perhaps two more, but I hope this is ok!