Wicked

Thank you all for reading, voting and reviewing, I was thrilled about the positive feedback!
And now on with the story...

The night remained quiet; Draco´s emotional breakdown had at least had the side effect of exhausting him so thoroughly that he slept deep and dreamlessly.

When Madam Pomfrey arrived in the following morning, Harry asked her if she couldn´t give Draco something against the nightmares, but she looked at him sadly and said that it would only delay the outcome but not dispose of the cause, and that it would probably be better if Draco dealt with his memories now instead of repressing them.
Harry, even though he found himself agreeing with that, sighed inaudibly. The Healer laid an hand on his arm: “I know that this is quite hard on you as well, dear,” she said. “Be assured that Professor Dumbledore would never have agreed to this if he didn´t think you were capable of handling the situation.” With a sympathetic squeeze, she turned towards Draco then.

He had only just woken up and was still sleepy when Madam Pomfrey began tending to him.

He did not make a sound this time, but Harry could see that he was clenching his hands, and cold sweat stood on his brow.
Fortunately, the fever had abated in the meantime, bringing a little relief.

Madam Pomfrey did not seem content with the healing process, however, once she had assessed the internal injuries Draco had suffered from being raped.

Instead of lowering his legs back down on the bed she straightened up to look at him: “Am I right in assuming that the pain has become worse?” she asked, sounding a little alarmed.

Draco gave a hesitant nod. Madam Pomfrey looked as if she was having to subdue a sigh before she got up to produce another vial from her bag.
She sat down next to Draco with it: “The wounds have become infected, dear. To keep the inflammation from spreading, I need to clean them again, but it will be very painful. Therefore I am going to put to you to sleep, all right?”

Her patient did not object, but swallowed the potion obediently. “You will begin to feel drowsy in no time at all,” the Healer told him kindly, “there; do not fight it. That´s a good boy...”

Madam Pomfrey watched as Draco´s eyes closed. She had treated hundreds of people during her time at Hogwarts, had seen tears, panic and all kinds of injuries, but never had a case touched her like this.


When Draco was asleep, she finished her treatment and tucked him back in, then she turned to Harry: “The matter is quite delicate, but I am afraid I have to inform you about it nevertheless,” she said in a low voice, quavering a little: “Whoever has done this to him has used utter violence and cruelty.
For some reasons, there were small particles of rust embedded in Mr Malfoy´s flesh, and apparently I have failed to remove them completely the first time I examined him.”

“Rust?” Harry asked, non-comprehending, but feeling slightly queasy. “Because he has been shackled, you mean?”

“No,” Madam Pomfrey replied without looking at him. “I am talking of the inner injuries he has sustained from... being violated.”
Her voice broke at the last two words, and a sob escaped her lips.

Harry´s queasiness turned into nausea as he remembered Draco´s words: “Not the chain...” and he only turned in time to vomit into his dustbin.

He stood there bent over and heaving even after the bout was over, shaken and apalled by the inhumanity Draco obviously had been exposed to.

A moment later, he felt Madam Pomfrey´s hand on his shoulder and slowly straightened up again, wiping his mouth on his sleeve, but still trembling.
Only when he met the Healer´s tear-filled gaze did he realize that his own eyes were swimming as well; without hesitating, the older witch closed her arms around him.

They remained like this for an unaccounted amount of time, both of them weeping until they had spent all their tears.

Draco felt like he was floating; he was weightless and unburdened. As he began to wake up, this feeling gradually changed.
Apparently he was lying in bed. That was nothing unusual, was it? He had a faint inkling that he should remember something nevertheless, but he could not put his finger on it, as he was still too groggy.

After a while, he realized that someone was holding his hand, which struck him as strange. His mother perhaps? Had he been ill then?

With an effort, Draco opened his eyes. He blinked to clear the blur away; as his vision improved, he recognized that it was not his mother sitting next to him, but Harry Potter.

Draco stared at him as the memories came back to him all of a sudden, overpowering him: his mother would never hold his hand again, and his father... he whimpered, unable to contain himself.

Harry, who had stared out of the window, jumped and was startled by the horrified expression on his charge´s white face: “Draco,” he soothed. “It´s all right... you´re safe.”

Draco squirmed, looking at him wide-eyed as if he was actually looking through him, but clinging to Harry´s hand nevertheless.
Harry wondered what might have happened that had upset Draco so quickly; he had been sleeping peacefully for once, due to the narcotic potion, but now he looked positively frightened and was breathing heavily.

The Gryffindor leaned forward and gently laid one hand on the other boy´s shoulder: “Calm down, Draco, it´s me, Harry! Do you hear me?”
Draco gave the tiniest nod, but he was still close to hyperventilating.

Harry´s mind was reeling: what was he supposed to do, how could he prevent Draco from panicking?

He did the only thing that seemed logical to him: “I am here with you, and I won´t leave you alone,” he said insistently.
“Concentrate on my voice, will you? It´s good old Harry, the one you´re normally exchanging insults with.”

He kept talking to the Slytherin, and Draco gradually calmed down.

He lay drenched in cold sweat; fighting off the images of dread was laborious. When the voice that had been there all the time finally permeated the haze of anguish in his mind, he tried with all his might to concentrate on it, clinging to the sounds like he was clinging to the hand which held his.

Harry was determined not to let on his own distress. He found the situation increasingly hard to bear, no matter how capable Dumbledore thought he was; ever since Draco had arrived here had Harry been through an emotional rollercoaster ride with him.
On the other hand, he had to admit, did it distract him from his own bad memories of the Triwizard Tournament, wasn´t that something?

Long after Draco had quietened, Harry was still sitting with him.
Draco was lying with closed eyes, breathing deeply, but his grip on Harry´s hand had not weakened, telling the latter that the Slytherin was not sleeping.

Harry mused on Madam Pomfrey; he had never seen her so openly upset. He was grateful that she had been there and would return each morning, and that he wouldn´t have to hide his sentiments from her.

When dusk began to settle in and twilight was filling the room, Harry cautiously disengaged his hand to light a lamp; apart from that, he was hungry, not having eaten all day.

Hedwig seemed to feel the same, since she was stretching and preparing to leave.

He was just about to rise when Draco opened his eyes: “H-harry,” he muttered, his voice feeble. “You don´t... you don´t have to do this, you know...”

Taken by utter surprise, Harry froze: “Not to do what?” “Care for me... I know it´s awkward...”

Draco obviously struggled to get the words out: “Can ask Pomfrey to take me to St. Mungo´s.”

Exhaustedly, he closed his eyes for a moment before continuing: “Just... just didn´t know what to do...”

Harry shook his head: “You´re talking nonsense, Malfoy,” he said, straining to keep his voice straight, “it was the right choice to come here. You´re as safe as can be, whereas in St. Mungo´s...” he spared them what they both knew anyway.

Draco looked at him again: “But... it´s awkward...”

Harry sighed, but then he found himself smiling: “Yes, it is a little,” he admitted.

Draco averted his eyes: “I don´t want your pity,” he whispered.

Harry was taken aback: “Then I have good news for you, because you won´t get it,” he retorted after a moment´s silence.
At this, Draco looked up again, dumbfounded: “I won´t?”

Harry would have laughed, had the situation not been so tense: “I am not doing this because I am pitying you,” he said pointedly, adding “brat,” as an afterthought.

For the first time, something like a smile ghosted over Draco´s worn out face. “Must be your Gryffindor genes then,” he muttered.
Grinning, Harry got up: “I am going to get something to eat. I´ll be back in a sec, okay?” He let Hedwig out, then went downstairs, glad to escape for a moment.

Draco tried to concentrate on his surroundings while he was alone.

When he shifted to take a look around, his body protested harshly; he could feel the strain on his wounds, and he also felt stiff from lying on his back all the time.

Doing his best to ignore it, Draco assessed the room. So this was where Potter spent his summers... he didn´t know what he had expected, but not a room as paltry as this.
It didn´t look inhabited, but literally as if someone was only journeying through, as if he would be forgotten as soon as he left. As if this wasn´t his home.

Draco was musing about this when Harry came back. He had lost his home as well, he did not even have a room like this...


The Gryffindor pulled him out of his thoughts when he set the tray down on the nightstand.

“Here we go,” Harry said. “I´ve got some cold chicken, toast and grapes. Finger food, really. Oh, and ice-tea.”

He helped Draco to sit up a bit, then held the tray on his knees so that they could both reach it.

They ate silently. Harry saw that Draco was trembling ever so slightly, and it filled him with sadness again.
He still didn´t know the details of what had happened to Draco, but it obviously had changed him so much that virtually nothing was left of his old self, apart from the damage to his body.

The trembling however gradually increased until the injured boy was shaking and dropped the piece of bread he was holding.
Harry started, thinking Draco was having a dizzy spell or might even pass out, but when he met his eyes something in the Slytherin´s gaze stopped him, and he realized that the faintness rather had to do with a new onset of horror.

“He killed her,” he stammered, his eyes widening as if seeing something Harry couldn´t see. “He killed her, she is gone...”
Harry, assuming that Draco was talking about his mother, cautiously put the tray aside, not knowing what to say.

There was nothing that would have eased the pain, as he knew from his own experience.

He inched closer to Draco, reaching out and touching his cheek with one hand to direct the boy´s gaze on himself in the attempt to make him focus on him, with the other he picked up the piece of bread Draco had dropped and tossed it aside before taking hold of the Slytherin´s hand once more: “He will not get here,” he said calmly when Draco was looking at him.
“He is not going to come near you again, all right?”

Draco´s voice was merely a whimper: “Can never go home again...”

Harry squeezed his hand: “We will sort it out,” he said, helplessly, even though he was afraid of making empty promises.
Why should he of all people try to help his former enemy? How would he be able to at all, being only a teenager himself?

He didn´t have answers to this, but his heart ached at witnessing so much pain. Maybe it was his own pain mirrored here that touched him so; he couldn´t tell.

He wanted to help easing it, or at least make it bearable.

“Lie down,” he said quietly. Draco didn´t protest and let Harry help him; he wanted to curl up and hide from the world, but the Gryffindor wouldn´t grant him that.

Instead, Harry lay down next to him and slipped underneath the blankets, which he pulled up over them until only parts of their heads were visible, then he cautiously wrapped his arm around Draco and held him close, similarly to how they had woken up the previous day. “It´s okay,” he murmured, “you´ll be fine.”


Harry had never been introduced to bedtime stories, had never had someone who had sat with him and told him fairytales when he was small, thus he didn´t know any he could have told Draco to calm him down.

That was why he kept repeating the same words over and over again, and the injured boy gradually stopped shaking and huddled against him.

Harry lay awake for hours, Draco´s words echoing in his mind long after the Slytherin had fallen asleep: “You don´t have to do this, you know... I don´t want your pity...” Harry sighed inaudibly; it was true, he didn´t pity Malfoy.
He rather sympathized for him, which he deemed an entirely different matter.

He could see that the situation didn´t lack a certain amount of irony: they had despised each other but had come to some sort of mutual understanding because they had both suffered from the hands of Voldemort and his Deatheaters.
At least he thought it was mutual. He could only guess why Draco had chosen to come here of all places, but chosen he had, right?

He had come to the one who had defeated the Dark Lord once, if unwittingly so, and had sought to fight him ever since he had known about his deeds.

It certainly had to mean something.


To Be Continued...