A Dream For The Dead

A Dream For The Dead

Chapter 9

Mass Convulsions

The room was spinning and the cold was creeping in. This was new. This had never happened before.

Harry felt his soul being pulled in all directions at once before he felt himself moving steadily towards something. The Light, the Darkness, they did not call to him now. Now he was being pulled towards one specific thing, one person, one other soul.

It was more painful than he could have imagined.

“What do you mean?” Harry asked, shutting his eyes and pressing the heels of his hands into them, behind his glasses. “Surely there are other Healers here who would help him. It’s not a choice. It’s your job.”

Nott had turned back to work. Alicia walked over to him and gave him a sad look, nodding slightly and pressing her hand to his bicep. The feeling of another person slowed the spinning world, let him gain his footing back. He focused on it.

“Well, there are other Healers who would have done it,” she explained. “But only a handful and they weren’t working tonight. Nott and I were the only ones here who agreed to take him on. Most of the other Healers…” She seemed to be trying to figure out how to word what she was about to say. Harry opened his eyes and stared at her. “Well, they aren’t… aren’t fans of Malfoy.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Harry snapped. He looked back at Malfoy’s unconscious figure and regretted it immediately. He shut his eyes again and tried to think away the feeling of the world crashing down around him. “I’m not a fan of his either but I’m still here. It’s my job to be here. It’s theirs to Heal him.”

Alicia shifted and sighed, releasing Harry’s arm and turning back to her patient.

“They don’t think well of him,” she tried to reiterate. “No everyone is as noble as you are, Harry.”

Harry opened his mouth to further protest but he was cut off.

“Don’t you see, Potter?” Wood shot. “They think he deserves this. They think he deserves to be mobbed in the street and killed.” Wood got to his feet, the application of his healing salve complete, and stood between Harry and Alicia. “There are many people out there who threaten Death Eaters and their remaining families with death and worse all the time.”

Harry breathed harshly through his nose and ran his fingers through his hair. He was getting agitated and hot. This was ridiculous.

“Rubbish,” he shot. “I’m an Auror. I would know if anyone was getting threatened on a daily basis. My office would know. Particularly if it was so…” Harry shut his mouth abruptly, his mind wandering back to the file he had read earlier.

“No you wouldn’t,” Nott chimed in suddenly. His face was dark and he stood over Malfoy, his wand tip lit as the cuts on Malfoy’s chest finished knitting together. He picked up a cup of dittany and began to apply it to the wounds. “The Ministry is of much the same opinion as the public in regards to Death Eaters and their families. Why should you care if those who supported Voldemort are living in hell? Real or otherwise.”

Harry felt the anger rise in him.

“Hey!” he cried, his face red. “I do my job right, no matter what it entails. I put the Death Eaters away because they deserved to pay for their crimes. If there are witches and wizards out there who are threatening and attacking Death Eater families then I will protect those families. No matter what their pasts are.”

“And yet you’re looking for any reason at all to believe that Draco was responsible for his own misfortune tonight,” Nott answered. It was a quiet and calm response. He did not look up at Harry. “That’s why you asked Wood if he cheated during the match.”

Harry felt defeated and livid in one. He wanted to argue that he asked the necessary questions to get the information required to an investigation, that they would never understand precisely what he job entailed and so should not lecture him on how to go about it. He wanted to tell them that he was unbiased and impartial in the way he investigated. He wanted to tell them that he was fair. But he knew, somewhere, that this wasn’t entirely true. And the guilt of that knowledge made him feel worse.

“I need to… go firecall someone,” he murmured. “I’ll be back shortly, to take his statement when he wakes up.”

Harry did not wait for an answer but strode out the door, pushing past the Quidditch players guarding the door and went down the hall. He needed to breathe, to think. He needed to get away from the pulling on his soul and… collect himself. He needed to clear his head.

He walked faster and faster down the dark hall until he came to the locked entrance to the Janus Thickey Ward. He tried the door and, when it didn’t open for him, rather than try magic, he forced it, hit it, pushed and fought with the door as hard as possible until he collapsed against it, his eyes stinging with tears and his breath caught in his throat.

He pressed his head to the cold metal, his fingers grasping tightly to the handle. His knuckles were white. He sobbed silently, his body jerking and twitching from the effort of keeping silent. Harry banged his head once against the door before pulling away and leaning back against the wall.

“Why is this so bloody hard?” he asked nothing at all. “What’s wrong with me?” He glanced back down the hall to where the players outside Malfoy’s door looked to be no bigger than the size of his fingers. “Why can’t I just… let it go? Forgive him and stop… stop getting so angry?”

Harry stared at his hands for a moment, as though he was sure he would find blood there. He shook slightly and then dropped his hands.

Why couldn’t he just give Malfoy the benefit of the doubt? Why couldn’t he believe Wood when he said that Malfoy had changed, that he was a good person? Why did he cling so hard to the old school rivalry?

He had believed, once, that he was past that. He had believed that saving Malfoy’s life nineteen years ago showed that he bore him no ill will. He acknowledged Malfoy on Platform Nine and Three Quarters only a month ago. He had felt nothing towards him then.

But then… then he bumped into him at the Ministry and… years of maturity unraveled around him. Years of preaching tolerance and acceptance were lost on him entirely when he came face to face with his old school rival.

Harry laughed humourlessly when he realized that, in certain respects, Voldemort had never managed to get this far under Harry’s skin. But then, Voldemort was just plain evil. Malfoy was…

Harry didn’t know what he was. At all.

Perhaps that was the problem. He didn’t know the real Draco Malfoy in any way, shape, or form. He knew only what the papers reported on him, what he had seen from a distance in school through the lens of hatred. He knew only glimpses of a scared boy facing danger beyond his expectations. He knew the shadow of a person, not the real thing.

Harry calmed himself down and then found the lift to take him to make his firecall. He found himself a hearth and called out into it. The flames flared and Ginny’s face appeared in the fire looking less than impressed.

“Harry!” she snapped wearily. “Do you have any idea what time it is?!” She was whispering.

“Look, I’m sorry, Gin,” he began quietly. He hoped his tone expressed his own weary state. “I won’t be back tonight. Is Lily still up?”

Ginny glared at him and rolled her eyes.

“Obviously you don’t know what time it is,” she grumbled. “Of course Lily isn’t still awake. He bedtime is ten o’clock and it’s now well past two in the morning! And thank you for letting me know you wouldn’t be back. This may surprise you, Harry, but I am quite clever enough to figure out that when the Ministry calls and says there’s a riot going on, the chances of you being back before ten are quite slim.” Her words were laced with sarcasm and disdain. Harry frowned and took a deep breath.

“Fine, fine,” he answered. “I’m sorry to wake you.” He bit back the urge to point out that she clearly needed to sleep lest she turn into an angry Veela. “Just please tell Lily I’m sorry I didn’t get to read her a story tonight. Please.”

Ginny eyed him for a moment and Harry immediately knew that she was standing, her arms crossed and her lip slightly puckered in a disbelieving look. He knew that she was wearing the soft blue terrycloth robe he had bought for her years ago. He knew that, underneath it, she was wearing her favourite blue nightdress. There was a hole worn into the collar from use. She insisted it not be fixed, assured that it was more comfortable that way.

Harry’s face fell and his eyes darkened.

“Alright, Harry,” she told him, a mite more kindly. “I’ll tell her. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Ginny,” he answered before the fire died out and she was gone.

He got back to his feet and brushed himself off, trying to think only of his daughter. He tried to ignore the pang of hurt that tore through his stomach. He tried to ignore the image of Ginny in his mind, but he couldn’t. He was never very good at controlling his emotions.

Harry made his way slowly back to the fourth floor. He was exhausted and drained now, in every way he could imagine. He needed to sleep, needed to get out of St Mungo’s.

As he walked back along the corridor to Malfoy’s room, he wondered if he shouldn’t give the blond Quidditch player the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he should give it a shot. Maybe he should even consider taking the case Boot had offered him. He had nothing to lose, did he?

Harry looked up as he approached the door and realized that the players were no longer standing guard in front of the door. He paused, his heartbeat speeding slightly. Then he heard a crash and muffled cries and Harry ran.

He ran to the door and pushed it open, his wand held high, prepared to attack. When he got into the room, however, his eyes fell on a much different sight than he had expected.

There was a table and cauldron knocked onto the floor, the potion spilling over the tiles and steadily turning hard and glossy, as though it was an extra finish to the flooring.

“Let go of me, you bastards!” Harry turned around and saw Malfoy, very much awake, and flailing every limb, forcing desperately against the eight people trying desperately to restrain him. He had no wand and was clearly still in pain, still hurt. They made no move to use their wands on him. “I said, let me go!! You can’t keep me here! Give me… oh, to hell with it.” He held out one hand and wordlessly summoned his wand to his outstretched fingers. Harry was mildly impressed before he realized what was happening.

He stepped in further and stood at the very end of Malfoy’s bed, his wand outstretched and pointed directly at Malfoy’s head.

“Lay down, Malfoy,” Harry commanded him, his voice threatening and rough. “Or I will forcibly restrain you myself.”

Malfoy’s eyes flashed to Harry and his wand before he stopped moving and allowed himself to be pushed back onto the mattress. His eyes were trained on Harry’s wand and his chin was angled back. The players backed off of him and the Healers hesitated before stepping closer to finished administering their spells and potions.

Harry’s arm did not budge and his eyes were focused on Malfoy’s eyes focused on his wand.

“Wood was right,” Harry said suddenly. No one said a word, but Malfoy’s lip curled slightly. “You have changed since Hogwarts.” Malfoy’s grey eyes shifted abruptly to meet Harry’s gaze. “In school, you would have lapped up all the attention you were getting for being injured, rather than demand to be released.” Harry motioned with his wand and Malfoy dropped his wand down onto the bed. He swallowed hard and breathed heavily under Harry’s stare. “But you certainly still are just as much of a bastard as you always were.”

+++++

Draco stopped breathing for a full minute when he Potter barked the order at him. His eyes were on the wand pointed at his head and nothing else. He couldn’t bring himself to move, couldn’t bring himself to speak. This wasn’t because Potter had ordered him – Draco certainly felt no urge to suddenly become obedient to the likes of Potter –and it wasn’t even that Potter’s wand was trained on him.

No. Draco had stopped breathing because, the moment Potter took his place in front of Draco’s bed and everyone else let go, the world stopped moving.

One minute of motionlessness was equal to sixty seconds’ worth of no air for Draco.

He was only dimly aware of Potter’s words as he, no doubt, shot his derisive comments. But after one minute, the world lurched violently beneath him and Potter and his attention snapped up, meeting Potter’s eyes to see if he had noticed, to see if he had felt it too.

Give me one sign, just one. Anything. Show me that I’m not the only one.

He watched the motionless Potter for a few minutes. He showed no indication on his face or in his wand arm that he had felt the world move in the slightest, that he had noticed the sudden shirk of the ground. Draco felt disappointment and despair threaten the edges of his mind before he caught onto something.

Potter was leaning back at an awkward angle that could not have been comfortable. It was as though he was bracing himself, in some way, against a forward pull.

Draco’s eyes widened for a moment before he found himself able to move once more. He was unaware that he had dropped his wand during this time. His fingers felt strangely empty when he came back to himself.

“What are you doing here, Potter?” Draco spat, shifting in his bed in an effort to regain some dignity. His previous position made him unpleasantly vulnerable to Potter’s attack.

The bespectacled Auror did not drop his wand at all. He stood firmly at the foot of the bed and glared, unblinking, down at Draco. Draco returned the favour and wondered deftly it the world would soon stop moving.

“Why do you think, Malfoy?” Potter breathed, his tone slightly uneven despite what Draco was sure were his best efforts. Draco’s lip curled into something of a smirk. “Apparently some blokes attacked you in Diagon Alley. I can’t imagine why they might have felt compelled to do that.” The sarcasm in his words was not something Draco appreciated. His blood ran hot and his smirk turned into a grimace. “Maybe you’d care to enlighten me.”

Draco straightened himself, his cold eyes never leaving Potter’s gaze now that he had it. He sucked his cheeks in for a moment.

“Why did they send you for this?” Draco drawled, his words infused with as much disdain as he could manage. “I would have thought it was a job more suited to a Hit Wizard than an Auror.” He tilted his head slightly in a defiant manner. “Or have you been demoted since I last saw you, Potter?”

Potter tensed very slightly and if Draco had not mastered the art of observation, he was sure he would have missed it. Which would have been a pity because it was so delicious to see.

“I’m sure you’d love that,” Potter answered quietly. “And I assure you, I don’t want to be here any more than you do. So why don’t you make this easy on both of us and just tell me what happened.”

Draco smirked this time, wanting so badly to slip back into his old role, to feel the way he did back in school. He wanted to forget the past twenty-one years, if he could. He would have done anything to accomplish that if it didn’t also mean giving up Scorpius.

“Ah, but Potter,” he whispered silkily. “Where would the fun be in that? Nothing is ever easy for us.”

Potter’s glared became harder as he lowered his wand. Draco could see his chest heave with each silent breath now. The ground had slowed to a crawl and Potter stood straighter.

“Don’t pretend to know what it’s like to be me,” he answered gruffly. Draco sat up carefully, now that there was no wand trained on him. His heart was beating harder now.

“I don’t pretend.”

Potter shifted to appear more intimidating. Draco was not intimidated at all, now. However much he felt fire grow beneath his skin when he was around Potter, Draco was mesmerized by him. Potter leaned in slightly and his eyes narrowed.

“You know what I think?” he asked, his voice low and dangerous. Draco made no move to answer. It was clearly a rhetorical question that Auror-types asked suspects before goading them into some kind of confession. But Draco had nothing to confess. Not regarding this, anyway. “I think that you shot your mouth off, like you always do, and the blokes who attacked you were just retaliating. I think you brought this on yourself.”

Draco’s jaw tightened. His eyes turned a steely colour, the shadows shifting within the irises. He wanted to lunge at Potter and beat him like he, himself, was beaten so that Potter would know what it felt like, know how stupid his assumption was.

“Potter, you know that’s a bloody lie.” The voice was familiar and it took Draco a moment to realize that it was Wood. He had forgotten that there were other people in the room, his attention so focused on Potter. He swallowed and leaned back.

“I can’t know that,” Potter answered Wood without looking away from Draco. “If Malfoy here gives me his statement then maybe I can formulate a more accurate account.”

“Why should I bother to tell you my version of things?” Draco asked coldly. “When you have so clearly already decided that I’m responsible for my own condition?”

“Because you’ve got no choice,” Potter asserted. He glanced around briefly and then set his jaw. His mouth was a thin line and his green eyes were weary and tired. “Everyone out of the room. Now.”

Draco’s team mates and Healers shot each other sidelong glances before making any kind of move to leave. Draco decided to get up as well, given that Potter was unspecific in his instructions. Potter moved quickly around the bed and pushed Draco roughly back down onto the bed, his palm flat against Draco’s chest, over the newly closed wounds.

“Nice try, Malfoy,” Potter said, sounding much as though he did not believe this to be a nice try at all. Draco noticed that Potter’s fingertips lingered very briefly over the web of wounds on his chest before he pulled his hand away.

Once everyone was out of the room, Potter sat himself down in the chair next to Draco’s bed and crossed his arms over his chest. Draco was about to mimick him when a better idea struck him. He ran his own fingertips over the long, thin slices on his body, tracing them each individually with care.

Potter’s eyes followed his movements but he said nothing.

“Admiring your handiwork,” Draco hissed, staring at Potter out of the corner of his eyes. Potter’s muscles were taught beneath his robes. He was sitting like a statue. “The scars were almost completely invisible before tonight.”

Potter was silent in his determination not to appear guilty. He watched Draco drawing over his own slowly forming scars. Draco finally turned to look him in the eyes and realized that Potter’s eyes were dark and sad, rather than sharp and angry.

“Tell me what happened tonight,” he demanded, unable to tear his gaze away from the scars now that he was looking at them. Draco was painfully aware of his own body as Potter watched him.

“You know what happened,” Draco drawled. “Wood told you. What more do you need to know that your intractable imagination hasn’t already filled in?”

“Tell me what they said to you,” he offered, even and emotionless in his tone. “Tell me what they looked like, who hit you first.”

Draco was suddenly angry and he didn’t know why. He just couldn’t deal with Potter now. He didn’t want to deal with Potter. He most certainly did not want to deal with Auror Potter.

“Why?” Draco spat, vaguely aware that snapping at Potter while no one else was around was probably a bad idea. He didn’t care. “Why the fuck should I tell you anything? What have the Aurors ever done to help me or mine?”

Potter threw his arms dramatically in the air and clawed his fingers at the air. He made a sound of desperate aggravation and then pressed his fingers to his forehead as though his head ached just listening to Draco. Draco reminded himself that it probably did.

“Merlin, Malfoy!” he yelled, his voice full of incredulousness. “What is it you want? Fuck. What have the Aurors done for you? What do you want from me? Your father went to prison because of his crimes. Your family paid reparations because of your crimes. All of you. That’s not my bloody fault and it’s not the fault of any Auror either. It was your fault, your father’s fault. Stop bloody blaming everyone else for your misfortunes and start taking responsibility!”

“Fuck you, Potter,” Draco snarled back. “I DID take responsibility. One million galleons’ worth of responsibility and still more every day. I paid my dues, my father paid his dues! But it’s never enough. The fucking Ministry would take my blood if they could find a way to make it legal.” Draco was shaking from his fury.

Potter had no idea. No idea what it was like to walk the streets of the wizarding world when you were once a Death Eater. He didn’t know what it was like to be loathed by every living being, to be vocally abused everywhere he went. He didn’t know what it was like to fear for his family’s safety and know that if something did happen to them, no one would give a damn. No one would lift a finger to help.

“You know what,” Potter said suddenly, getting to his feet. “I don’t care. This is ridiculous.” He walked towards the door, waving his hands as though to indicate that he was washing his hands of the matter, of Draco. Draco was not surprised. “Whatever those men said to you was probably true, and I don’t blame them for assaulting you. Right now, I want to hit you.”

Draco nearly threw himself at Potter.

“They insulted my son!” he bellowed suddenly, without really intending to. Potter stopped dead in his tracks and his stare froze on the wall next to the door. The ground had become unnaturally still. “They insulted Scorpius and called me a… a fucking…” He paused to work his mouth and tongue around the world. “A skullsucker.”

Draco was shaking now for different reasons. He was staring resolutely at the bedding before him. Potter turned around to face him, apparently confused.

“A skullsucker?” he asked, his voice marginally softer than it was a moment prior. Draco’s eyelids slid shut as he rolled his eyes and turned his face away. He swallowed hard before attempting to explain it.

“It means…” he began, his throat suddenly dry. “It’s the pureblood equivalent of Mudblood.” He refused to look at Potter. If he didn’t look at him, then Potter couldn’t see Draco vulnerable. “It’s a derogatory play on Death Eater… suggesting that I’m he who… sucks off Death…” He shut his eyes again. “Who sucks off Voldemort.” Draco couldn’t breathe now. “A bloody whore… to the fucking Dark Lord…”

Draco fists were tightly clenched around the blanket. He was rigid from the rage that burned through his veins. He would not look up at Potter. He refused. He saw a shadow move.

“Malfoy,” Potter said quietly. “That’s…”

“Then he started saying…” Draco went on, unwilling to hear what Potter had to say. He didn’t care for pity or for sympathy. He knew it would never be genuine sympathy. He didn’t want to hear the empty words. He most certainly didn’t want to hear Potter tell him to suck it up and deal, to be a man or some other rubbish. “He started saying… about my son and… I just.” Draco shook his head at nothing. “No. He could talk rubbish about me and my parents all he wants, all anyone wants. I can defend myself. We all can. But Scorpius…” Draco opened his eyes and stared at his hands. “He’s just a boy. He’s innocent. He never did anything wrong.” He finally looked up at Potter, his eyes sharp and full of hatred. Draco looked suddenly older, if only for a few moments. “They will never touch my son.”

Potter stared back at him but said nothing. His expression was serious but he made no move to speak. Instead they stared at one another for a while; Draco couldn’t decide how long. They shared a moment of silent understanding, despite whatever else lay under their personal bridges. Draco swallowed and his upper lip curled into a snarl.

“To the bastard who tries…” Draco growled. “I’ll kill him.”

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A/N: Sorry for missing yesterday. Was taken to Stratford for the day. Also, today sucked. Horrible day. Should have never happened. Anyway, hope you like this chapter. Thank you for the reviews on the last one! I love you all very much. Seriously. I do.

This is kind of an angry chapter. Or very. Not kind of. I think I'm going to go write angry hate porn to feel better.

Reviews are love. And make me happeeee. *hearts and cookies to you*