The actual appointment doesn’t take that long. The Healer comes in and does an examination, gives Draco some potions for the bruising and internal damage, makes quick work of his rope burns, and then spends a couple of minutes attempting to spell the cut on his face closed. Eventually she sighs, takes off her gloves and throws them in the trash.
“Best I can do, I’m afraid,” she says ruefully. The cut’s not red and bloody anymore, but it’s still an angry dark pink, stark against Draco’s pale skin. “That’s a nasty spell, whatever it was. I’m recommending a course of dittany, twice a day for one week, to go along with the potions I’ve given you. It should heal up all right, but there will probably be some scarring.”
“Oh,” Draco says in a small voice. Then he looks at Harry, and his mouth pulls into a strange little expression—not quite a smile, but not so miserable as a frown. “Ah, well. Maybe I’ll tell people I’ve been fighting dark lords.”
“Interesting, Mr. Malfoy, yes,” the Healer murmurs, clearly not listening as she writes on his chart, but Harry gives him the finger behind her back. It looks like it makes him feel better, though Harry couldn’t really say why.
They go back to the waiting room filled with Weasleys, which has become an encampment of sorts in the time they were away. Molly’s pulled out practically an entire dinner she had shoved into her purse, and Bill and George are playing a subdued game of Exploding Snap in one set of chairs, Arthur and Ginny in another. Percy’s pulled a massive stack of files out of his briefcase, which must have an Expanding Charm on it, and Penelope’s reading what Harry thinks is a Muggle novel, though he’d have to actually look at it to make sure.
Harry goes and puts his jeans on, and then he and Draco mostly sit in the far corner, not really talking about anything much. Neville comes over for a while, and they chat about Vicky—well, Draco and Neville chat about Vicky while Harry listens vaguely, anyway—but then Neville gets drawn into some argument Ginny and Molly are having, and Draco lets him go easily enough. They have a couple more conversations with various Weasleys as the next hour passes, never for more than a few minutes, and Harry thinks it should be weird, probably. It is, a little—George, in particular, seems to be having trouble getting past the Draco Malfoy of it all—but mostly everyone’s friendly, if a little guarded. They’re good people, and Harry thinks Draco being here at all probably goes a long way, and anyway he still looks a bit pathetic, ashen and grey except for the angry slash across his face, the heavy, purpling circles under his eyes.
Harry’s not planning on ever, ever mentioning that last part to him, of course. The shame would probably kill him.
He thinks Draco’s going to give into exhaustion at one point, the way Harry himself did right before he showed up—there’s a long silence in which Draco slumps further and further down in his chair, and when his head hits Harry’s shoulder Harry figures he’s out for the count. He’s glad of it, thinks Draco needs the sleep, and regrets it when Draco jerks upright less than a minute later, the motion a little flailing, uncontrolled.
“Sorry,” Draco says quickly, “that—sorry, I was—sorry.”
Harry squints at him, waves a hand. “It’s fine,” he says, and then, feeling his face heat a little for reasons he can't entirely explain, adds, “I mean, I didn’t—I wouldn’t mind. You can sleep, if you want.”
Draco hesitates, and then says, “What, me? In this hospital? Surrounded by Weasleys? Please, it would be terribly uncouth, I’m not even tired, stop projecting.” It’s a strange voice he uses, slightly higher pitched than usual. Harry shrugs, but he doesn’t miss the way Draco keeps cutting glances at him after that, these curious little sidelong looks that Harry can’t interpret, and which he breaks off every time Harry meets his eyes.
As they sit there Harry feels it again, that sensation from the previous morning, this stretching, shifting something—like he’s wearing different glasses, and suddenly the world looks totally unfamiliar and exactly the same. He feels almost…it’s like being on the edge of a cliff, he thinks, broom in one hand, ready to jump. It’s that same gut-churning anticipation, that same mix of adrenaline and excitement and the distant, barely acknowledged dread of something going badly wrong; not enough to tarnish the experience, just to heighten it, give it weight. He doesn’t know how to explain it to himself. He doesn’t know where it’s coming from.
He watches Draco’s hands twisting the hawthorn wand over and over again, the circles under his eyes dark and pronounced. Harry wants to send him home, to make him rest, but can’t find it in himself to tell him to go.
By the time Ron finally comes out, dawn is starting to peek in through the windows, and Draco is sitting on the floor, playing with Rose. He’s transfigured four empty coffee cups into tiny paper soldiers who are marching circles around her, occasionally calling things like, “I say!” and “How rude!” in tiny voices when she tries to smash them. She’s delighted by them, giggling to the point of nearly falling down every time one of them talks, and Draco looks pleased even through his exhaustion. He gives Ron a nervous sort of smile when he sees him walk over, like maybe he’s afraid Ron is going to snatch away his child and banish Draco from his sight or something, but Ron just smiles back, nods at him.
Draco tips his head back onto the seat of the chair all the way and gives Harry a speaking look. Harry is too exhausted and terrified and eager to hear what Ron’s going to tell them to really know what it’s saying, but he nods back anyway, and Draco smiles.
“She’s going to be all right,” Ron tells them all, not seeming a bit surprised by the small army that’s shown up while he was gone. He puts his hand on his heart as he says it, looking and sounding so relieved that for a moment Harry’s not sure he can bear it, thinks he’s going to scream or jump out a window or something. “They’re going to keep her here for a day or two, make sure everything’s looking normal, but they expect her to make a full recovery.”
There are whoops of delight and several ‘Thank Merlin’s, and then Arthur, carefully, says, “And…the baby?”
“Healthy as an ox,” Ron says, grinning, to another chorus of cheers and gratitude. “Sorry I was so long in there, it was all a bit…touch and go, for a while, and we had a lot to talk about. Everyone can come see her in a bit,” he adds, holding up a hand to forestall six different people from asking, “but for now—Harry? Would you mind coming back with me?”
Harry nods, stands, and then looks down at Draco, who is still sprawled out on the floor with his head back against the seat of the chair, staring up at him. He makes a little face, probably at the thought of being left out here with almost all of the Weasleys, and Harry makes one back, honestly at least in part at the thought of leaving him with them. Then, awkward, forcing it out, he says, “Hey, you can—I mean, if you want to go home—”
“Actually,” Ron says, “Malfoy, you should come too. This concerns both of you, really.”
“Well, that’s ominous,” Draco mutters, too quietly for anyone but Harry to hear, but he stands and follows Ron down the hallway.
Hermione’s room is down at the far end of the hall, and Harry hesitates on the threshold, his foot frozen in mid-air. He doesn’t know—what if she’s—
From behind him, Draco coughs and shoves Harry, hard, in the shoulder. Harry stumbles a little and glares back at him, but Draco just blinks with a falsely innocent expression, and, well. After that, he’s inside the room already. It’s easier to keep walking.
Hermione’s sitting up in bed. There are bandages covering a good portion of her face, and she looks drawn and ill, a little haggard, but she’s smiling. Just for a second Harry can see her at twelve years old in a bed just like this one, covered in cat hair instead, and he can’t breathe for how grateful he is not to have lost her, senselessly, years after the dark time when he’d had to make peace with the possibility that he might. Of course he knows, logically, that there was no guarantee when they took down Voldemort that things would simply be happy and painless forever, that Death’s heavy hand would never knock on their doors again, but it’s still a punch to the gut every time life proves itself to be random, harsh. It still makes Harry a little dizzy, to think that, at the end of the day, they all have so little control.
“Harry,” she says warmly, and then, with an amused, quizzical look at Ron, “and Draco, I see. Hello, boys.”
Harry nods, so glad to see her alive and all right enough to talk to him that he doesn’t trust himself to speak, even as Ron shrugs, and walks over to her bedside. He puts a hand on her shoulder with this look like—like he didn’t even want to be a few feet away from her; like those five minutes out in the waiting room were the longest of his life. Harry swallows hard against a deep, bizarre sense of resonance, gaze flicking to Draco and then quickly back to Hermione. He doesn’t have time to deal with that right now.
“Granger,” Draco says, probably because Harry is just standing around stupidly, smiling huge relief at Hermione but saying a whole lot of nothing. “It’s good to see you. Sorry about the,” he gestures at his own face in the same vague areas of Hermione’s bandaging, “circumstances.”
Ron looks a little murderous, but Hermione chuckles, shakes her head. “Sorry about your,” she repeats Draco’s gesture on her own face, “circumstances, too.”
“Maybe we can form a club,” Draco suggests brightly. “Me, you, and Potter here. Weasley, I’m terribly sorry, you’re not invited—well, unless you want to consider the freckles a tragic disfigurement, I suppose.”
“Hermione is not tragically disfigured,” Ron snaps, and Draco falls back half a step, looking alarmed.
Harry thinks he’s going to have to intercede, but then Hermione rolls her eyes, grabs Ron’s hand, and says, “Ronald, he’s joking.” To Draco, she adds, “Really, don’t let him scare you. He’s more bark than bite.”
“Don’t tell him that,” Ron hisses, perfectly audible for all he clearly thinks it was a whisper, at the same moment Draco snaps, “I certainly was not scared, thank you very much.”
Hermione just laughs, her eyes meeting Harry’s. “You okay, Harry?”
“I’m just really glad to see you,” Harry admits, and is surprised and pleased that his voice comes out mostly even. “Are you okay? What even happened? I mean—if you, er. If you don’t mind. Talking about it. We don’t have to,” he adds quickly. “If you don’t want.”
“Smooth, Potter,” Draco says, in an undertone. Harry elbows him a little, but carefully, and avoiding his injured side.
“I don’t mind talking about it,” Hermione says. She picks at her blanket a little, vanishing some invisible fuzz; when she starts to speak again, she sounds distant, and Harry wonders if she isn’t on some pretty heavy pain potions. “I was—leaving work. I stayed late, I’ve got a massive judgment to finish and I’m only halfway through writing the outline— Ron, can you have someone pick up—”
“Your notes, yes, you’ve already said,” Ron says. He takes her hand and make a helpless little face down at the top of her head, and Harry has to turn away, avert his eyes, to stem the tide of that strange, swelling sensation still right at the edge of his mind. “I’ve got someone going for them, love. They’ll be here later today.”
“Do you think that will be soon enough?” Hermione asks anxiously. “I know the Healers said I should rest, but it really wouldn’t be very taxing at all to just read over a few of the depositions again and—”
“One day,” Ron says. “I’m begging here, Hermione. You nearly—” He stops, swallows. Lowers his voice, not that it keeps Harry from hearing: “I nearly lost you. Just. Please. Twenty-four hours of listening to the Healers, and then you can go back to being the completely cracked workaholic we all know and love.”
“Oh, all right,” Hermione says, and looks up at him with so much emotion in her expression that Harry’s skin feels too tight. He tries to catch Draco’s eye, desperate to look anywhere but at this very private moment, but Draco’s looking at the floor.
“Anyway,” Hermione says, clearing her throat, “I was working late, and I like to walk home, sometimes, clear my head—yes, Ronald,” she says, before Ron can get even do more than get his mouth open, “I know you’ve always said it’s not particularly safe practice, but I’ve done that walk a thousand times and this is the only time I’ve ever been assaulted, so really, statistically, it’s actually quite low-risk.”
“What a comforting thought, 'Mione, thanks,” Ron says, dry, and she swats him lightly with the hand he’s not holding.
“Well, it wasn’t the walk’s fault,” she says. “There was just this—woman. She came out from the mouth of an alley, and I realized she was glamoured, and I reached for my wand and found I didn’t have it. I know it was on me when I left the office, and I’d only been walking about ten minutes; I think she must have pickpocketed me.”
Draco makes a small, surprised noise. When they all turn to look at him, he flushes, says, “Sorry, I—I just had a similiar experience tonight. I woke up, and I had this sense that— that something was off, and I reached for my wand in the pocket of my pajamas and it wasn’t there.” Draco frowns, shudders a little; the swelling sensation in the back of Harry’s mind is starting to give him a headache. “I know it was in there when I went to bed, but— anyway. I apologize. This isn’t what we’re talking about.”
Ron and Hermione exchange a grim look that Harry doesn’t like one bit. “It might be,” Ron says. “We’re getting to that.”
“I don’t,” Hermione says, and takes a deep breath. “I don’t really remember much of the—attack. Except…it felt…personal, almost? She kept coming back to my face—I kept thinking I was glad, that at least she didn’t seem to know that I was pregnant, that I’d rather be scarred or blinded than—than—well, than anything else. And I got some good hits in, too,” she adds, changing tack abruptly, almost defiant about it. “Glamour or no, she’ll need one hell of a healer for the wound I left on her shoulder; I always carry a canister filled with a special reduction of Venomous Tentacula seed, just in case. That stuff’ll burn the flesh off anything it touches.”
“Granger,” Draco says, approving. “Nice.”
“Thank you,” Hermione says with a little sniff. “Ron always says it’s savage and slightly unhinged.”
“Well, I don’t anymore,” Ron says, expression rueful. “From now on, you carry whatever you like.” To Harry and Draco, he says, “Here’s the weird thing. I mean, the whole thing’s the weird thing—how anybody could ever—but, look. I got this Floo call, and I think it was from Hermione’s attacker. I mean, there’s not really any way to tell if someone’s been glamoured during a fire call, but the timeline makes sense. She said that my wife had been attacked and I needed to come through immediately, and that I didn’t need to worry, she’d call Mr. Potter for me. I went through, and Hermione was…she was out in the street and I… I didn’t really think about it again, until Hermione and I were talking a little bit ago. I guess —and yes, love, I know this is a bit sexist—but I guess I just sort of assumed her attacker was a man, and that the woman in the fire was—whatever.” He gives Harry an uncomfortable look. “A fan, or something. Someone who knew who we were and wanted to help. It didn’t even twig for me that it was weird that she hadn’t reached you, because I couldn’t reach you either. But then Hermione and I were talking, and…”
“Well, it just seemed a bit strange that Draco and I would both be attacked in one night,” Hermione says carefully.
