Harry stares at his back as he disappears around a corner and wonders how, as always happens with Draco, everything went out of his control so fast.
Draco skips dinner that evening.
Harry’s eyes scan the Slytherin table over and over, searching for him, but halfway through dinner he has no choice but to conclude Draco’s not coming. It’s only the sight of Pansy, spooning salad onto her plate and seeming no more unhappy than usual, that sets him at ease.
Hermione nudges him. “Looking for someone?” she asks, brows raised.
He shakes his head and drops his eyes to his plate. He can’t exactly tell her that, after seeing Draco hack his insides out while Harry stood there uselessly, the sight of Draco still breathing would have been a relief.
“Well,” says Hermione, “if you were looking for someone, I’d advise you to check the hospital wing.”
Harry looks around at her, amazed, but she’s engrossed in a book she’s propped open in the spot where her plate should be; the plate is in her lap. Ron’s too busy arguing with Seamus and Dean to notice when Harry gets up; Ginny and Neville sneak glances at him but know better by now than to try and stop him. Hermione just sighs, a little, and turns a page with one hand while scooping a bite of shepherd’s pie onto her fork with the other.
Once he’s out of the Great Hall he breaks into a run, racing to his dorm to grab the invisibility cloak and throwing it on before doubling back down to the infirmary. He waits by the entrance for a few minutes, until he catches his breath, before nudging the door open and slipping inside.
Draco is the only patient. He lies in the cot farthest from the door, winged by two wizards dressed in the lime green robes of St. Mungo’s Healers. Madam Pomfrey and Professor McGonagall stand off to the side, watching as the Healers cast, in tandem, a spell that bathes Draco in shimmery white light. As Harry nears, he sees that the light hovers a few inches above Draco’s body, and seems to follow the outline of his silhouette, like a magical X-ray. It’s riddled with threads of black and red, which converge in masses over the places where Draco’s heart, lungs, throat, and stomach would be. Harry has a feeling the projection is not supposed to look like that.
The Healers finish their spell, and the light dissipates.
“Did it work?” Draco asks, propping himself up on his elbows.
“The results are quite clear, yes,” says one of the Healers.
“Mrs. Malfoy is on her way,” says Professor McGonagall. “Perhaps we should wait for her.”
Draco looks about to object, but the door swings open at that moment and Narcissa Malfoy sweeps into the room. She ignores everyone and bends over her son’s prone form on the bed. He sits up gingerly to kiss her cheek; she brushes his white-blond fringe out of his emaciated face and urges him back against the pillows. They don’t say a word to each other, but a single shared glance between them seems to communicate more than any number of words could. Mrs. Malfoy straightens and turns to the huddle at the foot of Draco’s bed.
Professor McGonagall introduces the two wizards as Healers Ross and Donovan, specialists in Hanahaki Disease.
“Well?” Mrs. Malfoy says, turning her penetrating stare on the Healers; for a chilling instant Harry is back in the Forbidden Forest and he can almost feel Narcissa’s breath on his face as she asks whether or not her son is dead.
Pull yourself together, mate, he thinks grimly. It’s got to take more than one syllable from the Malfoy matriarch to shake him.
Healer Ross clears his throat. “We were able to complete a full diagnostic exam, and I’m afraid the procedure is out of the question.”
Draco flinches. Harry glares at the back of the Healer’s head. The man could stand to work on his bedside manner, in Harry’s opinion. No call for that kind of bluntness in front of a dying boy, really.
As if thinking along the same lines, Healer Donovan intervenes.
“Out of the question is not entirely correct phrasing, madam,” he says. “If your son consents to the procedure, it would be our duty to abide by his wishes. That being said, I would not recommend it.”
Mrs. Malfoy’s stare is as arresting as a solid wall of ice. Draco’s eyes are downcast. These Healers are talking about him as if he’s not even there, and he seems checked out, though Harry is certain he’s picking up every word.
“And why is that?” Professor McGonagall steps in. The sterner she gets, the more pronounced her brogue. But Madam Pomfrey shakes her head somberly.
“I’ve never treated a case of Hanahaki, and I can’t pretend I know all the details of what those test results indicate,” she says, “but even I could tell that attempting the procedure would put Mr. Malfoy’s life at risk.”
“The proposed treatment is a brand-new experimental procedure that would involve surgically removing the disease,” says Healer Ross, at a clipped pace. “This means, mind you, that we would extract the flowers, roots, and seeds, but in doing so, we would also remove the emotional causes of the disease. That is, your son’s feelings for his beloved would be gone.”
“That was our hope, yes,” says Mrs. Malfoy woodenly, “otherwise, I can only assume, his symptoms would return.”
“Yes,” says Healer Donovan. “For patients coping with a new love, this route might be more viable and might pose less risk. That is not the case with Draco. When the roots of the flowers are so deeply entrenched—when the feelings of affection are a foundational part of the victim’s being—to rip them away would be disastrous. The body collapses much like a tree would if you hacked away at its trunk.”
“Speak plainly,” says Mrs. Malfoy, coolly. “Your lauded breakthrough treatment only works on patients who just got sick?”
Healer Donovan, to his credit, is not cowed.
“Certainly not, but a lasting love is much trickier to extract than, say, an infatuation, regardless of how fast the disease itself manifests or how quickly the symptoms advance to the final stages. Your son has probably loved the individual in question for quite a long time.” He addresses Draco at last. “How old were you when—?”
“Eleven,” Draco mutters.
“Ah,” says the Healer. “That explains it. Childhood affections which blossom into true love are the most difficult to shake. What you love as a child decides who you are, in many cases. In most, I would say.”
“But your symptoms didn’t start until you were sixteen. Less than two years go,” Mrs. Malfoy protests.
“Because that’s when I realized we’d never—that there was no hope,” he says. “There was a point when not even my wildest delusions could have made me believe we’d—it doesn’t matter.”
Mrs. Malfoy opens her mouth to argue, but Draco swings his legs over the side of the bed. His throat works as if he’s trying to hold back a cough, but it escapes him in a puff of air and petals before he bends down and grabs for a small bin someone had left beside the bed. When the flood subsides, the bin is nearly overflowing with lilies. Draco rests his forehead on his knee and takes in a rattling breath. His voice, when he speaks, is hoarse.
“We’re wasting our time,” he says quietly, looking at no one. “They’ve said they can’t do it.”
“I suppose you’re pleased,” Mrs. Malfoy says, with a mixture of anger and worry that makes her sound startlingly like Mrs. Weasley. “You were looking for a reason to say no.”
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” Draco scrubs his sleeve over his mouth. The robes are hanging off him, Harry realizes, and when he gets to his feet he tilts a little as if he might fall over any moment. Still, he lifts his pointy chin and straightens up his bony frame and hobbles out of the room with as much grace as he can manage while a monstrous garden lays siege to his innards.
Harry, in his dark corner under the relative safety of the cloak, is reeling. Draco Malfoy —the stupid, slimy bully who never let an easy target go untormented; the one who’d been both Snape’s and Umbridge’s pet; the one who’d gone and got a Dark Mark slapped on his arm—is in love.
No, more than that.
Draco Malfoy is so in love not even the most advanced medical magic the Wizarding World has to offer can do anything about it. Draco Malfoy is so in love his body would shut down and die if that love was taken from him. Draco Malfoy’s love for this mysterious individual is foundational to who he is.
Harry’s head spins. None of this makes any sense, not unless Draco is in love with some Death Eater locked up in Azkaban right now. The thought sends such a wave of disgust roiling through Harry that he must have made a sound, because Professor McGonagall looks —he would’ve sworn on Gryffindor’s grave—straight at him.
Harry holds his breath, but he is suddenly as certain as he’d ever been about anything that she knows he’s there. But she says nothing, and after a few moments, she turns away. He lets out the breath he’d been holding—softly—and starts shuffling to the door, not wanting to push his luck any longer.
“Gentlemen,” McGonagall tells the Healers. “Thank you for making the journey, and for examining my student. Although, I must confess, your diagnosis leaves me heavy- hearted.”
“Hanahaki is a complex affliction,” says Healer Ross. “There is still much we do not understand. Tell me, is there no chance the boy’s beloved returns his feelings?”
Obviously not, Harry thinks, already halfway through the door. Otherwise he wouldn’t be sick, would he?
But Professor McGonagall’s cryptic response follows him out the room: “If it is who I think it is,” she says, dryly, “not even the beloved, as you put it, likely knows the answer to that question.”
Harry doesn’t know what bothers him more: the idea that Draco is capable of feeling so strongly about someone…or the fact that Harry, in contrast, hasn’t felt much more than numb since the War ended. In fact, the times he feels the most alive nowadays are when he’s flying, or fighting with Draco. Except Draco can’t fight back anymore.
It takes him one night of fitful sleep—less than that, truthfully—to decide he has to help Draco. Harry saved his life and spoke at his trial even after all he’d done wrong, because he knew there was something good in him. This is that something good, Harry thinks. This love he feels has to be the good in Draco, the thing that had kept him from being swallowed up by the Dark Lord and by his father’s mistakes. He shouldn’t be punished for the one good thing about him.
The last time he’d spoken to Draco had been the disastrous encounter near the library. This time, Harry seeks him out, determined things will be different. Hermione’s voice in his head says savior complex and Ron does not look impressed when he sees Harry with his nose buried in the Marauder’s Map, but Harry can’t be bothered to care. He’s on a mission.
