The Tragic Tale of the Boy Who Lived and the Boy Who Wanted to Die [ON HIATUS]

Draco awoke, not in the hospital wing, but in the Quidditch stadium. It was still downpouring, but people were now yelling loudly, and the emptiness of the dementors was gone. He looked up to see Theo pulling him off the ground.

“C’mon, we’ve got to go. The others have already left.” There were people running around left and right. Theo helped Draco up, and they started back towards the castle with the other students. All the dementors were gone, but something still wasn’t right. He felt humiliated, and angry. Out of everything that could happen, he had to pass out right in the middle of the match. He wondered vaguely who else noticed, but his brain wasn’t working. His head hurt really bad, he probably hit it off of something when he passed out.

“Those dementors are something.” muttered Theo as they walked towards the dungeons.

“What happened?” Draco felt like he would puke if he kept talking, so he let Theo tell the story and just listened.

“The dementors came onto the field, and then you passed out. Your head hit the seat behind us, but nobody else saw. They were focused on the game, since Diggory caught the snitch and Potter fell off his broom. I thought he was dead.” Those words did not bring the comfort Draco had hoped they would; instead, he felt lightheaded at hearing that last sentence. How bad were the injuries Potter sustained that he looked as if he died? Would he be okay? Why did he care?

When the two of them made it back to the dormitories, Draco collapsed onto one of the beds, not even bothering to take off his wet clothes. He felt like shit after his second dementor encounter. There had been dementors in Hogsmeade, of course, but they didn’t have the same effect when he was happy with all his friends. Their effects were worse when you were already upset.

“Do you need to go to the hospital wing? You hit your head pretty hard on that seat.” Theo looked at him, seemingly concerned.

Draco did not answer. Draco knew that Potter would probably be there, and the thought of what Potter would say if he saw this was unnerving.

“Well, I just thought you might, since that’s my bed you’re laying on. Plus, you look like you're about to pass out again. You might’ve gotten a concussion from that fall.”

Draco didn’t really take in the words that Theo was saying. His head hurt too bad for him to focus on much else. It must have been a really nasty fall, because once again, everything went black.

This time, when he woke up, Theo was sitting on the floor beside the bed. Draco’s headache was gone, and he felt much better. Theo noticed Draco looking at him, and said,

“Oh good, you're awake. I considered bringing you to see Madame Pomfrey, but I knew Potter would be there and I know you wouldn’t want to see him. Instead, I tried some spells from this book I got a few days ago, about healing magic. I think I fixed the problem, how do you feel?” Draco noticed something was off, so he looked around. Then, he noticed what was up.

“Theo,” he said slowly, “what did you do with my arm bandages?”

“They looked really painful, so I took them off. It’s been months now, there’s no way he could get mad. And if he does, tell him it was my fault.” Draco did not answer, but instead studied his right arm carefully. He could still clearly see the mark where he had cut it accidentally, and had a feeling it would likely leave a scar. The mark where Buckbeak had attacked him was barely visible now, but looked like it would also never permanently go away.

“Where did you get that last mark? The one on your forearm?” Theo asked. “It wasn’t there before you got attacked. I thought that hippogriff only got your shoulder?” Draco hesitated to respond. For some reason, he couldn’t bring himself to lie to Theo, but if he said nothing, Theo would get suspicious.

“I- It was sort of an accident. I tried removing the bandages a few weeks ago, and I missed. And hit my forearm.”

“Did you go to Madame Pomfrey?”

“Should I have?”

“Probably. Was it treated with anything?” Theo sat up and examined the cut. It looked irritated from the constant friction with the bandages.

“No, I sorta just- I dunno, forgot about it? Well, I tried to forget about it.” he knew he was oversharing, and probably should have just stayed quiet, but his last sentence was out of his mouth before he knew it. “And Potter saw it happen, he was there.”

Theo was silent for a moment, but then he spoke.

“You don’t really hate him, do you? I mean, you’re always trying to out-do him whenever people are watching, but you don’t seem like you really hate him.”

“I don’t like him.” Draco said quickly. He couldn’t have Theo jumping on the whole Draco-has-a-crush-on-Potter train.

“I never said you liked him, but you don’t hate him. Ginny says he’s actually a nice person, once you get to know him.” Draco considered what he was saying for a moment, but then realised what Theo was implying.

“What has she said to him about me? Theo, what did she tell him?!” Draco was panicking now. If Potter hadn’t been all up in his business before, then he definitely was now.

“Calm down Draco! She didn’t say anything to him. He mentioned noticing something was off with you to Ginny, and Ginny told me about it.”

“Why is he talking to Ginny about me? Since when did he talk to Ginny anyway?”

“Oh, he stays with her family over the summer sometimes. I think she has a crush on him.” That fact instantly made Draco uneasy.

“Does he like her back?” He didn’t know why he was so curious, but he felt like he just had to know.

“No, probably not. I mean, that's his best friend’s sister. It’s like if I went and snogged Pansy’s older brother or something.” Theo replied.

“Probably not, or definitely not?”

“Why are you so interested?”

Draco didn’t have an answer for that, just silence.

“Do you want to go down to eat? The others have already left.” Theo said.

“Sure.” But Draco wasn’t hungry, so all he did was sit down with the rest of them and listen to them talk. He noticed that Potter wasn’t at his table, but didn’t dare ask his friends any questions about him, after the Cedric Diggory debacle.

When they all went up to bed that night, Draco kept thinking about what Theo had told him, about how Potter had told Ginny something was wrong. Why was Potter talking about him? Could he be worried about him? Could Harry Potter seriously have nothing better to worry about?

What about Draco Malfoy was so interesting that Harry Potter himself was more worried about him than the escaped convict that aided in his parent’s murder?