Halloween Havoc

When Draco was eighteen, when he was barely a man and had no naive ideals of having a future, he saw Harry Potter die. Draco had been in the forbidden forest, staying close to the Dark Lord to collect any information he could to turn the tides of the war in Potter's favor when Potter walked through the clearing.

Draco nearly cried - he very nearly cried. Seeing Potter standing with his back straight and his eyes glassy, seeing Potter refusing to snivel or beg… it nearly broke Draco.

Then Potter returned to life and Draco scoffed because of course Harry bloody Potter couldn't be stopped with death.

Harry Potter did not die from the killing curse when he was an infant, he did not die from the killing curse when he was barely a man. Harry Potter was not going to die from the bullet of a muggle weapon.

The muggles were screaming, running away. Draco was jostled hard by someone - Healer Anderson - who ran after the shooter. Draco only had eyes for Potter as he fell down on the ground, landing in a puddle of his own freely pouring blood.

Potter was wearing a sweater, a dark green sweater vest. Draco knew Potter wore it to mock him the same way that Draco wore a Gryffindor tie and a lightning bolt scar to mock Potter. It had been amusing, silly, trivial.

The sweater was staining, staining with Potter's blood. Draco stared at it while Doctor Bailey screamed for her son and it was burning itself in his mind while Draco twisted around and went for Potter.

Draco pressed his fingers to the side of Potter's neck and struggled to find a pulse, any proof of life at all.

It was there, faint. It would be gone if Draco didn't act quickly, save Potter from himself once more.

Someone was clawing at Draco, trying to move him away, he couldn't be moved though. If Draco moved, Potter would die.

"GET EVERYONE AWAY!" Draco ordered. He levitated Potter's body, hating his limp and lifelessness. Draco was careful as he moved Potter back toward the door, careful to not bump him or injure him in any way.

Potter's blood dripped off his body, creating a trail behind them. The screams of his mother were devastating, cutting Draco right to the quick. It was impossible to look at Potter as any patient, he wasn't.

Potter was Potter and Draco was Draco. Everything between them became irreparably tangled from the moment they met on the Hogwarts Train when they were eleven.

"Don't you dare die," Draco hissed as he rushed Potter through the lobby, past the pale faces of the useless doctors who were gawking. "Don't you dare," Draco repeated.

"Anderson…" Potter's eyes fluttered and his stupid green sweater, a shade too light to even be the right sweater, was as bloodstained as his eyes were bloodshot. "Anderson," Potter whispered weakly. "He has to do it."

Anderson did not have to do it. If Potter needed surgery, Draco would do it.

"This is no time to be an idiot," Draco snarked. Someone brought Draco a bed while he waited for the lift and Potter's blood was dripping on the floor - it was the girl that Potter had dated and discarded, the Grey girl. She wasn't weepy, thank Merlin.

If she hadn't dated Potter, Draco would like her. She was a competent assist, for a young muggle doctor.

"Draco…" Potter coughed, a horrible cough that produced blood and told Draco that his liver had been hit. Draco laid him down gently, nodded when the Grey girl hit the seventh floor button. The doors shut in the face of Shepherd and Potter's mother, a happy accident.

Potter looked like death on the bed; pale, bleeding, likely headed for shock. Draco was seconds away from charming him unconscious when Potter whispered one more damning word —

"Pumpkin."

"Damn it, Potter!" Draco rolled over in his bed and threw one of his pillows at Potter, trying to wake him to end the screaming and thrashing happening. It was constant, bloody constant.

Potter sat straight up and Draco's chest ached at the fear in his eyes, the wild fear that Draco knew could be so debilitating.

"Susan!" Potter's eyes were open and he was clearly seeing nothing, nothing current. "Susan, run!"

"Susan isn't here, Potter." Draco rolled off his bed and crossed over to reach out very carefully toward Potter. Potter was dangerous, there was a reason why their dorm was warded to hades and back. There were too many belongings destroyed in PTSD-induced magical outbursts.

"She's with Longbottom, studying abroad," Draco said, as quiet and gentle as he would with a patient. That was how Draco practiced his bedside manner, every other night with Potter. It was a sacrifice, but Draco told himself it would make him a better healer.

And it didn't hurt to keep Potter from accidentally killing Draco in his sleep.

"Where…?" Potter looked around blindly and the fog in his eyes diminished a small amount when he saw Draco. "Draco? You're - here? Safe?"

"Yes, Potter." Draco squeezed Potter's arm, in the same place where Draco's own Dark Mark rested. "I am safe."

Trust Potter to care so much for his spy; the spy given a second chance, the spy that Potter fought for and protected and cared about in his throes of PTSD.

Draco had hardly turned the tides of the war in their favor, the biggest accomplishment he had was telling Potter when the Dark Lord began fretting about his snake and muttering about other trinkets. It had helped, but Potter could have won the war without Draco.

"Draco…" Potter sighed and Draco saw the understanding, the return of life. "I'm sorry," he said, his muscles relaxing beneath Draco's grip. "Did I wake you again?"

"No," Draco lied. "I was studying."

Draco still had his hand on Potter's arm and Potter scrutinized his face, possibly plucking the truth from his tone.

"Liar." Potter started to grin and he leaned back against his pillows. "I woke you, I'm sorry."

"It's fine." Draco scooted more securely on the bed and let himself relax as well. It was a small stroke every time Draco woke to Harry's screams, it reminded Draco of the manor, of the Dark Lord, of the torture of his family.

"It all… it just comes back sometimes," Potter whispered. He blinked at the wall across from him and he was lost again, lost in the past. "The fighting and the losses… Remus and Tonks…"

And the orphan that Potter sent to the States with his parents, the parents that he cried out for in his sleep… Draco knew it all, through Potter's nightmares as much as anything else.

"It's over," Draco reminded him. He started rubbing Potter's arm instead of squeezing it, trying to transfer some warmth to him. "You won, Potter. It's over."

"Won?" Potter's lips twisted in a bitter smile, a slash of anger at everything he lost. "Nobody won, Draco. Everyone bloody lost."

Some more than others, though Draco would wager that Potter dying and returning to life had been quite the win.

"Harry," Draco said Potter's name in a whine, Draco didn't want to talk about it, he didn't want to rehash the war again. They had an important practical in the morning. Harry's eyes flickered toward Draco and Draco couldn't explain, he couldn't.

If Potter started talking, Draco would listen. They were roommates, their pasts were impossibly tangled, their futures were only just more loosely entwined as they traveled together down a parallel path.

"Let's say pumpkin," Potter said, so tired for his age. Potter looked up to the ceiling and sighed heavily, likely attempting to dislodge the same weight that tried to suffocate Draco at inopportune times.

"If one of us says pumpkin, neither of us have to explain," Potter said, his eyes locked upward, keeping Draco from having to see his shadows. "So say pumpkin and go back to bed, Draco."

Draco wanted to, he did. Except Potter was depressed and his overt sense of caring was clearly contagious. Draco didn't ‘pumpkin' his way out of a horrible conversation that night, but he did the next time that Potter tried to talk the night before an exam.

Draco's chin fell and there was a flicker of anger inside of him, anger at Potter for choosing a lesser trained wizard to operate on him when Draco was there.

How could Draco be good enough to be Potter's direct secondhand and yet not good enough to operate on him?

Draco gnashed his teeth when Potter went unconscious again and had his patronus - the patronus that Potter taught him to make - in the lift before they reached the OR.

"Anderson, OR one, now," Draco snapped. Anderson had been a wizard in a muggle war fought with guns and bullets, he would be adequate. If he killed Potter though… if he was not good enough…

"If you die I will bring you back and kill you," Draco hissed to Potter's unconscious form. "And I will make the Dark Lord look like Lockhart, Potter."

"Oh… that's - I mean, he shouldn't die because he's a father and he's Bailey's son and - and he just can't die," the Grey girl rambled. Draco glanced at her and saw that she was pale, but still not crying.

"He won't," Draco told her, attempting to reign himself back to professional before the doors of the lift opened. "Anderson will take care of him. You will stay out of the OR and you will keep his mother from rushing in on the procedure. Am I understood, Doctor Grey?"

Draco would stand in the OR and protect Potter from his own poor choice, Draco would not comfort the intern pining for him, nor would he fight Potter's formidable and terrified mother. Draco would also mentally draft his letter to MACUSA's aurors who would be sending in reinforcements.

The moment that Harry Potter was shot was the moment they could no longer feign indifference to muggle mobs.

"You want me to fight Doctor Bailey?" Grey laughed, very hysterically. When Draco didn't relent, she did nod and pull herself together. Apparently she was not entirely a lost cause.

"Okay, I can do that," she said. "I will keep Doctor Bailey out of the OR and you - you keep him alive, please, Healer Malfoy."

Draco looked at Potter, at the man he had competed against, worked with, cared for, resented, and butted heads with for years. Draco looked at him on the brink of death from his own foolhardy actions yet again.

Draco looked at his friend and he nodded shortly.

"I will."

Anderson met Draco in OR one as Draco told him and immediately went to work. The muggle trauma doctor, Hunt, accompanied him with two of the medical interns, neither of whom Draco knew their names.

"Malfoy, you scrubbing in?" Hunt asked after he finished scrubbing and began backing toward the OR door. Draco looked in there, he saw Potter on the table, and he nodded absently once more.

"In a moment," he said.

"No worries if not," Hunt said, much too sympathetically for Draco's taste. "No shame in sitting this one out, he's one of yours."

Draco hummed, his eyes on Potter. Hunt had it wrong, Potter was not one of Draco's, but the other way around.

"Go away, Potter," Draco groaned, waving his wand to dispel the patronus that had been sent to him. It was no truly new news, Potter and his minions had moved to a new location and were safely away from Draco's relatives that had been hellbent on killing them.

Why - why - did they let themselves get caught by Snatchers on the full moon? Of all the horrible times to do it. Draco had already been aching, miserable, a walking disease to his family. Potter's appearance and subsequent disappearance only made Draco an equal target for the Dark Lord's rage.

It meant a moonlit transformation with the aftermath of the cruciatus curse, a night of misery.

Draco's room was warded, he had taken his potion, it meant he could whine and cry, scream and rage against the curse that he despised as much as he wanted. It was a punishment, Draco's punishment for failing to kill Dumbledore, and it made Draco wish that he had cut the old man from the inside out and been done with it.

Every nerve inside of Draco's body was in agony as his limbs twisted and longed, his body changed and erupted in fur. Even Draco's teeth managed to ache when they were changed into something sharp, feral.

When the transformation ended, when Draco laid on his bed in a pathetic slump, too pained to even move, that was when Potter sent another message. Draco had to lay there with his body wracked in agony while a shining bird flew through Draco's window and stopped in front of his snout.

"You're not alone, Draco. I know it feels like that, but you're not. If you need me, if you want to join us now, I'm here for you."

Draco didn't have his wand, he couldn't send away the heron that watched him. Draco laid there panting and let Potter's patronus offer a small glimpse of hope that there was a future outside of the war.

Anderson was competent, Draco could give him that. Even through the glass between the operating room and the scrub room, Draco could see that Anderson commanded the OR strictly, allowing no room for errors when it came to the Chief of Healing for their hospital.

Hunt was a competent assist, one that seemed to ask questions and explain moves to the interns while they worked without hesitation. There was a look about him, a militant look that Anderson echoed. If Hunt was another soldier of war, then Potter's odds continued to increase.

The door of the scrub room opened and Draco's wand was in his hand instantly, ready to fight for Potter or defend him. Draco pointed it at the intruder and faltered when he saw it was the Chief of Surgery for the medical side, Doctor Webber.

"Easy, son," Webber said, raising his hands up by his shoulders. "I'm just here to get an update for Bailey."

Draco lowered his wand, flushed with chagrin for nearly assaulting the Chief. "Apologies, I thought…"

What did Draco think? That the muggles with weapons had broken in the hospital? Past the lobby of witches and wizards? Did he think Webber was a death eater? The Dark Lord himself?

"It's a high stress situation, don't think twice about it," Webber said, covering for Draco when he couldn't even think of an explanation that was based in logic. Webber stepped up beside Draco and watched through the window while Anderson had a scrub nurse sponge the sweat off his forehead.

"They've removed the bullet, it hit his spleen though," Draco explained, his voice flat and factual. There was no room for his feelings on Potter's operation in his report for Miranda Bailey. "Anderson didn't want to remove the spleen, I believe he healed the damage for now."

"That poor boy…" Webber shook his head and gripped the sink with both of his hands. "I watched him grow up, you know. He's a fighter, he gets it from his mother."

Draco wondered if Webber meant Miranda Bailey or Lily Potter - not that it mattered when the vital statistics floating above Potter's head began flashing. His blood pressure plummeted with a spike in his heart rate and Draco had to grip the sink himself to keep from rushing in the room.

"Son of a bitch, it hit his celiac artery." Webber wasn't frozen in place, he wasn't stuck outside of the operation by Potter's own request. Webber was free to scrub quickly and run in the room, barking orders and instructions to keep Potter alive.

Which meant that Draco could continue to stand there watching or he could force his muscles into action, to go give Doctor Bailey the update that Webber was too busy to give.

If it were Draco on the table, Potter would do that for him.

There was a crowd in the corridor outside of the operating room, Draco expected there would be. It was morbid, seeing adults in costumes and remembering abruptly that Potter could die on the same date that he once defied death on. Bailey stepped toward Draco the second he was through the door and there was fear, truly deep terror, radiating off of her.

"Is he…?" she choked on her own question and a man took her arm, a tall African American man with tired eyes and a golden band on his left hand - Potter's adoptive father, undoubtedly.

"Our son, Doctor Malfoy," the man said, giving Draco the incorrect and inconsequential title. "How is he?"

"The bullet went through Potter's spleen, it nicked the celiac artery," Draco reported, unable to muster the energy to use the warmth that an incomplete assessment required when speaking with family. "Healer Anderson is repairing the damage while Doctors Hunt and Webber assist."

"That's - that's real bad?" A young boy, twelve or thirteen, stood next to Potter's father, looking enough like him that Draco assumed it was Potter's brother. Despite the boy's dark skin, he seemed pale, quite shaken.

"Oh, baby." Doctor Bailey reached out for the boy and he clung to her side as quickly as he could, every muscle in his body straining. "Harry's going to be okay," Bailey said, reverent as a prayer. "Harry's going to be fine."

Draco eyed the rest of the crowd quickly, the mixture of healers and doctors alike that were fond enough of Potter to look fearful on his behalf. Draco's eyes lingered on Potter's adopted son, Draco's own cousin, little Teddy Lupin. Shepherd had Teddy in his arms and Draco felt a pang inside of him when he saw that Teddy had changed his hair to match Potter, an unruly nest of black curls.

"This will take time," Draco informed them all, looking away from the boy that could not lose Potter after everything else he lost. "You should all go to a room in the ICU, someone will bring you updates there."

"Derek, let's take Teddy to the daycare," the other Grey, the one who dated Shepherd, whispered while a few people dispersed. "Come on, they'll let him sleep and we can have someone get him when Harry's surgery is done."

"I'll take him." The intern that nearly ruined Potter, the one that sparked the increased mob and flipped the first card in the catastrophe they face, offered. Doctor Karev took Teddy from Shepherd and forced a smile as he bounced the boy on his hip lightly. "Let's go, little man. You like race cars? They've got some cool race cars up on peds…"

Draco kept from snarling, though his wand hand twitched when Karev walked away with Teddy. How dare he? It was half Karev's fault that Potter was on the operating table, suffering from a traumatic complication that was fatal in fifty percent of even magical cases.

"Tuck, you go with them," Mister Bailey said, disentangling his son from his wife. It must have been difficult for Potter, growing up in his family. ‘Tuck' looked just like both of his parents, an even mixture of the two. Potter would have been the British, Caucasian, magical sore thumb within his family.

It was no wonder that he went into healing, Draco would wager that a part of that desire was to at least be his mother's son.

"I don't wanna," Tuck said, crossing his arms and actually managing to resemble his brother with the stubbornness. "I want to stay with you guys, wait for Harry. He hates hospitals, you know that."

Strange choice of a career then, truly.

"Harry's going to be fine," Doctor Bailey said, quite nearly sounding as if she believed it herself. "Go on, Tuck, go up to the daycare. It might be a long night, honey, I'll come get you if anything changes."

"But Mom…" Tuck's chin wobbled childishly. "What if it's like before? What if he disappears and we don't see him again?"

Before… before the end of the war, when Potter had been on the run. That was what residual and secondhand trauma looked like, the tears in Tuck's eyes and the way his hands shook at his sides. That was the look of a family member reliving the war, the look of a loved one recalling no blood or death - only silence and questions.

"He won't," Mister Bailey said firmly, leaving no room for an argument from his son. "Harry's here now, you know that. Go with your nephew, Tucker Jones."

Oh, perhaps Draco misjudged. It was a very muggle concept for married couples to not share a surname. Even then, Draco thought it was rare.

Mister Bailey - or Jones - was still giving his son strict orders. "Don't you let Teddy be scared up there thinking his dad's going anywhere, you hear me?"

Tuck clearly wanted to argue, but he didn't. And as soon as he ran off in the direction of the lifts, Mister Jones focused on Draco again.

"How the hell did this happen?" he demanded. "My son comes here for a work party and ends up shot? I want to know who shot them and find out what OR they're in."

"Tucker, it's being handled," Doctor Bailey said. "The police are handling it."

"Yeah?" Jones asked hotly, as furious as any normal father should be when their child was injured as badly as Potter had been. "Like how the wizards were handling the Voldemort?"

‘The Voldemort', Draco would have snickered in any other situation.

"And how they were handling a war? LIKE HOW THEY WERE HANDLING OUR SON'S HEALTH?"

‘They' did not handle Voldemort, ‘they' did not handle the war. Potter did that.

And, at one time, Draco had handled Potter's health.

They were studying for their final examinations, the Healing Expertise and Licensure Learning Exams, aptly referred to as the Hell Exams. It would be a week long schedule packed with written examinations on general healing, their selected specialties; then practical examinations in seventeen different disciplines.

Draco was exhausted, he was rather crabby. The examinations were the culmination of everything that they had learned and would determine if they were to be certified as healers or not. It was the single most important and challenging examination of Draco's life.

All of the students were spending long hours in the hospital library, desperately trying to take in as much information as they could. It wasn't uncommon for a student to burst into tears during one of those sessions, calming droughts were becoming as coveted as Felix Felicis.

Not many of the others enjoyed having Draco around and so he spent most of his time in his dorm room to study. The fallback of that was that Potter also studied in their dorm to avoid the classmates who had still not gotten past his fame to see him as the mess of a human that he was.

Potter was quiet while he studied, he applied silencing charms on himself during some times so that he could read aloud without disturbing Draco. What disturbed Draco was how long Potter would go with only drinking a cup of tea.

Draco ignored it at first, assuming Potter was as stressed as the rest of them. If Draco recalled correctly, from years of sitting across the Great Hall from each other during meals, Potter was a light eater at the best of times and extraordinarily picky at the worst.

If Potter missed a meal or two, so be it. Draco wasn't showcasing his healthiest habits.

Then Draco realized that Potter wasn't eating at all, not a single bite of food. And Draco couldn't remember when the last time he saw Potter eating was.

"Potter." Draco entered the dorm the day before their examinations would begin with an armful of boxes. "Help me."

Potter jumped up from his bed and took two of the oversized packages Draco had delivered. They unloaded them all on Draco's bed and Draco gestured at them.

"They're from Susan," Draco explained. "Help yourself."

"From… Susan?" Potter fixed his crooked glasses and held them in place with his very furrowed brows. "Why did Susan send you packages?"

Because Draco made the idiotic mistake of writing to Potter's best friend and asking him what Potter liked to eat. Then Longbottom must have gone to his girlfriend (fiancé? Draco thought Potter said they were engaged) for help because instead of a letter from Longbottom, Draco received four boxes from Susan Bones.

Since Draco would rather be bitten by Greyback again than admit it though, he said nothing and only watched while Potter opened the first box.

"Susan sent… granola bars." Potter's voice went flat at the end and he turned on the bed to pin Draco in place with an accusing glare. "Why would Susan send us granola bars?"

"Perhaps she knows that examinations require nutritions," Draco replied as carelessly as he could. "It's something I think a healer would know as well," he added pointedly.

Potter continued to glare as he checked the other boxes, which were similarly packed. One box held a variety of nutritional drinks, teas and mixes that contained calories. Another had fruits and vegetables charmed to remain fresh. The fourth box was an exorbitant cake with bright blue letters on the top saying: ‘GOOD LUCK HARRY & DRACO'.

The cake was an excellent touch, it did soften Potter's ire. There were still a great many glares sent Draco's way the rest of the evening, but there were also crumbs in his bed when they rose the next morning for the first day of their examinations.

"Miranda, Tucker, why don't we go sit down?" The red-headed doctor that Potter had been flirting with, his friend's ex-wife, placed a gentle hand on Mister Jones's shoulder, calming him some. "Healer Malfoy will bring us updates when he can. We're not doing any good here."

"Doctor Bailey?" Another red-headed doctor, one of the interns that Draco didn't know, stepped up beside Potter's mother. "Would you like to go to the chapel with me? I was going to say a prayer for your son."

Draco didn't pray and he didn't thunder about in corridors about nobody caring for the safety of his family. Draco only waited for the majority of the doctors and healers to walk away, encircling Potter's family as a community, before he returned to the scrub room to monitor Potter.

Shepherd followed Draco into the scrub room and said nothing while they took their silent vigils in front of the window. Potter's vitals had stabilized again and Draco tracked every spell that Anderson used, every contraption that Doctor Webber added to the operation.

"I should be in there," Draco muttered, forgetting for a moment that he wasn't alone. "Stupid, arrogant, arse. He preaches about forgiveness and moving forward, but won't practice it even when it could save his life."

"Harry asked for you to not operate?" Shepherd asked, abruptly reminding Draco of his presence. "Why?"

"I presume… because he's an arrogant arse," Draco said tersely, focused fully on the operation. Hunt was swearing about something in Potter's abdomen, Draco wished they would adjust the lights so he could see the reflection of the surgery better.

"Harry doesn't strike me as arrogant," Shepherd said, as if he knew Potter at all. "I mean, he's got a lot going for him, and I never hear him bragging about it."

Draco snorted lightly, conceding the point. Potter had everything going for him - he had his family, he had his place in history cemented many times over. Potter was the youngest ever Chief of Healing, he was wealthy, there were doctors and healers who tripped over themselves to appeal to him.

"I think he's kind," Shepherd said, another fan to be sure. "Maybe a little immature, but I don't think you guys were given a great chance to grow up."

No, they weren't. Potter in particular went from catastrophe to catastrophe, ending with a bullet in his chest by muggles that he had nothing but compassion for.

"He is kind," Draco admitted. "Potter is… irrationally kind, even when he shouldn't be."

Even when Draco had done nothing to deserve Potter's kindness, it was extended to him. Potter allowed Draco to defect to his side in the war, vowed to keep him safe. Potter treated Draco as if the information he shared had made him a hero and then bellowed it until the rest of the world had no choice but to follow his delusions.

"Potter protected me and then refused to allow me to return the favor," Draco said. "And that makes him an arrogant arse."

And Draco could maintain that belief for the rest of his life because Anderson looked up from Potter's abdomen, met Draco's eyes, and nodded.

Potter would live.

"Excuse me," Draco said. "I think that I'll go inform Doctor Bailey that the Man Who Lived has defied death once again."

Draco so rarely got to share good news with families, it was his reward for dealing with Potter's endless nonsense.

Doctor Bailey was in the chapel while her husband was found pacing the pediatric ward. Bailey had sobbed shamelessly when Draco told her of Anderson's success, Draco left her to be comforted by the two doctors and Healer Delacour that had sat with her.

Mister Jones had the red-headed doctor, Healer Trent, and Mark Sloan with him. There was tension between the two doctors, tension that Trent seemed to be perfectly ignoring.

"Doctor Malfoy." Jones spotted Draco immediately and practically charged toward him. "My son?"

"Is finished with surgery and being taken to the ICU now," Draco informed him. "I'm unsure when Healer Anderson will choose to wake him, his body needs time to heal first."

"Oh, God, thank you." Jones looked up to the ceiling and closed his eyes. "God, thank you."

Draco stepped neatly out of the way, giving Jones plenty of space to run down the corridor to the lifts.

"I told him that Harry would go to the ICU after surgery, but he wanted to come here," the red-headed doctor told Draco, though he didn't ask. "How is he?"

"He'll recover," Draco said, shifting beneath the weight of their stares. "I would say that I don't believe he'll charge into an angry mob again, but Potter isn't known for his stellar choices."

Trent stared at Draco, a curious light in their eyes. "Healer Potter is our chief," they said. "He's your boss."

"He's also a pain in my arse and I'll happily repeat this all to him when he wakes," Draco said truthfully. Potter didn't scare him.

"I think he also might have been a little bit drunk," the red-head said, smirking with her equally red lips. "He was hitting on me, which I'm pretty sure Derek's new best friend wouldn't do if he was sober."

"Hey, I hit on you sober," Mark said, an embarrassment. "Derek and I were friends our whole lives."

"Which makes you a very bad friend," Trent said in the blunt and bland manner that Draco was learning to appreciate from their Head of Cardio. "I'm glad Healer Bailey will live. I didn't want you to be chief," they told Draco, directly to his face. "I'm going to check on a patient now, goodbye."

Truly, an excellent day all around for Draco's ego.

"Between him and Yang, there's a reason I think only the most neurotic doctors go to cardio," the red-head commented.

"Them," Draco corrected her. Mark grinned when Draco said it and so he gave him the credit due. "Healer Trent Bailey is nonbinary, they use they/them pronouns. Doctor Sloan was the one to tell me though, so this is meant with no disrespect."

"Attaboy, Draco!" Mark clapped Draco's shoulder, perhaps a bit harder than Draco would have liked on the longest night of his life. It did knock him forward a step, irritating him more than anything. "I knew you'd do your research!"

"Oh, shit." The other doctor sighed and offered what seemed to be an apologetic smile; she was pretty, in a very ‘she would eat a man and spit him out before stepping on him with her stilettos' sort of way. "I didn't know, sorry."

"Now you do," Draco said simply. "I'm going to check on Potter's son before I leave, excuse me."

Draco rationalized that it would be why Potter's father was pacing the pediatric ward, though he also recalled Potter's numerous intake records that were deleted and wondered if it was habit.

Had it always been that way? Every time Potter was hospitalized, his father paced the corridors and worried for his health? It was just Potter's luck if so, Draco's father certainly never held vigil at his sick bed when Draco had been mauled by Greyback or tortured by the Dark Lord.

Teddy was asleep when Draco stopped by the hospital day care, passed out in the arms of Doctor Karev. Draco scowled openly at the sight, he had pushed for Karev to be fired from the hospital when his lie set back Potter's goals of co-existing by some way.

"Kids like me," Karev said when he saw Draco's glare. "Teddy was upset, I held him, it's not a big deal."

"No?" Draco's emotions were bubbling under his skin from the second the gun had been fired. Draco was tired, angry, he had been scared, frustrated, helpless. Doctor Karev may not have fired the gun, but there he was - holding Potter's son and a perfectly acceptable target for Draco's rage, as long as he didn't wake Teddy.

"Do you think the mob outside didn't become violent after your lie?" Draco demanded. "Do you believe that forcing magic upon muggles will endear us to them? Do you have any idea how much fear our staff have every time they see a sign saying they should be burned? Our history, the history of that boy you're holding, is filled with ignorant muggles who turned their fear of us into murder, Karev. So, yes, your actions and decisions, your lies, do have an impact. And tonight it nearly caused the death of Teddy's father. I would say that it is very much a ‘big deal'."

Draco didn't give Karev time to respond, he didn't want to hear anything he had to say. Draco snatched Teddy from Karev's arms, as gently as he could in his rage. Teddy's eyes fluttered and Draco watched as they changed from amber to green before settling on grey when they focused on Draco.

"‘S my dad okay, Draco?" Teddy asked Draco immediately.

"He's going to be just fine," Draco promised him. It wasn't difficult to be kind to Teddy, he was only a small boy with too many pains in his life that he never asked for. Draco didn't like children, as a general rule, but Teddy was Draco's cousin, he suffered through the same pains that Draco did every month.

They were family, more so than Draco had with anyone else.

"We're going to go see him now, if you'd like," Draco said. "He's going to be very tired though, he's had a long day. It's okay if he's still asleep, Healer Anderson is letting his body rest."

"Healer Anderson?" Teddy asked, shifting around to make himself more comfortable on Draco's hip. "Why weren't you Dad's healer?"

"That is an excellent question that I'll be asking your dad when he wakes up," Draco said. The lift was thankfully empty when it arrived for them and Draco let Teddy press the button for the ICU.

"Uncle Tuck said that someone hurt Dad," Teddy said. "Was it - was it one of the bad guys again?"

"It was a bad guy," Draco prevaricated. How would Potter handle that question? Honesty? Age-appropriate honesty? Potter didn't seem likely to hide his son beneath a rock.

"There are some people who don't like magic," Draco explained carefully. "One of them broke the hospital door and your dad got into an argument with them. They had a weapon and when it went off, it hurt your dad. Luckily, we have very good healers and doctors here, so he's going to live."

Teddy's forehead creased and Draco left him to his clearly deep thoughts on the matter. It wasn't until they were halfway down the corridor to the group of doctors and healers loitering in the ICU that Teddy said anything else.

"Maybe Dad shouldn't argue with people who don't like him," he said.

Very wisely.

How was Potter's son more mature than Potter himself?

"You're quite right," Draco agreed. When the staff saw Draco approaching with Teddy, they cleared the way for his door.

"Don't forget now, your dad might look strange right now, but he's only resting so his body heals," Draco reminded Teddy once more. It would be a shock for him to see Potter silent, undoubtedly, but Draco wouldn't leave while Teddy slept under the misunderstanding that he might have been orphaned once more.

Teddy's lower lip wobbled and his eyes changed to the same green as Potter's, but he nodded rather bravely and clutched the back of Draco's jumper in his fist.

"Here we go," Draco said, ignoring the others around them. Draco turned the doorknob and pushed the door open slowly, interrupting what seemed to be a heated argument between Doctor Bailey and Mister Jones. Tuck was in there as well, sitting on the end of Potter's bed.

Potter was still unconscious, but his chest rose and fell with even breaths. His vitals were displayed and looked perfectly normal, even if his pulse was a tad too high for Draco's liking.

"Teddy? Oh, honey." Doctor Bailey let go of Potter's limp hand to reach out for Teddy and Draco passed him over to her. "I was just coming to get you," she said. "Why don't you give your daddy a big hug and then Papaw's going to take you and Uncle Tuck home, okay? You can come back in the morning when Dad’s awake.” 

"Okay…" Teddy squirmed from Bailey's hold and dashed to the bed, throwing his arms tightly around Potter's torso. Draco watched Potter's fingers twitch the slightest amount while Teddy told him how much he loved him.

Potter was awake, awake and pretending to sleep while his parents fought over his body.

And he once had the audacity to call Draco a coward.

Draco waited for Mister Jones to gather up his son and grandson before suggesting that Doctor Bailey went to change out of the semi-formal dress she wore for the ridiculous party. Draco promised to wait with Potter until she returned and then he immediately locked the door behind her.

"Why?" Draco demanded immediately, wasting no time with niceties. Of course he was relieved that Potter didn't die, it would have been a ridiculous amount of paperwork to complete.

Potter opened his eyes slowly, the bloodshot whites reminding Draco that he had just undergone a traumatic surgery. "You know why," he croaked out, his throat utterly wrecked for the time being. "It couldn't be you, Draco."

"Because you don't trust me," Draco said, scoffing to hide the genuine hurt behind that. It meant something to Draco to be Potter's choice as assistant chief, it meant something to Draco that his entire medical career had only been started thanks to Potter. It meant something to Draco and he thought it meant something to Potter as well - some intangible proof that the bravest, most unselfish, most truly good person on earth thought that Draco Malfoy was worth something.

"Draco…" Potter groaned and Draco should have left the conversation for another time, possibly never.

Draco needed to know though, he needed to hear Potter admit it.

"Say it," Draco said, stepping closer to the bed so he couldn't be ignored. "Tell me why you chose Anderson."

"I thought I was going to die," Potter said, no lies to be seen in his eyes or his voice. "If I died on your table, I didn't want your job to be questioned, okay? I didn't want my death to ruin your career. I - I do trust you, Draco. I trusted you to take over if I died."

Draco's automatic retort - his immediate resignation - died on the tip of his tongue when he processed what Potter said.

It wasn't a lack of trust, it was an overabundance of it.

"Hey, Draco?" Potter sat beside Draco during the ceremony of their graduation, despite tradition stating they should sit alphabetically according to surname.

"Hm?" Draco whispered, attempting to pretend he was interested in the drolling voice of the Healing Program's President as he went on about the many changes in healing since ‘his day'.

"I don't think I could have done this without you," Potter said. "Thank you."

When Draco looked at him, he saw that Potter had his hand out to him, the same hand that had been turned away from Draco years and years ago. Draco could have rebuffed it, stung Potter as he'd once been stung, but he couldn't.

"I know," Draco said, taking Potter's hand and grasping it tightly. It was meant to be ‘no, thank you', but Potter laughed as if that was what he heard anyway.

"Oh," Draco said, very eloquently. He took the chair that Doctor Bailey had before and sat down in it, a bit lost for how to reply to that. Potter thought he had been dying and he still worried for Draco's job, that was…

Something, certainly.

"Karev was holding your son," Draco said. "I considered putting him in the ICU beside you."

Potter huffed and thankfully took the bait, dispelling the uncomfortable tension between them. "Yeah, well, I think Karev might be the least of my worries."

"Is your parents' impending divorce your top worry?"

"They were just worried, it happens. If I opened my eyes they would have yelled at me instead."

Draco leaned his head back on the wall and carelessly dropped his feet on Potter's legs, deciding he was a perfectly acceptable foot rest.

"I think I asked Addison out to dinner before I got shot," Potter went on, clearly stoned on the pain potions. "So Derek might shoot me again and honestly, it's bloody painful."

"Useful though," Draco pointed out. "You did manage to unite the hospital tonight. We could have saved so much money on a party if we knew someone could simply shoot you instead."

Potter laughed and Draco closed his eyes, relaxing after the endless stress of the day.

"Hey, Draco?"

"Hm?"

"Happy Halloween."

Draco chuckled against his own will at Potter and opened one eye to see that Potter was grinning at him.

"Happy Halloween, Potter."