Assistant Chief of Healing

Assistant Chief of Healing

(Spot the difference…)

*****

Contrary to what some arrogant, scarred, four-eyed bastards believed, Draco Malfoy did not hate muggles.

Draco thought that muggles were exceptionally strange and had a history of trying to kill witches and wizards, but those were facts. Draco also thought that muggles might show their fear of magic through anger and that too was becoming a fact.

By the third day that Seattle Healing Hospital was open to the public, Draco had to fight through a mob to get inside his hospital. Draco would never admit it, but the anger and fear being displayed outside had his heart racing and his body to break out in a layer of sweat.

Anger and fear, Draco knew, could cause a human to act illogically, working with only the amygdala and leaving the frontal lobe out of decisions. It could drive a man to murder, a father to offer his son up in a war.

It was unacceptable and Draco would not face a mob every day that he worked to save lives.

Draco entered through the emergency room and swept his eyes around the department as he passed through. Everything seemed to be in order and Draco nodded at the wizard he hired to run the trauma and triage department.

“Morning, sir.” The healer that ran the department, Healer Taylor Anderson, was a handful of years older than Draco and while Draco would never show it, his respect always knocked Draco just slightly off-kilter.

“Morning, Anderson,” Draco said. “I trust things are operating smoothly?”

“Yes, sir.” Anderson had a militant air about him, one that Draco knew he gained from the muggle army he fought in. It had nearly been a cause to deny his application, but Draco stamped down on his own pettiness.

Draco certainly was not bitter that Anderson was yet another wizard who escaped the horrors of being born and raised in England. American wizards had no reason to fight in a British war and Draco could not hold that against them, as much as he may like that.

Anderson had an impeccable resume, glowing recommendations, and a funny pride in the awards he had been granted in his war. Draco had been imprisoned briefly after his war, Anderson was awarded a Purple Heart.

Draco was also the Assistant Chief of Healing to the most historic hospital that had ever been built on Earth though, so he shouldn’t complain.

“Any trouble last night?” Draco asked Anderson, thinking of the mob that protested Draco’s very life outside.

“I had a pair of reporters try to sneak in under disguise,” Anderson reported. When he grinned, he seemed younger, less severe. “They’re creative, sir. One of them polyjuiced themselves to be the other’s infant. I believe they were going to attempt to crawl to Chief Bailey’s office.”

Draco scoffed. It was imaginative, he would grant them that. Draco wasn’t sure what they expected to find in Potter’s office though, aside from a wizard who had no idea what it was he was doing.

Potter would have half a staff with no employment policies in place if it weren’t for Draco.

“Very well,” Draco said. “It may not go amiss to add a drop of the reversal agent to admission potions.”

“Yes, sir, I’ll get on that,” Anderson said politely. “Anything else?”

Draco took a few moments to remind Anderson about promptly turning in reports for any patients that were sent to Tacoma Hospital of Magic. It was their current policy to see every patient who walked through their doors, but admit only cases that were operational or could be. The standard admissions could be sent to Tacoma, which was neither a historical nor teaching hospital.

Tacoma should be grateful for what patients they sent to them, Draco would wager that their numbers had already seen a dramatic decrease since Seattle Healing Hospital opened. While there would always be some witches and wizards who would never step foot in a hospital that staffed and treated muggles, there were plenty who traveled from a great distance to be treated there.

Part of the appeal was the groundbreaking combination of muggle medicine and magical healing. The other part, which positively galled Draco to admit, was Potter.

Damned famous Potter.

After he finished with Anderson, Draco went in search of Potter. The mob outside would need dealt with before they saw a decline in patients over it. Draco had known, and tried to warn Potter, that not all muggles would accept them, but nooo, Potter was an idealist.

Potter thought that just because he was accepted that the rest of them would be. Potter came with a famous name, a tragic backstory, and a layer of charm that Draco never could. It was entirely different.

Possibly if every witch and wizard had a hideous scar on their forehead and stories about slaying basilisks with swords as children then they would be better received.

Draco kept up a steady stream of silent insults about Potter the entire journey up to his office. Potter and his idealistic rubbish, Potter and his wealth that he spent on a bloody hospital.

Why not a school, hm? Draco didn’t think that a school for magic would be protested by anyone.

When Draco let himself into Potter’s office and saw who Potter was having his morning coffee with, Draco added another insult:

Potter and his doctor friend with their matching dark hair and unbearably cheerful affects.

“Morning, Draco.” Potter was seated behind his desk with the rumpled appearance that meant he either never left the hospital the night before or that he didn’t care a whit for professionalism.

If Draco were being generous, which he was not, he would say that Potter seemed as tired and stressed as Draco himself was. It was a grand and brilliant thing to open integrate healing with medicine… but the pushback could result in even grander problems for more than just the staff.

“Healer Malfoy.” The doctor that Draco had seen with Potter before flashed a too-perfect smile at Draco. It was as infuriating as Potter’s general everything. Draco couldn’t even remember his name, Sheep, possibly.

Draco was professional enough to nod briefly at the doctor before he fixed Potter with a steely gaze.

“There is a mob forming on our lawn,” Draco told him. “What do you plan to do about it?”

Potter sighed and it irked Draco to see him so tired when it was not the time for nerves and second-guessing. It seemed the time for action and for Potter to wake with fire.

Potter needed to advocate for the hospital the same way he had once advocated for Draco’s immediate release from Azkaban. Potter had been awake then, full of rightful anger and fierce justice —

“Do you know what he sacrificed?” Potter yelled at the newly reinstated Wizengamot. “Draco Malfoy was a hero and you should be kissing his boots in gratitude!”

Draco had been small then, tired and more afraid than he had been the entire year that he had been a double agent within the ranks of the Dark Lord. Draco had only spent a week in Azkaban and knew that he would not survive a long term return to prison. Draco was scum to the guards for the branding on his arm, a traitor to the other inmates who saw where his alliance had laid in the final battle.

“Draco Malfoy has been accused of —”

“Draco Malfoy was instrumental to ending Voldemort,” Potter snapped, interrupting the wizard who had spoken. “I’m afraid I didn’t see you passing me messages at the risk of your life, did I?”

Draco swallowed and glanced up to the wizard who had spoken. Malcolm Fawley; no, he wouldn’t have assisted Potter in their war.

“Draco Malfoy,” Minister Shacklebolt looked down at Draco and gave the impression that he may be fair regardless of the outcome. “If you were granted leniency, what do you plan to use your second chance on?”

Draco knew what he hoped to do, what he had desired to do since the summer after his fourth year of school - since the day that his life had been flipped inside out.

“I want to be a healer,” Draco said, hating the tremble in his tone and blaming it on the lingering dementors rather than his own bone-deep fear.

“No program in the country will accept you,” a witch sneered, inciting Potter’s defiance that rested on a thin trigger.

“THEN DRACO AND I WILL TRAVEL OUTSIDE OF THIS COUNTRY AND YOU WILL LOSE YOUR OPPORTUNITY TO ONE DAY SAY THAT HEALER MALFOY WAS TAUGHT IN ENGLAND!” Potter roared, louder than Draco had ever heard him and as pointed as could be.

Draco knew that Potter shared the same aspirations that Draco did, for vastly different reasons. Potter’s mother, the one who adopted him, was a doctor and Potter wanted to follow in her footsteps. That was what Draco presumed anyway, though nobody knew much about Potter’s American family.

Potter presented them as a package deal that day though and the threat was clear - if Draco was not released and given the same chance to apply to healer’s programs as Potter was then Potter would learn elsewhere. Nobody cared if Draco was given an education, but none relished the thought that a foreign program would get to claim famous Harry Potter as a pupil.

It had worked. Draco Malfoy was released from prison and granted clemency for any crimes he may have committed while working as a double agent during the war. It didn’t mean that St. Mungo’s had to accept Draco’s application, but Draco presumed that Potter had a hand in that as well.

If Potter could use a third of his cunning threats and outlandish advocacy to face off with the muggles who feared them as much as the Wizengamot had hated Draco then they would be convinced by lunch.

“It’s not a mob, Draco,” Potter sighed. “It’s a protest.”

“They have a sign that says magic is evil,” Draco told him.

“They have every legal right to protest,” Potter countered. “There’s nothing I can do unless they start damaging hospital property.”

Draco’s jaw dropped and he had a heated resort building but was interrupted by the timer on his wand beeping softly.

It was seven o’clock then.

“This is not over,” Draco warned Potter. He curled his nose when he looked at Potter’s general state of disgrace. “Iron your clothes, for Merlin’s sake, you are the face of this hospital.”

With that, Draco only paused once more at the doorway to remind Potter to eat breakfast before he stormed away to his own office. On his way, Draco stopped to purchase himself a muffin at one of the carts that had been added to the magical wings of the hospital.

It had been Draco’s idea, obviously. In addition to merely being common sense to have consistent access to meals for the staff, Draco despised taking medicine on an empty stomach.

Draco’s office was not as large or as spacious as Potter’s, but Draco rather liked it. The name plate on the door was a silent joy for him and Draco touched it as his own good luck ritual every day.

As Draco was neither lazy nor a procrastinator, there was minimal paperwork that accumulated during the night. A report from one of the mediwizards about a patient death, the first official death for their hospital. Draco perused the report carefully and made a note that it seemed to be what the hospital labeled an ‘acceptable death’.

The staff had done everything within their power and not every patient could be saved.

Draco moved that report to the stack of documents he would review with Potter on Friday. As it had been a cardiac patient, Draco also made a note to find the cardiac healer and have him give Draco a verbal report.

Healer Trent Bailey had been one of Potter’s hires, obviously. Only Harry Potter would hire a healer with his same surname and think it wouldn’t cause any issues. Draco did the majority of the hiring, but Potter had a few contacts that he had personally tapped for positions within the hospital.

Anderson in their trauma department had been Draco’s hire, the Head of General Healing had been another of Draco’s choices. Potter hired Bailey and their Head of Neurological Healing. The Obstetrics and Pediatric Healer had been a mutual hire - Healer Gabrielle Delacour had addressed her resume to Potter, then Draco completed her interview.

All in all, Draco had been pleased with the staffing choices. The majority of the mediwitches and mediwizards were beginning to report to their department heads and Draco thought that things were running smoothly. Internally, anyway.

The mob was still making Draco itch when he thought of it.

Once Draco finished with his paperwork, he rounded on the few patients that were admitted to his floor. There were only two so far, but both had been critical upon admission.

Draco checked in with Mister Bladesworth, a wizard of obvious goblin descent. The man had been brought in after what Draco reported as accidental poisoning, though the man swore his great-nephew had poisoned him to take their family heirlooms.

Bladesworth also accused Draco of being sent by the American Council of Fae to finish the job his great-nephew butchered, so Draco suspected his word was not entirely trustworthy.

The other patient, the one admitted to the creature injury wing on Draco’s floor, Draco did not personally check on. While Bladesworth made baseless accusations that he forgot moments later, Mrs Walker was well within her rights to refuse Draco as a healer.

“How is she this morning?” Draco asked the mediwizard overseeing the one current patient on that wing.

“Bitchy.” The mediwizard seemed to understand his mistake the moment he made it for he straightened up and his neck turned a blotchy shade of red.

“Sorry, sir,” he apologized. “She’s just making everyone that enters her room show their forearms. The tattooed no-maj that brought her breakfast was nearly in tears.”

Draco raised a brow while he read Walker’s chart. They had to reattach a severed arm from a hippogriff attack the day before. Draco had been sympathetic and would have happily told the witch about his own distrust of temperamental creatures, but she had seen Draco’s forearm and immediately demanded a new healer.

It had been Draco’s fault, of course. He should have left it covered. Draco had been rushing about and pushed his sleeves up at an inopportune time, it wouldn’t happen again.

“Yes, well,” Draco handed the chart back to the mediwizard. “If she’s stable and able to pass a physical test after lunch, discharge her.”

“Yes, sir.” The wizard - Draco would implement badges soon, he had a horrid time with names - twisted his jaw side to side as he clearly worked up the courage to say something.

“I wouldn’t refuse you as a healer, sir,” the man said, all in a rush of jumbled words and unneeded sentiment. “And if anyone asked me, I’d say so.”

“Gorgeous face like that, who would refuse him?”

Draco turned in mild interest to see who it was that would rate appearance over past. It was a rare phenomenon, not entirely unheard of. It also saved Draco the embarrassment of replying to the tosh of his employee.

A doctor strode down the corridor toward Draco, a perfect smile on his rather attractive face. Draco recognized him as the Head of Cosmetic Surgery, though his name evaded Draco’s immediate memory.

“Hi there.” The man stopped beside Draco and offered his hand. “Mark Sloan.”

“Healer Malfoy,” Draco said, shaking Sloan’s hand for as brief of a moment as he could. “Is there something you need?”

The muggle staff, while reasonably friendly, hadn’t made many moves toward Draco. They adored Potter, of course. Draco worried that even the muggles would look down on him for a role he had pushed on as a boy, but that would require Potter to out Draco.

Potter had a great many flaws - Draco had a list in his third year spellbook - but Draco knew he would never. If not out of kindness, then certainly fear of his formidable mother.

“Me? Nope.” Sloan tucked his hands in the pockets of his white coat and Draco shifted when it became clear that Sloan was looking him over closely.

“I came to check out the competition,” Sloan said with a cocky grin. “Now I’m wondering who did your cheekbones because God does not hand them out that naturally sharp.”

Draco was able to maintain his mask of polite professionalism, barely.

“Competition?” Draco asked, ignoring the probable compliment. “We have quite different specialties, Doctor Sloan.”

“Call me Mark,” Sloan - Mark, whatever, Draco would never remember by the next time they spoke - said easily. “Every department is competition to each other, aren’t they? God knows I have to fight peds twice a month when I want funds for my department.”

“I believe our funding comes from different places,” Draco said slowly, unsure how much the muggle staff knew of the intricacies of the two hospitals merging as one.

Mark laughed, a deep and unbothered laugh. He was clearly someone who didn’t mind a spotlight, probably even sought it out.

“So maybe I just thought I’d come say hi,” Mark said shamelessly. “And now you can tell me what you did to make a patient refuse to see you.”

“I’m busy,” Draco said, immediately reverting to cold as a defensive measure. “I’m certain you are as well.”

Draco stepped past Mark, intending to take the lifts up to the fifth floor to find Healer Trent Bailey. Mark decided that he must be a nuisance and kept pace with Draco.

“I’ve got Avery rounding on my patients and my surgical schedule is clear,” Mark announced. “So if you need a guide, I’m all yours.”

“I don’t,” Draco said curtly, pressing the button for the lift twice. “Thank you,” he added, a professional comment only.

“Wow, is this a magic thing?” Mark asked. “I’m not good enough without magic?”

For the love of…

The last thing that Draco needed was for that to become a rumor.

“I assure you, I treat everyone the same,” Draco said, nothing but honesty.

“So you’re just unfriendly?” Mark asked, grinning at Draco in an infuriating way.

“I am not unfriendly,” Draco hissed, quite irritated. “I am working. I am busy.”

“Hey, no problem.” Mark raised his hands and the teasing grin he had melted to something that seemed more genuine. “I can take no for an answer. I’ll just go bother Addy.”

Draco did not know who Addy was, but he did pity her. Draco nodded and Mark managed a few seconds of silence before the lift doors opened.

Which, because Draco’s morning ritual for good luck was rubbish, revealed Potter and his newest muggle mate inside.

“Draco, hey.” Potter moved closer to the doctor - Sheep was such an absurd name, yet Draco felt certain that was what his name was - so Draco and Mark could enter the lift with them.

Mark’s immediate change in demeanor did not go unnoticed by Draco.

“Good morning again, Draco,” the doctor said to Draco, completely ignoring Mark.

Draco, in turn, ignored him. It was more out of necessity, since Draco thought calling him Sheep might be seen as offensive.

Merlin forbid Draco offend any other muggles.

“Potter,” Draco sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose when he felt a sharp pain make itself known in his head. Potter was still rumpled, still clutching a paper cup of coffee, and was tapping a foot erratically on the floor.

“Did you eat?” Draco snapped at him. It was ridiculous, Potter’s behavior. He was the face of the hospital, the face that reporters were clamoring to see. It was no time for Potter to revert to habits best left at Hogwarts.

“Mm, I’m headed to the cafeteria now,” Potter said, a lie, Draco was sure. “You haven’t seen my mum, have you? I thought I might check the clinic.”

The clinic that Draco only recently discovered was partially founded by Sirius Black. That sounded like quite a story, one Draco would have to dig to discover, he was sure.

“Miranda? Yeah, she’s in the clinic,” Mark said, winking when Potter acknowledged him.

“Er…” Potter blinked and then stared resolutely at the doors. “Thanks.”

It was rather quiet after that.

The doors opened on the fourth floor and Potter and the doctor both seemed in a rush to leave the lift. Draco scowled and yelled after Potter like he was an errant child.

“That is not the cafeteria, Potter!” Draco yelled, stomping a foot when Potter flipped him off behind his back.

“‘This’ll be great, Draco. We’re changing the face of medicine forever, Draco’,” Draco muttered under his breath. “If I’m expected to babysit the Chief then I’ll need a raise.”

It wasn’t until he laughed that Draco remembered that Mark was still in the lift with him.

“I could have sworn that the gossip chain said you and Bailey went to school together,” Mark said, grinning freely once again.

Draco made a wild guess, based solely on the frosty interaction between Mark and Potter’s friend.

“And I thought that you and Sheep were rather close mates,” Draco drawled sarcastically, intending on keeping the conversation off his rather complex relationship with Potter.

Draco despised him as much as Draco admired him. Draco could wish him to have hideous outbreaks of acne while fervently attempting to keep Potter from returning to his old habits.

It turned out that fighting together in a war then competing all through a Healer’s Program could complicate things to a messy degree.

“Sheep?” Mark laughed again and Draco truly had a miserable headache. “I’ll buy you a drink if you call him that to his face. I’ve never met a soul in this world that didn’t love Derek.”

Draco perked up in interest at that. Draco had no deep dislike of Derek - who apparently was not named ‘Sheep’ - but was curious about why Mark disliked him.

“He smiles too much,” Draco sniffed, a true enough complaint. “I can’t imagine why he’s so happy.”

“Because he’s perfect,” Mark said. “Perfect life, perfect hair. It’s insulting to us moody bastards, isn’t it?”

“Yes!” Draco cried, getting caught up in a chance to air his complaints, as minor as they were. “People think Potter’s like that too, you know. ‘Perfect Potter’,” Draco scoffed. “I spent years trying to convince our classmates that he was an insufferable git.”

“You’re not going to find anyone to commiserate here,” Mark told him. When the lift opened on the third floor and Mark began following Draco again, Draco didn’t complain.

“Have you met Bailey’s mom? The woman runs the hospital.”

“Which does nothing to explain why Potter is a walking disaster of a human being,” Draco said. Draco rather liked Miranda Bailey, she had seemed exceedingly fair and firm, not until Professor McGonagall, who Draco had always quietly respected.

“Ah, I’m sure Miranda did her best,” Mark said. “You should meet Derek’s mom sometime, now that is a woman who only settled for perfect kids.”

“Does she have excellent hair?” Draco asked. “Derek has excellent hair.”

“Perfect life, perfect hair,” Mark said again. “If he didn’t ruin every relationship he had then I would think he was a robot.”

Draco laughed, rather rudely. It was only that Draco had many complaints about a great many things and had no one to share them with recently.

“Hold that thought,” Draco told Mark, enjoying the gossip. They were outside the office for the Head of Cardiac Healing and Draco needed to inform him of the need for a report before Friday morning. Draco had been willing to obtain a verbal report, but he decided that a written report would be best in case of complications.

Draco knocked on the door and waited until he heard someone call out to open it.

The healer inside the office was not what Draco had been expecting. The office itself was also not what Draco had expected to see.

Around the size of a patient room, the office had one wall of bookshelves that were covered in books laying on their sides, stacks of papers shoved haphazardly here and there. There were glass jars full of pens, pencils, and markers, all sorted by color it seemed.

The desk that sat in the center of the room, rather than the more appropriately against the wall where it would offer more space - was Draco the only one with sense? - was covered in a great variety of papers, textbooks, and thick journals. There was even music playing, soft rock music that played only in the office.

Draco cleared his throat when the healer had not so much as glanced up to him. Even then, the man only continued his feverish writing, leaving Draco to see just tendrils of wavy black hair that escaped the bun on the top of his head to hang in his face.

“Excuse me, Healer Bailey?” Draco said, irritated by the man already.

“Trent.”

Draco blinked both at the soft voice and the way that he was still not being so much as looked at.

“Healer Bailey is already taken, you could call me Healer Trent, but that sounds stupid, doesn’t it? My middle name is James, but I heard that was taken too. So,” Trent looked up then, his hand still moving across a page as he wrote quickly, “call me Trent.”

Draco was knocked entirely off-kilter at both the heated speech and the very dark green eyes that had looked at him. It took Draco a second to formulate a reply, and it wasn’t altogether professional.

“Potter hired his long lost brother,” Draco groaned, closing his eyes at the outlandish arrogance of Potter. There were marked differences - Trent had a delicate face, quite androgynous. Trent’s hair was longer than Potter’s had ever been, Potter’s eyes were brighter and usually hidden behind glasses.

But the rest of it? In a general sense?

If Potter ever called Draco arrogant again then Draco would point out that his Head of Cardiology was a thin, green-eyed, black-haired healer whose middle name was James and surname was Bailey.

Perhaps Professor Snape was not as off the mark as Potter always whined he was.

“If by Potter you mean Chief Bailey, then, yes, we do look something alike, don’t we?” Trent was already more interested in his writing than he was the presence of the Assistant Chief in his office.

“I promise you, my resume spoke for itself.” Trent didn’t so much as twitch his pinky and a sheet of legal paper floated from a bookcase to present itself to Draco.

Draco did take it, if only to be sure later that Trent was chosen for more than Potter’s ego.

“I am Assistant —”

“I know who you are.”

Draco’s mild scowl of annoyance became a deeper glower of anger.

“Draco Malfoy, you’ll be twenty-four in January.” Trent began reciting Draco’s life history before Draco could so much as silence him.

“Hogwarts School of Magic dropout, you obtained seven NEWTS after the second great war in Britain. You specialized in potions during your time at St. Mungo’s and were once arrested for Death Eater connections, though Chief Bailey-Potter was able to convince the court to drop the erroneous charges based on your willingness to spy for him. No siblings, and I think that your scores on the HELL exam proves that your parents being second-cousins isn’t as much of a harm to your intelligence as some may assume.”

Draco actually reeled backwards at Trent’s quite over-knowledgeable recount of Draco’s entire life. When Draco bumped Mark, he became flustered.

“You had a patient who died under your care,” Draco said, rushing to explain why he was there before Trent shared any more personal details.

Damn Potter for clearly telling his staff about Draco’s life - and Draco’s… parents… how queer.

“I did, yes.” Trent continued to write and to avoid Draco’s eyes. “When the heart knows, it knows. And when the heart goes—”

“It goes,” Mark finished, clearly sounding amused with the horribly humiliating experience.

Trent looked at Mark and flashed a distracted smile, a touch too pretty to be anything considered classically handsome.

“There’s no legally bringing back the dead,” Trent said, suddenly reminding Draco of a prior classmate of his, Luna Lovegood.

And by that, Draco meant that he wasn’t certain that Healer Trent Bailey was entirely sane.

“He’s strange,” Draco muttered the second he fled Trent’s office. Draco had told him to prepare a written report on the death and Trent had merely waved at the madness covering his desk and asked Draco what he thought he was doing.

“They are strange,” Mark said, pausing their walk back to the lifts only long enough to wink at a young muggle doctor with blonde hair.

“They?” Draco wondered if there had been another person in Trent’s office that he missed. It would be understandable, Trent was the type of person who one couldn’t help but focus solely on. “Who…?”

“No, they.” Mark pulled his cell phone from his pocket, a contraption that Draco needed to become familiar with if he were to fit in fully with the staff. Draco pressed the button for the lift - once, twice - then looked at the image that Mark showed him.

It was a flag, of some sort. Draco had never seen it before, though it had been hanging in Trent’s office. There were four stripes of equal size; yellow, white, purple, and black.

“I don’t understand?” Draco admitted. “Is that not his school?”

“Their school, and no,” Mark said, again stressing the pronoun. “Trent’s non-binary, they don’t use female or male pronouns. I mean, you’d have to ask them to be sure, but it’s a safe bet to use non-binary pronouns until you do.”

Draco opened his mouth, closed it. Opened it again, closed it.

“Thank you,” Draco sighed. Draco mentally added research on non-binary pronouns to his list of work that needed completed and felt the pain in his head grow.

“Don’t thank me, I’m just looking out for the second best looking doctor in this place.” When Mark winked at Draco, Draco took that to mean Mark meant him.

“Right,” Draco drawled, uncertain as to why Mark had decided they were friends of any sort. It wasn’t… terrible… so Draco supposed he would allow it.

“And now you can come with me to convince Addy to consult on a case of mine,” Mark said. “She never could resist a pretty face and the two of us? We’re damn pretty.”

Ah, there it was. That made more sense, if Mark was angling for some sort of favor from Draco.

“Certainly,” Draco said, relaxing with the understanding that they were scratching each other’s backs in a way. “Who or what is Addy?”

Addy was apparently Addison Montgomery, the Head of Obstetrics for Seattle Hospital. Draco had read about her, she was quite well-known in her field for her surgical skills and advocacy for forward thinking in treating patients outside of the standard boxes.

She also was Derek’s ex-wife and Mark’s ex-lover… and the two roles had not been mutually exclusive.

“You slept with Shepherd’s wife?” Draco hissed, lowering his tone when they entered the OB wing on the second floor. There were a great many people on that wing, mostly men who looked to be in various stages of distress while their partners were examined.

“Yeah, it sounds bad when you say it like that,” Mark said, rubbing the back of his neck in the first show of self-consciousness Draco had seen from him.

“How else would you say it?” Draco asked him.

“Does it matter if I love her?”

Draco stared at Mark uncomprehendingly.

“No, Mark, it doesn’t,” Draco said slowly, shaking his head. “Merlin. It’s no wonder he seemed ready to kill you in the lift.”

“Yeah, well, apparently you’re a convict so shut up,” Mark said, still grinning easily at Draco.

It was an insult, but the first time that anyone had made light of Draco’s past so Draco found it acceptable enough.

“Better a convict than a whore,” Draco said.

“What? No way.” Mark scoffed at Draco and tossed his head haughtily. “The only time being a convict is better than being a whore is if you can twist it around to get laid.”

“That is certainly not the case in my… in my experience…” Draco slowed to a stop and casually turned in the middle of the corridor to backtrack to the nurse’s station they had just passed. There had been a group of doctors there that Draco ignored, but he thought he heard Potter’s name from one of them.

If Potter was being gossiped about for his disheveled state, Draco would track Potter down and stun the man to iron his uniform himself. It was embarrassing.

“Alex, come on…” Draco peeked around the wall and saw that the woman speaking had dark blonde hair and wore a coat over her scrubs.

Draco was going to tell Potter that name badges should be a hospital wide policy. If someone broke it then Draco would push for them to be fired.

“Meredith Grey,” Mark whispered to Draco, leaning much more casually against the wall than Draco looked. “Why are we spying on Shepherd’s side piece?”

“Shh!” Draco hushed him, noting that bit of interest away for later. Hadn’t Potter mentioned a Doctor Grey that made him blush before? Did Derek know that his new friend was interested in his - what did Mark call her? - side piece?

“Who’s gonna tell him?” The man with the muggle tablet in his hands, Alex, apparently, sounded rather confident about whatever it was he was doing. “Nobody tells Bailey, nobody tells Bailey Junior, we all go home happy.”

“Alex Karev, peds resident,” Mark whispered, not that Draco had asked him.

“Just do it,” the Asian doctor said - Mark called her Yang - said bluntly. “He’s twenty-three, Webber said Bailey adopted him when he was nine. So check about fourteen years ago.”

Draco tilted his head in curiosity at what the doctors were doing.

“It would be closer to fifteen,” a tall and perky blonde said. “Even Bailey can’t fast track an adoption.”

“Izzy Stevens,” Mark said, his eyes narrowing slowly as Draco’s were. “And I think your boy’s about to be outed.”

Over Draco’s dead body.

“What would he have been admitted under?” Karev asked the others, his face tilted down to the screen and his back to Draco. “What did that chick call him? Potter?”

“Uh… Alex…” Stevens had caught sight of Draco deciding enough was enough as he stormed directly to the man attempting to violate Potter’s privacy.

“Yeah, yeah, give me one second…” Karev muttered. “Bam! Got it! Harry Potter was first admitted in the summer of—”

“What exactly do you think that you are doing?” Draco demanded, making himself as tall and commanding as could be.

The way that Doctor Karev spun around and stared at Draco with eyes as wide as a first year caught in the forbidden forest was incredibly gratifying. Draco snatched the tablet from his hand and his cold glare kept the other doctors from fleeing as they looked prepared to do.

“Do you think it is appropriate to go digging through the private records of the Chief of this hospital?” Draco demanded. “Do you think that it is somehow clever to be gossiping about a man’s past and judging him for it in some manner? Do you think it makes you better than him?!”

“I… no, we - I was just… you know…” Karev shrugged and Draco had to clench his hands in fists to keep from striking him. “Curious?”

“I suggest you run, now,” Mark said, stepping up beside Draco and giving Karev a look that indicated the man was nothing more than dirt on the floor. “Quickly, Karev.”

Not only did Karev immediately flee, but the others in the group went with him. Draco watched them all flee and willed his blood pressure to lower. Between the endless headache haunting him all day, the gossip through the hospital, the impending —

The point was, Draco was exhausted and furious.

“You know, up until now, I thought you and Bailey weren’t friends,” Mark said when they were quite alone in the corridor. “Let me guess, one of you slept with the other one’s wife?”

Draco thought about his horribly tangled history with Potter and wished that they had anything as simple as a shared lover in their past.

“No, neither of us slept with the other one’s wife,” Draco said. He looked down at the tablet he had snatched from Karev and felt an itch to dig. How would Potter ever know if Draco clicked the file beneath Potter’s name and date of birth? There were multiple admissions… more than Draco had expected to see…

No. Just because Potter found it acceptable to talk about Draco to his staff did not mean that Draco would lower himself to the same standards. In the greatest show of restraint Draco had ever shown —

“Malfoy?” Potter stood behind Draco, his eyes wide when they met Draco’s in the reflection of the mirror.

Draco had been bent over the sink, talking to his only friend in the world - a girl who died fifty years ago - and considered taking his life. Why did it matter if Draco lived or died when his life was doomed to end young anyway? Was it cowardice or cunning to kill himself before the Dark Lord or the next month did it to him?

Then Potter stood there, everything Draco could never be, and Draco felt as if he had a target for all his anger. Not the grey eyes and pale face in the mirror before him, but the reflection just past that.

Draco turned and he didn’t think, he didn’t care, he only cast a curse. Draco wanted Potter to hurt, to suffer, to break as Draco had. They had competed for years, it felt fair.

Potter was quick, he dodged Draco’s curse and parried with his own. Draco dodged it the first time, cast another curse that missed, and Potter’s second curse hit Draco’s chest.

Draco nearly died, he had nearly bled out on the floor. Draco had wished he died when he saw the looks of disgust on Madame Pomfrey’s face, the look of fear on Professor Snape’s.

Draco had wished he died again when Potter snuck in the infirmary that night to visit him. It was an apology and an offer given in one conversation and for the second time in Draco’s life, his path had taken a sharp and unexpected turn.

— Draco turned the screen of the tablet off and didn’t so much as check for a list of diagnoses.

Draco left Mark to his cases after he met Doctor Addison Montgomery, who was a gorgeous woman that Draco could nearly understand why a man might ignore a marriage vow to bed. Draco made a few stops on his way back to his office, one to check on Healer Delacour, who was quite frosty and seemed as fond of Draco as Draco was of buttered prawns.

By then, Draco didn’t have the energy to even check on either of his Department Heads. It was a draining day and Draco’s confidence was taking a rather hard hit left and right as he found that growing up didn’t mean outgrowing the opinions of others. Draco evaded any other as he stealthily took the stairs to get back to the third floor where he could lock himself away in his office for most of the day.

It was quiet, tolerable. Draco worked on writing up proposals for community outreaches, replying to students who wrote to the hospital in hopes of obtaining a prestigious internship with them. Until the hospital ran for twelve months, Draco flatly refused to add interns to their problems.

Potter loved students, Draco did not.

After lunch, Draco received notice that Mrs Walker had been discharged and that Mr Bladesworth might be on the same route the next morning.

What Draco wished he had was an intricate and complex operation to be given to him… something that would require all of his focus and brainpower to resolve… what Draco was given was Potter.

“Draco!” Potter stormed in Draco’s office at a quarter til two and his face was positively aflame. Draco raised a brow, having his own issues with Potter, and wondered what had the man in a fuss.

Potter kicked Draco’s door closed behind him then glared at Draco with his arms crossed.

“Did you tell Healer Anderson that I’m mentally disabled?!” Potter demanded hotly. “He talks to me like I’m a toddler who is incredibly hard of hearing!”

Draco considered that. Had he…? Oh, yes. He had. It had been a jest told so dryly during Anderson’s interview that Draco had just known Anderson took it as fact.

“Mm? No,” Draco lied, feigning a perfect portrayal of confusion and innocence. “How strange.”

Potter didn’t look convinced and when he began to complain, Draco brought up his own issues with gossip.

“Perhaps Anderson heard that two Avada Kedavra’s scrambled your brain from the same source that told Healer Trent that my parents are second cousins,” Draco said, sneering at Potter for that.

Potter’s lip twitched and the hard lines of his bony shoulders relaxed.

“Oh? That’s wild.” Potter grinned outright and took the seat across from Draco. “Trent’s a sharp person though, they could have found your family tree anywhere.”

“And my criminal record?” Draco spat.

Potter blinked and Draco knew instantly that it was nothing he had shared. Potter was too transparent for deceit.

“Draco, I would never,” Potter said earnestly, leaning toward Draco some. “I - er… might have said some things; joking, you know… but not that.”

Draco sighed and waved his hand, brushing the issue away. It was public record, as much of what Trent parroted to Draco had been.

“Do you…” Draco tapped the pen in his hand on his desk uncertainly. “Do you know what non-binary means?”

“Oh, shit.” Potter swore and rubbed his head, Draco thought they may be sharing a headache. “I forgot to tell you. You didn’t misgender them, did you?”

“Luckily, no,” Draco said. That was when he checked the time and decided it was the perfect time for lunch and a pain reliever. “Tell me everything you know, Potter. It doesn’t help our image or the bloody mobs on the lawn if the death eater on staff seems ignorant about flags and pronouns.”

“Ex-death eater,” Potter said, much too cheerfully. He didn’t comment when Draco summoned two pain relievers and sent an order to the kitchens for lunch trays to be brought to his office.

Draco rolled his eyes when Potter raised his potion in a toast and he only clinked them together to appease Potter’s childishness.

Then the two of them settled in and wound up spending the rest of their afternoon sharing all the gossip they knew about their coworkers. Potter also told Draco about Trent Bailey and Draco warned Potter about hiding his medical records from the staff.

It wasn’t an altogether unprofessional afternoon, as they also decided to implement an apparation veranda for the staff so that until they dealt with the mobs, the staff no longer had to walk past them.

Draco also remembered to inform Potter that he would not be available the following Monday. Potter didn’t ask why, Draco offered no explanations.

The altered Wolfsbane that Draco invented himself was effective, but Draco still knew that he would be in no shape to face another day like the one he had the day directly after a full moon.