Chapter 2
Harry simply... Stared. What else was he supposed to do? After all, he had just been told he's been dead for the past week basically and Draco, of all people, risked his position at St. Mungo's to bring him back.
"Dead?" That was all he could muster. Draco nodded, "Dead," he reiterated, "and while I understand that you're body may be exhausted and you are most certainly going to faint from shock in the next half hour, I have to get you out of here. If they see you awake after such time proceeding your death, they will think there is... Suspicious play aground, should they suspect me, I am up for questioning, and you and I are both aware at how horrid I am at keeping lies," he said, hooking his hands around Harry's arms and hauling him to his feet, which buckled at first.
His weight felt foreign, yet familiar, as if he'd been holding a child for so long that once taken away, the feel of the weight still lingered. It took a second, but he adjusted. Still, he accepted Draco's help to keep himself stable.
"Your body will be reported stolen, they will search everywhere, however... You are a strange anomaly, I can only assume they'll give up after a month of nothing."
"How will you get me out?" Harry followed as Draco circled him, pulling the blanket tighter. "Through the back way of the hospital... It leads straight to a Floo connection by the bins... Not the most ideal way, but it'll do," Draco answered, holding his shoulders and turning him toward one of the doors. The door didn't go to the hospital however, through the glass, Harry saw through his cracked lenses a wet road. "Is it raining?"
"Always is when you're involved, as Mother Nature is crying for you," Draco said sarcastically. Harry tried to walk, to keep up, but every step he took was pain filled and caused his legs to buckle and ache. At once, Draco spelled him, it set him in a sort of... Drift like state, he was floating, but not, his body forced to move on autopilot. It was a spell they had to use often on violent patients, who were the patients Draco mostly had to attend to.
Outside was soaked, Harry's lenses soon filled with water and his hair was plastered to his face. It didn't help his already freezing state, he might have died again if it weren't for the blanket that averted most of the water. Draco practically tugged him along, hands on his shoulders and rather roughly urging him forward. The bins stunk and it was only when Harry looked properly that he saw why.
Bodies were chucked in without abandon, severed arms, legs--even heads--were all piled haphazardly in them.
"There are always things we can't save..." Draco muttered, seemingly missing the glaring head poking out of the left bin. Harry felt sick, a hand raising to his own neck, fearing his head would've been next in there if it weren't for Draco pulling him from Death's embrace. It was comfortable, sure, but Harry was rather used to the constant feel of... Everything, being so calm, so unbothered, ironically, bothered him. He wanted to point out the heads, however, if Draco had a hand in that, he was willing to overlook that for the sheer sake of being back in his regular routine of always being thrown off routine.
At least for now, he was.
There was a giant furnace at the end of the alleyway. Harry flinched at the heat and the smell radiating from it, though it wasn't even burning. Draco seemed to not notice. Harry supposed he spent a lot of time near the morgue, he was used to the smell.
Draco forced him to kneel down, "Get the ash, go--grab it," he held Harry's shaking wrist, fingers twitching, clearly shocked at being used after days of complete lifelessness. After a moment of fumbling, Draco sighed and gripped his hand, forcing it still and cupping ash into it. "It smells weird," Harry commented. "I imagine it would... St. Mungo's doesn't cremate its patients inside."
Harry didn't know how to respond to that. But before he could even think of muster a word, he was pulled him and pushed into the furnace.
"Say 'Malfoy Manor.'"
Harry was suddenly taken back to second year, where he had quite horribly butchered Diagon Alley. His mind was wholly sucked back and he was determined to not mess it up this time, so, he spoke as best as he could in his scratchy, hoarse voice.
"Malfoy Manor."
Arriving there in a flurry of flames and being moved so rapidly made Harry feel sick and he immediately stumbled out of the fireplace at the Manor, tumbling onto one of the sofas with his chest heaving and eyes warping around wildly. Strange, because he could've sworn for a second he was at the Burrow. Apparently not, as the only person in the large living room was an old maidservant, wiping her glasses.
"Oh, of course she's in here," Draco muttered, shaking his head, "Betty, you're off the clock now, go home," he said, loudly, addressing the woman directly. She waved her hand, raising the apron on the front of her dress and wiping her thick glasses. "Betty... Betty. B--" Draco sighed, looking down to his shoes for a second, "Tack!" He called, summoning the little house elf, "Will you please take Betty home? She is off the clock and not due back until Monday."
"Of course, Master Draco," Tack nodded, standing tall and taking Betty's hand, Apparating away immediately after, making the old lady give a noise of surprise.
He then turned to Harry, moving his wet hair out of his face, "As for you..." He huffed, "I suppose you'll have to share my clothes, I imagine they'll fit, though I've always been a little skinnier than you," he breathed in, crossing his arms. Harry stared at him, "Why here?"
"Where else? Do you expect to go parading back into your friends' arms? No, Harry, eventually, perhaps, however here is the safest. The wards are strong, it's only the servants, myself, Teddy and Scorpius. Blaise and Pansy visit occasionally, Theo even less so and Vincent hardly ever."
"Teddy? Remus' kid? He was mine to look after," Harry forced himself to sit. "I am his family, Harry and you were unavailable. Being an Auror is a dangerous job, you cannot look after a child being one. You would've died prematurely. You did die prematurely. Teddy would've been given to someone else anyway and I am his blood family."
"I could've looked after him better than you."
"Could you? He's spoiled and happy here. While I'm not doubting that you'd certainly love the child, I can't imagine you could've raised him better than I," Draco grabbed his arm and pulled him up, holding the blanket around him tightly. "However, that's aside the point. Now that you're alive, you will go through a horrible sickness, involving fever, more than likely throwing up anything you eat and certainly an insatiable hunger for a little while."
"But I won't keep anything down?" Harry asked, eyes glancing around. "No, at least not a week or two, but you won't starve, don't worry. I won't allow you to die now that I've got you alive again."
"Where are... Your kids?" Harry watched as Draco began to clean the ash around the fireplace. "Scorpius is with his mother, Teddy is with Pansy and Blaise, I worked incredibly late tonight, so they're arriving late on Monday, which gives us Sunday alone," he explained, unbothered, “I’ll set you up in a bedroom closer to mine, it would be best I didn’t have to trek across the house to get to you should you seize or anything similar.”
”Seize?”
”It’s quite common after such spells, but,” Draco shrugged a shoulder, “there are hardly ever lingering effects, so it doesn’t matter, don’t worry too much. It might fry whatever brain you have left.” Of course, he couldn’t resist throwing in an insult every now and then. Harry scowled at him, but finally, he was being taken upstairs, to the top floor. Two bedrooms right beside each other both had a name plaque on.
‘Theodore’s Room’
’Scorpius’ Room’
”Can I see inside them?” He asked, looking up at Draco. Draco turned his head to the doors, glancing between them, “No.. Not yet,” he answered quietly, “Scorpius doesn’t like his room disturbed while he’s not here and Teddy’s room is constantly a mess, considering you can’t walk properly right now either, it’s a recipe for disaster,” he said, opening a room directly opposite a room that his own name on a plaque. ‘Draco’s Room.’
The inside of the room Draco gave him was larger than it seemed to be, paintings hung up and a giant four-poster bed in the very centre, half a library was against one wall and there was a collection of… Everything on the other, the carpet was soft, a great contrast the cold floorboards in the hallways.
”It’s nice.”
”I suspect it should be,” Draco held Harry’s arms and guided him to the bed, holding his shaking body as he sat. Then he turned and opened one of the wardrobes, which was full with clothes. He searched and searched for pyjamas that he thought would fit until he finally did. It was just a simple button up plaid shirt and trousers but it didn’t look at all like something Draco would own, as so expressed through his confused expression.
”It isn’t mine. Actually, I have no clue who’s it is, but Tack has washed it, so you aren’t going to get mites,” he said with a huff, handing the pyjamas to Harry and then searching for boxers. “These aren’t mine either, just so you know,” he threw a pointed look at Harry, who only nodded in return. “Uh… Thanks,” he muttered, because what else was he supposed to say? Should he just be silent? Draco probably would’ve liked that better.
He stared at Harry with a significantly softer expression, “Tomorrow, I will go to Diagon Alley and find you a cane, perhaps some braces to keep your legs from buckling and no, you needn’t pay me back,” he added in response to Harry’s scrunched expression, putting his hand up to shush him, “I’ve much money to spend and I don’t quite care about getting any that spend back from someone.”
”Right…”
”A thank you would suffice but I’m aware of your shocking lack of manners,” Draco hummed shortly, turning his head up, “it is very late, get to sleep and I’ll have you down for breakfast tomorrow morning,” then he left.
Harry looked around again. The ceiling was painted with what looked to be holy figures but he wasn’t even aware that wizards worshipped anyone, let alone several people. Still, it was interesting, the centre most one was a woman with white hair and violet eyes, wearing a blue, flowing dress and holding a twisted wand in her grip. He’d ask later who she was, but now, he was growing incredibly tired.
He shuffled back and pulled the quilt up, lying himself down and staring at the canopy of the bed until his eyes drooped and he was finally out, dead to the world.
Draco was pacing back and forth, literally all night. The weight of his actions was finally hitting him and he was almost breaking out into a cold sweat. He had brought Harry Potter back from the dead. Acting calm at the hospital was easy enough, he had trained himself to halt his emotions while there but here, at home, they crashed through the weak dam he’d built around his heart and forced him to sit on the end of his bed, eyes fixated on the closed doors.
He knew very little of necromancy, only enough of how to do it. He had books on it, sure, but not many. After all, why would the Malfoy’s own books that were disgraced and frowned upon? Still, he had read them, and he was frightened.
Undead men need no food but flesh.