Chapter 9
Harry watched Malfoy from across his desk. He had dosed the man with a calming draught, and now Malfoy just stared blankly into space. Harry was beside himself. He had naively assumed the hospital would be safe- he should have learnt his lesson from Hogwarts. He didn’t know what to do. Malfoy wasn’t any help in trying to figure out what might have happened. He just shook like a leaf in his chair, his face even paler than before, his eyes bloodshot and vacant.
They had found Daisy bound in one of the empty patient rooms, and she’d been so frantic nothing she had said had made sense, so Harry had also dosed her up with calming draught and sent her home with a heavy heart.
Harry got out Scorpius’ file from one of his shelves and flicked through all the pages. He had about an hour before Malfoy’s dose wore off and the man was of any use again, and he needed to use the time wisely. He dreaded to think of what happened when Malfoy became lucid again and Harry didn’t have an answer for him. His chest was bruised from Malfoy’s fists, but he couldn’t bring himself to heal it. The pain that came with each breath he drew was a reminder of how he had failed one of his patients- the one thing he had sworn never to do- and he bore them like punishment. They spurred him on.
He read through all the letters. The Greengrasses response had been standard- they had sent Harry all the medical records they could find, dating back to bloody 1832, and he had stayed up until the wee hours, combing through them, and finding nothing, meaning that if Scorpius’ affliction was genetic it was likely from the Malfoy, or possibly Black line- either way, it was from Malfoy as Scorpius’ father. Unfortunately, Narcissa had been much less co-operative, and she insisted I return with an auror-issued warrant before she would hand over any information. Harry was currently in the process of working with the DMLE to organise that, and hadn’t wanted to tell Malfoy until he had concrete proof, but it seems now maybe he should have, because as he cast spells on all the pieces of parchment, Narcissa’s response had glowed a sickly green.
Harry felt a cold, oily feeling roil in his gut as he realised that Scorpius was likely stuck in the very place Draco seemed to have risked his whole relationship with his family to keep him away from, and it was possibly all his fault, for being too blindly trusting in wizarding institutions, when they had never truly kept him safe before.
Harry watched the lucidity return to Malfoy’s eyes and he braced himself for more shouting, but instead Malfoy merely asked what his plan was, his mildness laced with very sincere threat. Harry cleared his throat and complained, before passing the letter over to Malfoy, who snatched it and ran a series of spells over it. As he did so, Harry couldn’t help but guiltily worry that this might have ruined the tentative friendship they had built between them. For some reason, that thought scared Harry just as much as the missing child did. He didn’t want his naivety to have lost him the sight of Malfoy’s smile, which had become the highlight of their visits for Harry. Malfoy struck him as a man who didn’t smile often at anyone that wasn’t Scorpius.
“We’re going to the Manor, I guess.” Malfoy said, jolting Harry out of his reverie. Malfoy’s tone was scarily flat, and his skin was ashen, and it dawned on Harry that this was likely the first time Malfoy would step foot in that place since Scorpius’ birth, and it was all Harry’s fault. Harry wanted to cry.
He tried to keep it together, writing a letter to Daisy and the rest of his department, as well as Andromeda, as he was due at hers for dinner that evening, and finally the DMLE. at least this might get him his warrant, Harry thought wryly as he sent the letter off. Kidnapping certainly counted as a crime. If thats where Scorpius was, of course.
Harry wouldn’t let himself think like that- Scorpius had to be at the Manor. They had no other leads.
Harry stepped around his desk to stand in front of Malfoy, noting absently that Malfoy had a good couple of inches on him, and that he smelt delicious, before Malfoy’s hand was wrapped around his wrist and Harry was being pulled through space.