Chapter 1
DRACO
10:37 am
The routine of potions is what he likes most about his work. Even when experimenting, there is an order to things.
Start with a clean cauldron.
Have your ingredients out and ready in an orderly manner (there’s no knowing what could happen if things accidentally mixed on the worktop close to an open flame).
And finally, and possibly most important, don’t lose focus, distraction is dangerous.
It was this last rule that Draco neglected that morning and the curly-haired wizard standing in the doorway to the potions lab was at least partially to blame. Theodore Nott had never been subtle, but today was one for the books. He had just returned from Greece with Harry Potter of all people. They had been together almost 9 months now and were nauseatingly happy. Partway through Theo’s story regaling him with the most thorough description of olive trees Draco had ever heard when his hand slipped, pushing an entire bubotuber pod into the open flame heating the cauldron.
Two things happened at once.
Draco yelled at Theo to GET DOWN, grasping frantically in his robes for his wand to extinguish the inevitable reaction.
Theo took a step forward, primed to scold Draco for interrupting his story, only to be thrown backward out the doorway he had just left.
In the end, that’s probably what saved him.
2 hours earlier
Draco Malfoy started working for Blue Heron Brewing immediately after his potions mastery was complete, which he had started immediately after he was released on parole following the war. The founder, Sebastian Heron, had somewhat taken Draco under his wing, being from a semi-disgraced family himself and choosing to separate entirely from them, he knew how to relate and thankfully gave Draco the chance he needed. Seb was seven years older and had become one of Draco’s closest friends.
When the opportunity to start working primarily in England rather than full-time in France came about he jumped on the chance to see his friends, mother, and familiar scenery again. He had been back and settled into Blue Heron’s new lab underneath his temporary living quarters for two weeks now and he had finally gotten into a groove.
He'd been out with Theo, Pansy, and Blaise once before Theo and Potter left on holiday and had plans with them all tonight since the lovebirds were returning. His new work/living arrangements were working out splendidly as far as he was concerned, the main inconvenience being how much easier it was for Lucius to try to contact him now.
Hopefully, all the paperwork he’d submitted months ago was close to being finalized.
The pros outweighed the cons however and for the first time since he was very young, Draco felt like he was truly at home. Perhaps after he had finished the anti-splinching potion prototype he would knock off early and owl his friends to hurry up getting to the muggle pup they frequented down the street. No one recognized them there, a serious plus for Draco and Potter alike.
After an hour and a half of paperwork finalizing figures, and another 30 minutes setting up and prepping, Draco was starting on the complex brewing of the prototype potion when the wards hummed with the announcement of a visitor. The loud exclamation of “Oi, I’m back ya wanker!” further alerted him that the visitor was the incomparable Theo Nott.
HERMIONE
10:37 am
She was late, and if Hermione Jean Granger had had anything drilled into her brain by her punctual parents it was 5 minutes early is 10 minutes late.
By her parents' standards, Hermione was 52 minutes late. Not ideal.
For two years after completing her final year at Hogwarts, she had been working at St Mungo’s as a social worker primarily in the children’s ward. Unfortunately, many of the same hardships befell magical families just as readily as muggle ones and she was never assigned less than three cases at a time.
Unintentionally her specialty became legally protecting parents and children from partners or family members who they didn’t want to interact with or with whom they were trying to cut ties. She supposed all the time spent hoping to find a solution for Harry’s living situation all those years with the Dursleys manifested itself into her job today.
She is half speed-walking half jogging through the main entrance when a commotion from the trauma intake area catches her attention. It’s not unusual for there to be some level of disturbance when trauma patients come in. It usually doesn’t hold her attention, she does work at a hospital after all. It isn’t on her way to her office or in her routine department, but something pulls her to see if there is anything she can do to help.
Hospital chaos is a specific breed. There are people and things moving in all directions all the time, machines and staff and patients and visitors making all types of noise, and yet somehow it all flows.
Moving through the sea of mayhem, Hermione locks eyes on the two beds being wheeled into ICU trauma bay 1. She knows those forms. One she can now call a friend. Theo Nott is the brightest soul she has ever encountered.
Does Harry know? Just last month he had become Theo’s emergency contact.
The identity of the other supine figure somehow hits her harder.
Malfoy...Draco.
She’d only seen him a few fleeting times since his trial. Looking healthier and less weighed down each time. No longer bony and sallow like her memories of 6th year, even in this state she can tell he’s filled out his tall frame, and, though he’s currently without it, the color of life lingers in his face.
What happened?
Why can’t she move?
She was breathing.. .right?
A sharp pain in her hip jolts her back into reality. She had run into the counter of the nurse's station. One of them looks up at her expectantly and whatever she finds on Hermione’s face is enough for her to stand and come around to the front of the counter.
“Miss Granger, are you alright?”
She blinks.
“Yes, I think I’m okay. Just a bit of a shock. Has Harry Potter been notified for Theodore Nott who just came in? And probably Narcissa Malfoy for Draco Malfoy who was with him?
The nurse, nodding her head as though this was something she knew how to deal with, speaks again.
“Any emergency contacts are notified as soon as they are identified.”
She returned to her side of the desk and the automated scrolls filling with writing and figures recapture her attention.
As she does so, the doors burst open again, blowing in Harry and Narcissa who are whirlwinds in their own right.
“Where is he?” They both proclaim in unison, speaking separately about the two wizards brought in only moments before.
Hermione catches Harry’s eye and points in the direction they’ll need to go. His face floods with relief, maybe because she is there and he equates her with things being handled, maybe because she has once again given him information towards his current goal, she doesn’t know. Harry grasps Narcissa’s arm firmly but not unkindly and they make their way to the trauma entrance.
What is she supposed to do now?
She is close with Theo but not enough to assume he’d want to see her. She can’t imagine she’d be welcome in Malfoy’s room, or why she’s sure that if possible she’d go there now.
All of this makes sense, yet she can’t move. Something doesn’t allow her to turn and walk down the hallway to her small but comfortable office with the window she often catches herself staring out. That same unnamed thing fills her brain with scenarios that could never come to pass. Her forcing through the bay doors to trauma, demanding to see them and ensuring they made full recoveries. Yes, she worked in a hospital but she wasn’t a healer, the survival healing she learned when on the horcrux hunt with Harry and Ron was barely enough for the small injuries they endured, let alone whatever extent was waiting in the almost too short hospital beds carrying one blonde and one brunette wizard who she had known since 11 years old.
She was frozen, and thawing felt like it would melt her instead.
HARRY
A lot had changed for Harry Potter since the final battle. He had started auror training just a few weeks after because hunting dark wizards and witches was the only thing he had known for so long. Anything was better than wallowing, and he’d felt if he let himself feel it all, all at once there wasn’t a chance he’d make it through. That was also the reason he stopped training after only a month in the program. It felt too much like the fight or flight he had been stuck in most of his last few years.
A week after withdrawing, an owl arrived from none other than Minerva McGonagall asking if he would like to take the post of Defense Against the Dark Arts professor that upcoming September. Looking back his near-instantaneous response may have been a bit hasty, however, he couldn’t bring himself to regret not thinking it through. All the best things in his life had come from split-second, head-first decisions and this was no exception.
That was how he re-met Theo too.
There’s something to be said about why meet-cutes in RomCom movies are always over the top and almost cringy, yet we enjoy them every time. It’s what we want, often exaggerated, even though we’d never believe it would happen in “real life”.
Harry had been teaching at Hogwarts for only a short while when he realized that for not only muggle-borns there were often lots of students who didn’t have or barely had the supplies necessary for the subjects. He had more money in his vault than he thought he’d probably ever need and a classroom budget as well so without pondering it further at all he pulled on his coat, walked out to the ward boundary, and apparated to Diagon Alley, in the middle of the day, on a Thursday he didn’t have afternoon classes on.
From there he doesn’t remember many details, he bought loads of quills, parchment, extra ink, and anything else he could think of or saw that may be in lower supply, especially around the end of the year. Arms fully loaded with bags (something he still does rather than use magic, a habit from childhood he doubts he’ll ever break), he could see even less than normal so it wasn’t a surprise when he crashed into something (presumably a person from the sound it made) and went sprawling onto the walkway, or he would have if a cushion of magic hadn’t surrounded him, gently slowed his descent and rested him on the pavement.
“If someone would have told me this morning I would be sweeping Harry Potter off his feet today I would have never believed them, yet my Merlin here you are, dashing as ever if I do say so myself.”
Harry had recognized the voice, but in the same vague way one recognizes a relative only ever seen once a year. It was a warm, comforting voice that you could hear the laughter in. Adjusting his glasses brought the dark curly hair, green eyes similar to his own, and grinning face into focus.
“Nott?”
“Your utter disbelief wounds me, Potter.”
A smirk slowly crept into his expression.
“It’s almost as if you’d like me to believe you didn’t orchestrate this whole encounter to happen. Not carrying your bags with magic, obstructing your view so you’d bump into me, ending the afternoon repaying my heroism with drinks.”
“What? I…no…I…uhh”
Harry’s blubbering was cut off by a deep full laugh.
“I kid Potter. May I call you Harry? No need to breathe in so much air at once.”
Theo held out a hand to help Harry back to his feet.
“However I wouldn’t say no to the drink.”
Their meeting had been playing on repeat in his head since the initial shock and adrenaline had worn off from hearing the news and racing to St Mungo’s an hour earlier. He had no idea what Cissa was thinking, though he figured she was just as caught in her own head as he was.
He doubted anyone ever relaxed in a sterile hospital waiting room. Everything he loved about the Gryffindor common room, or his living room, or Theo’s library was missing, no cushions, no crackling fire, no soft blankets or rugs, just hard plastic chairs, dull white linoleum floors and posters littering the walls full of medical ramblings, all lit by light that was anything but warm. Harry didn’t know how the magical illumination had been able to capture the coldness of fluorescent lighting, or why anyone would want it to in the first place, but the bright unfeeling light was almost indistinguishable from a muggle hospital.
They knew both Theo and Draco were stable, but that was only a small comfort when neither was awake and weren’t showing signs of it either. After a quick debrief they were deposited in this waiting room to do as the name suggests, wait.
There had been a small explosion (Harry didn’t think the addition of small mattered, it was still an EXPLOSION) in the lab Draco had here in England. Since they were both unconscious and the resulting fire had destroyed a lot there wasn’t much information for anyone to go off of regarding the possibility of other injuries past the obvious explosion-related ones. But a small team of aurors and ministry workers were going over the wreckage to start making theories of the event.
So they were waiting. Harry had thought a few times that perhaps he should find Hermione, she had been there when they were brought in and he had barely acknowledged her, but every time the thought surfaced another beat it down, sure that if he got up and left they would come out for him while he was gone. No, he would stay here, loosely holding Narcissa’s hand and making sure not a second was wasted when they allowed him back to see Theo.
HERMIONE
Eventually, she gets back to her office, she’s not sure how but in one memory she is still standing immobile at the nurse's station and the next here she is sitting in her desk chair blankly staring at a file before her.
It’s a sturdy desk, oak she thinks, or another hardwood, the carving along the front reminds her of Lord of the Rings or Narnia, and if she ever leaves this job or office she’ll have to offer to buy it because she doubts she can part with it.
When she forces awareness back into her gaze and focuses on the clock mounted above her door she sees it has been almost three hours since Theo and Malfoy, no.. .Draco were brought in. She tries to call him Malfoy, maybe it will remind her of his behavior in school and snap her out of whatever semi-catatonic state she’s fallen into, but even just in her head, it sounds wrong. She has seen him totally helpless on that stretcher. He's seen her totally helpless on his drawing room floor. That level of intimacy, even if only one of them is currently aware of it isn’t reflected in surnames.
Draco. Draco. Draco.
She repeats it in her head and just under her breath trying to make it sound less awkward and forced. She knows Harry has called him Draco for months now, and if he can put everything aside she certainly can too.
A soft knock on her closed door breaks her mantra and she waves a hand to allow entry, the normalcy of the action pulls her further back into an alert mindset.
“There’s a case for you. Not a kid, but along the same lines as your usual. Father wants in and to take over decisions even though the mother is the only contact and proxy.”
Hermione nods at the senior healer relaying the message. She deals with this type of situation all the time and when the paperwork is on the patient's side, as it sounded like this was, it was straightforward and backed by the law. Just the thing to get her headspace back to normal and stop her fixation on Malf..Draco.
She straightens her shoulders, grabs her work notepad, and follows him out her door and down the hall. As they walk, yelling and the other telltale sounds of a disagreement increase in volume. The words start to become more intelligible the closer they get and the voice, not what it says stops her in her tracks.
“Get out. NO ONE, especially not him, wants you here.”
That was Harry! She breaks into a jog, thanking Merlin she wore flats today and joined the edges of the crowd of onlookers fixed on the events unfolding. Harry was straightened up to his admittedly not very tall height staring down a visibly irate Lucius Malfoy. With one hand on Narcissa’s forearm, it was unclear who was holding who back.
It was not unclear who was holding Lucius back. A tall and broad orderly named Anton with full sleeves of magical tattoos that moved like portraits and who usually wore a wide grin had Mr. Malfoy by the elbows, showing very little strain but not moving his captive either.
Just when Hermione made it to the clearing that naturally forms around altercations the floor went silent, looking away from the verbal stalemate she breathes a sigh of relief when she sees why.
PANSY
The first time Pansy Parkinson realized she could silence a room with just the energy she put out and the sound of her high heels she was 16 years old. She was descending the stairs for a party her mother had thrown, and for the first time in her short life, she felt powerful. Purebred witches had one purpose, quietly look good at parties, and if they popped out an heir or two that was a bonus. Before that, Pansy had been resigned to her role knowing that she had no choice in how her life ended up. After, she felt that even if the big choices weren’t offered to her, she could certainly take control of the small ones, and she did, even if some of her choices ended up being things she regretted (chiefly being her attempt to turn over a certain scarred Gryffindor to a deranged psychopath).
Walking around her hospital, Pansy felt the same level of power, though now it was full of respect as well. She had completed her healer training right out of Hogwarts, but soon transitioned into the administrative side, it was much more her speed. Pansy had decided for now to keep up on her licensing just in case she was ever needed. She was the youngest head administrator St Mungo's had ever had and now at the end of her first year she was infamous. She had a knack for finding the root of issues and how they could be solved. She was tough but fair and after clearing the air with Granger she settled into a comfortable existence only further expanded by the return of one of her closest friends from France. There was a warm sense of accomplishment in how diverse her circle had become.
As much as she had planned, fantasised, and hoped for an opportunity to metaphorically and literally knock Lucius Malfoy down a peg or three she resented the fact that the opportunity came in the wake of her two best friends being hospitalised. Nevertheless, she squared her shoulders, and pushed all her panic and emotion far back behind the mask of pure authority she wore almost as often as her real face.
“Lucius.” Her tone was steel and brokered no interruption. “This is no place for a temper tantrum. I’d say I hate to have to ask you to leave but that would be a lie. I don’t hate it, and I’m not asking.”
Turning to Harry and Narcissa she broke her mask for a split second to show them a flash of compassion before rounding back to her least favourite Malfoy, who hadn’t moved.
“I won’t repeat myself.”
His eyes slowly hardened, like a petulant child that hadn’t been given what he wanted.
“Do not think this is over Miss Parkinson. You have no idea what I am still capable of. I will not be kept from my son, not even by him.”
A feral Slytherin smile slid onto Pansy’s features and it gives her great pleasure to see the slight hesitation this brings to Lucius’s eyes.
“It’s Healer Longbottom and, unlike you, I never underestimate Draco. If he doesn't want you to see him, you won't.”
DRACO
He was floating. It wasn’t unpleasant, he’s always enjoyed flying and this is similar. It unnerves him though... Something isn’t right. Where is he? Why is he floating? The last thing he remembers is.. .. Theo. Theo!
He forces open his eyes, it's slow and almost painful like they’ve been shut for a very long time. Everything is blurry, but the bright lights are only found in St Mungo’s so he must be in the hospital. He tries to speak, to ask where his friend is but it comes out in a slow rasp, barely a whisper. Someone hears him though because a soft, light voice filled with relief answers him.
“Theo woke up 11 days ago and was released the day after. You’ve been out for two weeks now.”
Finally, his eyes adjust and dark brown curls, a slightly freckled nose, and firewhiskey-coloured eyes come into focus. Draco had assumed the voice belonged to his mother, it was familiar, but this?
No. He must be hallucinating. Why would Granger be here? Why was she looking at him like that? His confusion must have shown on his face because her’s closed off and she backed away.
“I’ll just get your mother. She went for some air.” Then, barely audible, “I’m glad you’re okay Draco.”
Before he could react, she turned and was gone.