The Whole School Knows
“The whole school knows,” Ginny said quietly, slightly obscured behind the privacy curtain. Her Gryffindor companion remained still and silent, eyes trained on the chest of the figure on the bed, the chest that only barely rose with each breath.
“He feels awful, Hermione. It was an accident,” the redhead tried. She was met with silence. Defeated, she stepped away from the curtain & left the Hospital Wing.
Hermione released a shaky breath, a breath that disturbed the lifeless, pale blond hair before her.
She reached her hand out to brush the loose strands from his forehead tentatively. He would not feel it if she did; not while in a magically induced coma courtesy of Harry’s brazen behavior. Her fingers felt his soft, cold forehead as she brushed aside the misplaced locks.
She’d always wondered what his hair would feel like. Her imagination conjured feelings of soft, expensive silk. But today, it felt flat; wrong to the touch.
Draco did not stir under her fingertips; his breathing remained unchanged. The thick bandages wrapped across his chest and shoulders functioned as a shirt. The flawless, porcelain-like skin of his neck and arms shone under the candlelight.
She knew that his skin would be beautiful underneath the bandages. No mark or scar could mar the beauty of Draco Malfoy. His scars would only amplify his divine-like beauty. Or perhaps, Hermione would find him beautiful no matter the change of his physical form.
She remained by his bedside throughout the night. Watching his chest rise and fall. She ignored Madam Pompfrey’s initial disapproving tsk at midnight. But she much preferred it over the knowing, sympathy-filled look she received from her as the hours wore on.
She remained by his bedside a full day after the initial night. He received his first visitor then. She made no comment when Theodore Nott silently sat beside her nor when Pansy silently cried, not even when Blaise asked her to return to her bed, assuring her he would remain.
None of the Slytherin visitors were surprised by her presence, a fact she attributed to Theo’s expertly masked emotions. He must have warned his friends after discovering her statuesque form. “He will wake in the morning,” Madam Pompfrey said quietly over the curtain.
Hermione knew what that was: a friendly warning. She had to leave soon. Her grief, her utter despair had not ebbed from the moment she discovered his bloody body in the bathroom.
She knew now that he would live, that he would continue to infuriate her during the day & capture her dreams at night. Relief would only find her when she saw him awake herself. But that would have to wait.
Hermione stood quietly. Her hand moved of its own accord, carefully stroking the soft skin of his exposed forearm for only a moment. She brushed aside his loose hairs for the last time, lowering her lips to his forehead & whispering “you didn’t deserve this” with a soft kiss.
Tears cascaded down her cheeks as she walked dejected from the Hospital Wing. If she had turned around, she may have seen the stormy gray eyes that followed her out. Eyes belonging to someone grateful to have her be the first thing he saw when he awoke.