Gentle
Draco Malfoy was wrong, she was starkers.
It was Fred Weasely’s voice on the newly-installed intercom. If nothing else, she was sure of this. Which meant she’d probably, finally, cracked. Go figure.
Draco stopped by for her usual checkup and delivery of potions --- a calming drop, pain relief, a nonaddictive version of dreamless sleep he’d created himself, something for her tremors, for the nausea, for her mental and magical stability.
He lined them up before her, taking notes on any side effects she’d experienced since his last visit, deciding on small dosage changes for her next drop off, and casting diagnostic spells while humming at the results. She read along with him, trying not to get her hopes up but failing anyway.
“You don’t look mad,” he commented dryly, his usual smirk in place while he jotted down the results in the leather journal he kept for her file.
Hermione rolled her eyes, not willing to humor him today. "Try telling the rest of them that."
He quirked an eyebrow, lips twitching in what she could guess could’ve been a smile before settling back on his expressionless mask. "Who says I haven't? Your overprotective hoard of men say you've suffered enough."
“We both know that’s not why they keep me here.”’
“Maybe. It would’ve been unwise to let you back on the field before though and you did need time to recover.”
She both nodded her head and waved her hand in dismissal. "Yes, but as my healer, what's your professional opinion now?"
His face remained expressionless while he weighed his answer. "I think we both know your ability to duel might never be the same, but your magical core has stabilized and you've been able to keep up with the exercise regimen I gave you, correct?"
She nodded, "I've started jogging too."
His lips twitched at the eager way she sat up and leaned towards him. Her eyes were wide with hope and he briefly got a mental image of her in their Hogwarts days, her hand waving in the air with an arsenal of correct answers, just waiting to be called on. When she started biting her lip and her expression turned to one of concern, he forced himself out of his memory to consider his answer. "I'm not sure keeping you here is best for your health anyway, I've told you and them that before. Still, we have plenty of members who don't go out on the battlefield and your options may be limited but maybe with these results, I can finally convince them to give you something to do. I, for example, could use a research assistant."
Her eyes lit up. "Research?"
Damn her and her ability to make his face twist in amusement. "New curses have been popping up on the battlefield and it appears we have a rat because each time we come up with a countercurse, they switch. The power though --- it’s unlike any we’ve ever seen. There has to be some source for it that we haven’t identified, it’s far too strong for any of the wizards exhibiting it, except for maybe the Dark Lord himself.”
“Could it be some sort of boosting ritual?”
“That’s what we’ve been thinking but haven’t been able to look into yet. There’s too many casualties and they have too much of an advantage now. If I bring you the files and books that might assist you, would you like to help?”
She nodded quickly.
“I was thinking. . . Now that you’ve regained some of your physical strength, I might be able to convince them to let you use the floo to visit the library at Grimmauld."
She gasped and he couldn’t hold back his grin this time.
He said the same reassurance? Greeting? Every visit, ever since his first visit a month after Narcissa passed.
"You don't look mad," Draco had said to her while she traced runes into the fogged up window. Her favorite window, with its picturesque view of the fallow lands outside and it's cushioned seat built into the walls with pillows embroidered by her and Narcissa. She lay stretched across it but winced as she struggled to sit up to frown at him.
"Pardon me?"
"You don't look mad," Malfoy repeated. His voice had been gentle, genuine, and he helped steady her so she could sit up and hold the tea cup he'd prepared for her. “Not that there’s anything wrong with being mad. I wouldn't be much of a healer if I held madness against people, our minds are what they are and any illness they might have should be treated as any other illness of the human body should be, and shame isn’t part of my methods.”
Hermione’s brow furrowed in confusion while she processed his words, still she didn’t say anything.
He sat down next to her and gave her a second's long half-smile. "They told me you were barking. Wouldn't let me see you. I told them that’s even more of a reason to allow me to."
"Why would you want to see me?" She realized too late her voice sounded more aghast than she meant it to.
But Malfoy took it in stride and chuckled lowly. "Well, partly because I found out you hadn’t been assigned a healer since Pomfrey released you, but mainly because you're the brains of this whole thing."
"I was." She half-conceded.
“The tea. . . I brewed it myself, it’s a mixture that should help your tremors.” She nodded at her cup before taking a sip. "I should have insisted earlier. . . Are you. . . ? What are your symptoms like?"
Hermione had been bewildered. Malfoy had joined the Order shortly before she’d been regaled to the safe house so she hadn’t interacted with him much. Her opinion of him had softened during her talks with Narcissa but it was hard to reconcile the haughty, taunting boy from Hogwarts with the concerned man he appeared to be now.
“I’m. . . better,” she said finally.
“Pomfrey said she sends you pain potions sometimes, are they helping?”
She shrugged, “It’s constant but it’s not as intense as it used to be. I can hold my wand again, and do basic spells. None of my wounds have opened in at least two weeks.”
“How’s your strength?”
“I can walk around the perimeter --- I do get tired though,” her shoulders seemed to deflate. She shook her head at herself, they’d never let her go back to headquarters now. She should have lied to him. Why didn’t she?
“And the voices, the hallucinations?” His voice was soft. She almost wished it wasn’t.
“They’ve lessened.”
“Your file doesn’t go into detail, it only says the hallucinations exist. Can you tell me more about them? Specifying the kind might help specify your treatment.”
Hermione nodded in understanding. She’d like to think she’d open up to any other healer, she did need help after all, and this new Malfoy was practically a stranger so it couldn’t hurt to treat him as she would a healer she’d never met before. She’d wipe the slate clean, trust his professionalism.
"I see a woman, and I’m small, like a toddler. And she asks permission to take away my magic and tells me I'll be safe. That she'll make sure I'll get the pony I wanted for Christmas but I have to be good and agree to let her take it away. And --- I do agree. I nod and my whole body feels like it's splitting open and I can see my magic float away, like a cloud or an aura getting siphoned into some decanter. All of it fits somehow. It makes no sense, it was so much."
"Maybe it had an undetectable extension charm,” he says and she snorts. “Do you know the woman?"
"No. She looks familiar though."
"Could it be a relative? A memory from childhood?"
"It's a figment of my imagination, Malfoy." She practically spits out. "I have no magical relatives. I don't know the woman, I never even had a pony and Merlin knows I wanted one."
Malfoy snorts and she laughs once she realizes how petulant she sounds. Malfoy smiling, Malfoy laughing with her instead of at her, it’s just too weird and she shakes her head again to get herself back on topic.
"Besides. . . Your mother was a legilimens, correct? She never saw anything. After the first attack, the first injury. . . I'd have dreams at first. I'd wake up crying and. . . They didn't start as hallucinations, they started as dreams and Narcissa looked into my mind because she thought the same thing but there was nothing, not even a hint. No evidence of memory tampering and none of the diagnostics showed anything related to my magic. It wasn't --- they were just dreams. And then. . . well, everyone knows what happened. I got captured and went barking mad."
"Can I run diagnostic spells on you?”
She looked out the window, biting her lip in thought, then she nodded.
His wand hovered over her and lights full of symbols began forming in the air in front of her. The spell looked different from Narcissa’s and she watched fascinated, as his gray eyes darted in concentration, hands moving to write down the results with a muggle pen. He cast a few more spells and compared the symbols to each other. Took a few more notes before looking at her.
She’d shifted onto her knees and leaned forward to look closer at the figures, trying to decipher them, a hand out to touch one of the runes but she stopped short.
“You can touch it,” Malfoy said, so she did.
The symbols felt more solid than she would’ve guessed and she didn’t recognize half of the symbols. She thought one might be in Mermish as merpeople had made outstanding advancements in the treatment of some curses, and some might have been in Russian and she didn’t want to think about why that might be so she looked at some of the mathematical formulas and images in front of her.
“See? That’s your heart,” Malfoy pointed out. “These are spots where Dolohov’s curse seeped through. Thankfully the damage has healed for the most part. And here, those are your nerve readings and this over here, this reading is your lungs.”
He pointed each out to her, answering all of her questions and teaching her to cast the spells herself.
By the time he’d left, he’d prescribed her a muscle relaxant, a twice-daily nutrition potion, a personalized mixture for anxiety and depression, and he’d advised her to start journaling out her thoughts and feelings and had taught her some grounding exercises with a promise to check on her again in a month or so.
Before he’d left, he’d said, “You’ll be fine, Granger, I’m sure of it.”
And that was his first visit.
Every visit since, he’d used the same greeting, telling her she didn’t look mad. She’d once asked why he said the same thing each time and he’d calmly told her he wouldn’t be himself if he didn’t at least try for snark even if they both knew he didn’t mean it.
“We wouldn’t be us if we abandoned form and suddenly greeted each other like normal human beings,” he’d added with a wink.
He ended each visit in the same way too, telling her she’d be fine.
She was determined to believe him.
But then came Fred.