Breaking Point
Hermione raised a disapproving eyebrow at Draco. “Is that really what you’re eating for dinner?”
Draco looked down at his plate. It was weird, being something like friends with her. She made for an excellent study partner, but also did things like question his food choices. “Yes. Definitely.”
“Give him a break, ‘Mione,” Ron chimed in. “He hasn’t eaten a normal meal in over a week.”
“And you really think that apple sauce with mashed potatoes is a normal meal?”
“What else was I supposed to eat?” Draco asked, incredulous.
“Some protein, or vegetables, or fruit, or literally anything nutritious at all,” Hermione replied, gesturing to the spread of food on the table in front of them. “Plenty of other options.”
“Those foods aren’t soft, Hermione,” Draco said, his words dripping with condescension. Very deliberately, of course; it was the easiest way to rile Hermione up. Sure enough, her eyes caught fire.
“Your arms are broken, Draco, not your jaw.” Oh, she could do condescension, too. This was fun.
“My arms aren’t broken, they have heat fractures.” He arched an eyebrow at her, matching the one she still had raised.
“And you expect them to heal properly on this diet?”
“What, pray tell, am I supposed to eat? I can barely hold a fork, let alone cut through that steak,” Draco pointed out.
“We can help you, of course,” Hermione said, properly exasperated.
“Also, that’s disgusting, mate,” Ron chimed in, wrinkling his nose at Draco’s plate. Honestly, Draco could agree. The apple sauce had spread out, pooling in the middle to mix with the mashed potatoes. Ron snorted as Draco tried pushing it back to its own half of the plate.
“Alright,” Draco sighed, his own smile peeking in at the corners of his lips. “I suppose you have a point.” He set down his spoon in defeat.
I told you so, Hermione’s expression said, but she had the good grace to not actually say anything. Pulling out her wand, she vanished the contents of his plate, levitated a steak onto it, and began cutting it into small pieces.
Draco thought about how lucky Potter was to have friends like these.
Potter.
Draco was sick of Potter’s shit.
It had been two weeks since Draco was released from the hospital wing, and he was starting to feel like he had replaced the Boy Who Lived. After a mysterious injury (a commonplace occurrence for Potter), he was calling Granger and Weasley by their first names (the horror, but Draco didn’t want to endure another morning of Stinging Hexes every time he said the word “Weasel”, so he’d finally acquiesced), and every waking hour was spent in the company of Potter’s sidekicks (he’d even started collaborating on homework with Hermione and playing chess with Ron).
The rest of the student body seemed confused by it all, but ultimately took it in stride. At the beginning of the term, they might have reacted differently—in those days, Potter still had an overly-enthusiastic fan club that hounded his every step—but it had been several months since the war ended. With two-thirds of the Golden Trio at his back, Draco stepped back into the limelight, no longer forced to ghost through the halls of Hogwarts like a shadow.
Draco caught up on schoolwork, answered questions in class, and ate meals in the Great Hall. Everything was fine.
Except for Potter.
He was nowhere to be found. If Draco focused on it—and to be honest, he was always focusing on it—he could sometimes sense Potter’s magic dancing at the edge of his periphery, just out of reach. Potter wasn’t at classes, at meals, in the hospital wing, the library, nor the piano room.
Nighttime was the only time that Draco was sure that he knew where Potter was. Some time after dark, Draco would feel Potter rush past his room to reach his own. The slam! his door made always made Draco jump. He’d rush to action, tripping over himself as he went to the door. His arms were strong enough to open the door, now, but only just; sometimes, it took a couple attempts to coax the handle to turn. The stone floor was always cold against his bare feet as he’d race to Potter’s door. It was always locked and within seconds, the feeling of Potter’s magic would be shrouded with wards, hiding it from Draco’s senses.
Before the magic disappeared, though, it never failed to worry him. It was in writhing disarray, a bundle of anxiety and fear. It felt dangerous.
One of these days, he mused, he was going to break down Potter’s goddamn door. He’d recently been able to pick up his wand and was slowly regaining basic casting power. A nice Blasting Curse would do the charm.
He couldn’t help but feel like with every morsel of strength that he gained back, Potter was losing one. The last time that he’d seen Potter—at breakfast, the morning after he’d been discharged from the hospital wing—Potter was a wreck. An absolute mess, and looked like he didn’t even realize it.
Every ounce of his focus had been on Draco, but unconsciously, he’d been moving slowly. Carefully, like everything hurt. Like if he accidentally bumped his elbow or stubbed his toe, he’d crumple. Draco had thought he looked terrible that first night in the hospital wing, but his post-discharge breakfast was dozens of times worse. He couldn’t imagine how bad—how broken— Potter looked now.
He’d tried asking Ron and Hermione how Potter was, but they either didn’t know or wouldn’t tell him. He probably needs space, Hermione would say. Give it time, mate, Ron would say. As if they were having a lovers’ spat. (Not that he would particularly mind having that sort of relationship with Potter, if he thought about it, but this was a much bigger problem than that.)
It confused him at first, but eventually Draco realized that neither of them knew how volatile Potter and his magic had gotten. They couldn’t have known, or they’d be trying to fix it. With each passing day, Draco reconsidered whether he should tell them. On the one hand, Potter could get hurt if he let this go on for too long. On the other… Draco was strangely flattered that Potter had trusted him with something that Ron and Hermione didn’t know. He was hesitant to break that trust.
So for the last couple weeks, Draco had been stuck with how things were, playing nice with Ron and Hermione, ignoring Potter’s absence, and pretending like everything was alright. But he’d had enough.
After dinner, he worked on his Potions essay with Hermione, quietly whispering to the Dictation Quill that Hermione had cleverly charmed herself when they couldn’t find one in a single Hogsmeade shop. He let Ron talk him into a few games of Wizard’s Chess, but lost half of them, distractedly planning as he played. When it was late enough that going off to bed wouldn’t raise any eyebrows, he excused himself.
“You’re sure you’ll be alright?” Hermione asked, eyebrows drawn together. He’d been able to perform the necessary spells to get ready for bed for a couple days now, but it didn’t seem to stop her from still worrying over him.
“I’m sure,” he said, concentrating on an Accio on his book bag. It responded, albeit slower than usual, but he caught it with a triumphant grin. “See?”
She smiled back. “Alright. Holler if you need us.”
Draco was already at the stairs. “Night!”
“Night,” they both replied.
Draco walked into his room, dumped his bag on the bed, and walked back out. It was time to talk to Potter.