A Scared Little
Harry felt like he was drowning. Nothing made sense. As if some integral part of his life had been shaken. Harry sat stock still for Merlin knows how long before his senses started working and he heard Healer Samuel’s sharp voice calling him.
"Huh?" Harry was still disoriented. Everyone in the room stared at him expectantly.
"It can’t be. Malfoy is a sadistic Master! He can’t be a Little." Harry mumbled, staring at all three faces.
Healer Samuel pursed her lips in displeasure, and she gave him a look that said she was extremely displeased. Harry took a moment to realize what he had said, "NO! I didn’t mean all the Masters are sadists. I just meant that Malfoy is one. He was cruel to everyone in my school days-" Harry trailed off, squirming in his seat, feeling like a chastised kid. "I’m sorry." He spoke up.
Kingsley took some pity on Harry and answered, "It’s okay, Harry, we all know young Malfoy was a little brat, but he is suspected to be a Little, though we are not sure. But we are sure about the fact that he is not a Master, and Lucius has somehow managed to fool the ministry and have him registered as a Master."
Samuel let out a sigh and spoke tiredly, "You might want to see him to convince yourself of the fact, Mr. Potter. He’d be asleep, so you will, of course, need to meet him tomorrow to try and talk with the Little." Harry thought about it for a moment before nodding his head,
"Where is he?"
"In the 7th Private Observation Unit for Littles, Second Floor," Healer Samuel replied. Harry nodded again before excusing himself.
******
Harry reached the POU—7, hesitating to enter. He took a deep breath, gathered his courage, and entered. He nearly gasped at the sight in front of him. There, lying on the hospital bed, sleeping peacefully, was Draco Malfoy. Harry couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He looked very thin, and his cheeks were hollowed; his eyes were puffed up and ringed with huge dark circles. He looked absolutely sick, but what had Harry so shocked was Malfoy’s size. He looked so … so small. He was so tiny compared to the bed in which he was lying.
Oh, Merlin, he has to be a Little to look so small. No other submissives can be this small, can they? Harry slowly walked inside, near Malfoy’s bed. His face did not look restful. There was a frown on his small face, his eyes were puffed up, and he had tear tracks on his face. His lips were bruised, and looking at his face, there was no doubt that he was a Little. His face held the innocent hurt that can only be found in small children and Littles. Harry’s heart gave a twinge, seeing the obviously distressed Little. Even if the Little is a Malfoy, he couldn’t help but smooth out the wrinkle between his eyebrows. Harry looked at Malfoy’s face for a long time, and then he left, his heart heavy and his soul hurting from all the information. He knew he should meet the Healer back and ask for further information, but he just couldn’t. So he went to his best friends, knowing Kingsley would forgive him for divulging the information to Ron and Mione, and moreover, his friends would never leak such information.
******
Harry sent an owl to Ron and Hermione, telling them to meet him as soon as possible, and sat in his living room and waited for them to arrive, brooding. Why Malfoy said his name was a question that plagued him from the moment he left the hospital. Harry still couldn’t comprehend that Draco Malfoy was a little, let alone all the other horrible realizations that came with it. Like how a Little had been in Azkaban amongst monsters like Greyback and the like. Or the fact that Harry had hated and retaliated against a Little, no matter how infuriating he was. Malfoy seemed like such a typical Master, lording over the School, scaring the first years, and wanting everything to be done in his own way. He behaved exactly like a spoiled brat and was a Little demanding attention and if the fact that he's a Little had been known before, he'd never have been viewed as cruel. A traitorous voice in his head spoke up. And Harry slouched on his couch and brooded more.
Harry was startled when he heard the floo roar into life and looked up at his friends, who were staring at him with concern.
"Harry, what’s wrong? You look pale." Hermione voiced her concern while walking towards Harry, with Ron right behind her.
"Is everything alright, mate?" Ron asked.
Harry shook his head and motioned for both of them to sit. And then he dove into the matter, starting from when Healer Samuel asked him to come to her office and ending with him watching Draco Malfoy, who looked unbelievably small and had spoken only two words since Azkaban. His friends progressively got paler as his story progressed, and Harry paused after his story to let them digest the information. Ron sat so still, he could have been mistaken for a statue, and Hermione, after a few moments, stood up and started pacing. That’s how the next 30 minutes went. With Ron muttering curses and going paler and Hermione pacing, Harry had to suppress a hysterical laugh seeing his mates taking so much time to process what was told. It was finally Ron who broke the trance everyone was in.
"Bloody Hell. Mate, are you sure you identified him as the same ferrety git?" Harry nodded. Hermione paused her pacing.
"Merlin’s Tits, You mean to tell me that the Pointy git is a Little and he was in the deepest and most cruel place of Azkaban? Oh, Merlin," and a hysterical laugh bubbled out of Ron, and Harry didn’t know what to do. Had he finally managed to make Ron go crazy? Hermione walked towards them and whacked Ron’s head, making the redhead stop his laughter. And there was another long lapse when Hermione paced some more and Harry asked Kreacher to fetch some tea. They all sat sipping their tea when finally, Hermione spoke up.
"It all makes sense, now that we think about it."
"Mione! What makes sense? Nothing bloody makes sense here.!" Ron exclaimed.
"Oh, hush, Ron. And let me speak. Looking back at our school days, knowing that he was Little, just fits, you know? He always wanted to be the center of attention. He cried and made a ruckus when his arm broke from Buckbeak. Do you see what I’m telling?" Hermione asked.
"Calling us with names, some of which were ridiculously childish, like Potty, parroting his Father, going to his father for every little thing. Cowering when faced with danger, making flying origamis with drawings, dressing up as a dementor to scare me, and making Potter stink badges, though all of them are infuriating, were all done by a Little wanting attention and having fun the only way he knew how. Now that I think about them, much of his bullying was childish at best." Harry spoke slowly, letting his mouth spill what his brain had been thinking. So many of them, though done to mock someone, were done by a Little, to have fun, a Little, grown-up looking at Lucius as a role model." Harry continued Hermione's thought process.
"Exactly! He always tried to get attention in any way possible. He always tried to get his Father’s attention and …" Hermione trailed off, looking uncertain.
"And Harry’s. He came at us with an insult whenever we crossed his path, and we seemed to cross his path an awful lot of times for it to be a coincidence, don’t you think?" Ron asked, startling Harry. Harry slowly nodded as he let it all sink in.
"Maybe… maybe that’s why he said my name when the Healers and Aurors tried to coax him into speaking?" Harry asked, looking at his friends.
"Maybe. Maybe not." Mione answered. "You have to ask him when he is well enough to speak, Harry." Harry agreed to that. He’d talk to him as soon as he can.
"But what do you think Kingsley wanted from me? He broke the news so slowly, and he seemed hesitant, and I never went back to listen to what he actually wanted from me." Harry gave voice to his other doubt. There was silence for a few minutes while all three of them thought about it.
"He wanted you to take care of Malfoy, as his guardian." Harry and Hermione snapped their heads to look at Ron, surprised. Ron continued, "Think about it. Kingsley has a very soft spot for Littles, he’d do anything to keep them safe. And the only other caregiver he knows and trusts apart from you is Neville, who already has a Little, Hannah Abbot. You say that looking at Malfoy leaves you with no doubt that he is a Little, so Kingsley is sure Malfoy is a Little. If you succeed in getting him to respond, which seems very likely, since he asked for you, he’d need to be set up with a Caregiver. His father is in Azkaban, his mother is dead, and no relatives who could take him. Sending an abused Little to an orphanage isn’t what Kingsley would want to do, and more likely than not, the whole of Wizarding World will believe Malfoy is making it all up, and if he goes to the wrong house, he might as well become an obscure. So that leaves you as his only option."
"He’s right, Harry," Hermione spoke slowly.
"So what do I do?" Harry asked, at a loss.
"What we always do, Mate. We save the git and try helping him." Ron said so, shrugging as if it were a foregone conclusion. It made Harry crack a smile at him. "But he’s a Malfoy, and there is a definite possibility that all this can be an elaborate scheme on his part to get out of Azkaban. And seeing as he is suspected to be a Little, and possibly a traumatized one, the protocol dictates, he’s not to be administered a classification potion yet. It can only be administered when he is in the right mindset, which would take a long time to decide. So we have to tread carefully." Harry said, not wanting to fall into any trap, one trap had killed Sirius, and he wasn’t about to fall into another.
"Yes, we’ll have to make him tell us the truth," Ron said.
"But we can't access Veritaserum, and giving Veritaserum to a Little can have huge consequences." Hermione went on.
"No, not Veritaserum. We just have to be harsh enough for Malfoy to speak the truth, and we have seen a lot, and amongst us, we can discern whether he is lying or not." Ron continued.
"But he can be a Little, Ronald!" Hermione exclaimed.
"I know, but it has to be done; it's better than giving him Veritaserum, using Legilimency, or taking his memory, which we are not authorized to do," Ron answered, matter-of-factly as a soldier who had been through a war. Hermione let out a breath and nodded, she wasn’t pleased, but she knew it had to be done, they can’t believe Malfoy blindly.
"But if he is really a Little…" Harry trailed off, unable to voice the horror.
"Then we’ll do everything in our power to protect him and heal him. And he has to get better; we’ll consider no other option." Hermione spoke quietly, and though her voice quivered with the horror of it all, her voice held the quiet determination that had led all of them through the difficult times of the War.
"And we’ll make the bastards who hurt a Little pay," Ron said, through gritted teeth, and Harry agreed, wholeheartedly.
******
The next morning arrived in a flash for Harry. He didn’t know how to approach Malfoy now. He didn’t know what to say. There was one part of him that wanted to hug the Little and assure him that Harry’ll keep him safe now, the Daddy part of him. But then the other part of him, who knew how utterly awful Malfoy had been, even after knowing it probably might have been a Little’s call for attention, which still was suspicious of Malfoy, wanted to be cautious and was getting ready to fight the ugly sneer which always used to mar Malfoy’s face. With his two sides arguing with each other, Harry got ready and flooed to St. Mungo’s, where Healer Samuels dragged him to Malfoy’s Observation Unit.
Healer Samuels went ahead into the room, but Harry couldn’t bring himself to enter, which is until he heard a piecing scream coming from inside, and he rushed into the room, his instincts screaming at him. Inside, Draco Malfoy was cowering in one corner of the room, he looked like a scared puppy. There were about five people, apart from Healer Samuels, who had their hands up in the air, as if they were trying to calm a scared animal, which in this case, looked pretty accurate.
"What do you all think you are doing? You were supposed to administer potions to him, not scare the Little," barked Healer Samuels. Two Medi-wizards opened their mouths to say something, only to be cut off by Samuels again, "I won’t be hearing any explanations. Out. All of you. Now!" And just like that, they all filed out, leaving a cowering Draco Malfoy, Harry, and Healer Samuel behind. She walked to him with a tray on which four different potions were held and thrust the tray into Harry’s hands.
"A Mind Healing Potion, A Nutrient Potion, A Potion for Pain, and A Calming Draught. I want you to administer all of them to him, and make sure there is a sufficient time lapse between each of them to not create any adverse reaction. And try to heal his physical injuries, his magic hasn’t allowed anyone to cast spells on him yet, so just try, if it does allow you to cast healing charms, then start with the milder ones, before going for the stronger ones. I hope you will handle any other circumstances regarding his health well enough. He’s scared now, so he might take a little time before he comes to his senses, and when he does, I don’t want to hear him going into another one of his panic attacks again. And Mr. Potter, I don’t care about the disagreements you had when you were bumbling teenagers, you are being assigned to him for the foreseeable future. If you in any way harm his fragile mental state, you will not be required to come back to Mungo’s from then onward, at all. Am I making myself clear?"
Harry gave a curt nod and said, "Crystal." She gave a sharp nod back, before walking out of the room.
Harry took a moment to gather himself, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath before walking towards the cowering blond, setting aside the tray on the bedside table, and crouching near the blond.
"Malfoy?" he spoke softly, but Malfoy flinched at that so violently that Harry had trouble keeping his distance. But he knew he shouldn’t hurry this, he shouldn’t touch abuse victims without their consent. Harry waited for a moment before continuing, "Hey." Malfoy peeked his head from his knees and looked at Harry with the most vulnerable expression he had ever seen, there was no recognition in those pools of grey whatsoever. Harry swallowed hard.
"Are you scared?" Harry asked and instantly wanted to kick himself. He had been training to be a Healer for more than a year now, and was so close to graduating, he knew better than to say something so ineloquent and obvious! There was a moment of complete silence where Harry was berating himself when Malfoy gave a small nod. This is progress; he’s responding to me at least. Harry thought.
"You don’t have to be scared here, I won’t hurt you, and look, there’s no one else apart from me and you here," Harry spoke slowly and earnestly, trying to look as warm and sincere as possible, keeping his hands out where Malfoy could spot them; he had his wand tucked in his jeans pocket, which wasn’t visible. Malfoy eyed him distrustfully, before giving an imperceptible shake of his head. Harry sighed and asked again, "Alright, Can I sit here at least? Please?"
Malfoy eyed him for a long moment, seemingly pondering his answer before giving him a slow nod. Harry beamed at him before making himself comfortable on the floor, two feet away from Malfoy, and waited for the blond to give some sort of sign to show that he’ll be okay if Harry spoke more. Harry didn’t know how long it was, but slowly the blond relaxed, and his eyes slowly became lucid. Harry saw the instant Malfoy recognized him; his eyes held recognition, distrust, and something that suspiciously looked like relief.
"Hey, I see you are back." Harry spoke and waited for a moment to get an answer, when he didn’t get any, he continued, "Can you come over to your bed? The floor is awfully uncomfortable, don’t you think?" It was another long moment before Harry got a cautious nod. Harry got up and stepped near Malfoy to help him, but he stopped when he saw the fear in his eyes and stepped back and stood still. Malfoy looked at him with caution before he slowly, painstakingly got up and moved to the bed, all the while looking at Harry. Only after he sat down and seemed to relax a little, did Harry move from his frozen position and towards the blond, slowly. He sat in the chair that was beside the bed and waited.
"You seem to be in pain, Malfoy," Harry spoke in a soft tone, carefully making sure it was nowhere near mocking when he saw the blond wince. Malfoy looked up at him and stared with an incomprehensible expression. "I can help with it if you let me." When Malfoy looked at him with suspicion, Harry continued, "I’m an apprentice, training to be a Healer, this is my job. I’m not here to mock you or anything, I promise."
The dubiousness in his eyes lessened but did not go away, Harry held the pain potion for Malfoy to take, "It’s a pain potion; you know about them, right? It helps with all the internal pain you are suffering, come on, takes it." Harry babbled all about the potions and their ingredients until Malfoy ever so slowly took the potion from Harry’s hands, sniffed it, and then downed it. Harry could have whooped at his success, he was so happy. In a similar fashion, Harry coaxed Malfoy into drinking the other three potions. And by the time he was done, the sun was nowhere to be seen, and Malfoy soon succumbed to sleep, and Harry left for his own home, thinking One day finished, several more to go!