A/N: So, this is my new brain child, be nice it it, no bullying and have a fun time on the playground!
Of Kipper, Peaches and Pumpkin Juice Porridge
Chapter 1
My head felt heavy, throbbing in time with my heartbeat. My eyelids felt like they'd been hit with a permanent sticking charm. My body was draped in a lead blanket. Voices buzzed somewhere above the soft surface I was laying on. They sound concerned. What for?
I slowly peal my eyelids away from each other, they fight it, but I manage. The lights swim above my head and someone gasps. A warm hand grasps mine tightly. Heads rush into my view and everything moves and everything hurts. I shut my eyes, willing myself back the black place I was, away from… here. Where am I?
I open my eyes just a sliver to check out my surroundings, they all seem to have stopped moving, as well as breathing. Several pairs of eyes stare at me with anticipation evident on their faces, none of which I recognize. I close my eyes again and wonder what they want.
I am about to fall asleep again when a lone finger hesitantly pokes at my side. I wonder who did that and why they feel like I need to be awake when every fiber of my being feels like it's been set aflame. I have half the mind to groan out in protest. I open one eye to look at the defiant hand. I glare at it until it retreats from my side; when it does, I close my eye again.
The finger soon finds itself once again stabbed in between my ribs and I snap my eyes open, this time glaring at the head atop the shoulders connected to the arm connected to the offending finger wedged between my ribs. I find myself glaring into green eyes, clouded behind wire rimmed glasses that hang crooked on a straight nose above a pair of rosy lips twisted up into something resembling a smirk. I know this guy's smirk, where have I seen it? I re-evaluate his face again and see a flash of that smirk in a different time; a different place and his eyes have a fire roaring behind them as he tells me something that doesn't reach my ears.
I sit up gingerly as my eyes refocus on his face and as my glare becomes a stare, I begin to notice the other people in the room. There's an older nurse who is fretting over a bottle while trying to meet my eye, a woman dressed in long green robes with her hair pulled back into a tight bun lips pursed tightly together, and a pair of teenagers who are backed up at the other bed looking weary, one is a girl that has long brown hair and the other is a boy who has the most obnoxious red hair. I crinkle my brow because I don't recognize a single face; I turn back to the green eyed boy whose finger has returned to his side. Everyone is looking at me, waiting, watching.
Avoiding all their eyes, I let my gaze wander the grand arched ceiling and the large windows with a sweeping view of a reflective lake surrounded by abused and muddy grass. I wonder what happens here. There are rows and rows of little white beds with a few people wrapped up in white blankets; everyone here looks like they took a journey to hell and back. I look down at myself and find my body in a similar state. I have skinny little limbs that lay limp in my lap, one of my hands is mummified in gauze and I again wonder why I am here.
As I am pondering these thoughts, a shock of pale blond hair falls into my line of sight and I slowly reach up my uninjured hand and touch the fine strands. A dull burn roars though my torso and arm; I drop my hand in a wince.
The old nurse frets over a few more bottles resting on the end of the bed and tries to hand me four or five cups at once, indecisive of which she should hand over. Eventually, she holds out a murky pale green one without any room for argument. I reach out and grasp the little cup, ignoring the pain in the action. When I bring it up to my lips, I almost hand it back it smells so awful. I meet her gaze and wince, downing the thick potion.
I'm gagging at the sensation that slime has now coated my throat and won't be going anytime soon, when the large wooden doors fly open with a swiftness I didn't believe was possible. A slim, tall blond woman charges into the room, her look of frantic but meek searching contrasts with her forced entrance. She meets my eyes and rushes towards the little bed I am wrapped up in. I only notice that she has very lovely blue eyes before she is upon the edge of my bed saying things far too quickly for me to understand. My vision swims into a blurry swirl and I fell myself sway a little from my sitting position on the little bed.
Bunches of the people shout something and the green-eyed boy moves me into a laying position gently. The blond woman is patting my hair down with such familiarity it brings and uncomfortable weight to my stomach and I have the feeling I should know who she is.
"Draco dear, how are you?" she asks me quietly. She is meeting my eyes I know I should feel something, but I can't stop the words I know shouldn't come out of my mouth from slipping out.
"Who's Draco?"
After lots of commotion, the blond woman left the room in tears, escorted by the woman in dark green robes. The two teens have been knocked onto the empty bed next to mine by some unseen force and haven't stopped gaping at me without blinking for several minutes straight. They unnerve me a little, so I try not to look at them too often, instead I rely on the depth of color that lives in the green eyes of the smirking boy. But the boy didn't look too comfortable either; he was always fidgeting and glancing at me out of the corner of his eye like the nurse, who demanded I drank at least three of my slimy potions. Both of them refused to answer my question.
By the time I reluctantly gulped down the last glowing-blue potion, the nurse announced that it was time for me to rest and that she had other patients to see. I lay down and closed my eyes to sleep, but something whispered to me from the back of my head to keep myself conscious.
"Do you think he's asleep?" asks the voice on my right, the green-eyed boy. He has a low, smooth voice that almost lulled me to unconsciousness.
"I don't know, he took a dreamless sleep, he should be out." Another gruffer male voice says, he is the ginger on my left and brings me back to the conversation.
"Hm." he grunts back.
"Do you really think he doesn't know who he is or do you think he's faking it?" the girl voice speaks up for the first time, a nice sounding girl, very articulate and a touch bossy.
Footsteps cross from the right side of the bed to the left and the voices hush.
"I don't know, I can't really tell. But you think he'd want to go with his mother. I mean, if anything, Malfoy's close with his family." I wonder if Malfoy was me and the blond woman was my mother; it would make sense, she had the same hair as me. But I didn't know her; up until now, I just assumed I was in a foreign place.
"I wouldn't say close, I'd say they're forced, er something, to be around each other. I mean, have you seen the way they bloody look at each other? Honestly." The gruff voice spoke again, bringing new questions to the forefront of my mind. Why was I not close with my family, aren't families supposed to be close, blood's thicker than water and all that? Now that I was thinking about that, I don't have any memories of family, there's a generic idea of them, but no faces come to mind, no days by the Yule tree or sitting down to dinner in the evening.
"That's true." The girl agrees with the boy and my green-eyed boy grunts in agreement. "But did you see Narcissa just now? She looked really…"
Their voices faded out like someone suddenly turned the volume down and my mind was plagued with questions about myself until the potion overpowered my will and forced me to sleep. Before I was out, I willed away all these problems and hoped that when I woke up, all of this would have been a lie.
I awoke with a mouth full of cotton and a stomach empty of nourishment. I blink myself awake slowly, as not to dispel the warm comfort of sleep. My eyes lazily wander about the silent room, listening to the sounds of other patients breathing in their own peaceful bubbles of sleep.
I am slightly startled when to my left, sits the green-eyed boy asleep in a chair next to my bed, his neck resting on his shoulder in a way that will most certainly be uncomfortably stiff when he wakes up. I take note of the puff pink skin surrounding his eyes, I also take note that I will never sleep in a chair; it must be extremely uncomfortable.
As I take in the seemingly out of place boy at the side of my bed, my stomach rumbles with vengeance. My hand automatically goes to fruitlessly muffle the unruly sound coming from my stomach. I frown slightly at the rebelling organ and mentally tell it that I will feed it soon and there's no reason to try and flee from my torso.
I lift my hand from my abdomen to prod the sleeping boy's arms crossed over his chest. He blinks at me with confusion evident on his face. He lifts an eyebrow as if to silently ask me what the heck I wanted and why he needed to be awaken for such.
"I require sustenance." I told him plainly.
He blinked at me once, twice; then promptly broke out in hysterical laughter. I balked at the very loud display of enjoyment and prodded his arm once again to try and get him to stop. This action proved useless, even counterproductive to my cause as he just began laughing harder. I idly wondered if his stomach was trying to escape out his mouth rather than his bellybutton.
Once his amusement turned from chuckles to reasonable giggles, I spoke up yet again on the behalf of my starved stomach.
"Feed me."
"Okay, okay." he smiled at me as he stood, hopefully acquiring my food. "I'll be right back."
I sat and waited sort of patiently as he went off to somewhere unseen. Eventually, I grew bored and began picking at my blanket, boring of that and switching to observing the various sleeping people around the room. I made up little back stories to their injuries and was overwhelmed with some of the extent of some of the patients. I soon found this depressing and wished for my green-eyed boy to return with food.
My wish was mercifully granted and he walked in carrying two bowls of something that smelt like heaven. Plopping back in his vacated chair and handing me a bowl, we dig in. For many moments I eat the mushy substance until I realize I have no idea what I'm really eating, just that it tastes great. I look at it and examine the contents; little bits of meat are floating about, next to little chucks of what I can only assume as fruit suspended in savory but gluey porridge that has turned a suspicious orange color.
"What is this called?" I ask, half afraid of the answer.
He looks up surprised. "Oh, um, it doesn't really have a name. Uh, it's the special. Erm, this morning." his eyes shift away strangely.
Why I wasn't convinced by his answer was beyond me; I roll my eyes and scoop up a hunk of the mysterious meat and some fruit and porridge up on my spoon. "What is this?" I hold it at his eye level so he can properly see the strangeness of my food.
He is almost cross-eyed looking at my invading spoon. "Uh, kippers, peaches, and pumpkin juice porridge."
I retract my spoon and consequently, the mysterious porridge. "Is this normally the kind of dishes served here?" I ask, eyeballing the goop.
"Do you like it?" he asks back, avoiding my question.
I shove the spoon in my mouth and savor the interesting flavor for a moment before answering. "Yesh." I garble out around the thick substance occupying my mouth.
He smiles brilliantly before returning to his own bowl of breakfast, which I just happen to peek in and seen what the contents of.
"Hey, why is yours normal looking?"
Breakfast passed and soon I was left twiddling my thumbs for something to do. Harry had just disappeared to scrounge up a chess board and has been gone for at least half an hour. My eyes wandered around the Hospital Wing as I briefly consider taking a nap.
"Draco?" a soft voice whispers.
My eyes journey to the woman sitting feather-light on the edge of my bed; she was the woman who had visited me yesterday. I stare at her for a moment before I remember that she is supposed to be my mother and I quickly slap on a smile. She smiles back in relief and shifts more of her weight onto the bed and relaxes a little more though she remains unbearably composed.
"Erm, hello." I murmur out, fiddling with the edge of the beige blanket in my lap.
"Hi baby." She says with such warmness that I am startled by change her in demeanor. As her pale while hand reaches for mine, I notice we hand the same long fingers. I look into her eyes so like my own and I wonder how much more I am like her. Do I have her ears? Does she also like strange porridges? Do we laugh at the same things? Did she take me to a park when I was little? Did she read to me before I went to sleep? I wondered about a life I don't remember living for the millionth time today. How much longer would I remain in this foggy existence, not knowing who I am?
I swallow my thick saliva and shift in the bed, I want to know so much about my life and the woman who knows it all is right here and I don't have a single question for her. Where does one start when asking what you are like? How do you question what the content of your life was? Do ask for the good or the bad first? Will it still define me as a person? Will this woman in front of me still want to know me after she realizes I'm not the same?
"How are you feeling today?" she asks, breaking the intense silence. I am thankful for her bravery.
"I'm okay; the green-eyed boy brought me breakfast this morning." I say, wondering about her porridge preferences again.
"The green- Oh! You mean Harry!" she smiles with recognition. "He's such a nice boy. He's done so much for our family, are you being nice?"
So many questions enter my mind at a few simple sentences. She knows the boy, Harry? What has he done for our family? Why did he have to help us? But the question on the forefront of my mind was:
"Why wouldn't I be nice? He's taken good care of my thus far; wouldn't it be rude to treat him badly?" I asked, wary of the answer.
She looked as though she didn't know how to respond to the questions. "Well, you and Harry… Haven't been the best of friend up until now, but it seems that has changed and that's all that really matters." She said the last bit quickly; it felt like a cheap excuse. Wasn't this woman my mother? Isn't she supposed to tell the truth?
"Is that all that really matters, especially now?" I asked with a little chill in my voice.
She looked at me with wide eyes and her rouged lips parted just slightly. She was at a lost for hat to say, but fortunately for her, harry walked in carrying a box containing what I assumed to be wizard's chess.
"Hey, Narcissa! We were just about to get a chess game going, wanna play the winner?" Harry asked jovially, unaware of the tension that had stretched the air tight between the two on the bed.
Narcissa stood jerkily, looking like a woman possessed. "No, I think I'll go take a nap." She turned abruptly, and adding like an afterthought. "I'm tired."
As she swooped off, muttering about someone being just the same, Harry zoned in on me. "What happened?" his tone suggested it would be my fault that she was upset.
I turned my face to the side to hide my puzzled expression. Why was I mean to this boy?
"Draco?" Harry's voice was at my ear and he was too close. I jumped back a little, just enough to bring closer to the edge of the bed so that if I was off balance just a little bit, I would fall.
"What?" I asked, irritated at being so easily startled. When I turn to face him, I realize that we are much closer than I intended, heat is retreating from him and his face is far too close. I give him a questioning glance and wonder if we were ever actually mean to one another; he seems far too familiar with me.
He regards me with sad eyes before straightening up and grabbing the box, it rattles a bit with the movement of the little people inside, and sets it between us.
"So, what did Narcissa want?" he asks, feigning casualness as he opens the box and sets out some pieces.
I don't respond and reach for some pieces as well, glad that only my memories, not all the factual knowledge I learned, had been lost. I frown; it was a big thing to loose though, despite its connivance.
I shrug and he ignores his own question and we play.
As it turns out, Harry is an awful chess player while I happen to be a brillant one. He lost all five of the games he challenged me to until the ginger and the girl came in looking for him in which I played the ginger. He provided sufficient competition dispute the fact that he looked uncomfortable most of the time.
I leaned back after I had won my second game in a row, tucking my hands behind my head. "So, how does it feel too lose to a mental patient?" I say cockily, still smug from my wins.
Everyone's heads snap towards me with breakneck speed, The Ginger Ron and the girl, Hermione as I learned, quickly looked towards Harry to gauge his reaction. He was perfectly still and his gaze was deadly.
"Don't. Say. That." he ground out quietly between teeth that were so tightly clenched, I was surprised words made it out.
I slowly lowered my hands to my lap. "Why not? That's what I am, aren't I?" I said equally as quiet with just as much intensity.
He stared into my eyes with such anger I almost missed the hints of a hurt and scared person behind it. "You're not a mental patient."
"Well, I'm crazy aren't I? What else can you call this?" I waved a hand near my head to remind him of my current state of mind.
"You're not crazy." Harry's voice had gotten extremely quiet, not unlike the eerie quiet before the storm. He was telling himself more than me now; I had lost my drive to prove a point.
"Then what am I?" I asked, questioning both him and myself.
"You're Draco. Draco Malfoy." Harry said dejectedly, Hermione and the ginger's heads whipping back and forth watching us.
I look down into my hands, searching for answers. Who is 'Draco Malfoy'? Was he a good guy? A fun person? Was he awful to Harry? Hermione? Ron? Where did he live? What did he like to do? Was he dating anyone? Should I worry about the pig-nosed girl who came by earlier to say goodbye?
I am living a life that isn't my own from a bed that isn't mine.
"Could you get Madame Pomfrey?" I ask quietly.
"You're not crazy!" Harry shouted and stood abruptly, knocking over the chair he was sleeping in hours ago.
"I don't feel well." I mumble, refusing to meet his burning eyes.
Ron shot out of his chair as well, though his seat remained upright, running towards her office. I presume he was waiting for an excuse to get out of this awkward situation.
Harry took a seat on the edge of the bed like so many people have recently, he tried to put a hand to my forehead but I turned away. He dropped his hand and stared at me with disbelief, his heart looked like it was breaking into a million pieces and I knew I was the one doing it.
"What's wrong?" he asked in a barely audible whisper. "Does this have to do with your mom leaving like that? Did she call you crazy?"
Behind Harry, Hermione held her breath, watching us still.
"No, I don't have to be told." I replied.
Ron dashed back into the room, followed quickly by the bustling nurse witch. They hurried over to my bed and she shooed Harry off his perch. He reluctantly moved and Pomfrey began scanning me all over, poking and prodding while casting spells.
"In what way are you ill?" she asked. "I see nothing wrong with you." Her hand was on her hip, impatient because she was interrupted in the middle of a particularly good section of her book.
Harry's shoulders slumped with relief while Hermione's tensed for an unknown reason. Madame Pomfrey said it was probably exhaustion and went off to find some blue potion for me but not before telling the 'hooligans' to let me rest.
Ron dragged away Harry, who had the saddest eyes I've ever seen. Hermione stayed rooted to her chair. We sat for a few moments of silence before I spoke.
"Was I… Draco, really, mean to Harry?" I asked, tentatively.
She fidgeted for a moment, looking uncomfortable at the question. "Yes." She answered at last. My heart fell from its place high in my throat and my stomach churned unpleasantly. Seeing my reaction, she quickly back pedaled. "But, that was a long time ago! You, um… get along with him, err, now."
"Clarify." I demand.
"I really shouldn't." She responded quickly.
"Please?" I asked in my most pathetic voice, channeling all my confusion about the last few hours into my face, hoping that'll get an answer from her.
"Well, after our sixth year, you guys called a truce and went out for butterbeers and it went from there. No one really saw it coming and we were all pretty shocked when you guys came out together, it was in the middle of the war and-"
"What?" I exclaimed, cutting her off. "What war? I'm dating Harry?" I choked off the rest of the questions I had and waited for Hermione to answer.
She opened her mouth a few times before she could actually speak the words she was trying to say. "He loves you." Finally came out, the uncertain words that tippy-toed out of her mouth.
I look at her, as startled as if she had slapped me across the face. "What?"
"He loves you." She said more confidently. "Harry loves you."
I sat back for a moment, trying to let the words sink in except they weren't setting at all; they were bouncing around my mind. I suppressed them and saved them for later analysis. "What about the war? What happened?"
"Oh, the war. Right, we weren't going to mention that for a long time." She looked down, probably trying to find a way to get out of telling me.
"Tell me about it." I demanded again, when she looked at a loss for where to start, I figured I'd just question her for the information I wanted. "When did it start?"
"About eighteen years ago. But it didn't get really bad until a couple of years ago."
"When did it end?"
"Four days ago."
I was a little shocked at how little time had passed since a war was going on. But it did explain all the people in the hospital. "Who were you fighting?"
"Voldemort."
"Who and why?"
She launched into a tale of the last seventeen years, telling me horrific things about a madman who wanted to take over the wizarding world and kill all the muggles. She told how involved Harry, Ron and she were in the saving of the world; how at the end of every year they had a run-in with him in some form and how they spent a year in a tent on the run. I was surprised at all the things that had happened, but nothing surprised me more than when she told me about the final battle between Harry and Voldemort.
"So, wait. I'm dating a dead guy?" I asked; half joking, half bewildered at myself. "What's wrong with me?" I said while lightly laughing.
Hermione smiled sadly, looking much older than she actually was; the last few years must have taken a larger toll than what she's been letting on. Her expression sobered me up real quick.
"So, where was I during all of this?" as I asked this, I realized that that was the one question she seriously didn't want to answer. As the silence stretched out to minutes, I grew a little impatient. She had answered my questions thus far, why couldn't she answer this one? Was it that I useless during the wartime that I couldn't have been any help and she didn't want to embarrass me? I repeated my question and in doing so, she caved.
"Now, don't get mad when I tell you this, okay?" she met my eye and I nodded resolutely; I could take whatever she threw at me. "Now, I'm only telling you this because I think that you deserve to know who you were, but I also want to tell you that this won't change anything. We'll still come and visit you and Harry isn't mad anymore." I wondered what could have possibly happened. "You were a Death Eater."
"I was a what?" I asked.
She looked like she wanted to roll her eyes. "A Death Eater; I've already told you what they are; your father was one and pretty all of your friend's parents were ones and so were a lot of other people. But, if you need me to, I'll explain it again; they're-"
"I remember what they are. But why?" I interrupted.
"Why what?" she asked. "Why did they exist?"
"No! Why was I a-… one."
Hermione pondered that for a moment before speaking carefully. "We have our theories, but we don't know for sure."
"What are your theories?" I asked, afraid of the answer but dying to know.
"Well, at first it was because we thought you really believed in the Dark Side's beliefs. But as time went on, you seemed more and more reluctant; so we pretty much just thought that you were a Death Eater because your father was one."
I sat for a moment before speaking. "Well, that'd be pretty stupid of me. You said my father went to Azkaban? Why would I want to follow in his footsteps?"
"Well, you have to understand that you were under a lot of pressure and there were certain things expected from you."
"Like what?"
"Like being a Malfoy. Like killing Dumbledore. Like having-"
"Wait, I had to kill Dumbledore, as in the headmaster?"
"Yes, but-"
I killed someone.
Oh Merlin. I killed someone. I killed someone.
Hermione kept talking but the room did a handstand and all the oxygen ran away from me. I felt a hot iron hand clench my guts and I bolted from my bed for the first time since I had woken up. My start was a little wobbly, but I made my way quickly to the bathroom I had seen the others disappear into earlier. Once inside, I slammed the door shut and I bent over and promptly threw up into the porcelain bowl. I lost my funny colored breakfast as well as my dignity to the little pool of water, my throat was burning and my eyes watered, my face felt hot and the rest of my body felt like it had been left outside in the cold.
Hermione's voice drew near accompanied by an additional pair of footsteps coming towards the little room. I shot over to the door and turned the lock, I pressed by back against the door to steady myself for I had stood far too quickly for my nauseous stomach.
"Draco? Are you alright?" Hermione asked through the door. I didn't respond.
"Come on out, Draco. We need to see if you're alright." Madame Pomfrey added, knocking on the door.
I sat in the dark little room, breathing through my mouth. Closing my eyes, I tried to center myself, but the world was spinning too fast for me to catch up with.
"I'll go get Harry." I heard Hermione say through the door. My stomach churned again and I heaved whatever was left in my stomach in the direction of the toilet. I slid down to the floor and curled into myself and wished this was all an awful nightmare.
Footsteps grew close again and I heard Harry's deep voice talking with Hermione's higher one. A knock on the door sounded seconds later, I stilled like a rabbit, afraid to move or speak.
"Draco? Will you let me in?" Harry asked while still knocking on the door.
I was silent once again to the people outside the door. I was a Death Eater. The implications began to sink in. I was a servant to this Voldemort who was a mass murdered and bat-shit-crazy. I fought against everything Harry had been working for.
Oh God. Harry.
Had I hurt him? Is that what they meant by saying we didn't get along?
The floor dropped out from under me and I was over at the toilet again, chocking out clear stomach acid. While I sat there and hacked, someone tried the door, and then cast an Alohomora and the door was opened. I tried to say something to the entering person, but no words came out. So I settled for shaking my head and waving a hand at the incoming person; my fingertips brushed against a pair of pants. I grasped the pants with all my strength as another wave of nausea hit me. My head hurt and my limbs feel like they've been turned into tired jelly.
I have stopped reaching for the moment and somewhere above me, I hear Harry conjure a handkerchief. I lean back on his legs and he hands me a damp white square of cloth. I wipe my face but cannot move beyond that.
His arms snake under my armpits and knees, lifting me off the cold floor. I rest my head on his shoulder, lying limply in his arms until we reach the bed where he sets me down. I am nestled into the covers and Madame Pomfrey is fussing, but all I want to do is sleep.
"I told him." Hermione whispered. "He knows, but not everything." was the last thing I heard, followed by a gasp, before I entered a world where I could ignore everything I learned and everything I didn't know yet.