The mediwitch let her eyes critically scan his defeated form: the misogynistic killer of the headlines – now safely locked in a harsh room of white.
"Hey," she said softly, closing the door behind her.
He jumped slightly. He startled easily, this cold-blooded murder; this iconic example of everything wrong with their society. She ironically agreed with this last epithet, but brushed the thoughts away – she wasn't here to lose herself in anger.
She knelt before him and gently pushed his sleeves back, healing the lines his nails had carved in their desperation. He winced each time, as though her wand were siphoning away some crucial part of him. She knew he thought so. She disagreed.
"You're late today," he said nonchalantly – as though it didn't matter; as though he didn't care. She knew he sometimes almost believed it. She never would.
She laced her fingers through his, not moving from her place on the floor. "A patient came in – critical condition – not something I was willing to rush."
A ghost of a smile – a soft glow through thickest mist – filtered across his face, and her heart simultaneously lifted in joyful palpitation and sank in the depths of sorrow. "So devoted." As close to teasing as ever he now came, but the humour faded to nothing in the rushing undertones of the sentiment. A sentiment to which she couldn't answer.
"Your mother?" she deflected, gesturing to the crimson roses beside his bed. They were clearly behind a magical field – he couldn't so much as touch the flowers, nor the vase, nor the table upon which they stood. For a "man mad enough to resort to muggle weaponry" even the most innocuous item was no longer safe. As though he were a danger to anyone but himself…
"Who else?" he replied, his tone a mix of bitterness and self-deprecation. She knew he felt he deserved it all. She hadn't ever.
"She misses you," she said softly, apologetically.
His eyes clouded. "I miss her, too."
Another surge of anger. Only ward personnel were permitted within the room of the boy who had so cunningly escaped Azkaban. As though attempting suicide was merely a clever ploy. As though-
"Could you tell her something for me?" he cut imploringly across her furious thoughts. "Let her know that I love her? And tell her-" his voice broke and her heart followed. "Tell her… Thank you?" In his moment of vulnerable sorrow, her heart and mind met in decision. Ever so slowly she leaned forward, waiting, breath held close against her heart, praying he wouldn't jerk away. Then, softly, she pressed her lips to his – conveying, as best she could, all the things she dared never say.
A second, a year - she couldn't know. But slowly she broke the moment and stood, steadfastly ignoring his shock, and the question in his eyes.
She held back the tears that fought her so desperately and steeled herself. Her body shook violently – a victim to the flood of adrenalin, which screamed at her to drop her hand and run – as she raised her wand and ended the protective spells cast upon the glass vase.
She looked at him once more, as she reached the doorway, hoping that her eyes could express to him something beyond just the pain that was so overwhelming. His expression was beyond deciphering; a hundred emotions and thoughts swirling together into a wall more impenetrable than those that held him captive.
For a desperate moment, she needed to understand. And then she was in the hall, and the door was closing resolutely against his whispered, "I love you, too."