Draco was watching himself carefully. He was going to wake up soon, and once that happened, he knew that life was going to change drastically.
Looking around the brightly lit hospital room, he saw curtains stained with what he could only hope weren't actually bodily fluids. The ceiling was spackled in such a way that it looked as though a layer of dirt rested under the white paint covering it. He glanced down. The tiles beneath his feet were a nondescript beige colour, adding to the generally depressing atmosphere the room evoked.
The only furniture in the small room was a bed, two chairs, and an assortment of Muggle machines. The bed's lone occupant was laying still. His blond hair looked greasy, and Draco gave a moment's thought as to whether this was due to a lack of washing or the less-than-flattering light being cast over the room by the odd, rectangular lights seemingly embedded in the ceiling.
Hair notwithstanding, Draco thought he looked much as he always did; his face was pale, the shadows under his eyes present as always, though perhaps a bit more exaggerated than was typical. His thin lips were firmly pressed together even in his slumber, his forehead creased lightly as though whatever his dreams were, they weren't tranquil in the least. That was normal as well, Draco acknowledged with a half smile—the past few months had been kind to few in the wizarding world.
Sliding his gaze from his own still body, he turned his attention to the witch occupying one of the chairs. Her hair, looking as almost as stringy as his own, was a faded red hue, dull from neglect. The bags under her eyes were as pronounced as his own, but her colour was improving, he noted with satisfaction.
Ginevra Malfoy. His wife—or one-time wife, he acknowledged with no small amount of disgust. Disgust for himself, for the situation that had landed him in this position: trapped in a place unreachable by any, one even he didn't truly understand.
It had been six days. Six days of doing nothing but existing, unable to understand why he wasn't a part of himself any longer. He could remember the first day clearly, he thought bitterly, how overjoyed he'd been to see Gin standing over him, the light behind her silhouetting her features as she peered worriedly down at him. Overcome with emotion at seeing how she had survived the events of the previous day, he had begun weeping, reaching out to the woman he loved. But she hadn't seen him. She'd seen a lifeless body lying on a hospital bed. She hadn't felt his hands grasp for her frantically, or heard his howls of terror at turning and seeing himself, still as death.
That first day had been hell. No one could see him. He'd run though the halls of the Muggle hospital, crying out for anyone, but there was no one to be found. No staff, no patients, no security… It was one long, empty hallway after another. The world had been whittled away to one small room with two occupants.
He had to have a nurse, he'd thought frantically, returning to his room and throwing himself down in an empty chair. Hospitals had nurses. His thoughts were interrupted by Ginevra, who sat in the chair beside him with a sigh.
For a moment, Draco could only look at his wife, who had her eyes fixed upon the body on the bed. She was beautiful in a way that only he would ever understand. Oh, physically she was attractive, and her disposition was easygoing enough to be enjoyable, fiery enough to prevent her from becoming boring. What was truly beautiful was the look in her eyes as she watched him intently, the hope and despair that filled her eyes. He wanted so desperately to hold her, to cradle her in his arms and breathe in her scent and wipe the desperation from her face. She seemed on the edge of cracking, and Draco miserably tore his eyes from her and glared at the floor, as though it were somehow at fault for this.
Just then, a nurse appeared, bustling in with a tight lipped smile and quick nod to Ginevra, who acknowledged her with only the slightest of glances.
"I see our patient has no change over the last few hours," the nurse said aloud, picking up a chart at the end of the bed and flipping through the pages on it. Draco had looked up in interest as he heard her speak, then leapt to his feet to glance over her shoulder at his chart.
Draco stared at the pages, blinked, and then stared again. Dimly, he heard the nurse suggesting to Ginny that she otherwise occupy herself, but the rest of her words went unnoticed as he looked in shock at the chart she still was focusing on. The pages, all of them, were blank.
Ginny shook her head mutely, apparently unwilling to discuss the situation. The nurse only made a noncommittal sound, replacing the chart at the end of Draco's bed with a brisk order to ring her if there was any change. Then she fiddled with a few of the many machines gracing the head of his bed and turned to leave the room.
Draco followed her to the door, screaming at her as she went, couldn't she see him, didn't she realize there had indeed been a change, that the change was trying desperately to reach her, reach anyone—and the nurse passed out of his room and faded into nothing, the hallway as empty as it had ever been.
Defeated, Draco could only return to his room, grabbing the chart from his bed and flipping through it wildly. Blank, blank, blank, he thought with increasing panic. He ran to the head of the bed, and, unable to look down at himself, studied the machines. No lights were lit, no sound was heard. Whatever the nurse had seen on the Muggle contraptions was invisible to him.
Draco had fallen to the floor in shock, not even realizing that the world around him was becoming darker until he opened his eyes again to find himself flat on his back, staring at the ceiling. And that had only been day one.
And now it had been six days. Ginevra was present more often than not, and sometimes she would lean close to his body, whispering words of love and encouragement. Usually, she just sat in one of the chairs at the end of his bed, her gaze vacant and unseeing, though always somehow fixed in his general direction. He was hurting her, and he didn't know how to stop.
But it was going to end soon. He didn't know how he knew that, but he did. Standing over himself, he knew with a certainty he couldn't explain that the body before him was going to awake, to rejoin the world familiar to him. But he wasn't going with it. He was going to remain in this empty world, void of all contact, existing, and yet, somehow not.
But things were going to change.
That was going to have to be enough for now.
Draco watched one of his eyelids twitch, heard a hoarse breath rattle from between his lips. Ginevra had clasped the arm of her chair with his first twitch, and at his long sigh, she'd rushed to side of the bed, and was now whispering words into his ears. Draco leaned closer to hear what she was saying, certain that her words would push this body into reality.
"I love you so much, sweetie—please come back to me—you can't—please—you're going to be a father, you know that, a father, Draco!"
Draco had a moment to stare at her in overjoyed shock, moving to throw his arms around her no matter how futile, when the world around him exploded in a hazy mix of sound and light. He heard talking, crying, whispering, beeping, he saw a green line zigzagging across a black monitor, saw a room suddenly filled with faceless bodies, and then a white light filled his vision, and he felt as though he were falling away from even his own shadow world, into absolutely nothing.
AN: I've kicked this idea around for so long that when I finally got the nerve to write it, I realized that I was perhaps two books too late for it to work properly. That is why, much to my chagrin, this story is indeed AU after Order of the Phoenix. Unfortunately, I have read both subsequent books in the series, and make no promises that small items from each won't slip into Dystopia, however accidental.
Disclaimer (applicable to all chapters): Anything recognizable is the work of J.K. Rowling, assuredly not myself.