Warning: Mentions visions of character death and rape that don't actually happen.
Harry's Pov:
The first indication I had that something was off with Draco Malfoy, was when a slashing hex worked a little too well. Sure I was convinced from the time I followed him in Diagon Alley that he was up to something, but this was different. Something was wrong with him.
I probably shouldn't have cast the slashing hex at all. It was just our usual hallway squabble as we waited outside our Defense class. Until it wasn't. I was about to cast another hex at him, assuming he would dodge or counter the first. I would've, if it were me. But it wasn't me and the curse hit him in the wrist. The immediate screams of horror from my classmates drew my attention, before my brain even processed that the red liquid squirting from him in thick streams was blood. I'd severed the big artery in his wrist or something and he was quickly bleeding out.
Hermione was the first to do something useful. She conjured linen bandages, leaped forward with them as Draco Malfoy slowly slumped to the floor, grabbing his wrist with his uninjured hand. Before he even hit the floor, she was wrapping that wrist. Then she was applying pressure, and with her head turned around to face me and Ron, screaming, "Don't just stand there! Do something! Get help! He's going to die, for goodness sakes!"
Snape didn't need to be fetched. While Hermione was still screaming her orders, he pushed his way through the crowd to Malfoy, head moving in a way that mimicked the arches of blood on the walls, ceiling, and floor. Then he seemed to center in on the now blood-drenched bandage wrapping Malfoy's wrist. It was dripping blood. It had been clean just a minute ago. That fast it went from a growing red circle to completely drenched and dripping. Hermione's hands were red too. Draco was still bleeding out.
"Where's his bag? Where are your potions, Draco?" Snape asked urgently.
Pansy Parkinson offered up Draco's schoolbag. Snape wasted no time digging through it. In seconds, he was pulling out a set of potion vials, selecting the Blood Replenishing draught, and pouring it down Draco's throat. As he did so, he chastised, "Why have them in your bag, if you aren't going to use them when you're dying, Mr. Malfoy? Surely your Mother intended for you to treat yourself, instead of just letting yourself die, when she insisted you carry the set with you at all times."
At this point—the vial empty and Draco's blood replenishing—Snape took Hermione's position at the bandages around Draco's wrist. He peeled them back, only for blood to spurt forth as vigorously as ever, but only long enough to attempt a healing spell. When it failed, Snape let the bandage fall back into place and conjured a tourniquet, which he used to bind Draco's forearm, an inch above the slash. The blood slowed then, as evidenced by the reduced dripping from the bandage; it would save his life, but cost Draco the hand.
"You are the one always scrying your own death. Didn't you see this one coming? Why didn't you do something about it?" Snape asked as he conjured a fresh bandage and reapplied pressure. The wound dribbled as he worked.
"Did see it. Had to happened," Draco replied tersely. He looked very pale, as if he still might die.
"I suppose next you'll tell me there was nothing you could have done to stop it?" Snape asked rhetorically, not waiting for a response. "Come on, Mr. Malfoy. I am sure you will be at St. Mungo's soon enough to save the hand, but first we must get you to the Hospital Wing. Someone—Granger—contact the Headmaster and let him know that Mr. Malfoy is bleeding to death and will require a professional healer. Again." As he spoke, he picked Draco up in his arms like a child and took two strides down the hall.
Then Snape and Draco were gone.
Hermione rushed after Snape. Ron and I followed after. We split away on the stairs, Snape carrying Draco up, to the Hospital Wing, while the three of us took off down the hall that led to the Gargoyle statue.
We didn't get any information from Dumbledore. He listened to our message and shoed us along, so that he could get to work.
Later Snape sent a student for me. In his office, he metered out a series of detentions as punishment while lecturing me on how reckless and stupid I was, without first explaining if Draco was going to be alright.
"Please sir? Is Malfoy okay? He's going to live, isn't he?" I asked.
"He will live, but when I left, it was still uncertain whether they could save the hand," Snape answered.
"But why couldn't you just heal him? Why couldn't Madam Pomfrey heal him? Why didn't the healing spells work?" I asked pleadingly. Why did my actions have horrible consequences? Why couldn't magic just put everything right?
"I cannot reveal the details of another student's medical condition," Snape answered, without telling me anything.
I asked more questions. Remembering Snape's words to Malfoy in the hallway, I asked if Draco was sick or had some disease. Draco had been carrying life-saving potions in his backpack, everywhere he went. Why would he do that, if he didn't know he was sick? Why didn't he tell anyone he was sick? Why was he still picking fights with me, if he knew it would lead to him bleeding to death? Snape refused to answer that line of questioning and sent me on my way.
I found Ron and Hermione and we began to speculate on what was wrong with Malfoy. Our discussion ended abruptly with Hermione running off to the library, to look up medical conditions that could interfere with magical healing. She eventually came back, but with too many answers. There were too many possibilities, to know which one of them it was that was responsible for me almost becoming a murderer.
Draco was out of school for a week before he came back, wrist still bandaged and fingers a sickening shade of purple that belied how close he'd been to losing the hand. I thought for a month that he still might lose the hand, because it stayed purple and his bandage was often spotted varying shades of red and occasionally seen dripping blood. But then he'd be sent to Madam Pomfrey and come back with a clean bandage and his fingers eventually turned back to normal.
