[A/N] (Disclaimers in Chapter 1) 4.6.2016 Moving right along! I adore each and every one of you who are reviewing, following, adding this to your favorites, and reblogging this on tumblr. You are gems of the rarest and highest quality!
Playlist: In the Company of Wolves - Incubus | Seven Devils - Florence + the Machine | Requiem for a Dream - Lux Aeterna
-Peregrinus-
Draco folded his arms more firmly across his chest, staring out the window in a full pout, complete with raised shoulder blades and clenched jaw. The entire image was flawed by the standard-issue St. Mungo's hospital gown.
"You need to eat, you prat," admonished his visitor.
"Are Healers allowed to speak to their patients that way? Merlin, father is right, St. Mungo's really has gone to the crups now that Muggleborns are running it -"
A swift slap upside the head surprised him enough to pause his tirade. Just as swiftly, a spoon entered his still gaping mouth.
Granger glared triumphantly at him. "I'm not your Healer, thank the goddess, I'm here as your friend and as a friend I am telling you to eat!"
Draco swallowed, loudly, since he knew the sound would make her grit her teeth. Granger hated gritting her teeth. Solid payback.
"You've spent too much time around Weasley." In an instant the same spoon was brandished in his face the same as a wand, filled again with the hospital food that smelled like a first year's failed potion. He decided to drop that line of inquiry when the look he received gave a Basilisk a run for its money. "What sort of friend force feeds another?"
"What sort of friend stoops as low as to blame the blood status of the other for all the problems in the world?"
"Me, obviously."
"Ugh! Shut up and eat this damned...whatever it is!"
"Ah ha! Then bring me something I will actually eat!" Draco sniffed theatrically as he continued, "You smell of eggs and fried tomatoes, traiter, why didn't you bring me a plate?"
"Draco Lucius Malfoy, I will hex you." Granger set the bowl of...porridge, was it?... down onto the tray with enough force for a bit to slop onto her hand.
He watched her walk away, a look of disgust pulling down the corners of her mouth, into the adjoining bathroom to wash her hands. Without a word, or turning to look at him sitting casually in bed, Granger snatched her white coat from the rack by the door and buttoned it up with magic.
"You're cute when you're angry, Head Healer!" Draco called to her retreating back, earning a nonverbal fuck you from her left hand.
Healing bones in the wizarding world didn't particularly take long, and they were set and mended within hours of his transfer from Charing Cross to St. Mungo's. The cocktail of drugs pumped into his system, however, from the ambulance ride and emergency room visit, were more concerning.
"Morphine does not directly affect the administration of modified Pepper Up," drawled one Healer. "But we need to make sure the anaesthetics completely flush from your system, Mister Malfoy."
He was told many things he already knew: the curse has moved to your femur in your left leg, you'll need to up your dose of Pepper Up, have you visited your Mind Healer recently?
The last Healer bolted from the room before the patient ripped her apart with his bare hands.
Head Healer Hermione Granger escorted him down to the Floo Room, partly to protect against prying reporters with the force of her gaze, and partly to solidify plans to meet for dinner later that week. To Draco's chagrin he'd forgotten Theo's birthday was the twenty second.
"Bring the merlot we had at our engagement dinner," she said, holding out the Floo powder to him. "Theo enjoyed it."
"Surrounded by Slytherins, your subtlety has vastly improved since school, Granger." He grasped just a pinch, as his trip home was only a few miles away. "You're obviously aware it is a vintage in my parents' personal cellar? My mother owled you, then, about my lack of an répondez s'il vous plaît. As subtle as your words are becoming, your face still gives it all away, and your glee at my discomfort is frankly disturbing."
The only response he received was a wolfish grin before green flames obstructed her from his view.
Shooting from the grate feet first onto the strategically placed rug, Draco steadied himself to charm away the soot clinging to his coat. The only clothes remotely normal that were with him were leftover from...forty-eight hours before? A tempus confirmed the lorry struck him nearly seventy two hours previously.
"Merlin and his thrice damned hairy ass," Draco swore under his breath. There were several potions now expired in his stores that took weeks to replace. He would either have to purchase them (and accept lower quality), or beg enough doses off of Theo and Granger to last until his own brews completed.
His alarm was nearly physically palpable when he opened his potions cabinet, where some held aspirin or floss, and every single bottle was gone. Not even a breath-freshening or hair smoothing product remained.
"What the FUCK!"
A flurry of ward checking spells flew from his wand so quickly it sparked the air around him. More portions of Merlin's extensive and unfortunate anatomy were cursed and belittled as Draco's panic set in.
It wouldn't have been Granger; she would have told him point blank she'd gone to his flat to remove the delicate potions and would not have left him dry. Theo was the same, but a note pasted to the door or the cabinet was more his style. His parents' magical signatures were three weeks stale (damn them, sneaking into his flat, pretending to know nothing of it). Potter's thankfully was barely palpable enough to pick up.
There, a bright blue thread around his back door. The back door that only six people were aware existed, locked and hidden with a blood ward using dragon's and niffler blood. As eccentric the combination was, he rarely questioned wards or spells in his godfather's journals, and the protection had never failed him. Until now.
A feral snarl curled his upper lip as he pulled just enough of that magical signature away to cast a rather nasty finding hex on the malicious stranger.