McGonagall granted Draco's petition to apprentice with Madam Pomfrey, even though she technically wasn't a teacher. The Headmistress seemed pleased, perhaps relieved at the boy's choice of career path. He began a rotation in the sick ward, helping Pomfrey mend cuts, scrapes, bites, and hexes gone wrong. She didn't seem to mind the company, in fact her demeanor was friendly enough that Draco almost didn't recognize the terse, hard-toned medical professional he remembered from his visits in the past.
"You have to be caring but firm," she explained. "You need to hear the patient's complaints, feel their pain, but not coddle whatever lack of judgement led them to injury in the first place." In Madam Pomfrey's world, every injury was attributable to a lack of judgment. There were no accidents, only mistakes.
Firmness was no problem for Draco. He'd been bossing people around since he could point his finger. Caring was the hard part. He couldn't figure out how to care without being weak. Over the years his father had taught him that all but the coldest and hardest emotions were signs of weakness. How could one care for a patient without giving them the upper hand?
He found the unconscious students the easiest to care for. They weren't able to seize the upper hand. Weakness wasn't weakness when one's opponent was mentally absent, he told himself.
"A patient isn't an opponent," Pomfrey snapped when he shared that thought one day. "Most healing spells require caring as a catalyst. If you can't manage that, you'll never make it past bandaging and healing pastes."
Draco promised to put more thought into it. He needed to stay on her good side and keep building trust with her. Especially if he was going to learn the kind of healing spells only she could share.