Granger came in one morning, looking flushed and rushed and coy, hair wild like he remembered it from school, instead of tamed and contained for her work as an Investigator. Draco turned away. It didn't take an investigator's eye to figure out what she'd been doing that morning.
"Good morning," she said cheerily, and he forced his head up to look at her again.
"Morning, Granger," he forced out, his voice sounding almost normal in his own ears. "Oddsbodds said for us to wait for him here - we'll head out to St. Mungo's in a bit. I guess we're going to start forensic examination of living victims."
"Good," Hermione said brightly. "Gives me time to do this - I was in a bit of a rush this morning."
Draco grimaced into his coffee cup.
She pointed her wand at her head, and with a "Coifferius!" he watched, almost entranced, as her hair pulled back, and began to weave itself along the top of her head in a plait. It was almost like watching water falling, as the plait wove neatly down her neck, to the small of her back, whereupon she drew it over her shoulder, securing it with a clasp.
He'd seen women undo their hair – had even been an eager helper in unknotting and unpinning in several cases. Seeing a woman do this, though, seemed almost uncomfortably intimate. Likely only the Weasel had ever seen her do that – and maybe he'd never seen Granger do that at all.
He shifted his eyes and realized she was giving him a funny look. "What?"
Draco flushed slightly, setting down his cup unsteadily. "Never saw a woman do that before."
Hermione tilted her head at him, an expression of interest. "Took me a while to get it right. If you're off by a little, it'll wrap itself around your neck." She got a sly look on her face, holding up her wand as if offering. "We could try it on yours."
"No!" Draco kept his hair purposely short, as much a reaction against his father as it was practicality on a crime scene. "Don't think I've got long enough hair, anyway."
She smirked, still tipping her wand point dangerously in the direction of his head. "Never know till you try. Would be a talking point, at the very least."
He laughed, a feeling so wholly unfamiliar to him that it erupted almost like a hiccup. She grinned back, and he wondered if this was how Gryffindors laughed - a tease, rather than a sting.
The little boy, no more than three or so, he supposed, stared at the wall while a female nurse, with graying hair in a quivering updo stood at attention by his bedside. The child seemed uninjured - but that was for Draco to determine.
"Hello," Draco said, feeling completely awkward and out of his depth. Why would they give this assignment to him, of all people? "My name is Draco. You're Dai, right?"
The little boy stared up at him, round hazel eyes peering through a jet-black fringe. He looked back at the nurse, either for assurance, or for her to answer for him.
Draco sighed. He'd never had much contact with those much younger than him, save Teddy, unless it was the younger students at Hogwarts whom he made sure looked up to him. There was no way he could bully this child into doing what he needed him to do. Not without seriously pissing off the nurse, anyway.
And how could he? Not when the child looked so much like Teddy in the aftermath of a tantrum. Not when he could remember trying to save his own parents – and being unable to solve the greater problem.
The nurse sensed the tension in the room, and put a hand on Dai's shoulder. "He needs to do an exam, Dai."
The little boy shook his head furiously, drawing his knees up into his chest. "Want Da," he whispered.
Draco grimaced. "Da" was currently lying in another hospital room, undergoing attempts to wake him up from his Catatonius Concoction. Granger was with him now, examining his limp hands and slackened face for evidence. He'd taken the potion the day before, an overdose, by the looks of it, and ended up passed out on the dining room rug. Dai had been the one to run and alert the neighbors. It was unclear, at least to Granger's way of thinking, whether the overdose had been forced on Dai's mother or not. Draco thought it fairly unlikely.
Dai needed a distraction, he realized. Inspiration hit. Hadn't the younger students always wanted to follow his example? Didn't Teddy?
"I'm not going to do an exam, Dai," he said easily. "I'm here to play a game. Have you ever played Mirrors?"
Dai refused to look at him.
"All right then, I'll follow you." Draco pulled his knees up to his chest, uncomfortable on the hard seating. Dai's dark eyes flickered in his direction, assessing him with a piercing glance. Immediately, he unfolded himself. Draco followed suit, mirroring the boy's stance.
"Stop it," Dai said, but Draco could tell from his tone and his face that he was more amused than irritated.
"All right," he replied. "You follow me, then."
He lifted his arms above his head in a long stretch, yawning like a lion. Draco watched out of the corner of his eye as Dai hesitated, then followed his lead.
Draco rubbed his hands over his face.
Dai rubbed his hands over his face.
Draco pinched the end of his nose and wiggled it from side to side.
Dai pinched the end of his snub nose and attempted to wiggle it.
Draco blew air into his cheeks like a pufferfish, then poked one cheek in with a finger. Giggling, Dai did the same. In the corner, he heard the nurse giggle as well.
Deciding that he needed to get the child up and moving to really make this work, Draco stood up, then helped Dai down to the floor so he could stand as well. He kicked out to one side - so did Dai.
Feeling like an utter prat, he jumped up into the air. Dai did the same, starting to look more like a little boy and less like a frightened bush-baby. Draco did a complicated hopping maneuver across the floor of the room. Dai did the same, giggling all the way.
Draco began to ease into the use of other objects. He took a spare tongue depressor from the counter, and, squatting down to Dai's level, balanced it on his nose. Dai did the same, entranced, and didn't get irritated when Draco extended a finger to help the boy balance.
Walking across the room, Dai trotting at his heels, Draco picked up his camera, and took a picture of the nurse in the corner. He handed it to Dai, helping him work the buttons and adjust the lens, to take another picture of the gamely smiling nurse.
Next, Draco took a picture of Dai. This was the one he needed, really, and when the boy held still, facing the camera without fear, he clicked the button several times. He handed the camera back to Dai, who took a picture of him.
There was a small sound outside the door, and upon seeing a pair of wide brown eyes, he realized that Granger had been watching outside for Merlin-knew-how-long.
"You play the game well, Dai," he said, feeling more kindly to the trusting little boy than he had to anyone in ages. "Know who I'll pick to play Mirror with in the future. Miss Granger's waiting for me."
The little boy smiled up at him, and something deep in his guts wrenched. He lifted Dai back onto the bed. "Good luck, little man."
Dai waved after him as he left.
"Got the picture," he said lamely, off of Granger's bewildered stare.
"Yes," she replied quietly.
"How long were you watching?" he demanded, irritated by her attention.
"Long enough," she said.
For the rest of that morning, though, he felt her eyes upon him, calculating, watching, weighing, and wondering.
They developed the photographs later that day in the claustrophobic darkroom, stinking of potions ingredients that made them breathe through their mouths in the flickering red candlelight. Draco exchanged only the bare minimum of necessary words with Granger, half-convinced that she'd been telling her best friends at lunch about him making a fool of himself with the three-year-old.
He'd been in several enclosed spaces with girls his age at Hogwarts, but never had the circumstances been this strained.
Draco took Dai's developed photo and examined it with a sigh of relief. Other than the normal bruises that a boy his age took to his knees and shins, there was no subcutaneous evidence of old, deep bruises, or contamination from toxic potions ingredients, no old scars. The exact details of the boy's body were obscured in grey, but bruises stood out in smudges of pale lavender.
"There's a relief," he said, pointing it out to Granger, who took it in the tips of her fingers to avoid smudging it.
"One point in his father's favor, anyway," she said. "You, on the other hand, have a bruised shoulderblade."
"What?" He glanced sharply at her, examining a picture of him in the red light. He realized the image was from the photo that Dai had taken.
He felt heat rise to his face. Outlined in glowing violet along his image's shoulder blade was the unmistakable smudge of a deep bruise. Along his chest, though, in the familiar pattern that he saw every morning in the mirror, were the lines of scars from Potter's Dark curse in their sixth year. Outlined in hot yellow, from this perspective, it looked like he'd been clawed by a sphinx. Along his collarbone was another deep one, this from his incarceration and punishment in the Manor, when the Carrows delivered a slashing blow. A more innocent one, a deep cut from where he'd cut his calf along the Manor gate while trying to fly beyond it as a child, rippled down his left leg.
His tattoo, the mark he'd wanted and yet not wanted, glowed in deep red along his forearm.
"Looked your fill?" he spat, as she continued to peruse the image. "Can show you the real thing - just say the word and I'll drop trou."
"I thought you might be injured - I saw you wincing when we were processing the scene…"
"Granger, this is more than a little intrusive," he cut her off, trying to grab the photo. She gave it over without a fight.
"Sorry," she said easily. "Didn't know whose it was until I developed it."
"Right." He hated that all his scars and wounds had been laid bare to her. Such knowledge was far, far too intimate.
"Do you want me to…" There were a thousand ways she could have ended that sentence.
"Do I want you to what?" He looked at her darkly, and even in the red light, he saw her flush.
"Heal it. I've gotten pretty good at healing strains and bruises." She didn't say when or where, but Draco could guess.
He opened his mouth to deliver a retort about her getting that skill from Weasley/Potter pratfalls, but shut it just as quickly. It was hurting.
"If you can do it without removing my arm."
"I think so." She moved behind him, and he jumped a little when he felt her warm hand on the small of her back. Instantly, the darkroom felt far too small - what had they been thinking when they designed the place? Did she think that she had to hold him in place? Couldn't they do this outside, where there was light and room to move?
Granger muttered several spells, moving her wand tip in counterclockwise circuits around his affected shoulderblade. While a strange sense of panic kept bubbling up around his stomach, a warm tingling seemed to envelop his shoulder, relaxing it, making the muscles soft and lithe once more, instead of overly tense. He didn't understand why she kept a hand at the small of his back, though – a warm spot that his senses kept trailing back to.
Finally, Granger was done. Draco rotated his shoulder in a slow circle, feeling no pain.
"Thank you," he said, as formally as if she had just helped him secure a bank loan, or the like.
"You're welcome," she returned, looking a bit tense herself.
They turned back to their photographs, and a charged silence sat between them.
Draco absently wished that he'd gotten a picture of Granger as well with the camera, so that they'd be equals in this, so that he'd know her scars as well.
A whip-crack of memory hit him over the head, of Granger's strangled screams and sobs, writhing on the sitting room floor of his former home, while Bellatrix, maddened in the quest to save her own life, tried to tear the younger witch apart. The camera wouldn't show the trauma unleashed with a flick of his aunt's wand.
The camera didn't show everything, he supposed.
"Can I ask you something?"
Draco gritted his teeth, anticipating the question before it was out of her mouth. "You just did. But go ahead and ask a second question, Granger."
"How did you get so good with kids? I didn't think you had any younger siblings or cousins."
Draco stared hard at the photo in his hands, not trusting himself to look in her direction. The compliment was unexpected from Granger – and therefore, perhaps, genuine.
"I don't," he replied carefully. "Teddy is my second cousin, though. I see him now and then."
"Tonks and Lupin's son?"
He nodded. "Played that game with him during his birthday this year."
"Harry was there." Draco felt his inner guards, the ones that went up at the barest hint of the Boy Who Lived Just To Spite Others, lock into place.
"He was," he replied guardedly.
"He didn't mention you being there." A probing question, and he wasn't about to answer it.
"You might ask him about that, then," he snapped. "If Potter's vision is failing, the Aurors will want to send him to St. Mungo's."
Granger's face fell a bit, and she, too, focused her eyes fixedly on her work.
He had learned that she could never contain herself, however, and was unsurprised to hear her speak up several minutes later.
"Sorry…I just thought it was really wonderful what you were able to do for that boy."
He grunted, and let her interpret that however she pleased.