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Sorry I am a bit in a hurry.

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Our walk is slow again but he seems to have gained at least a little strength from the first proper food in what I guess are months for him. Entering the bath he twitches as the heat hits him. He is used to cold these days, so I run my hands down his back.

"It's okay. I just want to clean you up. Calm down."

He takes shaky steps further into the room. I lead him in the threshold and stop him. Carefully leaning him against me, I very slowly put my hands on the hem of his prison shirt. He barely flinches as I start moving it upwards. When I finally pull it over his head, I feel him shudder in my arms but stay still. When I run my eyes over his naked upper body, my throat closes. He is literally nothing but skin and bones anymore. His skin is something between pasty white and sickly grey. He is littered with bruises, cuts and scars. Since I can see each bone clearly, I also spot some bumps on them which suggest that they were broken and not properly healed. I take a shuddering breath, mumbling apologies all over again.

Focusing back on the task at hand, I reach down to his pants, the same dirty grey. Even though I am as careful as I can, he still flinches when it slips down his thighs, but then he goes slack, like he lost every last ounce of fight in him. I run shaking hands through his hair, an awful suspicion creeping up on me.

"Oh god," I cry, burying my face in his hair, no matter how awful he smells, "I should have never let you go in there. It was so wrong. I don't even want to imagine what they did to you there."

To my surprise though I suddenly feel a cold touch in my neck. I jerk up, only to meet empty grey eyes. Draco is looking straight at me. It's his hand that's laying on my neck, bony fingers running slowly into my hair. I choke on another sob and bury my head back into the cold skin.

"I should be comforting you, not the other way around," I muffle into his throat.

He just tugs at my hair, causing me to look at him. The crooked smile is back on his face and for once his empty orbs are focused on me. His eyes seem to say 'Don't worry, I can deal with it. I am past it'. I only shake my head and pull him close another time. And chuckle wryly, tears still on my cheeks.

"Now I am dirty too, great. Doesn't matter, I can wash up after you. Now come on," I say, carefully leading him over to the bathtub.

His legs look awful as the rest of his body does. Bruised, scarred and white skin on bones. And my suspicion strengthens, judging by the reddish substance, which I guess is blood, still clinging to the inside of his upper thighs. I can't help but shudder, trying to hide it from my sensitive charge, but he apathetically sets foot in front of foot and follows me to the tub. I stop him in front of it, but before I can get him into the half-high water, he twitches and shies away from it. I softly stroke his back.

"I promise I don't want to hurt you. The water isn't either, I swear. I don't know what they did to you, but I swear to you, it's never going to be done to you again," I take his face in my hands and make him look at me, "I promise I will take care of you. I won't let anyone ever hurt you again. You can trust me."

He only softly shakes his head. Well, I know he would never trust me easily. Not after everything he went through, I can hardly blame him. So I only coax him to get into the tub with as much care as I can muster. His movements are slow and hesitant but in the end he does it. He twitches a moment but then sinks his foot into the warm water with a soft sigh, which has me smiling. A worryingly long time later he finally sits in the tub. His hands are running through the warm water, a wistful, but still crooked smile on his face. He lifts one hand out of the water and lets it fall down again, splashing water on me too. While at it he gives a short sound which could be the start of a laugh, but more like a toddler would sound, rather than a grown man. I sigh. This is going to be a very long road until recovery. But we are going to get there one day.

One hand never leaves his back as I steady him in the bathtub. He is sitting still, slightly slumped, apart from the occasional movement of his hand, splashing water a bit. I summon toiletries, towels and additional water over. Carefully I wet a cloth and then look at his face in confirmation for a moment, but he doesn't react in the slightest, only stares straight ahead. I sigh but put the cloth to his back anyway. He doesn't even flinch. I run the material half-way down his back, only for it to come back completely brown with a worryingly reddish tint immediately. I shudder at the amount of dirt on his skin. And I am worried that some part of that dirt is actually dried blood. With a deep frown I put the cloth back in the water, colour releasing into the fluid.

I repeat this process more times than I can count. I have to wash the cloth any few inches of skin. It's unbelievable how dirty he is. That is far below any human living conditions. It wrings a pained and sarcastic snort out of me though when I compare him to how he acted back at Hogwarts. Always looking perfect, not a hair out of place (well, the first years at least). I was sure he spent longer in front of the bathroom mirror each day than our whole boys' dorm together. Not one bit of that is left in him now. His skin is covered in layers of dirt. His hair hangs below his shoulder blades, stringy and tangled. The once so shining platinum blonde is a dirty grey now. I sigh as I push the greasy locks over his shoulder to start on his upper back. Once I have cleared away the dirt I spot a whole network of scars, so many finer ones but also huge cuts. I shudder and supress another sob. He rips me out of my sad thoughts as he makes some kind of squealing sound as he splashes up more water with his right hand, effectively raining water over both of us. I sigh and run my hand over his head.

"We are going to help you. Don't worry. One day you will be the same annoying Draco Malfoy again, you will see," I pat his now cleaned back (the only part of his body that is not covered in dirt).

Since the water bowl is already more brown than translucent, I make the water exchange itself wandlessly, since I discovered that my charge reacts negatively to wands (as far as he can react that is). While the water is heating I start to untangle the dirty locks. It goes very slow, especially since I don't have any experience with long hair and his is in an awful state. Soon I have the bowl back and continue on with his sides and arms. When I reach his left forearm and run the cloth straight over it, I stop in surprise. There is the dark mark, that much was clear, I saw it already after all. But what I didn't see or expect were the deep scratches turned into thick scars running all over the mark. The tattoo partially disappears under the heavy injuring. Where does that come from? With curious eyes I take his left arm up, he is only moving the right one anyway. Inspecting it closely, I frown. I am surely not an expert in this but from what I can tell these scars date a good deal older than the ones I saw on the rest of his body. From before the trials. Hell, before the final battle maybe even. Since none of Voldemort's followers would do that, the only possibility is that he did that himself.

"Draco Malfoy," I sigh, shaking my head and rubbing the heavily scarred skin, "You are a mystery all over. What other secrets have you been hiding all these years?"

He doesn't give me an answer of course. Unless you count the fact that he gives me another half-squeal, letting his hand fall back into the water again. I shake my head and stand up, sending the bowl for another clean up. I stretch, that crouched position is not comfortable for long times. Just before I started on his hair, I put a spell up that keeps him upright even when I'm not holding him up. Noting that the water he is sitting in is cooling too, I reheat that as well. I hand him a cup of water to drink. He doesn't react for the longest time and I have to push the drink further into his face to make him notice it. When he does, he lifts his wet right hand back up and grasps the handle of the mug shakily. His movements are unsure, but at least he is able to drink on his own. A small light in the dark. But as soon as he is finished his grip apparently slips and the mug crashes down. Seeker reflexes awakening I catch it before it hits the water surface.

"That was close," I breathe, "Alright. So you can drink on your own but hold nothing even a bit heavier for longer than a minute. We might have to work on that."

That's it for today. Thanks for reading.

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