*I love being pre-med and I am determined—that is a rock solid fact, but I will never like math or how stressful the workload can be at times. I'm doing the best I can with what I have, and what I have is a very fortunate opportunity in comparison to many other people. This is where I come to relax…
I had never cried so much in my life, not even as much as I had cried that night I slept alone without Lina after I'd watched Snape kill Dumbledore. I cried even harder when I looked down at the weakened woman in my arms, her arm in my left hand broken as it was misshapen in my grasp. Pansy had overdone it with the Cruciatus Curse. I did not feel a pulse as I pressed my index and middle fingers to Angelina's jugular vein. I lowered my head, pressing my ear to her lips in the hopes that I'd hear or feel her breathing.
"What are you bloody waiting for?!" George screamed, throwing my concentration off. I looked up at the redhead who wore an astonished and enraged look on his face. He shoved the wand he'd won from Goyle into my hand and deflected a curse from Fice almost simultaneously. It was utter chaos in the chamber.
"Get her out of here!" George screamed at me. I disapparated automatically to St. Mungo's. When the nurse behind the desk in the emergency room saw me, I did not need an explanation for her to rush over her colleagues and a healer on duty. They took Angelina out of my arms and I ran in panic up beside them as they wheeled her into an operating room. But just as I was about to follow them inside, one of the nurses stopped me.
"Sir, you can't go in," she said, pressing a hand to my chest. Without even thinking, I shoved her aside and attempted to rush into the operating room. I would not let Angelina out of my sight again. I had gone so insane that I was convinced my father would have had every Death Eater he commanded on my tail and keeping tabs on Angelina; anything to keep her away from me. A much taller nurse, near my height, urged me out of the operating room. I stopped her with both hands.
"Sir, you cannot be in here!" she said urgently.
"You don't understand!" I screamed in frustration, "I CAN'T LOSE HER!" I pointed the wand George had given me at the nurse and as soon as I had done so, it went flying out of my hand towards the ceiling where it was frozen in place, an alarm going off. The healer that had started tending to Lina glared over at me. I'd apparently triggered an anti-wand charm which must've been active in the operating room.
"Get him out of here before he contaminates this room!" the healer shouted. I felt strong arms on either side of me dragging me out, literally, because I was too horrified to move or take my eyes off of Angelina, who I could barely see at this point due to the number of nurses around her. Whoever it was dragging me let me fall on my arse on the floor outside of the operating room. I'd only experienced the feeling I was feeling then and there once before in my life; the night I learned I was chosen to kill Dumbledore. I was having a panic attack. I was sure I'd die any second as I fell onto my back, hyperventilating, my chest constricting, the lights dimming…
"He'll come to," said an unfamiliar voice. I slowly blinked awake and found myself lying in a hospital bed. I recognized the healer who had taken to Angelina when I brought her to the emergency room.
"Thank you," said George, who I realized was standing beside the healer. I sat up slowly and George approached me. There was a dark bruise on his forehead from having been slammed against a stone wall in Azkaban. I quickly recounted in my head the events of the past few hours. I realized I hadn't actually slept in an entire twenty-four hours. What I'd just experienced was a blackout from the panic attack. George approached me and I stood up, feeling a bit lightheaded.
"How is she?" I asked automatically, not giving a damn about myself. George glared and pointed his finger at me in a livid manner.
"You lot have never been anything but trouble," he growled, "If you ever so much as speak to Angelina Johnson again, I will hunt you down like the pale, rotten, evil, sadistic, scum you are and I won't even kill you with magic; I'll slit your motherfucking throat with my own bare hands," he said. I remained impervious to George's very credible threat.
"I—asked—you—how—she—is," I said very precisely. I watched the redhead's eyes well up with tears that he never let fall.
"Barely alive. They say there may be permanent, incurable damage, because she was given the Cruciatus Curse so much that—" George had to cut himself off and close his eyes, even turn away from me for a few seconds. I relaxed the tiniest bit; she was alive. She was alive. It became very clear to me very quickly how much she meant to George, and I could not help but feel this painful sensation in my heart for him. It hurt me to know that he loved her as much as I did and that she'd never be able to return all of those feelings, because she was in love with me. I honestly pitied him; despite how much Angelina loved him too, it just wasn't the same as the kind between the two of us. George wept a little bit before turning around to face me again.
"You know, you can't keep me away from her," I said. George looked to me slowly.
"You know you can't keep her away from me."
George laughed without humor.
"Try me," he said, standing to his full height and pulling up his sleeves. He was hardly weak; he was so angry that I could see the veins bulging in his strong arms.
"I'm not going to fight you, George," I said calmly.
"Don't even use my name; it sounds like filth rolling off your tongue."
I did not expect him to accept me, especially not after what had just happened.
"If it makes you feel better, go ahead and beat me up. I don't even care. All I care about is that I saved her, and you know that I've done right by her. If I was the rotten, evil, sadistic, scum you described, I'd never have fallen in love with Angelina—"
"Stop it," he said, shaking his head as if he didn't want to believe it, pressing his fingers into his temples.
"Someone like her, she truly is an angel. As far as I'm concerned, she was a gift to me. She was a gift from the gods, the powers that be, and nothing, not even you, George Weasley, will ever keep her away from me again."
George looked up at me and his expression changed. It softened somewhat, and he just listened as I spoke calmly.
"I know that I've done a lot of horrible things; I've hurt people, I've almost killed, but even then, my intentions were never really to hurt anyone at all. And that's what you have to understand; that's the side of me Angelina sees. That's the side of me she fell in love with. It's who I really am deep down. It just never came out because…" I paused.
"Things have always been complicated for me, George," I explained, garnering his attention.
"I've been through darker shit than you can possibly imagine. My life was mapped out for me by my parents, but it was really my father, this whole time, who had the most influence on me. It wasn't until I was old enough, smart enough, to make it all out for myself that I realized I was on the wrong side. I've never really been this evil boy you thought I was. I was just trying to survive. Angelina is the only thing that matters to me now, and if I can't have that, I see no point in living."
George looked at me curiously, as if unable to believe the words coming out of my mouth, but somehow still believing them.
"I know that she loves you; you should have seen the way it destroyed Angelina for you to be angry that she was with me. And if she never wants to be with me again, all I'd want is for her to be happy, even if it means being with you instead of me. If she's happy, I'll die a content man. I won't stand in the way if you're the one she wants. I hold nothing against you, and I'm sorry for anything I have ever done to hurt you or anyone you care about." I had never been so honest with anyone other than Lina. I waited for George's response. He seemed to be thinking.
"Draco, I know she loves you, too…that day that Ginny came home and told me that she saw the two of you here…the way she described it…I've known Angie a long time, and when she cares about something or someone, she really does. You have no idea how lucky you are to have someone like her the way that you have her—even after you've put her through all the shit you've put her through. I can see her love in you. It's almost terrifying…" he explained, looking me up and down a moment.
"She's changed me," I said quietly, trying not to lose my composure again. I felt myself shake with feelings over her, "I don't know that I would have without her."
"How did it happen?" George asked me in some bewilderment.
"How did you…?" He didn't have to finish his sentence in order for me to know what he was talking about.
"Something strange happened to us one day, during a Quidditch match. Do you remember that she was struck by lightning?"
George nodded. There was no way he wouldn't have heard about that game, about that accident.
"Well, it happened to me, too. It happened right at the moment when we collided in the clouds. It severed a piece of her soul and a piece of mine and transferred each into the other…it was a pure accident, and we couldn't fight it. Angelina is strong—believe me, she tried to fight it, and if it hadn't been for that, she would never have taken the time to get to know me," I explained. George sighed.
"I didn't want to believe any of it, but Blaise filled Harry in on the whole situation between Angie and you…I just wanted to hear it from you because I guess I needed closure."
"…How did you know how to find her?" I asked.
"With Hermione's help," George explained. I'd always known that witch to be a walking brain.
"Angelina's mirror was the key," he went on, "It's a duos-via conspicor; a two-way magical mirror. According to history, they're not supposed to exist at all anymore. There were only several hundred and they were supposedly all destroyed or lost long before Merlin existed. That's ancient magic. Not a witch or wizard around has seen one in centuries. She must've gotten it from someone that she's pretty damn important to for her not to know what it was," said George.
"And I'm wondering how you got it."
I was a bit confused.
"Did you give it to her as a gift, to keep an eye on her?" he asked warily.
"No."
"Did you steal it from her?" he asked with some contempt. I frowned a bit.
"No. She left it in the room we shared one weekend at the Leaky Cauldron. I found it and I realized I could see her through it. I meant to give it back, but I just couldn't…"
"Yeah, well, it's a good thing you didn't," he said, being thankful for the fact that we'd been able to find her before it was too late.
"Well, it didn't matter; I could only see her when our souls were connected. When Angelina figured out how to reverse that, I couldn't see her in the mirror anymore."
"Which is why it worked when we went back to ask your past self, the one who still had a piece of Angie's soul in his own."
It all made sense to me then, and I suddenly couldn't stop wondering who had given Lina that compact mirror in the first place.
"It's all over now," said George with some sort of relief.
"I can't deny that you love Angie," he said, closing his eyes for a few seconds after he said it.
"But I'm only going to tell you this one more time, and by Faust you'd better believe me," he said, looking up to meet my eyes, "If anything ever happens to Angelina again because of you…"
"I know," I said surely. He need not have threatened me a second time.
"Don't take it as a lie when I say that I respect you for that, George. If I were in your shoes, I'd do exactly the same thing."
"Great. So you'd better not hurt her. You'd better not break her heart."
"And I won't," I said.
"What makes you so sure?" he asked honestly, though narrowing his eyes at me.
"Because we've been through enough madness together to know that's no longer possible. If it was only the accident making us love each other, then we wouldn't still feel the way we do."
"But she was strong enough to undo it. That says a lot. Maybe Angie never really loved you to begin with," said George. He just couldn't let it go.
"She was strong enough to do it because I drove her to. She knew it deep down, as much as I was trying to deny it, that as long as Voldemort or me being a possible threat just for being who I was, wasn't something to take lightly. She knew that both of our lives depended on it. If I was ever found to be guilty of treason, it would have been my head. She undid the accident so that wouldn't be the result. And as much as I hated for it to have been that way, I knew it had to be. Because if they'd found out about us, they would have killed her. I couldn't have lived with that either."
George took a very long inhale, finally accepting it. With that, he walked away from me.
When they finally let me in to see Angelina, I still hardly recognized her. The richness of her skin had long since vanished and she was so skinny that I thought she might break had she tried to stand. Immediately my eyes flooded with tears. There was no reason I should have had to see her like this. There was no reason she should have had to go through this.
"I'm going to kill him," I said to myself, sitting at Angelina's side and gripping her hand.
"I'm going to kill my father," I said, promising myself. It occurred to me right after I'd said it that he still had possession of my wand.
"Don't do," came Lina's very weak and barely audible voice. My heart skipped a beat and I froze as I stared down at her with wide hopeful eyes. Lina's opened slowly.
"Oh god," I breathed, lowering my head to kiss her cheek gently. I was afraid she'd been in a vegetative state. I had been scared she would not wake up; the healers hadn't been very sure she'd have made it at all. She was in critical condition, so I composed myself and tried not to do anything more that might agitate her in the slightest. I heard an anguished sigh as Angelina lifted her arm with considerable strength to rest her hand against my cheek.
"No, baby, don't try and move," I said, gently placing her hand back against the bed. I looked and found her smile still extant, despite how incapacitated she was. She was the strongest woman I'd ever known. She'd been even weaker the day before, but she'd found the strength to get up and stab Pansy to death. Lina closed her eyes again. I dropped to my knees, still tall enough to reach her face and plant gentle kisses there. I couldn't contain myself anymore and sobbed.
"I'm so sorry," I choked out.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," I said repeatedly, gripping her hand. Angelina squeezed back, and though it wasn't very strong, I knew that she was in there, fighting, surviving. The weak body I was looking at was merely the vessel in which Angelina's resilient and invincible soul resided.
"I never should have fallen for you—then none of this would have happened!" I said, furious with myself, though I knew that was something I would never have been able to prevent.
"Don't try and tell me that it's not my fault that you're here right now," I said. I couldn't control myself anymore.
"Draco," I heard her breathe. I stopped panicking when I felt Angelina's slender fingers at the back of my head. She brushed her hand over my head slowly. I finally let it drop there and cried shamelessly as she comforted me. I proceeded to wait on her hand and foot, not allowing myself enough sleep to function like a normal person. When George came to visit again, this time with Harry, Hermione, and his parents and other siblings, I realized just how much Angelina meant to so many people. I watched Mrs. Weasley standing over Angelina like a fairy godmother, caressing her hair and telling her how much of a fighter she was. After I'd given Lina time with her other visitors, George approached me again outside the hospital room.
"We're not telling Angie's parents about any of this. She doesn't want them to know," he explained.
"What?" I asked, a bit bewildered.
"She told me," he said, and I was a bit surprised. As far as I could tell, Angie could barely muster more than three words at a time, yet she'd been able to tell George not to let her parents know she had nearly died.
"Why would she want that?" I asked.
"She's their daughter. Don't they care? They may not be here, but they have a right to know."
"It's what Angelina wants. She said she doesn't want them to worry, so keep your trap shut, got it?" George asked, before walking away from me without waiting for an answer. I turned around to see him walk up to Padma Patil, who took his hand as they left together. He was still furious. I could hardly blame him. Nobody really talked to me when they came to check up on Angelina, and I knew they'd all been thinking about how it was my fault she was even in the hospital. I'd never felt so much fault as I did when Mrs. Weasley glanced up at me before leaving Angie's side and a care package behind. Hermione had her arms crossed, looking at Angelina sleeping worriedly.
"Thank you," I said to her. Hermione looked up and about, wondering whether I was actually speaking to her. Ginny looked at me blankly, and I was at least relieved that she wasn't glaring the way Ron and Charlie were.
"Excuse me?" said Hermione slowly.
"Yes, I said, 'thank you,'" I clarified.
"I don't think anyone would have figured out where they were keeping her without you," I explained. I stepped around the bed to shake Hermione's hand. She merely leant into Ron, who put his strong arm around her protectively. Harry sighed and everyone's attention was drawn to him.
"Alright, let's clear the tension, yeah? Draco has done some stupid things, but I know he never meant for any of this to happen," he said.
"I won't deny that this isn't my fault, and I'm not trying to," I explained, "and I don't expect anyone in this room to just cozy up to me—not even Angelina. But I'm really trying to make amends. I'm on your side," I explained.
"How do we know we can even trust you?" Bill asked, stepping forth.
"There are Death Eaters out there waiting for you to get back to them and your father. They know about what happened and they want you back. They're trying to start another war," Bill explained, "as if we need another one so soon. You're just lucky we didn't lose anyone after all of this. And we didn't even destroy them all; some got away," he explained.
"You think I don't know what they want? It was me who found out what they were planning to do to your family. If I hadn't run into Ron that day at the Ministry—"
"Don't try and turn this around," said Bill rather loudly.
"Guys," Ginny cut in, raising both hands to signal for quiet. Angelina was resting.
"Right, well, you're welcome," said Ron before turning with Hermione to leave, the rest following. Ginny and Harry stayed behind and I watched them hold hands as they gazed down at Angelina.
"You know, I don't hate you, Draco," said Harry.
"It took a lot of courage to do what you did. You could've been killed without your wand but that didn't stop you from saving her…whatever it is you plan on doing, you'd better act fast because they'll find us all sooner rather than later," Harry explained.
"I can't do it on my own," I said, tacitly asking for help. Harry nodded before he and Ginny left the room, closing the door carefully behind them. I went to Lina's side and gripped her hand lightly.
"I promise, I'll never let anyone hurt you again. I will destroy them all, even if I have to die in the process." With that, I kissed Angelina's forehead for what I hoped wasn't the last time before disapparating to Blaise and Romilda's tea shop.