"Healer Clearwater, might I have a private audience?"
She followed Draco out into the corridor, and he told her, "Mr Potter is no longer under your caseload. He is now solely under my care."
Penny blinked. "Oh. Why?"
"Orders from up top, I'm afraid." He clapped her on the shoulder.
"That Mr Crocus, I swear…" Penny rolled her eyes and went back into the ward.
When he'd got back to the office, he paused by Anne's desk. "I am now Mr Potter's Key Healer," he snapped. "Send me his admission notes."
Draco used the next five minutes to compose tomorrow's surprise neuroanatomy test for the trainees before Anne returned with the records.
Now that he was taking over Potter's care, he reviewed and rechecked all the investigations. A reformed Malfoy had no room for error.
Blood, urine and tear analysis—normal.
Heart rate, blood pressure, blood oxygen—normal.
He had no detectable curses or poisons.
Allergies/adverse potion reactions: Nil. Mood Enhancement Potion—acute distress.
Of note, Dr Ubbly's Oblivious Unction had no effect.
In the loose filing section were reams and reams of drawings. Some pages were coloured red and labelled 'blood'. There were crude sketches of motorbikes, owls, woodland animals. More disturbing than this, however, were Potter's dream diaries:
I remember seeing goblin blood flowing like a waterfall, some snapped wands, the smell of rotting bodies, the taste of sick in my mouth. I didn't mind, because I was unable to feel any pain.
All around me was the smell of fear, and I just knew that I was going to die.
The dreams were many and varied.
Potter had chronicled bursts of green light, a flying car, a rat strangling him. Sleeping in a palatial bedchamber, seeing through the eyes of a great snake, murdering an old man. Flying across a tremendous black ocean, a woman screaming, a schoolgirl with bushy hair lying dead.
I dreamt of World War Two, of being hungry for death. Maybe I'm dying? Is that why I'm here?
And another:
Last night I dreamt that I met Death. He didn't speak, but I could read his mind. He said he had a job for me to do, and it would be quicker and easier than falling asleep. I woke up before he told me what I needed to do to get better.
Draco skimmed through mentions of tortured children, a howling wolf outside a giant castle, of having a family who loved and cared about him, and as much food as he could eat.
I dreamt that I had friends.
Merlin, at least something was positive.
When he was ten, Draco's dreams would have been similar. He'd never thought of himself as having anything at all in common with Potter.
On review of his older healing notes, Potter was no stranger to St Mungo's. Draco had avoided gossip by simply never entering the staffroom. It seemed he'd missed out on a great deal. Potter had suffered two head injuries in the past and got caught with some nasty hexes. It was a rather impressive record for the Head of the Auror Office. Half of his hair had been regrown after it was flayed off his scalp, he'd survived a Blood-Curdling Curse and Draco remembered patching Potter up after someone had cast a Bombarda just inches from him.
Beyond that, Draco saw records from Mother and the trainees documenting mishaps with accidental magic and falls from his stupidly fast broom. They often described him as a lively and polite individual.
Potter was clearly vulnerable. And Ginevra, who had vowed to stay by his side forever, had abandoned him.
He met with Granger in the Visitors' Tearoom after her next visit with Potter.
He bought a Cauldron Cake for Potter and his own lunch, and sat in a deserted corner. They'd run out of forks so he had to eat his jacket potato with a spoon, and that about summed up his life.
Granger approached him, and without so much as a preliminary hello, Draco said, "I am now his Key Healer. Tell me everything you know about the accident. Potter's notes were sparse on the details."
She yawned and dissolved a packet of sugar into her tea with her wand. "Nice to see you, too, Draco."
He was too busy feeling distressed at the disgusting food to be polite, and she continued, "Well, there was a duel in the Time Room in the Department of Mysteries—"
"Why would there be a duel down there?"
"Some people are interested in living forever, eternal youth, that sort of thing."
Nodding, he said, "Solve et coagula."
"Exactly."
"What happened next?"
"His colleague told me she used the Impediment Jinx to stop him being pushed straight through the experiment. Then she knocked Harry out, hoping to prevent any more damage to his brain. I gather more Aurors arrived and arrested the witch. I They took Harry straight here and that's all I know." She offered him an apologetic shrug.
Draco watched some visitors at a distant table whilst Hermione chewed her muffin.
"Is there anything you've thought of that you've not tried?" she asked.
"Yes." He didn't see why he should tell her.
"How about a Pensieve?"
Draco shook his head. "They're incredibly rare. And there's a high chance that he'll get upset and blow things up. His mind is damaged, and it's not a case of… someone reminding him."
"If I come across anything in my reading, I'll let you know." She got up and swung her handbag over her shoulder. "I'm sorry, I've got to get back to work."
"So do I. See you later, Granger."
She rolled her eyes at the use of her old name and left.
Sir Kildwick, one of the portraits, had no useful advice. "Mr Potter," he lectured, "should give, from himself, the plainest and fullest account he can of his complaints, without using any terms of art, or rhetorical terms that might mislead the Healers by their not having the same meanings to these terms."
The Department of Magical Law Enforcement was hardly any more useful. The witch who duelled Potter was in Azkaban and that was that. The motivation didn't really bother him, and he soon realised they were clueless with no helpful information.
He desperately needed Potter to get well and out of hospital, so he could move to France and have a nice quiet life before deciding what to do next.
He'd received an owl that morning from an Agences Immobilière in Normandy. The package contained photographs of a splendid home complete with a vineyard and swimming pool. Scorpius would love this one. There were delicate mouldings, baths with clawed feet, huge fireplaces, fountains, and wrought-iron balconies not large enough to stand on but decent enough for smoking.
He wrote back to tell them to keep looking. The pink velvet was deplorable and never before had he seen such a poky cellar.
Potter's room was silent; for once, the wireless was off. Cassettes lay strewn across the floor, black ribbon everywhere.
"Reparo," Draco said, pointing his wand at the tapes. The ribbons whizzed back inside, and he waved his wand so they surged back into their cases and settled into a neat stack.
"I'm going to die in this windowless room," Harry whispered, his eyes on the Thames, "I know I will."
"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard you say. And that's saying something."
Harry's eyes flashed to his, lit with rebellion. "I want my wand," he demanded.
"You can't have it."
He jumped down from the chair and stalked towards Draco. "Why not?"
"You're not well. You'll cause untold chaos. Can't have a revolutionary like you blowing up the Houses of Parliament, can we. Open wide and say 'ah'."
Draco went up to Potter's face, and they had a staring match, Potter's jaw clenched shut. After a few seconds—he refused to blink or look away—Potter complied.
The rest of the examination passed in silence.
"I miss magic," Potter said.
"Let me give you something that may help," Draco said, nose in the cabinet. He straightened up, uncorked the potion, and sniffed it.
"Do excuse me," he told Potter.
He pocketed it, strode up two flights and poked his head round the door to the secretarial office. "Call the trainees. Immediately. To the basement stairwell."
He waited for ten minutes in the bowels of the hospital, leaning against the bannister and tapping his wand against his palm.
The four Trainee Healers gathered, some out of breath.
"You," he said, turning to the youngest. "Recite the five Rs of healing."
"Right patient, potion, dose, route and time," she said.
He nodded and withdrew the potion from his inside pocket and held it up to the flaming wall sconce. They all peered at it, some of them afraid.
Good.
"Would anybody like to volunteer what this is supposed to be?"
A couple of them looked fascinated at the black stone floor, but Lancel rolled back on his heels and stuck his hand in the air.
"Yes?" Draco asked.
"Memory-Enhancing Draught, sir. Of moderate strength, sir."
Draco nodded. "Follow me," he said, and spun on his heel.
They entered the brewer's basement and he collared the first wizard he found. "You. Take me to whoever brewed this."
The man glowered at Draco, then the potion, and led them to a man at a workbench.
"Your name…?" Draco inquired, the trainees filing in behind him.
"Neil Mitchell," he grunted.
Holding out the potion, Draco asked, "Do you consider this to be your best work?"
The oaf pursed his lips at the potion, frowned at the small crowd, and shook his head.
"What would you venture is wrong with it?
The man took it and raised it up to the light. He then uncorked and sniffed it. "Not enough Madagascan periwinkle."
"Mistakes are easily made, however," Draco said.
The man's shoulders relaxed.
He addressed the group. "If a Healer gives this to a patient and they die, who is legally responsible? Euodias?"
"The Healer, sir," she said.
"And Miriam, what safeguards are in place against slapdash brewing?"
"Er." She turned bright red. "I—regular training? And, um… spot checks?"
"Tanwen?"
"Accuracy checks, sir."
"Correct," Draco said.
He turned to Neil Can't-Brew-To-Save-His-Life Mitchell. "Fetch the individual who checked this. Now."
The students glanced at each other as they waited. Mitchell came back with a lady.
"And what is your name?" Draco asked.
"Bronwyn Fuller. What's the trouble?"
He passed her the potion. "Would you be satisfied if I dispensed this to your mother?" She opened her mouth to say something, but Draco continued, "I wouldn't even give this to an elf."
She flushed red.
"This is for Harry Sodding Potter."
He turned to his students. "We won't be meeting in the seminar room this Wednesday. Instead, you will each give a three-minute talk on your suggestions on how we can reduce disastrous and avoidable mistakes in this sorry excuse for a hospital. Dismissed."
He addressed the brewers. "I need every vial from that batch vanished. And a dose of fresh, correctly brewed Memory-Enhancing Draught sent up to Ward 59 by close of business. Good-day."
The following day was just as fruitless as the previous one. They'd admitted a man suffering a botched Obliviate, and presumably would be with them for weeks, and Potter had had a poor reaction to the Memory-Enhancing Draught.
"You're miserable because of the potion," Draco told him. "Do you remember anything else?"
Potter shook his head, eyes wide and listless. "I had eighty-six bits of cornflake this morning. I listened to the first eleven songs on my favourite tape and read up to page two hundred and seven of The Hobbit. And I feel like shit, and my magic isn't working properly."
Draco jotted it down. "What do you mean, your magic isn't working properly?"
"I can do small things without a wand."
Draco regarded him for a moment. Potter's pupils were pinpricks amidst the striking green. "Show me another day when this potion has worn off. You're not well."
"So are you like a psychiatrist, then?"
"I don't think so."
"What sort of diseases do you help people with?"
Draco put away the Healing Records.
"On days where I'm on duty, all of them." He examined the potions cabinet for anything unacceptable and explained whilst he looked. "All Healers are trained for emergency situations and can at least stabilise someone until a specialist can be called in. But as a Mind Healer, I have specialist outpatient clinics to run, and inpatient wards to oversee. There are so many conditions relating to the brain. Balance. Mood disorders. Pain. Language. Senses. Learning. Behaviour. Grief. Of course there's a big overlap with curses and poisoning—those that cause lingering pain, love potions that won't wear off…"
He straightened up and saw that Potter was paying him rapt attention.
"Is that what psychiatrists do?" Draco asked.
"I dunno. Maybe a bit. You really enjoy your job."
"In a sense," Draco said, giving him a sidelong glance.
"When can I fly?"
"Merlin save me," Draco muttered to himself. He leant against the wall. "When you're home, you can fly."
Potter's lips twitched.
"And I know you're feeling better," Draco continued, "because you're annoying me on purpose."
Draco used Veritaserum to interrogate the Aurors guarding Ward 59. He discovered nothing of interest. Pansy wiped the last hour for him as he didn't want to risk botching up the Memory Charm. Better leave it to the Obliviators.
He held a multidisciplinary team meeting to discuss Potter's case, and got up to speed on the smaller details of Potter's confinement. Over his dead body would this end badly.
Draco was still learning how to react to Potter's odd behaviour.
"Malfoy!" Potter exclaimed, appalled. He leapt up, his comic book falling to the floor.
Draco approached him as though he were a skittish deer. "It's me, Draco," he said. "I bought you another Chocolate Frog." He flung it towards the bed and Potter caught it like a Snitch.
"Cool! I hope I get Snape this time."
Draco's gut clenched like a fist.
Potter gave him a crooked smile, then unwrapped the frog. "Sorry… You remind me of someone I don't, er, get on with very well. I don't always recognise you properly."
Draco busied himself at the potions cabinet, and twitched when Potter said, "Oh… I've got Professor Dumbledore again… Better luck next time."
"What potions have you taken today?" Draco asked, straightening up.
"Um… I dunno. A brown one." Potter grimaced and bit the head off his frog. "I never was any good at potions."
Draco felt purposely attracted to Harry's jaw, which surely meant he'd passed the point of total madness.
"I see. Let me take your temperature."
Merlin—he needed a day off. And a shag.
Potter complied. "It's a nice day," he said blithely.
"Mmm."
If Harry had noticed the raindrops on Draco's shoes, he didn't say anything.
Draco cornered a trainee as he trudged his way up to the consulting rooms and said, "Tell Brian that the colour of the Regenerative Draught is making me lose the will to live."
Sitting at the desk, he eyed the stack of Healing Records with trepidation. Draco was quickly coming to terms with the reality that this Harry was not the Potter that he knew. Harry wasn't confident, commanding, or fearless. And although he was still tall, he seemed smaller somehow, and afraid.
He'd assumed that this was some kind of side effect of losing one's mind. But now he faced the alarming alternative that this was just what Harry was like as a young teenager. It didn't fit with his own schoolboy memories.
He was pulled out of his reverie by a knock at the door.
"Come in," he called to his first patient.