A/N: *tiptoes in while you're sleeping*
*tucks the chaptere under your pillow, just like the tooth fairy*
*smoothes your hair to soothe you when you fuss*
*creeps away before you can wake*
*whispers "Love you." from the doorway*
xx-Kitten
Tip of My Tongue
By Kittenshift17
Chapter 43
"Mistress! You is home!" Della exclaimed excitedly when Hermione stumbled through the Floo, having been forcibly ejected from the hospital following her own discharge. They made her leave, forced her out the door and refused to let her stay, even for the duration of what classified as visiting hours. Evidently it didn't count as having completed hospital discharge unless a body actually left the hospital upon being given a clean bill of health. They wouldn't let her keep loitering about, wanting to hold her son now that he was trapped in quarantine and she'd been discharged. They'd said she was only making things worse because Aurelian and Scorpius both cried for her, wanting to be held, but she was no longer allowed inside the protective enchantments, lest she contract the pox all over again, and it was torture on everyone in earshot. Listening to her precious babies cry had torn at the heart of the healers and the nursing staff, though why they imagined their pain trumped her own, Hermione had no idea.
It was still visiting hours, confound it all! How dare they throw her out?! Just because she hadn't left the hospital in weeks thanks to her own convalescence surely didn't mean they had to toss her out on her ear. It was rude and unreasonable and, frankly, heartless. She just wanted to hold her son. What did it matter if she caught the pox again? Wasn't having them once supposed to prevent a body from getting the virus a second time? Wasn't that how building immunity worked? Surely it wouldn't do any harm to let her hold her little boy now that she was cured.
"Hi, Della," Hermione sighed morosely, dropping her overnight bag on the floor by the fire and stumbling to the couch where she immediately dropped down on it, heartsore and weepy.
"Mistress, you is unwell?" Della asked, picking up her bag and fetching a blanket before touching a hand to her forehead and feeling her temperature as though she hadn't just spent the past several weeks in the hospital under the constant observation of medical professionals.
"I'm cured, Della," Hermione sighed. "But they won't let me see Aurey. They kicked me out."
"Master Aurelian is still unwell?" Della confirmed.
"He is," Hermione nodded, sniffling hopelessly and burrowing into the cushions. "So is Scorpius. They said I had to leave because it was upsetting everyone to hear them cry."
"Oh, Mistress," Della sighed sympathetically. "Della makes you something. Makes you well. Mistress waits here."
The elf patted her cheek adoringly before she disappeared, leaving Hermione to mope on the couch, the occasional tear trickling down her cheek while she stared into the softly crackling fire, utterly forlorn.
~O~
Meanwhile, Draco Malfoy dragged his sore and sorry self back to the office carting along with him the hard-captured Starthorn Dragon he'd promised Scamander. The beast hadn't come easy. In fact, he was pretty sure he was bleeding in several places, and the stink of burned human hair and singed flesh pervaded his nostrils, but he'd caught the dragon and by Merlin, he was going to get the bastard thing back to the Analysts so they could get on with their work and start turning a profit for the department again, lest they bankrupt his family vault while he continued paying back the monthly paycheques he was issued just for the sake of keeping them in business.
"Bloody hell, Malfoy!" Scamander exclaimed when Draco apparated directly to the middle of the office since it was the largest space and would have to do for a moment until the enclosure to house a dragon for studying could be prepared if they hadn't already seen to it.
"Where's Rollins?" Draco asked through gritted teeth, hissing when the Starthorn lived up to its name and flicked its tail, sending thorns resembling stars hurtling against Draco's back.
The hunting gear he wore was too thick to be penetrated by the missiles, but that didn't mean they didn't hurt like hell when the heavy thorns collided with his back.
"Blimey, you're bleeding. ROLLINS! Get out here and get your dragon!" Scamander shouted down the hall before hurrying ahead of Draco as he continued dragging the cage, evidently intent on preparing the enclosure himself if need be.
"What's going on? Holy shite!" Rollins appeared, munching on a half-eaten banana and looking comically terrified when a star shaped thorn sailed by his left ear.
Draco ignored all the fuss as everyone came to investigate the noise when the dragon that he had captured roared at the top of it's considerable lungs, rattling the windows in their panes and the doors on their hinges. He simply didn't care. It'd been a tough fight to subdue the creature, and for those long minutes while he'd engaged in a battle of wits, will, and stamina with the beast, he'd forgotten about the terrible anxiety and fear hanging over him that his children and their respective mothers would all die and leave him alone in life once and for all. But the fight was over now, and the anxiety had returned like a migraine, pounding through the back of his skull. And so, he ignored the fuss even once the dragon had been dealt with and Scamander and Lovegood made a meal out of healing the gash through his left eyebrow and across his left cheek, and over slathering burn salve across almost the entire length of his right arm when his hunt garb had caught the fire and melted to his skin in several places.
They bandaged him up and scolded him for getting hurt again, but they didn't have Granger's knack for it – probably because they weren't calling him ten kinds of utter moron. They praised him on getting the job done, and exalted at having their best Hunter back and told him they really had missed him while he'd been gone before hurrying to reassure him that if he needed more time and needed to leave to be with his boys and his ex-wife, he was welcome to take as long as was necessary.
Draco barely heard them. He just felt numb. After the pounding heart and shot of adrenaline from the fight to subdue the dragon, everything else – this hell he'd been living these past few months – just felt numb. Devoid. Empty. He wanted it to end. He just wanted everything to be alright and for it all to just go away so he could feel something other than this towering dread consuming his every waking moment. He was certain he hadn't slept a full night since Astoria had been kidnapped and things had only gotten worse and worse.
He just wanted it to end.
Against the protests of his colleagues, once patched up, Draco returned to the hospital, his heart heavy. The nursing staff fussed over him some more when they spotted him and the state he was in. They fussed while he stood at the edge of the bubble and peered into the sterilized chamber encasing his sons as they slept.
"Any change?" he asked hollowly when one of the nurses blotted at his eyebrow and his cheek where they wept – cracked open despite Lovegood's effort thanks to his heavy frown as he longed to hold his children.
"The boys are a little better," the nurse nodded. "They're definitely on the mend. Another week or two, Merlin willing and they might even be ready to be discharged so that they can continue the rest of their recovery at home."
"Are they still contagious?" he pressed. "Can I hold them?"
"They're still contagious I'm afraid, Mr Malfoy," the young witch smiled sadly. "But there's good news, you know?"
Draco was barely listening to her, going through the motions and expecting her answers before she gave them. His eyes drifted from Aurelian, who grizzled in his sleep, tossing fitfully, to Scorpius, who laid deathly still and pale, looking for all the world like he was dead already despite the weeping, swollen purple blotches he'd obviously been scratching at. Habitually, his gaze drifted to the right, to Granger's separate bubble before his numbed mind slowly registered that her bed was empty. Her things were gone. The flowers and well-wishes she'd amassed had been cleared away.
"Where's Granger?" he asked, his heart beginning to pound, his eyes frantically searching for her.
"Mr Malfoy, everything's…"
"WHERE IS SHE?" he shouted, hurrying in the direction of the bed she'd occupied for so many weeks. "WHERE'S GRANGER?"
"Sir, if you could just calm down," the nurse tried to be patient but Draco's hysteria was growing by the second and he turned to her, seizing her shoulders and glaring down into her upturned face, shaking her slightly as though the answer might rattle right out of her like the last penny from a piggy-bank.
"Where. Is. She?" he hissed, fearing the worst.
Merlin, he couldn't go on if she'd succumbed. He couldn't face raising Aurelian without her.
"She was discharged earlier today, Mr Malfoy," the nurse said gently. "She's been sent home. She is healed."
"Fuck," Draco swore, dropping his hold on the poor, harried medi-witch and charging for the door, intent on seeing her.
"Sir! Mr Malfoy, that's not all. Your ex-wife…"
But Draco had already forgotten about the nurse and raced out the door, directly to the Apparation Station where he twisted on the spot and apparated away, straight to Granger's back garden.
~O~
Hermione grizzled miserably from the couch where Della was trying to force another cup of tea and a back-rub on her when the door to the garden was forcibly flung open. Looking over tiredly, she watched the father of her son charge into her house, his eyes darting around frantically before he met her gaze.
"You're home," he said, not even bothering to close the door or kick his boots off before he hurried to the couch where she was curled under a blanket.
Hermione didn't resist when he threw himself down on the couch next to her face before he reached over, hauling on her arms and dragging her into his lap, his arms curling around her tightly. After so long staring at him through the quarantine bubble protecting him and the rest of the world from the Dragon Pox she'd contracted from their son, it felt good to have anyone touching her for something other than a medical reason. If one more person took her blood pressure, she might scream.
"You smell terrible," Hermione complained after a moment, burrowing her face into his neck and wrinkling her nose at the intense smell of dragon, melted flesh and burned hair.
Malfoy's laugh was hollow when it came, and Hermione burrowed into him a little closer when his arms tightened around her until it felt like she was being squeezed in a steel vice. He didn't say anything or protest her accusation, and that more than anything told Hermione just how stressed he was and how relieved he was that she, at least, had been healed. She'd seen it every day when he came to St. Mungo's and was forced to watch his sons through the protective wards, leaning on them with his hands pressed against them, desperate to get in, rather like a child pressed to the glass at a zoo exhibit, craving entry heedless of the danger.
"You're alive," he said eventually, after the longest time of simply holding her tightly as though he'd craved the feel of holding someone – anyone – in his arms until his heart could heal even just a little bit.
"Yes," she nodded, her eyes closed as she rested her cheek against the top of his shoulder, not much interested in letting go, herself. They couldn't hold their sons, and so holding each other would have to do for the time being.
"They let you out," he went on, pointing out the obvious.
"They kicked me out," Hermione corrected him. "Discharge from hospital can't be marked as complete if the patient doesn't leave. I wanted to stay with the boys."
"They're asleep," he told her quietly. "They were sleeping when I stopped by."
Hermione nodded miserably.
"Is there any change?" she asked.
"They said they might be able to let us hold them in a week or two. Apparently, they're on the mend, though they didn't look it. Aurey was whimpering in his sleep, and Scorpius was as still as a corpse…"
The agony in his tone brought her undone and a wretched, rattling sob tore from her lungs before Hermione broke down in tears, crying on his shoulder and clinging to him desperately; a lifeline in the storm of emotion, fear, and anxiety plaguing her. She just wanted her baby to be healthy and happy and safe. She just wanted her son to come home.
Her heart broke anew when she drew in a ragged breath between sobs, trying to get her emotions under control, and she heard the soft sniffle he emitted, making her realise that Draco Malfoy was crying, too.
