Healer Jacobson was a woman that was as punctual as she was serious. Draco became all too familiar with this fact as he awoke to the grave woman bustling about his suite just after nine the following morning. The small fiend Minni was wringing her hands in the corner, no doubt nervous of the peevishness their intrusion would inspire. He felt a small measure of satisfaction when a tiny squeak escaped the small elf as her eyes shifted from the healer and met his. Draco knew it was too much to hope that she wouldn't do it again. The elves, with Minni at the helm, had taken to doing as they pleased unless expressly asked not to. Something he had no interest in correcting. Until that very moment
"Mr Malfoy, it would appear that you're awake at last." Jacobson's eyes were trained on a peculiar looking instrument at the foot of his bed.
He watched with mild fascination as she prodded and poked at the white box. "It would appear so."
The strange box gave a loud beep before a series of lines appeared on the inlaid black square. There was something distinctly muggle about the contraption as he'd certainly never seen anything like it. Draco shifted into a sitting position as he considered the woman before him. Jacobson was certainly an anomaly. An American healer on British soil toting about muggle contraptions to treat her wizarding patients. Perhaps most confounding of all though, was the extremely short-cropped hair that spiked from her head. Witches tended to favour longer styles. The sharp bob Pansy had donned since their youth was still considered most risque.
She gave the contraption a satisfied nod before she turned her assessing gaze on him. "As I explained yesterday your organs are at risk of failure without serious intervention. This is a monitor," she gestured to the strange box, "it makes readings of your organs, primarily your heart that will be useful in monitoring your condition. It is a muggle instrument that has been modified for use in healing."
Draco's gaze remained trained on her, the tightness around her eyes and the strain in her jaw giving away her true feelings. She thought he would object to the treatment in light of her revelation. He made a lazy gesture for her to continue.
A muscle in her jaw twitched before she did, "I won't go into the details about how it works. Is there a piece of jewellery that you wear every day?"
Images of the Malfoy signet ring flashed in his mind. His father had refused to part with the family heirloom. Draco wondered where the ring had ended up. Where Lucius had ended up after they'd killed him.
"No," he said on an exhale. What did it matter if he adorned his body?
Jacobson hummed as she considered him. "Very well."
The healer turned away from him to dig around in one of the numerous bags she'd brought along. She turned back to him a few moments later brandishing a plain silver band.
"This ring is connected to the monitor. I would like for you to wear it for the course of your treatment. While it won't be able to provide as accurate a reading should you leave your home it will alert me to any serious changes in your vitals."
Draco made no move to accept the proffered ring. It was a plain silver thing that spoke of utility. Something you'd expect to see in the desperate clutches of a grimy orphan. How apropos.
"The ring is made of goblin wrought silver Mr Malfoy." Jacobson bit out, the words forced through clenched teeth.
Draco remained silent as she struggled to maintain a grip on her fraying professionalism. Jacobson's righteous indignation stirred the threads of longing in him for a witch he'd resolved to never think of again. A witch with warm brown eyes and a penchant for saving lost causes. A witch whose screams haunted his home and his mind all these years later and drove him far away from the west wing.
Draco erected a small cabin and shuttered the thoughts inside before they could drag him into their depths. He outstretched his palm to her, "It'll do, I suppose."
The cleansing breath Jacobson sucked in whistled in the otherwise still room. Draco eyed the silver ring that sat on his palm.
"Mr Malfoy, as I am to be your healer for the foreseeable future, I think we should get a few things out of the way."
He finally looked up at her dramatic pronouncement. Jacobson seemed to have reeled in her ire, the cool facade of her professionalism squarely in place once more. A tendril of amusement curled around him and threatened to tilt his lips upwards. He'd missed the ease with which he could so thoroughly infuriate people. Especially her. Draco slammed tall ivy laden walls around the cabin before any more thoughts could escape the cracked door.
"I am a healer who uses muggle technologies and techniques alongside magic to heal my patients. Granted, that may have been something I should have mentioned before accepting your offer, but I will be forced to refer you to another healer if this continues to be a problem. No matter the number of galleons you've paid to my employer."
She would be huffing at this point, her chest heaving in righteous indignation, her warm eyes on fire; lit by a combination of the almost wild magic that surrounded her and barely contained fury. His temples throbbed with the effort of placing a containment dome around the walls and the cabin. Jacobson just stared at him placidly.
"Has there been a problem, Healer Jacobson?" Draco asked, his tone mild despite the blinding pain in his head.
She blinked at him as the exasperation was smoothed from her brow, replaced by an intriguing combination of embarrassment and surprise.
"Does it need to be on a specific finger?"
Jacobson cleared her throat. "Uh, no. Whichever you prefer."
Draco nodded and slipped the awful ring onto his fourth finger where it automatically shrunk to a comfortable fit.
A loud crack resounded around the suite as the heavy doors to the hallway were slammed open unceremoniously. Two Aurors entered the room, wands drawn and pointed at Jacobson, the obvious first target upon entry. The Ministry dreg that had propositioned him in Azkaban emerged from between the brainless duo. Two elves trailed behind them looking particularly aggrieved but unable to stop the invasion despite their pleas.
"How fortunate for us that you were at home, Malfoy." It was the dreg that had spoken. His voice had the same oily quality that oozed from the man himself. It wouldn't surprise Draco if this man had been subject to the crushing force that came with being under Lucius' thumb. He certainly seemed the type that his father would use.
Draco's lack of response sent the man's greedy eyes flitting over the contents of the room. His eyebrows lifted as he took in Jacobson and the whirlwind of paraphernalia strewn around her.
"Peculiar Malfoy. I wasn't aware that you could afford private care." The man unfurled an ugly grin at Jacobson as his eyes raked over her loose robes. "I certainly thought we had rectified that after the war."
Draco remained quiet. The man was fishing for a violent reaction he'd never get. Draco had learned of the Ministry's plans for reparations during those early months in Azkaban. Though he'd been prohibited from receiving the Prophet, Prichard had been only too happy to relay the Ministry's seizure of the Malfoy vault for reparations. It had meant little to him in the dank cell he had no hope of escaping. If galleons could have leveraged him from that hell hole some enterprising sod would have curtailed the Ministry's seizure and tried to bleed him directly. Confirming the looting had been easy enough with Gringotts sending over enough documentation to fill a small room following his release.
The Malfoy vault had been but one of a great number of vaults that the family owned. Other vaults that had been acquired through marriage—a tasteful means of exterminating once-powerful bloodlines—and maintained separately. Mentioning the glaring oversight would only play into their hands.
Draco refocused on the disgusting man before him. Let them think he was scraping together his sickles to afford the care that was necessary due to their negligence.
"I also find it most peculiar Malfoy, that you need healing at all." The man walked further into the room and positioned himself a scant few feet away from Draco's bed, eyeing Draco with thinly veiled malice. "I hear you were a regular in the infirmary at Azkaban."
Rage surged hot and vicious in Draco's veins. A distinct beeping noise emanated from the direction of the equipment at the foot of the bed. Draco's hand itched to curl around his wand despite the still tenuous grasp on his magic. Jacobson interjected as the beeping became more persistent.
"Mister…"
"Alderton," said the humanoid lump of sludge.
"Mr Alderton," Jacobson sounded as close to placating as Draco had heard her, "Mr Malfoy has suffered extensive injuries
at the hands of your Ministry and the associated prison." There was a venom injected into the last word that Draco had not been expecting. "It would be in your best interest to tread very carefully, Mr Alderton."
Alderton's gaze sharpened as it snapped to Jacobson.
"Your Ministry is on very thin ice where St Mungo's is concerned," said Jacobson, her voice suffused with steel.
Alderton shifted, his spine stiffening and shoulders rolling back to push his chest forward. Draco watched the changes with growing interest, the Aurors shuffled uncomfortably in his periphery. He filed the silent exchange between Alderton and Jacobson away for later examination.
Alderton cleared his throat and turned his attention to Draco. "Well Malfoy, the Ministry didn't expedite your release for you to lounge around in mommy and daddy's mansion. We've come to collect."
Draco swallowed the festering anger that threatened to bubble out of him with some difficulty. Alderton's claim that his release had been anything but an exercise in neglect and abuse was maddening. Three years in Azkaban without a trial or access to a solicitor, two months for his subsequent conditional release to be actuated and another four days for the Ministry to send Alderton to fetch him. Expedited indeed.
"Well Mr Alderton, I'm afraid my patient is in no condition to be going much of anywhere for the foreseeable future," Jacobson interjected smoothly.
Colour mottled Alderton's cheeks; his head was morphing into a violent puce cauldron, invective threatening to boil over from his thin cracked lips at a moment's notice. Alderton sneered, as he struggled to swallow down the abuse he was prepared to hurl.
"I see," said Alderton, "And this is St Mungo's official position?" There was an underlying current to Alderton's question, a threat cloaked in the tatters of civility.
Jacobson's casual acknowledgement in response mutated Draco's curiosity into a savage thing. There was a pressure point he could exploit between the Ministry and the hospital. Something couched in mutual hostility that he could grind his knuckles into until it produced exactly what he wanted.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
The clicking of heels across the stone floors of the library was the only indicator that Pansy had returned. Healer Jacobson had already left for the evening, having equipped his suite with several strange boxes meant to monitor his condition throughout the night. Draco fiddled with the plain band of silver. There were only two rings he'd ever expected to wear and this was certainly not one of them. She stopped directly beside him, joining him to look out at the pitch-black that had descended over the grounds.
"You know Pansy, these frequent late-night house calls might lend themselves to rumours."
He eyed her carefully. It was jarring to see her here, the violent red of her dress loud against the dull tones of the library. Three years of the greys of Azkaban had muted the memory of her. It had diluted her into something wholly unlike the woman that stood beside him. Though, he supposed, she'd also had three years to grow.
"Tongues wagging about our illicit affair is nothing new," she said, one eyebrow arched in challenge.
Draco rolled his eyes, "Ah yes, what a torrid romance we shared."
There had always been rumours about the two of them being together, something Pansy and her parents had been eager to encourage. And while the glut of her early attentions in the halls of Hogwarts had appeased his ego, he'd never been able to muster even a passing fancy for her. Then their sixth year had rolled around and her misplaced ardour had morphed into an implacable friendship that allowed him a tether to sanity.
"Though I was thinking more along the lines of you being a vampire haunting my manor." He couldn't help the smirk that tilted his lips if he tried. He'd missed this. Missed her.
"Har har. Three years of incarceration has done nothing for your humour."
The weight of her gaze was as unsettling as the hush that followed. He felt stripped bare by her appraisal, a doxy being dissected under her scrutiny. Draco cast his gaze through the window once more, his eyes unseeing.
"There's colour to your cheeks," she said baldly, her weighted gaze scratched against his skin, "Something of an improvement I suppose."
A sigh whistled out of him, his words a mumble, "I've contracted a healer for treatment." There, he'd said it.
Another beat of silence, "Good."
The tension that had pinched his shoulders unfurled, an unfamiliar warmth blooming in his chest.
"Though something must be done with your hair, Draco."
He turned to face her again as she grappled with just how to describe the haphazard mess atop his head. Pansy was beautiful now. She'd grown into her upturned nose and wide mouth, styling herself just so. Yet the sparks of attraction still escaped him.
"It's horrid," Pansy said at last, as she fixed him with a stern glare. "We'll be rectifying that as soon as is practical."
. . . . . . . . . . .
Sunlight battered his eyelids as a hushed conversation filtered into his sleep-addled mind. It appeared that restful mornings had once more been relegated to a time that he was unable to access.
"Do you think he'll be able to make a full recovery?" A woman's voice laced with concern.
A sigh.
"So far he is doing well, better than expected actually," another woman.
It was most peculiar, having multiple women in his suite. And why were they whispering?
Sun assaulted Draco's eyes as he cracked them open to survey his bed chambers. The two miscreants, Pansy and Healer Jacobson, stood off by the armchairs, reviewing a piece of parchment. It was an almost pleasant surprise to find that Pansy was still as meddling as she was snarky. Something delicate and hesitant bloomed in his chest as it occurred to him that she still cared, truly cared.
But hope was dangerous. For the first time since her death, he allowed himself to feel the absence of his mother. The slowly unfurling petals were easily crushed beneath the full weight of his grief. The absence of physical pain was more of a curse than the actual pain had been. He wasn't equipped to deal with it, any of it. Emotions are a weakness boy! The crack of a snakehead cane against already bruised knuckles. Hot breath soured by old whiskey across his face. You do not cry. You do not feel. A mantra as they welcomed a madman into their home, scrawny fingers biting into his shoulder.
Draco wondered if Jacobson would be able to see the grief festering under his skin. If she could see the shape of his mother gouged from his chest.
He closed his eyes once more and wished for sleep that never came.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The remaining weeks of his treatment had passed in a haze of potions and Pansy; pushy, persistent Pansy. She'd seemingly moved into the manor without his notice. Instructing the house elves, conspiring with Jacobson, arranging various appointments that he ought to keep. It should have been infuriating, the magnitude of her presumption. He should have tossed the meddling witch out on her scrawny arse the moment he'd realised. Except he hadn't realised, not really. Not until he'd passed a mirror and not immediately recoiled at the man that stared back. The two witches had managed to scrape almost every scrap of Azkaban off of him, leaving behind someone he wasn't altogether familiar with, not anymore. Someone with coiffed hair, manicured nails and well-tailored clothes. Someone whose frame no longer spoke of emaciation but subtle strength and good health. His eyes, however, had escaped their renovation unscathed. Still reflecting the flat grey of his Azkaban cell. Even the fear that had coloured them closer to mercury throughout his sixth year had been swept away.
Draco stood in the atrium of the Ministry of Magic with his fists stuffed into the pockets of a pair of expensive trousers from one of Pansy's excursions on his behalf. The ridiculous statue at the centre of the bustling hall held his attention. It was the immortalization of the public's idealized image of Potter and his ginger familiar, thwarting the forces of evil while Granger made eyes in their general direction. His stomach churned. It was the epitome of blasphemy. Granger's face couldn't even make that expression. Even the regrettable era of her pining for Weasley hadn't seen such a desperate expression. Yet, he continued to stare. The revolting sight was preferable to the alternative, he could feel their stares crawling along his body.
Draco's solicitor stood placidly beside him, unbothered by the surplus of attention. It was no surprise that whichever DMLE lackey had been sent to fetch him was nowhere to be found. The official summons had arrived in the claws of a harried barn owl. It demanded his presence in the Ministry's atrium at precisely nine in the morning on the final Monday of March. A quick check of his timepiece would reveal that it was well past that time but he resisted the urge to verify. He'd been on time after all.
Another ten minutes had elapsed before Draco's inspection of the statue came to a grinding halt by none other than boy wonder himself. It was Potter's aggravating voice that announced his arrival before the rest of his loud presence could make an appearance.
"Malfoy!"
By Merlin, Potter sounded winded. It took a great deal of effort for Draco to suppress the immediate irritation that Potter's voice inspired. Sending Potter had to be some sort of test. Which meant failure wasn't an option. Draco would play nice with Potter if it meant he never had to see the inside of that cell again.
With his irritation firmly sequestered, Draco turned to greet the other man. It was hard to miss the changes in Potter. While his hair was still the consummate rat's nest, someone had wrangled him into proper robes and shoes. Draco wondered if perhaps the female Weasley that had mooned for him throughout their tenure at Hogwarts was responsible for the change. Somehow he doubted that. Weasleys and good taste were mutually exclusive concepts.
"Potter." It was as much of a greeting as he deserved.
Potter raked a hand through the mess atop his head before he righted the infamous spectacles perched on his nose. The resemblance he bore to Jacobson died a quick death with the action. It had been an insult to the woman to suggest—even within his own mind—that she bore any resemblance to this man.
Potter cleared his throat. "Right, um, come with me Malfoy. We'll be working together going forward so I'll have to get you caught up once you're done with the solicitors."
The lifts were packed with all manner of bland Ministry employees with their drab robes and worn appearances. The ride up to level two was excruciating. The staring was something Draco was learning to ignore but it was hard to be in such a confined space with so many people. They crowded in on him from all sides, a fleshy horde far too close for comfort and far too comfortable with their proximity. It was a struggle to maintain his composure as he exited the lifts. The desire to rid himself of their touch, to peel off his skin a persistent buzz in his brain.
Potter led them down a long hallway before he finally stopped at a slightly ajar oak door. The bespectacled ingrate poked his head inside unannounced.
"All ready in here?"
Potter must have gotten an affirmative answer as he pushed the door wide to reveal a sight that tipped Draco's world off its axis. His heart stuttered in his chest before doubling its efforts, slamming itself relentlessly against the bars of his ribs. He was positive everyone present could hear the organ's concerted effort to break through the confines of his chest, that they could see the slight tremor in his hands. Impossibly tall ivy-covered walls gave an almighty groan before crashing down around a sloppily built cabin. The front door creaked open and he was staring at Hermione Granger.