Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter franchise, nor anything affiliated with it.
Draco's POV
It's Saturday morning and all I want to do is sleep. Last night I wasn't able to find a prefect who could take over my patrol shift for me, and Hermione had already gone to bed when I realized that I hadn't asked anyone. That meant I had to go myself because I didn't want to shirk my duties as Head Boy. I spent almost twice my normal time hobbling around the school and was only prevented from doing the rest of it because Headmistress McGonagall found me wandering the hallways by myself and said that she would finish for me.
"You didn't choose to get injured, so you might as well do your best to get better soon and walking around excessively is not going to help. I'll finish the rest of your patrol for you, go get some rest."
After that, she stalked away and I headed back to my dorm to fall asleep on my bed at a very ungodly hour.
My alarm goes off and I want nothing more than to throw my phone across the room. I turn it off as quickly as I can and try to go back to bed. I feel so tired but the longer I lie in my bed the more restless I get. I soon throw my blankets off of me and sit up trying to rub the sleep from my eyes. I swing my legs off the bed and stretch them out a bit before getting up and leaning on my bed post for support. I lean on the wall and walk over to the window to open the curtain in the hopes of waking up faster.
The rising sun does not disappoint me and I open the window itself to breath in the fresh and crisp morning air. I let the cool breeze wake me up and I feel much more alert. With a start I remember that today is the that Potter is coming over. I quickly close my window and move as quickly as I can to the bathroom so that I can shower before Hermione wakes up.
I hate showering now because it's a balancing act. If I slip now it's so much harder to catch myself before ending up on my rear end, and it hurts a lot when I do. I have to be very careful and make sure that none of my conditioner falls out of my hand when applying it to my hair so that the floor of the shower is as non-slip as possible. Not to mention, I also have to try and hurry up so I don't spend as much time on my feet. For a while there I had to transfigure one of my soap bottles into a stool so I could rest periodically.
I get out of the shower and I get dressed into some more comfortable, but still presentable, clothes.
When I'm done I put my braces on and pack my bag for today. Even though Potter will mostly be staying with Hermione, Ginny, and I in our common room, I don't want to have to come back to my room in that time because I'd rather limit the opportunities for Mr. Golden Boy to have pity for me. I make sure to pack all my potions, my phone, my laptop, my earbuds, my textbooks and notes, and my journal in addition to the stationary and other small items that were already in there like pens and pencils.
I pick up my crutches and walk out of my room with them. When I get to the stairs, I tuck them under one arm and lean on the railing to get down. It's about 7 am which means I probably slept in for about 15 minutes if I factor in the additional time it's been taking me in the morning to get ready. It also means that Hermione isn't awake yet and I have another hour and a half before anything is going to happen.
Since I'm always up first, Hermione asked if I could put some food in the fridge into the oven on a timer to be ready for when Potter and Ginny come over. I do it as quickly as I can, but I can't help but marvel at the efficient way she organized everything beforehand so I barely have to do anything. I walk over to the couch and sit while waiting.
I pull out my laptop and check my email to see if I got any stuff in my Inbox since last night, but there isn't anything new. I then mentally check to see if I have any urgent homework assignments but come up with nothing. I just browse a bit on my computer trying to find something to do and eventually end up playing an online version of mahjong. It's actually very fun and makes me feel as calm as I do with Sudoku. They both require the player to be observant, but in Sudoku it's a matter of finding an unknown number, whereas mahjong requires the player to find the matching pieces in a way that will let you get all of the pieces. When I've decided that I'm kind of bored I check the time again and see that it's only 8 am, leaving with another half hour to figure out something to do before Harry and Ginny come over.
I don't really mind hanging around with Potter much now because I have no reason to hate him now, but Ginny can be kind of annoying. Maybe it's because she's a year younger and I don't really understand most of what she's talking about. Most of the time she talks about stuff that only the girls will understand or stuff that only the Gryffindors will understand, though she does discuss Quidditch fairly often which is nice. She sometimes, however, pokes fun at me for once being a Death Eater which I'm unusually sensitive about. She can be very immature like that, but thankfully she isn't like that all the time. I just hope she doesn't pull that stuff today because if she does, I won't be responsible for any dead bodies that turn up over the next few days.
Hermione soon comes down the stairs and interrupts my brooding thoughts. I put my laptop away at this point because it would be bad form if Harry came in earlier and I was acting like this was so boring and he wasn't worth my attention.
"Good morning Draco, how are you?"
"I'm fine, how are you?" I ask in response.
"I'm okay, although I didn't sleep very well because I just had this feeling like something's going to happen and it won't be very good. Maybe it's just a PMS thing, but it's just worrying." I nod in sympathy. The last time I had a feeling like that, my mother died. However, I don't tell her that as it would probably just make her feel more stressed.
"Don't worry, even gut feelings can be wrong. Anyway, Potter's coming over and the four of us are pretty competent wizards and witches so I doubt we'd be unable to deal with whatever fate throws our way." I say to try and relieve her of her worries a bit. She comes over to my couch and sits down next to me. She leans her head on my shoulder and grabs my left hand to squeeze it.
"What time did you go to bed last night?" She asks me. I feel guilty about the answer, but I don't want to lie either so I just reply quickly.
"Um, around 1:45 I think. What about you?" I try to make it sound as if it's completely normal in the hopes that she wasn't paying attention to the number.
"Draco! 1:45 is really late, what were you doing?" It seems I failed, but I answer her question anyway. In that time she's let go of my hand and it feels cold now. She is now turned to face me and has her lecturing face on.
"Well, I forgot to ask a prefect to take over for me last night and I didn't want to wake you up so I went out myself. I would have been longer, but McGonagall found me when I was about two thirds of the way done and said she'd take over. By the time I got back it was around 1:35, and by the time I got ready for bed it was around 1:45." She looks at me with a disapproving expression but leaves the topic for the time being. Instead she goes back to her earlier position and I feel warm again.
We sit like that in our common room with the sunlight streaming in through the window and casting it's beautiful glow on our surroundings, just sitting there together and letting our worries go. Eventually Hermione gets up when we hear a knock on our portrait door.
She walks over to open it and lets Potter and Ginny in. We invite them in and Hermione exchanges hugs with both of them while I struggle to get up leaning on the armrest, and shake Potter's hand. I give a nod in the direction of Ginny and she replies in kind. Potter carries a small tin in his hand which he gives to Hermione.
"Mrs. Weasley found out I was going to see you guys today so she made us a quiche to have for lunch. It's spinach and ricotta. By the way, she says hi"
"That's great! Please tell her I said hi and thanks." She she then places the tin in the fridge to keep it fresh for now.
We then sit down together with Potter and Ginny on Hermione's couch, me on my own couch. Hermione is getting the food from the oven as well as dishes for all four of us. She comes back fairly quickly with a tray of bacon, sausages, fried egg, some crusty buns, and a few small waffles. She also has a large jug of milk and four glasses, sets of cutlery, and plates.
We all serve ourselves when she hands us the dishes and eat in relative silence so that we can get to talking as quick as possible. The food is absolutely excellent and I wonder how she got all this food and prepped it last night on such short notice. The eggs are just right, the bacon and sausages are juicy, the bread is really nice and crispy as well as soft, and the waffles are so fluffy. When we're all done, I arrange all the dishes on the tray and Hermione takes it back to the sink. When she comes back we start talking again.
"So Hermione, why couldn't we meet up in Hogsmeade? I must say I'm kind of curious to know and I'm also kind of concerned. Did one of you get injured or something or was it from the airport incident?"
"Well, that's Draco story to tell." She then turns to me. "Do you want to tell them or do you want me to?"
"No it's fine." I say. "I can say it."
"Well first of all Potter, it is because I got injured during the airport incident. So you are correct. Do you want to hear the specifics?"
"Yes please, if it's not too much of a trouble." He says. I can tell his curiosity is piqued now. Of course it is, even now when he's an adult he still makes his business to know everything he can. A small voice at the back of my head makes a rueful comment about how he gets even more interested if it involves me and I have to keep the smile off of my face.
"No, it's fine. So as you know I injured my leg and broke my ankle because of the rubble that fell after the explosion. The explosives are a type of explosive that affects the air around us. Hermione managed to place a shield charm around the bomb that would lessen the impact of it when she threw it, but it didn't quite work. There were some small pockets where the explosion was too much for the magic and i happened to be in a section where the charm wasn't as strong. The air was partially vaporized and there was a sudden drop of oxygen that altogether damaged my lungs almost like if it was microwaved but not as intense.
Then afterwards when you arrived on scene and I collapsed in front of you, it wasn't just because of the sudden loss of adrenaline, it was also because one of the Death Eaters fired a curse at me. I know you know that already since you were the one who spotted him, but I'm pretty sure they never told you what kind of curse was used. The curse is unknown, but it essentially was supposed to deteriorate all the joints in my body. Thankfully he missed slightly and only grazed a lower part of my legs lessening the effects of it and is only limited to my legs." I continue on to how it impacts why we are here and not in Hogsmeade.
"I now have a bit of trouble breathing and can't do much physical activity. I also have to wear braces and let it heal naturally as the curse blocks against any spells that could heal it. It also meant that we couldn't heal the fracture in my ankle by magic. I can take some small painkiller potions and some basic strengthening potions, but that's about it. I have a bit of trouble walking and because of that, it would have been kind of hard to go all the way down to Hogsmeade. Sorry about that, it would have been nicer to meet in the village." I can tell Potter is shocked by all this and Ginny looks the same since she didn't know the full story.
"Wow Malfoy, that's some pretty intense stuff. I can't believe that all of this was caused because of the Death Eaters. I feel pretty angry that the guards managed to let the Death Eaters escape from Azkaban though. We really didn't need that many deaths in the muggle world and a clean up of that scale. You have my sympathies Malfoy, I hope you heal soon."
"Thanks Potter." I notice that Potter is looking at me the same way Hermione did when we found out together what happened. They both had the same guilty look and it unsettles me to have Potter looking at me like that.
"Potter, don't feel guilty about what happened, I can tell from your face that you think you're partly responsible. You aren't. You did your job, and you did it well. What's done is done and we can't change it." He looks kind of surprised that I could tell what he was thinking but recovers quickly.
"I didn't realize you could read people that well. You do it so quickly as well, that's kind of cool." I notice he's avoiding the topic but I let it slide.
Hermione senses the built up tension from the heavy topics and decides to get us to play a game.
"Hey guys, do you want to learn how to play Jenga? It's a game where you have a tower of blocks and we all take turns removing one of them that isn't on the top in the hopes that it won't fall down. The person who knocks it down loses and of the the remaining people, the person with the most blocks wins. I have it in my room upstairs."
Ginny finally speaks in response to this. "That sounds great Hermione! Let's do it." Harry and I nod in agreement, so Hermione goes up to get it. She's gotten it and is back down in less than 2 minutes, but it feels like forever because of the air of tension between the two Gryffindors and me.
"Here we go, I'll just stack up the blocks first and then we can play." She then proceeds to tip the box upside down and remove the box from around revealing a stack of small rectangular blocks.
"Alright I'll start to demonstrate. When it's your turn you can remove any block unless it's on the top by pushing or pulling it out from the tower. If you touch a block, you have to take it." She then proceeds to push a block out and puts it front of her.
We take turns removing blocks, but I seem to get all of the really hard ones. The tower is finally knocked over when Ginny tries to remove one on the side of the tower. It's just a little too much weight for one side and it topples. The shock of it actually falling down makes all of us jump a bit, but we soon start laughing about it. In the end I win with 11 blocks. Harry and Hermione are both second with 10 each, and Ginny obviously lost. I'm just glad I didn't lose.
We play another couple of rounds before we decide to break for lunch. Hermione gets up and brings back the quiche from the fridge and a knife to cut it up. We all take some napkins and put our pieces on them instead of plates. We finish about half of it before we decide we've all had a lot. Hermione then takes it back to the kitchen and wraps it up for us to heat up over the next few days. WHen she returns we discuss what we want to do next.
"Hermione, do you have any other games we could play?" Ginny asks her.
"Yes, I have a game called Scrabble which is where you get seven 'letter' tiles and use them to make words, a game called Monopoly where you collect property and build on them which gets very competitive, and a card game called UNO where you get rid of your cards as fast as possible. If you want a longer game Monopoly would be better, but UNO and Scrabble can be played multiple times."
"I'm really interested in Monopoly. I think Dudley got it once for his birthday, but I didn't get to play with it. It sounded like lots of fun."
"Okay, as long as no one objects we're going to play Monopoly then." Says Hermione.
She then leave to go upstairs and get the game. She comes back down with a large flat box that is covered in green and red. She take off the lid and pulls out little cards with question marks, treasure chests, or red on them. There was also a large stack of paper money in different colours, little metal tokens, and green and red houses. She sets up the board and takes the role of the bank. Potter chooses the dog token, Ginny chooses the cat token, Hermione takes the thimble token, and I take the top hat token.
The game takes about 2 and a half hours since we couldn't play very well, however I caught on pretty quickly. It was mostly just finance and investments which I'm pretty good at. I won with $6,472 since I managed to collect the two dark blue properties, the three yellow properties, the utilities, and the two brown properties. Hermione came second, Ginny was third, and Potter went bankrupt.
Once we've packed up Monopoly, we decide to play a game of Scrabble which Hermione wins. I was close to winning, but in the end she had a much better vocabulary and understanding of the game. I had a lot of fun overall and it was nice to try playing muggle games. They are a lot more fun than wizarding games, and much less intense. Wizarding chess can be very stressful, so these games were a nice change from that.
When it's around 5 pm we decide to go to the Great Hall for dinner since most people will be in Hogsmeade anyway. We walk over rather slowly on account of me, but Hermione tries to distract them by pointing out different things on our way so they could remember old memories allowing me more time to catch up and not feel too bad about lagging behind them.
We finally get to the hall and it's very quiet. There are maybe a total of 30 students, and most of them are in first or second year. There is no one at our table which was great because I did not feel like talking to anyone else besides Hermione, Potter, or Ginny. Harry loads his plate with the food at the table, but especially with treacle tart, which I find out is his favourite dessert.
"Wow, I haven't had this food in almost two years. I've missed it so much. The house elves cooking here is just so wonderful. Ron would love to have..." He trails off awkwardly and doesn't finish his sentence. Hermione tells him it's alright and that the old Ron would definitely wished he could be here. Ginny quickly changes the topic to avoid causing too much tension between us.
We talk a bit about Peeves and how he was so ridiculously annoying during school. He's mostly left the student's alone this year, but he'll cause trouble every now and then when it's particularly boring in class or the hallways. I think he isn't as invested in his pranks because he knows that a lot of students are kind of depressed from the Battle back in May, and some of them panic when he causes chaos. Though I didn't think it was possible, he has toned down his tricks because of that, though he hasn't stopped entirely.
We finish our food after about 45 minutes of talking and just stay there for another half hour or so. By the time we even think about leaving, it's almost 6:45 pm so we head to the main entrance to say goodbye to Potter since he still has to get back to Hogsmeade so he can apparate back to the ministry.
Thankfully the walk from the Great Hall to the entrance hall isn't too long, so I don't have to much of a problem walking there with my crutches. We pass by McGonagall and the three of them chat with her while I just kind of wait there to the side. We soon move on after they say goodbye and eventually get to the entrance hall. I love the artwork in here as there is lots of it in many different mediums. There are sculptures, paintings, stone-mason work, and carving in the space around us.
We say goodbye to Potter and he leaves when we finish. We watch him walk back to the village till we can't see any further. Ginny leaves to go back to her dorm and leaves Hermione and I. We carefully make our way back to our dorm. As we turn a corner to take a shortcut, someone jumps out in front of us and hits Hermione with a stunning spell. She crumples on the floor and I stare in shock at her unconscious form. I start to feel panic rise up inside of me but I fight to push it back down and keep a level head like she would have done. I turn to look at the intruder and I'm surprised to meet the slightly crazed gaze of Ron Weasley.
He stands in front of me in all black robes with his hair slightly messy. He has a crazy smile on his face and starts to talk.
"I told you I would find you and make you pay for what you're doing to Hermione. You're brainwashing her into loving you when she should be with me. You're destroying her life and I'm here to stop you." When he finishes his little speech, he socks me in the jaw. It reminds of when Hermione did that to me in third year, but there was so much more malice in this one and I know that Ron won't stop tonight until he gets what he wants.
I fall to the ground and my crutches fall next to me. He kicks me in the stomach and I curl up in a ball to prevent him from hurting me too much. He kicks my back and hips instead as I try to move away from him. I'm too scared to cry for help so I just let it happen. I'm done fighting him. I just don't have any energy to fight back today. He kicks me again and I hear a crack followed by a sharp pain in my hip. I think he may have broken it. I resist the urge to cry out as I know it will just fuel his passion even more.
Soon he stops beating me up but all of a sudden I hear him whisper Sectumsempra and my back feels like it's been split open. I just feel shock at this point. The memories of that incident in the bathroom comes back to me. I feel the hopelessness flooding my bones. The feeling that I'm going to die today returns and I feel it taking over. Just as I think he's about to cast the spell again, I hear a voice behind me.
"What on Earth is goi-. Oh my gosh." Followed by a very calm but worried Stupefy. I panic at first thinking that Ron has taken care of a possible savior, but I hear women's shoes next to my head and I raise it just enough to see McGonagall standing above me.
"Draco listen to me. I need to heal your wound on your back or you'll bleed out, but I need to know what spell he used on you."
"Sectumsempra." I whisper to her. Her eyes already flooded with worry widen further, but she just starts muttering the counter spell I heard Snape say that time about 2 years ago. I feel a feeling of relief as the pain vanishes in my back, but with that relief also brings a sudden urge to sleep. I'm so done with fighting it, so I let it lull me to a safer place as the Headmistress keeps calling my name in distress.
Author's Note: I'm sorry again about the later updates. I had the ideas for this chapter down pat, but I had trouble actually writing and I kept expanding it as I was writing. Thanks for all of your support guys. I love the feedback I've been getting, please review! Thanks so much, have a great week y'all. Till next time.