A new award was fighting for space on my desk. It arrived just this morning; a bawdy, 12 inch gold-plated statue of two serpents winding around a cross in the familiar medicinal symbol, the Caduceus. I pursed my lips, noting how it stood out amongst my other ordinary desk items; the same old Pukwudgie paperweight, a picture of my parents with my daughter at Christmas, and next to that: the blaring black print of a pile of divorce papers I had yet to serve.

The story behind the divorce papers was surprisingly related to the award. Over the past four years I devoted my time to werewolf mood stabilization medicine- something that I was personally invested in, but which would also benefit countless other people. My husband Len had kindly agreed to be a part of my study. After numerous trials, my drug was declared a success. Every werewolf who participated in the study reported improvement in overall mood and temper control, with one exception. Len. I was forced to face the reality that the beast inside him wasn't a beast at all. His temper unfortunately belonged to the human side of him, and could not be fixed with any drug I could make.

I shoved the divorce papers into my bag just as a woman entered my office. The young woman had shoulder-length walnut brown hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. A small drawstring bag dangled from her knuckle. It took me a moment to recognize her as Cora Nygard, the mediwitch that had been my assistant four years ago, who had taken over Astoria's care. The job kept her busy enough to keep her away from the hospital most of the time.

She eyeballed the 12 inch Caduceus on my desk and smiled. "I came to say congratulations on your lycanthrope calmative, but it seems MACUSA beat me to it!"

I smiled back at her. "Cora! I haven't seen you in…"

She sighed, shoulders drooping. "I know. I've been away for so long. But I've heard you had a daughter!" She perked up. "You and Len must be over the moon."

My smile twitched. "Yes, well, Len's still adjusting." My pregnancy had been a surprise to us both. Len had been "adjusting" to it for the past four years, and quite poorly.

"Listen, I cannot thank you enough for your referral to the Malfoys," she chattered. "I was able to move out of that dingy apartment and get a house all on my own in Manhattan."

Hearing the name Malfoy felt like someone had dropped a stone right on my stomach, but my genial smile never faded.

"That's great, Cora. How… how are they?" I asked. Not a day went by that I didn't think about Astoria, Draco, and Scorpius. I restrained myself from checking in on them for four years because I still felt guilty about what transpired on that stormy night. Whether Draco loved his spouse or not was beside the point that what we did was adulterous and wrong. And whether I still loved him after all these years was something I couldn't allow myself to think about for too long, for I knew I would go insane thinking about a married man I simply could not be with.

Cora's lips pressed into a line. "The wife passed away two weeks ago. The husband dismissed me immediately after."

Cora wasn't aware of how well I knew Draco and Astoria, so she delivered the news very bluntly. I had to stifle my floored reaction.

I cleared my throat. "Astoria is dead?"

"Yeah, from that terrible blood curse," Cora added. "Can't say I'll miss working for them. I mean, she was the same age as me but always talked to me like I was stupid or something. The husband was alright I guess, but then again, he barely spoke to me and spent most of his time in his study. I think they had something against Americans."

My mind was going a mile a minute at these little snippets of information Cora was feeding me. "Possibly," I muttered.

"I'm definitely looking forward to some new work," she said, and then paused. There was a pause as Cora stood before me in my office, looking like she desperately wanted to say something. She seemed nervous.

I picked up on her sudden mood change. "Is something the matter?" I asked.

Cora winced, and her eyes darted all around my office. "Well, you see, I'm worried about the husband. I figured I should talk to you about it."

I stiffened. "What is it?"

"I'm not sure if you picked up on this while you were there, but it's pretty obvious that Mr Malfoy likes to keep to himself. And frankly I'm concerned about his mental health now that his wife's gone," Cora confessed. "And then…. There's the matter of his arm…"

"His arm?" I was growing very concerned.

"I only saw it once, when his sleeve slightly rode up," Cora explained, wringing her hands, "But he's got this… scary tattoo, like the kind they say evil wizards have. And it looks bad. I got this horrible feeling when I saw it, 'cause I knew right away it was infected. Like, skin-turning-black kind of infected. Whatever it was, it's way beyond my skill level. So I figured I ought to tell somebody, and you're the most experienced Dark Magic healer on the entire continent..."

My stomach sank. Draco's Dark Mark has become infected?

"So he's just going to let it go untreated?" I asked, appalled.

"I suppose so. I feel bad for their little boy," Cora said solemnly. "But… I suppose it's really none of my business. In fact, I was just on my way to surrender that portkey to the MACUSA office." She gestured to the small drawstring bag she held.

"Oh, I can do that," I said hastily. "I, um, I actually have an interesting file for you to take a look at, if you have the chance. It's a cruciatus victim."

Cora jumped at my proposition. "Sure thing! Man, I'll be glad to see any patient as long as it's not another blood curse. I've had enough of that for a lifetime!" She dropped the drawstring bag into my hand.

I immediately recognized the weight of the Ring of Ataraxy.

I thought I was going to throw up the second I arrived in that familiar white foyer. I had wasted a couple hours pacing in my office considering the pros and cons of seeing Draco again. I thought I had gotten over the urge to hurl, but that tumultuous portkey ride had unfortunately brought the feeling back.

I reached into my medicine bag and swiped a bit of anti-nausea medicine over my tongue, and the urge to throw up over the pristine marble tiles subsided.

What will he think when he sees me again, completely uninvited? I shifted worriedly in my clothes. I wasn't wearing my white Healer robes this time, as I could wear whatever I wished at the hospital now. I wore a knee-length cream colored skirt and a long wool coat over a white turtleneck, which was suitable for the chilly New York springs, but was almost too warm for the piercing sunset coming in through the tall windows in the French Chateau.

I found myself without the slightest idea as to what to do next. Should I march straight to his study? He might not even be home right now. I would be better off just calling a House Elf-

I glanced at the Ring on the foyer table. Better yet, I should take the portkey back home. Draco won't want to see me. This was a mistake-

I needn't have to worry about that at all, for in an instant, Draco was at the top of the stairs, chest heaving like he ran there.

A long navy blue coat was draped over his broad shoulders, making his already statuesque silhouette even broader and more impressive. I knew by now Draco had to be about twenty-nine, and the age suited him so finely it made me forget to breathe. His hair remained smooth and platinum, and his face was ever so hardened by age and years of isolation and melancholy, but yet softened slightly by surprise at the sight of me. There was no question; he looked spectacular. Like he was always meant to be this old, and he had now reached the apex of his attractiveness.

Then again, I always did have a thing for older men, I realized, standing like a dumb deer below him.

Draco's throat bobbed as he looked down at me. "What are you doing here?" He asked in a clipped tone. His deep voice was like hearing a familiar song.

"I talked to Cora," I replied, my throat dry and trembling, "I came to see if you were alright."

Just then, I noticed Draco's left arm was in a rudimentary sling. He definitely noticed me looking, but made little effort to conceal it.

"Alright?" Draco echoed, frowning slightly. "Let's see. Astoria, who was more like an ill-natured roommate to me than a wife, has finally passed away, cursing me until her very last breath." He glanced at his sling. "My Dark Mark is rotting, so I can't even work. I spend my days toiling around this Chateau as sober as a fucking stone." He noted my puzzled expression and sourly added, 'Rehab. Thirteen months sober."

My chest ached with a mixture of pity and guilt. "You could have asked me for help. Why didn't you call me?" I asked, fighting against a lump in my throat.

"You want me to beg you to stay again? That's all I've ever done, Erica, and yet you always leave. Why would my rotting arm make things any different?"

"My circumstances have changed," I said bravely. "I could actually help you."

Draco looked down at me from the staircase with careful eyes, not sure if he should trust my words or not. "You have something of a savior complex, you know."

"And by accepting your suffering, you have a victim complex," I replied, growing irritated that Draco wouldn't accept my help already.

"You're as sharp as ever, I see."

"Let's cut the chatter. Let me see your arm."

Draco's sour expression tightened. His eyes narrowed into slivers of metal. "I'm beyond help. Don't waste your time on me."

I looked up at him from the foyer. "It wouldn't be a waste. It wouldn't be a waste at all."

His arm was bad. No, worse than bad; it was terrible. The surface layer of skin on his left forearm was flaking off around the outline of the tattoo, making his arm raw. The "ink" itself, which I suspected was not ink at all but actually some kind of parasitic curse, had ingrained itself deep into Draco's flesh. The blackness was gradually spreading into his arteries and veins, creating winding black designs nearly all the way up to his elbow.

I set up my note taking supplies beside me on the dining room table, simultaneously kicking up a layer of dust. I sputtered and readied my enchanted pen to take notes for me.

"What are your symptoms?" I asked Draco.

"Shooting pains," He drawled, "A dull, constant ache… in the morning, I have chills, and in the night, I have a fever…" he trailed off, glaring at the enchanted pen that transcribed his every word with a scritch-scratch-scritch-scratch. I plucked the pen from the air and held it in my hand to quietly write the notes myself.

"Do you know what made the Mark suddenly change?" I asked Draco, to which he replied a flat, "No idea."

"Did you do something to aggravate it, perhaps?"

"You mean, did I try to remove it?" Draco shook his head. "No. I did nothing of the sort."

I marked the information down. "When did the symptoms begin?" I asked.

"About five years ago."

I abruptly stopped writing. I had to fight the urge to slap Draco upside his head. "Five years?" I echoed. "And you never thought to tell me about this? I could have done something sooner. Then maybe it wouldn't have gotten this bad." I snapped the pen down on the dining table. "You idiot!"

Draco looked at me calmly. "Our relationship was complicated, Erica. I didn't tell you because I didn't want to make it seem like I was begging for your attention again. Especially because the last time we saw each other, you were running away from me after we-"

"I remember," I interrupted, cringing. I was wondering how long it would be before one of us inevitably brought that up.

"I would have asked you for help. But I didn't want to make you obligated to do something you didn't want to do." He gave me a knowing look that made me feel strange. I had pushed him away too many times. So he did as I wished and left me alone. My god, has Draco actually changed? He's so self-aware it's jarring.

"What a stupid thing to say," I said. "I want to help you. I have always wanted to help you, and I always will. Asking for help does not make you a bad person."

"...I suppose not," Draco said, his voice tinted with melancholy. "But there are many, many other things that do make me a bad person."

"Like what?"

Draco rolled down his sleeve, securing the sling around his left arm once again. "Like being relieved that Astoria is dead," he stated. "Daphne nearly tore my hair out for not shedding a tear at the funeral. She also wanted to take Scorpius from me." He frowned distantly. "I probably should have let her."

"Why would you say something like that?" I asked.

"I'm not fit to be a father," he announced. "You know that, the Greengrasses know that, and even Scorpius knows that. He's just five years old and prefers to be with the House Elves more than with me." Draco spoke confidently, but there was an underlying sadness to his words. Like he had just decided to give up.

"Be patient with him," I advised. "He's just lost his mother."

"The relationship between parent and child is complicated, Erica. You wouldn't understand."

A scoff escaped my lips. Draco raised his eyebrows.

"I… I actually have a daughter now," I said softly, humbly.

Draco blinked. I don't think I'd seen him look so genuinely surprised in a long time- it was so out of character for him, I nearly laughed.

"How old?" He asked.

"Four."

Draco stalled for a moment, paling slightly as he did math in his head. "And she's not-"

"She's not yours, Draco."

He sighed. I wanted to ask if it was a sigh of relief or disappointment, but I kept my curiosity down and changed the subject instead.

"I'd like to study your Mark," I said. "Perhaps try to remove it once and for all. There's no guarantee I'll be successful, but… I would like to try."

Draco looked at me with careful eyes. "And what if you can't?"

I didn't have a simple answer for him. From what I saw, the Mark was gradually spreading, and I had no way to stop it. If things kept progressing the way they are, Draco would likely die a slow, painful death before Scorpius was even old enough to go off to school. I had given my fair share of bad news to patients before. But I couldn't bring myself to say it to Draco.

"...Only time will tell," I said with neutrality.

He walked with me back to the foyer where the Ring of Ataraxy waited for me. "When will you return?" He asked.

"Tomorrow," I replied.

"Really?"

"Yes," I affirmed. "Nothing will keep me from coming back. I promise."