Draco felt like he was blurring. Fading away like the edges of an old photograph. His wand was still warm in his hand, but his hands seemed miles away from his body. Draco staggered toward Potter's limp body, resisting the urge to retch.
What spell was that? What did he do?
"Oh, fuck. Fuck," Draco wheezed, crouching down next to Potter. Something black and sharp had pierced deep into Potter's chest. The cloth around his robe was turning wet with blood. Potter's eyes flickered in a panic around the room, seeing nothing.
The room was spinning. Draco couldn't breathe.
He was back in the Manor, in the ballroom, crouching on the ground. Begging the blurry, hooded guests for help as they stared back at him. There was blood on the floor. Whose blood? A puddle of red on the ornate tile. The pool of crimson glass reflected the pinpricks of torchlight surrounding them.
"Get help," Draco thought he might've been saying. "Help."
But no one moved. The bodies were frozen. All of them looking at him, faces morphing into disgust. He was embarrassing them. Draco felt the shame burn on his face as he pleaded silently, but they had already turned away, back to the festivities that the Dark Lord had prepared for everyone else.
Potter gasped, and Draco was flung back into the present, back into the classroom on the third floor.
He couldn't fix this. The scent of iron and metal swirled around him. Potter was going to die.
Draco saw himself rising unsteadily to his feet. He saw himself racing out of the classroom, down the hallways, racing to the dungeons. The world was fuzzy around the edges as he skidded to a stop in the center of the Slytherin common room.
"Draco? Draco! What happened?" Pansy was somehow in front of him.
Draco noted distantly that the room was mostly empty. Blaise was sitting in one of the big armchairs, silent as he observed them.
Pansy grabbed Draco's hands. Her brown eyes jumped from his hands to his face.
"You've got blood on your hands? What happened, tell me now."
"Defense classroom." Draco could barely string the words together. Was he really here? Draco reached out to grab Pansy's sleeve, the cloth rough beneath his fingers. Blood smeared onto her robe. The torchlight throwing shadows onto the two of them was sending her alarmed face in and out of focus.
"Potter, he had a lesson with Potter. Something must've gone wrong." Pansy motioned toward Blaise, who's face had gotten steadily more apprehensive. "Get Theo."
"What was it?" Pansy shook Draco again, trying to get his attention. Deep frown lines creased between her brows.
"A curse...I think," Draco said, stumbling a little as he pulled away. "We gotta go now."
Pansy swore. She turned to someone Draco didn't recognize—a tiny, weedy thing, with a mop of brown hair and wide, terrified blue eyes.
"Kellen, get your brother. We need someone who knows their way around curses."
"Okay." The kid spun around and disappeared into the hallway.
"I don't think I should go." Blaise was back with Theo. The two of them looked uneasy, wands in hand but reluctant to move. Theo looked especially uncomfortable.
"You fucking coward." Pansy made for the door. "Then at least tell Vaisey to meet us in the defense classroom."
Draco followed her, losing track of the conversation already as the words echoed meaninglessly around him. Pansy was nearly running now, her black robes flapping around her ankles. Draco heard a pair of hurried footsteps join in behind them. They were halfway up the second flight of stairs when he felt Blaise put a light hand on his shoulder.
"Mate, you're gonna pass out. Breathe."
Draco barely heard him. His chest burned. It felt like a stone had lodged itself beneath his lungs.
"It's fine. Potter won't die," Blaise continued murmuring under his breath.
If Potter dies, serves him right. Draco thought bitterly, the pleasant thought distracting him for long enough that he was able to draw in a tight breath.
"Merlin, what did you do to him?" Pansy gasped, fumbling with her wand when she turned the corner of the classroom.
Potter was still on the floor, curled on his side, eyes shut and face ashen.
The puddle of blood had spread further, now a deep red stain on the smooth stone. His robes were askew, glasses nowhere to be seen. One hand was stretched out on the floor toward the door. The other was wrapped around the shard pierced deep in his chest.
He didn't seem to be moving.
Blaise's horrified expression mirrored Pansy's.
"Fucking hell," Pansy said as she took a deep breath. She knelt onto the floor beside Potter, cautiously feeling for a pulse.
Theo and Vaisey arrived seconds later. Theo took one look and backed out into the hall.
"I'll keep guard," Theo muttered as he edged the door shut.
So this was the Kellen brother. Draco watched as Vaisey and Pansy got to work, the two of them moving in tandem as Vaisey began diagnosing the curse while Pansy pulled potions from Vaisey's medical bag. Draco sank down onto the ground, back pressed against the wall. He pulled his knees up and wrapped his arms around them. His head dropped forward, blocking out the scene as he focused on trying to breathe. Potter would be fine. He'd survived worse, what was one more stupid curse?
"Vaisey Kellen. Decent sort. He's graduating. Heading into St. Mungo's as a healer next year, probably." Blaise crouched down next to Draco. "I think I preferred him as a Chaser though."
"Mm."
Someone was talking in urgent, low undertones. Draco couldn't make out any of the words.
"You alright?" Blaise asked, voice cutting through to Draco.
Draco's nails dug into his palm as he clenched and unclenched his fists. Blaise, ever observant.
"Hey, we all get like this sometimes. Can you focus on my voice?"
Draco attempted to focus on what Blaise was saying. It sounded like he was speaking from the end of a very long tunnel. The normal baritones of his voice seemed tinny and jarring, not the smooth, melodic timbre Blaise was known for.
Blaise conjured a piece of ice.
"Here, can you feel this? What's that like?"
Blaise touched it gently against the back of Draco's hand. Draco flinched. The cold was almost painful. His senses were in overdrive. No amount of Occlumency could've stopped him from feeling it this time. Draco let the sensation of cold travel up his arms and up his body, driving out the static in his head.
"That's fucking cold, Blaise." Draco flipped his hand over and uncurled his fingers. Blaise set down the cube of ice into his open palm.
Blaise's eyes pierced knowingly into Draco as Draco rubbed the ice between his fingers. Draco refused to make eye contact as the water dripped onto the floor, mixing with the red on his hands to form a dirty pink. The room smelled like copper. The familiar metallic tang of blood. No screams. Just silence.
The ice slipped from his hand. It shattered as it hit the ground. Draco watched the dozens of tiny sparkling shards skitter across the floor. Draco could just barely make out the silhouette of Vaisey working furiously a few feet away on some kind of complex wandwork.
"How do you normally deal with panic attacks?" Blaise was talking again, this time moving to block Draco's field of vision. Blaise's dark brows were furrowed in concern, brown eyes roving over Draco's face.
"What? I don't, not really. I count," Draco admitted. He concentrated on the corner of Blaise's navy shirt collar.
"Count?"
"Tiles. Lines. I practice Occlumency."
"I see." A long pause. Then, Blaise remarked, "I haven't seen you in weeks, you know."
"Been swamped."
"You don't look well."
"Shut up, Blaise. You don't care," Draco muttered. "Potter's busy dying and you're saying I don't look well?"
"You haven't been eating."
"Fuck do you know."
"Stop pushing people away when they worry about you," Blaise was whispering furiously now. "We grew up together. You think I wouldn't notice when I see my friend disappear slowly from everyone's lives? Pansy cried for three nights straight the last time you two talked. I still don't know what you told her."
Blaise let the words hang in the air. The two sat there, Draco afraid to look anywhere but at Blaise's shoes. His heart hurt. The silence was only punctuated by a hiss of breath from Vaisey as he extracted the shard.
"Just...this isn't sixth year again, alright?" Blaise pressed a hand to Draco's arm, wrapping it briefly around his wrist.
"Potter's fine. He's coming 'round," Vaisey finally called out, leaning back onto his heels. The boy's pale face was glowing with a mixture of sweat and pride. "Damn, I'm good. Good practice."
Pansy flicked her wand and the puddle of blood vanished from the floor. Vaisey conjured a pillow and tucked it under Potter's head before tipping a small vial of dittany over the wound. Draco couldn't see Potter well from here, but he could tell that at the very least Potter was breathing now.
"Not fucking practice. That's Harry bloody Potter," Blaise snapped, whipping around to face the duo. "I don't understand why we didn't head straight for the infirmary or to McGonagall."
"Are you kidding me?" Pansy hissed back. "Can you fucking think?"
"This is some curse, by the way, Malfoy." Vaisey wiped his fingers and ran a hand through his hair. His hair looked like an unrulier version of Potter's—brown and curly, strands sticking out here and there. "I've never seen it before."
"I don't know what happened," Draco replied flatly. Pansy remained expressionless as she wiped her wand with a rag.
"Looked like obsidian, the shard. Some kind of dark magic. The curse made it so that you couldn't remove the obsidian without rupturing his entire circulatory system."
"I suppose I ought to thank you," Draco said, getting to his feet, still half in shock. He nearly killed Harry fucking Potter. With dark magic. And it hadn't even been on purpose. The realization was finally sinking in, and a new horrified feeling was crawling its way into his stomach. "I owe you."
"Problem isn't solved yet," Pansy interrupted, flinging the rag onto the desk. "If Potter squeals, you're all fucked."
"What do you mean?" Vaisey looked so bewildered that Draco had to glance at Blaise to see if he was making the same disbelieving face that Pansy was.
"She means that I dragged you all into this mess. If any professors or students caught wind of this, what would it look like? I was the last person to be seen with Potter, and he comes back clearly severely injured and raging about how I attacked him. What do you think that would mean for me, an ex-Death Eater given one too many chances here? And what would that mean for you, someone involved directly in trying to cover it up?"
"Oh," Vaisey said. "That's rough, yeah."
Draco stepped toward Potter, finally letting his gaze settle on Potter's now peacefully unconscious face. Some blood had returned to his cheeks, and he no longer looked on the brink of death. His robes were still cut away, chest exposed. A ropey scar in the size and shape of a jagged key now marred his tan skin. Draco dragged his gaze away. So Potter lived. Again. Draco felt a hint of guilt creep up his spine. He really hadn't meant to curse Potter, this time at least.
Blaise sighed and rubbed his face. "We can Obliviate him, threaten him, or bribe him."
"Best to Obliviate," Pansy said.
"How are you going to hide that scar? He's just going to wake up and be all, oh, never noticed that?" Blaise drawled.
Draco was sorely tempted to agree with Pansy.
"Wait. Wait," Draco finally said, stepping between Blaise and Pansy. "Let him decide for himself."
Before either of them could respond, and before he could lose his courage, Draco cast Rennervate.