Chapter Two: Shocks and the Dreams

Draco stared passively at the psychiatrist, who was tapping his pen against a clipboard covered with notes. "So, Draco, how is that new medication working out for you? Do you think you're ready to go back and see your friends?"

Draco shifted on the couch, which was so soft that it seemed to be sucking him in. He looked out the window at the rain. The psychiatrist sighed heavily. "Doesn't your education matter to you? Don't you want to make your parents proud?"

As if a muggle would know anything about my education, Draco thought, and almost smiled. Almost. "Your… Parents told me that the last thing you said to them was something about a… Boy?" Draco returned his gaze to the psychiatrist. "Who was this boy?

Draco continued to stare hard at the psychiatrist, feeling almost angry. Kiyoshi was not a boy. Kiyoshi was his friend.

"How did this boy make you feel? Angry? Afraid? What did he do to you?"

I don't know, Draco wanted to scream. I don't know what he did to me, how he made me feel. All I know is that I want him to do it all over again. He closed his eyes for a moment, to clear his thoughts, and when he opened them again, the psychiatrist was scribbling something down on the clipboard.

"Draco, I really think we're making progress," The psychiatrist said, standing up and holding his clipboard against his chest. "I'm going to prescribe shock treatment. It's nothing to be afraid of, Draco, and I think it will help you. With that and a little more therapy, you'll be back in school in no time. Doesn't that sound exciting to you?"

**

As he rode downstairs in the elevator, his mother patted Draco on the shoulder and smiled gently, a habit she'd picked up since they'd taken him out of school. Pat, smile.

"The doctor said you're making progress," His mother said, releasing his shoulder and fussing nervously with her hair. "Wait until your father hears. He'll be so pleased."

Draco, as usual, made no comment. Pleased was not a word one would use to describe his father. Especially not since Draco had stopped talking; Lucius wanted nothing to do with his son after he'd found that he didn't respond to threats and verbal abuse. Draco thought privately that his silence intimidated his father, finally faced with something he couldn't bark down. The thought made him feel powerful. He wished fervently that Kiyoshi could see him now, able to stand up to his father after years of submission. And all he'd had to do was shut up.

His mother sighed, sounding mournful. Draco looked at her. She smiled at him and patted his shoulder. Pat, smile. Pat, smile. Pretend like everything's okay.

During the ride home, Draco's mother turned to him and asked, "Would you like to eat dinner with your father and I tonight? After all, the doctor did say that you were much improved, and it would be… nice to have you at the table again."

Draco continued to stare out the window. His mother reached over and touched his hair, rather startling him and causing him to jump and whirl to face her. They made real, solid eye contact, frozen for a moment before Draco turned away again. His mother made a small sound in her throat, then leaned forward and ordered the driver to hurry towards home.

**

Lucius Malfoy was far from pleased when Narcissa asked for an extra place to be set for Draco that evening.

"I thought he was taking meals in his room," Lucius growled, glaring at Draco, who stared blankly back.

Narcissa wrung her hands, looking from her husband to her son. "His doctor said that he was doing much better today, I thought—"

"Has he said anything?" Lucius demanded, too loudly, too quickly.

Narcissa wilted. "No, he hasn't, but he—he looked at me. Really looked at me. In the car, on the way home."

"Oh, he looked at you." Lucius turned on Draco and pointed to the stairs. "Unless you've got something to say to me, get out of my sight."

Draco stared, silent.

"Well?" Lucius' eyes were wild.

Narcissa moved to her son's side, laid a hand on his shoulder. "Lucius, if you keep on like that, he may never—"

"I hate you!" Draco screamed.

Lucius bridled. "What!"

"I hate you!" Draco spun out of his mother's grip. "None of you could ever hope to understand! You think pills and doctors are going to bring Kiyoshi back?! You think that I like being poked and prodded and examined?!"

"Get out!" Lucius roared, grabbing Draco by the wrist and flinging him towards the stairs. He crashed into the banister, causing the wood to crack and the rail to creak ominously. "Get up there and don't come down again! Go on and die up there!"

Draco bolted up the stairs, half afraid that his father was going to come after him. He stopped only when he was safe inside his room, the door latched and the curtains drawn. He slumped down on his bed, pulled up his sleeve, and inspected a large red mark on his arm that would likely be black by morning.

There was something that had been released—that had been broken up when Draco had finally spoken to his father. A congestion in his chest had vanished, and despite the trouble he knew he'd be in when morning came, his heart felt light and unencumbered.

Snuggled beneath his down-filled comforter, Draco could faintly hear his parents arguing downstairs. A few drops of rain pattered on his window, and thunder rumbled in the distance, sounding like some slumbering beast. There was another boom of thunder, then another, and another, in a succession too steady and too regular to be at all natural.

Draco woke suddenly, glanced at his clock to find that it was close to three in the morning. The too-regular thunder was still sounding, but it was much clearer, much closer now. He realized suddenly that it wasn't thunder at all, but the clump of heavy boots on the stairs outside his room. Draco sat up, heart pounding. Who would be coming up the stairs at three in the morning? Not his father—not only did he lack the build to make that kind of noise while climbing stairs, but he was already home and most likely asleep in his bed. His mother didn't wear boots for any reason. Then who?

The heavy footfalls stopped outside of his door, and there was a tiny pause before his door creaked open. Draco's heart skipped at beat. "Who's there?" He called.

"Lower your voice, please, you'll wake your parents."

"Who's there?" Draco said again, without bothering to be quiet about it. "How did you get in?"

A figure in a long black cloak and exceedingly muddy boots stepped into a sliver of moonlight that spilled from between Draco's drawn curtains. Draco stared. The man in his room seemed familiar, somehow, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. Who…

"You're the boy that read my letters—Kiyoshi's friend," The man said. "It's me—Nuncio. I know we've never been properly introduced, but…"

"Nuncio?" Draco was so suddenly filled with hope that he found it hard to speak without his voice cracking. "Then—then Kiyoshi—"

"—Left me about six months ago," Nuncio said regretfully. "I'm sorry that I couldn't have brought him here with me… He really was fond of you."

Draco swallowed. "You don't know where he is?" He asked quietly.

Nuncio came farther into Draco's room, leaving in his wake a trail of dark, wet footprints in the white rug. "No, I don't. He sometimes—" He sighed. "I don't know where he is. But he still—speaks to me, in dreams, in visions sometimes. And he told me that you weren't doing well."

"He knows?" Draco asked incredulously. "Why didn't he—"

"I'm sure he would have come himself if he could have," Nuncio interrupted. "But he obviously couldn't, so you get me instead. I went to that crazy school—Hogwarts—but they said that you'd gone home. When I asked where home was, they directed me here. So here I am."

Draco drew his comforter up around himself, staring at Nuncio. "What do you want?"

"Draco." Nuncio came up to Draco's bedside and knelt. He wore a mask over his face so that only his glinting green eyes showed. "What's wrong?"

"Wrong?" Draco looked away. "I want Kiyoshi back. He was my friend—he was more than a friend."

Nuncio sighed and pulled down his mask to reveal the rest of his face. Draco was surprised to see that despite his world-weary eyes, he was young; he was too old to be attending Hogwarts, certainly, but he wasn't as old as Draco had imagined him to be, under that mask. He'd thought that Kiyoshi's guardian would be someone strong, and wise. A warrior. Thirty or forty, at the very least—closer to his father's age than his own. Nuncio caught him staring and smiled. "I met Kiyoshi about two years ago, while I was running about in France with a bunch of other—other teenagers. I suppose he only stayed with me as long as he did because I was a bit more… Durable than the rest of the available crowd. But even I wasn't enough to satisfy him, and in the end he left me to seek another. Someone fresh."

"I don't understand," Draco whispered. "…Satisfy? Someone fresh?"

Nuncio looked up at Draco, his eyes searching. "I can see why he chose you. But—let me try to explain. What I know about Kiyoshi comes to me in pieces—in dreams. He's…" Here Nuncio paused, looking suddenly anxious. "Kiyoshi is… One part of a whole. He's only half—of a greater being." He shook his head and ran a hand through his chestnut hair, causing the hood of his cloak to fall back on his shoulders. "I know it sounds crazy, and I thought it was, too, at first. And then I started to notice things he did."

Draco just stared, stunned into silence. "Can you imagine what it must be like, missing part of yourself?" Nuncio went on. "Kiyoshi is constantly striving to—to make himself whole again. The problem is, he doesn't know how. He… he chooses people, and tries to—fit with them, to make them fill the gap. He connects—bonds with them. But it never really works. He lets them go after awhile, and finds someone else, always searching for that match."

"Why didn't he let go of me?" Draco asked quietly. "Why is he torturing me? I can't go a minute without thinking about him, and at night he walks in my dreams." He clenched a fist. "I don't know if I love him or hate him—all I know is that I want to see him again."

Nuncio nodded. "When he left me, all those months ago, he didn't let go right away. I just woke up one morning to find him gone. At first I thought he'd been taken, but when I went outside to look for him, a message tore across my brain: please don't follow me." Nuncio winced in memory. "The power and sorrow behind it was so great, I must have blacked out. I woke up a day later in the hospital. Anyway—for days, I raged in my room, tearing everything to pieces. I couldn't accept that he was gone. And then, one evening—click! It just didn't matter anymore. I still missed him, missed those good times, but it wasn't painful anymore. He's still in my dreams sometimes, and two weeks ago, he told me to find you and help you."

"But why hasn't he let me go?" Draco wailed. "It's been almost a year!"

Nuncio shook his head. "I don't know. Maybe he is going to come back for you." He stood up. "In any case, you should be getting back to sleep. I'll be around to check up on you soon." He leaned forward and kissed Draco's forehead. "Good night."