Disclaimer: Heh, I don't own HP (twitches) heh!
Chapter Six!
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Chapter Six: Gone
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Draco woke up on the fifth day at the hospital wing. Hermione and Ron seemed to be there, they were talking to someone, almost whispering as if they were trying not to wake him.
He slowly opened his eyes into the light; he yawned a little and turned his head toward the voices.
Hermione and Ron were talking in quick whispers to Pomfrey who had her back to Draco.
The two Gryffindors looked upset, too upset. Draco looked at the behind across from his and saw it was empty.
He sat up rubbing his eyes a little before he spoke. "Where's Potter?" he blinked in surprise by his own question.
Pomfrey quickly turned around to him. "Mr. Malfoy go back to sleep."
"Again? No way, I'm tired of sleeping too much, I'll just die that way. Where's Potter?" he tried to ignore the fact that he was worried.
"He's a St Mungo's," Ron said quietly and bitterly.
He blinked. "What?" he asked hoping he heard wrong, feeling an odd emotion spread through him.
"He's at St Mungo's, Dumbledore says he'll get better treatment there," Hermione said the last few words in almost a whisper.
"He didn't cut himself though; he was strapped to his bed."
"Last night it managed to get his arms free, I found him at that corner," Pomfrey pointed to the corner at the back of the room, "bleeding."
Draco turned to the corner; a house elf was there, scrubbing part of the wall and floor of blood.
The past few days went by slowly, almost everyone had found out about Harry's whereabouts, rumors started flying around again.
For Draco, everyday seemed to take forever, he noticed it was the same for Hermione and Ron and some of Harry's other friends. Everything had gone downhill. Draco's friends noticed the change in him instantly, to his surprise they didn't leave him, he always thought that was how they were, stick with the bad and everything's fine.
"Pomfrey's told us what's been going on. She didn't want to let us in, she's pretty bitchy sometimes because she thought we'd torture Potter in his weak state," Pansy said at lunch.
"Well we're Slytherins what else would she have thought?" said Blaise as he ate his toast.
"Then she should open her mind a bit more."
"Stop, god you're giving me a head-ache."
"Sorry...................so who's your mate?" Pansy asked as she ate her apple.
"I think it's Potter."
She nearly choked on her apple. "WHAT!?"
"I've been getting these weird thoughts and feelings...................never mind."
"Just tell us, we're your friends, we're like family, tell us!"
"Weasley and Granger helped me learn about veela, all of these feelings and thoughts about Potter means that he's my mate, at least that's what they told me."
"You poor thing............at least you won't get to worship the spawn of Satan now that you're with the good," shrugged Blaise.
"What are you talking about?"
"Well, Potter's against you-know-who, if you're his mate then that means you'll be in the side of all that's happy and good because the two of you are together. We on the other hand are stuck and destined to be Death Eaters unfortunately."
"I thought you wanted-"
"We only said that to freak people out, we don't really want to be on you-know-who's side, he's creepy," shuddered Pansy.
"But-"
"Whatever you thought, you're wrong, just because we're Slytherins doesn't mean we love and support HIM, please, give me a break."
Draco frowned then sighed finally. He looked down at his lunch, he didn't feel too hungry but he managed to eat one toast.
"Harry? Do you feel like talking today?" asked Enica.
Harry kept staring at the door behind another patient in front of him. He was sitting with other people, adults, some were staring at the ceiling, not paying attention, others were giggling or looking at Harry.
He didn't answer, he felt Enica's hand on his shoulder. "Harry?" No answer, she sighed and turned to the person next to Harry. "Gary? How about you? How was your day?"
"Fun," he said happily.
"Really? What was fun?"
"Everything," he giggled a little, "Sara slipped on banana at lunch, I colored pretty drawings, yeah it was FUN!"
Harry looked around at everyone in the circle, there were the Longbottoms, Lockhart, Gary, Enica, Sara, and someone else who didn't speak, he didn't know his name, he stared off into space a lot.
As everyone else except the silent man said how their day was, Harry began to wonder what was happening at Hogwarts, if everyone knew he'd been cutting himself, if they even cared. Then he remembered about Draco.
After saving his life that night, he felt a pull, like an attraction to Draco, he didn't know why he felt it, he didn't stop it either, he just ignored it as the attraction grew.
"Well our time's up," said Enica as she looked at her watch, "we'll see each other again tomorrow."
The Healers who were standing close by walked up to the patients and walked with them to wherever they were going.
Harry's Healer was a middle aged woman with wiry brown hair, she was a nice person, and she sometimes reminded Harry of Mrs. Weasley, her name was Alice.
"Come on, Harry," she said kindly as he stood up, "time for lunch."
They walked down the hall to a small cafeteria, there were other patients there too, some eating, others getting fed by their healers.
Alice brought Harry to a table and walked away to get his food. He stared at the lines on the wooden table like he usually did in Vectors office, letting his mind wander off in space; the silent man was sitting at his table too, eating his food calmly, his Healer was next to him, glancing him eat once and a while as she read a book.
There was a crash and Gary exploded in laughter, a few angry shouts, then laughter again.
"Ok Harry," said Alice as she lay the tray of food on the table, "time to eat."
She took a spoonful of mashed potatoes and raised it to Harry's mouth.
"I know Dumbledore said you don't eat at all, but try to eat; you want to get better, don't you?" Harry didn't reply, "well, you're not leaving until you eat now open up."
The man glanced at Harry and Alice's direction then back at his food.
"Please open up, I don't want to force you."
Still nothing. Alice sighed quietly then reached out and gently opened Harry's mouth without really any force. She put the spoonful of mashed potatoes in his mouth.
"Now, chew and swallow," to her surprise he did that, "good," she took another spoonful and raised it to his mouth, he didn't open it. "Harry please open your mouth," he opened it, then she realized what was going on, she put the mashed potatoes in his mouth, "chew and swallow." He did it. "Harry, do you do what everyone tells you to do?"
No answer.
"Please talk to me."
Nothing. She sighed and continued to feed him, since he couldn't do it himself because he had a straight jacket on.
"So who'll be our new seeker?" asked Seamus at the next Quidditch practice.
"I asked Parvati, she says she'll do it even though she really doesn't want to," said Ginny quietly as she fiddled with a loose thread on her shirt.
"Then who's going to be the speaker for the game?" asked Neville.
"Padma," Ginny sighed and stared at the floor, for a moment there was silence, "Why is he there anyway?"
Hermione and Ron looked at each other then at the floor.
"What? What is it? Tell us," said Dean.
Ron muttered something they couldn't catch.
"What?"
"He's been cutting himself," he said a little louder, it seemed hard to say it; the lump in his throat was making it hard for him to speak.
"What?" Ginny breathed, "Since when?"
"We don't know, I saw him cutting himself at history of magic, but it looks like he was doing it long before, it's like he's addicted," Hermione trembled then shuddered.
There was silence again.
"We won't tell anyone, not even the Hufflepuffs," said Seamus quietly. Hermione and Ron nodded in a silent thank you. "Does anyone else know?"
"Malfoy," said Hermione.
"WHAT!?" everyone cried.
"He's the second person who found Harry, you know, cutting, it turns out he saved Harry's life twice."
"The Slytherin slut?" blinked Seamus.
"Yeah."
"Why?"
"We don't know and he doesn't know."
"Dumbass finally got himself a conscious," muttered Dean.
The next Quidditch match would settle the score of the tie between Gryffindor and Slytherin.
Everyone in Slytherin already knew that they'd win now that Harry was out of the way, but Draco felt like he lost the challenge.
"But at least we'll win," shrugged Pansy at dinner.
"That'll only be because there isn't any challenge, I mean Weasley's gotten better at being Keeper, but there's no challenge, it's empty."
"I think Potter really IS your mate, I mean now that he's gone you've turned different," frowned Blaise.
"I know. This is all Snape's fault, he paired me off with Potter and we got into that potion accident."
"But even before that you saved his life twice, and you still had veela blood in you anyway."
"I know that! But before the accident I never had any feelings or thoughts about Potter at all."
"Then why did you save his life?" Pansy asked.
"Because! I don't know............I don't care."
"Yes you do."
"No I don't."
"Well if you didn't care then you'd have left him lying in the astronomy tower bleeding till he died, you didn't do that, you know why too."
"No I don't!"
"There's a thin line between love and hate, and between a veela and it's mate, there is no hate. Your mate is Potter," said Blaise almost sharply, "and since he's got a bit a veela blood in him now, then you're definitely his mate too."
"Shut up."
"No. I won't."
"Draco, why are you denying this? If you keep doing this then you'll just end up alone in your life, wondering why you care about him," said Pansy quietly.
Draco was about to say something but he closed his mouth and glared at the table.
Harry lay in his bed that night, everyone else was asleep, Lockhart kept muttering things in his sleep.
The straight jacket was taken off of him but he was still strapped to the bed, this time he couldn't escape because the straps had a strong spell on them making it impossible to escape.
The Longbottoms also muttered in their sleep, Harry paid close attention to what they were saying, it was weird, in the day they were insane but in the night when they talked in their sleep, they were sane, normal.
"I need to tell Neville..............." muttered Mrs. Longbottom almost breathlessly.
"Tell him why..............." muttered Mr. Longbottom. There was a pause. "He should....... remember things............by now."
Harry remembered Ron telling him that Neville didn't forget any of his things on the first day back at Hogwarts, he told him on their way to herbology class, both these things fit together.
"Narcissa............she needs to tell him.............the truth," mumbled Mrs. Longbottom.
"Is she still...........................a spy?" Mr. Longbottom murmured. There was the rustling sound of bed sheets then a giggle.
Harry stopped listening, they had woken up. He looked ahead of him and saw the silent man staring at the ceiling.
'Self-infliction, lack of eating, hasn't spoken for months. You're worse off than I am.'
The voice entered Harry's mind, he knew it was the man, he didn't show any reaction though.
'It IS painful to lose a loved one when you're not ready.'
There was another pause.
'Part veela, part vampire, part muggle, part wizard, what an odd combination, you'll definitely defeat Voldemort...............seems like your mate's a Draco Malfoy. A Malfoy, very interesting. Another thing is that you're the only person here who's actually insane, you didn't come here because you were hit with a spell or anything.'
Harry didn't move or react.
'You don't seem to send messages with your thoughts, that's very empty, don't worry. I was empty too.'
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