You look at the clock.
Five minutes past eleven.
You've been told to wait but already the waiting is hard. You don't get to see him as he was pushed behind the curtain and they wouldn't let you follow. Wait in the lobby they'd said, have some tea they'd said, but you couldn't drink. Not now. Not when everything that had ever meant anything to you was lying in a bed, in critical condition, fighting for his life in the hands of people who didn't even know for sure what was wrong.
You wonder how it had all come down to this. If all those months… years, of training had been in vain. You always thought you'd be prepared for this, but sitting here now, just… waiting… you know you're not.
The clock is annoyingly loud in the silence, and it seemed to get louder with every tick. You look for distraction but you don't think you can bring yourself to read the words written in those magazines. You think of him, of how little time you've spent together and of how quickly this war had snuck up on you. It seemed that only last week you had shared your first kiss, and yet you know that that first tender moment had been shared nearly a year ago in an alleyway behind The Three Broomsticks.
Funny thing that. Time.
It's all relative, you know this. For if you're honest with yourself, you know that you've spent more time alone with him than anyone other person you've ever known. You've laughed with him, you've cried with him, you've taken the time to understand him, so why does it not feel long enough? Where did the time go?
You replay every treasured moment, because they are your distractions. You remember your first kiss, the first time you had sex, the moment you realised you were in love, the moment he had told you he felt the same. When being intimate with him suddenly stopped being 'sex' and became 'making love.' The first time you cried in his arms, the first time he'd needed to cry in yours.
You remember them all so clearly and yet you don't know how you managed to make so many. Time flies.
But now time stands still. The clock is still ticking but you daren't look up at it, time is your enemy now.
Tick after tock after tick after tock… and it goes on, hammering at the side of your head, beating in time with your pulse and it feels like someone is trying to fight their way out of your scull with a sledge hammer. You replay those memories and you keep replaying them, until you lose track of which ones are real and which ones you're making up to pass the time.
The time.
It's moving so slowly and you wish someone would tell you something soon. You don't know for certain, but you're pretty sure you've been sitting here for over an hour now and your chest hurts.
A noise from the far end of the corridor stirs you and you look up. You watch as the nurse makes her way towards you and you use your heartbeat to count the seconds.
It's not until she reaches you that you realise your heart is pounding against your ribcage so rapidly that you feel it will burst through your chest.
The silence lasts a lifetime and you're about to check the clock before she speaks.
"I'm sorry Mr. Malfoy. There was nothing we could do."
You look at the clock.
Ten minutes past eleven.
You want your time back.