Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Author's Note: I'm sorry it took so long to get this out, but as previously stated, my online time has been severely curtailed.
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Chapter 3
He wakes up in the infirmary and it's not the first time. It's not the second or third or the ninth and for a moment, he's at peace. He disappears in infirmaries. Pale hair and eyes fade into white sheets, white walls. He's not ugly to medi-wizards, they've seen worse. He's not even human to them, just a problem, a collection of symptoms, of scars.
It's calmer that way. He knows they're not looking at him. Face down in a cool pillow he can pretend he doesn't exist.
Madame Pomphrey gives him the usual menu of bone-menders and pain-killers. Reaching to brush the hair out of his face, she stops, hand outstretched. He doesn't like to be touched. She leaves without a word.
A warm voice rolls through the room. "Mister Malfoy, are you well?"
He doesn't answer because he doesn't need to. He is healthy, but he is not well.
"This time Potter will be punished. Even Dumbledore saw his Golden Boy drag you off your broom."
He didn't respond to this either.
"He tried to see you, but we kept him out."
Shifting slightly to breathe, Draco said, "It's not really his fault. They would have seen eventually. Now everyone knows. Maybe they'll leave me alone."
Incense scent comes closer, warm and familiar, Snape settles on the bed, softly, but solidly there.
"Do you want to be left alone, Draco?"
"I am alone, Godfather."
Snape would pause in the act of touching Draco, giving comfort, if he'd even tried in the first place. He rests a hand on the mattress by the boy's shoulder, where he can be seen.
Draco doesn't like other people's hands, doesn't trust them. But he won't watch Snape the way he watches strangers. If Snape attacked him, it would be from the front, no surprises. Draco trusts the man that far.
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Note: Um, and that's it. Please, let me know what you think. This is, as I said in the first chapter, an experiment, and I'd like to know how all of you are responding to it. Love it or hate it, please review.