Disclaimer: Yea, not the one who owns Harry Potter, only a crazed fan…
Warnings: Language, Abuse/Violence and later some extra smutty slash, self-mutilation, and possible character death…..
Chapter Two: Panic Prone (Chevelle)
DMHP
There, at the base of Harry's feet, in a dark and cold alley, lay a bloody, beaten Malfoy. It took Harry a few moments to realize it was Draco Malfoy, for the boy was beaten so severely, he was nearly beyond recognition. Blood caked his body, leaving no patches of skin to show through. Draco was only wearing a very worn pair of boxers.
As Harry neared Draco, he could easily see the boy had been starved, had many broken bones, an overwhelming amount of gashes, all most likely very infected, and Harry figured under the layers of blood lay many, many bruises.
Harry also noticed that the boy had probably been in that dank alley for hours, for he saw a sliver of his blue lips underneath the mass of blood.
Harry stood there for a few minutes, taking in all he saw. Once he realized he had to do something, he swiftly walked up to the blonde and grabbed his hand. Draco flinched away as best he could, but with the severe lack of energy, ended up only making a slight twitch.
But Draco amazingly managed to choke out a quiet, but just as flooring, scream and began hyperventilating. Harry didn't know what to do, for Draco broke down due to a simple touch. So Harry carefully sat next to Draco, whispering next to the broken boy's ear that everything was going to be alright.
Slowly, Harry began lightly stroking Draco's hair with his hand. After a few minutes, Draco managed to calm down. He looked into the deep emerald eyes of his savior before passing out cold.
Harry couldn't believe how dull and lifeless Draco's eyes were. Quickly shaking off his thoughts, he wrapped the unconscious boy in his cloak, and swept him into his arms. Harry tried to think of where to go to help Draco, but was too frantic to even begin thinking. So he ran as hard as he could and ended up in front of his room.
He decided that his room at the Leaky Cauldron was good a place as any to take the unconscious Draco. Harry laid Draco down on his bed and quickly flooed to Dumbledore's office.
Professor Dumbledore was quietly working on the schedule for the next year, when a frantic, blood covered boy by the name of Harry Potter came rushing into his previously peaceful office.
Harry managed to struggle out a few choice words which were, "Alley…blue lips…cauldron…" Dumbledore was stumped by the hyperventilating teenager who appeared to have gone mad, but had no time to contemplate when Harry grabbed him by his robes and shoved him through the fireplace.
Dumbledore ended up in a seemingly normal hotel room when his eyes rested on the bed. The headmaster hastily made his way across the room to see the bloodied body on the hotel bed closer. Dumbledore quickly realized it was one Draco Malfoy and without any warning, left with a pop.
Harry was now beyond frantic. He barely had anytime to let what'd happened in the last few minutes sink in. Okay, he found a nearly dead Draco, took said boy to his room, got Dumbledore to help him, and when his Professor saw Draco, left without so much as a warning.
Harry began pacing, having no clue what to do when he heard a pop. He looked up and saw the reason for Dumbledore's sudden exit. Dumbledore returned, but next to him were now Madam Pomfrey and Professor Snape. Without a word, Madam Pomfrey began giving the unconscious boy on Harry's bed potions of all sorts and casting all kinds of spells on him as well.
Snape stood in his place for a few brief moments before snapping back to reality and began brewing potions and also casting spells on the almost lifeless lump.
Dumbledore briskly walked over to Harry. Once Dumbledore was next to the stunned teenager, he quickly asked, "May I have a word?" After a few moments Harry slowly nodded.
Dumbledore grabbed the boy by the arm and pulled him to the fireplace to floo them both back to his office. Once back in his office, Dumbledore went to sit at his desk, motioning for Harry to sit as well.
Dumbledore would've offered a lemon drop, but felt the offer would've been horribly inappropriate under the circumstances the wizards found themselves under.
"So…" Dumbledore said hesitantly. This was one of the very few times in his whole long life Dumbledore found himself talking without a sliver of confidence.
"How did all this happen…?" Harry made eye contact with the feadmaster for a brief moment before resting his eyes on the wall behind Dumbledore. Harry was at a loss for words. He simply had no fucking clue what to say. Several minutes passed when the Professor grew slightly impatient.
"Harry?" He said tentatively as the boy jerked back into reality.
"Yes, Professor?" Harry replied dully, with an almost hollow sound to his voice.
"Umm…I really don't know what to say…what happened to Draco?" Dumbledore asked very uncertainly.
"I have no clue…" Harry said after many thoughtful moments. Before Dumbledore could continue questioning his student, Harry began talking again.
"I was walking around Hogsmeade when I noticed it was pretty late." Harry began slowly. "So I started walking back to the Leaky Cauldron when I heard a noise." Harry stopped there.
"H-Harry? What happened next?" Dumbledore asked.
"Well, I dismissed the noise…when I heard it again. This time, however, I noticed the noise sounded like someone whimpering 'Help'…So I looked around." Harry took a long pause here.
"And that's when I found D-Draco in an empty alley…I stood there for a while…and ended up carrying him to my hotel room. And that's when I came to you…" Harry finished, skipping the part about Draco's breakdown.
"I see…Well, thank you, Harry. I'll let you rest, but we will have to discuss this again. Now, I doubt you'll want to return to your room at the Leaky Caul-" Dumbledore was cut off by Harry's voice.
"No…I think I should return to my room. I would like to see how Draco's doing…" When Harry noticed the bewildered look Dumbledore was giving him he quickly finished with, "I'll be fine. It's just…I want to see if he's okay…"
"Well, if that's what you want." With that Dumbledore stood up to escort Harry to the fireplace.
"You don't have to help me, Professor. I can floo back on my own." Harry said quietly.
"I know, Harry m'boy, but I must return too. I have to have a few words with Severus and Poppy.
"Oh, all right." Harry said.
"Shall we then?" Dumbledore asked, his spirit and confidence returning.
"Okay…" Harry replied, his spirit and confidence still very nonexistent.
"Okay, then off we go." Dumbledore said, as they flooed back to Harry's room at the Leaky Cauldron.
When they arrived back in Harry's room, they noticed very little had changed. Madam Pomfrey and Professor Snape were still very busy and frantic, both mixing and administering potions and casting spells on the still unconscious Draco. Dumbledore swiftly walked across the room to ask Snape on any progress made.
As all the Professors gathered together, talking rapidly, concern on every one of their faces, Harry realized Draco was still covered in blood and wearing nothing but his bloody and torn boxers. Harry summoned a bowl of water and a rag and made his way to Draco.
Harry sat on the edge of the bed, next to Draco's head. He dipped the rag in the warm water he summoned and began washing the blood off of Draco's face. All three Professors stopped abruptly, staring at the Boy-who-lived as if he were possessed. Harry, sensing he was being watched, looked behind himself and saw three pairs of wide eyes on him.
It took him a moment to realize why they were shocked, and then he figured out how incredibly strange it must look to see Harry Potter carefully washing blood off of Draco Malfoy's face. Harry blushed slightly then said with downcast eyes, "I couldn't stand the sight of the blood anymore…"
"Well, Potter, there are much simpler ways to take care of that." Snape said rudely, easily slipping on his mask of being the, well to be blunt, asshole he portrays at Hogwarts during his classes.
"Well then, please, do it. Just get rid of the blood…" Harry said, trying to sound as rude as possible, but failing miserably.
With a flick of his wand, Snape effortlessly removed every trace of blood from the young Malfoy's body, that is, until all of Draco's open wounds continued to bleed.
Now seeing the body under the layers and layers of dried blood, everyone was shocked once again at how badly wounded the boy was.
Draco was literally covered from head to toe in either gashes, bruises, or welts. Everyone just stood glued in their spots before Harry quietly exclaimed, "Holy shit…." before getting up and stumbling to the bathroom, finally emptying his stomach of all its contents.
Surprisingly, Harry was relieved, because the overwhelming feeling of nausea had plagued him ever since he first laid eyes on Draco earlier that night. In fact, it took Harry all of his willpower not to heave the second he saw Draco in the alley.
Harry wandered back into the room, seeing how chaos had reigned again. Everyone was hustling and bustling about, Dumbledore included, mixing this and that potion, feeding this to Draco, casting that spell on him, and sometimes just pacing around the room trying to figure out what to do next.
Harry, now realizing how exhausted he was, passed out on the couch in the room, not bothering to ask if he could help. He knew fully well he'd be a nuisance by either screwing up a potion and killing Draco or passing out on the spot, probably knocking over many things on his way down.
So Harry fell asleep very quickly on the couch, trying to block out everything that had happened in the past day or two. Harry tried to cling desperately to the feeling he had had only a day ago, and even this morning; the feeling of uncontrolled happiness and freedom. But to no avail.
Harry had many disturbing dreams during his slumber, most revolving around what had happened to Draco. There were the few that snuck in that involved many of Harry's little incidents with Vernon.
Harry woke up in a sweat, suppressing a scream to the best of his capabilities. He had just dreamed of his last encounter with his dear uncle.
Harry wasn't very capable of suppressing his scream, though, for he found himself screaming at the top of his lungs as soon as he awoke.
As he took in his surroundings, he, once again, noticed three wide eyes staring at him.
Harry blushed again, this time much more noticeably, and quickly said, "Sorry, bad dream, that's all. Don't worry," before running off to take a cold shower.
When he returned from the shower, he noticed everything was as it was the night before, except for the fact that everyone seemed to be very low on energy.
Harry then realized they probably have been working all night long on Draco.
Harry tentatively walked up to Dumbledore and asked, "How's he doin'?" while looking Draco over. He noticed that some of the gashes and bruises were gone, and all the gashes had stopped bleeding.
Draco was also now wearing some nice green silk boxers instead of his ragged old ones from before.
Dumbledore quickly replied with a sigh, "There's a lot of damage, we just have to keep working to try and heal everything before it gets too serious."
Harry then realized that maybe they should get some more help. "Hey, Professor, maybe if we got some more people to help-"
"No." Dumbledore interrupted. "We can't have anyone else know about Draco's condition. It would help greatly, though, if you chipped in a bit." The old man offered.
"Sure," Harry replied. "Whatever I can do to help, I'll gladly do."
Dumbledore quickly set Harry off to gather some more ingredients for the potions from Madam Pomfrey's office, and gather some books from the library that might aid them in saving Draco.
When Harry returned about an hour later, Dumbledore asked Harry to brew some potions, when Snape barked that Harry'd probably end up killing Draco if he tried to make a potion, instead of helping.
Before Dumbledore could scold the Potions Professor, Harry agreed whole-heartedly with Snape, however much he hated doing so.
He didn't want to risk fucking up a potion, so he thought it would be better to research or cast some spells on Draco. Dumbledore ended up assigning Harry to research for the time being.
After several painstaking hours of trying to find something that could help save Draco, Dumbledore decided to let Harry help with the spell-casting aspect of helping Draco.
The three adults were feeling very worn out for having worked for so long, especially with using their magic for most of that time. So, Dumbledore and Pomfrey sat for a bit on the sofa to rest. Snape, however, was still much too worried about Draco to sit, though he wouldn't let on his worry for the boy.
Snape decided to use this time to brew as many potions humanly possible that could have any chance of helping Draco into recovery.
Harry was told to cast several basic healer spells. Harry was surprised that the basic healing spells weren't cast already when Madam Pomfrey explained that they had to heal all the severe wounds first, which needed very complicated spells.
The little wounds were not a threat to Draco's life; the internal bleeding, broken ribs, punctured lung, numerous other broken bones, and concussions were the threats to Draco's life and had to be dealt with first.
Harry quickly complied and began to heal all the gashes and bruises and welts on the other boy's body until everyone was rested enough to continue healing the boy's more serious problems, thus sending Harry back into research mode.
Another several hours and everyone decided that Draco was in good enough condition to give the adults a night's sleep. They asked Harry to keep an eye on Draco, though, just in case.
Harry's Professors left soon afterwards, too exhausted to string together a coherent goodbye to Harry, except Snape. Snape stopped before leaving, turning to Harry. He stared at Harry for a second before saying, "You better take good care of Draco tonight. If something happens to him on your watch, you'll find your seventh year at Hogwarts a living hell. Got that?"
Harry nodded quickly, not wanting to piss off his Potions Professor any more than usual. With that Snape smirked (to the best of his abilities, so it was really just a twitchy frown, because he was just so damn exhausted) before saying, "Good. Well, then, g'night Potter."
"Good night, Professor" Harry said before Snape disappeared through the fireplace. Harry decided to stay awake a bit after everyone left, keeping a keen eye on Draco, not wanting to get even more on Snape's bad side.
Harry pulled up a chair next to Draco and began reading yet another book of spells and whatnot, not really wanting to research, but he needed something to keep him from thinking.
Slowly, Harry fell into a restless sleep, and woke up, surprisingly, not from his nightmares, but from someone whispering his name. His eyes shot open as they settled upon silver eyes staring back.