An Old… Friend

Draco's first patient of the day bored him. That was surely an omen of things to come. A mild splinching case, one that was barely worth the young witch coming to St. Mungo's in the first place. Merlin, she looked like she'd only just been authorised to apparate. He'd applied essence of dittany to the affected area and sent her home with a small bottle to use periodically over the next day or so, along with a bottle of low-strength relief draught to ease the girl's pain.

As the young witch left the little room that had been designated as his, he sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, trying desperately to relieve the tension headache that was building. His right hand went to his thigh, just above his knee, and he massage it, trying to ease the deep ache. He couldn't have any more, not yet, not while he was at work; he'd taken a blend of alleviation tonic and extract of easement when he woke up in agony, along with his morning cocktail of invigorating draught and a wit-sharpening potion to shake off the remnants of last night's brew of dreamless sleep and drowsiness draught. He'd cut it with a twenty-year-old firewhiskey and it was almost pleasant to drink. The best he could hope for currently was rubbing some star grass salve in and hoping for the best.

He didn't do that, though; he'd given up on that remedy a couple of years ago, accepting that it did nothing. It didn't even ease the phantom aches anymore, not like it did in the early years. Now there was just the pain, never-ending, unabating.

He sighed again and leaned his head on the wood of his desk; it was scarred and a little chipped in places, but it was cool on his forehead and offered a mild relief for his headache.

A knock at the door. He groaned lowly and sat up, straightening his green healer robes. 'Enter,' he called out, the irritation clear.

The receptionist, a witch that was older than his mother and insisted on calling him 'sugar', opened the door and said, 'Sugar, it's backing up out here. You ready for the next one?'

'Yes. Fine. Send them through, and make it something interesting, for Merlin's sake.'

'I'll be sure to start admitting them based on your interest-level, sugar. Here I was working to the severity of their condition.'

He glared at her, and she met it unflinchingly. He growled, 'Just send them through, Glenda.'

'You got it, sugar.' She repeated back to the waiting area. He made a point of straightening his robes once more and flicking his wand at the room to straighten up the bed and the crooked picture on the wall; it was a landscape of the Scottish countryside. He was pretty sure that a particular grey blob was meant to be Hogwarts in the background, barely visible between the hind legs of a majestic stag. It was on the wall when he'd claimed the room, and he lacked the motivation to change it, even if on bad days that little grey blob made his breath short and his ears ring.

Another knock at the door. He shook his head and took a deep breath, releasing it slowly through his nose. He massaged his thigh again. 'Enter,' he called out.

And so it went, for six, twelve, fourteen gruelling hours before he could clock out. The patients came in, whined about their petty problems, and he flicked his wand and handed out potions and sent them on their merry way.

'Don't know why I bother,' he muttered to himself as his last patient walked out the door; a young man with a broken wrist, gained from trying to fly two brooms simultaneously. 'Should have amputated, that'd teach the stupid bastard a lesson.'

He stood and shed his healer robes, hanging them neatly in the tall wardrobe next to his desk. He eyed the creases in the green material and flicked his wand, removing them. He did the same to the crinkled shirt and trousers he wore underneath before donning his jacket and heading for the door, his cane clicking against the tiles with each step.

He signed out at the main desk, relieved that Glenda had left several hours ago and her replacement, a witch about his own age called Charlotte, had zero interest in acknowledging him beyond what her job required. That was fine with him; he had no interest in speaking to her either, or anyone else for that matter.

He stepped outside St. Mungo's, and shuddered when the evening air hit him, and he apparated home, unwilling to walk further than he had to.


The manor transferred into his name not long after his father's imprisonment. Lucius, in the midst of his criminal hearings, had also seen fit to ensure that his assets became those of Draco, despite the fact that Draco was also under the scrutiny of the Ministry. In the end, Lucius Malfoy had received life imprisonment in Azkaban; the only reason he hadn't received the dementor's kiss was because there were no dementors to bestow it. Draco's mother, Narcissa, had received a certain amount of leniency, thanks to the testimony of one Harry James Potter, and she had been sentenced to two years house arrest. She'd carried out that sentence and, at the end of it, had chosen to depart from England to their family's property in the south of France, where she had friends. Draco received one year's house arrest, during which he recovered from his injuries and completed his education via correspondence. He'd struggled for a while before deciding on pursuing a career, unheard of in the Malfoy family, in the healing arts.

Since then, he'd continued to live in the manor, despite his father's continued imprisonment and his mother's self-imposed exile in France. She wrote to him often, inviting him down, but he only visited for Christmas. He told her that he was busy with work at all other times.

The manor was large, and it was empty, devoid of all life save for Draco. That is, unless you counted the boggart that had taken up residence in what used to be his father's study, specifically in a desk drawer. That had taken him by surprise one evening several months ago, when he'd opened the drawer and his worst nightmare emerged. He hadn't had the strength to banish it, and so he'd scrambled as fast as his mangled leg would allow and sealed the door behind him. The boggart wanted to live out its days in a desk? That was fine by Draco; he'd taken up working at a table in the library. It was lighter in there, anyway.


He'd long since gotten used to the stick, a fact that never failed to make his blood boil. He'd gotten used to restless nights, unable to sleep due to the burning in his leg. He'd gotten used to the cocktail of potions that allowed him to make it through each day; potions to calm his nerves, to ease the muscles in his leg, to encourage movement and promote flexibility, to try and kill the unending pain that made him want to cut the damn leg off even though he'd resisted all attempts to do so. He took potions to help him sleep; both to knock him unconscious and to suppress whatever horrors his psyche felt the need to throw at him. He took potions to counteract the negative side effects of all the other potions he had to take; invigorating draughts to wake him up and give him the energy his body lacked, wit-sharpening potions to clear the fog that the painkillers brought, along with a selection of lucidity tonics. All of them necessary to make it through each and every day.

A part of his brain told him that it wasn't healthy. It pointed to the addicts that came through the doors of St. Mungo's every day, and it told him that he was one slip-up away from being one of them. The rest of his brain said that he was a fully qualified healer, certified to practice throughout Britain, with a speciality in potion-making. He knew what he was doing. So long as he kept to a schedule, and maintained the correct levels and dosages, he'd be fine. Better than he'd be without the potions; he wouldn't last a day, not with the kind of pain his leg gave him.


He didn't have nightmares about it. It was something Draco had always found strange. He was afflicted by nightmares most nights; they managed to find their way past his concentrated dose of dreamless sleep. But they were never about what happened to his leg. He thought about a lot during his waking hours, ways he could have avoided, methods that could have been used to treat it better, that would have reduced his pain levels, but it seldom entered his dreams.

Other horrors claimed that particular prize. The Dark Lord's sheer presence in his home. That damned snake eating people. Ollivander half-starved and skeletal; Lovegood receiving the same treatment, the both of them pale and grimy and locked up in his basement. Greyback stalking the manor's hallways. Aunt Bella's crazed eyes. Granger tortured in his living room. Crabbe being devoured by his own fiendfyre. Screams, there were always screams in his dreams.

His occlumency kept these memories at bay while he was awake; he sealed them in the recesses of his mind, allowing him to focus on his work. He attempted to do the same thing with his physical agony, though that proved much tougher. Everything came to the surface while he slept, though; every dark thought, every painful memory, every ounce of agony.

He couldn't remember the last time he slept peacefully. Before the Dark Lord returned? He'd not slept well sixth year, that was for definite. Seventh year too was a year of sleepless nights. And every night since the final battle was shattered by nightmares and pain, always rousing him, if it allowed him any respite at all.

So, the potions were necessary. They might not be helping him, or healing him, but they allowed him to function. It might well be with the aid of a cane, it might well make him insufferable to those around him, but he did his job and he did it well. Better than anyone expected him to, and better than many of those he worked with. Or for, for that matter. Draco had no desire to run the show at St. Mungo's, far too much paperwork, but he knew that he'd do a much better job than Head Healer Rosewood. The man was pushing ninety, and the treatments he suggested went out of fashion when Draco was an infant. How the man managed to hold on to his position was beyond Draco's understanding.


Draco had barely limped through the door of St Mungo's before Glenda was at his side, handing him a file. He juggled his cane, briefcase, and the file, glowering at the older woman.

'Urgent case for you, sugar. Asked for you by name and everything. Figured it was so odd for someone to actually ask for you that I'd let it happen.'

His glowered deepened into a glare. It was true, Draco didn't have any repeat patients; all of those that were in a position to return regularly to the hospital, patients with long-term ailments, usually asked for a different healer after a session with Healer Malfoy. Sue him, he thought, he was a healer, not a nursemaid. He healed people, he wasn't there to hold their hands and pat them on the head. No one had ever done that for him, and he wasn't about to start doing it for others.

He sighed. 'What's the case?'

'Possible concussion from an animal attack. Details are a little fuzzy; she came in alone, and the blow to the head might have made her a little loopy. She seemed pretty certain about having you for a healer, though, sugar. Outright demanded it, nearly.'

'Where is she?'

'Already set up in your room, sugar. Got her laid down on the bed, and I've been looking in periodically.'

He sighed again. 'How long has she been here?'

'Less than an hour. Tried convincing her to see someone else, but she insisted she'd wait for you.'

He nodded and limped towards his room. He called over his shoulder, 'Sign me in, Glenda. Apparently, I have a patient waiting.'

He managed to nudge his door open with his shoulder, saying, 'What seems to be the trouble, miss—'

He stopped in the doorway.

Lovegood. It was Luna Lovegood.

She was sat on the narrow examination bed in his medical room, swinging her feet back and forth and staring towards the ceiling.

At the sound of his voice she looked at him and smiled dreamily. 'Hello, Draco. It's lovely to see you. It's been too long.'

Draco's breathing became deep and measured. He stepped into the room and allowed the door to close behind him. He said, 'What seems to be the problem, Miss Lovegood?'

'You don't have to call me that. We're old school friends.'

That startled a snort out of him. 'Friends? It'd be a stretch to call us acquaintances. It'd be charitable to call us associates. We're not friends, Miss Lovegood.'

She sighed and nodded, the smile losing some of its warmth. 'I suppose you're right. A lot happened that gone in the way of friendship, didn't it?'

The fact that you were held prisoner in my home and tortured by my relatives and their friends? He didn't say it, but he thought it. Loudly.

Out loud he said, 'I was told that you suffered an animal attack that led to a concussion. Is that correct, Miss Lovegood?'

She nodded. 'That's right, yes. Though, the graphorn didn't mean to hurt me, he just lost sight of me, that's all. He turned and knocked me over, and I must have hit my head on a rock.'

'Well, you don't seem to be suffering too severely from it. No obvious cognitive issues.'

'No more than usual, you mean?' she said with a grin.

He froze, still stood just inside his own doorway, holding his cane, briefcase, and Luna's admission file.

'I know what people said about me, Draco.' She said calmly. 'I knew then, too. It just never bothered me. Does it bother you?'

He shook himself and walked over to his chair, the tap of his walking stick muffled against the carpet. He sat, unable to contain the groan as he took the weight off his leg. He leaned his cane against the desk and opened up her file, skimming through it and ignoring her question.

'What happened to your leg, Draco?'

He slammed the file down on his desk with a bang. 'Healer Malfoy. My name, as far you're concerned, is Healer Malfoy. You are a patient, Miss Lovegood, and I am your healer. We aren't old friends catching up. You have an alleged concussion and it's my job to heal it. That is the end of our association. Am I understood?'

Draco didn't know when he raised his voice, but by the end of his impromptu speech he was practically shouting. He closed his eyes, wincing; this would get back to Rosewood.

'Yes, Healer Malfoy. I'm sorry if I was overly familiar. I was just excited about seeing you again after so long. My apologies.'

Her voice was quiet, almost timid. For the first in longer than he could remember, Draco felt regret about snapping at a patient. Usually, it was because they were being stupid, acting stupid, or else asking stupid questions, and he usually felt entirely justified in his reactions. He'd never yelled at a patient for acting like his friend; this was mainly because no patient prior to Luna had ever done so.

He muttered, 'I… apologise as well. I shouldn't have raised my voice like that, especially over something so… trivial. Sorry.'

'That's okay.' She said, voice brightening a little more.

He nodded and shrugged out of his jacket, rolling his sleeves up to his elbows. 'Do I have your consent to examine your head, Miss Lovegood?'

'Of course.'

He grabbed his stick and used it and the desk to lever himself to his feet, biting back a hiss as the muscles in his leg burned. He took the three steps to get to the examination bed, and he leant his cane against it, putting the majority of his weight on his left leg to ease the burn in his right.

He drew his wand slowly and lit the tip. 'Follow the light with just your eyes.'

He passed the wand back and forth in front of her face, watching her pupils contract and react to the light, making sure that they followed the light's path.

'Do you know what day it is, Miss Lovegood?'

'It's Thursday.' She said softly.

'The year?' Draco asked.

'2008.'

He nodded and extinguished his wand, tucking it back into his robes before picking his stick back up and returning to his chair. He gestured to the empty chair next to his desk and said, 'Come and have a seat over here, Miss Lovegood.'

She boosted herself down to the floor and walked over; Draco's eyes tracked her gait. She sat opposite him, and he asked, 'Are you in any pain?'

'A little, but it's not too bad. My supervisor insisted I come here after the graphorn knocked me over.'

'Pain like a bruise or like a headache?'

'Both, actually.'

He nodded and drew his wand once again. 'Revelare.' He muttered, swishing it in front of her face.

Luna's head lit up in shades of blue and green and white, with swirls and whorls of deep violet running through. Towards the back of her head was the palest of yellows blossoming out.

He dismissed the spell. 'There's some damage to the back of your head, but nothing serious. A few days rest and a mild painkiller and you should be fine.'

He unlocked the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled it out, revealing rows of bottles and vials. He continued, 'Are you allergic to extract of easement?'

'No, Healer Malfoy.'

'Right, I'll give you a bottle of that. Low dose. One teaspoon every four hours for as long as the pain persists.'

He removed the bottle in question and shut the drawer, locking it. He put it on the desk in front of her and said, 'If any other problems crop up, then come back and someone will see to you. Don't let me keep you, Miss Lovegood.'

He gestured to the door.

She nodded and picked up the little bottle, examining the label. She stood and walked to the door. She opened it and paused. She turned back and said, 'Thank you. And… it really was good to see you, Draco.'

She walked out before he could respond, the door clicking shut behind her.