"Have you eaten anything today, Draco?"
The blond, several stray hairs across his eyes, snores as his body rouses. Calm, slate eyes open to stare at none other than Kingsley Shacklebolt. The only word he can manage is, "Fuck." The other man chuckles. "What time is it?"
"Cast your own Tempus charm, Malfoy." Draco ignores him, checks his watch, then wipes the sleep from his face vigorously. His wand never leaves the clutch of index finger and pinky. Several times, he runs his fingers through his hair, casually tossing it to the side, only to muss it and do it again. His once absurd, but now comforting ritual complete, he looks over at Kingsley.
"Why are you here?"
"It's been two days. They're waking him from the induced coma."
"And?"
"And they wanted me to be here when he woke."
Draco huffs, arms crossed as he stretches his legs out in front of the wobbly chair. "Where's Weasley?"
A pointed look from Kingsley and Draco concedes with a casual toss of his hand. Kingsley answers, "She's been admitted to an inpatient ward for rehab." He sighs regrettably. "The poor girl was pretty far gone."
"Poor girl? If you saw what he looked like two days ago, I doubt you'd call her that." Draco motions toward Harry, who lays still on the bed, his breathing steady. The bandage across his eye extends into his hairline.
"Perhaps they are both to blame here, Draco. We cannot judge them by their circumstances—" he pauses here for emphasis, "past or present. Not everyone was as privileged as you were."
"Thanks for putting it in the past tense, there, Shacklebolt."
"Always here to please, Malfoy." He grins, but it is more a widening of lips, a concession to being politic, than anything else.
In the silence of the room, both men sit for over an hour waiting for the healers to make their appearance. Draco fiddles with his wand, scoots around the edges of his chair as it threatens to collapse beneath him. He scowls every time Kingsley chuckles to the quiet room. Across from him, the Minister of Magic leans against the wall, a dark, stony pillar waiting for vines to weave their menacing little fingers around his neck and strangle him. Neither pretend to care much when a slew of healers invade the room as if the Minister himself had just been blown up.
Draco hears little of the spells they use to remove the magically-induced coma, but laughs outright when he hears one of them throw a Rennervate at Harry. The incapacitated man's body jerks between the bed rails, but continues to lay still. One of them casts a diagnostic, but the first casts the reviving spell again. He moves more this time and one of them has to catch his arm as it flails wildly to the side.
A groan fills the gaps in the room between all the moving body parts and frantic whispers. Everyone stops. It's Draco who steps forward, lays a hand on Harry's shoulder, and speaks quietly to him.
"Wha-" Harry stammers, "where am I?"
"You're in St. Mungo's."
"Why?" His eyes grow wide, but Draco's hand squeezes softly at his shoulder.
"We can talk when the healers leave, Potter. Right now, I need you to tell them if you're in any pain. You've been in a coma for two days." Harry's thick eyebrows draw together in confusion as he tries to remember, but Draco brings him back. "Focus, Potter. Right now. Are you in any pain right now? Feel anything unusual? Do you need anything?"
Harry's hands move then and the whole room begins to scurry about as if a hornet's nest is stirring amongst them. He runs fingers up his arms, down his chest, across what he can reach of his thighs. Draco looks down when Harry's tongue pokes out in concentration and sees him wiggling his toes. It isn't until he turns his hands over once, twice, then lifts them to his head that he sighs. When Harry reaches the bandage, he looks up to Draco.
"What is it?"
"Someone cast a spell on you and it wasn't done properly. Now they want to heal the damage, but need your permission."
"And if I say no?"
"Then you have a scar to match that one." He flicks Harry hard on the forehead where Voldemort's scar remains; his infamous scar. Draco grins as the healers shake their heads. Harry mumbles something, but when Draco leans forward, he stops. "What?"
"Maybe they won't stare at me all the time if it's not just that one." He's looking back down at his hands, where they are now tapping out a staccato rhythm against his thigh. It grows faster, louder, until Kingsley steps forward.
"Perhaps we should give Mr. Potter some breathing room. We can contact you if his condition changes or if he should like that healed."
Harry looks up at Kingsley, noticing him in the room for the first time. His thumb-tapping slows as the myriad healers and assistants clear the room. What remains is a steady, even beat, which Harry seemingly ignores.
"Which one of you is going to tell me what happened?" He looks from Draco to Kingsley and waits.
"Perhaps Mr. Malfoy would be better able to help you there," Kingsley suggests hesitantly. "Harry, it's good to see you awake." Harry looks confused, but he continues. "I'll see myself out. Malfoy, if anything changes, or if Harry should think of… something pertinent, send a Patronus, yes?" Draco nods. They both watch as Kingsley reaches for the door, then disappears.
Harry's brows draw together like an angry caterpillar. "Mal—Draco. You're going to have to help me, here. I don't remember anything."
"What was the last thing you do remember, Harry?"
"I remember…" he trails off as he looks down, thumb tapping thoughts to the wind. "I remember being angry." Draco waits for him to continue, but when nothing comes, he clears his throat.
"Why were you angry?"
"Ginny came home late. She was late and she," he inhales sharply, remembering. "She—oh, Merlin, Draco. What did I do?" This time, his voice is small, cracking on the last few words with emotion that runs rampant as his heart rate speeds up. A healer scurries into the room, but Draco raises a hand to stop him.
"We're fine. He's fine."
"He can't get worked up like this," the healer insists. "Let me give him something to calm the nerves, at least." Draco pins the older man with a steely glare, but nods.
"Quickly."
Harry takes the offered potion with no questions asked and sets the vial aside. "I need to know, Draco."
"I don't know what you did, if you did anything."
"What does that mean?"
"Would you allow me to use Legilimency on you, Harry?" The other man seems to shrink at the mere suggestion, his breathing going erratic again, but as the potion kicks in, it slows. "You can use occlumency to shield anything prior to three days ago; I won't go looking, Harry."
"Why do you keep saying my name like that?"
Draco sighs. "We're not school children anymore. I think you and I both know that we are very different individuals than the scared boys attending those trials after the war. I may still call you Potter occasionally, but your given name is Harry. For this interview, your name is Harry." Harry nods in some strange form of acknowledgment. What, exactly, he's acknowledging, he isn't quite sure of just yet.
"Yes, you can do it." The words are so quiet Draco almost misses them.
"I'll be quick."
Draco's non-verbal spell is strong, but not offensive. He's mastered the technique and is one of the department's best. When he reaches out for the memories, they are there, displayed for him, but shrouded by the fog of Harry's injury and the spell he's been hit with. Draco slowly pulls apart each moment until he can piece it back together again. As things became clear, Harry re-lives the memories he lost. Groans and fierce denials fill the room. Soon, Draco has to pull back for fear of pushing too much, of pulling him apart so far that he can't be put back together again.
"No. NO. That's not what happened!" he says in frantic disbelief. "Ginny, she wouldn't. She wouldn't. She…" Harry trails off.
"Harry, when I came into your house, you were already unconscious, so you didn't see what happened after she cast that spell." He is practically whimpering now, rocking to the rhythm of his breathless mutterings.
"She wouldn't. She wouldn't. No. I told her to go, but she wouldn't."
"You asked her to leave." Draco makes it a statement instead of a question.
"Yes, but she wouldn't."
"Why did you want her to go?" Draco asks, more to solidify the memories in Harry's mind than his own.
"She'd been with someone else." The fingers of Harry's left hand are running up and down his right arm. Draco watches as they slowly turn from light pressure rubs to nail gouges. He stands and walks closer.
"Harry, stop." Nothing. "Harry." No response. "Harry, you have to stop. This isn't your fault." Suddenly, there is a marble hand atop his own and he stills. The room is silent and he can think.
"She did this, didn't she?" He removes his hand from beneath Draco's and points to his temple. Draco nods. "Where is she?"
"Inpatient rehab facility."
"Is she okay?"
"I don't know. She was using some pretty dodgy potions. Do you know where she got any of them?" He shakes his head. "That's all right. We've traced one of them to a known dealer. There were just so many in the house…" He lets the rest go unsaid.
"It was my fault."
"No, it wasn't. She chose that. If anyone in this fucked up world of ours had a reason to do something like that, it would be you or, hell, even me. We didn't. She did. End of story."
"It's not that simple."
"It never is, Harry. It never is." Draco stands, stretching and looking to the door. "Do you need anything right now? I'm going to go check with the healers about your discharge. I can't leave until you do." Harry shakes his head and Draco is glad to leave the staccato beat of Harry's nerves behind.