Chapter Sixteen: Nostalgia
"No crap now, Malfoy. I want you to tell me what you think about us being soulmates."
She'd called him Malfoy - she didn't call him that anymore unless she meant business. He looked up at the ceiling and fixed his gaze on the splotch there. It looked bigger than usual. "In truth, I don't know how I feel about it."
She could tell that he wanted to leave it at that in order to hide the conflict; she wasn't having any of that.
He wanted to roll his eyes at her look, but he couldn't muster the attitude necessary. "I don't know if I'm ready to talk about it yet."
"Did I scar you that badly?"
He nodded.
She looked away, making a note on her notepad. Still a drama queen. "How about we talk about your dream? Can you tell me about it, or is it too soon?"
Draco closed his eyes, letting the images of the dream float under his eyes. "It will always be too soon."
She made a note: Life changing experience - the nightmare?
"Are you comfortable - "
"I'll never be comfortable talking about it, Granger. It was a vision out of my own personal hell designed to crush me. What do you think? Blood everywhere, being helpless and out of control of my fate - two things that I'm really afraid of. And it just had to involve someone that I - " He stopped himself, and finished the sentence quietly." - care about."
Hermione cleared her throat, trying to gloss over this admission by pretending not to make a big deal out of it. She did not want them to start arguing again. "Why didn't you take the potion I gave you?"
She'd asked him this already. "Because it had your blood in it."
He'd already told her that. Now she needed to dig deeper. "Why did the idea of drinking a potion made with my blood deter you from thinking about your own safety? Was it because... you didn't want to ingest impure blood?"
There was a deafening silence as the word "impure" ate up the air in the room.
"That's not even close to the reason," he whispered darkly.
Changing perspective on bloodlines: offended by insinuation of racism.
"I don't know, Granger, there are so many factors. I didn't know it was that serious that I drink the potion that night. I didn't think I'd have a nightmare like that, even though you cursed me into oblivion earlier in the day. I didn't like the idea of drinking your blood either - it didn't feel right. Not to mention the fact that drinking blood at all is pretty disgusting and gruesome if you aren't a vampire. And... you said that one could drink a pint of blood before one got sick, and there was at least a pint in that potion."
Hermione nodded. She'd figured most of this out already. She had just needed to make sure that he'd done it for the right reasons. "That's only blood in its pure form. The other potion ingredients caused a chemical reaction with it and changed the formula. You should have known that."
"I did... it just didn't matter to me - it was still blood. I looked at that blue vial and saw that white bowl."
Hermione made a few more notes on her parchment. "I'm sorry about that, by the way," she said, not looking up.
"You should be," he huffed, crossing his arms.
Hermione resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "So you'd rather die than ingest my blood?"
Ouch. Draco stared at her. "How am I supposed to answer that?"
"Answer it however you want."
"I refuse."
Hermione sighed and felt her forehead. She looks a little pale today, Draco recognized, feeling a twinge of guilt.
"I think that's enough for this meeting. I want you to go home and think about what we've been discussing. And one more thing." She looked at him. "You need to start making contact with your old friends, and make new ones. You've been cooped up in your flat every second you're not at work or here."
Draco looked at the ceiling, fixing his eyes on his splotch. "I thought I wasn't supposed to 'fraternize' with my old life."
Hermione shook her head. "That was before. Now that you've changed, I need you to dig up old relationships so you can evaluate them."
"I don't have any bloody friends, Granger."
Hermione picked up her quill again and made a note on her paper. "Of course you do. What about Goyle? Pansy? And weren't you friends with Blaise Zabini?" He shook his head, crossing his arms.
"None of them want to talk to me."
"Just trust me, Draco. It helps you find your place. That is all."
"What is this place?" Blaise Zabini said as they walked through a pair of doors into the warmly lit little restaurant.
Draco looked around, feeling distinctly pissy. "I have no idea. But the food is good."
They were at Parachute, the only place Draco could think of to spend time with his former mate. He did not, under any circumstances, want Blaise to see his pitiful flat, nor was he inclined to visit him at work even though Draco got off two hours earlier than Blaise. Even though Blaise had a slight air of pomp about him, he was and had always been logical and trustworthy, and thus Draco had liked him the most of all of his comrades.
They sat in silence for a good five minutes as they studied the menus and drank coffee. Draco, in the meantime, contemplated the awkwardness that had settled between them with so much time.
"How's everything going with you?" Blaise had spoken.
"Not so bad," Draco responded. "It's getting better on my end."
"I heard that Potter up and set you free." There was a hint of a sneer on his face.
Draco nodded, taking a sip of his coffee. "Potter always has to be the righteous prat, you know that," he muttered. "But a lot of good has come from it."
Blaise shook his head, looking around him at the other people in the restaurant, and then down into his coffee cup. There was a moment of silence before Blaise leaned in a little closer to Draco. "They've taken everything from you, mate."
Draco hadn't thought of that in a while. He was getting used to a life without a wand, a life without riches, and a life without constant help, and it certainly had not been easy at first. But since he had relinquished his former life anyway when he went to Azkaban and had been living for three years without being nourished in that way, he had become accustomed to it.
"I know it. But like I said, it's not so bad anymore." Draco drained his cup. "And besides, it was the Dark Lord that put me in this mess to begin with."
His friend was certainly surprised to hear Draco speak so brazenly about the Dark Lord, but then again, even now it was hard for the people to get over his death. The public was reluctant to criticize him or even say his name still. "Yes, I suppose it is," he said after a moment, sighing around his coffee cup.
"How about you?"
Blaise shook his head again. "No different than usual, really. Mum's still a man-trapping tart. You'd think she'd grow out of it." It was not uncommon for Blaise to speak this way about his mother. "I am working in World Affairs for the Ministry, though."
"Is it as hard a job as it sounds?"
"Definitely." Blaise smirked. He looked around again. "I've been meaning to ask you - what does the name of this place mean? It's certainly... different."
Unfamiliar surroundings tended to make people uncomfortable, Draco realized. "I've... been told that it's a muggle life-saving device of some sort. It works like a hover charm."
Blaise titled his chin up in understanding, moving his arms off the table as his sandwhich was placed before him. "You like muggles now then?"
Draco stared at him. "Not necessarily." It had been very hard for him to realize exactly how much he had changed since he had last seen Blaise before. They had almost nothing in common now.
"Who showed you this place anyway?"
Draco stabbed a fork into his side salad.
"So..."
"Don't ask me, Granger."
She gave him a fierce look. "Don't tell me what I can't ask. I'm guessing that your little outing didn't go too well, then?"
He stood up and paced his way in front of her desk. "It was absolutely torturous!"
"Be patient, Draco. It takes time, you know."
"It's just one bloody thing after another with you, isn't it? If I could just rest a bit before you have me do something else so... taxing!" He ran his fingers through his hair.
"Calm down, will you? I know the process is hard. But you have to make the most of this year, because for anything past that you have to pay out of your own pocket. Don't you want to get better?"
"Yes, I do! Or I did! All of this buggering - "
Hermione threw down her quill. "It's all a part of the process, Draco! After all of this is over, after you have changed, everything gets easier, I promise."
He calmed his breathing, trying to get control over his anger. Why did she insist on torturing him with everything? This was supposed to be therapy, not an extension of his prison sentence.
"Look here," she said, "this is all to help you, and you know it." She realized then how each day, she was learning more and more about him. He had definitely turned out to be a very complex person - certainly more complex than she had orginally thought. "I bet you thought when you first came in here that I just sit here all day and ask you how you feel. That's not what therapy is. Therapy is reaching deep in your heart, deep in your life, and spearing out all of your problems to be dealt with. And I love to get right up in your business, you know that - because the deeper you go into the cave, the more darkness you encounter."
Draco nodded. That made sense. "I had that bloody nightmare only a week ago, Granger. I'm still having panic attacks from it!"
"Well, I can't help that, can I?"
It was his turn to give her a fierce look.
She looked a little apologetic as she rearranged the papers on her desk. "What exactly went wrong do you think?"
Draco thumped back down on her couch, his arm hitting the wooden back of it painfully. "Everything, you twit."
Hermione took a deep breath and made a note: Revitalizing temper problems with new tasks.
That meant she had to do more poison-sucking. Or in other words, she had to make him snap again.
"Was it awkward?"
Draco threw his hand up. "Yes, it bloody well was! I thought he was going to hex me while my back was turned! It was nothing like back in school. I mean, the second I told him you were my therapist, he just... it was like I was suddenly the poster child for muggles or something!"
She scoffed. "What does he think - I'm here sucking your toes? We are making progress here - I'm not turning you into some kind of 'blood-traitor.'"
He shrugged, still fuming. "Whatever he thinks doesn't matter. I mean, he wasn't even the same person that I remember - it wasn't at all like I remembered."
"Nothing will be, Draco. You need to understand that. Nothing will be the same. You've gotten some ideas in your head now. You are way more traumatized now than you were then. Things have happened to you, things that will never dissappear. People you know may be the same - but your relationships are different, and your ideas are different."
The splotch on the ceiling looked distinctively like Crabbe. He could even see a face on it today. "If all that is true... then why are you making me do this? I should just... try... to start anew."
She shook her head, writing away on her parchment. "You need closure from your past. You can't just shove it behind you now that you are ready to face it - "
"I AM NOT READY TO FACE IT!"
"I'll be the judge of that, patient. You are, and you just don't want to."
She was really getting on his nerves today. "Of course I don't. All I got back then was grief, you know that." Hermione shook her head, still writing.
"STOP FUCKING WRITING AWAY, WILL YOU? All that talk about caring about me and suddenly you're throwing me to the dragons again! When will I stop getting burned?"
"When you stop walking into the dragon pit."
Oh. She was doing it again - making him angry on purpose. He raked his fingers over his face, leaving a trail of redness on his skin. "HAVE I GONE COMPLETELY MAD?"
"No, not yet. Trust me, you'll know when you have."
Stress.
Hermione leaned her forehead against the wall of the bathroom. She was feeling exceptionally shitty this afternoon. She'd had six straight hours of screaming from Draco, Pansy, and two of her other patients (which included one Marietta Edgecomb, the topping on a perfectly shitty cake of a day,) and then had visited a patient at her house to find her pissed out of her mind from firewhiskey. It was definitely one of the days where she wished she had taken up a job that was a little less stressful.
Of course, Hermione had a talent for psychology. She knew it, her employers knew it, and all of her friends knew it.
But her job was definitely taking its toll on her.
She'd thrown up that morning, after her first patient of the day. She usually didn't throw up; in fact, she could only remember a handful of times in her life when she had, and it had never been from stress. She usually handled stress fairly well.
"'Alright, love?" was Ginny's muffled voice from behind the door. "Neville's just arrived with Lav."
"I'm fine," she said loudly enough for Ginny to hear. "I'll be out in a bit."
And now she had come home only to remember that Ron was throwing a party for Ginny's birthday and her and Harry's marriage. It was a wonder that they'd waited this long to get married anyway... they were all over each other constantly. That was another thing she didn't want to think about; she and Ron had given it a go the other night and it had not turned out very nicely at all.
They were complete blunderers in that regard.
Hermione rose to her feet, willing her face to return to its normal color. As she recalled, Draco was also invited, by her request - a therapist thing, definitely. It would be interesting to see how he got along with a circle of his former enemies.
As she opened the door, Hermione hoped that everyone could refrain from killing each other until after she'd had something strong to drink.