A.N this chapter is short because it will be in two halves-hopefully the other will be updated within the next few days. I just thought it would be two long to be all in one and therefore confusing as it switched POV. Thankyou.

"This okay for you?" The face looking down on the man loomed into focus, the edges of the pretty woman standing above him blurred as a bright light shined down onto his eyes.
"Oh yeah." The man rasped jokily, trying to make humour out of the situation that made his heart hammer in his throat.
"Lie very still. Don't move. Breathe gently." The same speech every time, twice a month for three months already he had had this. Only this was the first scan where they knew exactly what they were looking for.
"That's my fantasy." The man laughed again, trying to focus on the bright blue eyes of the woman in white who had yet to move from his sight.
"Ready?"
"Give it to me." He tried to make it light, tried to flirt, but the croak in his voice that came out like a soft whimper said otherwise.
"Squeeze this if you have any problems." The woman handed him a small piece of rope, which he could not see but knew she had handed him.
The man smiled, taking hold of the woman's hand, "What, this?"

Ignoring him, the woman in white walked away with a faint smile, leaving him to apply the headphones himself, reaching up blindly to his ears and pressing the big muffs down firmly. "Sure you don't want to join me in here?" He called out as he felt the bed of the CT scanner rolling into the small couldn't hear her reply, and something about his inability to hear over the loud drone of the machine made him feel even more claustrophobic and alone, even if he was used to the sensation by now.

"With your speech, can you remember what happens, exactly? Can you describe the problems you have?" She was sat across from him, her hair pinned up in a tight knot, now in a suit.
"It doesn't affect my intelligence; I just have trouble getting the st-stupid word out." The man stuttered, much to his annoyance, which showed highly on his pale face.
"We're just trying to get to the route of the problem, Draco, no one is accusing you of anything." She still looked sad, her perfectly figured face as tight as the bun in her hair.
"It's just intensely embarrassing to stumble of the name of a spe-friend. I have trouble telling my wife I love her." The man lied, trying to cover up his near fatal mistake of talking of magic to a muggle.
"In my opinion, we can definitely rule out dementia or any generative disease." The woman carried on, ignoring his comment.
Ignoring him, ignoring his pain that she couldn't feel.
The embarrassment and the hurt contorting the world around him.
Although she was stony faced, the man couldn't help but show some sort of smile, even though he didn't know what the words meant, something about the way she said them sounded good. Almost.
"I'm afraid to say, looking at your latest scans, and your symptoms, I think the only explanation is that you have a brain tumour. Cancerous and untreatable."
There was a word he did know.

Her voice was soft yet firm droned in and out of his mind, the story replaying over and over as he sat in the same position he was in a month ago.

He tried his best, trying again to fix his position just above her head; trying to make the room stop spinning and the words she was saying come out in a straight line.
"-although the scan today does seem to show that the tumour hasn't grown." Somewhere between his brain and his fingertips, the time Draco was in now separated from the time before, and he suddenly fell back into the room. The woman's hair was down, long passed her shoulders with one wisp falling into her eye. Draco was still looking at the spot just above her head, at a letter on the poster on the wall. He couldn't read the letter; his eyesight wasn't that good anymore. But he focused all his energy on it anyway. Making it stand out.
"Is it still inoperable?" Draco asked suddenly, his voice sounding soft against the harsh rocking of his brain.
"Unfortunately, I think it always will be." The doctor looked back at him, a small smile on her face suggesting a touch of empathy.
"Right." Draco concluded, nodding his head sharply, his gaze wavering slightly from his letter.
She probably started talking again, but Draco was too busy concentrating on not letting his mind wander to the last time he stared at that letter behind the pretty woman's head.
He kept going back to the minutes when he was first told, when he first heard the words come out of her mouth, her voice as monotone as it was today and her eyes looking with no feeling.
An apology was what she gave almost every time but the woman was like him, cold hearted. Maybe not even a cold heart led to the settlement of selfishness and an unseeing eye. That was always something Draco battled within himself, how he always seemed not to care on the outside. Not that he did on the inside either-in some cases.
But with a person sat in front of him whom he wanted to show some sort of emotion other than boredom and he wasn't getting it, he could only see an image of himself reflected back. And it hurt. Somewhere, squished in between the pain and the embarrassment and the downright sadness, he felt a tiny bit small at the fact he wasn't getting anything but bad news from this doctor that was supposed to know how he was feeling and make it better.
Muggles were just as stupid as he thought, proven.

"Hermione!" for the second time that week, Hermione heard Harry's voice call out behind her in the hallway, forcing her to stop in her stride and turn back.
"Harry." She smiled, only half glad to bump into him as she transferred her folders into her left arm and pulling him in for a hug with her right..
"Hi, Harry, Hermione." Ron's sheepish voice came from behind her as she let go of Harry and turned sharply to see the redhead standing in front of them, looking as stressed as she felt.
"Oh for fuck's sake, this is all I need-" Hermione started, but then turned back to Harry and caught sight of his face. His hair was scruffy and his eyes looked tired, almost bloodshot. Suddenly, at the surprising sight of his current state that was a complete opposite from the start of the week, Hermione dropped her own stresses from her mind.
"Are you on your break? Both of you?" His rough voice startled her as she pulled away and held Harry by his elbow, looking at him properly.
"Did you set this up?" She asked Harry sharply, casting a quick glance over her shoulder at the man still standing behind her.
"No, he didn't-I never usually come down here but I needed to go to Law Enforcement." He said tentatively, knowing all too well that was Hermione's own department.
"And should I ask why?" Hermione stood tall, raising her chin against the man she detested to see the sight of, feeling suddenly both protective and proud of her department.
"Guys, please, can I talk to both of you? Can you leave work for just one second, please Hermione?"
"I was about to go to-" But Harry's eyes looked pleading, searching for her to go with him, "Actually, I can do that later. Are you okay?"
"Thankyou," Harry breathed out a breath he didn't know he was holding, and for one of the first times in her life, Hermione thought he genuinely meant it, "can we go for a walk? I need to talk to you."
"Are you sure you need me?" Ron asked, feeling awfully uncomfortable as the two shut him out.
"Mate, of course I need you." Harry smiled over Hermione's shoulder at the man, and then chanced a daring glare at the woman, who didn't utter a word against the statement.

The three walked in silence towards the elevators, Ron sulking behind as he sunk his hands further into his pockets.
"Are you okay?" Hermione asked again as they stepped into the open doors.
"No, not really. No." He answered shortly, the start of tears being swallowed in his voice.
"Do you want me to carry those, 'Mione?" one of Ron's long, stubby fingers pointed to the folders in Hermione's arms, which were threatening to topple on the ground.
"I'm actually perfectly capable of carrying them myself, thankyou." The woman said curtly, adjusting them in her arms.
"Suit yourself." The man said irritably, giving a sad smile to Harry.

Draco left the bright corridors of the hospital for the cold and rather dismal afternoon in central London. The ground was wet and the air only reflected his mood.
Not wanting to go back to Granger's just yet, for fear of being cooped up inside again, Draco started walking in the direction of forward, not knowing anything about the very noisy and very busy city he was in.
His mind was all over the place, his eyes not seeing where his body was leading him, caught up in his own thoughts as he struggled against the breathing wind that threatened tears from his eyes. Of course, it was the wind.

He tried all he could to clear his mind, to empty the thoughts that kept washing over him in tidal waves, one after the other, over lapping so much that his head span in concentration. The doctor wanted him to go to a support group. The doctor wanted him to stay inside more. The doctor wanted him to come again next week. The doctor wanted to give him more tablets. More fucking tablets. Because four, four times a day wasn't enough. And a support group indeed, what the hell was he going to do in a support group surrounded with muggles? He only knew what one was because there was one in one of the films he was watching the day previously. He had got through quite a lot of films, but the strain of keeping his brain alert was starting to hurt, and it certainly wasn't helping his vision at all.

Although he was starting to appreciate muggles a little more, he still couldn't stand to be in a room alone with them. Even just walking now, with his eyes firmly fixed upon the ground, he could still sense the dirt around him. The foul breath of those below him beating down on his chest, touching his skin, their eyes darting in his direction stares burning into him. He couldn't cope and he felt trapped. Suffocated. Unable to move against the burning pressure of his head.

He had been brought up not even being allowed to look at a muggle, let alone speak to a mudblood without being severely punished. He still had scars from when he was five, when he was caught talking to the local boy who used to marvel at his castle. All Draco had done was smirk and say his house was better than the boy's, and then proceeded to laugh at a joke the boy told. They hadn't even had time to play soldiers before Draco's aunt had seen them. He never found out what had happened to the boy. He didn't want to know.

And he had been cast out now by his family as if he was a muggle. As if he were as low as a rat in the gutter that only deserved the foul of a dog. Week in, week out, Draco had been pushed this way and that between hospital walls, transferred from each one to find out the diagnosis. And ever since, it was all that kept playing in his mind. What he did, how he felt, what he said-what he should have said.