Vonne: Sorry for the lengthy update. I've been working on a couple of pieces that I'd hoped to have up by now and they're just getting lost someplace in the madness. I hope you enjoy the third chapter! Please, please don't hesitate to leave me your thoughts/comments in a review. Critique me, do whatever you'd like, just let me know what you think and I'll keep writing. Promise! Thanks so much for all of it so far, everyone. I appreciate the time and effort so much.

Orchard Omniscient
Apparition

"Draco."

Select things surge back with the pronoun. First, the pillow, then the sink, then the bindings. In the corner rests a small, square chair and out the window shines the sun through the curtains. And no one claps, no one whistles, and no one cheers. Yet it's the strange, soft feeling that makes his body feel faint; so he scans the room and in the brightness finds a figure. Though it's not the eyes, or the nose, or the expression of the thing that's clear, but instead the entire lump of it all at once. For, sloppy, fat, and grinning, the heavy outline across from Draco Malfoy looks almost like Vincent Crabbe. Then looks a lot like Vincent Crabbe. And then looks exactly like Vincent Crabbe.

"Draco."

Draco thinks its quite strange how much the hallucination actually sounds like him, too. Perched against the sill of the window pane and illuminated by the rays of the morning, the boy's burned face shines perfectly, as if oblivious to the fact that he'd died. As if, perhaps, he had not found anything peculiar about his presence there at all. Still. Grinning, the ashen thing leans forward. His large, sausage fingers cling the sill for support and, up close, he pulls a look of repulsion. "Good God, mate," asks Crabbe, just as blubbery and just as deeply as he would have in his actual lifetime, "what has he done to you?"

And Draco asks, "Who?" because he really can't quite remember.

Then everything settles in cliches. Rooms spin, ceilings shrink, and bulbs fry. When the image of Crabbe morphs his face all up again it's with a slight sort of chuckle that he explains, "That Golden Boy, Potter, of course! Looks like he had you bloody lobotomized, if you ask me," and then steps up into the spotlight for a closer look. But the smirk around his cheeks persists and, upon further inspection, turns toothy. "Draco," he thus continues in a voice riddled with so much sarcasm that it reeks with the essence of undeniable irony, "your mother would be absolutely horrified!" And then for good measure he adds, "What would Pansy think?"

But instead of considering Pansy Parkinson and all the possible opinions she may have of his bed-ridden manner, Draco Malfoy lets his mouth open before forcing it shut. There is, nevertheless, the slightest taste of chemicals on his tongue and he thinks of responding back with something cynical before taking back the thought of arguing with the hallucination at all. Drugged or not, Draco thinks conversing with the dead is probably not the best idea. But the dead, nonetheless, converse with him anyway.

"Please tell me you're going to hex the living shite out of him when you snap out of it," says the phantom in what sounds at least to be of a somewhat more serious tone than before. "Draco," he scolds, "For the love of God..."

In the back of his mind, Draco Malfoy pieces together the specifics. He'd stepped into the clearing and he'd plunged himself into the water. Two hands had lifted him from beneath the surface and an angry voice above him had commanded him to wake up. When he did, he was lying on his back in St. Mungo's and Harry Potter told him that he was on suicide watch. Then he'd recommended an anesthetic.

Bastard. Draco promises himself that when he does snap out of it, he'll kill Potter first and then go right back to merrily killing himself, thank you very much.

Anyway. For now, he thinks he'll sleep off the medication.

With a miserable sort of moan, Draco lets his head fall away from Vincent Crabbe and the searing sun. He presses his itchy eyes shut and counts to ten as fast as he can before he forgets how and rambles off in a fit of close-enough syllables. It's strange, nonetheless, how the prickle in his fingers shoots down to his toes and he succumbs to it still, every so often catching the faintest bit of saliva as it trickles down chin and winds up someplace in his pillow.

In the back of his head, he wills the image of his Best Friend to go away. Groggy, disoriented, and plagued with the vision of his own relentless subconscious, Draco scrunches up his nose, squeezes his eyes tight, and mumbles a mantra of, "Go away, go away, go away," before checking to see whether or not he'd managed to make the boy disappear. He hadn't. There, as bright as day, remains Crabbe; smiling sadly with a hint of expected intelligence that is, for that matter, quite strange considering the circumstances. "This is no side-effect, mate," he whispers and a bit of smoldering ash falls casually from his left ear. "This isn't just the drugs talking."

And though Draco wants more than anything to disagree, he keeps his mouth shut and instead focuses on the bindings. He'd only been in St. Mungo's twice and the first time he'd been faking it. With a non-existent pain in his arm, he'd had a nice, cozy sleep in a private room to himself. Vincent Crabbe had shown up in the form of flesh and bones and Goyle and Pansy snuck him chocolates back from Hogsmeade. There'd been no fogginess and there'd been no restraints. There'd been no drugs and there'd been no Potter. It's enough to make Draco want to cry but then again, he refuses to do so in front of Crabbe- figment of his imagination or ghostly apparition or neither. Still.

What he does is bite his lip instead and, with his back to the image, whispers, "Please, please, please," as if manners might do him some good. When they don't, Draco doesn't have enough strength to regret the action. But in the heat of the strange moment, the blond lets his eyes hover over to Crabbe, and with a grain of salt, takes him in gently. He looks exactly the way an overdone slice of meat might look. Or a slab of ham. All blackened up and blinking out the charcoal from his lashes, the Best Friend's smile is a broad, expansive gleam in the distance. He gives Draco not a look of understanding, but instead of utter enjoyment; and with a shake of his big, burley head, says, "Merlin, you are going to shit your pants when you see me in the morning."

And Malfoy, sedated little thing that he is, doesn't even bother to ask what the hell an odd comment like that is supposed to mean, anyway.

Rather, the remaining image of Crabbe leans forward again with an airy sort of voice and curious sort of splendor. He glances once over his shoulder and peers into the hallway as if to make sure the coast is clear. Then he says, "You know, a long line of Malfoy men apparently attempted suicide at one point in their lives," as if the topic were as appropriate as mentioning the weather. "I suppose," he continues, "this was bound to happen sooner or later."

Thus, in nonchalant fashion, Crabbe lifts his shoulders into a shrug, perches his heels up at the edge of the bed, and relaxes in a way that makes Draco feel stiff. When he speaks, a faint trail of smoke seeps from his lips and dances around the opening of his wide, hollow nostrils. "Rumor has it that before your grandfather, Abraxas, got dragon pox he tried to throw himself off the end of a seventeen story tower. Dunno how he survived that one. Heard something about his wife finding him mid-way down, though. I guess the Malfoy women have always been just a tad more composed, wouldn't you agree?" And though Draco knows nothing about any such line of suicide attempts, he keeps his eyes closed and relishes in the peculiarly pleasant notion of his stomach.

But perhaps its the medication that makes Malfoy's head spin with the details. He tries (in vain) not to picture the image of his grandfather falling seventeen stories through the air, only to be greeted with the scene of the moon, the stars, and a great, billowing blond man plunging several feet to his untimely death. Huh. He thinks his father never told him that his own father had succumbed to the fate of the family. And what that leaves Draco with is the wonder of whether or not Lucius Malfoy had come into play with any of it at all, as well.

Still. He guesses it doesn't matter anymore. Now that the man is six feet deep and all that, anyway.

Crabbe, however, carries on with the specifics. Bed-side manner absolutely out of whack, he drives his hand through his hair, looks completely smug, and reports, "Your great grandfather, Brutus Malfoy, ran into his own sword ten times," while waving all his meaty fingers through the air for good measure. "I bet that certainly took the mickey out of him. It's mental that Potter had to be the one to stop you, of course. What the bloody hell was he doing in the woods for that matter, anyway? Oh, look- speak of the devil..."

And then all at once, the voices stop. Instead, soft, prolonged footsteps enter the room behind him and it's the cautious and uneasy way that they carry out through the hospital room that makes Malfoy's body hum and throb altogether. He couldn't move if he'd tried, so he doesn't; and with a fearful sort of quality, he prays that the drug-induced version of Crabbe had been wrong with the arrival.

"Not Potter," thinks Malfoy. "Not Potter." And low and behold, Harry bleeding Potter stands still above the cot.

"Err... Malfoy?" asks the cretin, looking sleepless and ragged in a vile red jumper and a pair of leather trainers, "How're you feeling?"

And Draco resists the urge to leap down his throat and strangle him from the inside. The sedatives, however, spread a nice, warm feeling in his innards and he sinks low into the mattress like a tenant. "Wut isth this poshun?" he inquires, out of curiosity and nothing else.

Though Potter, rather blank, merely blinks. "Potion?" he asks, looking guilty. "Oh, that. Well, I reckon the Healers have given you a calming drought. And perhaps Benzodiazepine. But that's all precautionary-"

"- My arse," intergets Crabbe, but Potter doesn't even look up.

"- I told them to give you some Dreamless Sleep, too," he says awkwardly instead. "I'd noticed you'd been having some rough dreams last time." And the nobility of the act only falls flat with the delivery because Draco doesn't want to think about how Potter might have noticed his nightmares the last time. In fact, Draco doesn't want to think about Potter watching him sleep at all.

"Tell him he's a prick," advises Crabbe. "Tell him to fuck off."

But Malfoy extends his slender fingers and marvels at the euphoric way the bed sheets feel full against his knuckles. "Well," mutters Potter, "uh, it should only last a couple more hours." And he stands there as if he's waiting for something unexpected to happen. Nevertheless, Draco gives a slight moan and lets his head fall back against the pillows. He wants to swat Potter across the face but his arms feels boneless, like a snake's; so he watches his long digits with a gaze curious enough to be a newborn's as Harry Potter fidgets and Vincent Crabbe glowers in the corner.

"He did this on purpose," Crabbe tells him, still clutching the window ledge for dear life. Or, afterlife, Draco supposes. "He did this on purpose just to see you make a bloody fool out of yourself, Draco. You do realize that, don't you?"

And it's not as if Draco really realizes anything, anyway. Too far infatuated with the splendid feeling in his bones, he relishes not in the oddity of the evening, but instead the marvelousness of it all. As if he'd never tried to off himself in the first place, or started seeing his dead friends, or if Harry Potter hadn't shown up. As if it might have even once been considered a good day.

At least, so long as the lovely feeling lasts.

Thus, still pressed against the threadbare blankets, he fumbles with the hospital tubes, takes a steady glance towards the window, and says, "Shuddit," in the most belligerent sort of tone he can muster. It's not directed at anyone except the apparition, of course; but typical Potter takes typical offense. And, "Typical," thinks Draco, watching Crabbe watch Potter watch him. How bloody typical.

"Excuse me?"

The sound comes from a bit of a distance and a pang of happiness sweeps through Draco's chest at the notion of Potter having backed far, far away. However, when he swivels his head around, he finds that he has merely taken it upon himself to make himself comfortable. Leaning forward in the single hospital chair with a look of obnoxious concern on his face, The-Boy-Who-Lived looks The-Boy-Who-Shouldn't-Have up, down, and all fucking over before asking, "Are you okay?" like an idiot behind his pair of large, foggy spectacles. "They shouldn't have given you so much, I suppose. Hermione says it makes some people a bit loony."

Which is, for that matter, easy for Potter to say.

Cozy and most certainly not drugged, he sits high and mighty in his sweater, looking warm. There's not an ounce of disillusion in his eyes and, alert, he has the almost intolerable glow of a morning person.

"God, what a twat," snuffs Crabbe, and Draco thinks it might not be so bad, agreeing with the hallucination. It is, of course, his subconscious speaking, even if it does sound a little bit like Vincent.

So, "Twat," agrees Draco.

And, "Atta boy," exclaims Crabbe.

"Shit," swears Potter.

All in all, Draco doesn't understand why Potter is the one swearing. It's not as if he had come to bound to a bed in St. Mungo's with his worst enemy standing over him and no place to escape. He wonders quite seriously how The Golden Boy might stand to the challenge as a strange sort of defeat takes his face, replacing the consideration at once. He thinks, "Fuck this. And, you know what, fuck Poter, too." Why wasn't he the one seeing ghosts? Surely he'd take one look at their looming figures and heroically send them away with a flick of his golden wrist. Or perhaps he could call the Minister to do the job. Last Draco had heard, the two were on friendly terms and, for that, he intones, "How nice." With all the glittering galleons Potter has in the bank, he could right about pay the bloody ghosts off.

But the notion makes Draco Malfoy sick to his stomach.

"With all the money Potter has in the bank, he could buy a whole Quidditch team," Crabbe says. He looks at Malfoy and raises a bushy brow, face plump and red beneath the soot and ash that covers it. There's nothing extraordinary about the post-life Crabbe except his witty attitude, but Draco overlooks it to scowl at the boy appropriately.

It's true, he thinks. Potter could probably buy a whole Quidditch team. If he wanted, he could buy truck-loads of women and have them dance the can-can merely for the sake of his simple amusement. "Probably two truck-loads," insists Crabbe.

Yeah, Draco agrees. Probably two truck-loads. Son of a bitch.

o O o O o O o O o O o O o

Dashingly caring, bravely admirable hero that he is, Harry Potter kindly leaves Draco Malfoy to his crazy in solitude. He washes in, out, and falls flat, left upon the shore of his own broad imagination as, "What a fucking trip, man," laughs Crabbe. And Draco has to agree. It's quite nice.

To pass the time whilst in his ridiculous 'watch', Draco engages in a splendid staring contest with the wall, so as to not look directly at Vincent Crabbe. When his eyes start to sting and water a bit at the tips, he snaps them shut and pretends to count sheep so that his ex-classmate's rueful chuckling stays faintly within his ear drums. However to Draco Malfoy, sleep does not come. Rather, he considers the Malfoy men and the countless suicide watches they'd surely been put under, wondering what a blow it might have been for the likes of their pride; for surely, he thinks, he had very little left to maintain, now that they'd washed, fed, and managed his piss throughout the fading hours of the afternoon.

Anyway. Draco lets himself be pushed, pulled, and poked by the Healers that slip in and out. He watches glassy-eyed and faded as they lift up his limbs and readjust the bindings roughly. The thick, ugly mark upon his left inner arm, he supposes, does him no favors for fairer treatment. Though nevertheless, Crabbe does all the insulting from behind them.

Strangely amused, he cocks an eyebrow and comments, "Look at her," when a fat, frowning, aide comes in and adjusts the tube in Draco's throat. It doesn't matter that Draco can barely see her; but the vibrancy of Crabbe's voice swivels around the hospital room like an echo, loud and oddly intimidating. "She looks like a right potato," he howls, and then for good measure adds, "You know, she's probably seen you naked."

And a bright red blush overtakes Draco's pointed face, making him flush with heat so suddenly that it actually hurts.

"They've probably all seen you naked. I mean, someone had the task of undressing and redressing you, you know," Crabbe continues. He seems unbothered by the blond's horrified expression, though the potato-woman does as well. Nonetheless, the flappy boyish apprehension on his face stands out wildly from the crook of the Healer's neck and he smiles, despite the sunlight, to rest his chin upon her shoulder in a manner that makes his the flesh bulge out into one, formless blob. The ugly Healer doesn't even flinch.

"How many galleons would you wager," asks Crabbe still perched there, "that Potter's seen you naked now, too?"

And this time, Malfoy chokes on the thick saliva in the back of his throat. He glares at Crabbe, scandalized, and ignores the click of disapproval from the direction of the fat Healer, who wipes away the drool on his chin and lets his frazzled blond hair hang low in his eyes without the mercy of adjusting it. Still. Crabbe scrunches up his squat nose at his friend's predicament and exclaims unimpressed, "Christ, Draco, you're as flushed as a bloody school girl."

"Get a grip of yourself, would you?" he advises begrudgingly, "You're starting to look like one of the patients from the ward above you- and trust me, I just looked around up there. Needless to say, they're absolutely barmy."

"When did you become such a prat?" Draco asks, once the Healer leaves him. But he doesn't expect the smile on Crabbe's face to form so hastily at the accusation. Rather, in a curious way, the boy beams brightly and gives a modest, familiar shrug. Perhaps, Draco wonders, he'd taken it as something of a compliment.

"Dunno, mate," Crabbe says finally, a slight glisten in his eye. "Weird thing is, I still don't play with a full deck."

"Huh," says Draco, on the verge of consciousness. "Well, you can't have everything."

And when the nurses come in, he smiles at the strange serenity of it all; for it's peaceful- so peaceful- and he thinks that, perhaps, it might always be this peaceful.

When the lovely potion wears off, however, he doesn't remember the meaning of the word.

o O o O o O o O o O o O o

Picture Harry James Potter at the beginning of what is undoubtedly the end. He's a deer in the headlights, but there is no highway, there is no driver, and there is no road. Rather, curtains rustle, cameras flash- and he's by himself, and he feels like a bloody idiot. However, Harry Potter is inexplicably right where everyone expects him to be, though he feels not the sense of overwhelming goodness that he's been promised and instead there's a big wave of sloppy sickness in its place.

Anyway, outside it's Monday in the afternoon and it's just about raining. It's the kind of Monday where nothing but blues emits from the speakers of some hypothetical radio- where Bill Withers mourns the absence of the sun and, all the while, the clouds leak teardrops upon the glass of the tinted shop windows. It's the kind of Monday that passes off as night, the kind of Monday that the fog in the sky succeeds in blocking out everything, even space. And it's strange, really, how the universe warns him in such a way, for it suggests the impending exit of his figure at the plastic like a psychic. That kind of Monday, that kind of afternoon, that kind of storm.

"Mr. Potter?" demands a voice, tightly.

He's sitting slumped against his knees with his dark hair a mess and his glasses in a slanted heap across the bridge of his nose. He's wearing the same saggy sweater from the day before and his trainers are wet and squishy with pond water. It's impressive, even in his mind, to see how he'd managed to fall asleep like that successfully, and though he hasn't moved from his spot in the stingy corridors of St. Mungo's, Harry overlooks it all to glance up and instead greet an angry-looking Healer in the light of the wasted evening.

"Mr. Potter," says the Healer again. She's in white and looks like a balloon, all boated and cranky. Harry can see through the light fabric of her untouched garb and her funny-colored bra rests chokingly around her baggy, blemished flesh a manner most unappealing- though for the life of him, Harry tries not to blush.

He can't quite help but think that he should have seen it coming, though. It's funny to think he'd even lasted the night in the first place. Save for the strange conversation he'd had with Draco Malfoy not too long ago, he'd half considered leaving him to rot before his insufferable conscience took over and forced him into the hallway chairs with magnetic conductivity. The warm feeling of a deed well-done, however, hadn't come. Or at least, it most certainly hadn't yet; and Harry lets his eyes dart up to make contact with the ugly Healer's eyes instead of her obnoxiously ill-fitting undergarments.

"Dr. Bosworth would like a word," she tells him, looking rather unamused; and Harry has to think: Finnes Bosworth, PhD, Head Healer, before even making the move to stagger onto his feet. The woman places her hands on her wide hips and keeps her mouth pinched shut. There's a big, sticky stain on her breast pocket and deep black bags under her narrow eyes, but she surveys him with every bit of expectancy stitched sternly on her face. Certainly, Harry decides, she'd had to deal with Draco Malfoy all afternoon.

Still. He keeps his distance when he follows her down the corridors. To prevent himself from stumbling, he keeps his eyes trained on the back of her lumpy head and makes a point not to look inside of any of the hospital rooms against the doors. When they reach a rather large one at the end of the lengthy, white hall, the ugly Healer stops abruptly and motions him inside with a flick of her wrist. "Here you are," she says quickly and huffs down the hall without as much as a second glance.

And before Harry take the easy way out and run away, a loud, friendly voice from the inside of the office exclaims, "Ah, Harry! How wonderful to see you," before spelling the door shut and smiling broadly from the desk at the window. "Please, do have a seat."

In the light, Finnes Bosworth looks absolutely nothing like the image of a doctor. Rather, his lips shimmer in the candle light and his eyes twinkle behind the small lenses of rounded glasses. He's old, physically uninteresting, and inexplicably daunting; but he beams broadly at the image of Harry in the doorway, hands stretched out in a large gesture to the empty seat across from him. "I can imagine," he says in a manner that's a bit too friendly, "you've had a rough night."

"Yeah," Harry admits, but thinks that all things considered, Malfoy's had one rougher.

"Tea?"

"No. Thank you."

There's a strange bout of silence that makes Harry wish he'd accepted. Nevertheless, Bosworth regards Harry properly, still smirking with his hands held together and his papers in an organized heap on the desktop. He wonders what they've done with the old Head Healer- the one who'd known him before any of the War business and had raised her eyebrows at him whenever he'd ended up at St. Mungo's all bloodied up during Quidditch season.

Of sorts, he's a prophet. Except not. Not really.

It still makes him uncomfortable, being the hero that everyone considers him to be. Truth is, he's Harry. Just Harry. And he looks, feels, and acts the same way he has since the day he walked out of Hogwarts with the knowledge that nothing would hurt and everything could be well. Anyway, it's been twelve tantalizing months. Since the insanity, Ministry officials have rebuilt Hogwarts and lessons have started up anew. As it goes, Harry had purchased his own flat, decorated the interior and, when it'd all been said and done, stepped back to take in the result of what'd been eighteen uneasy years in the making.

"The Boy Who'd Lived and Lived and Lived and Lived and Just Wouldn't Stop Living..."

Still, it excuses nothing about the likes of where he is now or what he's done in the past because all of it has done a whole load of nothing except come back to haunt him in the form of one slimy, pointed ferret. Draco Malfoy, he'd been called, but in all reality it's just a whole load of shite. It doesn't matter that they'd hated each other in school or that he'd ripped his bloody chest open on the floor of the girl's darkened bathroom, doesn't matter that he'd let a werewolf into Hogwarts and watched as the wisest man Harry had ever known fall to his death from the Astronomy Tower to the darkness. "Of course it doesn't," Harry tries to tell himself. But somewhere in the back of his head, a harsh voice laughs, "Bullocks."

And even Kinglsey swears up and down that the whole ordeal is just a temporary and small affair of post-war specifics.

Right, well, candidly Harry thinks he's doing that sort of afterlife wrong, but he swallows the lump of large bile that rises reactively in his throat just to drop the matter entirely. So he signs up for the Auror program and saves people's lives as he's expected to. They assign him the task of monitoring those deemed 'dangerous' after the war and somehow, the entire list of Malfoys wind up under his watch. It's all fine and dandy until he spots the youngest in the clearing by the pond. He'd been talking to himself in absolute hysterics and, unseen in the dark behind the brush, it takes one look at the figure before him for Harry to realize, "Fuck." He should have never signed up for this in the first place.

"Mr. Potter?" asks Bosworth, bringing Harry back to the room, and the hospital, and the flickering white candle between the two of them. He looks only slightly disturbed by the tired expression on the boy's blank face, but regains himself to lean even closer to the desktop. "I was wondering if you minded discussing the issue of Draco Malfoy for a moment? You're the Auror that brought him in," he says. Harry opens his mouth to tell him he's only just begun his training, but he cuts him off before he can get the sentence out properly. "It's all just standard procedure."

"Oh," Harry blinks, "Yes, of course."

And, with that, the man takes the initiative to start right into it. "As you know," he says, shuffling through the papers and bringing out a folder with the familiar name labeled across the front, "Draco and his family were placed under the Auror Watch program at the end of the war. Granted, they were not aware that they were being monitored, but it now seems that the steps were beneficial... as it saved the life of their son. The issue now, however, is where the boy will be moved to from here."

"Moved to?" It's one of the slight technicalities that Harry is unaware of. Certainly, he'd figured Draco would be kept at St. Mungo's for the remainder of his suicide watch, but the transfer of his person from hospital to hospital was not something that he'd considered beforehand. "Sorry, I'm not sure I understand what you mean," he starts, looking a bit uneasy when the smile fades slightly from Bosworth's lips.

Then Harry shifts in his chair just a bit, feigning casualty with a roll of his shoulders. Someplace behind the barrier of the office door, a loud, primal scream echoes out around the corridors, but Healer Bosworth doesn't even flinch. Instead he says carefully, "Now that there is evidence that Draco Malfoy is a danger to others, he will not be allowed back home until he completes the required rehabilitation program."

Harry has never heard about a rehabilitation program. Even when the Ministry had briefly explained the Auror Watch details to him, they'd failed to mention such a thing. Thus, a slightly sudden shiver runs up and down the length of his hunched spine. He tells himself that the discomfort is for the sake of his ignorance alone, and not for the well-being of Malfoy. "I still don't understand," he says nevertheless, "Malfoy tried to off himself, not anyone else."

"And that alone," says Healer Bostworth, "speaks multitudes about the current state of the boy's mentality."

Still. Something strange erupts in the pit of Harry's stomach. He clenches his fists around the fabric of his trousers and breathes out a long, shaky breath before shoving his glasses back up the bridge of his nose with the end of his index finger. Then his eyes catch the growing trickle of sweat that has been beading at the end of Finnes Bosworth's hairline. "What does any of this have to do with me?"

"Ah," breathes the man, looking at the large door. "Well, as the Auror assigned to his family, you and I are supposed to discuss the patient's moving arrangements." But before Harry can open his mouth to politely refuse the obligation, the door behind him bolts back open and the ugly-looking Healer sticks her head through the frame all over again.

"There's a bit of a problem," she says despite the distinctly wild shouting from hollow hallways behind her.

And when Harry hears an outraged voice cry out, "Don't touch me, you disgusting swine!" he has to agree. In fact, all things considered, he thinks that there might even be just a bit more than one.

o O o O o O o O o O o O o

Crabbe disappears when the Healers come in.

He's sitting on the window sill with his back against the white wall and he glances up at the uniformed men before sinking back into the sunlight. Needless to say, it makes Draco Malfoy feel not the least bit prepared for confrontation. Still, the Healers give him very little choice in the matter; and when they pile into the room, surround the sterilized bed, and draw their wands, Draco thinks he might go mad before giving in and going mad regardless.

"Don't touch me, you disgusting swine!"

Then Harry Potter waltzes through the door and, crazy composure aside, Draco considers the fact that perhaps he's been doomed to the likes of horrible company to begin with. It doesn't stop the Golden Boy from gawking, however. Mouth wide open and still dressed in the clothes he'd arrived in the day before, Potter stares back at Draco Malfoy as if he'd been the one who had just seen a ghost and there's nothing authoritative about his stature whatsoever. Rather, in the frame of the small door, Potter resembles more of an annoying onlooker than the whole Savior of the whole bleeding Wizarding World (or whatever it is they call him these days).

Draco Malfoy, however, just sees him as a good-for-nothing, spying son-of-a-bitch.

"I'll bloody kill you!"

With full, overwhelming force, he lunges towards the figure with his hands outstretched. It's in a quick sort of manner that Malfoy pulls himself an impressive several inches towards the edge of the mattress, but the Healers swarm back around him as Harry, jumping slightly, takes one, large step backwards towards the unopened door.

"They've told him?" he asks Finnes Bosworth out of the corner of his mouth; and the man nods once from the way back of the watch-room.

In the meantime, the uniformed men wrench Malfoy's jaw open, pour another potion down his throat, and slam their palms over the gaping hole that is his wet, flapping mouth. When Malfoy wriggles his wrist free to slap them away and a plethora of black-colored liquid runs down his chin to stain the sterile sheets of the hospital bed, he turns his gray eyes to Harry and looks appropriately deranged as a rumbling, animalistic growl emits from the depths of his swollen throat.

But Harry, who has seen the likes of pixies and winged-keys and dragons, is certain he's never seen such a display in his entire life.

"My father," Draco threatens darkly, "will have your head!"

"Your father is lucky to even have his own head," snaps one of the Healers. And the comment, though briefly spat, seems to take the ex-Slytherin off guard.

It is, of course, his only subtle mistake. Frozen by the cold delivery, the blond goes down easily with the next shove of unrestrained wrists. Quickly, the Healers wrench his jaw back open, uncork a second vile, and spill an impossibly significant amount of it past his teeth. Then they pinch the end of his pointed nose shut, wait until his cheeks turns a funny shade of blue, and release him only when his throat bobs with the suggestion of consumption. Thus, when Harry glances back up again, the fight in Draco Malfoy is gone completely, replaced instead with the likes of a drug-induced calm and just a tiny bit of something else.

Then the watery, gray eyes catch his own once; but for some reason, Harry looks away.

o O o O o O o O o O o O o

"The door!" someone shouts hoarsely and high-pitched. "The door! The door the door the door!"

The door. Harry sees it in the distance out of the corner of his eye. The big, tall, unyielding door- the same door to the castle and the same door from the inferno. The all-consuming, Crabbe-made oven. The Room of Requirements. Even in his dreams, Harry wishes he had more time.

But it's the diadem, of course, that's still the most important. When he searches for it this time, the fire envelops his very soul and roasts the end of his broomstick like a barbeque. Harry can smell the scent of burning flesh underneath his nose- can sense, for that matter, the remains of Vincent Crabbe, lost somewhere in the depths of the Hellfire below them. Draco Malfoy's hands are still tight around his stomach. His fingers are still pierced into his spleen. And, despite the roar of the flames and the whoosh of the wind around them, he still sobs for the lost soul of his flame-broiled friend. "C-Crabbe!" cries the other, "N-No, no, no, no... C-Crabbe!"

He risks his life for the pointy-faced ferret.

He dives through the heat and swoops him up from the clutter of furniture to let him live for one last time.

Nonetheless, when Harry's fingers find the tiara and he dives through the exit, Draco Malfoy fumbles off from his broom and crawls towards the stoney wall. The door, however, is no longer. Yet still he asks the nothingness, "Crabbe? Crabbe? C-Crabbe? Crabbe? Crabbe?" and when no one bothers to answer, he pounds the thing harshly with his fists and draws blood from his palms like he means it. "N-No..."

The screaming does nothing to Harry's health at first, but after a while it starts to hurt his head. Draco kicks so hard at the rock that the stubble flecks off from it and Harry starts to think, "You know what? You want that bastard back so much, go get him," and gives the Slytherin one, heavy shove. Then the Room opens up again and in goes Draco, back into the madness, back into the flames.

But from his spot on the side of safety, Harry simply stands there and watches. Thus, the pale face turns red, gets blisters, and even pops. His gray eyes shine bright and his wind-swept hair crack crack crackles within the heat. And at last, the screeching form of Draco Malfoy goes quiet. His handsome face turns to ash, and when he doesn't even look human anymore, he finally disintegrates completely.

o O o O o O o O o O o O o

It's two o'clock in the morning.

Harry Potter is not in his bed or anywhere in the house for that matter, but instead upon the same white tile within the same white walls, speaking with the same white-uniformed receptionist he had when he'd brought the body in in the first place.

"Name?"

"Harry Potter."

"Room?"

"Two-fifty-three."

"Patient?"

"Draco Malfoy."

Though he doesn't know why he does it, he does it anyway regardless.

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