{ Chapter Fourteen }
Draco opened his eyes slowly against the dim lighting in the room. He was lying on a hard mattress and there was a soft beeping noise coming from somewhere above his head. It didn't take him long to realize he was in a bed at St. Mungo's. He got the distinct feeling he was being watched; a feeling that was confirmed when he turned his head and saw Theo sitting in the hard plastic chair next to him.
He tried to sit up, but quickly realized his whole body was in pain. He inhaled sharply and lay back down.
"What the hell happened?" His voice came out rough from disuse. "I feel like I got ran over by a stampeding herd of hippogriffs."
"We were hoping you could tell us. Cho and I were sent to your house to investigate a magical power surge and an explosion. The place was a disaster."
Images started to flood back to him. Potter asking questions he shouldn't be asking. Hermione getting angry, yelling at him, telling them awful things, and then losing control of her magic. He remembered the shockwave. He remembered flying through the air. Then, nothing.
"Hermione? Is she okay?" It was the first thought on his mind. When had her well-being become so important to him that he would ask about her first instead of his partner? Theo seemed to notice as well, raising his eyebrow in question but not commenting.
The door opened and a Healer with short blonde hair and a bright pink uniform walked in. She smiled brightly when she saw that he was awake and practically bounced across the room to his bedside.
"You're awake! How are you feeling Mr. Malfoy?" She started waving her wand over his body, checking that broken bones were healing and there was no more internal bleeding. She didn't wait for his answer and she didn't listen to his grumbling. "It looks like everything is healing up just fine. You should be able to leave in the morning."
"What about Hermione?" He asked again. "Is she okay? I want to see her."
The Healer faltered, glancing at Theo before returning her attention to Draco. She plastered another smile on her face, this one as phony as could be.
"We did not find anything wrong with your wife, Mr. Malfoy, with the exception of a few cuts and scratches. She did not sustain the same injuries as yourself or Mr. Potter."
He wanted to breathe a sigh of relief at her words, but the nervous look she was shooting towards Theo stopped him. There was something else. Something she hadn't told him yet. Something that he wasn't going to like.
"She's home then?" Judging by the atmosphere in the room, he knew that was the wrong conclusion to jump to.
"No. She's still here, under observation." Theo watched him carefully for his reaction.
Draco nodded in understanding. They knew that she had caused the explosion then. She was probably in the uncontrolled magic ward.
"Can you bring her in to see me, then?" A terrible thought crossed his mind. What if she didn't want to see him? What if she blamed him for what happened? That was just ridiculous really. He had specifically told Potter not to ask her any questions about her time with Weasel.
"I can't do that just yet. We have some business to discuss first."
"I want to see my wife, Theo. It's not a complicated request." His eyes narrowed and his voice took on that cocky Malfoy tone that he always seemed to fall back on when he wanted to see results. Probably because it always worked.
The Healer fidgeted with her smock and avoided eye contact like the plaque.
"That's not a good idea, Mr. Malfoy. You need some rest. Perhaps tomorrow you'll feel up to seeing her, yes?" She smiled at him once more before flouncing out of the room as quickly as possible.
"I'm not going to ask again, Theo. Where the hell is Hermione? And is she okay?"
Theo watched him carefully. He, like many others, had been under the assumption that Draco had married Hermione simply to save her from Weasley, and they would be split up within a year. The look in his friend's eyes at that moment convinced him that there was more to it than that. Draco had feelings for her, whether he intended to or not. Theo rubbed his forehead slowly. He would have to proceed with caution.
"What happened in your study, Draco?"
Theo was doing everything right. He was maintaining eye contact. His voice was steady. He wasn't jittery or fidgeting. He was relaxed in his chair. To the casual observer he would look like a friend visiting a friend in the hospital and asking what had happened. He was good, very good, at making an interrogation look like a conversation. Unfortunately for him, Draco had seen him use the same technique many times in the field. It wasn't going to work on him.
"You know its funny Theo, but I don't remember a thing. Talking to my wife just might help to jar my memory though."
Theo knew immediately that Draco had seen right through him. He pushed the chair back and stood, rubbing his hand across his forehead.
"Dammit Malfoy. You're as stubborn as she is! The two of you are absolutely perfect for each other. Do you know that? As long as you can keep from killing each other, you should be looking at Happily Ever After." He paced back and forth next to the bed, trying to make up his mind. Once his decision was made he moved quickly to get a wheelchair moved over to the bed. "You want to see her? Fine. I'll take you to see her. Then you're going to talk."
Draco eyed the wheelchair for a moment before sitting up painfully and moving to sit on the edge of the bed. As irritated as Theo was, he didn't like to see his friend and co-worker injured, so he helped Draco move from the bed to the chair with limited issues. He charmed the chair to roll ahead of him. The chair turned left out of the room, rolled down the hall to the elevator and took them all up to the fifth level.
"Why is she on level five? Five is high-security risk and prisoners, right?" The chair rolled down the hall and turned right.
"Until we know what happened the other day, she is considered a high security risk." Theo watched for a response, expecting a denial, but none came.
Draco was in an observation room. One wall was one way glass. He could see into the other room, but she couldn't see them. The room was white. Very white. She was wearing a white gown and sitting on a white bed. The only splash of color in the room was her brown hair. In the lighting it looked dull, limp, and lifeless.
"You have her locked up like a common criminal!"
"She tried to kill two MLE officers! She is a common criminal!" He knew he had to push Draco if he wanted to get any information out of him at all. As he suspected, Hermione seemed to be Draco's Achilles' heel.
"What are you talking about? She never tried to kill anyone." His eyes never left her. She was sitting on the bed, staring at the blank, white wall in front of her. She didn't move much at all, she just stared forward.
"You have no idea how close to death both you and Potter were, do you? Here, look at this." He handed Draco a case folder. He spread it out on the table in front of him. There were pictures of his study, or what was left of it. It looked like a tornado had ripped through the room. One wall was completely missing. There were pictures of Draco and Harry lying mangled in the rubble. And there was a picture of Hermione, lying on the floor completely untouched from the destruction around her.
Then there were the lists of injuries. Draco's was a collection of broken bones, a punctured lung and a concussion. Potter's list was very similar.
The next page was a group of questions. They all had "no comment" written next to them.
"Can I assume you showed this file to her?" His voice was ice cold, his hand flexing into a fist as he asked the question and waited for an answer.
"Of course. SOP, you know that. Malfoy, if we had gotten there two minutes later, you would be dead right now. You and Potter both."
Draco dropped the file on the table. He knew Theo was right. But he also knew it wasn't her fault. He needed to get her out of there somehow.
"I'm going in to talk to her." He turned the chair towards the door then slowly lifted himself to his feet. The bone in his leg had healed quite a bit, but was still pretty sore when he placed his weight on it.
"What are you doing? First, you can't go in there, it's a conflict of interest. Second, you aren't supposed to be on your feet until tomorrow. You're going to re-break your leg."
"I'll be fine. I need to go convince my wife that I'm not lying in my fucking deathbed. Just stay here."
He moved slowly down the hall and opened the door leading into her room. She didn't look away from the wall she was staring at.
"You're wasting your time, Nott. I'm not telling you anything until I see Draco." Her voice conveyed no emotion. He got the feeling she had said that sentence many times in the last few days. He sat down on the edge of the bed, thankful to be off of his leg.
"Hermione."
Her head snapped toward the sound of his voice, surprised to hear Draco's voice instead of Theo's.
"Draco! You're alive!" She sat up and threw her arms around his neck. He hissed at the sudden movement, but wrapped her up in his arms anyway.
"Of course I'm alive. Why wouldn't I be?" His voice was strained, just barely, but she heard it. She let go of him and sat back a little bit.
"You're alive, but you're hurt. I'm so sorry, Draco. I swear to Merlin I never meant to hurt you or Harry, or to destroy your house. I don't even know what happened." Her eyes welled up with tears and they fell quickly. "They locked me in here and wouldn't let me see you and they told me that I might have killed you and Harry and I was going to be charged with 2 counts of attempted murder unless you died, then it would be changed to murder charges."
He pulled her into his chest and let her cry for a good long time. Theo was still watching and wondering if Draco had forgotten he was there, especially when Draco leaned down and kissed Hermione slowly and gently. He almost turned around, not wanting to intrude on a personal moment like that. He wasn't expecting the kiss to escalate from a kiss to a full on snog session but soon enough Draco was kissing his way down her neck to the opening on her nightgown. Hermione leaned her head back to give him better access and moaned in approval as his hand found the first tie.
Theo knew he had to do something or he was liable to have a front row seat to something he really didn't want to see. Draco heard the door slam in the hall and knew he only had seconds before Theo would open that door.
"Listen to me, baby. This was not your fault. I'm going to find a Healer that will be able to help you remember, okay? In the meantime, don't tell Theo anything. Understand?"
She nodded in understanding before pulling his lips back to hers. She tried to pour all of the relief she had at seeing him alive into that kiss. He did forget then, where they were, that people would be in the room any minute. All he knew in that moment was the feel of her lips against his, her skin under his fingertips. They got lost in the kiss and neither of them noticed when Theo opened the door.
"Come on, Malfoy. Do that shit on your own time."
Draco pulled away from her, only to rest his forehead against hers and try to catch his breath. Were they actually lying on the bed? When had that happened?
"Let us go home, Nott, and I'll gladly continue this on my own bed."
"I bet you would. Okay Mrs. Malfoy. You got what you wanted. You've seen Draco. You know he's okay. Now it's your turn. Why did you try to kill Malfoy and Potter?"
"Do you know a Healer named Matilda Brunswick?"
Theo looked at Draco in confusion. That seemed very random and had nothing to do with the question at hand.
"Hermione and I will talk to Matilda about what happened. In the meantime, I can assure you that Hermione did not intend to kill anyone."
Theo stared at his friend for a long moment. He really should have expected the man to pull something like this.
"Well, I guess since I have your assurance I should just let her go home, huh?" His voice dripped with sarcasm, which Draco completely ignored.
"That sounds like an excellent idea. You can bring Matilda by the house at her earliest convenience." He stood, albeit slowly, and held his hand out to Hermione.
"Sit down, Malfoy, before you fall over. I'll see if I can find her. You two, stay here." Theo slammed the door shut on his way out. After a moment he opened it again and glared at Draco. "And for Merlin's sake, keep your damn clothes on while I'm gone!"
The door slammed shut again and a lock clicked into place.