October 2008
Wizarding London, England
St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries
Thursday evening
At Draco's request, the Ministry sent over a legilimency expert to do a proper read of him as a baseline for when he saw Lyra. The witch they dispatched was a shy, mousy little thing, about 100 months pregnant. Draco eyed her critically as she introduced herself to him. He wasted no time in throwing up his strongest defenses on her first attempt to see what she was made of.
She wasn't bad. She was much better than the legilimens they had on staff at the hospital. She wasn't nearly as good as Lyra and, honestly, she wasn't as good as Draco either. There were a several key barriers that he put up for her that she couldn't surmount.
"Mr. Malfoy, if you block me, I will see the barrier itself and I won't be able to make an honest determination," she explained, in a tired voice after retreating from his mind.
"I know," he countered. "I have no intention of blocking you. I just needed to make sure you were competent.
The little witch raised her eyebrows. "You are a very good occlumens."
"Yes I know," he replied simply. "Ok, go again."
She sighed, but then narrowed her eyes and went to work.
It was about ten at night when they took him downstairs. He wore two sets of manacles around his wrists and another set around his ankles. He had four escort guards with him, rather than the standard two, and his ministry approved legilimens. They led him down to the third floor - Potions and Poisons and then back to a secluded section of the ward labeled Poison Critical Care.
Her room was the last in the small sub-unit. It could fit two patients, but as Draco entered the room, he saw that the first bed was unoccupied. Lyra's bed was concealed by a thin white curtain. His guards parked him to sit on the side of the empty bed next to hers. He asked for one wrist and one ankle to be tethered to the bed as a precaution. He didn't trust his own mind. He didn't trust anything.
Lyra was being guarded as well, which made the room quite crowded. He raised an eyebrow in question to Blaise Zabini who was standing just outside of the partition. His former friend just shrugged his shoulders in response. Nobody seemed to know a damn thing.
His legilimens asked if he was ready and he gave a tight nod. She motioned to a healer to draw back the curtain and Draco held his breath.
She barely looked alive. Her skin was pale white, instead of her usual honey tan. She had dark circles under her eyes. There was matted blood still in her long hair, which had been thoughtlessly pulled back into a high bun. She would hate that, he thought. The cuts that had been...that he had put all over her body remained and were mostly closed, but looked painful and inflamed.
He looked up at one of her attendants and asked why they hadn't healed them.
"We can't yet. She doesn't have the blood. She's had replenishing potion, but it will take another day or so." The healer answered, with a judgmental glare at him. Draco didn't care, he just wanted her to recover. To wake up. To let him fall to his knees and beg her for forgiveness.
"Mr. Malfoy, may I?" his legilimens asked from off to his side.
"Yes." He replied.
"Legilimens-" the witch commanded, wand pointed at his temple.
He took a deep breath and laid himself open as possible. He had to do this right, or he'd never get to see her again and they'd keep him from Scorpius. Screw his pride, they were all that mattered right now.
She walked though his present emotions like an open field. Seeing his guilt, rage and fear over her condition. She went back and prodded once more around his visit with his mother before rounding back to when he awoke on the manor floor. He elevated, for her review, several memories of he and Lyra as children. Being friends. Falling in love. He was making a point. She wasn't just anybody. Even after 10 years and thousands of miles, she would never be just anybody.
He'd never willingly shared his memories with anyone like this outside of Lyra, Severus and maybe his mother. On a normal day, he would kick, scream and throw as many iron walls between himself and the intruder as possible. Today was not a normal day. Just take them, he thought.
The legilimens pulled back after a short time and promptly burst into tears. Draco's guards pushed angry hands into his shoulders as if he had lunged at her or committed some other uncouth offense. Draco looked up at her in confusion.
"No, no, stop! The legilimens implored to the guards. "I'm fine. It's these damn hormones, you know. "I'm so sorry," she said, falling into a fresh fit.
"Did...is it still there? Did you find anything?" Draco inquired urgently, suddenly terrified.
"No, I think not," she said between sniffles. "I feel confident that you don't have any compulsive thoughts to harm her."
"Shhh. It's ok," came a thin croaky whisper from the bed. It was Lyra. She was regarding the crying woman though half-lidded eyes and wrinkled her forehead in confusion, before looking over to Draco.
"Frog, why's she crying?" Lyra asked.
He swallowed down the lump in his throat. "I dunno, sweetheart. I think it was something I said. She'll be alright though. Go back to sleep," he said gently, biting back his own tears.
"Ok. I won't tell Severus," Lyra said weakly before closing her eyes again and falling back under.
"I'm so embarrassed. I just...your memories, the situation. It's so sad. The emotional transference. I didn't expect it to be so intense," the legilimens explained softly, taking a tissue from Blaise.
"It's been an interesting day," Draco quipped dryly, trying to take some edge off of the 'emotional transference' that he provided to the poor woman, who probably just wanted to go home, drink tea and put her swollen feet up.
"I'll give my report to the head mediwizard of your ward, and to the Aurors of course. My conclusion is that there is no evidence of compulsion I can find anywhere in your mind at this time, regardless of proximity to the target...to Lyra," the witch corrected, finding the clinical nature of the word 'target' inappropriate for the situation given what she now knew.
"Thank you." Draco said.
The witch reached out to squeeze his shoulder, a fresh batch of tears quivering in her brown eyes. "You're quite welcome. All the best to you," she replied sincerely before stepping out.
Draco was led back to his room upstairs. An exhausted looking mediwizard came to see him, just after midnight, to discuss his clearance for release. They had already run their complete battery of diagnostic tests to verify the absence of compulsion. The legilimency added additional evidence that the curse had been lifted. The wizard offered him the further option of being questioned under Veritaserum, but since the curse hadn't been seen in about a millennium and predated the development of the truth potion, they couldn't be sure that it would even be effective. Some cases of compulsion allowed the compel to speak of it, some did not. Since Draco didn't remember, it was anybody's guess. He consented without hesitation.
The potion tingled as it went down. The mediwizard sat across from him in a chair, a self-correcting quill and parchment next to him, transcribing their session.
"Can you tell me your name and date of birth?" The wizard asked.
"Draco Malfoy, 5th June, 1980." He replied flatly.
"What are your parent's names?"
"Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy."
"Do you have any children? If so, state their names and ages please."
"I have a son, Scorpius. He's 3 years old."
"Do you know a witch named Lyra Black?"
"Yes."
"How do you know her?"
"I studied occlemency and legilemency with her when we were children, from the time I was 11 until I was 16."
"Were you friendly?"
"Sometimes."
"Sometimes?" The mediwizard inquired, his self-writing quill screeching to a halt.
"We fought like a bin full of cats. But I loved her," he replied.
"Do you still love her?"
He swallowed hard. "Yes. More than ever."
"Do you have any desire to hurt or kill Miss Black?"
"No."
"Do you have any thoughts in your mind, voices, suggestions or feelings that she should be killed?"
"No."
"Do you have any desire to hurt or kill your son, Scorpius?"
"No."
"Do you have any thoughts in your mind, voices, suggestions, feelings, that he should be killed?"
"No."
"Do you love your son, Mr. Malfoy?"
"Yes. More than ever," he whispered, suddenly missing him acutely.
The wizard nodded his head. "Ok, I think we're done here. I'm going to recommend you be released."
"Do you know why I didn't die?" Draco asked the mediwizard.
He huffed. "I don't. The curse cut through the skin on your back and I imagine you'll scar like Mr. Potter did back when he..." He cleared his throat. "That aside, I don't think there will be any lasting effects. I'm sorry son, these curses, both the compulsion and the killing curse, we don't have a lot of practice with them. Either because we've never seen the curse, or we've never seen...survivors."
Draco nodded stiffly, flexing his shoulders, relishing the bite of pain that confirmed both the wizards words and his continued existence.
"Get some rest, Mr. Malfoy. I'll sign your discharge for the morning." The wizard stood to see himself out.
"Are you insane? I won't be sleeping for weeks, months maybe!" Draco blurted out, immediately looking embarrassed by the outburst.
The old mediwizard, turned back to him, a small smile on his face. "That Veritaserum should be out of your system in about 20 minutes. I'll tell the healers to give you some privacy until then."
"Thank the gods." Draco huffed out in complete honesty, because he literally had no choice.
