What Luna Said
By SilverCrystalArtemis
I realized I forgot the disclaimer in the last chapter...silly me. I own nothing recognizable, and if you could see my bank account, you'd know I'm making NO money off of this. I just like to feed my ego.
AN: So, just maybe, I have the whole story planned out. Maybe not. Maybe just 79.425724261%. You won't know. And I know I said I'd put the song throughout the last chapter....It kinda got away from me. It's not my fault; the story is a living, breathing, beast, and it just happened to eat my script. ....Tell me, does that work as well on you as it didn't on my teachers? :Ahem: back to the topic....I *plan* on randomly inserting quotes from the song into the story, but like I said, we'll see how storymonster likes it.
Chapter Two
Scorpius Malfoy shut the door behind him, staring at the cheap tiles lining the floor. He hated hospitals; muggle or magical. They all had this horrid smell that would never wash from the wall...a level of decay, disease, death.... And it always, paradoxally, managed to smell too clean. Like too many sanitizing spells had been used. He remembered, when he was home for summer just after his first year, his mother had taken him into muggle London, to visit his grandmother in the hospital. It reeked.
He remembered his mother explaining to him as they walked down the halls, what the beeps were coming from different rooms, how, being in the ICU unit, they had to sanitize everything. Some muggle chemical alternative to magic. 4-0....something. All he knew was that seeing his grandmother, hooked up to those machines, breathing for her, monitoring her heart (his mother explained how it alerted doctors when something went bad), the tubes and needles attached so perversely to her person, it was the most horrific sight his young eyes had ever beheld. He remembered having nightmares for weeks.
He didn't realize, but as he had been thinking, his feet had led him to the waiting room for the floor. Noticing the change from tile to carpet, he looked up at the people gathered. Some of them he recognized from work, some from his school days years ago. Everyone looked up as he entered, but most of them turned away, focusing on their own lives, troubles. He walked over to the small group of people waiting for him; his wife and children, his mother's best friends, and a few of their children. He was suprised by how quickly they had gotten here; he'd have to thank Victoire later for contacting them all.
Answering the unspoken question in his wife's eyes, he told them all as he sat down, "She's still asleep. And Dad hasn't moved." Still looking at the ground, he felt his wife's hand grasp his tightly, an unspeakable comfort.
"Daddy?" His four year old daughter was trying to climb into his lap, but having a hard time of it in the cramped waiting room chair. He pulled her up, put her on his lap, hugged her tightly with the arm not attached to his wife. There were tears in her eyes, and she sniffled, quickly wiping her nose in her father's shoulder. He just held her close; for once he didn't mind the dirty robes. There were far more important things going on. Scorpius ran his hand over her hair, trying to calm her down.
Everyone was quiet for some time. Then again, there wasn't much to say. They all knew too well how much they were going to miss her. It was through her that this jumbled mess of people became a family. How the Potters and the Weasleys became friends with the Malfoys. How the Malfoys and the Weasleys accepted the wedding of their own children, not only without bloodshed, but with a sense of joy. How Christmas was no longer a quiet, dull affair at Malfoy Manor. How Malfoy, Draco now- or "Uncle Draco"- becamse like an eigth son to Molly Weasley.
"And now for the weekly Warbeck Hour. Nonstop Cecilia Warbeck, from 1 to 2, every Thursday, here on the WWR." The sound of the radio filtering into the room shocked Scorpius out of his thoughts. He hadn't realized he'd been at the hospital so long now. He looked down, his hand still mechanically caressing Cass's blond hair, and noticed she fell asleep, head still buried in her father's shoulder.
Again he glanced around the room at his immediate and extended family. Leo was curled up on his Auntie Lily's lap, who was sitting next to her father and mother, both white haired. Next to his wife were her parents, and past them were his father-in-law's youngest brother, and one of his mother's oldest friends.
He'd never known Ron very well when he was younger; during his childhood his mother and Ron had experienced a falling out, so he never came by, and the man having never had children himself, Scorpius never had much of an excuse to see him on the holidays. It wasn't until Scorpius got into a relationship with Victoire that he even spent more than the occasional Christmas-at-the-Potters visit with Ron, but he slowly grew to like the guy. To the point where he helped him and his mother rebuild the relationship they'd shared as children.
The door to the waiting room opened, revealing a kindly looking nurse with long curling hair. The entire occupancy looked up, expecting and dreadful. The nurse smiled, or at least tried to; it was difficult to find happiness on this floor. She looked around the room as she asked, "Malfoy?" On the other side of the room heads went down, relieved sighs escaping those who'd just escaped a loved one's fate. On the "Malfoy side", however, shoulders tensed, inward gasps, eyes remaining locked on the potential grim reaper at the door.
She walked over, slowly, and Scorpius stood, still holding his daughter. The steady, muffled clip-clop of her thick white shoes as she walked to them was maddening; she prolonged their agony, their worry.
"Mr. Malfoy asked me to come and collect you. He says Mrs. Malfoy is awake, and would like to see all of you. Please come with me."
En masse, the group stood, and Scorpius gently roused his daughter. Even though they knew exactly where the room was, they followed the nurse through the hallways, past rooms and other lives, other families, going through the same thing. they arrived at the door, and the nurse turned to them.
"Normally around here, we have a limit on visitors, but I personally think it would do them both some good to have such a crowd." She offered another smile, this one seeming more genuine, "Nevermind the fact that she practically demanded to see all of you... not awake ten minutes and already causing fights with her Healer."
A weak laugh came from Harry and Ron, both recognizing the stalwart personality they'd known since childhood.
The nurse shifted, slightly uncomfortable, and moved away from the door. She started to walk away, but turned around after only a few steps, and said, "She's due for a check-in from Healer Werns in about twenty minutes. Don't worry, though; he won't give you any trouble. All you need do is remind him of the Malfoy name..." She walked back to the nurses' station, her shoes echoing harshly off the walls.
Deciding not to waste any more time, Scorpius opened the door with one had, his daughter still held firmly against him with his other. The group filed in behind him quickly, though they didn't make it much farther than the door. Each one of them felt nervous, ill-at-ease, almost unready to face the situation glaring them boldly in the face. Each one dreading saying goodbye.
The sight that greeted them as they turned to the bed was an ironically cheerful one. Surrounded by balloons, and flowers, and stuffed animals (most chosen by Cass and Leo), and the wall lined with cards, the woman in the hospital bed sat holding her husband's hand, his chair pulled tight against the bed. She smiled at her family and friends as they entered, her light grey curls laying against the back pillow, and her warm brown eyes, though glassy, still emitted a sense of laughter and intelligence that was a hallmark in the woman.
She tried to life herself up to a seated position, but her husband fussed, standing up over her and trying to at once help her and push her back down. "Mya, dear, you don't-" but she immediately cut him off, "Hush, Draco. I've spent so long like this I think I've developed an infestation of Wrackspurts or something." Her joke only elicited a weak smile from her husband, worry still painfully evident in his eyes. She huffed, defeated, and lay back down. She turned to her visitors, and forced a smile, this one more rueful than befitting her. At the same time, Draco reached behind her, fluffing her pillows, and arranging them so she could be in a more upright position. Unfortuately, this only proved to her guests just how bad off she was. They could clearly see the pallor of her skin, the sweat sticking to her brow, the slight shake she tried to hide.
Scorpius stepped forward then, intent on breaking the awkward moment. He leaned down, daughter still in his arms, and kissed his mother on the cheek. She smiled, a real one this time, and it only got brighter as Cass leaned in her father's arms to kiss her grandmother as well. As Scorpius leaned up, he had to hold back the shock he felt. Her skin was too cold, her pulse too low....
"How are you doing, Mum?"
"Oh, I'm doing just fine. Especially having all of you here. It's so wonderful to see you all again!" There was the Hermione Malfoy they knew, making light of her own situation; his father said it was something she inherited from all the time she spent at the Burrow as a child- stories Scorpius had never gotten the chance to hear. Had never really thought to ask about.
He looked over to his father. He seemed happier now than he was when she was asleep, more relaxed being able to interact with her. Still, however, he could see, could almost feel the emotional agony his father was experiencing, had been experiencing through the past three weeks. Scorpius walked over to his father's side of the bed, leaning his daughter down to greet her grandfather as well. Draco seemed almost hesitant at first, but the sharp squeeze from his wife's hand- still held in his own- was the comfort he needed to reach up with his other hand and give Cass a small one-armed hug as she kissed his cheek. Scorpius then put her down, and she ran immediately to her mother's side.
Victoire had Leo by the hand, and was walking him to greet his grandparents as well. Cass went to grasp her hand, but at that moment Victoire lifted Leo into her arms, to give him the proper height to greet his grandmother. He did like his sister, a small peck on the cheek, one which Victoire mimicked as well. She then walked him over, and repeated the routine with Draco. As she put the boy down, right by his sister, who had followed them both, she took a step back to stand by her husband, taking his hand again.
Despite their efforts, the room still hung with a level of uncertainty, as if handling precious glass. There was something breakable in the very air, and the rest of the party was wary to move, lest they shatter that unexplainable, important something.
Hermione huffed, impatient, and glared playfully at the group by the door. "I'm sorry," she said, in a voice somewhere between reprimanding and playful, "I thought you had all come to see me."
Something about this seemed to diffuse the moment. Nervous smiles on their faces, Harry, Ginny, Ron, the entire group moved to Hermione's sidegreeting her with hugs, small murmurs of hello, or a "We've missed you," or "good to see you." It seemed more like another one of their many get-togethers, if not for the knowledge in the back of everyone's heads. That this wasn't a hello, it was a goodbye...
The collective reworked themselves around the bed and chair, offering greetings to Draco and acting, best as they could, that this was a moment to celebrate, not mourn. In an effort to keep the feeling light, they tried their best at small talk; how the children had done in school, how their professors were (especially Professor Longbottom), how Hermione had liked her gifts ("Cassie and I picked out this bear, and she wanted that balloon, but I said it was too girly and you'd like the Quidditch one, so Mum got both"), how Arthur and Molly were (trying to get James or Albus, or both, to move in; the house was too quiet with none of their own brood around), how George and Anjelina were ("busy as always, you know. Still won't hire outside the family for help"), how Harry and Ron couldn't wait for retirement, what their plans were ("Well, Ginny and I plan a nice, long tour of the continent. Trying to convince this one to join us.").
The last one struck Draco. He hadn't considered that before just now, how all their plans for the future were efficiently shot to hell. He swallowed the lump building in his throat. He didn't want to ruin everybody else's somewhat good moods. but all he could think of now, forgetting the voices around him, now dulling to a low buzz, was the fact that they'd never celebrate another anniversary; how she'd never get to see what he and his son had been planning for her birthday, how so many things he'd dreamed of happening he would never see.
"Draco? Draco?" He turned to his wife, remembering where he was. Her sad look was enough to tell him he hadn't been holding it in as well as he'd thought. However, she was determined not to ruin the visit, so she plastered that smile back on her face, and said, "Harry asked you a question, love."
"Sorry, got a little lost in thought. What was the question, Harry?" Who would've thought back in their school days that these two men would one day become friends, let alone calling each other by first names?
"I asked how the hospital food was treating you, mate. Or has Blunky been bringing you snacks to hold you over?" Weak attempt at a joke. But it was worth a try.
"Oh, well, I-" Draco was effectively cut off from having to answer that question by a firm knock at the door, followed by the entrance of Healer Werns.
AN: Okay, so that was that. I hope it didn't seem too....forced. I was having a hard time getting it out, and I think it's a little obvious I struggled. Ah well, please tell me what you think. I know there's more of you reading this than my three (TOTALLY AWESOME) reviewers, so please please please! Let me know what you think!