The beginning of the end. I have four more chapters to post, and I cannot thank all the wonderful people enough for your support. We're on a roller coaster going up, and I hope you'll be very pleased with the final view when we get there. As always, please review. Your comments mean the world to me.
Disclaimer: I do not anything from the Harry Potter universe. I also do not own anything written by T.S. Eliot, who is brilliant in every way. Creds to his poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" and all the inspiration it fills me with.
Draco twisted his hands together. It was nerve-wracking, just waiting. He'd never been a patient person. For years he had grown accustomed to the instant gratification of being a Malfoy.
St. Mungo's was slowly sending out its patients. When the war first ended, the hospital was full of wizards and witches who were in need of treatment for nearly everything under the sun. Draco's ward had been especially full. As the days had passed, he would look around at the people, and there were faces missing. People who had left the ward. Healer Derwent had told him that the people had developed the skills needed to cope on their own without being hospitalized. They had returned to their families, feeling more confident and capable than before.
There was something hopeful about that.
He jerked his head at the sound of footsteps coming down the hall. He straightened up as Astoria approached him.
"Hi."
"Hello," she greeted back. "You weren't at dinner."
"No."
His brain was scrambling, trying to remember the words he'd been planning to say to her. But they had vanished, and he was left fumbling.
"Did you have a nice meal?" he finally managed to ask.
"Yes..." she said, looking at him curiously. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," he said nervously. "I just, er... I just, er..."
A thing he had learned to appreciate about Astoria Greengrass was how patient she was. She didn't interrupt him, didn't tell him to bugger off, didn't get in his face. She waited until he swallowed a very large lump in his throat and finally got to tell her what he'd wanted to.
"I'm going to try."
Another thing he appreciated was that she understood what he was saying, even if what he said came out strange. She smiled at him. "Yeah?"
"Yeah. I... I think I want to."
"Okay," she said, leaning against the wall. "Then we'll try together."
It was slow going. Very slow going.
Draco Malfoy was malnourished. It was weeks before he was able able to eat regular, solid food. He didn't go to the dining hall for dinners. Astoria asked to have her meals brought to her in her room. She would eat while sitting with Draco. Every night he would take a vial of Nourishing Potion. Astoria would watch him drink all of it. Every morning he was given another vial, and that would be all until night time again.
He took his Sleeping Potions and other medications without complaint. He was managing more hours of sleep at night, and his body was on its way to full health.
He still refused the Memory Therapy.
Astoria Greengrass was good at holding Draco accountable. She made sure he drank all his potions, and she would go find him when he hid out in closets. She knew how to coax him out. Despite this, she struggling with owning up things to Draco. Her official record had her labeled as progressing, but her bad days were still outnumbering the good ones. The Sleeping Potions either had to strong or no effect on her, and she woke up from nightmares repeatedly. At least three times a week, Draco would feel her tap his shoulder, and he would scoot over to make room for her. He didn't bring to subject up for conversation until July. Astoria was showing him how to play a new card game she'd learned when he asked.
"You're not really getting better, are you?"
The cards she was shuffling flew out from her hands as she met his eyes. "I might be."
"But you're not."
Astoria gathered the cards together and started shuffling again. "The potions I take have been helping with everything but the nightmares. Whatever it is they give me isn't working."
"Do they know that?"
"I assume so."
"Have they tried anything new?"
She sighed. "All of it's just rubbish. Nothing's working, and I keep telling them I just need a roommate or someone to stay with me, but they don't believe me."
He snorted. "Think they know you better than you know yourself?"
"Oh they always have," she said, eyes rolling. "Think because I was in Hufflepuff that I'm stupid or something."
"Aren't you though?"
She looked at him indignantly. "How dare you say something like that? You think we're all a bunch of empty-headed nitwits who..." Astoria stopped when she noticed Draco was smiling as he looked at his cards. "Did you just make a joke?"
"I might've," he said without taking his eyes off his cards.
"You just made a joke. A very poor one, but still."
"Beggars can't be choosers."
She smiled. "Were you like this before the war?"
He met her eyes again. "I was a lot of things before the war."
His sessions with Healer Derwent were going better. There was still noticeable tension, but the Healer was pleased at Draco's progress. He was gaining weight again, and would soon be bumped up to small portions of regular food. The Healer was delighted.
The Thursday afternoon session began as normal. Healer Derwent would ask a few questions that Draco usually gave short answers to. He would ask about eating habits, sleep patterns, and the importance of human interaction. Then he would begin the lecture on the benefits of memory therapy, which Draco remained unresponsive to.
Before the discussion of the memory therapy, Draco broke the regular pattern.
"Can I ask you a question?"
"Of course."
"Why doesn't Astoria Greengrass have a roommate?"
If the Healer was fazed by the question, he chose not to show it. "Her case is a bit different. We were afraid she might disturb or harm anyone who lived with her. As you know, she tends to sleepwalk and can often become violent."
Draco did remember. "Has she ever attacked anyone?"
"Besides yourself? Not another patient. A few Healers on the night patrols have had some skirmishes, but nothing serious."
"She needs a roommate."
The Healer let the silence fill the room. Draco waited before he continued. "She just needs someone with her who she knows is there. She hates being by herself."
"You think it'd be best?"
Draco rolled his eyes. "Look I know you lot think that she's some crazy duffer, but she's not. She knows herself better than you do, and I think she knows what's best for her. Just stick someone in there with her that can be there for her when she wakes up."
Healer Derwent nodded, scribbled some notes down, and then began his lecture on the memory therapy. Draco didn't say a word for the rest of the session.
Not a week passed before Astoria told him she was getting a roommate, a middle-aged witch named Matilda. He decided not to tell her about his conversation with the Healer. She stopped coming to his bed at night. At first he was relieved, but then he started missing her.
They developed routines for everyday based around meals, potion time, sleeping, and free time. He started reading books on his own, and he decided he rather liked a few of the Muggle writers, especially some of the poets. T.S. Eliot, although he was American by birth, was pretty good. He also liked Yeats, Wordsworth, Marvell, Auden, and Dylan Thomas. Astoria was particularly pleased about Yeats.
Astoria drew and colored and worked. She told him about how she wanted to work with paints again once she left St. Mungo's, and how one day she would paint a picture for him that he'd want to hang on his parlor wall. He smiled at that.
His mother wrote him, and he decided to finally start opening the letters. In August, he decided to start writing back to her. He never had much to report, but he would share what he could. He left out the bit about the Muggle writers. He knew as well as the next wizard that some prejudices never really die.
Draco stopped taking the Nourishing Potion in August. Astoria watched him like a hawk while he ate, and she was both surprised and delighted when they day came that he ate an entire meal without her badgering him to finish.
They were never without their bad days. Some days he wouldn't get out of bed, and she would pull up a chair and sit with him until he was ready. Sometimes she would tell him stories about her childhood and running around the coasts of Ireland with Daphne. Some days she would lock herself in a closet, and he would sit on the other side, usually saying nothing, until she came out. A few times he would read to her, and he would feel the door push open so she could listen.
And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To Prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet.
There were still nightmares, both from him and her. He still woke at night in cold sweats and chills, and he could never bring himself to go down to Astoria's room. In his mind, it would be like admitting defeat. She would wake up screaming, but Matilda helped. There were still nights that Draco would feel Astoria's body next to his, and he would always smile to himself because the nights when she stayed with him were far better than any other night he could remember.
It was becoming easier to admit to himself that he was in love with Astoria Greengrass. He loved her infinitely more than he'd ever thought it was possible for a person to love another person. She was different than the women and girls he'd been associated with. Perhaps it was all the Slytherin blood he knew, but Astoria was more kind, more tolerant, and more patient that anyone he'd ever met. She loved and forgave so easily. Even on the days when he was being a right pain in the arse and he knew she was reaching her limit, she would stay with him. If she got mad, she always came back to apologize. She forgave him when he was stupid, and she never left him.
He knew he'd never tell her. He couldn't believe someone like her would love someone like him.
It was Thursday again. Draco walked the familiar path to Healer Derwent's office and knocked. The Healer's calm voice told him to enter, and he sat in the chair as he had done for numberless times. They went through the same questions, the same discussions, and Healer Derwent was just reaching for all the information papers on memory therapy when Draco interrupted him.
"I'll do it."
"Do what?" the Healer asked.
Draco took a deep breath. "I'll do the bloody therapy or whatever."
Healer Derwent didn't speak or move. He had never expected Draco Malfoy to give in. Never.
"You're sure?" he finally asked.
"You've been pushing this for months now Derwent and now you're asking questions?"
The Healer shook his head. "Right, sorry. Just... I didn't expect. you to decide."
"Well I'm ready."
Healer Derwent pulled his wand out along with a silver bowl that Draco knew all too well. The Pensieves always looked the same.
"The spell will only extract the memories that are related to your trauma. If you feel there are other memories of events from childhood that may connect, you might have to give those up on your own. Are you ready?"
Draco nodded, his hands balling into fists at his sides. He and Astoria had argued about this nearly every day for at least three weeks, with her insisting and he refusing. Astoria had won out in the end. He expected that maybe one day he would thank her for it.
"Memoralis trauma revelio."
He saw a stream of silver memories gather around the tip of the Healer's wand and watched as they were placed in the bowl.
It was time to live again.
August 21 of 1999 was the first day of Draco's memory therapy. He would continue with it until his discharge from St. Mungo's. It was an excruciatingly painful process for him. He asked Astoria to come to a few sessions to pull him back out of the memories when they became too much. They were almost always too much. It wasn't until much later in life that he really did thank Astoria for insisting he do it.