Chapter Seven: Stitches

Draco's life took on a semblance of normality. His NEWTs were complete. His mother was happier than she'd ever been. The Manor was no longer dark and forbidding inside, and all of his father's things- anything to remind them of the Dark Lord, really- had been thrown out along with all the bad memories.

They were trying, they really were.

Unfortunately, a brush with reality was inevitable.

Because the absence of Draco's father's things meant the absence of his father, and he was all too keenly aware of the reason that his father was gone.

He saw him more in the bright, newly painted halls of the Manor than anywhere else.

One day, one of the house-elves got sick, and Draco healed her. He took it in stride, passing it off as an everyday occurrence.

One day, Draco had immersed himself in Muggle London, and was walking by when someone got hit by a car.

He had thought the muggles were safe, but no. They were just as fragile as the rest of them.

He took a ride in the ambulance with them, claiming to know the muggle, and healed him when the rest of them weren't looking.

That might have been a turning point for him. He couldn't heal himself, but he recognized that he could heal others.

St. Mungo's did not smell like Blood-Replenishing potion, sickness, or death.

To Draco, it smelled like hope.

He took a deep breath and walked up to the front desk, where a polished witch sat, handling patients who passed through with the ease of long practice. When it was his turn, and she said an abrupt: "you look healthy. What do you want?"

"To help," he said simply.

For once, the look in someone's eyes as they recognized him as Draco Malfoy was not accusing, but amazed.

He couldn't help right away. There was some training involved, and he would have to return to St. Mungo's for five days a week. Two for class-work, three for doing work on the wards.

People took joy in ordering him around, at first. That arrogance vanished as his talent grew.

The facade of normality became tougher, more reflective, the more that he worked at St. Mungo's. As if a thousand mirrors had been wrapped around his skin, and each time someone thought they broke one, they were simply left with another mirror and seven years of bad luck.

Only Draco knew what was really happening in his mind behind the mirrors, and he kept that locked down.

Only Draco could get rid of all his mirrors. But, he reasoned to himself, breaking all his mirrors would mean 7 000 years of bad luck, and he had already had enough.

He passed a lot of time without seeing anyone else, anyone from his school days, anyone at all besides his mother, the house-elves (when he thought of other people, he was vaguely aware that Hermione would like that he considered the elves as people), and his patients and colleagues on the ward.

He was quiet, competent and gentle with his patients, and firmly professional with his colleagues. He had a reputation for the youngest Healer to pass the exams, and in the hospital nobody would call him a Death Eater or hiss at him.

He wasn't aware if it, but if someone did they were quickly silenced.

Unfortunately (as he thought) for his peace at St. Mungo's, the remaining Weasley twin was very prone to injury.

He discovered this pleasant and disruptive fact when George showed up unconscious in his ward, passed out probably due to his propensity to test the Weasley's Wizard Wheezes merchandise on himself.

Since nobody else could figure out why George was unconscious, Draco got to work. Hopefully he could finish and get out of there before the Weasley clan filled his ward with their redheaded flock.

Draco had terrible luck.

He had not been ten minutes finished giving George his created antidote and instructing his assistant how to continue treatment when a terrified wail rent the air.

"My son! Where is he? UNHAND ME!"

Ah, yes. The matriarch of the Weasley clan.

Because he was a gentleman, and had some ounce of respect for the woman who killed his least favorite aunt, he cautiously poked his head out of the ward to stop the kerfluffle.

The assistant standing in Mrs. Weasley's way was Draco's least favorite on the ward, and a bit of a dim bulb if you asked Draco.

"Mister Wick, kindly unhand my patient's mother." Draco strode down the hallway and assumed the Malfoy Condescension Look, an expression reserved for loathsome cockroaches and (probably) patented by the first Malfoy. "You, not being a qualified healer, obviously do not know the rules on my ward. Also, being a certified dunderhead, you have failed to observe hospital protocol in handling relatives. Get out of my sight."

The unfortunate Mr. Wick scurried away, and Draco let his practiced Malfoy sneer drop. Sometimes he hated being such an obvious jerk, but boy was it fun when people deserved it.

"Draco?"

He turned to face Mrs. Weasley, and nodded.

"George is in here." He opened the door for her, keeping his eyes down. Which was too bad, really, because he missed her smile when she saw 'Healer Malfoy' on the list of on-duty staff.

He contrived from then on to be unavoidably occupied during visiting hours, and if he saw a bushy brown head among all the carrot-orange ones, he could be forgiven for turning pink and striking up a conversation with the nearest patient.

Not as if he was trying to avoid her- it was just that when she saw him, she'd ask questions, and he didn't want her breaking all his mirrors when he had just built them up.

He was building an existence for himself. It wasn't a life just yet, but it was a niche where he fit and was needed.

Various Weasley family members came to thank him throughout the course of his days. He'd tried not to remember how stubborn Gryffindors were, but it appeared that Potter and Hermione were not the only ones who insisted on talking to him.

They didn't necessarily approve of him, of course, but they ranged from grudgingly grateful to borderline friends.

Scratch that thought. Malfoys did not become friends with Weasleys.

They could, however, have long conversations with them in the hospital tea-room. That wasn't friendship, he thought. That was a business arrangement. He was gracing them with his presence, and they paid for his tea.

Right?

He could be happy- or at least, content- in St. Mungo's.

That was, until he remembered the battle of Hogwarts, or until he confronted the Manor again.

Sometimes he didn't feel like a murderer anymore, and other times he felt like being happy when he was a murderer was the worst thing he could possibly, ever do.

Whenever he thought about this, he checked his defenses. When he was sure that his mirrors were all in place, then he could talk to people again.

Fortunately for him, he was so good at cleaning his mirrors that nobody noticed that he wasn't real.

George finally was cleared to go, and Draco let him off with a warning.

"Careful what you test, alright? It's not that what you're testing is harmful in itself, but that it might react badly with any potion ingredients that are still in your body. Some of them stay much longer than you would expect, and I would prefer not to have to see another Weasley for the rest of my life," he smirked.

George knew he didn't mean it, and thanked Draco with a grin.

The Weasleys had taken to him surprisingly well over the course of George's stay in the Hospital. Mrs. Weasley slipped right into her typical mothering role. The Weaselette- Ginny, got along with him rather well. Ron was surprisingly amicable, something Draco would never have expected from him.

And he got along astoundingly well with George. Normally, he would have passed it off as his normal Healer-patient rapport, but he thought it went a little deeper than that.

George hadn't killed his twin, but when Fred died he'd lost a part of himself in a way that Draco was missing a part of as well.

When George was discharged, Draco felt a little lost, for some reason.

Heaven forbid it was because he was missing those blasted Weasleys.

A/N:

After being a very bad writer and not updating forever, my peace offering is a chapter that is a bit meatier on the plot line and makes Draco happier. *shame* Ah well, as soon as school ends I'll be able to update more, since all my teachers have finally noticed that it's the end of the year and dumped a load of work on us all at once.

Excuses, excuses. Sorry, guys.

I don't always like stories which are Weasley-bashing, so this one isn't going to have that in it. I may not like Romione, but I think that Ron, given a chance could man up and extend the proverbial olive branch. This story is more about Draco and his personality and his life, anyways.

Thanks to Highland Bride for reviewing this chapter, and thanks to all of you who have favorited my story and added me to your author list :)

I hope you continue to enjoy my story!

-Isefyr

P.S. Since I keep forgetting a disclaimer for each chapter… I am not J K Rowling. And will not ever be. Which means that I do not own Draco. How sad….