They wound up in his lounge room and he set Bones on the modern white sofa.

"I'm a mess," she said.

Draco was pretty sure that there was no polite response to that so he shrugged. "You've been through a lot." It had never mattered before, saying the wrong thing around her but she'd never been this volatile before either.

"No. My clothes," she said, raising her arms to indicate her robes. "I'm going to stain your furniture."

Draco stared at her. There was a smear of something grey across the skirt of her robes, probably from the alley wall, but she couldn't possibly think that he cared about that. He would have said something incredibly impolite but he'd sworn in front of her once already today and, despite what certain unkind people insinuated, he had been raised with some decorum. "It doesn't matter," he said. He wished that he could be more vehement about the whole thing but he was too exhausted suddenly.

"Is it lonely," she asked, glancing around the lounge. "Living by yourself here?"

There was no way that Draco was going to sit beside her when she was so fragile, so he took the armchair by the fireplace. "I'm used to being lonely," he said.

"Guess that's what comes when you kill family," said Bones, tapping a foot casually against the tiles. "Did you kill your mother as well?"

Cruelty on her was as shocking as cruelty on a Hufflepuff should be. "You're just trying to upset me now," murmured Draco.

"Is it working?" she asked, sounding utterly disinterested.

Brow furrowing, Draco leant forward. "I'm worried about you."

Bones smiled her disinterested smile and stretched slowly, spine cracking quietly. "You may not have learnt the concept of triage during the war."

Strange topic, but if she wanted to change the subject, Draco wasn't going to circumvent her. "Of course I did." At her raised eyebrow, he shrugged, "In battle there are three types of wounded; those who will likely die, those who need immediate attention to survive and those who can wait. With triage when there's too many wounded you skip the ones who are beyond help in lieu of the ones who will probably live with help."

"Exactly," said Bones as though Draco had just answered his own question. He frowned, because he hadn't asked a question. Mouth quirking up a little at the corner, Bones leant back into the couch. "Skip the ones who are beyond help, Malfoy," she said nonchalantly, flicking a hand. "Go and worry about the ones who will probably live; with help."

For a moment, Draco didn't understand what she was saying. When it hit him, fear slid down his spine, making him shiver. It quickly gave way to anger. "You're not beyond help!" he snapped, too loud and too intense a tone for this echoing room.

It didn't move her. "You think that I'm not. I know that I am." Smoothing her hair down with steady fingers, she met Draco's gaze. Even in this she did not waver. "If anyone knows how to give up on someone, it's you." Her voice had never been as caramel-smooth as this when she'd cared. "You gave up on your own father; and you loved him."

Recoiling as though struck, Draco gasped out, "Stop."

She rested her elbow on the arm of her couch, hand dangling over her lap. She still looked bored. "Cho Chang is single," she said. Draco had no idea why she kept telling him that. "She's strongly against the Dark Arts. If you need to marry into respectability; she's the way to go."

"Marry…" began Draco, baffled. Then the words clicked together in his head and he choked out, "Cho Chang?"

"I suspect that she already likes you," offered Bones. "And I don't know much about you but I imagine that you'll treat her reasonably well."

Draco had no idea how she managed to bewilder him so often and with so little effort. "I will not treat her well." His reply was coherent only because his dignity would not allow him to stare at her open-mouthed in response. "I won't have anything to do with her. And I don't know why you'd think she likes me. The woman can't stand the sight of me."

That made Bones frown. "Perhaps," she said after a flicker of a pause. "She's changed her mind since Hogwarts. I'm sure she liked you in sixth year."

She could have misread things somehow though. There wasn't much to base the assumption on. She'd been heading up the stairs, ready for bed when an anxious Cho Chang had pushed her way into the Hufflepuff Common Room, demanding to see her.

It couldn't be that something was wrong with Harry and Cho was searching for help from the other D.A. members. Ernie and Zacharias were right by the fireplace, doing Charms homework and Cho didn't spare them a glance.

Although Bones knew Cho from some classes and the D.A., they were not close. The only other reason that Cho could possibly want to seek her out for, was if something had happened to her family. Dropping her bag onto the stairs, Bones crossed the room to the door.

Cho's face was strained, cheeks streaked with tears of shock. Bones was less worried. She took a breath and thought about her family. You-Know-Who had hunted her blood-line during the last war; he had no cause to stop. Her father would have tried to die first; he would have thrown himself in front of her mother and Helen, if he could have. Her mother was fury-bent. She would have kept herself in front of Helen and fought until every ounce of life had slipped from her. Bones couldn't bring herself to care about either of them. But…

"Is Helen alright?" Her voice was calm. Even with Helen she couldn't seem to worry very extensively. Perhaps she'd worried too much the previous year and her body was too exhausted to keep it up.

"What?"

Bones was even less interested in what had happened now. It seemed such a waste of time to pretend to care about something that didn't make a difference to her. "Helen. My sister."

Cho looked taken aback. "Oh," she said finally. "It's nothing about them. But you have to come now! Before curfew."

This was peculiar; it cheered Bones up quite remarkably. Strange happenings seemed the only thing that made her happy any more.

Cho took her to the infirmary, which was more peculiar still. Perhaps Padma Patil had been hurt. Bones got along quite well with her.

But when they'd arrived, Draco Malfoy was lying in one of the narrow white beds, looking more fragile than Bones thought possible. The air fled from her; scattering just out of reach and she almost fell. Then she remembered that she didn't care, and wondered why this mattered. People shouldn't be hurt like this in schools; but it hadn't mattered when Katie Bell had been cursed and there was no reason for this to matter either.

Madam Pomfrey had left some candles burning softly just far enough away from the bed to be of comfort without distracting the recuperating party. Bones turned to Cho, who was watching the unmoving figure with an expression of anxiety and dismay. "Do you want me to stay with you?" she asked. She didn't ask why Cho cared so much about a Slytherin that almost everyone had written off as a Death Eater because she refused to write people off without proof. She did wonder though, what had happened to make Cho so distraught over a Malfoy.

"I can't stay," said Cho, eyes not moving from the bed Draco was tucked into. "I thought it would be best…if you sat with him."

It was a strange thing to say, but if Cho couldn't stay and she wanted to make sure that Draco wasn't alone, Bones was probably a reasonable substitute. She had been in the D.A. so Cho knew she wasn't afraid to break curfew, she wouldn't judge or hurt Draco should he wake like the Gryffindors might, and she wasn't afraid of him like Neville and Hannah were.

"What happened to him?" Bones asked, taking the seat by his bed, as Cho turned to leave.

"Harry cursed him," said Cho, her voice soft and breaking as she spoke. She swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand.

Curiosity more than concern prompted Bones to ask, "Was he jealous?"

Cho turned back to stare at her, looking as though she had lost her way somewhere in this conversation. People had been doing that a lot lately. "Jealous?"

Bones hadn't missed the way Harry had watched Cho during D.A. meetings; eyes soft and dark and always flicking back to her. He hated Malfoy anyway, but if Cho had started something with the Slytherin it might have been the added push Harry needed to really hurt him. She didn't point that out. "I'll stay," she said instead. The notion wasn't an appealing one, but she thought that she'd managed to keep the callous dryness from her voice until Cho turned to stare her straight in the eye.

"Try not to be so cold," she said flatly. "He almost died."

That didn't matter either. Cedric had died. So had her aunt. And if those deaths had not moved her, this near death had no chance. "I'll do what I can," she said, because she still believed in the war and in allies and in helping allies hold it together.

Cho's eyes narrowed, not moving from Bones' face for long seconds. Then she spun on her heel and left; footsteps falling fast as she tried to make it back to her room before curfew.

Bones stayed with Draco through the night, as she had promised. She had always kept promises; even now when the world was falling apart and she was tearing with it. Draco woke once, turned in bed and whined in pain. Bones didn't move. She could have tried to comfort him; she had been good at that sort of thing once, being a Hufflepuff. She wasn't good at it any more; though, to be fair, she didn't try any more.

Draco turned his head, eyes falling on her in the low light. He tried to speak, winced and then tried again, "Hey."

"You should sleep."

He blinked at her, as though taken aback by her terseness. People had been doing that a lot lately too. Finally he turned his body towards her, grimacing as he did so. "I heard about your aunt."

Most people had. Bones nodded acknowledgement of the comment and was glad that he didn't try to tell her how sorry he was. It wasn't comfortable to have strangers more sorry about her aunt's death than she was.

"I met her once," he said. He was speaking slowly and carefully as though it hurt. "She scared me to death."

That wasn't surprising. Madam Bones had always been fair, but she was intimidating and even she would probably have had trouble being impartial with Draco Malfoy.

"You're not…" said Draco, looking worried. Bones had never seen him look worried for anyone else. "You're not okay?"

"I'm not the one lying in the infirmary bed," Bones pointed out.

His eyes darkened. She didn't know what he was feeling, but she could tell it wasn't anger. "Merlin," he barely breathed, hand going to his mid-section. "I can't…Stay with me…until I wake up?" He was begging but that made no difference.

"I don't make promises," said Bones. "That I have no intention of keeping."

He might have said more if he had not passed out. Bones stayed with him until he woke in the morning. It felt a little like she cared; but her emotions were not to be trusted. She was probably just over-tired. Or relieved that Helen was safe.

Leaning back in his armchair, five years later, Draco frowned. He was still lean; but nothing about him looked brittle now. "Chang sent you to the infirmary that night?"

Bones tilted her head to study him. "You remember it?"

"Of course." Draco was actually scowling now.

"I suppose," said Bones. "That it's difficult to forget having your stomach ripped apart."

Draco stroked a hand down the torso of his robes, flushing self-consciously. Bones had not yet forgiven Harry for that one stupid act in the girls' bathrooms so many years ago. He'd saved countless witches, wizards, muggles, centaurs, goblins and House-elves since. He'd changed from the thoughtless, spontaneous boy he'd been; but she had expected more from the saviour of the wizarding world and he had failed her.

"It didn't matter," he muttered. "It made You-Know-Who more convinced I was on his side so…"

Bones wondered whether Harry had understood that they needed a spy and Draco had understood that he'd have to make sacrifices to prove loyalty to the Dark Lord. "Was it planned?" she asked. "Did you arrange to be cursed by Harry?"

Draco merely shook his head. "Nothing like that, but it worked in my favour in its own way."

The shadows outside were growing long and it occurred to Bones that the time she had set aside for this lunch was well over. Still, Draco hated people to merely walk out on him and strangely enough, in this she wanted him to be comfortable. "I need to go."

He looked surprised before nodding. "I'll see you out."

She tried not to ponder the fact that five years ago people had been surprised when she was abrupt or rude to them and now they were surprised when she was polite. Dwelling on such issues only confused her, so she didn't.