The emergency ward at St Mungo's was a blur of witches and wizards awaiting treatment. Draco glanced around; searching for the distinctive Weasley hair. Even in this crowd he would have thought it would be reasonably easy to find.
It wasn't. Draco was just beginning to panic when a hand caught him at the elbow, propelling him forward. He glanced sideways to catch a glimpse of Hermione. She was walking fast, shouldering her way past the waiting people. "Hottie members don't wait for treatment," she said as Draco fell into step beside her. "Fred will have found an emergency mediwitch by now."
They pushed through the doors that led from the waiting room to a long corridor without the nurses challenging them. Without asking for directions, Hermione seemed to know where she was going. She turned into a darker, narrower hallway. Up ahead a figure was leaning against the wall; hair glinting a familiar red.
"She's with a mediwitch team," he said before Hermione asked. He looked tired and less cheerful than usual.
Hermione sighed and leant against the wall beside Fred; leaning in to bump her shoulder into his arm affectionately. It made him smile, but he still looked as though the day had been too much for him.
"Attacking my home on Christmas Day is not sporting," he drawled.
Before anyone could reply a nurse came over to press chocolate upon the three. Hermione didn't bother breaking a piece off her slab; biting into it instead and chewing pensively as she watched the nurse leave.
"The others are following protocol?" asked Fred.
She nodded curtly, still frowning in thought.
"Is she okay?" Draco asked. His chest felt tight and his nerves frayed, as though he was on the verge of a panic attack. They were all signs of a recent Dementor encounter and he really should have been eating his chocolate; but he was too on edge.
"She will be," said Fred. "She'll be tired and grumpy for a bit though."
Someone further up the corridor snorted and Draco turned to find that George had brought Helen to the hospital. "As though that's anything different. Can she see family yet?"
Fred shook his head.
Helen's mouth twisted wryly and then she shrugged and leant against the wall too. "She didn't come home for Christmas, did you know?" she asked irritably. "If she'd died it would have been after standing her family up for Christmas."
"She was at Malfoy's for Christmas," said Fred, frowning across at Draco as though he couldn't figure it out.
"Oh," Helen glanced at Draco before looking back at Fred. "I thought she would have been with you guys."
"We invited her," said Fred. "But mum fusses when she comes to ours for big occasions. She always asks why Bones won't spend it with her own family instead."
"Because she's a horrible person obviously," said Helen.
Hermione laughed. "That's a nice way to talk about someone who's just nearly died."
Helen shrugged. "It doesn't make her less horrible."
"Hey, that horrible person saved your life several times during the war," said George. His tone was amiable, as though he was used to Helen speaking this way about Bones, but there was an edge to it that made Draco think that he didn't like it. It made Draco like him just a little more.
Helen scowled and looked as though she was going to argue.
Hermione stretched her shoulders as though this was an argument that she was tired of. "Take it up with your sister when she wakes," she advised.
"Oh, don't worry I will," said Helen, folding her arms across her chest.
A mediwitch came in a few hours later to let the group know that Bones was awake, and when they had finished their tests she would be allowed visitors. Helen's shoulders sagged a little and Draco thought that for all of her complaining, she was still devoted to Bones. "I'm going to find a Floo," she said.
"Bones is okay?" Draco asked the mediwitch.
The mediwitch shrugged, a wry smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. "I imagine so. She's drawing up suspect lists as we speak."
Hermione gave a short snort of laughter, as though that was to be expected. Perhaps it was. Draco was out of his element with this new Bones.
The tests finished quite quickly and the mediwitch came back to escort them to Bones' room. She was sitting up in her white bed with a sweetly aromatic potion bubbling on the table beside her as she scribbled on scraps of paper that she had likely demanded from the medical staff.
"I can't believe you're still working," said Helen, throwing herself into one of the visitor's chairs. "You're insane."
"I've got nothing better to do," said Bones, not glancing up from her notes. The hollows around her eyes were dark and her face looked washed out.
"Lie in bed, moan about the pain - eat jelly for Merlin's sake," said Helen. "Being sick is meant to be fun."
"I am having fun," said Bones. "I've already come up with four major suspects."
Helen sighed. "And how far up the list is dad?"
"He's number one," said Bones happily.
"What?" asked Draco, startled. "Sebastian Bones is a suspect?"
"Every time," said Helen irritably. "Every new case that Zee gets, he's at the top of the list."
"Well, I know he's done something," said Bones. "He has those shifty eyes."
"And yet he always comes out innocent," said Helen, holding her hands wide in exasperation.
"Yes, he's crafty," Bones admitted. "But we'll get him in the end."
"You're a horrible daughter," said Helen. "And not a very good sister."
"You're a pretty good drinker though," said Draco. Bones smiled at him, eyes glowing softly. She was moving more cautiously than usual, careful not to stretch her limbs too far. Probably still in some kind of pain.
"Alright." Hermione opened her bag and began pulling quills and parchment from it. We'll be getting reports back any minute now, let's start running interference."
Bones cast her suspects list a forlorn look before rolling it up and putting it aside. "Daily Prophet?" she asked. Hermione and the twins seemed to know what she was talking about, even if Draco had no clue and they began discussing the matter in some depth. Draco went to Bones' bedside and picked up her suspects' list, unravelling it. Three of the four names meant nothing to him. The fourth, Sebastian Bones, was underlined thrice in red.
The threads of evidence linked to his name were conjecture at best. Family didn't make sense. Draco had had every reason to hate his father, and had loved him anyway. And here was Bones, searching for reasons to hate her father because she didn't have any.
"What in Merlin's name?" exclaimed a voice and Draco lifted his head to see that an older wizard had come in the door, followed closely by a witch.
Both of them were staring at him, though neither of them was familiar.
"Oh, hi dad," said Helen; and that changed everything.
Draco glanced quickly at Bones before looking at her parents again. He couldn't see the similarities that existed in so many families. Her jaw might have resembled her mother's and her hair might have been the colour her father's had been in his youth. They weren't what he'd expected. He had thought that Sebastian Bones would have been taller and broader than this man with sad, kind eyes and shoulders that hunched under some unseen weight. Bones' mother too looked as though life had been more than she could manage, and she was struggling just to reach the end of each day.
Bones frowned. "You didn't need to visit. I'm not about to die," she said.
Her mother winced as though Bones' words were physically painful.
"What is he doing here?" demanded her father, who hadn't yet taken his gaze off Draco.
"It's work-related," said Bones. "I can't discuss it with you."
"Is that where you were Christmas Eve?" demanded Mr. Bones. "Your mother checked with the Weasleys and you weren't there."
"Yes, I was with Malfoy." Bones went back to her new scrap of paper, leaving Draco to feel like he was on his own with this situation.
"Work-related?" exclaimed Mr Bones.
"Dad, what..? What are you even angry about?" asked Helen, eyes wide with anxiety as she looked from her father to Draco.
"We'd better..." said Mrs Bones, her face drawn tight with worry. "This isn't something we should talk about with everyone here."
Draco glared at her and she bit into her trembling lower lip. They could go right ahead and air their dirty laundry in public. He wasn't going anywhere.
"Right," said one of the twins, sidling towards the door with the other right behind him. "We'll just be down the hall then."
Hermione left with them, looking just as relieved to be getting away. Bones gave them a half-hearted wave as they went with Mrs Bones ushering a protesting Helen out after them.
"If you don't mind," said Mr Bones when Draco leant against the wall by Bones' bed with the obvious intention of staying. "We'd like to talk to Susan alone."
"I do mind," said Draco, letting his fingers rest against the handle of his wand. Mr Bones got the threat, eyes narrowing before he shot a worried look across at his wife. Draco made a mental note that Mrs Bones was Mr Bones' weakness. He had betrayed it far too easily.
Bones flicked a dismissive hand at him. "I can fight my own fights, Malfoy," she drawled. That was to be expected. If she could fight for the Ministry, she could fight for herself.
Draco smirked at her and didn't move. "If you're going to talk about me, have the courtesy to do so in my presence rather than behind my back," he said, tone scathing because, even if she'd just nearly had her soul sucked out, she could handle it.
Bones laughed shortly and shrugged her agreement. Her parents scowled at Draco. Bones pulled a watch from her pocket and looked at it. "No more than five minutes, please. I have work to be getting on with. And if you won't talk with Malfoy here then you may as well leave. It would be abominably rude to discuss his faults without giving him the chance to defend himself." She had changed so much. Once Draco had been jealous at the bond between Bones and her family. That bond had all but dissolved now and Draco should have felt a savage sense of satisfaction about it. Instead he felt the loss of it.
Bones didn't seem to. She seemed comfortable treating her parents as irritating distractions from her job. Draco suspected that she'd been doing it a long time.
"We know you're angry with us," said Mrs Bones, her voice struggling to stay even.
"Not this again. You haven't done anything for me to be angry about," said Bones, stabbing at her parchment with her quill. If she wasn't still in reasonably high levels of pain Draco thought that she would probably have stood up and walked out.
Mrs Bones lifted her chin. "Suzie, we know you're angry, but this." She motioned expansively at Draco. "This isn't the way to go about it..."
"I resent the implication that I'm spending time with Malfoy to punish you," said Bones. She didn't sound as though she resented anything, sounded bored rather than offended.
"Why then?" demanded Mr Bones. "Why have anything to do with that Death Eating..?"
"To get away from you," said Bones, her voice flat and casual.
Mrs Bones smothered a sob with the back of her hand.
"For Merlin's sake, mother, it's nothing personal."
"Susan," said Mr Bones, putting his arm around his wife's shoulders and pulling her close. "We need to work at this. It's not...Family's not easy, but if we all try we can get through this. Having a Malfoy around will only make things worse."
Draco gave an incredulous bark of laughter. "How could things possibly get worse?" He wondered whether Bones' parents knew that she was planning on killing herself once her job was done. He wondered how much they would care.
"Time," said Bones, looking at her watch. "I need to get back to work. Please send the others in, but take Helen home."
"Susan," said Mrs Bones, a pleading note in her voice.
Bones sighed. "Mother, I will try to visit in a few days. Until then, there is nothing on earth more important than dealing with an attack against Harry Potter."
"That was cold," said Draco when the Bones' had given up and left.
"It's true," replied Bones, resuming her note-taking. "I don't have time for distractions."
Draco reached out and ran his fingers through her messy hair. It only made her smile so he figured that she did have time for distractions, she just didn't have time for her parents. It made his heart constrict painfully. He might have always been vindictively, maliciously jealous of her family, but he had never wanted this. Merlin, he hoped that he hadn't.
Bones caught his hand when he brushed it against her cheek. "Not that I'm objecting, pet," she said, tone cool and bored. "But you might want to check on your Slytherins." Something about the way that her eyes flickered towards him told him that she actually was worried about the Slytherins. Draco wondered whether he should feel so relieved over such a tiny concession to humanity. At the moment, he would take hope from anything he could.
He didn't want to leave her. And yet. "I will come back," he said.
Bones didn't seem to care, merely shrugging her shoulders and saying, "Take your time."
The others were heading back to the room as Draco was leaving. Helen hadn't listened to her parents and was still with Hermione. Draco caught George's arm at the door and half-dragged him into the hall.
"What's up?" asked George, and then through a long habit of tradition added, "Git."
"You and George stay with Bones, okay?"
"I am George," said George.
Draco waved a dismissive hand. "Stop pretending there's a difference. Now promise you'll both stay with her."
George sighed. "Hottie does have safety protocols, luv. We're not just a pretty face."
"You left her alone today with the son of a Death Eater and her parents, who she hates," said Draco coldly.
"Well, you're not going to hurt her," said George irritably. "No more than you have already, at least. And where her parents are concerned she can more than match them in an argument."
"She needs to have a battle-trained witch or wizard with her," said Draco. "I don't want her left without one. Not even if her father asks."
George chewed on the inside of his cheek, studying Draco suspiciously. "It will piss her off," he said. "But what the hell. She pisses us off often enough." He nodded at Draco and sauntered past him into Bones' room.