Draco insisted on staying the night with Lucius and Cissy in hospital. Cissy slept on the couch in Lucius' room, while two Aurors stood guard at all times. Draco wanted to camp out in the waiting room for family members, but one of the perks of being married to the Savior was special treatment; there was a free room right next to Lucius' and the nurse let Harry and Draco sleep there. Although, they didn't do much sleeping, because Draco stayed up worrying.
It was their wedding night and they had arranged for Cissy to watch the baby for the night, but Molly stepped in and took the baby in Cissy's place. The nappy bag was already packed with plenty of breast milk. Draco was a bit neurotic and over protective when it came to Eiona; he worried that something would happen to spill or spoil the first batch of milk, so he sent double and even had a few jaws of elf-made baby food. So Molly had more than enough milk and food for the baby to last an entire day.
When Saturday morning came around, it began to seem like Molly really would need to watch Eiona for an entire day. The nurses and healers were in and out of Lucius' room constantly running tests. They ran so many tests it was unbelievable. Of course they started with testing for less sever conditions and non-fatal ailments. There were a lot of them and they all had to be ruled out. Then they moved onto testing for fatal things, which were also numerous. On top of all of those tests, the healer refused to tell them what was going on until she was certain of the diagnosis.
Harry first got an inkling of what was wrong with his father-in-law Saturday night. Harry wanted to pick up Eiona and go home, since there was nothing they could do for Lucius right now, but Draco refused to leave, again. Instead Draco was using a spell to pump his breast milk into bottles to send to Molly's, which was something he had to do for every feeding he missed with their daughter.
"Draco, why can't we go home for the night and come back in the morning? You heard what the healers said: Lucius is stable, which means he's not going to die in the night, and they aren't ready to confirm a diagnosis. They won't meet with us again until tomorrow morning. Your mum and two Aurors are here watching him. Your mum can comfort him and the Aurors will protect him. There is absolutely nothing that can possibly go wrong while we're gone," Harry said, pleading with his husband.
"There's nothing that can happen, is there?" Draco asked sarcastically.
"No, there's not a thing that can go wrong."
"And what if my father commits suicide tonight?"
"What? Why would he do that?"
"His grandfather did. My great grandfather, Septimus Malfoy the second, left St. Mungo's and slashed open his neck. He bled out in seconds."
"Oh, I didn't know," Harry said, taking Draco into his arms comfortingly. "Why would he do such a thing?"
"He watched his father Lucian Malfoy dying a slow painful death, kept alive for decades with magic. Great Great Grandfather Lucian suffocated to death before I was born, but it was still a decade after his son killed himself. Septimus the second had the same horribly fatal disease as his father and couldn't bear to go through it. It was enough that his son, my grandfather Abraxas Malfoy was being left to raise my father and care for his grandfather; he didn't want his son to have to care for him too. I'm sure my father has the same thing."
"And what is that? What's wrong with him?"
"Motor neurone disease; he's of the age..." Draco revealed.
Harry gasped and hugged Draco tighter. "Isn't that fatal?"
"Yes, didn't I just say my great great grandfather died from it?"
"Yeah, but I mean like really fatal. People with that don't last very long."
"Maybe in the muggle world, but we have magical treatments for it."
"Good; then there's something that can be done for your father."
"The treatments only prolong life and increase the quality of life; they aren't a cure. Meanwhile my father's a prisoner and thinks he's a useless costly drain on our family. He might try to kill himself at any moment, to spare us."
"He wouldn't do that. He knows you need him."
"As long as he thinks that I am better off without him, he might. There's a long family history of Malfoys with motor neurone disease, all the way back to the family founder, Armand Malfoy. That's why the title Lord Malfoy always comes with a cane. My great grandfather wasn't the only one to commit suicide."
"I'm so sorry Draco," Harry said, placing a gentle kiss to Draco's forehead. "How about I take this milk to Molly and check on Eiona. Then I'll come back here."
Draco gave a curt nod and replied, "Take more nappies and clothes."
It wasn't possible for one baby to go through all of the clothes and nappies Draco packed, but Harry agreed just the same. He stopped by Grimmauld Place, before apparating to the Burrow. Molly and Arthur were there in the living room, Eiona cradled in Molly's arms, fast asleep; Molly hadn't wanted to put her down.
"Oh Harry dear! There you are; we were so worried. How's Lucius?" Molly asked.
"They're still doing tests, but Draco thinks it motor neurone disease, which is fatal. It runs in the Malfoy family," Harry replied.
"Oh Harry!" Molly exclaimed.
Arthur rose from the chair, placing a comforting hand on Harry's shoulder. "Medicine has made a lot of progress in the last few decades; Lucius will have many years left and you don't even know for sure that that is what it is. It could be something less fatal," he said.
"They already ruled out all of the curable things," Harry said.
Arthur took Harry into a hug and said, "Son, it's going to be okay. You and Draco are going to get through this," before pulling back again.
"Thank you. I'm just so worried, because what if Draco has it? What if he gave it to Eiona?"
"They won't. They're fine, see," Molly said, standing up and passing a still sleeping Eiona to Harry.
It was comforting for Harry to hold Eiona again. She wasn't going to disappear because of Lucius' tainted blood. Talk about impure blood. That thought brought a smile to Harry's face and allowed him to hold back his tears. "How was she Molly? Was she alright without us?"
"She was fine. Hermione, Fleur, Andy, and Teddy all stopped by. She was so busy going from person to person and crawling after Teddy that she didn't even have time to miss you. Well she did miss Draco when I was putting her down to sleep and when I was feeding her; she was calling for him. It was so cute the way she says fa'er," Molly answered.
"Yeah, that is adorable," Harry agreed.
"Yes, she is," Molly agreed.
"You have a wonderful little family there Harry," Arthur said. "How is Draco doing?"
And so Harry relayed his earlier conversation with Draco about worrying that Lucius was going to commit suicide.
"Eventually Draco will have to leave the hospital and get on with life, but in the meantime you need to tell the Aurors that they need to be watching out for that. They're on alert for Lucius to attempt to escape or for on an attack from the outside by someone wanting revenge; they don't know to watch for a suicide attempt," Arthur said.
That was good advice and Harry resolved to take it as soon as he got back to St. Mungo's. He spent a bit more time with Eiona first, before going back home to shower and change. He retrieved toiletries and a change of clothes for Draco while he was at it, which Draco was very appreciative of when he got back to the hospital. Harry put the Aurors on suicide alert and he and Draco slept in the spare room again that night. They didn't get any news on Lucius until just before noon the next day.
"My tests confirm motor neurone disease," Healer Johnson informed them. He was a tall black man dressed in white healer robes and had an air of competency about him.
Cissy was there standing by Lucius' shoulder and at the proclamation, she turned and buried her face into Lucius' shoulder. Her sobs echoed off of the hospital walls.
Draco too turned to his spouse for support, clutching Harry tightly.
Harry held Draco as it was confirmed that Lucius hadn't been faking just to get his trial postponed. In all likelihood, Lucius had been hiding his symptoms from his family, so that they wouldn't worry about him. But now that Lucius was dying, it was possible that there would never even be a trial; the Ministry might not waste the money to put a dying man through the ordeal. Lucius might be allowed to live the rest of his numbered days in his hospital room in St. Mungo's, with his guards of course; Lucius still wouldn't be freed without a trial, no matter how sick he was.
"Now motor neurone disease isn't the death sentence it used to be. There is a lot of progress in the field. The treatment is still too new to know if the patient is permanently cured, but it has at least been sent into long term remission with several patients," Healer Johnson said.
"How?" Draco asked desperately clinging to the lifeline.
"By treatment with magical parasitic worms. It sounds improbable, but the particular form of motor neurone disease that is prevalent in purebloods has an auto-immune component. That means that the patient's own immune system attacks his neurons, speeding up the progression of the disease and sometimes triggering it in the first place. A few decades ago it was found that some purebloods had a parent and a child afflicted with auto-immune diseases, but were uninfected themselves."
"Like my father," Lucius interrupted.
"Yes, like," the healer flipped through the pages in his notes, "Abraxas Malfoy, who still hadn't contracted the disease when he died of Dragon Pox. It says here that he made invisibility cloaks, is that right?"
"Yes," Lucius confirmed. "The best in the wizarding world."
"He grew the ingredients for his potions himself, didn't he?" Healer Johnson asked.
"Yes," Lucius confirmed. "What does that have to do with it? He had to, in order to obtain the best quality."
"One ingredient in one of the potions needed to make invisibility cloaks is Flitterbloom roots. A link was found between witches and wizards and Flitterbloom. Those who keep it as a houseplant are only mildly protected from motor neurone disease, but those who harvest the roots almost never contract the disease; they contract the parasitic Flitterbloom nematode instead. The Flitterbloom nematode is a magical species of parasitic roundworms whose life cycle involves infecting Flitterbloom roots and humans. It's rather fascinating really and Flitterbloom nematode infection actually protects again auto-immune diseases. There have only been a handful of witches and wizards with motor neurone disease which have tried the nematode treatment, but in every case so far it has sent the disease into remission."
"Why would parasitic worms cure auto-immune diseases?" Draco asked.
"It has to do with what goes wrong in the body to cause auto-immune responses in the first place. Parasites are the key: the immune system expects to find parasitic Eukaryotes. It searches for them and if it cannot find them, it finds the next closest thing, which is the human body, and attacks. If you introduce the parasites, the immune system recalibrates itself and stops attacking the body. And the neat thing is that after the parasite infection is eliminated, the immune system retains the knowledge and continues to function normally. At least so long as it has been tested; like I said, this is a new treatment and we simply do not have case studies dating back more than a decade."
"Another decade with my family sounds amazing to me," Lucius said, his hand clasped comfortingly over Cissy's.
The treatment was not without risk, because they would be introducing a live and active parasite into an already ill wizard's body. The alternative was declining motor neuronal use until the muscles of the diaphragm gave out and suffocation followed. Lucius was adamant about which he preferred, so Healer Johnson went ahead with the treatment. It was an intensive six month course and absolutely forbade stressful events, such as trials, for the durations as well as the first six months afterwards. Even then a trial was not recommended and it was unknown what the stress would do to the remission, so Lucius' trial was postponed indefinitely.
Harry thought the Malfoys would've been happy with the trial postponement, but they weren't. All three of them were so convinced that they had enough evidence in Lucius' favor that he would be found not-guilty or be released on time-served. Harry didn't think it was nearly that cut-and-dry and hoped he never had to see Draco's heart broken by Lucius' conviction.
With the promise of a cure for Lucius, he was most assuredly not suicidal and promised his son as much. Draco went straight to Eiona, kissing his baby and telling her the good news, even though she was too little to understand. Harry went with Draco and thanked the Weasleys for watching her. Molly assured them that it was no problem at all and that Eiona was welcome back anytime.
They went home, doting on their princess to make up for the time they were away. But then that night when Eiona went to sleep, Draco jumped on Harry. They made love, finally consummating their marriage. It was much needed stress relief after spending two days in hospital, but it was also a slow and sensual expression of their love for each other.
Author's Note: Next chapter will come the cure! Lucius illness is meant to be part of the backdrop for the main story, not the main story itself, so we'll jump ahead to when he's better :)
Please Review!