Chapter 18
Something sweet and viscid was swelling in his mouth. He couldn't swallow it. He couldn't breathe. He turned over and retched. His eyes were dry and prickly. The acrid smell filled his nostrils. He retched again, his stomach and throat convulsing until he was just spitting out thin threads of bile.
"Oh great, now he's throwing up," said a far away voice. "Do we have more chocolate?"
His mother's gentle hands lifted him up from her lap and he slumped against her shoulder instead. There was vomit on her robes. She rested a cool hand on his forehead.
"Will one of you conjure him a glass of water?" she asked.
A glass was pushed into his hand. His fingers were shaking, he thought he might drop it, but then his mother put her hand over his and helped him raise it to his lips. He drank tiny sips, tried to get the world back into focus.
"Draco? You need to eat some chocolate."
She took the glass away. He looked at his hands in his lap. They twitched.
"Here," she said.
He opened his mouth and a piece of chocolate was pushed between his lips.
"Mrs Malfoy, if the boy's awake, I think it's time for you to leave."
His mother didn't answer the auror. She kept stroking his forehead. He was trying to chew the chocolate.
"Are you feeling better, sweetheart?" she asked. "Do you think you're ready to go home?"
Draco swallowed hard.
"Who is she?" he croaked looking up at the aurors who were watching him with more impatience than pity.
"Who?"
"That girl in the cell."
"Oh, that's the one he stopped to look at," said the auror who had accompanied them, Jones. "The werewolf."
He looked at Draco.
"It was all over the papers a while ago. Her family didn't get her registered, thought it was a better idea to just lock her up in the basement during the full moon. Then one night she got out, killed her mother and brother and a couple of muggles. Her father survived, but I think he got a sentence too, for trying to keep her condition secret. Why? You know her?"
Draco shook his head.
"Why did she look like that?"
Jones shrugged.
"Don't know. I think we have another couple of werewolves in here, they're all like that. They don't transform properly. Might be because of the dementors, but I don't know."
"Okay, thanks Jones, let's end the story time here," said Jansson, stepping forward. "Mr Malfoy, you seem to be doing fine now, so we're going to escort you and your mother back to the main land."
Draco nodded.
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They left Azkaban. Their wands were returned to them back at the small house by the coast. They apparated to Sct. Mungos, but there is no treatment for dementor exposure except chocolate and rest, and after being told this several times by a healer, Narcissa took her son with her back to the manor.
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He slept a lot. He ate chocolate and didn't throw up all of it. He knew that the worse things a person has experienced, the more vulnerable they become to a dementor attack, and that the effect of dementors was even stronger on people who had been overexposed before. Still, he could only have been out of reach of the patronus for a couple of seconds, and that shouldn't be nearly enough to cause permanent damage no matter how weak he was. He kept reminding himself of this when, two days later, he still didn't feel normal. His mother insisted on nursing him. He told her to leave him alone, but she didn't listen, so he dragged himself out of bed and locked the door to keep her out. Then she sent the houseelves, but he ordered them to stay away. He barricaded himself in his room and did not speak to anyone, did not read his letters and most days did not even get out of bed.