It wasn't easy to conduct business over the phone, from a hospital lobby, with his stomach turning somersaults and Harry looking like he was going to apparate to Hogwarts any minute in search of one dead Potions Master. But Draco did his best. Iece still wasn't awake and tests were taking all morning. So he made some calls, and kept getting interrupted by his mother, who was so delighted with her new muggle thingy, that she kept finding ways to use it, to insist on brunch the coming Saturday. After the fifth voicemail and eighth text message, he had to get her to stop. The only way to do that, was to give her the conversation she wanted, begrudgingly.
"I don't have time for this."
"Nonsense. You're waiting in a hospital. You have nothing but time at the moment."
"Not as much as you do, apparently."
"Since our little foray into the film industry, I wanted to try their communication devices. It's like they have a different kind of magic." She'd sounded astonished. "They are resourceful. Tell me, darling, have you ever heard of something called the intronet?"
He held his phone away from his head and rolled his eyes. He wasn't falling for it. "Mother, I can't talk. Now is not a good time."
He knew that she was only twenty percent impressed with nonmagic technology, and the rest of her enthusiasm was just for show, to impress him with her newfound open-mindedness.
"Well darling, I have to call you. You certainly wouldn't call us or receive our owls. Lucius and I had to hear about the incident through the Ministry. We have a right to know how our grandchild is doing."
Oh my fucking God!
He didn't say it. The lobby was too quiet. He would've startled the other families. He moved over to the window and spoke from behind a fake tree decorated with strung lights. Nothing to do with the muggle holiday, just an attempt to keep the décor cheerful.
"Don't call her that. And Harry's fine, by the way."
"We have to call her something. Until she's old enough to learn the truth, your father and I have decided that referring to her as our grandchild, is the most appropriate, and gentlest, way of addressing her."
"I see the doctor. I'm hanging up now."
"Draco, you must use the bracelet. I know that she may not have the symptoms we warned you of, but that doesn't mean that it can't help her."
"Good-bye, Mother."
"Do tell us when you know something."
He clicked over to silence. His lawyer was gone. He was still researching the feasibility of buying the O'Hare hotel chain. The desire had started as a threat the morning that Harry was photographed in his shorts. He no longer wanted to fire anyone. That river had raged itself out, and didn't seem to matter at all next to his desire to keep Harry and Iece safe. Wizards like them, needed a sanctuary, especially while traveling. He wanted to install greater security measures, and he could only do that if he either owned the chain, or developed his own network in the service industry. He didn't want to become a hotel owner, but he'd put on that hat if that was the only way he could be sure of guaranteeing his family's well-being. Between work at the Ministry, Harry's setbacks and keeping Iece happy, business plans were slow.
Just as well, he had to sit down. He almost felt like laying back down in the chair-bed, just long enough for Harry to finish washing up down the hall. He couldn't let him see a moment's weakness. But all this waiting was getting to him. He felt lightheaded and weak, as if he hadn't eaten in days, when in fact, he'd eaten more than anyone last night. He couldn't think straight. His head had that hot, stuffy feeling that he associated with fevers, but he told himself that it was just about having to wait around in a cold hospital. Who wouldn't be tired? This was not about him. Keep it together. Avi would release Iece. They'd go home. Jipsy would take over and he'd take a few minutes to fall apart in the privacy of his room. Keep it together.
When he saw Avi walk into Iece's room with a nurse, he waved back at him and started to follow. They must know something by now. A few steps in that direction, and he stumbled from the pit that opened up in his stomach. Pain, a cross between starvation hunger and sour stomach, had him seeing the floor rise to meet him. He leaned into the corridor wall to stop his fall. Some heads turned, but he remained upright and pushed himself past Iece's room, to the nearest public toilet. He hurried, knowing that Harry could come around the corner at any minute.
In the stall, he put his head down, and pretended he had no idea where the tears were coming from. It was only for a few minutes, and were certainly in response to a momentary weakness that compelled him to stay close to the floor. Pain forced him to let it out. It's just fatigue, he told himself. It passed quickly. He rode it out like a wave. When all of this was over, he and Harry would go somewhere quiet, take Iece, and just cuddle with her, not giving a damn about anything. There would be no stress allowed, and that's how they were going to deal with all of this. Harry had to give up the tour. It didn't make sense to continue. He knew what he wanted now, and he wanted Harry at home.
Even as he came to that conclusion, he saw Harry taking off for Hogwarts as soon as they had that discussion. It would be permission for him to leave again. No strings. No attachments, because Draco was so good at taking care of Iece. And now there was Jipsy to help. Why should he hang around to raise his daughter? A kid he never wanted to begin with. It should fall to Draco. Most of the time, he was glad that it did. Only… only he could feel resentment growing in the bottom of his stomach, like a cancer, and wondered briefly if that was how such things started. That was a muggle disease and he had nothing to worry about. Only a few short weeks ago, he'd been pushing Harry out the door. Away from him. Now the thought of him traipsing off after other interests, had him confused at his own conflicting thoughts.
He knew how they had come to this. They never meant to be a couple, just to help each other survive against his father. They were natural enemies who clung to each other when faced with a bigger opponent, the thought of something happening to the child they both loved. They'd gone through so much together, they were a part of each other. It took driving Harry away to make him feel that empty place. He's known for a while now, since breaking him out of jail, that he wouldn't know how to live without him if he had to. It would be like learning to walk again, and he wasn't up for that fight. Instead of making things easier, that complicated everything. What was the point of needing someone who was too damaged to make a life with you? Who had every reason to resent why you were both thrown together in the first place. Who still looked at your body as if he could be infected by it and suffer the curse all over again?
He kept his head down and willed himself not to throw up.
Minutes later, he and Harry were seated in Avi's cramped space, looking expectantly at the doctor, and at one another.
"I hope you boys got some rest. I have news, and I have a plan. Before I go into detail, I want you to know that I believe Iece is going to be absolutely fine. However, I've learned a bit more since last night and the problem is more complicated than an allergic reaction or even empathetic magic between herself and Harry."
He saw their pensive faces and knew they weren't breathing.
"Take a deep breath. I won't keep you in suspense. I'm going to rip a psychological band-aid off."
He could tell he was making them irritable, but he refused to continue until he saw them breathing.
"This is going to be a shock. Harry, will you consent to the cessabit charm, to make things easier for you?"
"No, I fucking will not. Say it, already. I'm sorry, but you're making me crazy."
The outburst surprised no one and Avi didn't fault him for it.
"Okay, Iece's magic did have an allergic reaction. Her body is an extension of her spirit, which is where magic arises. To affect one, is to affect the other. It's the same for everybody. And in that highly volatile state, she's begun to display characteristics beyond those of her typical age group. Think of it as a chemical reaction."
"Fizzing. You explained that last night," Harry reminded him.
"Yes, but I didn't factor in my new findings. It appears that with the acceleration of her magic, her signature, the very stamp of her genetics has been altered. This affects the building blocks of her identity. It has caused changes, which I don't know if they're permanent or not. But her cellular resonance is able to flip a switch and alter its structure. This is causing a physical change in her body, from moment to moment."
Draco folded his arms. "Just tell us what's wrong."
"Results show that your daughter is, at the level of her chromosomes, a perfectly healthy female. However, when her magic is expressing erratically, this triggers a dominant and recessive switch, allowing her to appear with male characteristics. And it's tied to her eye color, which appears to be a kind of genetic marker for her magic. I don't know how reliable it is, but when her eyes are very dark, her body expresses as female. When they are grey, she exhibits male genitalia. I would not have believed it, if I hadn't seen this for myself last night. We're dealing with something relatively unknown, in my experience, at least. I need more time to research it. I can't release her until I know more about what to expect and what medicines will work for her. But that is where we stand."
Mouths open, Draco and Harry continued to stare at him. He could almost see understanding swirling into focus behind their eyes. There was a three second delay before they both said in unison, "What?"
He brought his hands together, clasping them and unconsciously asking for help in finding the simplest, kindest words.
"Iece's magic is manifesting the ability to change her gender."
He waited to see if they could digest this. The journey from confusion to shock, was a subtle one for Draco, who drew inward and stared down like someone looking into a pool of their own sad reflection. It absorbed him. He pushed up from his seat just as Harry did.
Harry came out of himself. He hunched forward. "That can't be true," he insisted with head-shaking denial. He leaned over Avi's desk, as if the act could've given them all better results.
"No. She's just a child. That can't be true. You're either lying or you're mistaken."
Avi continued uneasily. "Believe me, Harry, I didn't want to have to tell you this. I'm trying to prepare you for seeing the proof yourself. I've only seen it for myself this morning. Given that this is a private nature, the ability could be more common than is known. Her magic was, perhaps, always going to show itself in this way. Or something very specific is causing it to react this way. Regardless, we will watch her and find out what we can do to give her a stable life as she grows into the ability. Who knows, it might be something she can grow out of. Adults leave behind childhood conditions all the time. They outgrow the need for glasses, allergies, stutters, who knows if this will even be a permanent part of her life. It may just last for the duration of her reaction. I don't know, but I will do everything in my power to investigate and tell you as much as I can."
Harry shook. His lips trembled with unspoken curses. Behind him, Draco looked ashen and clutched his stomach.
"For right now, I need to know about Draco's history. I don't mean to be insensitive, but you did suffer a gender-altering curse during the war. Correct?" He directed his inquiry at Draco, who eased a few feet away.
Harry planted himself firmly in Avi's line of sight, attempting to block Draco from view. "What's that got to do with it? He was practically a hostage and that was before she was born."
"I'm sorry for bringing it up. But surely you can draw a correlation. If that curse affected him on a chromosomal level, or even triggered a mutation, he could very well have passed the ability on to her."
"She was born almost a year after he was healed from that curse."
"The possibility is still there. From what I remember reading during the trials, the wizards who created it, were all biological engineers with doctoral certifications. There's no telling what they've done. Have you noticed any unusual side effects or lingering symptoms?"
He was looking so hard at Draco's hesitant reaction, he didn't see Harry gritting his teeth.
"Leave him out of it." Harry yelled. "I promised him I would never let anyone drag him back into that hell. Don't you dare question him. No one knows what he went through but me. No one has the right to question him."
"I understand, but surely you can see the necessity in learning what he can tell me. Draco, will you allow some testing, to see if I can find any residual effects on your body? It could help Iece a great deal."
"Stop it! Don't ask him anything. If he want's to tell you something, he'll volunteer it."
"Harry, I'm only trying to help your daughter. I'm not interested in putting you two on trial again. Please don't let that interfere with getting her the help she needs. The fact alone, that Draco underwent a gender-altering curse, points to the likelihood that this is not a random reaction or a natural trait of her magic. I'm just guessing, but either the curse lingered long enough to affect her, in utero, or to actually be taken on by her, as a second generation victim. If it's the first, there's nothing we can do but work with it and observe it. If it's the second, we may actually be able to break the curse, because, for all intents and purposes, regardless of when she was conceived, your daughter may be carrying the very same curse. The only difference would be a deterioration of effects due to her genetic pool."
Harry listened, letting the rate of Avi's words control how much air he allowed himself. He was breathing very hard now, when he asked, "You're saying she's cursed? She wasn't even thought of when that happened to him. You're saying that a curse inflicted almost a year before her birth, could be just as strong in her, as it was in him?"
"If it was cast to bind to his genetics, then yes. It would be similar to lycanthropy in his ability to pass it on."
Harry turned to Draco, who swayed a little. In that moment, Avi's mind tried very hard to interpret what he saw pass between them. Draco's lips parted. He took a step towards Harry, reached out and fell forward when he grasped empty air. Harry had apparated.
Avi caught him and lowered him into his seat. "What happened? Where's he gone?"
Head bent, Draco pressed his knuckles into his forehead and rocked, suppressing the anguish that made him shake. He brought his hands down and looked at Avi.
"My father. He's going to take it out on my father."
Tremors and logic told Draco that he should stop it. He should race to keep Harry from self-destruction, but he had no more belief that he could stop him, than he believed Iece's problem to be random. She was suffering. And it was his father's fault. Just not in the way that the doctor knew. And not in the way than anyone would ever know. His father deserved what Harry was going to do.
"Oh, should we warn someone?"
Draco closed his eyes and shook his head. "No."
He couldn't protect his father any longer. He didn't want to.
Note: Apologies everyone. I've been using two different spellings of the same word. Grey and Gray. Both are legitimate spellings, but I will try to be consistent. Thanks
