He hadn't moved all morning. Lying on his stomach in the middle of the bed with his arms crossed and his head turned towards the window, Draco Malfoy was fast asleep.
Standing in the doorway, Hermione wondered about the quality of the young man's sleep during those seven years in prison for him to sleep for so long, and without interruption. She wondered how such a thing was physically possible.
Gathering her courage and concentrating on the list she had left in her kitchen, she put one foot in front of the other and entered the room. Albert was out in the garden, so she wouldn't have to check on him.
She walked in at a snail's pace, not yet ready for her new roommate – and husband by extension, though she was careful not to think about it – to wake up. She put the dinner tray on the bedside table and took a deep breath. She was halfway through the task.
The hardest part wasn't even over yet. She didn't dare turn her head towards Malfoy's sleeping body. Her muscles were so tense and numb with anxiety that she was shaking. Who knew it was possible for toes to shake?
She closed her eyes and clung to the bedside table, clasping her hands around the wooden cabinet. The near-silence that hung over the room was terrifying. It reminded her of things she'd wanted to forget forever, something she'd never allowed herself to do.
A dead silence, only being disturbed by Malfoy's jerky breathing.
Hermione thought back to the makeshift infirmary in the Great Hall during the final battle. The silence that had reigned there still haunted her. Only the muffled sobs of the families and the ragged breaths of the still living wounded could be heard.
She bit her lip to keep from crying. She had turned away from her main objective. She had let her thoughts get the better of her and felt herself being pulled into the depths of her mind by the memories that had haunted her day and night for the past seven years.
She was tempted to run away, to leave the room, to go to the bathroom and down a bottle of Calming Draught. But she restrained herself. She had to do it. She wanted to.
She finally noticed the smell of blood and infected flesh that wafted through the room. A smell she knew all too well.
She hurriedly opened the window of the room wide. She needed fresh air.
She was there. She had to face her goal again: to deal with Malfoy.
She finally dared to turn her head towards him and had to hold back a hiccup of surprise at seeing his wounds – though most were covered in bandages – so closely. Not an inch of his skin remained untouched. His entire body was stained with scratches, cuts, bruises, or in some cases, much deeper mutilations. Some of the wounds were clearly infected, judging by the colour that protruded from the larger bandages.
She swallowed, putting a trembling hand over her mouth.
What could have happened to him to make him look so pitiful? Was it the prison wardens' fault? The other prisoners? Had he inflicted all those bruises on himself?
Hermione doubted it, the wounds were far too serious for his brain to have allowed him to inflict such pain on himself.
She took a deep breath and looked away. She couldn't leave him in such a state. It was beyond what she could do. She couldn't afford to wait for Blaise to arrive so that Malfoy could be treated. The larger wounds looked more recent than the others, as if they had been inflicted as a last goodbye.
Hermione swallowed hard as she realised how horrible his stay had been. Apart from the fact that she had tried to think about it as little as possible over the last few years, she had not imagined for a second that the treatment of prisoners could be so harsh and awful. So inhuman.
She wiped her sweaty hands on the skirts of her dress and decided to do something, after taking another breath. She left the room and headed for the bathroom, retrieving as many healing potions as she had.
Her anxiety had been replaced by her altruism. She was driven by it. It was obsessive.
She didn't even pay attention to the Calming Draughts she could have swallowed.
When she returned to the room, she conjured up a small table by the bed, larger than the one the lunch tray was on, and a container she filled with lukewarm water, as well as a clean cloth.
She had no qualifications in healing, but she had lived through the war. She had treated Ron during the Horcruxes hunt. She had seen her teachers and the Hogwarts infirmary treat the wounded after the battle. She knew how to do the most basic of treatments. As difficult as these memories were, she recalled one by one the healing techniques so she could act as efficiently as possible.
She had gone into a totally mechanical state of mind. The anxieties had no place in her head, as if her brain had compartmentalised everything. That was probably the case.
The fact that she hadn't used her wand for complex spells in a long time didn't handicap her either. She didn't even think about it. She was elsewhere. She was saving a life.
She began by stupefying Malfoy with a spell to prevent the severe pain she was about to unleash on him from waking him. Especially since he seemed to have a dislocated shoulder and his right ankle was much bigger than his twin, probably hiding a sprain, if not worse. She might have to put them back in place, which would be no fun for a conscious man.
She then disinfected her hands with her wand, so as not to aggravate in any way the infections Malfoy was already suffering.
Once this was done, she took care of removing the bandages that Pansy and Blaise had applied the day before. One by one, she made them disappear, as they were soaked with blood and pus, and therefore unusable.
She moistened the cloth she had brought and began to clean the blood that had flowed from the various wounds, in order to see more clearly. The largest wound was across his back. It spanned the distance from his right shoulder to his lower hip. The rest were scattered over his arms and back. It looked like he had been whipped repeatedly in the same place.
And Hermione didn't need to analyse the wound any further to be sure. It brought tears to her eyes. She couldn't believe that anyone would do that to a human being, despite all the accusations against them.
She took a deep breath to keep a cool head. The smells were still just as awful as the horror she saw, but she had to stay strong. She hummed a lullaby she'd heard as a child to keep her mind off the sounds of injured flesh as she cleaned the wounds. She had to stay focused. Focused.
Pansy and Blaise had judged the wounds on his back to be more serious and important than the rest of his body, so they had focused on that area first. There were no other open wounds on his body, but Hermione suspected that didn't mean that the rest of him hadn't been affected in the last seven years. She could already see a few barely healed cuts protruding from his trousers.
She thought about the fact that Harry could probably have been more helpful than she was in treating Malfoy, considering his Auror training. However, she knew he was with his brand new husband, only a few hours away from her house. He hadn't even shown up for her wedding, not that she had either. She didn't blame him in the least.
Once most of the blood had been cleaned up, she opened a bottle of Essence of Dittany and poured a few drops on the main wound. Despite his daze, Malfoy's body reacted to the pain and shook slightly each time a drop fell on the wound.
Hermione gritted her teeth. Memories of Ron's dislocated shoulder came flooding back.
With most of the wound closed, the amount of blood diminished and Hermione was able to apply new bandages to the centre of her patient's back.
However, when her fingers made contact with his skin, she noticed that it was particularly hot. Too hot. Scorching hot.
She was immediately alarmed. Placing her hand on the nape of his neck, she could tell that he was indeed feverish.
Nevertheless, she froze for a few seconds when she discovered a tattoo on the skin of his neck, just below his ear. They were runes, she recognised them immediately. Thurisaz. Sowulo. Laguz. Eihwaz. Elhaz.
She blinked several times to chase away her tears. They had marked them like animals.
She quickly refocused and hurriedly opened a blood regeneration potion, as well as a fortifying potion and a sample of basic anti-poison. She had to stay calm and save him. She didn't know what was causing this sudden fever. According to her guesses, it could just as well be infections, as some kind of poison. She could not take any chances.
She made him swallow them, pressing on his pale cheeks to make him open his mouth. The fact that he was on his stomach didn't make it easy for Hermione, but eventually she managed to administer the potions.
The fever wouldn't come down instantly, but she was sure that what she had given him would be enough. She let herself fall back on her heels and sighed. The hardest part was over.
As she sat, she let her gaze wander over Malfoy's battered body as she considered her next move. As she did so, her eyes fell on a long vertical scar on his left wrist. It was white, which told Hermione that it had long since healed. She frowned, confused. Why was it that only this area of his body had been spared from more recent injuries?
Then suddenly it dawned on her.
This was not a wound of any kind. It was the remnants of his Dark Mark.
She bit her lip as tears welled up in her eyes as she realised once again who was facing her. She looked away.
Had he removed it himself? Had someone else done it for him to torture him?
Too many hypotheses, each more despicable than the last, came to her mind. She closed her eyes to prevent herself from thinking about it.
She had to refocus. He was hurt. She had to help him. A life to save.
She took a deep breath, straightened up and opened her eyes again, her gaze determined.
All she had to do now was heal the remaining wounds with healing balms and a few spells. Then she could move on to the rest of his body and his displaced shoulder. There was no room for further thoughts.
Three hours later, she put down her wand and lay on the bedroom floor, exhausted. She had not taken another break since she began her treatment. She had discovered wound after wound as she went along. However, she only knew very basic spells in this area and had only been able to work step by step, knowing that the healing would take several days, even weeks, before Malfoy was in a proper state.
But she was proud of herself. She had done her best and the changes were already considerable. Having protected his back with a whole lot of bandages, she had been able to lay the young man down the other way and had even taken the opportunity to put him in one of her muggle sweatshirts, which she had adjusted to his size. She had covered him with a blanket and given him a few nutrition potions.
He was in no condition to eat at the moment, he needed rest. She didn't need healing training to know that.
She would wake him up the next day, just to make sure he hadn't lost any of his mental abilities. She felt like she had turned into a healer for a few hours. She had felt useful, but although it was having a positive effect for the moment, she knew very well that it would get out of hand in the next few hours.
She preferred to merely close her eyes.
She put away the mess she'd made with a few swipes of her wand, sent the meal she'd prepared for Malfoy into the kitchen and stood up. She was in the mood for a bath. And some calming draughts.
She went into the bathroom and let the bathtub fill with hot water while she put away the unused bottles she had collected earlier and exchanged them for two bottles of calming draughts. She threw them back, drinking every last drop.
She felt the effects immediately. Her anxieties, which had begun to resurface since she had left the room, were pushed to the back of her mind.
The rest of her evening passed without a hitch, as if nothing had happened. As if she hadn't just nursed her brand new roommate, her husband, a man who had just spent seven years of torture in Azkaban.
She made herself some food, fed Albert, checked on her horses and went back to bed, having made sure all the entrances and windows of her farm were secure. She swallowed a dreamless sleep potion and fell asleep without a problem.
oOo
The smell of blood and dust made her nauseous. The corridors were in a disastrous state, so that one had to be careful not to trip over a stone, a body or an unhooked painting, every time one wanted to move forward.
There was a heavy and frightening silence, even as cries of agony echoed in the distance. It was strange. It was as if the sounds were cut off, replaced by the heavy anguish of battle. Spells waltzed over heads and corpses, without even the spells being spoken.
Hermione's head was spinning. She was dizzy and her ears were plugged with anxiety. She was lost. She was back on the battlefield.
She stumbled and fell over a body. As she walked away, her voice torn apart by a scream of horror, she discovered the face of the corpse. The eyes were identical to her own, the hair was brown and wavy, the complexion pale and the nose trumpeted. Her mother's eyes were still open but her soul was no longer reflected in them.
"Hermione! Watch out!"
She turned her head and caught a glimpse of her best friend's green eyes before a spell hit her in the head. Blood splattered and she screamed again.
oOo
Hermione woke up with a start, her body covered in sweat and her face wet with tears. At the foot of her bed, Albert was barking incessantly.
She was hyperventilating, scared, nauseous. She was completely disorientated. She had difficulty separating reality from her dream. She still felt like she was there. She couldn't stop crying.
Albert climbed onto the bed and joined her, whining with concern. She immediately snuggled up to him and burst into loud sobs. The images flashed before her eyes as if her nightmare was endless, as if she was still in it.
Her chest heaved uncontrollably and her fingers trembled, clutching at nothing, as if reaching for her wand. She knew better than to reach for it, though, or a spell would burst without her willing it.
The appearance of her mother's face was not insignificant, she was well aware of that. It was becoming more and more common for her to pop up in her nightmares, on nights when the effects of the potions were less effective.
She still remembered taking a portkey the day after the final battle to join her parents in Australia. She remembered breaking down in grief when she discovered that her spell was irreversible. The aftermath of the war had fallen upon her as soon as she had discovered it. For several days she had not been able to move from the motel she was staying in.
Minerva McGonagall had come to take her back to England, so that she could attend the trials, as she had requested before she left.
She had been a different person at the trials. She had not spoken to anyone, even refusing to testify at first, until Harry and Blaise had motivated her to do so. So she had used her last bit of strength to talk about her experience and try to defend the innocent.
She had not lingered in Britain after that. She had been unable to stay in the country that had destroyed so much of her life.
When her breathing had finally calmed down and her heartbeat slowed, Hermione got out of bed and dragged herself to the bathroom, where she retrieved a new dreamless sleep potion and a calming draught.
She collapsed from sleep a few minutes later, furrows of dried tears remaining on her flushed cheeks.
When she awoke, she found Albert asleep in bed beside her. She smiled slightly at the sight, despite his repeated warnings not to sleep with her. He had put up with her during the night, she couldn't blame him.
She sighed at the memory of her nightmare, desperate to realise that once again her potions had been ineffective. She thought about reworking the recipe with her alchemy books, but put it off until later. She didn't have the strength at the moment.
She left her bed and went to the ground floor to start her day. She passed as quickly as possible in the upstairs corridor to prevent herself from lingering in front of her new roommate's room. She would deal with him later.
She didn't want to fall into a vicious cycle that would take her out of all her habits and focus solely on Malfoy. That was the last thing she needed. So she prepared her breakfast: homemade yoghurt from the market, seasonal fruit and some cereal.
She chose to have something light, as she was going to the village to buy meat and fish.
So she prepared to go out, comforting herself with her habits and routine, and left the house, accompanied by Albert, when she was ready.
She returned with her arms full of groceries around noon. She had stopped at the grocery store to stock up on starchy food and was therefore much heavier than expected.
She carefully placed her purchases in the various refrigerators and in the pantry. She always took great pleasure in doing so, dividing the supplies into glass jars, bags or bottles that went into the refrigerator. It was a good way to organise her thoughts and her living environment.
She then set about preparing Albert's food for the next two days, using the meal she had made for Malfoy the day before. After that, she collected some vegetables and brought them to the stable to give them to the horses. This time she was able to cuddle them for a few minutes, as they were inside.
The female pounced on her food, while the male rubbed against her for a long time. Hermione had had a soft spot for Ares since they arrived. She had even ridden him once or twice, gradually regaining the reflexes she had had as a child during her riding lessons. She had of course stopped them when she returned to Hogwarts, but it had still been a pleasure for her to ride with Ares for a day.
She had been able to discover the surrounding countryside and had even climbed one of the nearest mountains by way of paths used by shepherds.
After tending to the horses, Hermione returned to the kitchen to prepare her own lunch. She added a portion for Malfoy, deciding that this time, after an extra night's sleep, he would be fit to be woken. A meal was much better than a few nutrition spells and potions anyway, especially as she was not comfortable with the idea of using magic again.
She quickly swallowed her food and prepared a tray for her roommate – she didn't want to think of him otherwise. She opened the door to let Albert run outside, before climbing the stairs to the top floor with the tray in her hands.
She decided to make a trip to the bathroom to swallow a calming draught, before finally entering the room where Malfoy was sleeping. She resumed the serious and professional attitude she had displayed the day before, putting aside her anxieties, helped by the potion she had just drunk.
What she hadn't expected, however, was to meet Malfoy's alert gaze as she entered. She dropped the tray in surprise. This disrupted all her plans.
And that's it! See you on Friday 11/11 for the next chapter!
Thanks to Acciobraincells, f1dget, habon and kreimal for their help!
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