"Bet you're not dangerous at all, you big ugly brute!" Malfoy's words rang around the paddock as he strode cockily across the grass. Harry saw the events of the next few minutes spool out like a ball of twine in front of him.

"Malfoy, no!" Hagrid yelled. But he sounded far away, almost like his voice was coming from somewhere underwater.

Harry saw Buckbeak fix Malfoy in one hawklike eye and take immediate affront, shying away. He screeched, then reared back on his hind legs. Malfoy threw an arm up to protect himself, already screaming as he realized his mistake.

Harry moved as if in a trance, his mind completely detached from the movement of his body. He wasn't even aware of his legs moving him toward Malfoy. He saw Buckbeak rearing up, and then all he saw was Malfoy's petrified face as they fell back onto the Earth.

Then white-hot pain seared across his neck and back. Buckbeak screamed, and he felt talons tear into his back again. He tried to scream, but his voice came out of his lips in a bloody gurgle. Malfoy's face beneath him swam out of focus, red blood spreading across his pale skin... Everything faded.


Draco Malfoy sat on the cot in the hospital wing where he'd been deposited, staring blankly at the privacy curtains that had been erected around Potter. Across the way, Granger and Weasley were sitting on another cot, holding each other. Granger's sobs echoed around the room.

Malfoy had been cleared to leave almost as soon as he arrived, but he found he couldn't quite bring himself to leave. He didn't want to admit that he was waiting for word on Potter, but that was what it was. His father was going to kill him when he found out Potter had saved him from a savage hippogriff, and that he owed him a life debt now. If he lived, that was.

Malfoy absently rubbed at his cheek, and grimaced as dried blood flecked away onto his hand. Potter had bled like a stuck pig all over him, the wound on his neck gushing over both their hands as Malfoy instinctively tried to stop the bleeding. He'd tried to say something to him as he passed out, but all that had come out was a bloody gurgle, the though of which made Draco's stomach roil.

Professors Dumbledore, Snape, and McGonagall burst in at that moment, striding down the ward to where Madame Pomfrey was working on Potter. Professor McGonagall did a double take when she saw Malfoy sitting there, covered in blood.

"Mister Malfoy, is that... your blood?" She gasped, clutching her chest. Draco shook his head, indicating Potter's bed with his chin. She disappeared around the privacy curtains, uttering a little scream at what she found there.

"Are you hurt, boy?" Professor Snape asked, waving his wand to clean up the blood Draco was covered in. Draco shook his head again.

"So, Potter saved you, did he now?" Snape continued. Draco shrugged.

"Course he did." Ron said from across the ward. "Noble to a fault, Harry is."

Snape clicked his tongue and swirled away to join the others at Harry's bedside.

"Can't believe he saved you, you worthless waste of space." Ron continued in Malfoy's direction. Draco tried to think up a witty response, possibly involving how poor the Weasleys were, but his brain emptied as voices behind the curtain rose in emergency. Hermione squeaked in fear, pressing herself closer to Ron.

"I'm losing him!" Madame Pomfrey cried. "Keep pressure, there, Minerva!"

"Oh dear Merlin." Choked out Professor McGonagall as she presumably did as Madame Pomfrey bade.

"Oh fuck." Ron buried his face in Hermione's hair. Draco winced, his gorge rising as he listened to the group of professors triage Potter.

"Vulnera sanentur." Professor Snape intoned.

"Severus?" Madame Pomfrey said in astonishment.

"My own invention." Snape continued.

"Miraculous." Professor Dumbledore rumbled.

Madame Pomfrey came around the curtains then, her hands bloody. She looked at them all staring at her and seemed to notice them for the first time. She vanished the blood from her hands and cleared her throat.

"I'll get a tonic for your nerves." She said, bustling off.

Professor McGonagall pushed the privacy curtains back, her face white with emotion. Her hands were also bloody, and she quickly vanished the mess when she realized. Draco leaned over to catch a glimpse of Potter. All he could see at the moment was a face as white as a sheet against a whole lot of red linens. He looked away, catching sight of Ron and Hermione's pale faces.

At that point he could take it no longer. Not caring if Weasley and Granger taunted him for it later, he summoned a bucket from a nearby bed and immediately made sick into it.

"Mister Malfoy, what now?" Madame Pomfrey came running down the ward at the sound of his retching.

"Shock, I reckon." Professor Snape observed.

"Here, chew this." Madame Pomfrey shoved a violet purple chew into his hand, followed by a vial of calming draught. She bustled over and distributed similar vials to Ron and Hermione. Malfoy chased the anti-vomiting chew with the calming draught, sighing in relief as his body was forced to relax by the potion.

Madame Pomfrey demanded that the privacy curtains be wheeled back around Harry's bed, and began to shoo everyone out. Malfoy tried to move his legs, but between the shock and the calming draught he was having trouble moving himself.

"Best stay then." Madame Pomfrey clucked, watching as he stumbled into a cot. Draco returned to his bed, kicking his shoes off and laying against the pillows. He listened to Madame Pomfrey putter about, changing Potter's sheets and other chores.

When a student came in complaining of a stomachache, she bustled off to her office for a quick remedy, and Malfoy took his chance to pad across the ward to peek around Potter's curtains. His stomach roiled at the thought of what he might find, but his curiosity urged him forward.

Potter had regain none of his color, looking absolutely corpselike against the sheets. He looked like he didn't have a drop of blood still left in him. His neck and torso were heavily bandaged, obscuring the damage from view.

"You stupid git." Draco grumbled, returning to his bed. He wasn't really sure if he was addressing Potter, or himself.