分卷阅读39（2 / 2）

It was strange, in that mont, because he was thinking of all the things that he could do, all the people that his father had paid to teach him—the lineage of old houses, violin, calligraphy, dancing—and yet now that he was in imdiate danger, he could not figure out how to move his arms or kick out with his legs well enough to bring himself back to the surface. There was only darkness covering up all the light and weeds brushing at his heels and the desperation building up inside him, where he would kick up off the murky bottom of the pond and burst into the light just long enough for one lifegiving breath of air before the depths pulled him back down under again.

Trying to wake up was sothing like that.

But he does wake up, eventually, after what must have been hours of drifting in and out of consciousness, where he would open his eyes only to be blinded by the light and taken aback by the fire in his lungs. His entire body ached, and even though each ti there were voices he recognized demanding his attention (Hermione, asking if he was okay, George holding tight to his hand, even a blurry figure that he thought might have been Pansy), he found it easier to slip back inside himself instead, until he finally told himself that enough was enough and forced himself to keep his eyes open.

“Hey. Mate.” There were hands on his shoulders, forcing him back down onto the pillows. “Take it slow, will you?”

For a mont, he does not understand why he is there, cannot rember why everything hurts, but then he does—hands moving to wands that were not there, a flash of light spreading across her face as the chandelier sways, the man lting back into the background, the way he was the only one who understood in ti to get to her—and the panic makes him surge the person in front of them, grapple against their hands to grip onto their shoulders.

It was George who he found staring back at him, coaxing him to calm down, to lie back before he hurt himself. Not Harry. Draco would like to say that he didn’t care who was sitting guard by his bedside, but judging by the disappointed feeling in his stomach, that was a lie. If he had been given ti to think who would be the first person to et him upon his return, he would have been expecting to see Harry. Maybe he was here, a voice in his head was saying, much more reasonable now that it was clear that no one was in imdiate danger. It’s been forever, you really would want him to sit here without eating or changing his clothes or running ho for a nap? And don’t you have more important things to worry about?

“Where’s Hermione?” Draco fell back onto the pillows, wincing as he did so. “Is she alright?”

“Penelope healed her in half a second after the motion was over. She’s just a little sore. You, on the other hand,” George gestured over the length of Draco’s body, and for the first ti he really looked at himself, at the cuts and bruises and bandages. “Are going to be in here a while.”

“Couldn’t they fix these up?” Draco looked over his arms with so amount of concern, because if this was what he looked like after being in the hands of qualified healers for hours, how bad was he when he first ca in? “It’s like, first level healing.”

“They got the bad things first. Put your body under a lot of stress to heal it, so they want to keep you under observation for a bit and let the rest heal naturally.” Draco must have made a face, because George’s hand is gripping tight to his, squeezing his fingers like he is keeping ti with his pulse. It makes Draco look at him and see the worry in his eyes, the tightness in the skin around his mouth, like he is biting back the words of caution that he so desperately wants to say. “You were in a bad shape, Draco.”

It’s the na that makes Draco sober up and pay attention. They had spent so long addressing each other only by hurled curses and insults and a snarled, twisted version of their last nas (Malfoy. Weasel.) that the sound of his na being spoken with that amount of fondness still makes him pause, and right now it’s long enough to realize that maybe, just maybe, watching one of his friends almost die was a pretty upsetting ordeal for George to have to go through. Enough that even though he had sworn off hospitals and guard duty for good, here he was, holding onto Draco’s hand and monitoring everyone that es through the door until he had woken up.

“Hey.” Draco made sure his voice was gentler this ti. Kinder. Less demanding. “I’m alright. I’m not going anywhere.”

George stared at him for a long mont, then let go of him, stalking back to the wooden chair by the door and throwing himself into it. He was still in his clothes from the gala the night before (was it the night before? he honestly doesn’t know) only now they are ripped and disheveled. That, bined with the ugly look on his face, was making him look like soone you would cross the street to avoid being near.

“Don’t I know it.” George’s words were teasing but his eyes were still worried, darting around the room, and Draco wonders how many of them have fallen back into their war ti habits where they checked in corners for monsters that were really only shadows and would not believe it when people promised that they were safe. “You’re one tough bugger to kill, Malfoy.”

Draco smiles. It’s not the best weling crew he could imagine, but it was nice all the sa.

He goes through round after round of visitors.

Mrs. Weasley shows up with homade brownies and flowers, peppering him with anxious questions about what hurts and how well he thought he was healing and if the healers were treating him alright, spending an unnecessary amount of ti smoothing down the sheets and demanding that he let her b his hair with a wet brush to make it lie flat. She’s so unlike his own mother, but even that reminder of Narcissa makes a lump form in his throat, so instead of looking at her, he just stares at the wall as she prattles on about Percy and Penelope and how Kingsley responded spectacularly well to his first in-office crisis, occasionally holding a ball of yarn for her while she knits. By the ti she leaves two hours later, she leaves a small blanket spread over his lap, because as she put it, he was bound to get chilly sitting by that window and she couldn’t bear to leave him sitting there in those thin hospital pajamas.

Pansy es, too, pushing through the door to his room with her high heels clicking, marching straight to the window and perching herself up on the sill like she does it every day and starts to read from those gossip rags that she used to love so much, keeping him updated on people that he used to be friends with. He used to follow this stuff avidly, too, would pore over it with her during their breakfast at Hogwarts, keeping up with who married who and what scandals were going on and what kind of petition they were facing this sumr. Now, it’s the sound of her voice that he likes, lulling him back into sleep as she chain smokes her filthy muggle cigarettes out the window.