Chapter Text
Autumn 1998
Slytherin vs. Hufflepuff
Nothing in Draco Malfoy’s life compared to the hunt for the Golden Snitch.
In such an enormous stadium, it was a tiny thing; unfathomably fast and silent, it did everything it could to keep from being captured. Every nerve in Draco’s body itched for it, every sense focused solely on capturing it.
He’d been called a ‘gifted’ Seeker by his peers and professors over the years, but he wasn’t gifted—he was skilled . What he could do was the compilation of years and years of practice, the relentless pursuit of that tiny fluttering ball. In a lifetime marked by dread and punishing anxiety, it was his one solace.
Because, one hundred feet in the sky, the deafening silence of his childhood home evaporated into dust. There, it was only Draco and the birds and the pounding wind.
Out of the corner of his eye, a flutter of gold taunted him from across the stadium.
Gotcha. Draco smirked as he tore as subtly as he could across the sky, weaving through Chasers and Beaters until it was only him and the Snitch just a few feet ahead.
In those moments, the seconds of certainty as he closed in on his prey, the rest of the world melted away. The loneliness that followed him around Hogwarts, the blend of guilt and anger that sat thickly against his chest at all hours of the day, simply vanished.
And, for just a second, he felt free, like he was rid of the chains of his last name and the Mark that still lingered on his left arm. He was just one of the birds, mindlessly flying through the air, without a care in the world.
An unnatural snap startled Draco from his trance just as his fingers wrapped around the fluttering Snitch. The roar of the crowd crescendoed, but it was tempered by the pounding of his own chest as something crackled all around.
Time crawled as panic slid through him.
Any elation over his victory vanished as dread filled his every pore—a certainty that something wasn’t right.
It took him too long to notice the Bludger that had lodged itself in his broomstick, to see the cracks spreading all around it. The wood splintered quickly, taking Draco’s control along with it, while simultaneously the seconds seemed to linger, leaving him in agonising dread.
He was too far from the crowds, too isolated from the other players. Any spell he attempted vanished into thin air as he lost all control of the broom.
His stomach lurched as gravity dragged him to the ground—
Too fast.
The green of the pitch was too bright, and his mind nearly shattered as he tried to comprehend what was happening.
The screaming started, a pounding relentless cacophony from the crowd and his nearing teammates, but it was too late.
Draco Malfoy crashed into the ground at 14:07 p.m.
With the Snitch still clutched in his left hand.
He felt everything.
He felt nothing.
Bursts of awareness seeped in, and with it were whispers and blinding lights and more than anything else, unrelenting pain searing over every inch of him.
And then there was nothing again, a blissful darkness that wrapped around Draco like a blanket.
Until he woke up to a static all around him—buzzing in his ear, pressed across his skin. An uncomfortable itchiness that he couldn’t move his hand to scratch.
He couldn’t move his hand.
Panic set in as he tried again—tried anything. It was like his head was removed from his body and everything was a heavy static pressed to his skin.
“Calm down.” A voice reached him, faint and scratchy through the din.
He wasn’t going to fucking calm down. The racket in his chest only swelled, blaring against his eardrum harder and harder.
He desperately urged his fingers to move. His toes. Anything.
“I can’t—” The words were raspy against his lips, his throat dry. He wanted to scream, but even his voice was failing him.
Everything was wrong.
“You’ve been in an accident.” The voice was closer, clearer, a quiet whisper splitting through the morass of pain and static.
Blinking, Draco tried to grasp onto something, anything, but it was like he was drowning and, as much he shouted, his limbs wouldn’t move to keep him afloat. Tears fell unwittingly, further obscuring the fog.
“You need to relax, I know you must be frightened.”
He focused on the voice, on the familiar notes and vague reassurances. He clung to it, like gasping for air, but it was all there was in a sea of nothingness.
“Good.” Relief laced the voice, her voice, Draco realised.
Inch by inch, the room came into focus: white walls, a white ceiling, the top of a bedside table with a bouquet of flowers sitting on it.
And then he saw her—Hermione fucking Granger, wearing sky blue Healer robes as she mumbled over and over into her wand, all the while her eyes darted across him in some fusion of worry and pain.
“Granger,” he coughed out, but the novelty of waking up to Hermione Granger at his bedside was quickly overcome when he attempted and failed to raise his head, inspiring a renewed wave of panic. “What’s wrong with me?”
Her lips pressed into a faint line, and Draco watched, waiting through each painful second for her to say something.
Was he dead? Was he in some sort of hell—destined to exist forever in a state of dread? It would be fitting, he supposed.
“Madam Pomfrey will be here soon to talk with you,” Granger said eventually, pocketing her wand and pressing her hands along the front of her robes, flattening the creases, her fingers trembling.
For a fleeting moment, he stopped wallowing in self-misery and wondered at the bags under Granger’s eyes.
But then she turned as though to leave, and a new sort of apprehension took over him. “Please,” he barely managed out.
Any pride he had was subdued by an ever-growing terror taking hold of him. What was wrong with him? Was it permanent? From the sympathy and horror on her face, worst case scenarios played over and over in his mind.
Would he spend the rest of his life lying there, stuck in a pervasive agony, longing to feel his limbs but never quite reaching them?
“I shouldn’t—”
“Just”—he tried desperately to calm his breathing—”will I fly again?”
Of all the things he did on this earth, it was the one thing that mattered.
If he were stuck to the ground, what would that mean? If he could never feel the pressure of the wind or glide with the robins, how would he feel free again?
The seconds dripped between them unevenly like a leaky valve, pooling into a puddle that Draco was sure he’d drown in.
“I don’t know.”
Time drifted by in a blur of sunrises and sunsets with bouts of grey and rain thrown between for good measure.
All the while, dread sat like a wall between his mind and the world and seemed to grow thicker, steadily mocking him.
“You’re lucky to be alive,” Madam Pomfrey told him.
“What’s happened?” Draco swallowed, pressing down his stewing terror.
“You had a terrible Quidditch accident.” Pomfrey didn’t look at him—her eyes were glued to the diagnostic parchments.
“Yeah, I figured.” Draco desperately wished he could shift—sit up and force the Matron to look him in the eye. “How long have I been here?”
“About a week.”
A week? He tried to remember the whispers, the comings and goings as he went in and out of consciousness. Quidditch teammates and Professors flashed through his mind—weak smiles and watery eyes.
“Why aren’t I at St Mungos?” asked Draco.
A flash of sympathy crossed Pomfrey’s otherwise cool gaze.
“They said they didn’t have space,” she explained.
It was a lie—he was sure of it. Just an excuse because no one wanted to deal with the pathetic Death Eater who’d narrowly escaped a trip to Azkaban.
Madam Pomfrey continued, “When you fell to the ground, you did nearly irreparable harm to your body. It’s a miracle you survived—but the damage to your spine…” She droned on and on, with hyper-technical explanations and vague sympathies.
Certain words replayed in his mind like a poorly developed photograph: extensive damage that was frighteningly close to his magical core, a long and painful recovery.
“But I’ll recover?”
“You’re lucky to be alive,” she repeated, waving her wand and mumbling beneath her breath.
“But—” The words tangled in his throat, trying to translate her unspoken meaning.
Forty-three percent she eventually told him. He had a forty-three percent chance of recovering.
There was more nuance than that—separate odds to regain feeling in his fingers and toes, different likelihoods of walking and running.
She smiled when she said there was a good chance he’d be able to use magic again.
But still, that number taunted him, like it was etched along his eyelids—the last thing he would think about as he fell asleep and his first thought each time he woke.
He wallowed in it, existing in a state of haze with short bursts of consciousness as time passed around him.
No one visited him anymore—not that he was surprised, but a small piece of him had wondered if his mum would return to the country, or if perhaps Theo or Daphne would stop by.
But he didn’t blame them for staying away.
Still, there was that always-fresh bouquet of flowers sitting on his table, a stark contrast to the sterile white walls in the hospital ward. Perhaps it was just decorative, something intended to make patients feel better.
It felt wrong, like the violet and pastel hues of the tulips were too warm for this place.
Hermione Granger stopped by often, sometimes trailing after Madam Pomfrey with a quill and parchment, other times coming in with a creased brow and muttering a few spells of her own. She never offered any reason for being there, but Draco imagined she must be a Healer in training, or something similar.
At first, he’d tried to muster some sort of animosity towards her—to recall all the reasons he loathed her—but it was all hazy, usually trumped by the fog of his condition.
He’d thought once, when he’d been pushed and shoved through the Wizengamot chambers following Voldemort’s demise, that his life had been turned upside down for the last time.
How wrong he’d been.
One day, he felt something through the fog of nothingness.
Pain —agony drifted up and down his skin, like an inferno boiling him alive.
It was Granger that came running, either from his nonsensical shouting or the multitude of diagnostic charms surrounding him. Regardless, she showed up breathless, waving her wand and saying something indiscernible through the unrelenting pain.
For what felt like ages, he writhed, unable to catch his breath, screaming obscenities.
He wondered once more if he were dead, and this was some sort of personal hell—he’d longed to feel something, but this was unbearable.
He yearned for the nothingness, for the bliss of the uncomfortable static and the heaviness that had surrounded him.
When the pain finally dimmed, he was in shock, drenched in sweat and tears, his throat aching from screaming.
“Is that better?” Granger asked through laboured breaths, her eyes wide and hand trembling.
“Yeh,” he managed out. “What happened?”
The room was still spinning as the world slowly slipped back into place.
“I’m not sure.” She continued to murmur spells, biting on the inside of her cheek as indiscernible words flickered over her always-present parchment.
Something was different—but Draco was still so disoriented he couldn’t figure it out. “You must have a guess.”
A dim light danced across her eyes.
And then a tiny stab pressed into the bottom of his foot. “Ow,” he muttered, narrowing his eyes for a moment until the gravity of the situation hit him. “Ow,” he repeated without malice.
Everything felt different—but he felt it.
A smile drifted over his lips.
“It looks like one of the treatments has worked. Don’t try”—as she spoke, he tried to move his hand, only to discover each ligament felt painfully heavy—“to move anything yet.” Her voice fell and she pursed her lips.
His smile slowly faded.
“This is good news. I’ll let Madam Pomfrey know,” Granger said, offering a faint smile and grabbing at a chain along her neck as she left.
Draco tried to summon a modicum of optimism. But it was as though he’d climbed one mountain only to find a steeper one.
He was later informed that what he’d experienced was a magical phenomena whereby every nerve in his body reinvigorated at once, which is what caused the extreme pain he went through. While this was, he was assured again and again, good news, his body needed to be retrained on how to use each muscle.
Like he was a fucking toddler, being forced to learn to walk again.
“It will be long and intensive, but with hard work, you have an opportunity to regain full use of your body,” Pomfrey told him.
It felt impossible. The idea of gripping a cup or standing on two feet seemed unfathomably difficult.
“Ms Granger will be overseeing your therapy. You will treat her with respect, is that understood?” Pomfrey narrowed her eyes at him.
Rather than ask ‘what’s the point’, he simply nodded.
Granger showed up every day in those same sky blue Healer robes, always with a book and a quill and a distant look in her eye.
She was the epitome of professionalism—instructing him to move different fingers or toes, asking him to complete different exercises as her quill scratched efficiently at her side.
The days bled into one another, as each exercise felt progressively more futile. Still, Granger never wavered or expressed any frustration.
He wondered how she could stand this—touching him, mollycoddling him. All without an unkind word or a single eye roll. Perhaps she truly was the saint the media made her out to be.
But there was something more. Beneath the perfectly ironed robes and the tightly braided hair, it was as though she was being chased by a shadow.
Sometimes, Draco ignored her, so overwhelmed by his own thoughts and fears that he hardly realised she was there.
But other times, when the pain was particularly debilitating and the sky was grey, the silence that sat between them—the unanswered questions and the sheer absurdity of the situation—was thick.
“Why are you here?” It was one of those days where his head was heavy and the world felt utterly impossible. He asked the question that had plagued him since the first day when he’d woken to her at his bedside.
“I assumed it was obvious—I’m pursuing an apprenticeship in Healing—”
He cut her off with a slight huff. “I figured that. I mean, why are you helping me?”
It was only after the words left his lips that he realised just how pathetic he sounded.
Who the fuck was he anyway?
“It’s part of my job.” She dismissed him, tucking back a curl that had fallen from her braid.
He wanted more, he realised. Some acknowledgement of his fallen status, or perhaps an admission of hers that she loathed his presence.
He’d been an arsehole to her for six years, stood literally ten feet away from her as his aunt tortured her to within an inch of her life.
Surely that should merit an ounce of ire? Something other than placid professionalism.
It itched at him. As each day passed and he slowly regained the use of his hands and feet, he wondered what had dulled her fire.
Was it the war itself?
But she’d won. His misery was deserved—it was his consequence. But hers?
Draco tried again a few weeks later: “Does it ever make you angry? That you have to help me—after everything?”
Her eyes glowed for just a moment, and for a second he thought she was about to put him in his place—give him a glimpse of the Granger he’d known for six years.
But instead, the light dimmed, that familiar shadow pressing over her. “This is my job, Malfoy. It doesn’t make me feel anything in particular.”
He should’ve taken the defeat, but he didn’t. “What do your friends think of you being stuck nursing Draco Malfoy? Do they find it funny or poetic that I’m stuck here in this bed? Do they loathe that you spend your days here with me?”
She was silent, scratching at her parchment; were it not for her quickened breaths, he’d have wondered if she was even listening.
For some reason, her lack of fight just made him more angry. Months stuck in a bed and all he’d had were his own miserable thoughts and her, and here she was, just an echo of the Hermione Granger he’d known.
He kept going. “Does it make Weasley jealous?”—her fingers froze, tight around that quill—“I keep wondering if he’s going to—”
“Patient information is confidential.” She swallowed, gripping at that chain around her neck. She looked like she was about to speak, but instead she spun on her heel, walking out of the room before he could get another word in.
He was self-satisfied for a while. His mission—to rile Hermione Granger—was finally accomplished.
But as the sun set, a thick lump formed in his stomach as his triumph faded and the extent of his idiocy slowly settled in: he’d not won anything. In fact, all he’d done was prove to her that he was the ungrateful little shite the world had deemed him to be—the ‘pure-blood’ heir who avoided prison by virtue of his age and by publicly (and with great humiliation) declaring the error of his ways.
He stewed in his discomfort, replaying the conversation again and again, trying to figure out why he felt so ill at ease.
He didn’t care what Hermione Granger thought of him. In fact, he didn’t care what anyone thought of him—after spending two years in a state of constant anxiety, he was fine merely existing.
So long as he could fly.
His head grew heavy at the thought.
When he awoke the next morning, after a restless sleep, he decided to pretend the conversation never happened. Presumably, Granger was enough of a professional to cast it aside.
He’d had a bad day for fuck’s sake.
But she never came.
Hour after hour ticked by, and a new sort of dread overcame him.
His food was delivered by house-elves and the intravenous potions automatically refilled, but that fucking Gryffindor never showed up.
Where the fuck was she?
He took for granted she’d show up every day. It was a part of the monotony that had become his life—her grating questions and blue robes and braid.
But without the scratch of her quill and her insistence that he complete his exercises, the room was suddenly too silent.
He was lonely.
Even if their interactions consisted solely of her asking clinical questions and him offering one word answers, it was something.
And rather than give her a second of peace, or show any appreciation, he’d taunted her.
He tried to blame his injury and the constant pain, to rationalise that he couldn’t be expected to keep his fucking mouth shut.
But he still felt like shite.
He resented the sun when it rose the next morning, that it dare be so fucking bright when all he wanted was to sleep until this nightmare ended.
Though he wasn’t sure why he expected such a thing to happen.
He tried to convince himself to go through the exercises—lift each finger one by one, then each toe, then two fingers at once—but he didn’t see the point.
Perhaps at some point he’d simply fade away, decay into the bed.
He wasn’t entirely sure if he longed for or feared such a future.
But just as he finished the mush that was his Healer approved lunch, the door snapped open, and Hermione Granger walked through, still in those blue robes and tight braid with a no-nonsense expression across her face.
She looked completely unperturbed, as though she hadn’t been gone for a day.
“Do you feel this?” She started asking her usual questions, taking notes and instructing him.
He was dumbfounded—his chest felt tight, and he was stricken with overwhelming guilt.
And also relief. After a day alone within the ward’s overbearing white walls and only his perpetually bleak thoughts for company, he was grateful for her presence.
It was for that reason that he stopped her as she was about to leave for the day. “Wait, Granger.”
She froze and turned, a hint of fear streaking across her face, like she was preparing for another round of taunts.
He swallowed his shame. “I’m sorry.”
She blinked once, then twice, with her hand pressed against the closed door and her eyes narrowing at him. “What?” she asked, the disbelief was thick in her tone.
His neck felt warm, and he was suddenly unsure why he’d bothered, except there was a piece of him whispering that he didn’t want to be a little shite and she didn’t deserve his ire. “I’m sorry. For what I said to you the other day.”
For a moment, she seemed to consider leaving, but then she walked back to his side and crossed her arms over her chest, looking down at him. “You are?”
“Yes.” He desperately tried to temper his impatience, but her every word was so slow, her mind clearly at work behind her narrowed eyes.
“Why?” she asked, her finger tapping along her arm.
“Why—what?” Confusion knotted at the base of his neck. It was obvious, surely?
“Why are you sorry?” she said through clenched teeth. “You’ve said far worse things to me for years. We just nearly killed each other in a war. Why are you sorry for being a bit rude to me two days ago?”
Well, when she put it that way…
It felt disingenuous to say ‘I didn’t know better then’, and vile to say ‘you deserved it then’, because assuredly she didn’t.
“I don’t know,” he admitted quietly. “I, uh—” The words were trapped in his throat.
Sorry I was a little shite all our lives didn’t really feel adequate. So instead, he said, “You’ve been helping me, and I was rude, so I’m sorry.”
For a moment, her eyes brightened and he swore the corner of her lip twitched. “Okay.” She bit the inside of her lip and an awkward few seconds of silence passed between them. “Why’d you say it then?”
He felt like a child being berated by his governess. “I dunno.” He shrugged rather stupidly.
She just stood there and raised her eyebrows. Fleetingly, Draco wondered if she was taking lessons from McGonagall on how to be intimidating.
Grinding his teeth, he finally relented. “I don’t know, alright? I guess—I was in pain. I was bored. It’s no excuse.”
And that’s when the twitch of her lip turned into an actual smile and the shadow that always cloaked her seemed to momentarily fade. “And you thought antagonising me would help?” She chuckled.
He rolled his eyes. “I don’t know.”
Her laughter dimmed. “If you wanted to talk, you could just say so.”
“I could have?” His face wrinkled.
He felt pathetic for entertaining the thought—that he was so desperate for company he’d ask her to talk. Not that he still believed there was anything wrong with Hermione Granger, but it felt absurd to force a Healer’s apprentice to entertain him.
Actually, it sounded like something his mother would have done when he was younger.
“You know, Malfoy, ordinary people talk all the time. They ask each other about their days, their interests... the weather. It’s nothing particularly monumental,” she said lightly.
He couldn’t help the smile that pulled on his lips.
After that, things changed.
It wasn’t anything noteworthy, but she now started sessions with a ‘hello, Malfoy’ and lingered after he was done with his exercises, sitting on the chair beside the bed and offering small insights into the world outside of those four walls.
At first, it was easy: he asked about classes, the Professors, the weather—things that were of no consequence.
But eventually, particularly on the days Granger seemed especially dishevelled or tired, his curiosity spiked. He wanted to know what she did when she wasn’t in class or minding him—what kept her from sleeping at night.
Still, even without asking such overt questions, slivers of Hermione Granger came out. What he’d always assumed was an obsession with knowing everything was actually a love of learning—it was evident in the way she spoke poetically about Charms or thumbed the spine of Hogwarts: A History.
Painfully, it reminded him of his love of Quidditch.
He tried to push down the thoughts, focus on the tiny movements of his fingers and toes and the modicum of companionship that Granger provided.
Though sometimes, particularly in the dead of night when the Hospital Wing was too quiet, his thoughts would run rampant. It was then he’d live out every scenario, over and over: what it would mean not to fly.
And, each time, it always felt empty.
He knew, rationally, that there was every reason to believe he could get his mobility back, that he could one day fly again.
But that statistic always replayed in his head—forty-three percent. Sure—he’d already accomplished something, but nothing was certain.
As the last of Autumn slowly faded, Draco felt his mood dimming with the shortening days.
“You’re doing great,” Granger told him, with that almost-but-not-quite-real smile pressed onto her lips.
He swallowed a biting response, feeling a dark cloud pushing down on him.
After being in the Hospital Wing for nearly three months, he felt perpetually cold and empty. Sure, he could now move his fingers at will, but that had taken months —what hope did he have to do anything more?
“Whatever,” he mumbled, turning his head away.
He didn’t want to make small talk today, or feel the pity in her eyes or even consider that damn shadow that always hung over her. He just wanted to go back to sleep and wallow in his misery.
It was a new sort of pain—the realisation that this was his life: four walls and pervasive loneliness.
“Malfoy,” her clipped voice cut through his reverie. “I know it must seem impossible, but you are making a lot of progress.”
He didn’t turn to her but rolled his eyes hard in the hope she’d psychically get the message.
“I’d like to start working on gross motor skills—regaining arm and shoulder movements, leg movements—start to think about walking—”
He interrupted her with a cruel laugh. “What’s the fucking point?”
“The point”—she walked around his bed so that she could stare him down—”is that you have the ability to get back what you lost. You can recover! Isn’t that what you want?”
I just want to fly again. The words felt pathetic in his throat—a desperate cry for something utterly impossible.
“I just want to go to sleep.”
But she didn’t give up. Each day, she came in and had him complete his exercises as she sat and read her textbooks. When he was done, she’d ask if he was ready to try something new, and each time he’d refuse.
It had become something of a game in his mind—something that broke through the monotony of his existence. He tried to gauge her mood by the tone of her voice or the exasperation she’d exude when he inevitably declined her offer.
“I just don’t understand,” she said one day, going entirely off script. “The first thing you asked me when you woke up was if you’d ever fly again. And now you won’t even try to walk?”
Fury bubbled up his throat. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She huffed. “Then explain it! Why won’t you at least try? What’s the worst thing that can happen?”
With her words, it was as though something had cracked in his mind; some dam that had been keeping the brunt of his anger at bay burst open.
“What’s the worst that can happen?” he spat, heat running up his neck. “Do you know what my life is like—what it’s like to have been on the losing side of this war? I have nothing. No one. All I had”—pain builds behind his eyes—“was flying—Quidditch. It was the only thing—”
Her face contorted in confusion. “Then why—”
“Because what if I can’t get it back?” It was the fear that lingered beneath everything else. “Pomfrey told me I have a forty-three percent chance of my life returning to normal. What if I spend the next ten years of my life trying and it was all for nothing? What’s the fucking point?”
He expected her to huff and leave, but she didn’t. Instead, her face hardened.
“So you won’t try because you’re afraid to fail?” she whispered.
It was terrifying for a reason he couldn’t explain.
“What the fuck would you know?” he snarled. “Do you know how fucking exhausting this—therapy—is? How fucking humiliating?” Tears pooled in his eyes and he wished he could fucking wipe them off.
“Oh, boo hoo.” All of her careful professionalism disappeared. “You poor thing—survived a fatal accident and now you have to do a bit of work. You’re alive! Don’t you see how remarkable that is? Stop wallowing and do something to change your circumstances! You still have a chance—”
A cruel laugh escaped his throat. “Fucking forty-three percent—”
“Well, that’s still a chance.”
He turned his head again, squeezing his eyes shut to stifle the tears.
Relief flooded him at the sound of her departing footsteps. Until she turned to him, her fingers clutching that chain on her neck, and whispered: “Please, just try.”
He didn’t want to try.
But he didn’t want to be stuck in this bed forever.
It was as though a physical fog kept him down, preventing him from doing anything more.
Granger stopped asking him to do his exercises eventually, telling him that until he was willing to get out of this bed, there was nothing more she could do.
But, still, she kept coming, though now it seemed as though she was using his hospital room as a place to study.
“Shouldn’t you do that in the library?” he asked her one day.
“Do you want me to leave?” She raised her eyebrows.
He ground his teeth. Of course he didn’t want her to fucking leave, because then he’d be entirely alone. “No,” he managed out.
At one point, she started reading her textbooks out loud, telling him that at the very least he could start to catch up on his education.
He wondered if she hoped to annoy him into giving in.
Instead, he found he rather liked the sound of her voice when she wasn’t berating him. Interspersed between chapters about wand movements and intention, she’d offer commentary, critiquing the text and providing context from the classroom.
Hermione Granger wasn’t just smart— her mind was extraordinary.
One day, she snapped the book shut, biting her lip for a moment before saying: “Why do you like flying so much?”
He swallowed. “What do you mean?”
“You said flying was all you had left. So I assume you must enjoy it, right? I guess—why does it matter so much to you?” She tapped her fingers along the textbook.
To him, it was obvious. Flying was like breathing, it was simultaneously simple and complex.
It was everything.
“Do you like to fly?” he asked.
Her scoff was all the answer he needed.
He struggled not to roll his eyes. “I don’t know how to explain it.” He expected her to nod and resume her reading, but instead, she just raised a single eyebrow. “It’s—liberating. It’s something that is mine—I don’t know, I’ve never had to explain it.”
How could he put into words the feeling of floating above the clouds? The utter freedom of soaring in the air where all of his problems vanished? “When I fly, I feel like I can finally breathe.”
Her lips pulled into a frown and her hand went to that chain. “Then why won’t you try?”
“I’ve told you—”
“Yes, I know. It’s hard, I get it. But you have a chance. And the longer you wait, the harder it will be—”
“Why do you fucking care?” he shouted, and she snapped her mouth shut. “I’m just a fucking waste of space, aren’t I? Even if I somehow recover, then what? What’s the fucking point?”
Her eyes flashed in anger. “The point is that you’re alive, Malfoy. And you’re not in Azkaban. You have a chance to have a life, and you’ve given up before you’ve even tried—”
“You don’t know”—he shook his head—”you can’t possibly know everything I’ve lost! What it’s like to find out your life is a lie, what it feels like to have your entire world snatched from you—”
“No, but I’ve lost plenty.” Ire laced her words.
“You should hate me then. Just let me suffer—”
“Why are you being so stubborn? Why can’t you just try?”
He wished he could raise his arms in exasperation but all he could do was clench his hands. “Forty-three percent! That’s why—”
“You have a fucking chance, Malfoy. Don’t focus on some arbitrary projection—”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. Save your Gryffindor optimism for previous fucking Weasley—”
“I can’t,” she bit out, spots of red drifting up her neck to her cheeks. “I can’t because Ron is dead.”
It was like a pin dropped in the room. Suddenly that damn shadow that always seemed to haunt her had a name and a form.
How the fuck didn’t he know? Surely that would have been made news—
“He was cursed at the Battle of Hogwarts. St. Mungos told us he had a ninety-five percent chance of surviving. Ninety-five percent”—she shook her head, laughing incedulously—“he was fine. For months, he was fine. Until he wasn’t.”
“I—” Draco had no idea what to say. “I didn’t know.”
“Of course you didn’t.” She wiped a stray tear from her cheek. “By the time it happened, no one wanted to read about the lingering dead. It was all about reform and optimism and the fucking economy.”
For a fleeting moment, Draco wished he could reach out to her.
“I don’t want you to pity me.” She cleared her throat. “I want you to realise that you’re alive. Pomfrey gave you a forty-three percent chance of normalcy? So what? I don’t care about the odds. I care that you don’t throw your fucking life away—because I know you think the world has been cruel, but I think you’ve been given a chance. So please, don’t be a fucking idiot.”
She turned on her heel, storming out before he had a chance to respond.
Her words swirled in his head on a loop, warring with the thick fog and the ever-present self pity.
Beneath it all, he was terrified. Here, in this bed, there was always the possibility he’d fly again.
But the second he tried, there would be the possibility he would fail.
He knew it was irrational—but it ate at him, the uncertainty of it all.
Granger entered the next day, Potions textbook tucked under her arm and her face masked in indifference.
“Hello, Malfoy,” she said as she took her seat, carefully opening the textbook.
It was as though she was pretending they hadn’t argued the day before, which only made him all the more anxious as she meticulously pressed her finger along the page, searching for her place.
“Fine,” he said eventually.
“What?” She blinked up at him.
“I’ll do it,” he breathed. “The—gross therapy—”
“Gross motor —”
“Whatever.” He rolled her eyes, catching the twitch of her lip. “I’ll try.”
And while his stomach filled with dread at the thought, he thought it may be worth it for the way her eyes lit up when she smiled.
It was hard.
For all of Granger’s words of encouragement and insistence he was doing a good job, it felt fucking impossible.
“Isn’t there a magical way to make this easier?” he moaned as he collapsed onto a conjured chair, drenched in sweat and feeling entirely out of his element.
“Your spinal injury is wrapped around your magical core, so any magic is off limits.”
It was the same explanation she always gave, but he still complained. Excessively.
It didn’t put her off though. If anything, she seemed amused. “Think of how far you’ve come in just a couple weeks! You stood on your own—”
“With crutches,” he pointed out.
“Still.” Granger looked lighter, a sort of hopefulness colouring her features. “You’re doing great.”
Easy for her to say.
Beyond the therapy sessions, Granger had him completing a rigorous Muggle conditioning routine.
At first, he hated it with a passion, mentally cursing Muggles and their fucking dumbbells. But eventually, he found joy in increasing his rep count and adding weight to his leg press. It gave him something to think about other than the uncertain future—a short-term goal he could actually accomplish.
“You know,” Granger started from where she stood at the other side of the room, adjusting yet another Muggle contraption that was intended to ease his recovery. “You may be able to rejoin the world by Christmas if you keep this up.”
The blood drained from his face at the thought. “I can barely stand, I—”
She held up her hand. “I don’t mean this second. But if we improve your core strength and start working on ensuring your magic is in better shape, you’ll at least be able to leave this room.”
The idea of not being confined to the Hospital Wing was simultaneously exhilarating and terrifying.
“You really think so?” Draco asked quietly, putting down the dumbbell and stretching out his hand.
As much as everything seemed slow and futile, every movement in some ways felt momentous.
“It means you’ll have to go back to class, of course.” She grinned as she approached, handing him a stretchy band and guiding him through a series of shoulder exercises.
“Studying for N.E.W.T.s. must be easier than this, right?” he huffed out.
“Oh, I don’t know. Flitwick assigned us a ten inch essay on the ethics of wordless casting today. Personally, I think I’d prefer to do a hundred push ups,” she teased.
“You?” he grunted as he completed his final rep. “But you love school.”
Her eye twitched. “I mean, sure”—she handed him his water bottle—“but I like the theory and the witchcraft. Ethics is fascinating, and obviously important, but—well, I’d prefer push-ups.”
“I think I’d prefer the essay.”
Over time, their discussions evolved from superficial grievances over the school curriculum to arguments over magical animals (Granger idiotically believed cats superior to owls) and other petty things.
“I brought you something,” she said one day as she entered, rolling her lower lip between her teeth and pressing out a book-sized package.
“Oh?” Draco’s eyes bulged.
“It’s really nothing—I just thought, with all the Muggle physical therapy, it would be interesting to you…” she trailed off, gesturing for him to open it.
“Sports psychology?” He frowned at the title.
“It’s a field of Muggle science—the idea is that sports are not just about the ability to play, but also how you think about it. I thought—since I know you want to fly—I’m sorry, it was probably stupid—”
“This is nice.” Draco flipped through the book, warmth pooling in the pit of his stomach. He looked back up at Granger, catching her biting the inside of her cheek. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” She took a seat at the edge of his bed as she often did these days. “I don’t want to push, but I really think, with your progress, you’ll be able to do it. To fly, I mean.”
He desperately wanted to believe her, but in spite of his progress, the pervasive fear lingered. Still, it meant something, that she’d given him that book, even if he didn’t quite understand it.
“Why are you—” he started, shaking his head as the words came out wrong. “Why did you—why are you helping me?”
Was it out of pity? Perhaps she noticed she was the only one who visited him. The thought trickled through him almost like acid.
She shrugged. “It’s my job—I saw enough death in the war, now I’d just prefer to help heal people.”
“Okay, but,” he said slowly, his brows knitting. “Why me? I mean—” Heat pooled in his cheeks as he spoke. “I’m a miserable person.”
He didn’t deserve anyone’s sympathy, let alone that of a girl he’d been cruel to his entire life. It was a strange, twisted sort of karma he didn’t understand.
“Well, yes, you are,” she said lightly, the side of her lip twitching. “But that doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to live.”
The words hit him like a pile of bricks.
Between his alternating self-pity and self-loathing, he’d bitterly questioned if he deserved anything.
But, more than that, her simple sentiment turned his insides—wringing shame through him. What would he have done were their situations reversed? Would he have bothered to show her kindness, or would he have refused to help her?
Were he asked in fifth year if Hermione Granger deserved to live, would he have said yes?
Most assuredly not.
He typically tried to pretend the bigoted version of himself didn’t exist, and, for the most part, that boy often felt like an entirely different person. But there were moments, particularly when Granger would smile at him with pride or treat him with any amount of respect, that it would all come rushing back.
And he yearned to even the score.
“I’m sorry,” he said, trying to ignore the blush blooming up his neck.
Her face contorted. “What for?”
“Just”—he waved his hand lazily, a motion that not long ago would have taken actual effort—“for being such a little shite all through Hogwarts. And, you know—” he wiped his hand across his face.
“Oh,” she mumbled, shifting uncomfortably.
“I, uh—” His words stumbled in his throat. He’d never been good at apologising, largely because for most of his life he believed he could never be wrong. “Yeah, I don’t have any excuses. Just—I know I was awful, and I’m sorry. For all of it.”
“Well, thank you.” She blinked a couple of times, grabbing at the chain on her neck and sucking in her lips. “Have you—I mean, do you still believe in the same things you did? That I’m… you know”—she twirled her finger—”and all the pure-blood rhetoric?”
“No,” Draco said, shaking his head as emphatically as his still shaky neck would allow. “I know I said terrible things—and it doesn’t really make a difference, but looking back, I don’t think I ever truly believed any of it. I think it was just easier for me to be that person.”
And it was easier. He had Crabbe and Goyle and Pansy at his side, two proud parents, and a clear path in life.
He never saw the destruction in his wake, not until Sixth Year.
He didn’t appreciate how truly abhorrent those thoughts were until he stood in Voldemort’s shadow.
“I am sorry. Truly.” He swallowed thickly.
“Thank you,” she repeated softly, and tentatively pressed her hand over his. “I—uh”—she pulled her hand back and stood up, straightening out her blue robes—“that means a lot.”
Learning to walk reminded him of the summer before Fifth Year when he’d spent nearly every day attempting a Wronski Feint.
It was laborious, and more often than not ended with him in a heap of sweat.
The major difference, of course, was that he’d been walking his entire life without difficulty.
“Why is this so hard?” he huffed out as he collapsed onto the chair, blinking away the sweat that dripped over his eyes.
“Your body went through quite an ordeal. Your muscles and nerves are re-learning how to talk to one another. But you made it nearly three steps—that’s quite an accomplishment!” Granger‘s eyes were far too bright.
He barely refrained from rolling his eyes. “Yeh, I was holding on for dear life—”
“Don’t undermine what you’ve achieved,” she chastised him, spelling the exercise equipment clean.
“Whatever you say,” he mumbled.
He acknowledged on some level that she was right—not even a month ago, he was practising moving his fingers and toes. And now, he could stay upright for small bits of time.
But in practice, it was painful and demoralising.
“It’s not looking good for getting out of here by Christmas,” Draco mused, his eyes drifting to where the mysterious bouquet had been replaced with a tiny lit-up tree.
Granger’s face fell. “I’m sorry. I was really hopeful—”
“It doesn’t matter.” He waved her off. “It’s not like I had plans anyway.”
Bah Humbug. Even he could hear Scrooge in his tone.
Her brows furrowed. “Your—friends? Family?” She winced as soon as the words came out. “I’m sorry—I shouldn’t pry—”
Draco couldn’t stop the laugh from escaping his throat. “Oh, don’t feel bad for me.” His smile faded. “I, uh—my mother’s in France. To be fair, she did petition the Ministry to let her back in the country to see me, but you know…” he trailed off.
Her exile had been in exchange for her freedom. Unfortunately, her one good deed at the end of the war didn’t entirely make up for the documented missteps over the years.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Granger looked truly put out.
Scratching at his neck, Draco shrugged. “There was no point. Besides, I like to think all of this was my karma. Once it’s over, it will be smooth sailing.” He truly meant it as a joke, but she just looked at him pensively, chewing on the inside of her cheek.
“Well, I’ll be around for the holidays.” She offered a slight smile, though the shadow that hung over her seemed to darken.
“Hermione Granger is stuck at Hogwarts for Christmas?” He raised his eyebrows in question.
She fiddled with her hair. “My parents—it’s a long story, but they're not quite around. And I—I know I should go to the Weasleys. That even if Ron is gone, they’re still family. But—I don’t know how to explain it. The idea of being around people and celebrating, just feels off. Perhaps next year. But I think I’d rather stay and work on my studies.”
It was terribly depressing and as far as Draco could tell entirely unfair. She’d won, after all—shouldn’t she have the opportunity to celebrate?
“Well, you know where I’ll be.” He smirked.
She rolled her eyes, letting a half-smile press over her lips as she left the room.
Everything changed.
It was just after the New Year—overcast, with no snow—a painfully ordinary day.
Only it wasn’t at all.
“Draco,” Granger whispered his given name, eyes wide, as though terrified she would jinx him and he would fall.
But he didn’t.
He took one final step and clutched the bar for dear life, grinning wildly as he spun and looked at the ten feet he’d managed to walk on his own.
It was impossible. Less than two months ago, he was bed-ridden, sure he’d never walk again.
Of course, she’d always known.
For everything he’d done in his life—every good grade, hell, even every Quidditch victory, this somehow felt like more.
Perhaps it was because he was so sure he was going to fail, or that he did this by himself—
Well, not entirely alone. But without his father or mother whispering behind the scenes.
He did this.
It was staggering. He nearly collapsed from the weight of the realisation, the heaviness in his chest as he considered what this meant.
He could walk.
Tears fell unbidden down his cheeks, and he knelt on the ground, tucking his head between his legs as he tried to breathe.
In some ways, it was like every one of the emotions he’d tried to shove down decided to tear out of him at once.
Years of regret and anxiety raced through him. Sitting silently at Death Eater functions while dread leaked down his spine. Taunting children at school who dared not conform with Lucius Malfoy’s ideal witch or wizard.
It all flashed through his mind, clip after clip. The rage, the terror—the fear he masked in hatred.
It was cleansing, curled into himself on the mat as he finally felt everything.
“Hey,” Granger’s soft voice crept through the cacophony of his mind as her hand rubbed circles over his back. “You did something amazing.”
He had no idea how long he stayed there, working through the cuts and bruises, but when he finally pulled himself out of it, he felt free in a way he couldn’t articulate.
“Sorry,” he murmured as he wiped at his face, distantly wondering just how absurd he looked.
“It’s perfectly natural to get emotional,” she assured him, helping him up and into his chair. She continued to stare at him, her eyes bright as she chewed on her lip.
Too many seconds passed and Draco grew self-conscious. “What?” he asked.
“I just—I always thought you could—but still, seeing it—” She shook her head, cutting herself off.
“Never thought I’d see the day you were rendered speechless,” he quipped.
“Shut up”—she lightly smacked his shoulder, ignoring his feigned hurt—“I’m just quite proud of you, is all.”
Warmth pooled in his gut, and his throat went dry as he struggled to formulate a response.
But before he had the chance, she leaned down and pulled him into a hug, squeezing him tight.
“Thank you,” he eked out, clutching her as a new slew of tears dripped down his cheeks. “I don’t know what I’d have done without you.”
When she pulled away, her eyes were red. “It was my pleasure.”