19 Years (HP - Drarry)

Chapter 31: Oblivious

Previously:

Harry, suddenly uncertain, took a shaky step toward him. The world tilted sideways around him, and reality rushed back in, bringing with it the sound that had been missing. He looked frantically around him, ignoring the screams and shouts, until his eyes landed on the slumped body of -

Malfoy.

Merlin, no. Not again. Draco!

---
Friday, October 27, 2017

Harry rushed forward, stumbling on his injured knee, and scooped Draco into his arms. He closed his eyes, concentrating, and apparated them both to the hospital wing.

Of course, since both Madam Pomfrey and Susan Bones were in the Great Hall with everyone else, it was empty.

Harry stood in the middle of the spotless ward, dripping blood and sweat and grime, and hesitated. He should put Draco down, go back for Pomfrey. He should do what he could for the wounds. He should...

He lay Draco on the nearest bed, winced as he smoothed the pale hair back from his face. He'd never meant to injure him.

Don't die, Draco, he pleaded silently, please don't die.

He scowled. I've not even found out what we were to one another - what we could be. You can't die now - I won't bloody let you.

He closed his eyes, gathering his magic, casting back in his memory for the words Snape had muttered as he'd healed Draco the last time - the countercurse. When he was sure he had it, he lowered his wand, until the tip hovered just over the first, widest cut, and cast. The words whispered past his lips, shivering in the too-silent air: Vulnera sanentur. Slowly, slowly the wound closed, skin knitting itself under his watchful eye. He nodded, moved to the next, voice rising, gaining confidence. Vulnera sanentur. Vulnera sanentur.

—

Madam Pomfrey rushed in just as he finished closing the last of the gashes. She took one look at him, nodded, and then practically shoved him at the neighboring bed. "Out of my way while I check... good. You've done a good job, Potter, but he's not out of the woods yet - he's lost a lot of blood. No, don't even think about walking out that door. You're injured - don't think I don't notice you favoring that knee. Up on the bed with you, that's right." She bustled by, tossing him a wet cloth on her way back to Draco's side. "Clean up with that; you're a sight to look at. You'll frighten the lad half to death if the first thing he sees when he comes to is you looking like that. Why Longbottom ever agreed to this ridiculous duel in the first place..."

Harry, accepting that he'd patched Draco up as well as he could and Madam Pomfrey could handle the rest, sighed and leaned back. He groaned as all the aches and pains suddenly caught up to him at once, and his knee gave a decidedly ugly twinge when he tried to roll his pants up to get a look at it.

"Honestly, Potter," she said at his elbow, startling him, "Sectumsempra, really?" She shook her head, then continued before he'd finished formulating a response. "And then you just disappeared. What the hell were you thinking?" She waved a bottle of her special healing ointment - Harry had become quite familiar with that particular ointment over the years - under his nose.

"Er," he said, reaching for the ointment, "apparating?"

She yanked it out of his reach and stared at him. "Apparating. From within Hogwarts?"

Harry scratched uncomfortably at his nose. "Er?"

"For the love of - " Pomfrey sighed. "Boys," she huffed, slapping the ointment into his palm with rather more force than Harry deemed strictly necessary. "Slather it with this. Again in an hour. Then every two hours. Don't even think about moving - you're staying here for the night, where I can keep an eye on you. On both of you.

She marched away, still grumbling under her breath.

—

Harry lay on the bed next to Draco, waves of guilt washing over him at the knowledge he'd hurt him so badly - again. He heard Draco start muttering, low, under his breath - saying things he suspected Draco would never tell him, if he weren't so loopy with pain meds. He fought the urge to listen, to hear the secrets Draco concealed from him; guilt, and the determination to never hurt Draco again, won out. He fumbled for his wand on the table beside his hospital bed, muttering a muffliato the moment his fingers closed around it.

Wrapped in a cocoon of silence, aching with loneliness and guilt, he let himself wallow in grief and self-pity. All those attack articles they'd printed, when he'd dropped out of Auror training, had been right all along. He was a monster. He probably should be institutionalized, and certainly not charged with the care of children.

He shifted, trying to ease the sting of his wounded knee, another wave of guilt crashing over him. He should be in pain, after causing Draco so much worse. He deserved it. He closed his eyes, letting the waiting tears spill over, trickle down his cheeks.

Draco was right all along, he thought bitterly. I'll only ever hurt him. His chin firmed with resolve, even as the tears flowed faster. Well. All right. I can't leave in the middle of the school term - I owe Neville and Minerva that much. And Hogwarts. He yawned, edging closer to the yawning blackness of sleep. I'll meet with Neville tomorrow, first thing, and discuss finding a replacement. And I'll respect Draco's wishes - he's certainly told me enough times. I've been a fool for pushing him. Starting tomorrow, I'll leave him alone...

—
Saturday, October 28, 2017
He fell into a restless sleep, plagued by half-remembered dreams full of screams and the sound of tearing flesh, but woke a few hours later, in the early hours of the morning, with the certainty that he couldn't stand to be there when Draco regained consciousness. He didn't think he could stand to see the bitter recrimination and hate that he knew he'd find in those expressive gray eyes.

He sat up, groaning softly as he tested his injured knee, but Madam Pomfrey's salve was as good as he remembered - the knee ached fiercely, but held. He reached blindly for his glasses, jammed them onto his nose, and stood up, then grabbed the jar of ointment as an afterthought. Grimacing as his knee twinged in protest, he hobbled as quickly and quietly as he could back to his rooms.

—
Wednesday, November 1, 2017
Neville, channeling Dumbledore at his most infuriating, talked him out of leaving until the end of the year. Harry, after a good twenty minutes of shouting, gave in. Neville could be remarkably stubborn when he wished - it's the Gryffindor in him, Harry thought moodily as he stomped down the stairs from his office. He didn't have time for breakfast, which didn't improve either his mood or his pounding headache. His students, after one look at his face, set to work silently and with a minimum of fuss. Harry, deprived of even this release for his emotions, sat at his desk and glowered at them for the entirety of the class period. He never said a word

—

He avoided Draco after that, with surprising success. He took all his meals in his rooms, where he spent almost all the time that he wasn't teaching. He used Hermione's secret locking spell - developed while on the run, during the war - on his door. It had repelled all muggle and wizard attempts to open it, during the war and after. She was still testing it, he knew, but had no doubt it would be employed by ministry elite one day. Until they worked out a way to break it, he was secure in his privacy.

It needed a keyword to work. He keyed it to open with Draco's name. Draco, not Malfoy. He doubted anyone would guess that.

—

Sometimes, when the walls of his room closed in on him, he flew out the window on his broom, wrapped securely in his invisibility cloak, and arrowed away over the Forbidden Forest on long, aimless flights. He avoided civilization, preferring not to be recognized, and always went far away, where no one would think to look.