He goes through round after round of visitors.
Mrs. Weasley shows up with homemade 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 time smoothing down the sheets and demanding that he let her comb 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 time 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 comes, 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 competition they were facing this summer. 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.
“I don’t think you’re allowed to do that in here,” He says, finally, when she’s gone through half a pack and the butts are sure to be littering the ground outside, falling onto unsuspecting muggles. “Seems like a hazard.”
He found it disgusting, actually. It smelled, and even if she thought to leave the window open, the smoke would stay. “That’s funny, Draco.” She stared at him over the top of her magazine, and he noticed for the first time how much heavier her make up had gotten. Still pretty, but now she was making it noticeable, like glittering with every twist and turn was her version of armor. “But I don’t remember asking.”
Penelope checks in on him personally, and Luna comes to show him the newest edition to the Quibbler (she had taken over in the absence of her father, and due to some influence of both Hermione and Ginny, it was now something of an academic marvel, printing all kinds of things about new spells and medical advancements and reports on dangerous creatures that aren’t actually that dangerous), spreading the magazine out in front of him and asking for his advice on the formatting. “Hagrid’s a respected breeder now? Of what?”
“Blast ended skrewts,” She answered, looking up from drawing on his dark mark, so now that instead of a snake, it looked like it was spitting out mouthfuls of flower petals. “They’ve become quite popular over in Egypt.”
Lee Jordan comes for an interview, which Draco says no to, and then stays to eat his way through the pile of chocolate frogs on Draco’s bedside table. Dean and Seamus show up to pop in and wish him well, but leave too fast for a real conversation. Even Ginny drops in, holding a squawking Teddy on her hip and dropping him into Draco’s arms the first chance she gets, claiming that she’s too tired to do so for even another moment.
George comes, too, even though he doesn’t talk, just sits in that same chair and stares, occasionally answering when Draco asks him a direct questions, but that’s alright. Draco likes the quiet.
It’s the third day before Hermione shows up, her hair pulled back into a braid that was already starting to fall out. She doesn’t say anything, just edges into the room with her hand spread across her ribs, and Draco was reminded of everyone’s mentions of how sore she was. “Hey.” He scoots back into the bed so he is resting against the headboard. “How are you feeling?”
“Oh, Draco,” She says, moving her hand from her ribs to cover her mouth and staring at him, eyes wide. He barely has time to think about how easily she cries before she is bursting out in tears, sinking down into the chair beside his bed and bawling into her hands, letting out hitching little gasps that reminded him of how much it must hurt her to breathe. “I’m sorry—” She shook her hands out in front of her like that might calm her down, wincing at the movement. “I promised I wouldn’t do this, I told myself, I said, he doesn’t need this, Hermione, you’re just going in to have a nice visit, but—” She lets herself look at him again and bursts into tears, this time wheezing with the effort of continuing to take in deep breaths. “Oh, Draco.”
He was stupid not to have expected this. “Hermione.” He holds an arm out to her but she is too far away to give her a hug and he cannot bring himself to get up from the bed. It would just hurt too much, and he’s pretty sure the effort would make her burst into tears again. “It’s not your fault.”
“How could it not be?” She wailed, and the volume makes him wince. “You only got hurt because I was too stupid to notice what was happening.”
“Why would you have expected anything like that to happen?” Draco demanded, his own voice climbing and becoming increasingly higher pitched. “We were in the Ministry of Magic!”
“It’s not like they’ve stopped bad things from happening before!” She shot back, and this was familiar, easy. “They’re all terrible at their jobs, honestly.”
Her comment was derisive, and funny, and then Draco was laughing and could not stop even though it hurt. After a moment of watching him, Hermione smiled, just a smallest twitch of the lips. “You are alright, aren’t you?” She asked, when it was all over and he had calmed himself down. “I would feel terrible if you weren’t alright.”
“I’m fine.” He wasn’t. Everything hurt because they wouldn’t heal him any further, and people kept dropping in even though he was tired and would rather sleep, which made him feel like an awful person, and all the potions he had to drink tasted awful. “Be better if Harry dropped in, though.”
He still hadn’t stopped to say hello. Every time he heard the door opened, he looks up expecting to see him and is disappointed all over again. At this rate, he better be coming up with a very good excuse as to why he hasn’t been here yet.
“Harry’s…” She hesitated, and he could tell she was deciding which side to go with— comforting Draco or keeping Harry’s trust. “He’s getting something done, Draco. Something we all should have taken care of, a long time ago.”
“Something important?”
Hermione was watching him with sad eyes. “He thinks so.”
“More important than me?”
“Oh, Draco. I don’t think there’s anything Harry finds more important than you, lately.” Hermione stood up with another wince and gathered her bag over her shoulder, leaning down to give him a hug before she leaves. “I expect that’s part of the reason he’s doing it.”
All in all, by the time the evening healer comes in to give him his late night potion that sends him off into a dreamless sleep, he’s grateful.
When he wakes next, it is dark, but he is certain that there is someone watching him.
“Hello?” He fumbles for his wand on the bedside table and only succeeds in knocking it to the floor. “Who’s there?”
“Relax.” The light flares on and Draco comes face to face with the last person he thought he would see sitting vigil at his bedside—Ron Weasley. “It’s only me.”
“That’s supposed to put me at ease, is it?” Draco snaps, grudgingly accepting the helping hand pulling him into a sitting position. It’s harder to start moving again after he had been asleep. “My knight in shining armor.”
He’s angrier than he would normally be. He and Ron have come to a sort of truce over the past few weeks, where Draco does not expect anything but civility from Ron and Ron restrains himself from doing anything that may be considered rude or threatening, but still, he cannot help himself. When Draco saw the shadow in the corner of the room, part of him was hoping that it was Harry, even as the other part prepared for an attack.
Ron didn’t take the bait. He didn’t answer at all, actually, just sat back down in the chair without another glance at Draco and kept staring at the door, Ron laid flat across his knees. He looks casual, but Draco had seen Harry sit that way often enough to know that it was a by-product of their auror training, where they could look unbothered but still be ready to send a curse at a moment’s notice.
“What are you doing here, anyways?” Draco shifted himself out from under the street and let his legs hang off the edge of the bed. It hurt, but this was the only way to be able to look at Ron when he insisted on avoiding eye contact with him. “Didn’t think they’d let a visitor in here, no matter how big of a war hero they are.”
Ron squirmed after the use of the word war hero, but other than that, he made no sign that this was anything out of the ordinary. “I’m not visiting. I’m your guard.” Draco wondered, briefly, if everyone else that was here earlier was only part of Harry’s makeshift order, like if Harry can’t be here to protect him himself, he would make sure someone was, but threw the thought away. “They don’t know I’m here.”
“Does anyone?” What he really means to ask is does Harry, and the question must have came through, because something in Ron’s face softened.
“No.” Ron makes hasty eye contact with him and then breaks it to go to the window, poking away the curtains to peer down at the street below. Not like he could see anything. “Well, Hermione does,” He amends, shrugging. “but it’s self-appointed guard duty.”
Draco blinked. “Why?”
At some other time, he would like to think that he would be better at this. That he would be less trusting of a man that claimed to still hold all kinds of childhood grudges over both their heads, that he would have snappier retorts, more biting questions. That he would be able to demand for him to leave or else ask about Hermione, anything other than this passive acceptance that anyone who wants to wander in through this room was allowed to be here. But he wouldn’t do any of that, he would just sit here and not wonder how strange it was that Ron would make himself Draco’s self-appointed guard after eighteen years’ worth of solid dislike and not even bother to try to turn him away. Draco was simply too tired for it, and in too much pain, and his nightly potion was still there fogging up the brain.
That doesn’t need to happen, he distracts himself, watching as Ron jiggles the lock on the window and lets the curtains fall back into place. If I was the one to make it, I would be able to take the grogginess out of it entirely. Too bad they won’t allow that here.
“What do you mean why?” Ron throws himself back into the chair and glares at him, stubborn as always. “Someone has to keep those people from coming to finish you off.”
“I meant why you.” Draco attempted to stand up, hut couldn’t, just fell back down to the mattress instead. “Why you would even agree. You hate me.”
“I don’t.”
“You do.”
“I don’t.” There was a desperate plea to Ron’s voice, a underlying wish for Draco to understand. “I thought I did, but I don’t. I know that now.”
“What changed?” Draco did not want to hear this. Not when he was tired and wanting ten more hours of sleep, not when he was covered in bruises, not when he could not even hold his own if this turned into a shouting match.
“I watched you get buried under a pile of rubble and realized that despite how much of a gigantic arse you were in past, I wanted you to live.” Ron looked down at his hands, and Draco imagined that they were still coated in the dust from when the ceiling collapsed and the chandelier toppled. Ginny had been the only one to think that he was strong enough to hear the account of what had happened, and it was Ginny who told him that even though Harry was the first to fall to his knees beside the pile and start rummaging for any sign of life, it was Ron who had been the one to pull him out of the dust. “And because you saved her.”
“I didn’t do it for you.” Draco wasn’t sure why his first reaction was always to go on the attack with some snide remark that wasn’t even that hurtful. He would make all these jokes and drawl out all these insults and none of them were even funny. “I did it because she’s my friend.”
She’s my friend. The words echo in the room between them and for the first time he might be getting why he and Ron were suddenly on speaking terms—the fact that Hermione cared about both of them and they both cared about her, and Ron was willing to put aside any past feud to make her happy.
“Exactly. You saved her life.” Ron’s voice cracks on the last word and Draco can see his eyes shining in the lamplight. “You saved her even when I couldn’t.”
Draco knows about debt. About a gratitude that you never want to feel, about an account of rights and wrongs that you can never even out. He didn’t think he would ever have to face that same feeling coming from Ron.
“You don’t owe me anything for that.” It was an awkward sentence to force out. “I’d do it again.”
“You don’t understand,” Ron said, raking his hands through his hair, yanking so hard Draco thought it was likely he would rip some out. “I’m supposed to protect her.”
