Chapter seven
Getting better
Sunday morning dawned bright and clear and found Harry sitting in the exact same position as he had been the night before, his hand resting lightly on the top of Malfoy’s head. He stirred and groaned, hand coming up to rub at his neck as pained nerves made themselves known. The position he’d been sleeping in hadn’t been the most comfortable.
The events of the day before came back as soon as he opened his eyes and saw Malfoy, still asleep on the couch. He wondered if the blond would be more lucid today or if yesterday had been the result of his imagination.
Only one way to find out.
Harry shook Malfoy lightly, calling his name softly. Whether or not Malfoy was more aware today, it was still time to get up and have breakfast.
Malfoy sighed softly, just like he had the day before and it was enough for Harry to know.
“Glad you’re back, Malfoy,” he said and stood up, stretching his aching muscles.
Malfoy opened his eyes and his eyes followed Harry’s movements slowly, tiredly, as though he was getting used to doing it again – which he indeed was. He didn’t utter a word, but kept his eyes steadily on Harry as Harry watched him.
“Would you like some breakfast?” Harry asked.
A slight crease appeared between Malfoy’s eyebrows as though he was thinking about it. Finally, he nodded, the motion still very slow, the movement small.
Harry couldn’t help but smile brightly at Malfoy before turning to the kitchen. He didn’t dwell on just why he was so happy that Malfoy was coming back, instead he just enjoyed the feeling of happiness that it brought him.
He served Malfoy breakfast consisting of yoghurt, a sandwich and milk to drink.
“How are you feeling?” Harry asked as he sat down next to Malfoy on the couch with the food-filled tray. Malfoy followed his movements carefully, as though still in a daze but not ignorant as before. He seemed there but still not quite. He nodded slowly and Harry took it as a ‘better’.
“Hungry?”
Harry broke off a piece of the sandwich and held for Malfoy to eat, all the while studying him carefully. What had happened the previous day to make Malfoy suddenly come back? What had he done differently? He couldn’t come up with an answer to either question. Perhaps it had just been time for Malfoy to wake up, or something? Harry frowned in confusion.
Meanwhile, Malfoy seemed to be studying Harry just as intently, his eyes hazily going over Harry’s features. There was slight interest and something else, unidentifiable, in his gaze as he watched Harry.
The strange breakfast ended when Malfoy had finished his yoghurt and drank all the milk Harry gave him. Harry stood and walked to the kitchen, where he made breakfast for himself. He read the newspaper hoping for inspiration for his book, which was how he was going to spend the day – he had to try to continue writing.
The apartment was silent, when Harry suddenly heard a small cry.
He shot up from his chair and in four strides, he was next to Malfoy on the couch, where he had left the blond not ten minutes ago.
The grey eyes seemed hazier than before, more out of focus. At first Harry thought Malfoy was sick, but then he noticed the way the blond was blanching out, first for a few seconds before coming back, then again and again, each time his eyes being blanch for a little longer.
“No!” Harry cried forcefully to Malfoy. “Don’t go all ignorant on me again!”
But Harry’s demand was to no avail, for with one more pleading look at Harry, Malfoy’s eyes once again became unseeing, his body still and quiet. It was like before; Malfoy was gone, leaving only a shell behind.
Harry sank down on his knees next to Malfoy, banging his head on the soft cushions of the couch.
“Now it’s my turn to say it,” Harry grumbled. “Fuck you, Malfoy, fuck you. Why the hell couldn’t you just stay here now that we managed to get you back from your vegetable state? What did I do wrong? Did I say something? You know, perhaps giving you to Hermione wouldn’t be such a bad idea. Perhaps at St Mungo’s they could figure out what is wrong with you.”
He trailed off, still leaning his head against the cushions.
What had he done wrong? What was it that he had done differently in the last twelve hours that made Malfoy wake up and what was it that he had done again that made him slip back into his ignorant state? Was it something he said? Somehow, Harry didn’t think that it was the word ‘hungry’ or the phrase ‘how are you feeling’ that made Malfoy disappear again.
Was it something he did, then? A movement, a motion? Harry had petted Malfoy’s hair last night, but he doubted that was it. Still, he was willing to try – he wanted Malfoy back, as strange as it sounded. So he sat up on the couch as he had the night before and slowly placed his hand on Malfoy’s hair, smoothing it back. However, although it was a calming motion for Harry, it wasn’t doing anything to Malfoy. He was still in the same state as before.
A slap, maybe? Harry had slapped Malfoy lightly the day before.
“Sorry, Malfoy, but I’m going to have to slap you again,” Harry said and then wondered why he was excusing it. Back in school, he would have gladly slapped Malfoy if he had been able to do it without losing points or getting detention.
He raised his hand and brought it down on Malfoy’s cheek no harder than the day before. He wondered if it could really be called a slap – it was more of a hard pat, perhaps.
The slap didn’t, as Harry had already guessed it wouldn’t, work wonders. The only thing that did happen was Malfoy’s cheek turning slightly pink.
Harry groaned.
“Malfoy, for heaven’s sakes, just wake up,” he said but Malfoy appeared deaf and didn’t so much as blink at Harry’s words. “What did I do yesterday?” Harry asked out loud although there was no one to answer him. “Myra came. Should I bring her back to see if she has magical powers that wake you up? Somehow, I think not. Hermione? She will only give you a potion.”
He trailed off and stared at Malfoy.
“I forgot to give you the potion last night,” he said softly, “because Myra and ‘Mione came and we didn’t eat any dinner, we only had the scones. And then this morning I served you the potion with the milk…” He trailed off, just knowing that he was right.
But wouldn’t Hermione tell him if this was a possible side effect of the potion, though? She was well versed in most medical potions, Harry guessed, considering how much of a bookworm she had been back in school.
Perhaps it was a side effect that only happens when it’s distributed to part Veelas? Or maybe the potion wasn’t used very often – after all, how many magical folks had to get treatment for a broken spinal cord that hadn’t been treated with magical means immediately?
Harry’s mind supplied him with several suggestions, all of them quite likely. Hermione couldn’t have known.
Harry moved Malfoy around on the couch so that he wouldn’t get any more bedsores from the blankets rubbing at his skin all the time. It also kept him occupied, something for which he was grateful. Once he was done, he sat down in a chair at the table on the other side of the living room and turned on his laptop, fully meaning to try to write, as had been his intention with today all along.
Four hours later, he stepped away from the computer, where the cursor still blinked at the end of the same sentence as it had four hours earlier. He hadn’t been able to write so much as one word. It was like there was a block in his brain, hindering him from writing.
His stomach grumbled and with a look at the still comatose-like Malfoy, he stood and walked to the kitchen to prepare lunch. As he set the tray with Malfoy’s food, he was careful to leave the bottle with the potion alone. He fed Malfoy and then downed two plates of pasta salad himself.
When Harry had washed the dishes, he sat down on the couch with a book to read. He had some work for class that needed to be finished. Writing an essay for class went much easier than writing anything for his book; in little over an hour and a half, Harry had it finished on the living room table, books spread out everywhere. As soon as he was finished, he busied himself with reading a book he had to finish.
And then, at closer to four in the afternoon, there was that small sigh he’d been waiting for.
Dropping the pencil on the notebook he was writing in, he turned expectantly to Malfoy. He knew it would be another couple of minutes before Malfoy would wake up any more, if the wake-up-process proceeded as it had done the night before, but he stayed there on the couch, watching expectantly.
Just like the previous night, Malfoy blinked slowly, another sigh escaping his lips.
Harry beamed happily at him. “Welcome back, Malfoy,” he said gently as Malfoy blinked again.
Malfoy’s eyes moved almost lazily over to Harry’s face. Malfoy blinked yet again, focusing on Harry’s features. There was a small frown between his brows. Harry grinned at him, but Malfoy still didn’t say a word. After a few minutes of silence, Harry sat back on the couch, a smile still playing at his lips.
It was going to be all right.
Monday found Harry back at the university after a quiet morning at home. Malfoy was awake and aware, but still completely silent, watching Harry with something that could almost be described as interest but not quite. Yet Harry saw the difference in how he acted now versus how he had been for the last two weeks.
“You seem awfully happy,” Myra noted as Harry met up with them before their first class started.
“Malfoy is getting better,” Harry told her, still smiling.
“Malfoy? Who’s Malfoy?” Darius asked, frowning at the two.
Myra looked at Harry in a question of, ‘Are you going to tell him? You better, or I will.’ Harry shrugged and said to Darius, “I have a friend living at my apartment at the moment. His name is Draco Malfoy and he was in a motorbike accident almost six weeks ago. He’s been living with me for the last two.”
“Was he badly injured?” Darius asked.
“Yeah. He’s paralysed from the waist down.”
“That’s awful,” Darius said. “But he’s getting better?”
“Yeah, I think so,” Harry said, feeling relieved now that he’d told both his best friends. He still couldn’t say why he had kept it from them, but it felt good that they knew now. Perhaps he was coming to terms with things after all – coming to terms with his old life at Hogwarts and how it ended and with Malfoy’s sudden re-entrance into his life.
“And you’ve met him?” Darius was asking Myra.
Myra smiled slightly. “I went over there on Saturday and demanded to know what Harry was hiding.”
“That somehow doesn’t surprise me,” Darius said. He turned to Harry. “Didn’t I tell you that you shouldn’t keep stuff from her?”
“You did, my friend,” Harry grinned, “But you know me. I never listen.”
“No, you most certainly do not. I never understood why – I always say such intelligent things.”
Myra rolled her eyes at him. “If you studied half as much time as you check out girls, then you might have been half way to intelligent.”
Darius slapped his hands to his chest as though she’d hurt him. “You know, that wasn’t good for my ego.”
Myra grinned at him. “It wasn’t supposed to be.”
“Harry?” Darius asked. “Don’t tell me that you agree with her.”
Harry grinned at him. “Always agree with the lady, D,” he said. “If nothing else, she’s got a great right hook after all that self-defence she’s been learning.”
“Huh. Yeah,” Darius said. Letting his eyes travel over Myra’s body, he said to Harry in a stage whisper, “D’you think she’d let me come watch when she practices? I’ve heard they have very small tops and low riding pants—”
Myra hit the back of his head.
“Ow, that hurt!” Darius whined.
“It was supposed to. Now come on, guys, it’s class-time,” Myra said, smiling at the uncomplicated banter that showed that things were back to normal between them. “Let’s go.”
“Why did I ever become friends with such a horrible person?” Darius asked in another stage whisper to Harry and another ‘ow’ followed.
Harry walked past the coffee shop on the way back home and wondered if Malfoy liked coffee. Walking inside, he ordered a large latte for himself and opted for a normal, black coffee for Malfoy. Somehow Malfoy didn’t strike Harry as the kind of person to ‘spoil’ coffee by adding milk. He guessed that Malfoy was more of an espresso drinker – espresso was after all a very strong kind of coffee, a small amount and very tasty. He had a feeling that Malfoy viewed caffe latte as a way of destroying coffee. But espresso was a drink to intake at a café, not at home in a takeaway mug.
He was glad to find that Mona was not the one standing behind the counter.
Hurrying the few blocks home – he wanted the coffee to be warm when it reached Malfoy, after all – he walked into his apartment only a few minutes later. He found Malfoy on the couch where he had left him at lunch.
Malfoy could move slightly more now. He could raise his arms and move his head; within days, he would be able to wheel his wheelchair around by himself. It would be good for him – he hadn’t been outside since he came to live with Harry and before that, he had spent three weeks at the hospital. It was really time for him to get out.
“Hello, Malfoy,” Harry said and sat down on the couch at Malfoy’s head. He helped Malfoy sit up and then handed him the cup. “I didn’t know what you like, so I took normal, black coffee. I hope that’s all right.”
Malfoy nodded and sipped the hot drink slowly. No emotions were apparent on his face, but Harry was getting used to that. Malfoy had never been one to show his emotions much, not even back at school, but even then, Harry had been able to tell when Malfoy was angry, irritated or blasé. Those three, with slight variations of course, were the only emotions Harry was ever allowed to see.
Harry stood and moved to his laptop. He was supposed to write on his book, but as he watched Malfoy, he found that the story he had been writing wasn’t interesting in the least. Instead, he opened a new document and started.
“He was called ‘Dragon’ and with good reason. A beautiful outside – for dragons are most often pictured as beautiful after all – and a fiery inside that left you burnt if you weren’t careful…”
Three hours later, a sound woke him from his intense writing session. The doorbell, he realised. He quickly saved the document he’d been working on and pushed print. He looked over on the couch, where Malfoy was sitting, reading one of the magazines that had been within his grasp. The empty takeaway mug stood on the table.
Harry walked down the corridor and opened the door, just as the doorbell rang again.
Mona stood outside.
“Er— hi?” she said shyly.
“Hi,” Harry said, looking at her with confusion. “What are you doing here?”
“Well, I saw you at the café today and I wanted to talk to you, but you disappeared so quickly and I— I kind of followed you home,” she said very quietly and quickly, probably intending for Harry not to hear.
“You followed me home?” Harry repeated dumbly. “Why?”
“I told you, I wanted to talk to you,” she said, eyeing the floor with great interest.
“About what?” Harry wasn’t sure what would be an intelligent question to ask a woman who had followed him home to find out where he lived. He sighed, wondering why he always attracted such strange people. “I guess you should come in,” he said.
A bright smile immediately appeared on her face. She quickly slipped into the apartment, as if worried that Harry would change his mind – he certainly was asking himself if he’d just made a huge mistake. Her eyes were wide with wonder as she took in every detail of the hallway. Harry couldn’t see what was so interesting, but she seemed to think that it was fascinating.
“This place is beautif—”
She broke off as she looked into the living room and spotted Malfoy. “Oh. Hi.”
Malfoy just looked at her, his grey eyes showing very little emotion. His eyes darted over to Harry, the question apparent in the grey orbs.
“Malfoy, this is Mona— what’s your last name?”
“D’Razi,” Mona said. She held out her hand to Malfoy. Malfoy didn’t raise his hand to meet, only watched her with cool detachment.
“He’s paralysed from the waist down and isn’t allowed to raise his arms because it could hurt his back,” Harry explained. It wasn’t the truth, because Malfoy could raise his hands a bit, but it wasn’t a complete lie either, since Hermione’s spell was still working.
“Oh,” Mona said again. She regarded Malfoy for another second before turning to continue her way through the apartment.
“Would you like anything to drink?” Harry asked, desperate for something to hold in his hands to keep from fidgeting. He felt Malfoy’s eyes on him, boring into him and making him even more uncomfortable.
“Sure, what do you have?” Mona looked delighted at being asked.
“Um, I think there is some soda and milk,” Harry said, frowning. “And water, of course.”
“Soda is fine. Do you have a Coke?”
“Coming right up,” Harry said, relieved that he’d be able to get away for a few seconds, if for nothing else than to compose himself. “Malfoy, would you like anything?”
A small shake of the head, before the blond returned to the magazine in his hands, ignoring Mona completely.
When Harry returned, Mona stood by the computer where Harry had been working on until a few minutes ago. She was looking interestedly at what he had written. Harry stepped in front of her pointedly. She pretended not to notice, only took the glass of soda that he offered and continued her self-guided tour through the apartment. Harry was glad he had closed the door to his room; he definitely didn’t want her in there.
“This is a very nice apartment,” she said once they were back in the corridor, smiling coyly up at him.
Harry shrugged. “It’s fine.”
“No, really. Most guys don’t have any taste at all, but this place is decorated so nicely. Just like I pictured it,” she added and Harry wasn’t sure if the shyness in her voice was real or not.
“Thanks,” Harry said, not knowing what would be a good response.
An uncomfortable silence settled and Harry started fidgeting although he tried not to. “You know,” he said, “I’m kind of tired and –”
“Would you like to go out with me?” she interrupted him.
He fell silent. He’d expected the question, but at the same time he hadn’t. He’d hoped that she wasn’t as brave as to ask, because he had no idea what to say to it. Thus, his answer was an uncomfortable, “Um—”
“It doesn’t have to be a real date or anything,” Mona said quickly, pleadingly. “I’d just like to get to know you better, you know.”
Harry, who felt no attraction towards the young woman, squirmed mentally. “I’m not really –”
“Please?”
Harry just barely stopped himself from sighing. Figuring that he could tell her no to a second date, or show her that he really wasn’t interested in her that way during the date, he said, “Okay.”
A wide smile spread on her face and her eyes began twinkling like Dumbledore’s used to do. Harry was glad to be able to make her so happy, but uncomfortable with the way she was looking at him. She had the same adoration in her eyes that the Wizarding world at large had had before the war.
“Thursday?” she suggested.
Harry suppressed a sigh. “Thursday is fine. Where do we meet? I would pick you up, but I don’t have a car.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Mona continued to smile. “We can meet at Espresso House and go from there. Say seven?”
“All right,” Harry said, trying to sound enthusiastic.
“Great!” she said, then looked at her watch. “Oh,” she said, “I need to go.”
She picked through her purse and found a card and a pen. When she’d written her phone number on the card, she handed it to him. “If anything comes up or you’d just like to talk, you’re welcome to just call me,” she said with another smile and then, before Harry could respond, she was out the door.
Harry walked, quite stunned, back into the living room where Malfoy was still completely absorbed by the magazine in his hands. Harry would have liked it if Malfoy would talk to him, because he really needed to talk, but then he remembered that it was Malfoy before him, and he realised that it probably would have been mostly insults flying back and forth if they were to have a conversation.
He sighed and sat down by his computer again, but no matter how he tried, he couldn’t concentrate enough to write anything. Giving up, he put the pages he’d printed earlier in his schoolbag for safekeeping and then he turned to Malfoy.
“Are you ready to go to bed?” Harry asked.
Malfoy looked up from the magazine and nodded slowly. Harry walked over and lifted Malfoy from the couch. He was getting good at this. Too good, he realised. He could feel that Malfoy had gotten lighter since coming here – and considering how little he’d weighed to begin with, that was not a good thing. He didn’t eat much, not even now that he was ‘awake’ again. He was frail and it wasn’t good at all.
He walked into the bathroom and intended to help Malfoy with everything there, just as he had done for the last soon-to-be three weeks. But as he was about to unbutton Malfoy’s trousers for him, Malfoy gave him a scorching glare that was more alive than anything Harry had seen on Malfoy since the night he’d brought the blond to his apartment. He felt his face heat up at just where his hands were.
Touching another man like this – he would never have done it with anyone else. He had been attracted to guys before – hell, he’d been in love with Oliver Wood already back when he went to Hogwarts. Not that anything had ever happened; Harry hadn’t realised that it was a crush he’d had on the Quidditch captain, only taken it for adoration of how well he played the sport, until after Oliver had left the school.
There had been others, but nothing big. The Boy Who Lived wasn’t allowed a normal relationship, not with a girl – he cringed as he recalled the fiasco that was Cho Chang in fifth year – and definitely not with a boy. Harry’s life had been far too occupied with the war for him to be able to have a deeper relationship with anyone.
Malfoy made a sound in the back of his throat, noticing the way Harry’s thoughts had strayed. Harry’s face turned an even deeper shade of red.
“Sorry,” he muttered and made Malfoy sit down on the toilet seat. “Wait a sec’.”
He returned less than a minute later with a chair. “That way you can sit and brush your teeth and all, and I think you’re strong enough to move from the chair to the toilet by yourself.”
Malfoy gave him another glare, the meaning clear as if he’d said it out loud – ‘I’m fine. Leave.’
Harry held up his hands and backed out of the bathroom, walking back to his bedroom after the surreal experience instead. His thoughts drifted back to his attraction to men. He hadn’t given it much thought, really. It was just there. Myra and Darius both knew and accepted it wholeheartedly. Ron and Hermione on the other hand had never known. Harry never had the chance to tell Ron…
It had been years and still the ache in his heart was almost as strong, though naturally not as sudden, as the night when they had found out.
It had been a dark night, cold January. There had still been snow on the ground – and Ron’s red hair had contrasted in a horrific way with the white snow, his face contorted in fear and pain. There had been blood too, making it obvious that Ron hadn’t died by the Killing Curse, but by something else, something slower, something much more painful.
Hermione broke down next to him, her eyes wide in shock, her body trembling violently. Harry turned away from her as she began throwing up.
Dean Thomas, standing as a statue on Harry’s other side, the look on his face showing that his thoughts were far away. Harry knew that it wasn’t Ron’s body the other boy was seeing; he saw Seamus Finnigan, who had looked like this months earlier.
Both were dead.
Harry shook his head. He didn’t want to think about it, especially not at night right before going to bed. It would only serve to give him nightmares.
He remembered Malfoy, still in the bathroom and he got up from the bed. He knocked almost shyly on the door and asked politely, “Are you done?”
Malfoy used the same kind of sound at the back of his throat to answer this time. It didn’t help – Harry didn’t know if the sound was a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’, but he opened the door anyway. It seemed Malfoy was done.
Malfoy looked away, his cheeks tinged with pink as Harry lifted him and carried him to the bedroom.
When Malfoy was back on the bed, Harry said, “I know you don’t like it, but you need help getting out of those trousers. Will you let me help you?”
Harry felt the blush creep over his cheeks again. Malfoy watched Harry with his eyes narrowed, the cool grey eyes lacking the fire they had held just a few minutes before, the fire that Harry actually realised that he missed.
Finally, Malfoy nodded.
Harry smiled inwardly, knowing that they had just managed to overcome something that could have become a huge problem. They were going to have to take it all slowly, because neither of them had done this before.
“I will call the hospital tomorrow,” Harry said as he began pulling Malfoy’s pants down. “I’ll see if we can get a meeting with one of the specialists. They’ll be able to put together a training program for you to get better.”
He lifted Malfoy carefully as he’d done for the last three weeks, getting him out of the trousers. It had become much easier since the first time he did it. It was a matter of technique.
“You won’t be able to start doing it immediately, because ‘Mione’s spell is still on you, but then again I don’t think we’ll get to see a specialist immediately either,” he continued as he got Malfoy’s boxers off. “They are usually quite busy, I gather.”
Malfoy regarded him coolly as Harry undressed him. Harry could feel his gaze, boring through his scull and yet again, there was a blush rising in Harry’s cheeks. Quickly, he found the pyjama trousers and got them on the blond.
Malfoy changed shirts almost by himself. He only needed help pulling it over his head since he couldn’t raise his arms that much, but Harry was glad to see something that Malfoy would definitely be able to do by himself once the spell wore off.
Finally, Malfoy lay down on the bed and Harry pulled the covers over him. He’d done it every night since Malfoy came to live with him, but tonight, Malfoy snatched the covers out of his hands and placed them over himself by his own accord. Harry allowed himself a small smile at this, before he left the bedroom to get ready for bed himself.
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