Work Text:
Even heroes need looking after, Potter.
How many times has he heard that sentence in Malfoy's low voice replay in his head? He can hear the derision on the word 'Potter', faint but audible. But it's the softly-spoken tone, the way he says the rest of the words with sadness and exasperation, that keeps Harry thinking about it.
He hears it as he tries (and fails) to fall asleep. He hears it (of course) in the shower. But mostly, he hears it when he has another reckless moment and does something he knows is stupid but can't help doing anyway. And as Harry lies there, staying still as yet another Healer prods him and mutters under his breath, he wonders if the voice won't go away because he's chosen not to heed it.
Once he's dismissed, he grunts a thanks and shuffles out the door as quickly as his swollen knee and stiff hip will let him. He knows this will get back to Kingsley. It always does. But what he doesn't count on is Hermione sitting in front of Grimmauld Place, waiting for him.
"Hermione," he says, trying hard to sound pleasantly surprised. He doesn't succeed. In trying to walk normally so she won't ask what he's done to himself this time, something in his knee twinges and makes a very clear snapping noise. He stumbles, nearly going face-first into the gate.
She just looks at him coolly as he rights himself. "Harry. I just came to see for myself."
"See what for yourself?" Her tone tells him things are about to go even further downhill than they already have today, and that is saying something.
"Ron said you did it again." She's still regarding him distantly, her voice nearly cold, and he wonders how she can be so angry at him and what, exactly, Ron told her. Then he realises she's not angry—she's trying her damnedest not to cry. "Why? Why, Harry?"
He shrugs, on the defensive as he always is these days. No good answer comes to him. In the end, all he does is stare at her shoes and mutter, "I don't know." His knee hurts like hell, and this is the last thing he wants to deal with.
"Harry, I know you don't like people telling you what to do. But, please, Harry, listen to me when I say you can't keep doing this. You're going to end up doing something you can't walk away from. You're going to wind up dead."
"Wouldn't be the first time," he snaps, and then wishes he could take it back. Her face crumples, and though he feels she sticks her nose in where it doesn't belong sometimes, he still feels awful. She only prods because she cares. "Hermione, wait, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have..." But it seems there's too much he shouldn't have done, and he has no idea which apology needs to come first. Some of them, he's not certain he can give. He moves towards her awkwardly, but she shakes her head.
"No," she says, her voice thick and the first tears slipping down her cheek. "I'm sorry to have bothered you, Harry." And without even a goodbye, she Disapparates, leaving Harry staring at the steps of Grimmauld Place and swearing under his breath.
He walks along the bars of the Millennium Bridge, actually wishing it still wobbled the way it originally did. He wants a challenge, something to battle, or some other feeling to replace the rage thrumming through him. The swaying would at least give him a reasonable source of adrenaline. Because he needs that rush right now, and he knows that he'll get it somehow, even if it kills him.
Which was what Hermione had said, wasn't it?
He hates knowing that something is wrong with him but being unable (or is it unwilling? He honestly doesn't know) to fix it. It only makes him angrier, which really just exacerbates the problem. His brief encounter with Hermione this evening has only made things worse. He feels betrayed that Ron told her what happened on their assignment this afternoon, angry at her for trying to parent him, and guilty for making her cry. The guilt is definitely the worst part of it all, because though he tries to tell himself things would be perfectly fine if she hadn't shown up on his front step, he knows that's a lie. It's his fault she's upset enough to cry, and it's not because he snapped at her.
He's still fuming to himself when he steps off the bridge on the St Paul's side. In fact, he's so worked up that he nearly misses the shouting. His brain finally catches up to his ears and he stops, adrenaline trickling into his system without him consciously knowing why. To his left, he can see a large figure down the alley, concealed in shadows. It's not this voice he hears, but that of a woman, young and scared, bouncing off the brick walls.
Harry can't make out everything she says, but he catches 'please' and 'don't' and a desperate 'no', and that's all he needs before his body reacts without even consulting his brain. He suddenly does not care how badly his hip and knee hurt right now. All he knows is that the large bastard hovering over this girl needs to learn a lesson.
He approaches quietly, despite the limp that has him dragging his left leg just a bit, and neither of the two figures notice him until he shouts "hey!" at them, drawing himself up to his full height, which is a full head shorter than the burly bloke in front of him.
The bloke's attention wavers from the girl—who can't be more than nineteen or twenty, now Harry gets a look at her—to Harry, though he doesn't back away from the girl at all. "What the fuck do you want?"
"I want you to leave her the hell alone," Harry snaps, and it feels so very good to be in this situation right now, where he can be of use and maybe release some of this pent-up hostility while he's at it.
"Why don't you just mind your own goddamn business?" the bloke growls, and Harry feels something like a spark hit the powder keg in his chest before he feels hot and dangerous.
"Yeah, I don't think so," Harry says, clenching his fists at his sides. His wand is up the sleeve of his jumper, and a quick, practised movement will put it in his hand, but that's too easy. "She obviously doesn't want filth like you around her, so why don't you just leave?"
That does it. The bloke turns away from the girl and rounds on Harry like he knew he would. "Right, mate, you asked for it," he snarls, and out of the corner of his eye, he sees the girl sprint down the alley and into the street before she disappears around the corner, looking back only once with wide, frightened eyes. There's a fair chance she's going to alert the authorities, and Harry wants this done with well before they get here.
"Yeah, that's right. I asked for it," Harry breathes, feeling light on his feet. "So give it to me."
The bloke advances on him and swings, just missing Harry's head. Harry can smell the booze on him, not only on his breath, but the sharp tang of someone who is starting to sweat the stuff. He ducks and returns with a quick punch of his own, connecting with a solid belt of fat around the bloke's middle. He doesn't even falter, and Harry realises just how drunk and just how large his opponent is. The bloke only absorbs the impact and looks infuriated. This might be a bigger challenge than he had realised.
The hit only seems to infuriate the bastard, and he swings with increasing force and speed. Harry gets a few good hits in, mostly relying on his quick reaction time and the defensive skills they were taught in Auror training to avoid injury, but he doesn't seem to have fazed his opponent much.
He is just starting to consider drawing his wand and ending this when a punch that is half luck and half brute strength connects with his ear. Dazed, Harry stumbles backwards, feeling the brick at his back holding him mostly upright. His wand falls out of his sleeve and rolls away, and instinctively, he looks down for it.
It's a mistake, but one he realises too late. He's hit twice more, once in the gut and once in the head. His knee wrenches again and he goes down, knee screaming in protest as it connects with the concrete. As he struggles to get up, Harry hears another voice mutter something, a white flash temporarily lighting up the darkened alley. The drunken bloke stiffens, standing stock-still, then collapses in a heap. Behind where the bloke was standing, Harry can see Draco Malfoy, wand in hand. Harry blinks, head swimming.
Malfoy says something, but he has to repeat it twice before it registers. Finally, the noises become words to Harry. "Get the fuck out of here before the police arrive," he says, getting down into Harry's face. But though Harry knows Malfoy's right, he can't quite do it. He makes it halfway to standing before his knee drops him again.
Malfoy seems to finally take in the whole situation, really noticing Harry's condition. Shaking his head, Malfoy grabs Harry under the arm and forcibly hauls him up, Apparating them both away.
They end up in a dark little room that smells of copper, moss, and oak. The scent is familiar, but not exactly comforting, and Harry can't quite place why. After he dumps Harry unceremoniously onto what's likely an old sofa, Malfoy lights some lamps and Harry can see the place is a potions lab. It's not exactly state of the art, but it does appear to be well-used.
It's still dim in the room, the smell is making Harry's stomach do funny things, and what he really wants right now is to just sleep until everything—the pain, the frustration of a night gone badly, the smell of this place, and most of all, Malfoy—goes away. He closes his eyes to attempt it, but a wand jabbed in his side startles him back to consciousness. Harry watches silently as Malfoy opens a large drawer crammed full of glass bottles and rummages noisily through it. "Here," he says finally, shoving one into his palm. "Drink that."
"Yeah, don't think so," Harry scoffs, but the words come out wrong. It doesn't matter. Malfoy seems to have a good enough idea of what Harry's said. Gritting his teeth, Malfoy stands over Harry, takes the bottle back, yanks the cork out, and shoves the potion down Harry's throat.
It's bitter at first and has a woody tang like dry red wine, but the taste mellows after a moment. Harry's head clears significantly, and though a nap still sounds nice, he no longer wants to sleep until everything disappears. His left ear still rings, though. He takes a moment to marvel at the change before he looks up at Malfoy, who is still standing over him, watching intently. "Are we in your home?" Harry asks after a moment, relieved to find the words he hears are the ones he meant to say.
Malfoy snorts. "Hardly." He backs up, looking glad to be able to put some distance between them. "It's where I work."
"Doing what?" Somehow, he imagined Malfoy in a place that either resembled the dungeons, or more likely, somewhere that screamed opulence, or at least top-of-the-line everything. This place looks more like someone's attic.
"Potions work. Don't be a dolt."
"Yes, but what kind of Potions work?" Harry presses, rubbing at his ear as if that will stop the ringing.
Malfoy only throws him a disgusted look. "You should go."
"I'm not going anywhere until I get answers. What were you doing out in that alley? Why did you interfere? Why help me at all?" He sits back and crosses his arms, thinking that if he had to, he could park himself here for hours until Malfoy told him everything.
It's a plan that doesn't seem to work. Malfoy looks at him with raised brows and walks away, headed for the door. Harry hobbles after him, wincing. Whatever Malfoy gave him for his head has done nothing for his knee and hip. Harry manages to grab Malfoy's sleeve before he's done so much as step through the doorway. "Wait, damn it."
Malfoy turns to face him. He surveys Harry for a long moment, then gives a little huff of annoyance. "It doesn't appear you've taken my advice to heart."
Harry drops his grip. Even heroes need looking after. "So what?"
"You're going to get yourself killed, acting that way. Or was that the point?"
The words sting, likely because it's not the first time tonight he's heard something like that. "None of your business."
"Fine," Malfoy says with a shrug, as if he is perfectly happy without answers, and Harry wonders if Malfoy's thought about that afternoon in the showers since it happened. From the way he's acting, it might not have happened at all.
"Fine?" Harry repeats dumbly. He's having trouble grasping that Malfoy could let anything go so easily.
He doesn't get an answer back. Frustrated, Harry moves away, wishing whatever Malfoy had given him for his head had worked on his knee and hip. He thinks back to that moment before Malfoy had walked out of the showers, the quick Episkey, and sighs. "Be that way, then," he says, trying for nonchalant and coming up with something closer to petulant. "I'll just be going now."
Malfoy just nods towards the door, only a few steps away, and Harry limps his way over. He has one foot over the threshold when a hand lands on his shoulder. Harry jerks to a stop.
"Maybe one of these days," Malfoy says in his ear, very quietly, "instead of saving others, you should think about saving yourself." His fingers trail down Harry's back, lingering for just a moment, and Harry is suddenly sure the aloofness is at least partially faked.
"You mean there won't always be someone around to fix me up afterwards?" Harry says, and it comes out just as sarcastically as he means it.
There is silence for a moment more, the only noise Harry's heartbeat and Malfoy's quiet breathing. Then there's another Episkey and his leg feels normal again. "You never know," Malfoy whispers in that same voice. "There might be. Or there might not." And then the hand on his shoulder disappears and the door shuts behind him.
Harry walks home carefully that night.