Chapter Text
The first time Draco remembers seeing Harry Potter after the war is through a hazy, drugged fog of Ministry-supplied potions, sitting in the middle of Courtroom Ten, bound both physically and magically to a tiny metal chair, as if he could do anything but tip over onto the floor if given opportunity.
Potter’s form comes to him through a tunnel of wavering light, undefined lines and blurred edges. The only solid thing Draco can latch onto is the green of his eyes and he flinches away from it because Harry bleeding Potter is looking at him with pity .
He hangs his head and does his counting, feels the air rushing into his lungs, assures himself that he’s Draco Malfoy, he’s 17. No, he corrects himself, his birthday was a few days ago, surely. June 5th. Today is…
He can’t remember what date it’s supposed to be, can’t grasp the memory from where the Befuddlement Potion keeps it on a high shelf.
So he’s Draco Malfoy and he’s 17, maybe 18. His beloved mother is Narcissa Malfoy and his father is Lucius Malfoy. Deatheater.
The memory of laughter rings at his left ear and Draco frowns, turning from it.
He’s 17.
Maybe 18.
His name is Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter is staring at him from across the courtroom, a mile of black marble between them.
A soft hand caresses his cheek and Draco nearly leans into it, because that’s his mother’s face staring down at him, concerned and loving. There’s an empty bottle of Forgetfulness Potion and Confusing Concoction on a nearby table that tell him to be wary.
He swallows thickly, blinking at the person wearing his mother’s face with what contempt he can muster up. “That won’t work.”
False Narcissa smiles slowly and Draco knows it’s not his mother by that gesture alone. Narcissa didn’t revel in acts of haughtiness. That was left to her husband and Draco. Her smiles, when gifted, were soft and warm and spoke volumes above anything she could say.
“Draco, darling.” She says, and that is his mother’s voice. Draco blinks again, eyelids heavy.
Her delicate eyebrows arch together, concerned.
His chest cracks open surely, by the way his heart feels cold and flayed and vulnerable .
His lips tremble and he presses them together to stop it. Clears his throat. Swallows again.
“Mother?”
Her eyebrows settle, pleased, and the corner of her mouth curls, like they’re sharing a secret. Like he’s a child again. He has to look at his hands to be sure they’re as he remembered, not small and pudgy and too eager to grab his father’s robes for attention.
“Why are you here?”
He’s awaiting trial.
Like his father.
She clicks her tongue and it’s so decidedly his mother that Draco sinks into the chair, at ease. Why did he ever doubt her?
“I came to see you and…your father.”
He hums, nodding as his eyes trace over the embroidery of her fine robes. Baroque style. Elegant and rich.
“I need you to take this, M-Draco.”
She holds up a tiny glass vial and Draco squints at it, label blurring, but he’s sure there’s a capital ‘V’ at the front, so it’s likely to only be Veritaserum.
“Why?” He asks, trying not to sound petulant.
Someone laughs behind him, but Draco can’t see enough over his shoulder to tell if they’re real.
Narcissa’s face pulls in close, blurring for a moment before his vision settles, and she looks annoyed.
“Don’t argue with your mother.”
He nods, agreeable, complacent, and when she grabs his jaw, too fiercely, dumping the entire vial down his throat, he doesn’t complain. Sits and waits until she lets go, swallowing the too-warm, too-thick potion.
He chuckles under his breath and leans his head back, weathering the wave of the potion taking hold, gripping him from the inside like a puppet.
“Why are you laughing?”
She sounds angry.
“Three drops’Mother,” he slurs. “Need only three.”
She clicks her tongue again and when she speaks again her voice warbles, deepens. “Can’t trust a snake to be honest.”
His chest stutters as he picks through the surfacing memory, the fingers of his mind too slippery as he tries to hold onto it.
Someone clears their throat loudly and Draco realizes he’s being spoken to. He lifts his head to find Kingsley Shacklebolt staring down at him from the highest seat, front and center. His dark skin is gilded in a soft golden light and Draco feels a laugh tumble from his mouth at the idea of Shacklebolt of all people painted as an angelic figure.
Shacklebolt frowns, eyes narrowing in thinly veiled disgust. “Mr. Malfoy, is something funny?”
Draco tamps down the rest of his laughter, locking it behind his lips, even as they curl in a smile. “No.”
The wards shimmer and the door flies open. Draco sits very still, refusing to greet the trio of Aurors that have filed in.
Fudge’s men—men who would have gotten along supremely with Dolores Umbridge. They haven’t been cleared out yet, post-war. Shacklebolt has too many duties as newly-appointed Minister of Magic, but honestly? Thompson, Dawne and Haphlief?
He’s surprised they’re allowed down here, but then again, who’s honestly looking to protect a Malfoy?
Dawne is stalking the perimeter of the room and Haphlief falls behind Thompson with a manic look in his eyes.
Thompson is eying Draco like he’s something to be eaten, hands behind his back as he circles the chair Draco is tied to. He stops behind Draco’s right shoulder, just out of sight.
“Morning, Thompson. Or afternoon. You’ll have to forgive me, time spends itself frivolously here.”
Thompson clicks his tongue in annoyance. A habit Pansy has and Draco picked up viciously around third year.
He scowls.
“You’re awfully comfortable.”
Draco scoffs, shaking his arms so the chains tying them down rattle. “In the lap of luxury.”
Thompson steps forward and swings his face around Draco’s shoulder until they’re face to face. He’s smiling.
“We can lighten that burden for you, just say the word.”
Draco shifts away as much as he can, uneasy. “I think my provisions are exactly as they’re intended. Thank you, but no thank you.”
Thompson throws his hands in the air and Draco flinches back, but the man is looking to his friends, jeering. “Come Draco, don’t you want to… laugh .”
He doesn’t have time to protest, a startled noise choking out when a hand that doesn’t belong to Thompson fists in his hair, yanking it back until his face is parallel with the ceiling. His eyes dart around hastily, jaw clenched shut, but there are other hands pulling, digging into the sides of his mouth, prying at his teeth, bruising at his throat, pulling his hair out at the root with the force.
They get his mouth open, just enough to dump an uncorked bottle of potion down his throat and his teeth click together harshly when his jaw is slammed shut forcefully.
It tastes of sunshine and sweets and the hot-chocolate Werston, his childhood house elf, used to make when he was sad. It feels like flying, like he’s dancing with Blaise and Pansy and Theo in the common room, like stupid bloody Potter has tripped over his robes for the fifth time during the Yule Ball, face bright red.
Laughter bubbles up from his stomach slowly at first, a simmer of happiness and indecently blind glee, slipping out in great waves until his eyes are leaking from the corners and he’s doubled over around the chains at his waist, hair falling in his face. He can hardly breathe through it, but the potion is only bringing him laughter on the tail of happy memories and sugar on his tongue, so what’s the true harm?
Thompson and Dawne watch from either side, arms crossed, eyes flinty, and Draco can feel Haphlief’s presence over his shoulder but this is fine, he’s endured much worse.
They get bored around five minutes in, and Draco is hoping they’ll cancel the potion with an antidote or at the very least leave him to his undignified laughter, but they just discuss in whispers, circled around each other, watching him.
It’s around ten minutes in, when his lungs are spasming in his chest and his muscles follow along, that Draco begins to understand the true nature of this specific potion, normally harmless. There are genuine tears dripping down his face now, cooling quickly in the cold air. His vision is blurring at the edges, darkening.
He’s trying to heave in air through the gaps of laughter that sound more like sobbing.
The taste of sweets has morphed to bitter chocolate and the happy memories have long since subsided. His mind is showing him things only a crazy person would laugh at.
Potter, falling from his broom with Dementors at his back, sucking the soul from his body. His father, kneeling at the foot of the Dark Lord, face smoothed in serene happiness. Bright flashes of light, spells cast from his Aunt Bellatrix’s wand. A Serpent’s mouth, wide and gaping, swallowing a muggle born witch. Hermione, bleeding on the cold marble floors of Malfoy Manor. Potter, face disfigured and puffy to the point even Draco panics, confused and desperate. His mother’s face, pleading, eyes watery. Laying on a watery bathroom floor, choking, bleeding out. Dead eyes staring from the rubble of the school that held him in sanctuary. Eyes, staring, angry, not willing to speak for him, condemning him as he’s called to his parent’s side.
Shacklebolt nods, a weary sigh sounding through the room. “Then, if we could proceed?”
Draco isn’t breathing right, but he nods because that’s what’s expected of him. He feels the phantom touch of too many hands once again and breathes out sharply, fixing his gaze to the dias, listening vaguely to Shacklebolt as he states to the room why they’re here. What he’s been accused of.
He counts on his fingers, listing the potions he knows are still lingering in his system.
Veritaserum, of course. Either a Befuddlement Potion or a Confusing Concoction, but he can’t remember which at this point. The weakness in his limbs could be attributed to Fatiguing Infusion, but it’s also a symptom of Dizziness Draught.
There are more, but he can’t remember them. One was definitely a permanent potion, but the name and the purpose are slipping his mind and he grinds his teeth together because he’s so fucking frustrated .
“Mr. Malfoy!”
Draco’s head whips up and it’s a mistake, with the way the entire courtroom tilts and spins. Feels like his body has gone with it.
He’s careful not to gasp or squeeze his eyes shut, as he so desperately wants to.
He presses his mouth together against the nausea and bobs his head in attempted apology. “Continue.”
Potter is at a stand to his left and Draco isn’t sure when he got there or if he’d been speaking, but Potter is staring at him in a mix of confusion and something that Draco would probably label as disgust.
He ticks his mouth up into a false little smile, too soft for a smirk, but Potter’s frown deepens, so mission accomplished.
He sits back in his chair and for all intents and purposes appears to be listening, watching Potter with rapt attention when he speaks, shifts to Shacklebolt when it’s his turn to speak, makes eye contact when spoken to, but sound is rushing past his ears, pounding, frantic.
He knows Potter brings up sixth year, how Draco couldn’t kill Dumbledore in cold blood. There’s something about Draco being a pawn just like Potter, which Draco only just keeps himself from snorting at.
Never had imagined, in all his wild daydreams, Potter comparing himself to Draco. The Golden Saviour would never stoop as low as to equalize them.
Potter goes to leave the stand, at Shacklebolt’s behest, and pauses, catching Draco’s eye. That look of almost-disgust is back and Draco lifts his lip in a weak sneer.
Potter steps back towards the podium and Draco is sure whatever damns him to Azkaban will be worth it, with Potter looking so enraged, knuckles white where he grips the podium.
If he concentrates, Draco can almost feel the thrum of magic pouring off Potter in waves. The bloody git.
“I have something else to say, actually.”
Shacklebolt looks up from his stack of papers and stares at Potter with barely-disguised annoyance.
“Yes, Mr. Potter?”
This is all such an inconvenience for him. Wasting his time when obviously any Malfoy should be locked behind bars for eternity.
“I’d like to say that Malfy is likely the biggest git I've ever met,” Draco scoffs and there’s a round of tittering around the room that is both amused and scornful. “ But ,” Potter says, voice coated with iron, “Malfoy isn’t more than that. He may be a spoiled prat and a whiny coward, but he’s also just a kid. A kid who had to survive and protect his family, just like the rest of us. He made a lot of stupid, awful mistakes, but no one was there to offer their hand to pull him out.” Potter is looking at him now, all doe-eyed savior-complex and jaw tight with tension. “Someone should have offered their hand.”
Merlin’s beard.
The courtroom is shifting, robes fluttering, followed by a silence where no one dares to breathe.
That’s the power Potter holds in his reckless, impulsive hands. To capture an audience and render them to putty.
Draco is drowning in a pool of green eyes and messy, untamable curls, because Potter is looking right at him . Like he’s trying to see through straight to Draco’s soul and his eyes widen slightly at the horror that they may have made that possible with the amalgamation of potions and spells.
But Potter doesn’t point a damning finger and deem Draco irreversibly, irreparably bad.
He turns back to the courtroom with those war-haunted eyes too old for his face.
“The truest crime committed was that. That not a single of you offered your hand to a drowning wizard in need.” Guilty shifting, darting eyes. Potter doesn’t look pleased or happy or even a little smug . “Neither did I…I could have stepped in, regardless of his Slytherin tendencies to push people away,” Draco’s lips thin, holding back that bloody laughter again, “and offered the friendship he needed.”
Of course, Potter thinks his friendship would solve everything. As if Draco doesn’t already have friends. Prat.
“If you want to send him to Azkaban for that, then you’ll have to start looking a lot closer at everyone in this courtroom, starting with me.”
Shacklebolt raises a hand and the room falls still, silent. “Mr. Potter, you do understand that Mr. Malfoy is a Death Eater? That he was in alliance with his father and He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named?”
Porter slams his palms on the podium before raising a single, damning finger to Shacklebolt. “Take it back.”
Shacklebolt looks stunned and he’s not the only one and Draco is honest-to-Circe trying not to laugh.
“Mr. Potter, look at the mark on his arm. Plain for all to see.”
Draco looks to his arm, twisted awkwardly in the chains for that dreaded tattoo to be on display for all to see.
“He didn’t have a choice.”
Potter says it quietly, but with so much conviction that not even Shacklebolt speaks against him.
Draco refuses to look at him.
“Well…” Shacklebolt clears his throat loudly, attempting to gather what bit of authority he has left. “If we have no more witnesses to testify today?” The courtroom is silent, because who would testify for the Death Eater son of a Death Eater?
Shacklebolt nods once. “Good. We’ll adjourn for today and meet back tomorrow at nine o’clock sharp.”
Draco starts pulling the splinters of his mind back inside where they can be locked away and keeps his gaze trained on the floor. There’s a pair of too-big, too-fancy, too-new shoes stopped a few feet away, angled towards him.
Draco doesn’t look up and Potter doesn’t move closer, so after a minute of silence, with a heavy sigh, he leaves and Draco closes his eyes in favor of slumping in his chair like an undignified half-breed.
…
He picks up the Amortencia carefully, twisting the sweet-looking glass vial in his hands, scowling at it.
“Would you like to smell it?”
Draco startles, hard, nearly dropping the vial. A pink-haired witch stares at him, brown eyes widening as she takes in his face. Recognition flashes there and Draco tries not to shrink from it, having already embarrassed himself by startling so forcefully.
He clears his throat and shakes the vial. “I’ve only ever smelled it once.”
Her eyes dart between Draco’s face and the vial in his hands. “Uh…I’ve smelled it a few times. It’s nice.”
Draco offers a small, refined smile. “What does it smell like for you?”
Her mouth twitches, eyes locked on his, and Draco only smiles a bit when a blush creeps up her neck.
“Oh, well,” she flaps her hands, dismissive, “Something like peppermint chocolate and snow and violets.”
Draco tilts his head, imagining the blend. He’s not the biggest fan of violets, but he can imagine the scent to be cool and sweet and comforting.
“That’s nice.”
She stares at him a moment, hesitant, before a bright smile blooms on her face. “Would you like to smell it, then? For nostalgia.”
He chuckles softly, tugging his ivory cashmere scarf a bit higher. “Why not.”
He hands it to her and she deliberately uncorks it with a flick of her wand before levitating the bottle a few inches from his face.
He clasps his hands behind his back and readies himself to smell old parchment, his mother’s French perfume, Werston’s butterscotch and cinnamon hot chocolate with extra whipped cream. The fond notes of his childhood.
He rears back, offended, when instead he’s met with something completely different. Ocean salt without the brine, too-sweet treacle and butter beer, summer air laden with wildflowers and pollen. It all sits heavy on his tongue, metallic, like the ozone of a thunderstorm.
He wrinkles his nose at the offending vial and turns to the poor shopkeep. “I think that one’s defective.”
Her eyebrows bunch up and she leans in, confused, taking a whiff.
She raises an eyebrow at him. “Smells fine to me?” She blinks thick, petal-pink lashes and then her mouth is curling into a distinctly Slytherin grin. “Perhaps you have someone interesting in your life, Mr. Malfoy?”
Draco has never met this woman before in his life, but she reminds him of Pansy, all ulterior motives and cheshire grins.
He sniffs, picking up a set of Antidote to Uncommon Poisons, holding them out so the vials clink together merrily. “I just need these.”
She sighs at him, flipping a lock of pink hair over her shoulder and waving at him to follow her to the front. “I feel I should ask why you need antidotes for uncommon poisons.”
Draco clicks his tongue, “No you shouldn’t.”
“Poison anyone lately?”
“No,” he says calmly, but he arches an eyebrow in exasperation. “I think that would land me squarely in a prison I only just narrowly avoided finding residency in.”
She grins again and whirls around the check-out counter, thrusting a hand out towards him. “Vesper.”
He stares at it a beat too long before slowly edging his hand out of his pocket. “Pleasure to meet you, Vesper.” He takes her hand warily. “You don’t mean Vesper of the Fernwings?”
Vesper waves her hand in a superfluous manner. “The one and only.”
That explains the Slytherin nature. She was one.
It also explains why she doesn’t care that he's a Malfoy.
He leans over the counter on his elbow, raising a pale brow. “Heard you got disowned for being a fairy.”
She leans in, mirroring his pose and holds up a lock of her pink hair in answer. Draco presses his lips together in an attempt to keep his laugh at bay, but honestly .
He straightens as he chuckles to himself, smoothing out his immaculate clothes. “Well. If my father weren’t in prison, that would make two of us.”
Vesper barks a laugh and waves her wand, wrapping his box of Antipoison in silky blue paper. “Call me Vee.”
He grins and it’s too wide, unrefined. “Draco.”
She holds out the package and he drops a few galleons in her hand. “Don’t be a stranger, Draco.”
He clicks his tongue, but it’s a fond sort of noise.
He tucks the package into his pocket, where it settles smoothly into the dimension he’s charmed so he can hold what he needs on his errand days like this.
He’s still got a smile etched into the corner of his mouth when he turns down the a side street, having one more stop in Diagon Alley before he can retire to the peaceful quiet of his home.
He digs around in his pocket for a peppermint sweet, mind working around the idea of one after Vee’s description of her Amortencia scent.
His fingers catch on the foil and he snags it with a delighted little whoop of victory, pulling it out and unfurling the sweet from the metallic blue wrapper and popping it into his mouth.
It fills his mouth with a minty cool sensation, making him smile. They’re his mother’s favorite.
He’s folding the wrapper into a neat little square to toss later when a shadowed figure appears at the end of the walkway and Draco’s had enough experience with shadowy figures to turn on heel back the way he came with a swiftness that could rival Firebolt.
Absolutely not.
It should come as no surprise to him that three more are at his back, faces shrouded by hoods, wands raised.
He curses under his breath, eyes darting between the nearby storefronts. There’s a singular shop that’s open at this hour, but Draco watches with a pit in his stomach as the sign is flipped to Closed and the lights gutter out.
What else would he expect?
“Occultare Aspectum !”
Draco has the protego charm on the tip of his tongue, but it’s not fast enough for a surprise attack.
The spell wraps around his face like mist, a swirling white fog that sticks to his eyes like nothing he’s ever felt before. With a sick pulling sensation and what feels like a knife to the head, Draco’s vision goes dark.
Not middle of the night, nightmare inducing dark, or Dementors and Azkaban dark, but truly, properly black. No light, no movement, no color, and were it not for the fact that all his other senses were still firing beneath his panic, he would think himself dead.
There’s ugly laughter around him, circling in, and Draco sets his jaw, fists his hands at his sides, and waits.
Give them no reason to attack further.
It’s a stupid, pointless gesture, because they attack anyway.
“ Petrificus Totalus ,” to his left.
“ Mobilicorpus ,” over his right shoulder, lifting him airborne, followed by laughter and a, “ Flipendo Maxima!” that sends him flying straight at a brick wall, with a beautifully done Unbreakable Charm.
All this tossing around is surely ruining his immaculate navy Garmondi & Fourtaine robes, which is a bother because these are his favorite. Magically embroidered with soothing waves and tiny silver long-tailed widowbirds. He’ll have to spend forever repairing them if the threads tear.
He doesn’t know which way he’s facing, or who is where, but he lifts himself on one already-bruised elbow to mutter, “ Fumos Duo ,” sending what should be a smokescreen out in front of him.
He lifts his wand arm and settles his face into the fiercest scowl he can manage, listening intently for footsteps, an immobulus at the ready beyond his teeth.
A rock shifts to his right and he lets it fly, grinning viciously when he hears the thud of a body falling.
“That was stupid, Malfoy.”
A hand is at his hair, yanking, and Draco grunts against the pain, baring his teeth at whoever is over him. “I’d do it again. You have no honor.”
“Against a Death Eater? No.”
His head is forced back further and panic sets in immediately, easily picturing a dank Ministry-regulated cell and dirty Auror hands at his mouth.
“Open wide, Malfoy.”
He snaps his teeth in what he thinks might be the direction of the voice and is rewarded with a very muggle punch to the jaw. He hears something crack and prods a loose tooth with his tongue, spitting blood on the ground in hopes it lands on their robes.
“Just tell ‘im you gotta cock, he’ll open wide,” a man speaks, voice rough and mean.
The group laughs at the implication and Draco glares, setting his shoulders. A Malfoy does not show weakness. Nothing gets to a Malfoy.
Strong hands are at his jaw, prying, pulling, gripping, and Draco has been through this before, but he’s older now and he can afford to bite back a little .
Another lash to the jaw, then his temple.
“ Aperta maxilla .”
His jaw is forced open with the spell, quick and violent and he swallows down the panic because A Malfoy does not show weakness .
A potion is emptied over his mouth, followed with quick succession by a single drop of another and half a vial of another.
His jaw is still held open and the muscles are protesting fiercely. The potions taste of grass clippings and orange juice and bitter, thick sludge.
One of the men slams his jaw shut with an audible crack and Draco is forced to swallow the vile concoction, choking beyond the barrier of a suffocating hand, and then there is shouting, loud spells being casted.
Draco can’t see any of it, but it sounds as if their little back-alley pastime has been found out and Draco rises on shaky legs to make his departure, hood drawn, shoulders hunched, undignified to the last shred.
“Malfoy! Don’t you dare!”
Draco knows that bloody, infuriating voice, because how could he not, at this point, after twenty-six odd years of circling each other like lions thrown together in a pit.
He freezes, but ultimately Potter doesn’t magically stop him, so he’s justified in apparating even as Potter’s Auror grade boots stomp towards him.
“You git, don’t you-”
Draco is sure Potter is about to tell him not to dare to, but that’s the only way Draco operates.
He apparates seconds from Potter’s grubby hands closing around his robes, if the closeness of his magic is to be believed.
A curse is being spat out at him and Draco laughs as he disapperates, because victory is sweet.
He stumbles beyond his wards of his house with a final laugh, cheeks flushed like he’s flown the entire quidditch pitch.
His ailments hit as one, bruises and scrapes he can easily charm away, but the searing pain coming from his thigh is another matter.
He clicks his tongue and apparates to his study, hand shakily twitching toward the wound, sliding over sticky warmth and what feels like a shaft of wood. He feels along it and finds the end to be feathered. It’s an arrow, and it seems the point is happily embedded in his leg.
He shrugs off his outer robes, rolls his wand onto what he thinks is the desk, and calls out for his house elf.
She appears with a pop and immediately gasps sharply. Draco can only imagine the way she’s wagging a finger at him.
“Master Draco! You are hurt, tsk tsk, how did this happen?”
He smiles fondly at Mopsey, the elf who begged to go with Draco when he left the manor. He couldn’t deny her, of course.
“Clumsy me, I fell and tripped into stupid.”
Mopsey is surely glaring at him with her wide, hazel eyes. “Yes, Mopsey is seeing a pattern in your life.”
He grins, trying not to wince as he fumbles around for his wingback chair, casting a quick impervius so he doesn’t ruin the rich velvet. “Would you mind bringing a bowl, Mopsey? Please.”
She doesn’t say anything, but Draco hears the way she pops out and back in, setting a bowl on the table in front of him. He reaches out until he finds the rim and dips his fingers inside to test the depth before using his aguamenti charm and heating it.
“Don’t scream, please.”
Mopsey doesn’t have time to ask before Draco grabs the end of the arrow shaft and snaps it off cleanly at the place where it meets his thigh.
Mopsey screams, which Draco expected, but he had given a warning.
She’s fluttering around him, squawking, but he can’t see her.
He gropes for his wand and it rolls away from him a moment before it’s being placed in his hand.
“Did Master Draco get hit with caeca plaga ?”
He hums noncommittal, slicing his pant leg with a swish of his wand and a whispered diffindo , then again to slice through the meat of his leg. Mopsey is screeching again and Draco shushes her softly, attempting a soothing tone.
“I’m fine, Mopsey. Magic does wonders.”
He levitates the arrowhead out, grunting at the force it takes and the way it burns.
“Mopsey is getting tea now,” she mutters, sounding dazed.
Draco nods, moving the arrowhead to the bowl of steaming water to be cleaned in a way that hopefully won’t tamper with whatever magic signature it has.
“Mint, please.” Mopsey sniffs and it’s so Malfoy that he laughs. “Thank you.”
She leaves and Draco focuses on the task at hand, slowing the bleeding and knitting the skin back together. It’s slow and tedious work, but by the time he’s finished, laying back in the chair, panting, Mopsey is placing a warm cup of tea in his hands and he takes a moment to hold it, inhaling the steam that burns his lungs in the best way.
“You’re the best, Mopsey.”
Mopsey grunts and Draco can hear the sound of objects disappearing, followed by a soft thud. “Mopsey put a few drops of Sleeping Draught in it. Mopsey has also placed the offending arrow in a magically bound cloth so Master Draco can take it to the Ministry to be looked at.”
Draco wrinkles his nose at the tea, shoulders dropping at the mention of the Ministry of Magic. “I…okay, Mopsey. That should be all for tonight, I’ll leave you alone.”
She passes by, tugging at his sleeve affectionately as she tuts at him. “Should Mopsey be strengthening the wards first?”
Draco’s head jerks up, hand waving towards Mopsey in a wordless gesture. “That! Yes, that would be fantastic, thank you.”
Draco listens to the soft murmur of Mopsey’s incantations and leans back in the chair to sip his tea and dissect the last hour.
It’s not the first time he’s been cornered in an alley and hexed, and it won’t be the last, but he has no idea what potions they gave him and whatever blinding spell they used is different from anything he’s heard used before, so it’s safe to say he has no idea the long-term effects of it.
Which is all perfectly fine. He’s a Malfoy. He’s resourceful and intelligent enough to figure it out.
Of course, if he’s desperate, he can call in Pansy or Blaise or another Slytherin friend, but that requires admitting defeat and accepting help, neither of which are his strong suit.
“Fuck,” He whispers into the silence of his study.