Chapter Text
The general emergency ward was louder than usual. Hurried staff weaving between beds, long-distance diagnostic spells sparking blue, someone crying behind a closed curtain. Harry had been on enough sitter shifts to recognize the atmosphere of a truly awful night.
When the Auror trainee department first implemented this internship, Harry had been confused. He couldn’t see how serving as a sitter for St. Mungo’s was supposed to “aid in the development of a well-rounded Auror.” They said each internship was assigned according to individual strengths, while also targeting weaknesses that needed to be strengthened.
They had explained that bravery and eagerness to jump into a mission were valuable traits in an Auror. Sometimes, though, one needed to observe. To assess safety before taking action. To understand what was happening before deciding what to do about it.
The longer Harry participated in the internship, the more he understood its benefits.
Still, some nights carried a feeling that couldn’t be shaken. A certain dread that seemed to settle over the shift from the moment it began until twelve hours later, when it ended.
Harry had thought the overnight intern position would provide a slower-paced environment for learning. He had been proven wrong almost immediately. Nothing about St. Mungo’s Emergency Ward was calm, and tonight, as he made his way toward his assigned room, he could feel the surrounding intensity like static against his skin.
He found the mediwitch stationed outside Exam Room 5, arms folded, quill tucked behind one ear as if she’d abandoned half a dozen tasks at once.
She looked up.
“Potter, yes? You’re assigned to the continuous observation case.”
Harry nodded, shifting into the steady, neutral posture he’d been drilled on. “I’m ready for the report.”
“Good.” She stepped closer and lowered her voice. “Your patient is a young adult male, age 22. He was brought in approximately ninety minutes ago after a suicide attempt using self-directed magic.” She paused, letting the seriousness settle. “He’s under involuntary observation per Ministry guidelines.”
Harry’s jaw tightened. “Understood.”
The mediwitch continued briskly. “He’s in psych-safe scrubs and magical wrist restraints. Non-punitive, purely for precaution. He’s distressed but engaging. Lucid, but his reasoning is compromised.”
Harry nodded once. “What precipitated the attempt?”
“He ingested Umbraveritas sometime tonight.”
Harry inhaled sharply. “Street Veritaserum.”
“Exactly.” She folded her arms again. “It’s pulling intrusive thoughts to the surface and compelling him to verbalize them. We don’t know if he drank it willingly or if he was dosed by another party. There’s no memory of ingestion. No vial was found near him.”
Harry’s brows drew together. “So we can’t be sure how much he drank. And he’s stable?”
“Yes, exactly. Well, he’s as stable as someone on the worst wave of that potion can be. Emotionally volatile, incredibly self-critical, and in significant despair, but oriented. He knows where he is. He understands questions. He just can’t regulate the avalanche of thoughts.”
Harry nodded, processing. “Is there a risk of violence?”
“Yes,” she said. “But only toward himself. Absolutely none toward staff or other patients. His agitation is inward, not outward. He has shown no aggression toward anyone else.”
Harry exhaled slowly. “All right. Good to know.”
“You’ll need to keep him grounded. Don’t contradict his emotions outright. That could escalate him. Use present-orientation techniques, reinforce safety, and call us immediately if he shows any renewed intent.”
“Got it,” Harry said.
“You’re also responsible for hourly mental-state assessments.” She held out a slim enchanted clipboard. “Orientation, thought content, agitation level, renewed self-harm intent, and whether he can contract for immediate safety. Keep it brief if he’s escalated. We need a clean record of where he is each hour.”
Harry took the clipboard. “Understood.”
“He’s awake,” she added. “And exhausted. Approach calmly.”
Harry nodded again, squared his shoulders, and pushed open the door.
The curtain swayed shut behind him.
And Harry’s breath caught in his throat.
Draco Malfoy lay on the bed.
Draco Malfoy. Gaunt, pale, chest rising too fast with anxious breaths, blond hair damp with sweat and sticking to his forehead. He wore thin, enchanted scrubs that would tear under too much force. His wrists were secured by glowing restraint bands, not tight but firm. A monitoring charm hummed beside him, low and steady.
The man blinked up at him, and the potion tore the words right out of him.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” Malfoy blurted, sharp, cold, automatic. Then, without pause: “Actually, no. That’s wrong. I do want someone here. I just don’t want it to be someone who’ll look at me like—” His eyes raked over Harry’s face before he sighed. “...Of course it’s you.”
Harry kept his voice low, nonreactive. “I’m Harry. I’m assigned to sit with you tonight.”
It felt ridiculous, introducing himself to someone he had known half his life. This whole situation was beyond anything Harry could have predicted.
Malfoy scoffed, head tipping back against the pillow. “Yes, obviously, I know who you are, Potter. So what? You’re the... what did she call you? ‘Safety companion’? Salazar, preserve me. They sent Saint Potter to babysit the madman. How poetic.”
His words came rapid-fire, disjointed, the potion pushing every thought straight onto his tongue without mercy.
Harry stepped closer, but not too close, keeping his hands visible. “Draco, before we get started, did you feel any urge to hurt me or anyone else who comes into this room?”
Malfoy actually laughed. A fractured, humorless sound, but a laugh nonetheless. “No. Don’t flatter yourself. If I get violent, it will only ever be toward myself. Trust me, no one is in danger from me except for me.”
Harry nodded. His demeanor calm, acknowledging, no judgment. “Thank you for telling me. That helps.”
He saw Malfoy’s jaw clench beneath filthy strands of hair. It was as if Harry’s sincerity added to his wounds. Grey eyes flicked up toward green, then away, then back. His thoughts were moving too fast for him to hide.
“You’re standing like I’m going to cast an unforgivable,” he muttered, voice sharp but trembling. “Which is ridiculous, because clearly I couldn’t even sit up without these—” He jerked his restrained wrists; the anchors shimmered. “—these humiliating things.”
“You’re restrained because you were hurting yourself,” Harry said softly. “Not as a punishment.”
That landed hard.
Malfoy’s breath shuddered. “Yes. I know. I—I kept saying I wasn’t, but I was. I knew I was. I could hear myself thinking it—gods, I was thinking everything too loudly.” He grimaced, fingers twitching against the restraints. “This bloody potion... It’s making every thought fall out of me before I can stop it.”
His attention snapped back to Harry with alarming clarity.
“Did they tell you what I did?” Malfoy asked, voice abruptly quiet. There was no hesitation, only that forced honesty the potion dragged out. “I tried to cut it out. My magic. Like it was a splinter. Like… if I wasn’t a wizard, maybe everything would just... stop being so loud all the time.”
Harry didn’t move, didn’t flinch. He didn’t miss the way Malfoy spoke, either. Loud all the time. As if maybe these destructive thoughts had been at the forefront of his mind long before the potion ever forced them into the open.
“It sounds like you were in a lot of pain.”
“Pain?” Malfoy repeated, then let out a ragged laugh. “Pain is civilized. Pain has shape, edges. This is—” He broke off, chest rising too fast. His gaze went glassy, then sharp. “It was wrong. That’s what it was. Is. I’m not sure. Something in my head was wrong, and I couldn’t shut it up. I still can’t.”
Harry took a single step closer. “You’re safe now. I’m here to help you stay that way.”
“That was a pretty line,” Malfoy murmured. “But you can’t fix what’s wrong with me. I didn’t even know what it was. All I knew was I felt myself slipping, and I thought—” He swallowed hard. His voice dropped to a whisper. “I thought if the magic went, the rest of me would quiet down too.”
He stared at Harry, pupils huge, utterly exposed.
“And I shouldn’t tell you any of that,” Malfoy added, hysterical and resigned all at once. “But here we are. Full disclosure hour. Marvelous.”
Harry sat—not too close—at the foot of the bed. Grounded. Steady. The clipboard rested against his knee, forgotten for the moment.
“You don’t have to stop the thoughts right now,” he said. “You can just stay here. With me. We’ll get through the night one minute at a time.”
Malfoy’s throat worked. He didn’t look convinced. But he didn’t look away either.
“That sounds awful,” Malfoy murmured. “An entire night of this. Of you hearing every mad thing in my head.”
“I’m not here to judge anything you say.”
Malfoy exhaled a shaky breath. “Then buckle up, Potter. Because it’s going to get worse before it gets better.”
And despite everything, despair, terror, the potion tearing down his shields, Malfoy lifted his chin with something almost like pride. Almost like defiance. Almost like himself.
The room settled into a tense, vibrating quiet.
Malfoy’s posture went rigid again—shoulders tight, jaw clenched so hard it looked painful. His eyes kept darting between Harry and the floor, as if searching for an escape that didn’t exist.
Harry knew the signs.
Patients attempting mental suppression. Distress escalating. It would wear him down quickly.
“Draco,” he said softly, “you don’t have to hold the thoughts in. The potion fights back when you do.”
Malfoy shook his head sharply. His lips stayed pressed together with furious determination.
He kept his mouth shut with a force that looked painful. His cheeks hollowed slightly with the effort. His whole body trembled with the strain of sealing the words inside.
Harry saw the change before Malfoy did: a faint, dark shine at the corner of Malfoy’s lower lip. Not surface-level—deeper. A metallic sheen as blood slipped from inside his mouth.
He was biting down, not physically, but magically.
“Stop,” Harry breathed. “You’re hurting yourself.”
Malfoy’s nostrils flared. He wouldn’t. He refused. His jaw tightened, then tightened again, as if he could cage the thought behind his teeth.
A thin trail of blood escaped anyway. Slow, bright, unmistakably coming from somewhere deeper in his mouth. His tongue or cheek must have split under the pressure of the magic thrashing for release.
Harry’s voice stayed level. “Let it out. It’s safer that way.”
Malfoy squeezed his eyes shut.
His throat worked in a convulsive swallow. Another thin trickle of red followed. His breath shuddered, and then the truth ripped itself free.
“I shouldn’t have survived the war.”
The words burst out of him like a scream swallowed at the last second, raw and forced.
Malfoy immediately turned his face away, jaw trembling, breath coming fast. Blood smeared faintly around the corner of his mouth, where he wiped it reflexively against his shoulder.
Harry didn’t flinch. “You’re safe. You’re okay.”
Malfoy let out a jagged, bitter sound. “No. I’m not. It won’t stop.”
He tried again. Tried to clamp his mouth shut, tried to cage the next thought. His eyes filled with panic as he felt it rising, anyway. He pressed his lips together until the tendons in his neck stood out.
A faint tap of blood hit the front of his hospital shirt.
“Draco,” Harry warned, calm but firm, “don’t fight it that hard.”
Malfoy shook his head, small and frantic.
It didn’t matter.
The next confession erupted, strangled and involuntary.
“I wish I’d burned with the Manor.”
His voice cracked on burned, as if the word alone lanced through him.
He gasped a breath afterward, the way someone did when something painful finally tore free. He looked horrified. Not by Harry, but by himself.
“I didn’t—” He stopped, eyes burning. “I didn’t mean to say that.” Another shudder. “I didn’t mean to think that.”
Harry remembered reading about the Manor’s destruction. He could faintly hear Ron’s sharp remarks from the day the story had headlined the papers. So the git lost his palace. Serves him right. He had lost his mother, too, that day. The death of Narcissa Malfoy had sat heavily in Harry’s mind when he’d learned it.
The memory gave him a feeling akin to nausea, but he kept his voice steady. “It was a thought. A painful one. You weren’t choosing it.”
Malfoy let out a broken laugh. “Choice? There hasn’t been ‘choice’ in my head since this poison entered my system.” His eyes shuttered. “I’m lying. I’ve thought about it before. The day everything burned. Every day since. I know the thought more than I know myself.”
He bit down again—not physically but magically—trying to contain the next thought. His body tensed. His eyes watered with the effort. A darker smear of blood appeared at the corner of his mouth as the potion clawed its way up through him.
His breathing became sharp and panicked.
“Don’t hurt yourself,” Harry said softly. “Breathe through it.”
Malfoy’s throat made a small, pained sound. A half a whimper, half a growl. His head jerked as if to shake the thought loose.
And then the next truth broke out of him, ragged and devastating.
“I should’ve finished what I started earlier. I shouldn’t have made it to this room.”
The words fell heavy and final in the small space.
Malfoy slumped back against the pillows like the effort had drained something vital from him. His breaths came too fast, too shallow. His eyes went distant—haunted and ashamed.
Harry’s grip tightened slightly on the clipboard. The first hourly assessment rune flickered faintly gold at the top corner, a reminder that time was moving whether either of them wanted it to or not.
Orientation. Thought content. Immediate safety risk.
He looked at Malfoy, pale and shaking and bleeding from somewhere inside his own mouth, and knew the answer to at least one of those already.
Harry’s voice stayed quiet, calm. “Thank you for telling me. I’m here with you. You’re not alone with your thoughts.”
Malfoy finally looked at him again: glassily, exhausted, visibly shaken.
The next thought was clearly rising already. Malfoy’s throat tightened, his jaw quivered, but he didn’t fight this one as hard. He just whispered, voice paper-thin:
“Make it stop.”
Harry took a slow, grounding breath for both of them.
“We’ll take each thought as it comes,” he said. “You don’t have to fight them alone.”
Malfoy trembled, chest heaving as he forced his jaw shut again. The memory pressing upward wasn’t flames; it was worse. It was familiar. It was real.
He shook his head once, hard. Blood pooled under his tongue again.
Harry observed him carefully. Not pushing. Not filling the silence. Just waiting.
The pressure behind Malfoy’s teeth built until it seemed like a spell was prying them apart. His mouth opened a fraction.
A strangled sound escaped.
Then the words tore loose.
“The floor was cold.”
Malfoy’s eyes went wide, horrified, as the memory he had never spoken of surged forward. He swallowed hard, trying to stop it. Another drop of blood streaked from the corner of his mouth.
He couldn’t breathe around it.
“The first time I walked down to the cellar...” His voice cracked, thin and ruined. “I could hear someone crying before I saw her.”
His hands curled into claws in the sheets.
It was obvious he was trying to stop himself from saying this. Maybe even from feeling it. But the potion drove the next confession to his throat mercilessly.
“I didn’t open the door.”
Tears welled: not emotional tears, but from the physical strain of trying to stop the words. He squeezed his eyes shut, shaking.
“I told myself I didn’t know who she was.”
His breath hitched, the memory pushing harder now, relentless.
“But I recognized the voice.”
Harry swallowed. Malfoy didn’t notice. He was somewhere else entirely.
His jaw spasmed again as he tried to force silence, tried to bite the words back, but the pressure only made the bleeding worse. Fresh red bloomed between his teeth.
His throat opened against his will.
“She begged.”
The word came out hoarse, broken open.
“She begged me to help her.”
His whole body shook with the effort of resisting, but the potion dragged the truth upward like a hook in his chest.
“And I didn’t.”
A ragged gasp tore from him. Not emotion, but panic. His eyes unfocused, staring at something only he could see.
“Because Bellatrix was right behind me.”
He flinched as if struck. They both did. Harry never realized how little he wanted to hear that name again.
“She smiled at me.”
His voice twisted around the memory; fractured, exhausted, unbearably raw.
“I didn’t help her. I didn’t help anyone.”
The last sentence collapsed out of him like a dying breath.
Harry felt as though his blood had run cold. He shouldn’t engage in this. He should redirect it. Those were his instructions.
Instead he heard himself ask, low and intent, “Who? Who needed your help?”
Harry could see the pain coursing through Malfoy’s body, and yet he pushed again. “Tell me.”
When Malfoy’s mouth opened again, his teeth were crimson, and the blood looked as though there was enough to drown in.
“Lovegood. She needed my help. I didn’t offer it.” His breath hitched. “They would have killed me.”
Harry could not find the words to respond. His first thought was that Malfoy should have tried anyway, and he hated himself for it the moment it surfaced. Malfoy was right. They would have killed him.
A quiet murmur pulled Harry from his own impending spiral.
“Most days I wish they had.”
Draco’s breath hitched—a tiny, involuntary sound—as the next thought surged upward. He tried to swallow it, but his throat moved uselessly, the pressure relentless.
His mouth opened.
And the first words came out strangled.
“You should’ve left me.”
Harry blinked. “Draco—”
But Malfoy wasn’t stopping. Couldn’t.
His voice cracked, brittle. “In the bathroom.”
The confession shook loose from him like something torn out by force.
“Snape should’ve left me, too.”
Harry’s chest tightened, a sharp, unwelcome ache.
Malfoy stared at the ceiling, eyes hollow, jaw trembling as he fought to keep the next thought down. Blood welled at the inside of his cheek again from how hard he was biting.
It didn’t matter.
The words pushed up anyway.
“When I see the scars...” His breath stuttered. “...I remember that I almost died.”
His fingers curled against the restraints, not pulling, just tensing, as if the thought itself hurt physically.
“That I should’ve.”
Harry’s composure faltered. His breath went uneven for a second, a small, human crack in his professional mask. He didn’t interrupt. Didn’t tell Malfoy he was wrong. He couldn’t offer false reassurance. He could only listen.
Malfoy swallowed shakily. His voice thinned to a whisper made of nothing but truth and exhaustion.
“I think about it every time.”
His eyelids fluttered as he fought the potion, fought the memory, fought himself.
“The blood everywhere... the way everything went cold...”
His breath trembled again.
“It felt... peaceful.”
Harry’s heart dropped, heavy and sick.
Malfoy’s face twisted. Not emotionally, but with strain, as if his body was betraying him.
“And I keep thinking...” He squeezed his eyes shut. “...that it should’ve ended there. That everything would’ve been easier if it had.”
The last sentence cracked completely. Not dramatic, just defeated. Bone-tired. Like he was too worn down to resist the thought anymore.
Harry leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees, voice low and rough.
“Draco—”
But Malfoy wasn’t really with him anymore. The potion had broken past the last of his resistance, and he was staring at nothing, breathing too fast, hands trembling against the torn-safe fabric of the scrubs.
His voice dropped to a whisper barely audible.
“I don’t know why I lived.”
Another breath. A shiver.
“I don’t know why anyone saved me.”
His next exhale shook violently.
“I wish they hadn’t.”
The silence afterward was suffocating.
Harry sat there, shaken, all professional distance dissolving into something human, horrified, and fiercely protective. He had heard suicidal ideation before—St. Mungo’s wasn’t unfamiliar with it—but not like this. Not dragged straight from someone’s deepest internal wounds. Not from someone he had fought, and hated, and grown up alongside.
Not Malfoy.
His charmed clipboard pulsed again.
Assessment due.
The reminder felt grotesquely mundane against the reality of the room. Still, protocol was protocol, and Harry forced himself to focus.
“Draco,” he said carefully, keeping his tone even, “I need to ask you a few questions.”
Malfoy’s eyes shifted toward him, unfocused.
“Do you know where you are?”
A pause. Then, flatly: “St. Mungo’s.”
“Do you know what day it is?”
Malfoy gave a weak, bitter huff. “No. And I don’t particularly care.”
Fair enough. Harry marked partial orientation with a tap of his wand against the top line.
“Do you want to hurt yourself right now?”
Malfoy laughed once, a thin, horrible sound. “What do you think?”
Harry swallowed. “I need you to answer it.”
Malfoy’s eyes drifted shut. “Yes.”
The word landed with terrible simplicity.
Harry marked it down.
“Do you think you would try, if you weren’t restrained?”
Malfoy’s throat worked. “I don’t know.” Then, after a beat, quieter: “Maybe.”
Harry closed his fingers more tightly around the clipboard, willing his face to stay unreadable. He tapped the last line and set it aside.
Pulse hammering, throat tight, Harry sat there for several long seconds after the assessment ended. His sitter training warred with pure human instinct—the part of him that wanted to stay rooted, to not leave Malfoy alone for even a heartbeat.
But Malfoy’s breathing was speeding again.
His magic flickered faintly at his fingertips: an involuntary surge, not controlled, not safe. His pupils were blown, jaw trembling, skin pale.
This wasn’t stabilizing.
This was escalating.
Harry reached for the charmed pager clipped to his belt. His hand shook once, then steadied as he pressed the alert rune for Relief Needed — Active Ideation.
It would bring another sitter or mediwitch to his side for a moment.
Just a moment.
That was the protocol.
But the tiny click of the rune activating wasn’t tiny to Malfoy.
His head snapped toward Harry with frightening speed: eyes wide, wild, pupils huge with panic. His breath hitched sharply, as if he’d been kicked.
“You’re leaving.”
Harry’s stomach dropped.
“No,” he said instantly. Calm. Soft. Professional, but edged with urgency. “I’m not leaving the ward. I just—”
Malfoy’s face collapsed. Not dramatically, but silently, as if the bottom had dropped out of him.
“Of course.”
His voice cracked so sharply it sounded painful.
“Of course you don’t want to stay.”
Harry felt the words like a physical blow. “That’s not—”
“I ruin everything.”
The potion latched onto the thought instantly, dragging it out of him before he could clamp his teeth shut. Fresh blood welled at his inner lip.
“I make people uncomfortable. You don’t want to be here.”
Harry leaned forward, hands braced on his knees. “Draco, I’m still sitting with you. I just need another staff member for a moment. That’s all.”
But Malfoy’s mind was already spiraling downward, the potion turning every insecurity into raw confession.
“You’ve had enough.” His breath came too fast. “Everyone does. Eventually.”
“Draco—”
“Just go.”
The words tore out of him raggedly, like they hurt.
“Everyone else has.”
Harry inhaled sharply, a small sound, but real and uncontrolled. Malfoy flinched at it, misreading it instantly, catastrophically.
“I knew it.”
The panic rose in him like a wave. His magic flickered again, erratic and frightened.
“I talk too much. I say too much. I shouldn’t… I didn’t want you to hear any of it—”
His breaths turned shallow, verging on hyperventilation.
Harry held up a steadying hand, not touching, just grounding. “Draco. Look at me.”
Malfoy tried to wrench his gaze away, eyes going glassy with shame and panic.
Harry softened his voice. Gentle. Steady. Controlled.
“I’m calling for support, not leaving you.”
Malfoy shook his head, trembling.
“You don’t have to lie.”
The words came out ruined. The quiet, helpless devastation of someone who had been abandoned too many times and now expected nothing else.
Harry opened his mouth to answer—
—just as footsteps approached the door, signaling the arrival of the mediwitch.
Malfoy’s breath caught in his throat, panic spiking.
“Please don’t… please don’t go.”
And Harry felt something in his chest twist so sharply it hurt.
The mediwitch paused at the doorway, reading Harry’s expression in a heartbeat: Not yet. Stay back.
She nodded and remained just outside.
Harry stayed seated. Firm. Present.
Malfoy didn’t notice any of it.
His gaze had dropped to the blanket, unfocused, pupils wide with panic and shame. The potion had hooked itself into the fresh self-loathing spiraling through him, dragging each thought upward like barbed wire.
He inhaled sharply, and then the words started spilling.
Not loud.
Not dramatic.
Just broken.
“Pathetic.”
Harry’s chest tightened. He said nothing, letting Malfoy speak while keeping himself grounded in his presence.
“Who begs an Auror trainee to stay?” His voice shook, cracking at the edges. “Who does that? I sound desperate. I am desperate.”
Harry leaned forward slightly, calm, contained, but Malfoy didn’t register it. He was too far inside the spiral.
“I can’t believe I asked you not to go.”
His face twisted—shame, disgust, exhaustion.
“You probably think I’m weak.”
Harry’s voice came low, steady, immediate. “I don’t.”
Malfoy flinched at the sound of Harry’s voice. Like he hadn’t expected it. Like he had assumed Harry had mentally checked out minutes ago.
But the potion didn’t let the moment stop.
It pushed another truth out, deep and lacerating.
“I hate myself.”
Harry’s heart clenched.
Malfoy sucked in a shaky breath, voice cracking again, quieter.
“I’ve hated myself for years.”
Another breath.
“And the worst part is—”
He tried to fight it this time. Harry saw him lock his jaw, muscles trembling, blood already welling from where he bit down too hard.
But the potion wouldn’t let go.
His mouth opened despite him.
“I don’t know how to stop.”
The words fell into the room like the last fragile pieces of something breaking: quiet, devastating, entirely unguarded.
Malfoy’s expression shuttered instantly, something tightening behind his eyes. He had finally noticed the healer at the door.
“Right,” he said hollowly. “Of course. Can’t have you stuck here with me.”
“It’s not—”
"Mr. Potter," the mediwitch offered, "Would you like a short break?"
Harry didn't need time to think of his response. He knew the answer: "I feel like a break may do more harm than good. I've only just gotten here, anyway. Perhaps a draught for the patient might help him settle?"
She nodded and slipped inside. She moved gently, wand already out.
“Mr. Malfoy, I’m going to give you a small calming draught, as well as some dreamless sleep, all right? Just something to ease your breathing and help you rest.”
Malfoy didn’t answer. He barely seemed aware of her presence, but he didn’t fight when she guided the vials to his lips, one after the other. Harry watched the way Malfoy’s throat worked as he swallowed, the way his fingers trembled even afterward.
The mediwitch murmured a diagnostic charm, voice low and professional. “It’ll take effect in a minute or two.” She glanced at Harry, brief, assessing, then slipped back out, giving them space.
Malfoy sagged against the pillow, chest still rising too quickly, but easing.
“Of course,” he breathed, hollow. “Of course I need to be medicated just to make it bearable to be around me.”
“That’s not what I said.”
Malfoy’s chest shook. “I know. That doesn’t matter. It’s true.”
Harry stayed where he was, close enough to catch every quiet, unraveling breath. He didn’t leave. Didn’t move.
Even when Malfoy whispered, almost too faint to hear, “I don’t know why you bother.”
“Draco...” Harry tried, but he wasn’t sure what to say. Telling him it was his job to bother would almost certainly do more harm than good. Instead, the words died unfinished in his throat.
Malfoy let out a shaky exhale and refused to look at him.
“I told you,” he whispered. His voice was barely a sound. “I’m pathetic.”
For a long moment, neither of them spoke.
The calming draught softened the jagged edges of Malfoy’s breathing, but it didn’t erase anything. The thoughts were still there. The despair was still there. The room still felt full of everything Malfoy had dragged bleeding into the open.
Harry picked up the clipboard again.
The assessment lines glowed faintly in the dim light.
Oriented to place. Partially oriented to time. Active suicidal ideation. Uncertain of restraint-free safety. Emotional regulation severely compromised.
His quill hovered.
Then, in the margin: small, unofficial, meant for no one but himself, Harry wrote:
Do not leave him.
He stared at the words for a moment, then shut the clipboard with a quiet snap.
When he looked up, Malfoy’s eyes were half-lidded with exhaustion, but open. Still tracking him. Still waiting for the moment Harry might get up and go.
Harry set the clipboard aside and stayed where he was.
“I’m still here,” he said quietly.
Malfoy’s throat moved.
He didn’t answer. But some of the strain in his shoulders loosened, just slightly, as if the words had reached him despite everything.
Outside the room, General Emergency carried on. Voices, footsteps, the distant crackle of magic, the low thrum of a place that never really slept.
Inside, Harry sat watching at the foot of Draco Malfoy’s bed and listened to the fragile, uneven rhythm of his breathing, counting the minutes until the next assessment, and wondering how he was supposed to spend the rest of the night observing a disaster he was already beginning to take personally.
He waited in that uncertainty long after Malfoy fell asleep.