Chapter Two.

He was standing, head lowered, hands hanging limply by his sides, still. Waiting.

“Malfoy.” I said softly. “Draco.” My training was kicking in, they always responded better to their first names.

He just stood there, like a dummy.

I frowned. “Are you Ok Draco?” I asked (I know, a stupid question to ask someone who’s just been beat up!)

He nodded.

I sighed. “I’ll need to heal those cuts.” I told him.

He held out his hands, wordlessly, without question. I pulled my wand out of my pocket. He flinched slightly when I reached it towards his hands. My anger grew again. No matter if this had been the same Malfoy who had made my life miserable at school, I had seen far too much during the war, and after, to wish this kind of torment on anyone. I had watched my sister die so slowly from it.

I shook my head from my thoughts. I hated revisiting them. I muttered a healing spell and the cuts closed. “I can’t heal these yet. Policy. Photo’s need to be taken of them.” I said, referring to the bruises, I don’t think he really understood me.

Malfoy did nothing, merely dropped his hands again.

I sighed. I could deal with this for tonight and hand him over to someone else from the unit tomorrow. “The guest room’s over here.” I said and made my way past my little kitchenette to the door on the left. I opened the door and stepped back.

Malfoy stopped. Waiting.

I frowned. “You can go in.” I urged softly, wondering what he was waiting for.

He went inside and just stood, gazing at the bed. I watched him for a moment before closing the door over and going to my own room.

Needless to say I didn’t sleep that night for wondering what I was going to do about Malfoy, and Harry.

The following morning I was up early, only to find Malfoy already up, sitting at the little table I had managed to squeeze into the kitchenette. “Good morning.” I greeted him. “Are you feeling ok?”

He nodded in reply.

“You want some breakfast?”

He looked up at me, as if he was wondering if I meant it. And as I studied his sunken features it was obvious he hadn’t eaten much in a long time.

He shrank slightly under by gaze after about a minute, dropped his eyes to the table top and shook his head.

I sighed, and I had a feeling I would be doing that a lot for a long while to come. I made him some, because I knew he wanted it, needed it. I sat a plate of toast down in front of him. “It’ll make me feel better if I know you’ve eaten something.”

Seeming to take this as permission he picked up a slice, blinked at it owlishly, looked across the table at me and took a bite.

I smiled.

After breakfast I reconnected my fireplace and we flooed to St. Mungos, left Malfoy with the other staff and hurried off. I still didn’t know how I was going to explain that my best friend, who I would have vouched for to never do anything like this, after all, he had been horribly mistreated by the durselys, had beaten up Draco Malfoy, the person I would have vouched to do all the things Harry had done. It just didn’t make any sense. So I left him there and made my way up to the fifth floor, to the incurable ward.

I stepped off the elevator onto the ever so familiar ward, nodded to a few medi witches, I didn’t have to let them know who I was here to see, they all knew me too well by now. I slipped to a secluded room and closed the door. He lay on the bed, in the same position he had lain in for the last 20 months. Still and pale. He looked so different asleep, without his glasses. I took the seat beside the bed and looked at him. My last brother in England.

Bill had been the first to go. Then dad died in a deatheater attack on the ministry. Mum hadn’t lasted long after that. Then Fred was killed, George went mad after that, Charlie took him to live in Romania after the war, to get him away from the memories. Then Ginny had died, two years after she had been found, after that deatheater bastard had… and then there was Percy, he had stayed with me, and no matter what he was like, or how he acted towards us, he had always been my closest brother, and the stupid idiot had taken a spell meant for me in one of the last ditch efforts be the deatheaters to take control after the Dark Lords fall. Stupid! Stupid! But he had done it. And I loved him all the more for it.

But I wanted him to wake up, too look at me over his glasses and tell me to stop being so silly.

I talked to him, because it felt like the right thing to do, and it said in some book that if you talked to someone in his state it helped them come back, if they knew they were still loved and wanted. I told him about Malfoy and Harry, and about how I didn’t know what to do about it. In my head I could hear his voice telling me that I should just tell the truth, get it over with, that if there was something wrong with Harry then proper help could be found and everything could turn out ok.

I shook my head and looked at him again, fingering his glasses and sighed. I would have to tell them about Harry, if Malfoy hadn’t done so already. But then, Malfoy hadn’t spoken at all since I had seen him. It made me wonder, had he been with Harry from they were going out, when Malfoy dropped out of sight I had assumed they had broken up, and Harry hadn’t disagreed. That was what-four years? That is a hell of a long time to be in an abusive relationship, and it must have been bad if Malfoy didn’t even… to me he didn’t even seem to be alive, like he was running on autopilot.

“I gotta go Perce. I need to see what’s going on with Malfoy. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

He didn’t move. I always hoped he would do something, anything to acknowledge me. But there was nothing. I sighed again and made my way back down to the trauma unit.

“Ron!”

I had just opened the door when I was assaulted by little Cassandra, she was thirteen, and had been one of my first cases, she came in to help out sometimes, she liked to be needed, and after what her parents had done to her we let her. She was happier now that I had ever seen her. “Hey San, how are you?” I asked her, ruffling her hair with a smile.

She pulled away with a grin. “Ron!” she chided. “Who was that man you brought in, he looked awful hurt.” She asked.

“I can’t say San, you know that. But maybe you’ll meet him.” I told her with a smile.

She pouted, but bounced ahead of me, taking my hand and dragging me along behind her to the staff room where Gerard and Ruth were sitting. They waved me over. I went and took the empty seat beside them. Ruth was the head of the unit. “Hey, so?” I asked.

“Well we spoke to him, he’s quiet unresponsive, and he doesn’t speak at all. We’ve taken the pictures and he’s all healed up. He’ll need a lot of looking after until he’s physically ok again, but mentally…” she trailed off and sighed, then focused her sharp blue eyes, that reminded me so much of McGonagall, on me. “Could you explain how he came to be in this state? As you were the one to bring him in.” she asked.

I groaned inwardly but readied myself to say it. “I’m not really sure how he got into this shape. The last time I saw him was four years ago when he was dating a friend of mine. But, as I learned last night they had never broken up like I thought. And when I went back to look for something I found him… them… well… you saw the results.” I sighed.

“Who was the perpetrator Ronald?” She asked.

“Harry Potter.” I said softly.

Their eyes widened.

“Harry Potter?” Gerard squeaked out after a minute of working his mouth to form the words.

I nodded. “But it wasn’t the Harry I knew. It was like something had taken him over. It just wasn’t him.” I defended, I didn’t understand enough about this. I needed to understand more, but I was very sure that that person last night had not been Harry Potter.

“We’ll need to find out from Malfoy.” Ruth said with a shake of her head. “Ronald. It’s your case.”

I stared at her; pretty sure I looked like a fish with my mouth gaping open like it was. “I… you… what!” I stammered.

“It’s your case Ronald. He’s your age, you went to school together, you know him. You would have a better chance than we would of getting him to respond.” Ruth told me.

I blinked. “But we hated each other in school!” I managed to get out.

“I think you have a better chance, just try a few sessions with him, and if that doesn’t work we’ll revaluate the situation. Now I need to speak with some people about getting Mr Potter in for questioning, and perhaps a psychological examination.” She got up and left the room.

I gaped at Gerard who shrugged helplessly. “You heard the lady, go to it Ron. You’d best start right away. You know how she gets.”

I heaved a huge sigh and got up. “What room is he in?”

“Fourteen.” Gerard smiled.

I nodded in reply and left the staffroom and headed for room Fourteen. Dreading it every step of the way.

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