Always Something - Dramione

Chapter 2

On the portico of St. Mungo's Hospital, Draco Malfoy appeared with the noisy, crackling racket of an urgent apparation. He shouldered through the main doors, calling to the stoic triage nurses watching motionless from behind a desk.

It took hours before Hermione was finally admitted to a bed on the critical injury ward where she remained in a sleep-like stupor. Dr. Berlant had come down from the psychiatric unit to consult. "Yes, it's a pity that the witch best able to treat an injury like this one is the witch afflicted with it. Would you call that irony, Mr. Malfoy? I schooled at that glorified trade-school Hogwarts so my literary education is lacking, I'm afraid."

The comment was a gift from his former psychiatrist, an invitation for him to show his gifts, to show that she had not come to assert power over him, a former patient of hers that she had not liked in the least. It was a sign that she had come simply to help, to help Hermione, a former patient she had liked very much.

"Irony is exactly what I'd call it," he said. "So you agree it's a memory injury?"

"Well, I don't know much about the particular apparatus that turned on her. You'd be the expert there, after the patient herself."

He scrubbed his face with his hands. "Yes, but I don't trust myself to make clear judgments about this right now. She's — I need to hear it from someone else and she's..."

Berlant nodded. "Well, I have read all your institute's papers and her symptoms seem consistent with the memory injures we treat here. Whatever happened, I'm confident the best course at this moment is rest and quiet. I've given her a sleeping draught to keep her in a state of deep, healing silence until," she glanced at the timepiece hung around her neck, "until some time very early in the morning. When she's awake we'll see whether there's anything to all this commotion. It's possible she could wake up with no ill effects at all. Or, she could have some short-term memory loss — missing all or part of the past few weeks, that sort of thing. Or, well, it's not impossible that, that..."

"That she has long-term losses, and she may come round with no memory of me or the children at all."

"That's a remote possibility, Mr. Malfoy. But it is one we should be equipped to address. I suggest collecting some documentation of the past few years, so you've pictures and papers, something concrete to show her in case there are any - gaps. She'll put it together from there. She's a reasonable, logical person, above all."

Malfoy sneered. She was not reasonable above all. She was loving above all. But Berlant was right about the rest. He would have Paul bring some things from home in the morning. He flipped open his end of the Weasley Communication Compact he shared with Paul and Cassie and spoke an update into the mirror. Mum was asleep and they could see her in the morning, come what may. Bring her passport and both of their birth certificates.

Dr. Berlant took her leave, turning down the lights in the hospital room, and leaving Draco alone for a long vigil at his wife's bedside. He considered contacting Hermione's parents using the Muggle mobile phone device he didn't like to admit he still relied on quite a bit. No, not yet, not until they knew where everything stood. It would just be cruel to pull anyone else into the awful holding pattern in which he and the children were caught. The children — at least they were together, in their own beds. Their father sat frowning and fidgeting in a chair pushed to the edge of Hermione's bed, gripping her hand.

In her sleep, she looked perfect, always perfect. If she woke up unable to remember him, this might be the last time he watched her like this for a long time — possibly forever. It was too horrible. His whole life with her, every minute of it, was something he'd never believed himself worthy of. Everyone thought so, most of all Draco himself. But he'd always been selfish enough to stay with her in spite of all of that. It was too good to be true, and maybe that kind of luck was about to run out for Draco Malfoy. He pressed his lips against the hand he held in his, bowing over it like a prayer.