Lykanthropos: Drarry at Full Moon

Chapter 1: Denial

Draco awoke with a start, his heart pounding and chest heaving. He opened his eyes and blinked in the bright light, realizing he was in a room. Yes, it was a room, the white ceiling told him as much. So the wolf hadn't been real.

No. Wait. It had been real. It had to have been, because every single part of him still ached and burned, and he could still feel the bite mark on his neck and the claw marks on his back. And the pounding of his migraine was very real.

He could also tell he was heavily bandaged as well, and he could feel the blood soaking the bandage. This pain was real.

He looked around, his vision a bit blurry. He was in a hospital room, which he realized a few seconds later was St. Mungos. He blinked once again as his head swam, and he stared straight ahead, determined to regain his vision.

Eventually, the black spots clouding his vision left, and he could see properly again. There was only one person in the room.

"Professor Lupin," Draco called in confusion.

Lupin turned his head to look at the boy. A small smile that did not reach his eyes appeared on his face as he made his way over to the bed. He sat on a rickety plastic visitor's chair next to it, keeping a polite distance between Draco and him.

"Where is my mother?" That was the first thing that slipped out of Draco's mouth. His throat felt like he had swallowed sandpaper, and it hurt like a motherfucker, but Draco couldn't stop the question.

An image of his mother and his aunt dead on the floor came up again, and he scrunched up his eyes, trying to remember if he had imagined it yesterday or if it had actually happened. His heart rate sped up as he realized he could not remember, and his mother could very well be dead. Panic flooded him, and Lupin seemed to notice. Lupin's smile dropped.

"Draco. Calm down. Please," he said soothingly, and Draco gave himself a moment to slow his heart rate. He took another deep breath then looked at the ceiling.

"So uh . . . where is my mother?" he asked, unable to meet Lupin's eyes.

"Missing," Lupin began plainly.

"The wolf-" Draco began.

"Not the wolf," Lupin interrupted.

Draco looked at him through tears, bewildered.

Lupin sighed heavily. "You-know-who appears to have wanted you and your mother. He could not get you, so he settled for your mother. I wouldn't expect her to be . . ." Lupin explained quietly, trailing off at the end, and looking out the dingy window instead.

There was a silence.

The tears no longer threatened to fall. Or maybe they did, and Draco just couldn't care enough to notice.

Instead he was overcome with a blinding numbness.

His mother wasn't dead, she couldn't be. The mother who had cared for him when no one else had. He was 15, for crying out loud, his mother was supposed to be with him till she grew old.

No, wait. Missing. Not dead, right?

Not dead, not dead, she's not dead . . .

Draco kept chanting this like a mantra in his head, until it became too much to bear. The chanting overlapped with the rest of his thoughts, creating a formidable chaos. He tried to focus his thought on one thing in particular.

How it had happened. Although logic seemed to be beyond him in this pitiful numbness he tried to reason it anyways.

Aunt Bella? So . . . this had all been a ploy. Because his mother trusted her wicked sister so much she was . . . gone.

Draco tried a bit more to comprehend it, hoping his confusion didn't show on his face, but he soon realized none of it mattered. He was supposedly numb, after all. He shouldn't care. But maybe this wasn't true numbness then.

This numbness didn't equal unfeeling. That wasn't fair at all. Numbness should equal no pain.

So how come Draco felt pain?

"Oh," he said blankly.

"Yeah," Lupin muttered, clearly uncomfortable. "There are a few other things I need to discuss about . . ." he motioned to Draco.

Draco once again felt a rush of shock as the hard truth set in. He had been so preoccupied with his mother, and just now it was sinking in. There was a tense silence.

"I'm a . . . a werewolf?" he asked stupidly, his hand coming up to brush his neck. He could feel the uneven bite mark, and when his fingers brushed over it, jolts of pain shot through his arm and neck. He gritted his teeth against the sting, and looked up to meet Lupin's eye.

Lupin was watching him tentatively. Then he nodded slowly. "Yes. And as you know, I am one as well."

Draco nodded. There wasn't enough left in him to be all that surprised, or upset. He was drained from thinking about his mother, drained from the betrayal, and drained of the emotions. Drained from all the physical pain he felt as well.

"There will be more time to discuss that in detail, but now we have the issue of where you will stay."

Draco looked at him blankly. Then it clicked and he nodded.

Right. He didn't have any guardian now. That was the least of Draco's worries, but, too tired to argue, he listened to Lupin warily.

"I have signed on to be your temporary guardian, and my husband has as well. Again, there will be time to meet him later." He said this hurriedly, as though he didn't want to linger on this, and Draco didn't offer a comment on it.

"As for where you will stay . . . I suppose there is no real way to explain it. You will see soon."

You will see soon? What the hell was that supposed to mean? Draco thought this was strange, but couldn't find it in himself to question anything.

Whatever. Wherever they take me, I guess is where I'll stay.

"Now that you are awake, the venom should work to heal you faster, and you will be out of here in a few days. I'm sorry for your loss, I know none of this is ideal," Lupin paused here, looking at Draco.

"Yeah, um . . . thanks, I guess," Draco muttered upon realizing he should acknowledge it.

That was a lot to take in, and in only a few minutes. Draco felt reasonably overwhelmed, and could only manage a nod when Lupin bid him farewell. He barely noticed as the older man exited the room.

"Werewolf."
"Missing."
"I wouldn't expect her to be . . ."
"Sorry for your loss."

His words echoed as they bounced around inside Draco's head.

Loss, loss, loss . . .

It became so much that Draco screwed up his eyes as he tried to force the thoughts away. He wasn't used to loss, the only loss he had had to experience was his father, and that wasn't entirely regrettable.

He was wrenched out of his thoughts by a plump Healer bustling in, and he looked up at her gratefully. She smiled at him in a motherly way, and he looked down.

"I'm glad to see you're up. On a scale of one to ten, how much is your pain and where is it located?"

"10, everywhere," he rasped as he offered her a small grimace.

She frowned. "I'm sorry to hear that. I'll handle that in a minute, but first I need to read your form out loud to you. It's protocol."

Draco nodded, and she cleared her throat, before beginning to read from a clipboard in her hand.

"Patient name: Draco Lucius Malfoy
Date of issue: July 7th, 1995
Age: 15:1
Height: 5'9
Blood Status: Pure-blood
DOB: June 5th, 1980
Birthplace: Great Britain
Hair color: Platinum blond
Weight: Censored
Injuries: Open wounds to the back and left shoulder, could be infected, venomous bite to neck.
Diagnosis: Lycanthrope."