Drarry One Shots

1. Stubborn Fools

A/N Yes! Another one already (and a three parter). I've had this written for a while, just needed to finish 'The Red King' first and edit this. Poor Harry's getting a rough deal at the moment but all's well that ends well!

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'Mornin', Malfoy,' Healer Ivy sneered as she stomped through their consulting room into the room that acted as a small ward for the few patients who ended up needing a bed. 'See you cleaned the sheets again... I'm not paying you to do that, if that's what you're hoping...'

'Morning, Ivy,' he muttered quietly. 'And no, I don't expect it. Just basic hygiene.'

He was just trying to maintain something of an idea of sterility in the clinic but everything remained an oppressive dirty grey and it didn't matter how many Scourifies Draco cast and how often he took the sheets home to clean them, everything always looked grimy and stained with bodily fluids of various descriptions.

The oppression of the place wasn't helped by the soupy humidity of the mid-July evening and lack of functioning windows. Cooling charms just didn't seem to make a blind bit of difference in the heatwave that was currently suffocating Britain. Temperatures had soared to an unprecedented 36.5°C in London that day and somehow British heatwaves were so much more unpleasant to endure than the hotter summers on the continent.

Ivy hadn't stayed to hear Draco's response. She had already gone through to check on Paddy O'Brien-Murphy and Bessie Leech.

Paddy had ended up with them because of another bar fight; he nearly hadn't made it out of the latest one alive after someone stuck a broken bottle into his neck, barely missing an artery. Bessie had had an illegal coat-hanger abortion that left her bleeding out from a perforated uterus. Both were on the mend now. He had no doubts that by his next shift Bessie would be back upstairs and Paddy back to whichever bar he liked to frequent, Draco didn't ask, he doubted Paddy O'Brien-Murphy was his real name. He suspected Paddy was about as Irish as Yorkshire Puddings.

Draco didn't take Healer Ivy's mannerisms to heart. That was just her. She was a rude bitch at best and Draco cared more about his work at the clinic than five minutes of shift crossover at 3am with the woman.

His shirt was sticking unpleasantly to his back as he gathered up the last of his notes. At least he would be home within minutes. However, the bare lightbulb in the consulting room flickered at that moment and he scowled as thought of home faded. The bulb always flickered when the door that led up to the clinic from the alleyway below slammed shut on its sprung hinge.

Why was it always just as he was leaving?

There was a pause, then weary footsteps took each stair slowly, like each movement was monstrously painful. A man, he reckoned, given the weight of the steps. A man with a severe limp. He was clearly leaning heavily on the banister, pausing between each lift of his leg to move higher up to the illicit backroom clinic.

He was in two minds whether to either Apparate home and pretend he hadn't heard or to go down and help their next patient. Really, Healer Ivy was there to take over now and if he got caught up in another drama he was bound to end up staying on but not be paid for his efforts. He hesitated, not wanting to leave a serious case to Healer Ivy, they all knew she was a charlatan. The faltering footsteps continued with dogged slowness. They seemed to bring a sense of pending doom with them and Draco found his heartrate increasing in anticipation as he dithered.

It was a select clientele who knew about Knockgate Clinic sandwiched on the floor between the opium den and the whorehouse upstairs. It was open 24/7 and was a less than salubrious part of Draco's life but this end of Knockturn Alley accommodated the less than salubrious inhabitants of the magical underworld. Their patients tended to need treating for the more severe types of injuries that they didn't want the Aurors mixed up in if they ended up at St Mungo's. Draco wasn't involved in that side of life beyond just being there to help people who lived in the shadows for whatever their reasons. His past meant people trusted him. There were some who still saw the Malfoy name as hovering in that liminal space between illegal and legal, good and bad, criminal and innocent. His more respectable friends and colleagues didn't know about Draco's work in the clinic.