(HP) Because Potter Is Allergic to Poppies

Poppies and Patients

"Apprentice Healer Malfoy, I need you to change Mrs. Fallon's dressings."

"Apprentice Healer Malfoy, why hasn't the rubbish been removed from Jerry Hastings's room yet?"

"Apprentice Healer Malfoy, you have to..."

"Apprentice Healer Malfoy!"

That was the chorus that rang in Draco's ears all day long, to the point that he was sleepwalking because he had dreams that people were calling him that and he had to answer.

Not that it matters, he told himself fiercely as he emptied Hastings's rubbish into the common bin that waited at the end of each ward. He had to hold his nose as he did so. Hastings had been struck with the Mucus-Vomiting Curse, and the cloths that had been thrown away were shades of green Draco had never wanted to know existed. It doesn't matter what they call me and how they try to get on my nerves and make me quit. I'm not going to. They'll see that it doesn't matter, that all their entreaties can't change my mind.

But sometimes it didn't feel like that. Sometimes it felt as though people had just forgotten that he was there and what purpose he had originally entered for—to become a full Healer and know
everything about the wizarding body—and assumed he had wanted to be a glorified errand boy.
In fact, Draco had wanted a profession that would enable him to get out of England and travel
anywhere he wished. Becoming a Healer had sounded perfect. What wizarding community
couldn't use Healers? He had pictured himself leaning against a terrace with grapes above his
head, while admiring former patients held out goblets of wine to him and he gave advice on rare and exciting diseases or curses now and then, when he wished to.

The Ministry had taken his family's money, but they couldn't take his dreams.

Instead, he had stayed an Apprentice Healer for three years, long after the slowest of the people he had entered the program with had been accepted as journeymagi. The administration of St.
Mungo's hadn't forgotten his past, and they would never allow him to rise while memories of the war still lingered.

In one sense, Draco could see the justice of that. Even if he became a full Healer, it was unlikely that some patients would ever accept his care—one reason he had wanted to go abroad.

In another sense, he wished the people preaching "tolerance and acceptance" since the war would take their propaganda and shove it up their arses if they didn't actually believe it. In practice, "tolerance and acceptance" meant embracing Muggleborns who had done desperate things to survive during the war and reassuring them that they wouldn't be tried as criminals. No one had nearly as much sympathy for former followers of the Dark Lord.

Draco had sent a letter detailing the desperate things he'd had to do to survive to the Daily
Prophet when they were printing stories of "war heroes" who hid in cellars and ate rubbish.
They'd sent a Howler in return. Draco could still feel the sting of the scorn in Healer Mallow's
eyes when the Howler hovered in the middle of their class on treating botched potions, showering abuse on him.

He had told Draco not to do that again. Draco had responded that he hadn't asked to have a Howler sent to him, and didn't Healer Mallow know how Howlers worked?

That might have been the beginning of his career as a servant, incidentally.

The Ministry took his family's fortune. Oh, they said it was for reparations, but Draco didn't
notice any Muggleborns the money was supposedly destined for living any better. The Ministry officials who collected it had larger office a few months later, though.

Draco had known for a long time that the Ministry was corrupt and could be bought. But he had never counted on being on the other side of that.

His parents had emigrated to Iceland just ahead of the officials who would have tried them. So Draco was seized in their place, but even his most zealous enemies had had to admit there wasn't much evidence for the "crimes" he'd committed.