The Life Debt [Draco Malfoy]

5.

The last thing Maggie saw before she woke up was the face of Draco Malfoy. She felt the strong grip of his hand and heard the muffled scream of his voice. She felt his fingers slip from hers as her body landed, saw his limbs shaking on the wooden dock through tearful eyes, robes stuck to his pale skin as he coughed and spluttered murky water from his chest. Her own body juddered violently as the lake's dark water seemed to seep through her, the wind beating them both with a sickening chill. There was blood, as well; streaks of crimson pulled across his hands and face and neck, and then she noticed it on her, too. There was more of it now, pouring from an unseen aperture just above her left eye. She didn't have the strength to hold herself up -- she was lying on the floor, staring at the figure of Draco who had gone completely still. She reached out an arm, desperate; perhaps she could reach him and do something to help. She tried to feel for her wand but couldn't. Her eyes grew heavier and heavier, until it was too difficult to even swing them from left to right; the sound of footsteps and worried gasps surrounded them before she fell unconscious once more.

This had happened last night. And the night before that, and the night before that. Every night for the past week, the scene replayed in her head as she slept -- or at least, tried to. Maggie didn't know what cast her over the lake, or sunk her into it. She didn't know what had almost drowned her with it's menacing claws, nor what creature it was that smashed itself into her head, leaving her now a week later with the faintest scar just above her left eye. Most frustratingly, she had absolutely no idea how Draco had come to find her, or why he decided to save her -- because that is what he did. He saved her life.

It was early in the morning, and Maggie was determined to return to her dormitory later on that day; she couldn't take another night of Madam Pomfrey forcing strange medicines down her throat, or the sobbing of Eloise Midgen because her hair had been turned green by a Slytherin student.

For now, though, it was silent. She stood at the window of the hospital wing. From here, the tips of the trees seemed to part to present the Black Lake in all its glory. A shudder crept up her spine as she imagined the things that lurked beneath it -- the things that had almost drowned her.

Images of Draco played behind her closed eyes. He was stationed in a bed on the other side of the wing; how odd it was to feel somebody's presence, existing at a distance, with no real reason to justify the sudden desire to be near them. Maggie wanted to speak to him, if at the very least just to thank him, but he had kept his reserve, and his privacy curtain pulled round him at all times. On top of that, Madam Pomfrey prohibited either of them to leave their beds.

Outside it was beginning to lighten, but only very slightly, for the sky of late September liked to cling on to the dark blanket of night for a little longer than usual, like a child refusing to get out of bed. Maggie watched the owls fly from one spot to another, admiration laced with envy as their wings were free to take them anywhere. At this moment she thought of Henri.

"Maggie?"

The girl at the window spun, startled from her state of serenity. Something -- she hated the fact that she couldn't name it -- rattled in her chest as she caught sight of him. Draco stood, almost hesitant, half-entering the privacy curtain that was wrapped around Maggie and her bubble of solitary. He offered her a look, as if to ask whether it was okay for him to join her.

She turned back to face the window, his gaze just a little too much for her emotional state as the ghost of her brother danced in the back of her mind.

Maggie heard his footsteps, and then felt his presence as he stood beside her, also taking interest in the way the sky bled from blue to grey. Draco's eyes drifted down to the lake in front of them; cool, black, and so undisturbed by the nature around it that, at a glance, it looked frozen. To put his finger on the emotion that stabbed at the back of his throat was difficult and alien, but Draco figured the closest thing to naming it was guilt. Every time he saw the water, felt it on his face and in his hair and down his robes — it was guilt, for he had almost killed a girl.