My Son

Chapter3:

- Your son is better sir.

Draco was interrupted in his memories by a healer coming out of his son's room. He sat on a chair, relieved. He had just lived terrible hours. But everything was over, his son was better. He was breathing again.

- You should go for a walk, sir. Take a little air. He is still very tired, you will be able to see your son only in a few hours.

Draco sat down for a few minutes to think back to the years that followed their argument about this insult. Since then, he had never had any problem with his son, except maybe his failure on the astrolonomy nozzle. Draco had never understood why he chose this material. Perhaps out of curiosity, as his mother had done.

He then decided to follow the doctor's advice, he did not want to think about Hermione. He put on his cloak and pushed one of the heavy doors that separated the various departments of the hospital. He was looking for his way to the exit when he found himself in a large hall with pale yellow walls, with the unpleasant feeling that he should not have been there.

A woman would run in the room like children when he plays on the plane. His gestures were light and his laugh was happy. Draco looked at her for a few seconds and then wanted to turn around, feeling uncomfortable. When the witch noticed the presence of a stranger in the room, she stopped, lowered her arms and stared into the visitor's eyes.

Draco immediately recognized Hermione's face.

She had the same brown, wavy hair. The weather had only marked his face with a few wrinkles. It was his look and his gait that had changed the most. His eyes were big and Draco could clearly read his pain. He also guessed his loneliness and the distance she had with the world around her. He could not stop fixing it.

Even in a white hospital dress, she was beautiful. Even a few steps from death, she was smiling.

She suddenly started crying for no apparent reason. Draco slowly approached her, not knowing how to react. She threw herself into his arms and rested her head on Draco's shoulder. He hugged her and stroked her hair. He finally found this young woman who had made her heart beat.

- Granger calm down

She remained a few minutes, tight against him, silent. Draco let her do it. It was so nice to hold her in his arms. To feel it alive. However, he felt unable to dry his tears. He gave up asking what tormented her. He stayed with that fragile, warm body in his arms for a few seconds.

A nurse who was looking for Hermione separated them.

She made Draco promise to come see her friend another day: she needed companionship and had no family and only one friend. Then she left, dragging Hermione whose tears had dried out. She had resumed her airplane noise and regained her good humor, as if the previous scene had never taken place. She gave Draco a happy look, and he responded with a shy smile. In response she pulled out his tongue.

When they disappeared, Draco collapsed on a chair. Hermione Granger was not dead, she had gone crazy.

Draco recognized the after-effects of many unbearable tortures, such as those he treated for Voldemort's prisoners. It was probably him she had faced and who had inflicted these tortures and made her mad. He or his dear Aunt Bellatrix who was very good at this kind of spell.

Hermione Granger, that name resonated in Draco's head, like a distant eco from the past that he had tried to erase from his memory and his heart so many times. Hermione Granger, like the mother of her child who had come into his life on a spring evening.

If he had known that Hermione was still alive earlier, what would have happened? Would he have the courage to tell Gabriel the truth? Would he have come to see Hermione more often? Would he have the courage to see her suffer? Could he have made Gabriel come to see his mother, the stranger who no longer knew who he was, who she was?

Draco suddenly felt suffocated in that room too big. In this place where he had seen the one that once made him smile. In this room, so close to that of his son. In this sad hospital, in two rooms almost side by side, stood the mother and the son; ignoring the presence of the other; ignoring the existence of the other.

Draco got up quickly and left the hall, he needed to get some fresh air. He crossed the floor of the hospital someone he had not seen for 17 years, since the day she had cleared him. He greeted politely Ginny Weasley who continued his way by quickly answering his hello. Before she disappeared, he added:

- I just met Hermione, I ... I ... thought she was dead.

Draco sat on the steps of the stairs, realizing what he had just said. This woman who had appeared one day in her living room and who had given her the best gift we could give to a man was not dead but she had gone completely crazy. Ginny came over and sat down next to him.

- Yes, she is alive, but ... her life is ... her life is ... almost nothing ... she does not remember ... neither her name ... nor what she did ... yet, I do not know if you know it, but she's the one who destroyed Voldemort. Sometimes she has bursts of lucidity. She speaks but she does not remember anything.

Ginny burst into tears in Draco's arms and he was surprised at how familiar he was, who was struggling to hold back tears.

- I lost everything in this war ... I lost my husband Harry, I lost my brother Ron and my father and I spent a horrible week being tortured by the Dark Lord and when you got me out of there, I heard of Hermione's death and a few months later I came to the hospital with Neuville and I came across Hermione ... who did not remember anything ... and I told myself and I told myself almost every day, that I would have preferred to die with Luna.

As earlier in the afternoon, Draco tried to comfort a crying young woman. But this time he understood the desperation Ginny felt.

- No Ginny, you must not say that. If you had died, you would have ruined your life and you would never have known that the world was going to survive Voldemort. Think of all the people who were happy to find you after the war. To all you have made happy.

Ginny grunted to disapprove Draco. He knew how to cure the physical pain of others but he did not know how to heal the woes of life. He told Ginny what he thought was the simplest and the most comforting.

- I, without you, I would have died in Azkaban for years. And then my son would not have a family ... and if he's happy today, it's thanks to you.

Ginny stepped back to look Draco in the eye. Hermione had gone mad and Ginny was unhappy. Those who had survived the war still suffered a lot.

- Thank you.

- You could have told me she was not dead that ...

Ginny's facial expression changed and her sadness turned to anger.

"Mr. Malfoy, I do not see why Hermione Granger's life concerns you.

Draco did not understand this reaction. He was only talking about an old high school friend.

"I treated many people with Voldemort's torture, and I might have tried something for her. I owed him that.

Ginny calmed down a bit.

"I do not want to upset you, Draco, but the most powerful healers have been working on his case since that sad day and can not find anything, so I doubt you'll be of any use to him. I'm sorry.

Ginny got up quickly and returned to the hospital, leaving Draco alone.

This one understood.

The reason Hermione had entrusted her son to him was not the one she gave him that day. Hermione knew that Voldemort was going to die and she had planned to come back for her son later. Entrusting her son to Draco was only his backup plan, in case she failed. She had not foreseen this case, where Voldemort would disappear and also drag her down.

Draco winced at this thought, first of all, it was only the relief plan for this story, just an intermediary, the only one Hermione could know and not the one she had chosen by choice or conviction. With all the feelings he had for Hermione, he was struggling to cash in on that painful blow.

Second, Hermione always planned everything.

End of this chapter 3.