the hermit (the chariot pt2)

2

As Draco paced around the small room, his head swam and he felt himself sway unsteadily. His nerves were shattered and he slouched down into the chair next to the bed for the umpteenth time in so many hours. He dipped his finger into the glass of water again and wet Harry's lips carefully. He placed a soft kiss on Harry's cheek and gently caressed it.

'You're going to be ok. You're going to be fine. Just hold on please.'

He was still breathing and as long as he was breathing he was alive. Alive meant that there was hope and he would get better. He would. He was strong; he'd get better. He'd be fine. It would be fine.

He did not want to acknowledge the looks upon many of the Healer's faces and the way they looked at him. The way the Auror's had looked in the alleyway. The unspoken words that communicated through the darkening of their eyes. 'Prepare yourself', they seemed to say.

But he wouldn't prepare himself for anything.

Nothing.

Nothing other than Harry living and Harry getting better. He was not going to prepare himself.

His scattered thoughts ran in different directions as an image of a white hand filtered past his eyes.

The Dark Lord.

He felt a wave of sickness and disgust churn his stomach. There had been nothing 'Lordly' about that. ...'Thing'. He wasn't even human. He was a monster. Draco had not exactly imagined what he would look like, only that he had thought of him to be some impressive, grand figure. The way people talked of him in hushed awed voices, he had expected something.... quite ...different. He knew that the 'Dark Lord' had undergone dark magical transformations but perhaps naively, he had imagined him to still look human; like a man.

But that 'Thing'.... with its red eyes and thin, white, spindly body.

Creature.

And that is whom my father works for, he thought nauseously. That is whom he serves. Serves – that had been his father's word. Draco felt repulsed. He was not a 'Dark Lord'. He was not a Lord. He was Voldemort. A hideous distortion of a man. Draco had seen him for himself. Evil embodied in a foul manifestation. There was nothing inspiring about that. And his father had gone to jail for that 'Thing'. Draco shook his head to clear the disturbing images.

His eyes were constantly tuned in on Harry, hardly straying away for a few seconds. He wished he could do something useful. He felt so powerless and despondent. He wished he could make Harry better somehow. Words of love and tears of grief did not achieve anything. They were useless. It didn't matter what Professor Snape had said, it had been his fault.

He had waited all day.

He had been a coward.

He suddenly remembered a memory that he had long forgotten. He and Harry had been eleven years old, and they were serving detention together in the Forbidden Forest. Hagrid had paired Draco off with Harry, after Draco had given Longbottom a scare. He had been walking with Harry and Hagrid's boarhound for about half an hour in the forest- in complete silence, when they noticed the unicorn blood getting thicker. Draco had advanced forward, and Harry had held him back.

They had found the unicorn along with something else.

A figure that had been sucking on the unicorn's blood.

Draco had felt immediate fear flood into his body and had bolted from the scene, leaving Harry alone to deal with the cloaked figure.

Just as he had again left Harry alone tonight.

That figure had been Quirrel. The rumours had passed through the Slytherin house over the years. That Quirrel had been attempting to vivify the 'Dark Lord'. That the 'Dark Lord' had sought refuge in Quirrel.