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Unstoppable	By : Thunderbird Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 14474 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any affiliated characters. I make no profit from this story.

Chapter List
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A/N: I finished this one earlier than I expected (I guess I was on a roll) so I'm deciding to go ahead and post. I can't guarantee I will always be able to update this quickly, but I wanted to get it out there.
Thanks, as always, for your reviews. Since a number of you now have commented on the length of the chapters vs the overall length of the fic, I'd thought I'd clarify some things. Yes, these chapters will be, for the most part, considerably shorter than the chapters in SMN. This is mainly due to the way this story is structured, but also because writing that much every week simply wasn't sustainable for me. However, there are going to be many more chapters as a result. The story is mapped out to the end already and we are looking at nearly seventy chapters total. So you will get your money's worth, so to speak.
I know the story is developing a bit slower than SMN, but I hope you will trust me when I say that if you stick with it there will be some big payoffs for you. And not just at the end of the fic, either. There are going to be some surprises and exciting changes for our characters throughout the story. In fact, we get the first inklings of some with this chapter. So in short, my loves, have faith in me! I know where I'm going with this.
Now, with that out of the way, let's spend some time with our favorite blond Slytherin, shall we?
Chapter 3: A Situation
(Draco)

Draco disabled the alarm on his wand at the first threat of noise, a habit he’d gotten very good at over the past year. If he managed it before the alarm really got going, he could usually avoid waking the dark-haired man sleeping soundly next to him.
He rolled onto his back, blinking away sleep and unwilling to get up quite yet. He rubbed his eyes, stretched a bit, yawned, wiggled into the mattress, flexed his toes, cracked his neck, and wondered what else he could think of doing to keep from actually getting out of bed. He had never learned to enjoy waking up, despite his chosen profession and the need to be up and about at a moment’s notice.
Harry, on the other hand, had always been good at mornings. In the first year of their living together, when Draco was still completing his Potions mastery and didn’t usually have to be up first thing in the morning, Harry always beat him out of bed, and there was usually a nice hot plate of breakfast and a pot of tea waiting for Draco when he finally made his way downstairs.
But things were different now. Draco glanced over at his live-in boyfriend, appreciating the way his shaggy raven hair draped lovingly over the part of his face that wasn’t buried in the pillow, the way his lean body curled in on itself just a little, lying on his stomach as he was, his hands tucked under his pillow and out of sight. How easy it would be for Draco to roll over and burrow himself into that warmth, to breathe in the familiar musk, to put his hands on the scarred skin that he had memorized every inch of over the past four and a half years. It was so tempting.
But he had to get up for work, and Harry didn’t have to be up for another hour. The irony was not lost on Draco.
With an inaudible sigh Draco quietly and carefully extricated himself from the bed. Harry groaned a little but didn’t wake, and Draco smiled to himself and made for their en suite bathroom.
It was always better after a shower, and this morning was no exception. Now dressed, Draco set about preparing his breakfast, enjoying the quiet of the house. He heated a skillet on the range and set three strips of bacon to cook before putting boiling water on for his tea and porridge. Though Harry had told him he could always make the porridge in the microwave, Draco found it very hard to get used to the idea. He still didn’t quite trust it to cook the hot cereal properly.
Draco had not always had to prepare his own breakfast. When their house elf, Kreacher was still alive, he had insisted on preparing breakfast for him, so long as Harry hadn’t already beaten him to it. But Kreacher had died not quite a year ago, and they’d never gotten themselves another elf, mainly due to the fact that Harry did not want to incur Hermione’s wrath (And, if Draco was honest with himself, he wanted to avoid ire from the brunette as well. They’d never hear the end of it).
So Draco had to learn to cook (breakfast, at least), and he had halfway managed it. He could fry bacon without burning the house down, and he could handle anything that involved boiling water. Eggs were another issue, though. He had never figured out how Harry made them so fluffy when he scrambled them. (“Low heat,” he could hear Harry insist in his mind. “You have to cook them slowly.”) But Draco had never gotten the hang of it. Which meant no eggs for breakfast, most days.
But it didn’t matter. Draco was content to eat his bacon and his oat porridge with berries, and sip his black tea, and read that morning’s edition of the Daily Prophet in silence. In a short half hour he would be surrounded by people who all needed something from him, and he had learned to savor solitude when he had it.
When he finished he cleaned up quickly, then made his way upstairs to say goodbye to Harry, as he always did before he left the house. It had become tradition, by this point.
He found his boyfriend mostly awake, and he smiled to himself, knowing that Harry had been waiting for him before he got out of bed. Draco sat on the edge, within arm’s reach of the other man, a warm glow of affection alight in his stomach as he looked down at the brunet. Harry looked back up at him with half-lidded green eyes and a sleepy smile, unaware, as always, of how effortlessly handsome he was, all roguish and tousled.
“Heading out?” he asked, his voice still a little rough from sleep. The sound of it did something to Draco, a kind of sweet, tugging ache in his navel, even after five years, and he bent down to give Harry a kiss. It was returned lazily. “How long?” Harry asked, once Draco pulled away.
Draco smiled. Harry asked the same question every time. He could never keep track of Draco’s schedule. Granted, the schedule was quite inconsistent, so Draco couldn’t exactly blame him. “It’s a thirty-six hour shift,” he said, “so I’ll be home a little after eight tomorrow night.”
“I’ll make a late dinner for us, then,” Harry said. “How about chicken piccata? You liked that last time.”
“Sounds great,” Draco said. He kissed Harry again. “I love you.”
“Mm, love you too,” Harry replied.
Draco lingered there for a moment, looking at him. Sometimes he would be so in his own head, so stuck in the stress of his job or the myriad of other things he had to concern himself with, that he forgot what a miracle his relationship with Harry was. But it didn’t take much to remind him, so he never forgot for long.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t sit there all day thinking about it. He had to head to the floo, and Harry was most likely going to hop in the shower and begin his own day. So with a final kiss and a murmured goodbye Draco stood, already mentally preparing himself for the thirty-six hours ahead of him.
He arrived at St. Mungo’s with five minutes to spare to change into his Healer robes before he had to go on rounds. He made his way purposefully to the coed locker room that was shared by all the residents and was pleasantly surprised to see Hannah Abbott at her locker, which was right across from his. She was shirtless, though still in a bra, performing some freshening charms on herself. Draco hardly noticed her bare torso, however. Residents were constantly in and out, changing, freshening up, and trying to clean various bodily fluids off of their robes (blood, it turned out, was particularly difficult to scourgify) as they prepared for the next portion of their shift. He had seen pretty much all of them in various states of undress at one point or another. Besides which, breasts did absolutely nothing for him, in the sexual interest department.
He was just always happy to see Hannah. She was by far his best friend at the hospital. He’d gotten to know her a bit their 8^th year of Hogwarts, since Hannah and Pansy were such good friends, but it wasn’t until Healing school that they’d really become friends in their own right. They bonded over the immense and challenging workload, and helped each other in various ways during those two years. Hannah, a Charms master, had provided excellent guidance for Draco in the trickier healing and blood replenishing charms, which were notoriously hard to get right, while Draco had aided Hannah with Potions, which had never been her best subject. By the time they started on their first year of residency together, Draco considered her one of his closest friends. She could always be relied on in a pinch, and she was unflinchingly honest.
“Hey, Han,” he said as he pulled his robes out of his locker. “How long have you been here?”
She made a face. “Since yesterday morning. And I’ve got another twenty-four hours to go. You just got here, I presume?”
“Yep,” he replied.
“Had a good night off with your almost-husband?” she asked with a knowing smile before putting her shirt back on.
Draco grinned. Pansy and Hannah both had taken to referring to Harry this way. It was a moniker not to be confused with the word “fiancé,” since he and Harry were not yet engaged. But it was understood by everyone that they would get married one day. So the title had stuck. Draco found he didn’t mind it at all.
“Two nights off actually… and yes, it was quite pleasurable.” He still had the mild but satisfying ache in his arse to prove it.
“Lucky you,” Hannah said with a wry smile, and there was something in her tone that had Draco frowning.
“Trouble in paradise with Longbottom?” he asked. Draco had learned to tolerate the pureblood Gryffindor that was Hannah’s boyfriend, because they had so many mutual friends now, but he’d always found him a bit annoying. Just a little too nice, he thought. Hannah loved him, though, and that made Draco behave. Well… most of the time.
“Neville,” she said, giving him a look, “is already at Hogwarts.”
Draco closed his locker, fully dressed now, and turned to her with a furrowed brow. “But the term doesn’t start for another week.”
They began walking out together. “Since it’s his first year and he’s taking over for Sprout, he went early. He said he wanted to get familiar with the greenhouses and whatnot.”
“Mm,” said Draco. “Well, you could always go visit him. If there are no students there yet, I’m sure you’re allowed.”
“He wants me to,” Hannah admitted. “But I… I don’t know. He could just as easily come see me, you know. He claims to be busy, but I’m busy, too. My career is just as important as his. And I hardly get any time off and I just want to spend it at home, you know? I don’t want to have to travel in my limited free time. And I can’t help but feel that none of this bodes well for the rest of the year, if he’s acting this way already.” She ran a hand through her lanky brown locks and sighed.
Draco hadn’t seen Hannah looking this dejected before, and he felt some protectiveness flare up within him. He had half a mind to give Longbottom what-for on the issue. “I’m sorry, Han,” he said. “That sounds really frustrating.”
She shrugged. “More than I have time to get into now, unfortunately.”
“Well, we should have drinks soon, anyway,” said Draco. “It’s been forever. You can tell me and Pans all about it then.”
She gave him a small smile, looking just a bit more cheerful. “That’s a great idea. I’ll owl Pansy and find out when she’s free. I could use a girls’ night.”
Draco rolled his eyes but let that slide. Hannah and Pansy liked to call their quasi-monthly drinks “girls’ nights,” even though Draco had explained to them numerous times that just because he also happened to be in love with a man did not make him a girl. They were unperturbed by his protests, however, and, as with most things regarding them, his affection for the two women outweighed his annoyance, and he let them get away with it for the most part.
“Sounds good,” he said. “Let me know when you hear from her.”
“Yeah, will do.” She sighed again. “All right, I’ve got to run. I’m on Kipling’s service this week and he’s got me in the lab day and night. I think I got about three hours of sleep last night total.” She stopped walking suddenly and turned to Draco. “That reminds me. I noticed your aunt is on my docket this morning.”
That gave Draco pause. “Andromeda?”
“Yeah. I’ve got to run a comprehensive Perniciosus screening on the sample she left. Do you know anything about it?”
Draco shook his head. This was the first he had heard, which was troubling. He would have hoped that Andromeda would have said something to him, or Harry, if she were having any symptoms that called for such testing. “You’ll tell me the results, though, yeah?”
“Of course,” Hannah said, squeezing his arm reassuringly. “I’ll come find you as soon as they come through.”
Draco gave her a small but grateful smile, and they parted ways. Draco took a few deep breaths and gathered his focus. While he was concerned about what those test results might be, he couldn’t let himself get distracted. He had to compartmentalize. It was just a reality of the job.
He smiled when he remembered that he was finally back on Healer Iwu’s rotation again. She was his favorite Senior Healer, by far.
Ironic, since he’d balked that very first day of residency over a year ago, when he was placed on Iwu’s service for his first ever shift as a newly minted Junior Healer. Adisa Iwu was one of the Senior Healers on the maternity ward, which covered pre-natal, neo-natal, and pediatric care. Since Draco had neither a personal nor clinical interest in the female reproductive system, he had not been particularly looking forward to being stuck as what he thought amounted to a glorified gynecologist for his first week. He’d grown even more despondent at the prospect when he’d met Healer Iwu that morning. It was apparent, when he introduced himself to her, that she was familiar with his name.
“Draco Malfoy?” she had clarified, after he’d provided his surname. She was giving him an impersonal once-over with her sharp onyx eyes, and Draco had to resist the urge to fidget under that imperial stare.
“Yes, ma’am,” Draco had replied, his heart already sinking.
“Your reputation precedes you,” Iwu had said flatly, before turning away and indicating that he, and the rest of the Junior Healers on her service, should follow. He saw some of his fellow first-year Healers give him smug, knowing looks as they passed him.
Great, Draco had thought then, remaining in the back of the group. Bloody perfect. It didn’t matter that it had been four years since the end of the war. Apparently he would never escape the mistakes of his youth.
Harry’s voice had immediately popped into his head though, at that moment. You’re not your past, Draco. You deserve to be here. Prove the bastards wrong. He felt renewed determination solidify inside him.
He was glad it had, because it gave him the wherewithal to prove himself within the first few minutes of his residency. Healer Iwu had taken them on rounds, showing her young Healers the patients currently in the ward, including an infant named Malakai who had been born premature after his mother had been in the room during a disastrous potions accident and had inhaled poisonous fumes.
Draco had marveled at little Malakai for a moment, floating in the magical bubble that had been conjured around him to protect him from the hazards of the outside world. He looked much too small and fragile to be able to survive, and yet there he was, fighting for his life.
“What are your immediate priorities when faced with a situation like Malakai’s mother was facing?” Healer Iwu asked the group.
“Stabilize the mother,” an eager redhead at the front of the group had immediately answered. “Then extract the infant from the womb as soon as possible.”
Iwu had raised her eyebrows and looked down at the pixie-like Junior Healer. “Correct, McClellan, although I like to call on my residents to answer, rather than have them blurt out the answers of their own accord.”
McClellan had turned a bright shade of pink while the rest of the residents shifted uncomfortably, already intimidated by the formidable woman before them.
“What next, then, if you’ve successfully extracted the child?” She looked around the group. “What is your most immediate concern? Roberts,” she called, looking at a dark-haired man to Draco’s right.
“Damage to the magical core,” Roberts replied. “Toxic potion fumes can cause internal malformations for children when still in the womb.”
“Incorrect,” Iwu said. “Magical core damage is a concern, but not our most immediate. Who knows the answer?”
Draco found himself raising a shaking hand, his heart pounding in his chest. Iwu locked eyes with him. “Malfoy,” she said.
“Respiratory distress,” Draco said, glad his voice, at least, wasn’t shaking. “The baby was likely already oxygen-deprived while in the womb, because of the fumes the mother inhaled. He may need help breathing. His heart may even have stopped.”
“Very good,” Iwu said, with the slightest trace of a smile. “And what would you do, Healer Malfoy, to treat such distress?”
“Make sure the airways are clear, perform a Caelifluit Charm to get clean air flowing into the lungs, and perform a Heart-Starting Charm if necessary.”
“Excellent.” Iwu’s eyes were glinting with approval. “Pietro Sanata told me you were sharp, Malfoy. Glad to have you on my service.” She turned to the rest of the group and began iterating the distinction between conditions that were acutely life-threatening versus chronically life-threatening, but Draco was barely listening.
Pietro Sanata told me your were sharp. Sanata had been one of his professors at Healing school. Is that what Iwu had meant by “Your reputation precedes you?” Did she not know Draco as a former Death Eater at all, but rather as a promising Healing student? Hope began to bubble in his chest.
“And let’s not forget,” Healer Iwu was saying, as Draco’s attention came back to her, finally, “that methods for healing the magical cores of children, like the Core Restorative Draught, have improved vastly in the last few years, which means this issue stops being our first priority and only becomes the focus when all immediate crises have been addressed.” She was eyeing Draco as she said this, and Draco realized exactly what potion she was referring to. The one he had helped improve, back in Hogwarts, with Harry. So, she had read his paper in Potions Quarterly, though it was published a few years ago. His hopes soared.
And rightfully so. Everything had changed after that. Draco smiled at the memory now, as he made his rounds on all of Iwu’s current patients, thinking of that first week and how right it had all felt, how competent a teacher and brilliant a Healer Iwu was, how natural pre-natal and pediatric Healing had turned out to be for Draco. It was hard to say why exactly, but he thought it came down to the rapport he could easily build with women and children both. He was charming but non-threatening, always with an air of competence that he modeled off of Iwu’s behavior. They trusted him, felt safe with him.
And the maternity ward held some of the most challenging cases in the whole of St. Mungo’s, as an added bonus. Draco’s skills and knowledge were constantly tested and no one case was the same. It was exactly what he’d been craving in a profession, without knowing it, and he’d found it essentially by accident.
Most Healers his year had not yet chosen a specialty. Strictly speaking, they weren’t supposed to. He was only a couple of months into his second year of residency and he was kept on a strict schedule that rotated him through each department evenly. Or, at least, that was how it was supposed to work. After their first year Junior Healers could be specially requested by Senior Healers for certain cases, and Iwu did that with Draco quite frequently. It pleased Draco to no end, and became one of the many items on the list of reasons he essentially worshipped the ground she walked on.
“Malfoy.” Iwu’s clear and commanding voice cut through Draco’s thoughts, and he looked up immediately from the chart where he had been taking notes to see the woman in question coming towards him, looking august in her royal blue Healer robes, her caramel dreadlocks pulled back in a knot. “Good morning.” Her face held the usual dispassionate expression, though her keen eyes were alert, missing nothing.
“Good morning, ma’am,” Draco said.
“I saw that you started back on my service this morning.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good, I have a case for you.”
Draco smiled, taking the chart she handed him. He opened it as Iwu went on.
“Madam Lorenz brought a group from the orphanage for their pre-Hogwarts check-ups, and this came up in one of the exams.”
Draco nodded, reading the examining Mediwitch’s notes on Mila Gonzalez, age fifteen. He knew this patient. He had examined her last year around this same time. She was a particularly special case, a war orphan who had suffered extensively at the hands of some Death Eaters while her parents were being tortured and murdered in the next room. The curses they placed on her had left her magic volatile and very difficult to manage, and she was declared not fit for Hogwarts. Still, she was trying to learn magic with the help of private tutors, trying to learn to control it so that she was safe enough for school. It had been slow-going, he knew. He reached the final paragraph of the notes and paused for a moment, then met his mentor’s eyes.
“This case requires some sensitivity, as you can see,” Iwu said soberly. “Can you handle it?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Draco said without hesitation.
Her lips twitched in approval. “I thought so. Finish the exam and talk her through her options. And alert me if there’s trouble, of course.”
Draco nodded his consent and made his way towards the exam rooms, mentally preparing himself along the way.
Sensitivity. It was a trait he’d had to acquire, for it had never come naturally. No surprise, given who his father was.
You’re not him.
He reached exam room seven and knocked lightly to alert his patient to his presence. He entered slowly but confidently, taking in the sight in front of him.
Mila Gonzalez sat in jeans and a t-shirt on the exam table, her spindly arms tense by her sides and her small hands clutching the edge of the table. She put one in mind of a bird, a heron, perhaps, Draco thought. She had a meatless, emaciated quality that made her arms, legs, and neck look too long for her petite torso. She looked up as he entered, taking him in with cautious, chocolate brown eyes.
“Good morning, Mila,” Draco said, giving her a small smile. “I’m Healer Malfoy. I don’t know if you remember me. I performed your check-up last year.”
She nodded. “I remember.” Her voice was a bit hoarse, as though she didn’t use it much.
“They’ve asked me to come in and finish your exam, if it’s all right with you,” Draco went on, and Mila nodded. Draco nodded in return and sat down on the stool next to the table. “Did the Mediwitch explain to you the tests she ran, and the results?”
Mila nodded again.
“So, you understand that you are pregnant, approximately six weeks along or so?”
Another nod.
“Good,” Draco said. “I’d like to examine you, get some more information about the fetus, and talk you through your options. Is that all right?”
“Yes,” she said softly.
“Do you have any questions before we begin?”
She shook her head mutely.
Draco suppressed a sigh. “Lie back on the table, if you would then Mila, and pull up your shirt enough that I can see your stomach.”
Mila complied silently. Draco raised the height of the stool and scooted it forward, performing an Impervious Charm on his hands to avoid cross-contamination, as he always did before he touched a patient. He stared down at Mila’s abdomen, honey brown skin stretched tight over prominent ribs, and wondered how a child could possibly be growing inside there at that very moment, inside a young woman who was practically skin and bones. He made himself shake off the thought and begin the exam. First he performed a charm to confirm the pregnancy, then more charms to diagnose the health of the fetus. He took a drop of Mila’s blood to test her health as well, and suppressed another sigh as he found, unsurprisingly, that Mila was fairly malnourished and not in prime condition to carry a child to term.
Mila said nothing as Draco worked, staring blankly up at the ceiling. She barely acknowledged his words as he explained each procedure he was doing. Draco wished she were a bit easier to read. He was sure she must be frightened, perhaps even in shock, but he wished he could find some clue in her behavior that would help him determine how to approach this. But Mila was far away, an island unto herself.
“All right,” Draco said, when he’d finished his examination. “All done. You can sit up now.”
Mila pulled her shirt down and returned to sitting with surprising grace. She stared at the floor.
“The fetus is healthy, overall,” Draco said. “There is no indication that your condition is negatively affecting it in any way.”
Mila's eyes met his then, and he saw a small spark of life in them.
“However, it is early yet,” Draco went on. “And I’m concerned about your nutrition. As the fetus grows, it will require more and more of your resources, of which you currently have little. I know maintaining a healthy weight has been a challenge for you for the past few years. It is important now more than ever that we do something about that.”
Mila nodded with surprising vigor. “I understand.”
Draco eyed her carefully. “Mila…” he began, then took a deep breath. This was the tricky part. “You have some options here, and you should know that the choice is up to you, and you alone. You can choose to carry the baby to term, or we can terminate.” He saw Mila’s eyes widen at that, but he plowed on. “It is early enough that you wouldn’t need to undergo a procedure. There is a potion you can take to safely end the pregnancy.” Mila was already shaking her head, but Draco knew he had to say more, had to help her understand what she could be getting into. “Whatever you decide, I will support you and help you through it. However, I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t give you all the facts about the risks you would be taking if you carried to term. Like I said, proper nutrition would be an issue throughout this pregnancy. We would have to keep a very close eye on it, and you would have to be vigilant about taking your potions and eating properly if you want to keep the child healthy. The effect that it will have on your health is another matter altogether. It’s not uncommon for perfectly healthy women to experience some change in their magic during pregnancy, and with your magic being as volatile as it is, and your situation being quite rare, there is really no way to know how your magic will react, and how it will affect you.”
“Could it hurt the baby?” Mila asked, her hand coming to rest over her navel.
Draco sighed. “It most likely will not. A witch’s magical core creates a barrier around the uterus to protect the fetus from harmful magic during her pregnancy, and yours appears to have created one successfully. That barrier could fail, though that is very rare. As of right now, the baby is protected. I’m more concerned about you and how you will be affected.”
Mila shook her head. “It doesn’t matter,” she said.
“It does matter,” Draco said emphatically. “It matters a great deal. You matter a great deal.” Mila’s eyes dropped to the floor again, and Draco softened his tone. He had a feeling he knew what this was about. “I know things haven’t always been easy. I imagine they feel downright impossible sometimes. But you have… you can have many years, Mila. With the right potions and practice controlling your magic, you can have a full, real life. There could even come a time, when you’re older, when it is safer for you to have a child. This isn’t your only chance at that.”
She looked at him, and for a moment Draco thought that he had gotten through, that he had guessed the right thing to say. But then she closed her eyes and said, softly, “But it’s my choice, right?”
Draco looked down at his hands. “Of course. It’s your choice.”
“Then I want to keep it.”
Draco nodded. He wished, for her sake, that she was choosing differently, but he also refused to push her. That wasn’t his job. His job was to give her the facts, then give her best care he possibly could once she had made her decision. “All right,” he said. “Then we need a very clear plan going forward. You should be prepared to see me quite a bit for the next seven or eight months. I want to see you once a month, to start, to check on the progress of the pregnancy and to check on your health as well. I’m going to adjust your potion regimen to manage this malnutrition issue, and you must – I cannot stress this enough – you must follow it, to a t.”
“I understand,” Mila said. “You can give the details to Madam Lorenz. She’ll make sure I do everything right.”
Draco smiled wryly. He knew that as the warden Lorenz did all she could to keep the children in her care happy and healthy. But he also knew that it had been a battle with Mila sometimes, especially getting her to take her potions. “All right,” he said, meeting her eyes. “I’ll give her all of the information too, but I need to know that you will take responsibility for this as well, Mila. This isn’t all on her. It’s on you. This may be one of the most important things you ever do. We need to do this right. Anything else, and the consequences could be quite severe, even deadly. And I’m not exaggerating for effect here, either. This is quite serious.”
Mila nodded emphatically. “I’ll be good. I promise. I’ll do everything you tell me to.” She seemed so small, so young, in that moment, that Draco had the unexpected urge to wrap her up and protect her from the world, from everything that was about to happen. But he remembered all that she had already been through, and that she was hardly unfamiliar with difficult things. This was just one more difficult thing on a very long list.
He wrote out a potions prescription and charmed it to fold itself into a paper bird and fly off down to the hospital apothecary to be filled. Then he asked Mila to fetch Madam Lorenz so that they could have a private talk.
The warden was a short, squat woman with charcoal gray hair that framed her friendly, round face in short ringlets. She came into the exam room and sat herself across from Draco with a sigh, her ice blue eyes meeting his in earnest concern and her usually smiling mouth set in a grim line.
“Thank you for coming in,” Draco said to her. “I’m sure by now you’ve been apprised of the situation?”
“I have, Healer Malfoy,” the woman said in her slightly croaky voice. “Though I’m struggling to understand how this could have happened.”
“Is Mila involved with anyone romantically? A young man from the orphanage, perhaps?”
Lorenz shook her head. “Not that I know of. There aren’t any boys older than thirteen at the orphanage currently. She may have a boyfriend outside of the orphanage, however. We do occasionally let her go to visit Hogsmeade when the students are there, so she can socialize. It’s so hard on her, not being allowed to go to Hogwarts herself. It’s good for her to have friends. But as far as a young man… well, I don’t know of one. And we keep quite a close eye on her, you know. We have to.”
“So, no idea who the father of the child might be?”
“Not a clue, I’m afraid. Mila wouldn’t tell you?”
“I didn’t ask.”
Lorenz sat back in her chair at that. “You’re leaving that pleasant task to me, then?”
Draco frowned. “It’s simply not relevant to our treatment plan, so I didn’t feel it was my place to ask. You are certainly welcome to ask her, if you wish.”
“She’s ending the pregnancy?”
Draco steeled himself. “No.”
Lorenz inhaled loudly through her nose, then let the breath out slowly. “She has always been a stubborn child.” Her tone managed to convey both her affection and disapproval simultaneously.
Draco blinked at her, making sure his expression was impassive.
“There is nothing you can do to convince her?” Lorenz asked, her tone becoming almost pleading.
“I was very clear with her about the risks, but the decision is and will always be up to her, and she’s decided to carry to term. As much as I might believe she should make a different choice, I cannot force her to do so. And attempting to force her will only make her stop trusting me as her Healer, and then she may refuse to follow the treatment plan at all.”
She sniffed loudly again. “Yes, I suppose you’re right. I just don’t… I don’t understand it at all. The girl has hardly shown an interest, passion, or attachment to anything. It is hard for me to imagine her wanting to mother a child. She is still only a child herself.”
“She didn’t give me any clue as to her reasons,” Draco said.
“I’m not surprised. She is quite reserved. Self-contained. She’s been that way since she came to us. I don’t know if it’s a result of her inherent nature or of the trauma she endured. I imagine it’s a bit of both.”
Draco nodded, then took a breath to ask the next difficult question. “Has it gotten worse in the past few weeks, that sort of reserved behavior? Or is it the same?”
Lorenz furrowed her brow. “The same as always. Why do you ask?”
Draco looked at her soberly. “I have to wonder if…” He sighed. “If, Merlin forbid, the intercourse that led to her pregnancy was not consensual. Obviously that would be quite tragic, and would complicate things immensely. But I have to ask the question. She’s so closed off and seems unwilling to examine it too deeply. I thought perhaps she was simply protecting the father, but if you don’t even have a candidate in mind for who it could be… Is it possible she has endured a second trauma, without your realizing it?”
Lorenz tilted her chin up. “I would have noticed something like that. We are trained to recognize such things.”
“Of course,” Draco said mildly. “But… seeing as she has a tendency towards reserved, and sometimes difficult, behavior anyway, it might be that the signs are much more subtle with her.”
“I’ve noticed nothing,” Lorenz said, and Draco could tell by her clipped tone that she felt her competence was being questioned.
“Like I said, I had to ask. I’m glad that doesn’t seem to be the case.”
Lorenz looked placated, for the time being, at least, and Draco decided to table the issue for now. Perhaps, if he were able to gain Mila’s trust, she would choose to confide in him herself. So instead he took the opportunity to talk over Mila’s treatment plan with Lorenz, giving her the details of the new potions he was prescribing as well as what he expected for her diet in order to keep the baby healthy.
He was exhausted when he was finished and Madam Lorenz and Mila had bid their goodbyes. He checked the time on his wand and was amazed to find that it was only a little after 9:30.
So it was going to be one of those shifts, the kind that seemed to drag on forever. At least this one was on the shorter side.
Only thirty-four hours to go.
He tracked down Iwu and gave her the details of the examination and Mila’s decision about the pregnancy. She took in his report with the same disappointed acceptance he himself felt.
“Very well,” she said, when he was finished. “We’ll have to be very careful with this one. Keep me updated every time she comes in for an exam, and if there is any whiff of trouble, anything, even if you’re just not sure, let me know right away.”
“Of course, ma’am, I will,” Draco replied.
“This is the first case of this magnitude you’ve ever handled on your own. I know you won’t disappoint me.”
Draco nodded, hearing the threat inherent in that statement as much as the vote of confidence. This was not one he could take lightly. There was little room for error.
He tried very hard not to think about that as he returned to his small batch of charts, choosing instead to focus on the patients in front of him: a brand new little girl who’d just been born the night before, a witch who was eight months pregnant and felt just about ready to pop, and a nervous new mother whose 2-month-old had the sniffles. It was close to 10:30 when he finished, and he was just thinking about taking a quick break and having a snack when Hannah found him, a lab chart in her hand.
He knew immediately, looking at her face, that the results were not good.
“Here,” she said, holding the chart out to him. “They just came through.”
Draco swallowed the dread burning in his throat and made himself open the file. He had to stare at it for a few seconds before his brain could catch up and register what it actually said.
“Perniciosus Totus,” he said aloud. He skimmed the details, seeing that Andromeda’s kidneys, liver, and magical core were particularly affected, though he knew that the suffix Totus meant that the disease was already in most, if not all, of her organs. He looked at Hannah, who was watching him closely. “Has Kipling seen these yet? Does he know the prognosis?” He didn’t know enough about this particular family of diseases yet to be able to gauge such things himself.
Hannah looked down at the floor a moment, and Draco knew that she had the information. Of course, she would have taken the time to ask, knowing he would want to know. “Six to eight months.” Draco bowed his head at her words. “But that’s without treatment,” she went on quickly, putting a hand on his arm. “She could undergo regular Regeneration Charms here, and if she was willing to take the potion regimen, she could stretch that out to two to three years, Kipling says.”
“She’ll do the treatment,” Draco said. He knew it was involved, and expensive, but he would pay for it himself, if need be.
“Well, that’s up to her, obviously,” Hannah said carefully. “I’ve already contacted her to set up an appointment with Kipling to talk about the results and her options. She’ll hear all about it tomorrow.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Draco said with a sigh. “Of course I wouldn’t force her to do the treatment. I only meant that I have no doubt that she will want to.”
“It’s not all that fun, so I hear,” Hannah replied. “The charms are very draining, and she would need to do them once a month to stem the tide of this kind of degeneration. Plus the potions’ side effects… lethargy and nausea are the most common, but some patients don’t react well at all.”
Draco shook his head. “It would be worth it to her. She’ll want to buy all the time she can, to be with her family, with her grandson.”
The realization hit him like The Hogwarts Express going full speed.
Teddy.
“She won’t be able to keep Teddy,” he said, all of these revelations starting to make him feel numb, and a bit lightheaded.
“No,” Hannah agreed. “The stress of raising a child… well, it will be too much for her with everything else, I think. For the treatment to work, she’ll need a lot of rest.”
Draco nodded. “Not to mention that a five-year-old shouldn’t have to watch all that happening to his grandmother.” The only parent he’s never known.
Although Harry was like a second parent in a way, since he was the godfather. And Draco was a third parent, essentially, by association. They kept Teddy regularly, and Harry visited him often. Draco spent time with him whenever he could, though, since he had started his residency, it wasn’t as frequently as he would like.
But now…
“Harry and I will take him, I suppose.” It was the only logical thing. Harry and Draco were the only adults that Teddy trusted enough and who didn’t already have familial obligations of their own.
And Harry will want it this way. He’ll insist on it, and rightfully so.
He met Hannah’s eyes, to see that they were glistening with sorrow, a rarity for her. She wasn’t really the crying type.
“I’m sorry, Draco,” she said. “About all of this. I wish the results were different.”
“Me too,” Draco said, looking at the chart again. “But people get sick. That’s just the way it is.”
“You and Harry will be great with Teddy, though. He adores you both.”
“Yeah,” Draco said, wishing he had the same confidence. He knew there might come a time when he and Harry would have to take on more responsibility for Teddy, maybe even take him in permanently. And he had no qualms about that. He loved his little cousin. He just didn’t think it would be so soon. He thought they’d be a bit more settled than this. The timing certainly wasn’t ideal.
But, he also knew, people did what they had to do, in times like these. And he wasn’t about to let Harry, or Andromeda, or Teddy down. He refused to.
SickPuppy: Yes, Draco enjoys teasing Harry quite a bit… but he always delivers, in the end. I have to admit I took some pleasure in your long suffering sigh, considering you’ve caused a fair few from me yourself :) You’re right, Blaise and Vesper’s history is going to take some time to reveal. You will get it in pieces. There will also be some current Blaise/Vesper activity to watch to keep you occupied (not to give you too much of a spoiler).
Dedicated_Reader: Thanks! I appreciate your skepticism, as these kinds of stories can be tricky. I do have a fair bit of practice with this kind of storytelling in my original fiction, though, so I hope you will trust me to make this a good ride. The plotlines, while they all have their individual moments, will be intertwining constantly, so much so that I hope they come together to feel like one big story by the end. That’s the goal anyway!
kittyfivetatts: Thank you! Lol I know I spoiled you guys with the long chapters for the last fic. Sorry I won’t be able to do that again! I hope you will keep reading though. I promise to make it worth your while :)
Book_addict_89: Thanks! Yay for smut, indeed. And I appreciate what you said about how Harry and Draco are together. That is my favorite part of writing this honestly. I can guarantee there will be lots more where that came from.
Featherquill: Thanks! There’s actually a lot of Potions involved in Healing, so it was always a career that Draco was considering even back at Hogwarts. He wants to do good in the world just like Harry does, but in his own way.
I’m glad you’re intrigued by the mystery of Blaise and Vesper! That will be an ongoing puzzle that will slowly be pieced together, but all will be revealed in time. As for the changes in perspective, glad you like them! You didn’t get Hermione this time, obviously, but she’s coming up next chapter, so stay tuned!
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Unstoppable