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Sister Healer	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 2860 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

Chapter List
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Chapter Five—A Fifth of the Attention

            Harry set down Malfoy’s lunch carefully on his desk and then glanced around with a sigh and a shake of his head. So, Harry went all the way to Diagon Alley to get lunch for the berk, and of course he couldn’t be here when Harry got back, because that would be too polite.

            “Malfoy?” he called down the corridor, slamming the door of the Socrates Office back against the wall and ignoring the muffled sounds that came through the doors of the other offices in consequence. Everyone knew that Socrates Aurors were some of the most dangerous and had the most privileges. No one would dare complain to his face. “Are you lurking out here talking to Healer Alto again?”

            No one answered him, but Harry had to pause and frown as he thought about that. If Malfoy had gone off to spend time with her again, then his tea was going to get cold, and Harry didn’t want to listen to the sniping that would inevitably follow. He wanted to find him. He drew his wand.

            “Point Me Draco Malfoy,” he said clearly, and watched as the wand spun around in his hand and then stopped, quivering, pointing towards the far end of the corridor. Harry shook his head and set off. He would probably find Malfoy chattering comfortably away with one of his friends in another Corps—it sounded as though he’d been better at making, and keeping, friends than Harry had—and he would stare at Harry in awful wonder when he came up, demanding to know why—

            Then the muscles in Harry’s gut tightened, and he thought he heard Malfoy’s voice in his ear, thin and distant.

            No. I don’t think that’s what he’s doing. Not at all. It can’t be.

            Harry didn’t know why it “couldn’t” be, but he found that he was speeding up, his breath coming faster as he bounded down the corridor, his feet striking the floor with unusual speed that he still didn’t know was going to be enough.

*

            The man had come to a step instead of murdering Miranda right away. Draco reckoned that was a good thing, but it still didn’t tell him how to get out of this cage. He drummed with one frantic hand on the bars, enough that one of the flame-foxes alongside the man turned its head and snarled at him.

            The man didn’t pay attention, though. Draco could see the shine of his blue eyes from the side, they were that bright. He looked at Miranda as though he wanted to sear his gaze into her, and then he nodded and said, “You think that you can get away with this? I don’t know why. You are a rival, yes, but I didn’t think a rival would spring from this direction.” He paused, then added, “Unless you think you can rescue them from my domination. That would make sense. It would also mean that you don’t understand the nature of my flaw.”

            He’s a twisted, Draco thought, and then wondered why that had felt like a shattering revelation. Of course he bloody was, what with the foxes as companions and the flaw and the Dark magic—and the apparent desire to murder a woman who had never done him harm.

            But it sounded, now that he thought about it, as though this was not just a twisted, but a combination of them. A twisted taking over another twisted? Because it made no sense for him to speak as though his flaw was less visible than his ability to wandlessly trap people in cages. Draco shook his head.

            Miranda looked at the man with those shimmering grey eyes, and said, “Hello, Lewin. I’m sorry to see that we’ve lost you to the Dark Arts, too.”

            The man sighed, and Draco thought he could feel the heat of his breath from here. “You were always going to lose him. Because I found him.”

            A twisted who preys on Healers? That was what it sounded like. Draco wondered if the same man had seized control of Jerome and Holinshead. He didn’t remember the same blue eyes on Jerome, though.

            And I don’t know if they were on Holinshead, because Potter killed her before I could get there.

            The thought melted away as Miranda said, “I will not let you hurt him,” and Draco suddenly realized how stupid he was, to just stand there while someone threatened the woman he was in love with. He screamed and flung himself against the bars of the cage, battering, scratching, trying to tear it down.

            Once again, Lewin, if that was the man’s name, didn’t seem inclined to look at him. He was examining Miranda instead, and she stood there and let him, defiant as always, not inclined to look aside. Why should she? She was the beautiful one, she was the true one, and she was the one who would die if Draco didn’t find some way to get out of this stupid cage—

            And then the door burst open and Potter was there, charging in like the conquering hero that he probably thought he was, and everything changed.

            Two of the fire-foxes with the twisted sprang up into the air and came down facing Potter. The rest turned around and snarled, but didn’t move closer, and Lewin never looked at all. Perhaps he thought he wouldn’t need more than a few of his companions to handle someone like Potter.

            Draco could have warned him better, but he stood there instead, his lips pulling back from his teeth as he smiled, and didn’t feel like warning the idiot. Why should he? He had tried to threaten Miranda.

            Potter crouched and moved his wand in a quick swing that took it near the fire-foxes. The nearest ones snapped, their teeth darting out like flames, but Potter’s wand was away and gone, and what was left instead, hanging above their heads, was a rope of water. It dropped around their necks and tugged them towards each other, making them scramble and keen and yelp. Draco laughed aloud as he listened to them suffering.

            They could die for all he cared. The only one in the room that he cared about surviving was Miranda.

            Well. And it might be nice if Potter could live, too, Draco conceded. He might be able to figure out some way to remove them from these cages.

            The fire-foxes disappeared, and another pair turned around. At the same moment, Lewin lifted his wand to kill Miranda. She ducked her head and then looked up with such defiance, such quiet courage, that Draco dropped his wand and kicked at the bars in a frenzy. There had to be some way out of here, he had to make Lewin pay, he was going to do it, he was going to make sure the bastard could never hurt anyone again—

            Or so he thought, because Potter had already sprung up and somersaulted over the foxes, coming down lightly between Lewin and Miranda.

            Lewin’s curse reflected back from a mirror-like Shield Charm that Potter had conjured from nowhere, and he snarled and tried to create a cage, but Potter had already darted too close to him for that, carrying the battle to him, and the cage jumped into being, collided with the cage Miranda stood in, and collapsed into nothingness. Draco smiled. So the cages could destroy each other. He started to nudge and kick and move, as much as he could, his cage across the floor in the direction of Miranda’s.

            Potter and Lewin were pressed so close together that Draco thought for a moment someone peering through the doors would mistake them for lovers, entwined and kicking and hissing and spitting. Another irrelevant thought, and he scraped it off. He was closer to Miranda than he had been a moment ago, which only proved that the cages could be moved. He was going to reach her, and rescue her, and then they would run.

            What about Potter?

            Potter can handle himself—

            That was right when Potter screamed.

            Draco turned around in spite of himself, which he attributed to that Auror training which ran so deep that, it said, the only acceptable response to a partner’s scream was to react as though you were the one being hurt. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have turned his eyes from Miranda. He didn’t know if he was capable of turning his eyes from Miranda, not anymore.

            Potter was backing away from Lewin, his head ducked and his hand raised to an ugly brand on his right cheek. His eyes were flaring, but Draco saw fear and pain in them as well as rage. Lewin, whose expression he couldn’t see from the way the man was standing, raised his wand and shook his head.

            “You should not have challenged me,” he said. “You could have lived if you had known when to back off.”

            Potter stared at his face, and that statement only seemed to madden him further, although Draco didn’t know why. He swept his wand down and bellowed something so outraged and deep that Draco couldn’t make out any of the words in it. Sparks leaped from his wand and spat at Lewin, who laughed, leaning back and gesturing negligently as though he could make them fly away and vanish.

            Not that the sparks really mattered, Draco thought wisely. They were the kind of trick that children used when they first got their wands, one of the manifestations of accidental magic. It didn’t mean Potter was going to—

            The sparks caught on Lewin’s hair and face, and then some of them fell on his flame-foxes.

            And they all screamed, as one.

            Potter was panting, his expression a rictus of triumph. He was staring at something on the ground, or just above the floor, something that hovered between the flame-foxes. Draco craned his neck, trying to see, although he could feel the pressure like a hand on the back of his nape that urged him to look at Miranda.

            The air had changed between Lewin and his companions, thickening so Draco could make out the faint outlines of bonds. As he watched, more fire spread and sketched more bonds, binding Lewin to all the foxes and all the foxes to each other. When fire touched one, it spread to the others. They all writhed and cried out in identical voices, and they all burned to death.

            Potter leaned towards Lewin and smiled into his face. That close, Draco thought he had to worry about catching on fire, too, but he didn’t. Perhaps he was immune to his own magic, or—more likely—he had used a spell that would affect Lewin but not anyone else.

            “You thought you were clever,” he said quietly. “You aren’t. When you come back again, I’ll be waiting for you.”

            Draco felt his eyes narrow. What did Potter know about twisted who could possess other twisted? And why hadn’t he told Draco?

            Lewin opened his mouth as though he would roar back, but the only thing that emerged from inside it was fire, like a dragon breathing out. He whimpered and collapsed into a pile of ashes, drifting down and around each other. Potter watched this with concentrated attention for a moment, and then kicked the ashes. They whirled into the air, and more fire from Potter’s wand caught and separated them. They were gone in seconds. Potter whipped around and moved his wand through the motions of a complicated banishing spell, and the cages followed their master into oblivion.

            Miranda fell. Draco sprang forwards and caught her, cradling her close. Miranda smiled at him, her eyes wide and her face sheened with the sweat of delirium.

            “I thought,” she whispered, “I thought I might be able to hold myself there, strong and brave, enough to die well. But I can’t now.” She closed her eyes, and her head drooped against Draco’s chest.

            Draco turned around, half-stumbling, already thinking about ways to get her to St. Mungo’s so she would be all right. They couldn’t refuse to treat her, she was one of them, if he could only find a way—

            “Malfoy?”

            Potter was advancing towards him, holding one hand out as if he would take Miranda from Draco, and he was in the way. Draco snarled at him hard enough that Potter stepped back, staring at him, and then Draco burst past his shoulder and began to run down the corridors of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement towards the nearest exit. He had to stop on the way to cast a Lightening Charm, though. Miranda wasn’t heavy, but her weight dragged at him, and he didn’t want to lose a moment that might save her life.

            He cursed the necessity when he heard Potter catch up with him again. Potter trotted beside him as if he’d never heard of being tired, and when Draco tossed his hair out of his eyes and glared at him, Potter did nothing but smile pleasantly.

            “Did you need help?”

            “I’m taking her to hospital,” Draco snarled back at him, “a place where you can’t follow. Not that you were there when I needed you, anyway.”

            Potter came to a stop, and his face drained of so much color his eyes looked black, instead of green. Draco turned away and went on running. He could remember a time, perhaps even a day ago, when he would have felt curiosity about what he had said to make Potter react that way.

            But not now. Not when life would drain of color if she died.

*

            “You realize that this could have been a public relations disaster for the Ministry, that someone could have seen you killing this former Healer and been seriously upset?”

            Harry shrugged wearily and rubbed at the bandaged cut on his arm. He sat in front of Julian Okazes, as usual, the Head Auror’s second-in-command, and the one who was told off to tell him off. Okazes sighed and swiped a hand across his eyes. Harry peeked at them from under his fringe, but, so far, the eyes facing him didn’t shine with that lightning-colored radiance.

            Good. Because after fighting two foes that that had happened to, Harry wasn’t going to hold back from cursing Okazes if he saw it again.

            “And now you want another partner.” Okazes sighed again and went through some of the papers on his desk. “You realize we would have a hard time finding someone else to work with you, given Vane’s death on your watch and the tales that Hale is still spreading?”

            Harry carefully didn’t speak for a moment, so he wouldn’t curse Hale’s name in a way even the laid-back Okazes couldn’t ignore. “I know, sir,” he said. “But you could always do what I’ve been urging you to do for years.”

            Okazes gave him a look so flat Harry could picture sliding across it. “Not this nonsense again,” he said, quietly but forcefully. “Aurors don’t work unpartnered, Auror Potter. You ought to know that, as many times as you’ve asked and I’ve quoted the regulations to you.”

            “Not in other Corps,” Harry said. “But in Socrates Corps, Auror Eric Latham, who died recently, worked without a partner.”

            “He was in between them,” Okazes said, grinding his teeth. “A suitable one was being sought for him.”

            “But he still went into the field without one.”

            “And died for it.”

            “I’m not Latham,” Harry said, leaning forwards on the edge of the seat. “Do you think I would die as easily as he did? And if I did, can you pretend the Ministry would be sad about losing someone who is, as you say, a public relations disaster for them?”

            Okazes flinched, but Harry could see the idea taking root in the back of his eyes. If someone found a solution to the Potter problem once and for all, that person would be lauded, rewarded, perhaps even considered for a shot at the Head Auror position once the current one retired or died…

            He would have solved a problem no one else could solve. And he would have praise and a reward waiting for him when he wanted it.

            It didn’t take him long to make up his mind. He nodded and slid a thick, creamy parchment across the desk to Harry. Harry’s hand trembled as he picked it up, and he scowled, hoping he hadn’t showed that to Okazes. But this was the form he had been trying to get hold of for two years, since Ron left. Even with Lionel, he had tried, because it would have been better for him to leave once he realized what he thought of Lionel and what Lionel thought of him. Sign this, and he would agree to work without a partner.

            And if you get injured, then what happens, since St. Mungo’s won’t treat you?

            Harry shrugged the thought away. So St. Mungo’s wouldn’t treat him. It wasn’t the end of the world. What really mattered was that he would have what he wanted—the freedom and the quiet to pursue his career the way it should be. Perhaps he could find someone in another Corps to work with, someone who had demonstrated the kind of ruthlessness necessary to working with the Socrates group.

            And perhaps he would simply endure the rest of his Auror path alone. He didn’t think it would last very long.

            “Mind that you get Malfoy to sign it, too.”

            Harry blinked and looked up. Then he flushed, wondering how long Okazes had been sitting there and watching him caress the parchment as if it was his lover.

            “Yes, sir,” he said, bowing his head to Okazes before he turned and left the office, the spring that had been missing for a long time back in his stride.

*

            “I need you to sign this.”

            Draco started and looked up. The Healers had let him stay in hospital with Miranda, but he hadn’t expected an intrusion before morning. They seemed to understand the sacred nature of his grief, and wouldn’t come in. He turned around, glaring, wondering why a Healer would think a form to be filled out more important than Miranda’s suffering.

            It was Potter, swirling into sight out from behind an Invisibility Cloak. Draco remembered the bloody thing from Hogwarts, but he hadn’t thought he would be forced to see it again. He stood up, controlling his angry shaking with an effort. “What do you think you’re doing?” he hissed under his breath. “The Healers banned you!”

            “Fat lot of good that did them,” Potter said, so unimpressed that Draco just stared at him. Potter held out a piece of parchment that must be the form he was talking about, and Draco reached impatiently for it. He would sign anything, as long as Potter would go away and leave him alone.

            Anything, except the words that he saw at the top of the page. Draco stared, then leveled another glare at Potter.

            “Why in the world would you demand to be assigned another partner?” he whispered. A moan and a movement from Miranda in the bed reminded him that he had more than just his own tender sensibilities to care for here, and he winced and moved away from her, shutting the door of her room behind him with a steady thump. “Well?” he hissed at Potter.

            Potter looked at him without expression for a long moment. Draco pushed his hair out of his eyes and frowned at Potter. He didn’t know why he would stand still like that and act as though he was the one who had it hard when Draco had been sitting for hours beside Miranda’s bed, trying to figure out whether she had been damaged or not. The Healers thought not, they assigned her inability to wake up to shock, but Draco knew better. She had been fine until Lewin died.

            “No one’s replacing you,” Potter said at last. “I just prefer to work alone, and not with a partner who neglects my safety and his own because he’s infatuated with a witness.”

            Draco ground his teeth. “I would have killed Lewin if I could,” he said. “That bloody cage imprisoned me, but—”

            “It’s not that,” Potter said, and thrust his arm in front of him. Draco blinked at the long, bandaged cut that ran down it. “Do you remember seeing me receive this?” Potter asked. “Or the blood on the floor?”

            “No,” Draco said at last. “I was under the impression that his spells didn’t hurt you badly.”

            Potter snorted. “Because you were occupied with her. I would have asked for your help, but you were already gone. And then when I went after you…what you said…” His face looked, for a moment, as pale as it had been when Draco had uttered those words about not needing him. Then Potter swallowed and soldiered on. “Well, you’re right. You’ve had to face one twisted by yourself now, and you didn’t make it to the battle with the one before that. We don’t work well together as partners. We can save each other’s lives a few times, maybe, and listen to each other’s dark pasts, but it’s not the same thing.”

            Draco shook his head. “I didn’t mean I wanted to stop being partners with you, you berk.” He heard a moan from Miranda’s room, and cast an anxious glance over his shoulder. He tried to turn to Potter, but his attention was distracted, and he knew he wouldn’t make his arguments as well as he should have. “I meant—I meant you were in the way, and I didn’t want to deal with you right then.”

            Potter shrugged and gestured with the form he’d held out for Draco to sign. “And now you won’t have to deal with me again.”

            “Listen,” Draco said, and snatched up the form and crumpled it. Potter caught it in midair with a murmured spell, and then used a second to smooth it out again. Draco shook his head impatiently. “I can—I can ensure that this won’t happen again. It’s an extraordinary case. I think I’m in love, and I won’t be in love with all our witnesses on all our cases.”

            Potter stared at him. Then he shook his head. “In love with someone after you’ve seen her three times? Draco, what—”

            “If you’re about to say it’s unnatural,” Draco said softly, his hand going to his wand, “to say it’s blamable, or to say it must have something to do with her that’s wrong, I would advise you to think very strongly about your words, instead. And to find different ones.”

            “No,” Potter said. “But I do think it’s not like you, and I do think we should talk about this.” He reached out as if he would take Draco’s arm.

            Draco avoided him, maddened by the thought that Potter might take him from Miranda, and struck before he thought about it.

            Potter stared at the blood spreading up his other arm, in a cut identical to the bandaged one. Then he looked at Draco without expression, nodded, and pulled the Cloak up until only his head projected outside it.

            “You’re going to wish that you’d signed the form,” he said. “Because I don’t deal with people who injure me on purpose, and I don’t deal with people who scream at me about the rules but can’t be arsed to obey them themselves. Signing the form would have been easier.” And he turned away and left.

            Draco closed his eyes. He tried to control his breathing and the whirling in his head, and couldn’t.

            Didn’t Potter understand that this being different from the way he normally acted was part of the point? He’d never felt about someone the way he felt about Miranda. Even his affection for Daphne had been planned, not spontaneous. He was finally getting over her imprisonment, and now Potter wanted to imply that it was Miranda’s fault—

            She cried out. Draco immediately turned towards her room, thoughts of Potter drifting away from him like snowflakes.

*

            unneeded: Well, there still needs to be the explanation of how and why this other twisted who can take over bodies wants to target her.

            SP777: Harry doesn’t trust her, either, but he also thinks that he doesn’t understand Draco and wishes to avoid engaging with him too deeply. If Draco wants to fall in love with random women, he can.
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Sister Healer