Muggle | 𝐹𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑊𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑙𝑒𝑦

Chapter 137

I couldn't bear to open my eyes. All I could feel was pain as the blood gushed out of me. I was writhing on the bathroom floor, sobbing weakly.

"What did you do!?" I heard Draco yell as he dropped himself down on his knees, whispering my name helplessly. "Lexi?"

"I — I didn't —" Harry was muttering to himself, not knowing what he was even saying.

"MURDER! MURDER IN THE BATHROOM! MURDER!" Moaning Myrtle started screaming.

I was growing weaker by each passing second, but the pain remained worse than ever. I couldn't scream. I couldn't even breathe.

The door banged open and I halfway opened my eyes, seeing that Snape had burst into the room, his face livid. He pushed Harry roughly aside and knelt beside me, drew out his wand, and traced it over me, muttering.

Slowly, I felt the pain going away. The blood was floating back into me as Snape kept repeating his spell, until I was finally able to breathe properly again.

Harry and Draco were both watching me, looking horrified as they were soaked and covered in blood. Moaning Myrtle was still sobbing and wailing overhead.

"Stand up, Hooper," said Snape coldly, getting to his feet. "There may be a certain amount of scarring, but if you take dittany immediately we might avoid even that. Get her to the hospital wing, Draco... I need to have a word with 'The Chosen One'."

Hesitantly, Draco wrapped an arm around me, helping me up. I grimaced and winced in pain as I tried to stand up.

As Draco was helping me out of the bathroom, I caught Harry's eyes; he was lost for words, but the guilt was washed all over his feature.

I gave him a feeble smile, but I felt too weak to be able to utter a word, and so with Draco's arm still around me supportively, we left the bathroom.

As we walked toward the hospital wing, a deadly silence filled the space between us. Not once did Draco look at me, and he made no sign of wanting to even ask how I was feeling.

"Oh, dear..." Madam Pomfrey gasped as she saw me, helping me toward one of the beds inside the ward. "What happened?"

But none of us answered. She then asked Draco to stay behind as she drew the curtains around my bed, trying to heal the remaining wounds on my chest with dittany. But when she was done, it was obvious that I was going to carry a few of them as scars for the rest of my life.

When Madam Pomfrey drew back the curtains and moved away from my bed, Draco — who had been sitting on a chair nearby — promptly got to his feet.

"How is she?" he asked Madam Pomfrey, avoiding my gaze, as if I weren't even there.

"She's good to go," she answered. "Although, I think it's better if she stayed the night; just to be safe."

With that, she left to attend to her other patients. I watched Draco from where I laid on the bed; his white shirt was still soaked with blood.

He came to a halt for a second, as if to decide whether he should talk to me or not. Although having thought against it, he turned on his heels to leave the hospital wing.

But mustering all the energy I had left in me, I called loudly after him, "Wait!"

Draco came to a stop, but he still wouldn't turn to face me and instead merely glanced at me from behind his shoulder.

"Please, stay..." I muttered weakly, hoping that he would hear me.

Draco looked back at the ward's doors, considering it. But at last, with a deep sigh, he finally turned toward me and walked forward, sitting on a chair beside my bed.

"Don't think for a second things will go back to normal just because you look pitiful," he said coldly, his eyes on me.

I cracked a light smile, trying to sit up straight and so I leaned my back against the bed's headboard.

I opened my mouth to respond, but Draco beat me into in as he leaned closer to me and snarled in a hushed tone, "Why would you even do that?"

"Wh-what?" I mumbled.

He stared at me for some while, as if trying to understand me, until his face relaxed.

"Why would you save me...?" he whispered softly.

The look in his eyes had changed; it no longer looked harsh. It wasn't worried either. He just craved to make sense out of his own thoughts. He looked confused.

"I've been nothing but horrible to you since the day we met," he said quietly, mostly talking to himself as he looked down at his knees.

"Well, that's not true —"

"Yes, it is," he cut me off firmly, looking back up at me with sternness. "You accidentally bumped into me on your first day here, and I held it against you for God knows how long. I hexed you. I handed you to Umbridge. I kept calling you a Mudblood, but you didn't even care."

"Calling me a Mudblood didn't really hurt me that much —"

"Yeah maybe, but I also left you when you obviously needed someone to be there for you," he said, and I knew he was talking about the day Fred and I had a fight in Hosmeade.

I looked up at Draco again, but just then I realized he was no longer the boy I had bumped into two and a half years ago in King's Cross station. But then again, he wasn't the boy I had read about in the books either.

He had changed. I could feel it.

But as if only just remembering that he had kissed me, Draco suddenly tensed up, his face becoming stern once more.

"I still don't get you," he said bitterly, his voice no longer gentle. "I know what I did wasn't precisely — right — but you don't know what it was like when you reacted the way you did!"

I looked away from him. I tried to at least call Madam Pomfrey for some water just to distract us both from the conversation, but saw that she had gone to her office and her other patients were both asleep.

"What did you want me to do?" I asked, avoiding his eyes. "I — I was still with Fred." I tried to reason.

"Is that why it was weird?" he snarled.

"No..."

"Tell me the truth; is it because of the family I come from?"

"N-no."

"Is it because of who I am?" he said louder this time, and I knew he was referring to the Dark Mark on his forearm.

"No!" I said fiercely.

"Then God damn it, Hooper! What is it!?"

"It's because we're cousins!"