When The Smoke Clears

Crossroads

Draco decided. He opened his mouth and took a breath.

A hand clamped on his shoulder. But it was warm and insistent.

"Potter?" Draco muttered and thought he saw his face, green-eyed and smiling.

No. The Dark Lord's hand was cold and unyielding.

"Draco Malfoy?" The Healer shook him awake a bit harder, and the young man pulled himself from the dream, blinking in the bright, unnatural light.

The eyes that bored into his own were not Potter's but were such a similar shade of green that Draco felt his heart skip. He wondered briefly if the Healer was perhaps a distant relation, but her honeyed curls and bronzed skin did not coincide. The tag pinned to her chest read Veritas Johansson.

"That's me," Draco said quickly, embarrassed that he had fallen asleep. A crick in his neck had developed from slumping in the rickety wooden chair. The waiting room at St. Mungo's Hospital was crowded as usual, but the patients and visitors had kept a considerable distance between themselves and the former Death Eater. Draco hadn't realized how many people knew his face until he left Hogwarts - or perhaps they recognized Lucius in his features, which was worse.

"Your parents are ready," Johansson said in an even tone, but her smile had faded. "Come."

The Healer turned abruptly and headed down the corridor, lime green robes swishing in her wake. Draco stood and followed her; as they reached the rickety stairwell, he retrieved a silver pocket watch from inside his robes. He frowned as he realized it was six in the morning - he'd been waiting for nearly twelve hours. Kept waiting, more likely. The instant he'd walked in, the Welcoming Witch had grimaced so horribly he knew the staff wouldn't make his visit easy.

Johansson emerged onto the landing for the fourth floor. "Rebecca Lee Crumpler ward, third door on the right. Good day, sir," She added, in a pained tone, and disappeared down the stairs to help the next visitor.

Draco found it both amusing and disappointing that the Healer felt he was dangerous enough to escort, but not important enough to be led the whole way. Slipping his timepiece into his robes, Draco strode towards the Rebecca Lee Crumpler ward.

When he arrived at the polished wooden door, Draco's hand paused to open it. He hadn't seen his parents together in over six months, and the last time he'd seen his father...it wasn't an encounter he liked to dwell on. But before Draco could address his second thoughts, the door swung open. A tall Healer with a brutish face and hooded blue eyes regarded the black-clad wizard coldly.

Draco straightened his shoulders and cleared his throat. "I'm here to see-"

"You're the Malfoy boy," Interrupted the Healer, whose nametag read Théo Hyacinthe. He spat Draco's name like a curse. "Come in and be quick about it. You have thirty minutes."

Draco, who was not used to being addressed thus, flushed red. He opened his mouth to argue, thought better of it, and pushed past Hyacinthe to enter.

The ward was small, stark white, and freezing, reminding Draco of a marble tomb. The room lacked any kind of decoration - even the bedsheets were a faded gray. The only feature to differentiate the ward from a prison cell was a single window, wide but short, that let in the pale light of dawn. A curtain the same shade as the bedsheets was drawn across the far side of the room. But in the bed closest to the door sat a pale, thin figure, her dim blue eyes rising from a slim novel...

"Mother." Draco thought his throat might close up when he saw her, or perhaps he'd cry. But all he felt was a rush of muted relief, that she was safe, and not yet imprisoned.