The Day After Tomorrow

THE HANDS OF TIME

36 - THE HANDS OF TIME

SHE'D faded in and out of consciousness for the first few days. Astoria could barely recall the blur of voices and sounds, only that she'd felt a hand, smoothing back her dark tresses like a comforting presence, and known instinctively that it had been Daphne.

When she'd finally managed to blink back the stickiness of her eyelids and wrenched them open she'd had to physically gag against the pain. Her mind had been doughy with drugs and her muscles aching with the aftermaths of the attack and then it had hit her. The memory of him shoving her down and the wetness of blood that she now knew to be his, soaking through her robes. She could still remember the way the oxygen had burst from her lungs at the impact. All of it, in a blink of the eye, and she'd struggled up in bed with the rush of it. The first sounds she had mumbled out past her dry, cracked lips were his name.

Draco.

And against all better judgement, she'd pushed off the covers, drowned an alarming number of Pepper Up potions and taken a scalding shower as if to shock her body into cooperating. When the dull throb of bruises, mending muscles and fatigue hadn't vanished, she'd drowned a couple vials of painkilling potions too, because she was on a mission, one that couldn't wait for her body to catch up.

Astoria had come to visit Draco. Wasn't that what good fiancés were meant to do, she thought half bitterly but felt immediately guilty. It was hard to disguise duty from selfishness now. What had begun as a begrudging union had somehow turned into an unlikely friendship. Something which for her had become more ever since. Merlin only knew what that meant, only that she was walking with a strange stilted purpose to his ward.

When she entered the clean long hallways, the route was familiar, she'd been up and down these plain whitewashed halls enough times for her own appointments. The faint sweet burnt smell of healing was in the air, and it was an unlikely familiar comfort that soothed the panic in her chest. 

He'd shoved her from a blast, put his own life in danger to save hers. That was the kind of debt that would be near impossible to repay, but she was willing to try. When Astoria reached his door, she pushed it open, willing herself to stand taller and appear stronger.

"Astoria?" Narcissa rose, her manners an ingrained reaction that made her gesture for the girl to enter. The last time she'd seen her, she'd been drenched in blood, slumped below her son. "You never said you were coming." Something in Narcissa had imagined it would be Hermione Granger, back again to check up on him. The girl had looked so tragic and broken that Narcissa was still having a hard time recalling that that emotion had been directed at her son. Who would have imagined?

Despite the polite tenor of her voice, Astoria couldn't help but feel it like an accusation. "I was worried." She explained. "No one was telling me anything. I had to come see for myself." She took a step deeper into the room, lying still on the bed was Draco. She'd never seen him look so completely harmless, there was nothing on his face to suggest the boy she knew. The one who wore his legacy like both a badge of honour and a battered plate of armour. She heard herself draw in a half startled breath, more surprise than dismay. The only indication that he was alive at all was the soft rise and fall of his chest beneath the soft material of the quilt. Before she could stop herself, the words were out of her mouth, anguished and heavy with guilt. "You must hate me."

"Hate you?" Narcissa felt a wave of pity for the younger girl. To have such a simple view of the world must be a blessing as much as it was a curse. "No, no I don't hate you. It was not you who shot him with the spell." Whoever it was though, that was where her anger was directed.