The Malfoy Project

𝟕𝟏 - 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐨𝐲 𝐖𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐅𝐚𝐜𝐞𝐬

༻⚜༺     

     Ainsley has pneumonia.  

     At first I had thought nothing of it. Pneumonia is more serious than the common cold, but Pomfrey and Wainscott should have been able to cure it easily. There were spells and potions we could use to target each symptom. I knew because Pansy had once caught pneumonia in our Third Year and she was in and out of the Hospital Wing in barely two days. Ainsley was in good hands and will be right as rain in a matter of days. 

     And then a matter of days passed and she's still bedridden, with a raging forty-degree fever that refuses to subside. I knew I wasn't allowed to visit her; Montague would have blown his top if he found out, and I wasn't looking to cause unnecessary distress for Ainsley. She wouldn't want to see me, anyway. But worry clawed at me every night, grinning at me and bearing down on my chest like some giant demented monster, and eventually I could bear it no longer.

     I had to wait for the little hours of the morning, when everybody was long-asleep, before creeping out of bed and making my silent way to the Hospital Wing. Thankfully, her bed was the only one occupied (like I said, Pomfrey and Wainscott were incredible at what they did) and I was able to pull up a chair and sit by her bed without worrying about waking anyone else up. 

     Her eyelids were flickering in her sleep; her skin was damp and so scalding to the touch I jumped back in shock when I tried to touch her. Her lips were tinged a pale grey-blue, and she would have looked like a corpse had it not been for the uneven rise and fall of her chest. 

     She couldn't die from pneumonia, could she? As far as I knew, she came from a wizarding family, and she barely had any pure Muggle blood in her. If anything was to take her out, it would have to be someone stronger like Montague, or a freak accident of some kind, maybe an explosion. 

     Then again, I don't know much about her parents — I have never asked. Either way, of all the horrific deaths I could conjure in my mind for Ainsley, none of them had included sickness, least of all one as mundane and piddling as fucking pneumonia.

     Then I admonished myself for overthinking. We were wizards; we lived for centuries on end. We were not susceptible to things like fevers and colds like Muggles are. Only magical ailments posed significant danger to us, and pneumonia was a painfully Muggle ailment; the plebeian of maladies. 

     I sat there for a long time, just looking at her while allowing my mind to drift. When the sun began to filter through the windows and I heard the clock chime the hour, I set the chair back and returned to my room.

     The next night, I did the same thing. If my constant intake of alcohol provided some dull, temporary suffocation to my feelings, Ainsley's presence did the opposite. With her I was always free, always breathing. There is some inexplicable comfort that comes with her being around me, even if it was just the same room or down the hallway.  

     And in her state of sickness I made up another reality, one in which she did not hate me. One in which I was good, and kind, and pure, where she looked at me in love and understanding, and I was capable of the same.

     I took her hand, gently, slowly, so as not to wake her up. It felt like holding a piece of burning coal, and I resisted the urge to hold it tighter. I folded my other arm along the side of her bed and rested my chin on it. I stayed like that for hours, listening to the ticking of the giant mechanical clock and creaking of the ancient stones echoing through the empty castle. 

     On the third night, I brought Neruda along with me. I propped the book in the crook of my leg and reading it out for her as I held her hand: