Canary Creams and New Yellow Paint - (DRARRY)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Draco wakes in fragments. He hears snippets of conversation, but none are riveting enough to rouse him.

"Good heavens! What has the boy got himself into now? Hand me the dittany, Lovegood."

"Luna, do you still have the — well, where'd you get it then?"

"... Hello darling. My, my, what a nasty scrape you've got yourself into. Scorpius is all right, but I fear he may be a bit traumatised by all this. It'd be rather rude of you not to wake up. Our son would feel responsible for the rest of his life."

"Hi," the voice is quiet, and he doesn't recognise it in his sleep-fogged state. "I'd really like for you to be okay. Please? It's been so long since we've spoken, Draco, and I..."

"You won't take him! You will not. I don't care how many laws he's broken; he is my patient and he's staying right here until he's recovered. Fully. No exertion, that's my order. Being arrested sounds like exertion to me."

The last thing he hears is. "That's enough of that." A potion pours down his throat, and then Draco is wide awake.

He blinks wearily. He's still in the Hogwarts hospital wing. "Poppy?"

His clothes are drenched in sweat even though his shirt, at least, has been changed.

"There, now. You're alive." Madam Pomfrey's face is a welcome sight. "Everyone else is fine. Let's see about this new scar of yours, shall we?"

"New scar?"

She prods a finger lightly against his cheek, and it smarts. "Permanent, that."

"What happened to Teddy?"

She helps him sit up and props him against the frame of the bed with a glass of water in his hand.

"Drink up. They brought Lupin here while he was still in wolf form — trust me, I gave him an earful about that once he was human again. Honestly. What would have happened if he'd still been locked inside with all of you? I knew he couldn't have had any Wolfsbane Potion in there, what with the nature of your confinement. I gave him his potion and treated a few minor wounds, and, once the sun rose, he was back to normal. Exhausted, but otherwise all right."

She gives him a menacing look. "You're to explain exactly what happened. Right now. I couldn't get a bit out of the others before the Aurors were knocking down my door."

"Where are they?"

"Your friends? They've been locked away in a 'secure, undisclosed location' until their trial." She harrumphs. "Whatever that means. Now start talking, boy."

He tells her the whole story — everything that he knows. At the end, she pushes a small box closer to him on the bedside table.

"What's this?"

"It's from your ex-wife. She was very worried about you, but apparently, she had other matters to attend to besides waiting at your sickbed."

He pulls away the ribbon and lets it drop on his lap. Inside the little box is an address he doesn't recognise.

Write to her, says the note.

"Oh." He thinks he knows who Astoria means, but he's not sure Pansy wants to hear from him.

"Now, rest up. You've not got long until you'll be joining the others."

"Wait" — he stops her with a hand on her arm — "what have the Aurors and the Ministry said about all this? To the Prophet, I mean."

"Nothing you need to hear."

"That good?" He sees the edge of a newspaper peeking over the top of her desk and considers Summoning it.

"Don't even think about it. You're not to do anything that will stress you."

"Come on, Poppy. I should be allowed to know."

"It's irrelevant. Because you're not going to keep working on the project that got you into this state, now are you?"

"No," he lies. He still wants the paper. "Have you got my wand?"

"The Aurors confiscated it. But you won't be needing it, remember? Because you're not fooling around with this business any longer. I don't care if the Pollygogglers come and beg me personally for your help."

"Wallygagglers," he corrects softly.

"Hmmph."

Madam Pomfrey putters away, humming softly to herself. It reminds him of Luna, which reminds him of the last few moments he saw her.

Boasting Diskies, he thinks.

He wonders if they congregate around all curses.

AN: Sorry I missed posting last week. Tornado season, yunno? Knocked out our power + WiFi for a few days and then it was like, 'well... seeing as it's almost time to post again already, I'll just wait.'

Thanks so much to all of y'all for reading, voting, and commenting. You make my day.