Guiding Light || OC x Draco Malfoy

Chapter 10:

I couldn't help the mixed emotions that filled me up when the door opened today. Draco was back, which I initially saw as a plus. Then I remembered my conversation with Gabrielle the day before. Was what she had said true? Did Draco really, truly have honest-to-god feelings for me? I don't know If I wanted the answer to that.

Speaking of Gabrielle, she was nowhere to be seen. I initially said, nothing, not wanting to rouse suspicion within this new mystery nurse, but it was obvious Draco saw that something was bothering me, because he placed his hand over mine, our universal little sign for comfort. Still not wanting to say anything until we were alone, I just looked up at Draco, giving him a small little nod. Even more language; our own little mind telepathy.

"What's bothering you? I can see it in your eyes." The creases of worry that usually lined his face were darkened by the backlight that came from my overhead lights

"Where's Gabrielle? She was just here with me yesterday. Is she sick or something? She seemed fine yesterday"

Instead of sitting in the magical chair like he always did, he came to my bed, sitting on the gap between the joints of my hips and the arms that hung limp at my sides. The hand that he had placed over my own in worried comfort hadn't moved, causing the chill of his skin to seep into my own.

It wasn't like this distance was anything new for us, it's just that he usually never started out like this. He would start far away, and then as we talked, he would move closer and closer.

The fact that this was our starting basis made my heart beat annoyingly hard in my chest. There was no reason for me to be nervous, just like there was no reason for him to avert his eyes when he spoke to me.

" Miss Delacour has been relieved of her position. Her integrity was ruled as...compromised, so the heads of the hospital thought it wasn't wise for her to continue overseeing your care, so she had been reassigned to another patient."

It took me several minutes to fully grasp what he was saying, and when I did, I didn't like the results.

"She got fired just because she talked to me?!" I burst out, enraged and more than confused. Draco just sighed.

"She wasn't fired from the hospital, but she's been 'relocated' to a different ward. I'm not aloud to tell you this, so you didn't hear it from me, but they used a memory charm on her too." The reflection of my face in his eyes showed my expression matching how I felt.

" I'm that much of a threat to them? They'd go so far as to erase Gabrielle's memories after talking to me once?"

"You would be very surprised what people would do for a cause they believe in." He said this with a tone that sounded suspiciously like guilt. Once more, his left hand, the one that wasn't covering mine, came up and brushed against his right forearm.

Every time his past came up, he always did something like that, an absent little gesture that wouldn't have caught the eye of someone who didn't spend the amount of time with him that I have.

"Okay, spill. What's up with your arm? You always do that, and I've never asked until now, but like you said, it's in your eyes."

Just like when he told me the news about Gabrielle, he turned away from me, all but refusing to look me in the eye. The lines had the same shadowed appearance, and the frown on his thin pink lips was equally as deep. It was honestly upsetting for me to see him like this. I don't know why he was making me feel like that, but the emotion was rolling off of him in waves that hit me like a tsunami.

"Just...bad decisions and misguided morals. It was a long time ago, I'm just paying the price still. Not to put words in your mouth, but I'm sure you know about poor choices."

Coming from anyone other than him, I would have not taken that well. But he knew that I trusted him. And I knew that he meant well. I understood exactly what he was saying.

"Yeah. Is it one of those personal secrets that we don't tell each other? I have mine, you have yours?" The frown lifted up a little at this, but still never formed a full smile. Finally turning to actually look at me, he gave me a little nod. I couldn't help but notice when his eyes flicked down, coming to rest on our hands that remained interlocked. Neither of us moved to change that fact.

"What would you have done differently? I mean, if it bothers you so much, you must have thought about what life would have been like without it." I know he usually didn't talk much about his past, other than that introductory stuff when we first met, and then the story of Scorpius and Astoria. Any time he told me about his life, there was always that 5 or so year gap in the middle of his life.

" I would have tried to fight harder. I know that I certainly wasn't innocent in all of this, but I let myself get pushed around a lot, and I didn't give myself a voice. I suppose that things turned out well enough for me, but I got myself into a really bad position. What do you think you would do if you hadn't become, if you are okay with me saying this, a murderer?"

When he first started out his explanation, I just layed back and listened to the way the words flowed out of him. I didn't even realize he had posed a question to me until he asked it again.

"Say, in some weird other dimension, you and I had a, I dunno, had a family together. What would you want your life to be like?"

He was stumbling over his words, and when he asked me, unlike almost every other time he spoke, he looked away. When I looked hard enough, I even saw what I thought to be a blushed tint staining his pale cheeks.

"I haven't thought about that. I sort of threw all hopes of something like that away a long time ago." I saw Draco open his mouth to argue, but I didn't even let him start as I continued to barrel on.

"I figured that since there was no way for me to go back, there was no point in dreaming up stupid fantasies about a life that would be as perfect as that." When I finished, I felt the emotion welling up and pressing on my chest, impairing my breathing.

"Just try. Say there was a way for that to happen. Your life could restart and be normal. No restraints, no prisons, no convictions, no murder, no blood. Just you. What would you want in life?"

My eyes were stinging uncharacteristically and I felt the squeezing pressure on my chest and throat tighten. Tears were now threatening to fall from my eyes, warping my view of Draco into a series of blobs, rather than the sturdy figure that was previously leaning so close to me.

Lightly warmed hands came up and brushed the rouge droplets off of my face as they fell silently to my lap. Not a single whimper or cry left me, just the few tears. I felt them clawing at my chest, though.

"I-I don't know. I haven't let myself think like that in years. When...when I was little, I always wanted a daughter. It was totally stupid, but I wanted a little baby girl that I could pamper and stuff. Now that I think about it, it'd be absolutely ridiculous. I couldn't possibly be a mother."

"I think you'd be a lovely mother. Well, in this weird other dimension thing. Though I think that if you tried hard enough, you could do it in this dimension. The rest of the world might not think you can change, but I disagree."

For some reason, I couldn't control myself today, and hearing him talk like that made me practically lose it. No noises left me, but a new flux of tears parades down my flushed cheeks.

Draco hastened to wipe them away, and then he did something that he had never done in all of our weeks together. He leaned forward and wrapped his arms around me. Covering my frail, trembling frame with his much larger one, he rubbed little circles into my back, whispering words that were lost to me.