Begged and Borrowed Time 2/? Hermione x Draco
by RomanticMisanthrope on Ao3!
CW: For this chapter, none. For future chapters, Explicit.
Read Chapters 1-7 here
Chapter 2: The Nerve to Adore You
Draco waited impatiently for Hermione to return. She had excused herself quickly and quietly, and without so many words as "Just a moment." He was alone in the bare hospital room once again.
Draco tried to remember his life twelve days ago, just before the attack, searching for a clue as to why his wife wasn't wearing her ring. Why she hadn't so much as touched him. An argument, surely. That could be the only reason for her coldness. Draco nodded to himself and closed his eyes.
What had that morning looked like?
He had woken up early, far before the sun had even thought to drift through the clouds that lingered around the manor in the early winter. Next to him, curly hair had fanned out over the satin pillow.
It was Friday. Her day off.
Draco had watched her even breaths, mesmerized as always by how beautiful she looked even in soft light just before true dawn. In their sleep they had drifted closer, her legs slotted between his own. Limbs that couldn't bear to be apart, even in the night.
Hermione Granger had always been wonderful to look at, but Draco loved the private moments that belonged to him and him alone. Granger, his Granger, asleep beside him without a single line of worry on her face. Granger in the manor library, excited to learn ancient healing spells Merlin himself couldn't find the original author for.
Hermione, as he sometimes whispered to her, catching her falling asleep in front of the fire.
Overwhelmed by a sudden stab of longing, Draco reached out to caress her face. A barely-there stroke using the pads of his fingers, unable to fight against the need to touch her but still not wishing her to wake.
Yes, he thought. She was real.
Sometimes he found it hard to believe. He wondered tirelessly how he had redeemed himself. How the brightest witch of her age had found the will to forgive him. He knew better not to question his luck.
As a Malfoy, he learned not to forsake an opportunity when it arose. He simply took it, planning on never giving her a reason to go back on the forgiveness she had afforded him. Malfoy's never gave up their valuable assets or investments, and Granger was his most prized possession (if one could even reduce someone of her magnitude to an analogy of ownership). Forever.
It seemed that even unconscious, she felt his touch, turning slightly toward the warmth of his palm. Draco let himself indulge in a few more moments of peace, drinking in the freckles that littered her cheeks, before sliding quietly and deftly out of bed. The cold that hit him had more to do with loss than temperature. In his mind, something tempted him to crawl back in bed, to stay as long as possible.
He dressed for the day, donning his Auror robes and whispering a final incantation before exiting the chambers.
"Producat rosa florere."
A single rose lay on the pillow where he rested his head just moments before. A parting gift for her. A reminder that she was not waking up entirely alone. Draco smiled his secret smile.
Then, he left.
--
There was no reason for Hermione to be upset with him, unless she had suddenly grown to despise roses between sleep and wake. He had it on good authority, however, that she favored the roses in the manor garden more than most other flowers. Was it just a bad day at work?
Draco felt the confusion muddle in his brain, swelling forward through his memories like a dark cloud. Pin pricks of pain had made their way to the backs of his eyes—the hints of a migraine on its way.
Before he could summon her again, a knock resounded at the door. He hoped, fervently, that his wife would cast a lenio before asking any more questions, or maybe a calming draught. His legs ached in competition with his head.
Instead of just Hermione, three other healers accompanied her and waltzed into the room, carrying with them a serious air. If Draco felt tension before, it was quite palpable now.
"Mr. Malfoy, I'm Healer Quintrel," the first man introduced himself. He too wore long, navy robes. "I'm head of the Retitentia and Neurobiology unit here at St. Mungo's. With me are Healer Singh and Healer Anderson. Both of them are recent Cambridge graduates with specializations in psuedomemory distortion."
Quintrel gestured to another man and woman, both looking exceedingly young next to the old wizard. They nodded at Draco, bearing the same composing indifference Hermione had greeted him with. She watched, standing closest to the door. When Draco looked at her, she glanced away and stared intently at her notes.
She was avoiding him.
Draco cleared his throat, growing more frustrated. Had she really been upset about a flower? There must be something else.
"Hello, Healer Quintrel. Singh. Anderson." Draco nodded at each of them, waiting for Quintrel to resume speaking, or to preform diagnostics.
"Will I be released now, or are you looking to run more tests?" Draco continued after silence still permitted the air. He wondered if they were looking for permission for his participation in a clinical trial. Cambridge graduates must have a habit of doing that. He assumed a coma would be quite intriguing to them.
"I'm afraid that we have some questions before we can discuss the possibility of release. We of course need to run some basic diagnostics, but my colleagues and I have a few questions to ask you per Healer Granger's spoken concerns." Quintrel waved his wand and Draco felt a sudden chill run through him from head to toe. Within moments, a detailed diagram of Draco's body scan was projected above him.
Quintrel enlarged Draco's head, focusing on the part of his brain that seemed to be lit up with a hundreds of little neon lights.
Pins on a map, he thought to himself.
"Right now, we are looking at your temporal lobe and the two parts of your brain that have been greatest affected by your—" Quintrel paused and looked at Hermione. "By your accident."
"This is your hippocampus, Mr. Malfoy. It is responsible for forming and indexing episodic memories. Right next to it is your amygdala, which is responsible for your emotions. The two work together, you see. Symbiotically they control the filing system of your brain. In a way, they are the writers and producers of your life's library," Quintrel summarized.
Draco nodded, still confused about all of the lights.
"Those little pins—thousands of them—are memories that we believe have been altered by the curse that struck you."
Altered memories. Draco frowned, but Quintrel pushed on, unfazed.
"You see, we had no idea if there would be lasting damage. Granger here is one of our top researchers and healers in neurology and curses. She was able to repair the synapses and pathways that had been fried and fractured by the curse you sustained." Draco turned to look at Hermione who did not meet his eyes, but shuffled her feet somewhat impatiently.
"However, suffering curse damage that deep, especially under the duress that you did, does not bode for a full recovery. While we were, of course, impressed by Granger and the repairs she was able to preform, we also prepared for the possibility of amnesia or other neurological disorders. That is why—" Quentril gestured to Singh and Anderson, "my colleagues are here. We have great reason to believe based off of Healer Granger's initial observations, that you are suffering from a disorder known as pseudo memory distortion."
