Conquering the Darkness

Hermione had left the hospital wing some days ago, but the night that Draco had spent alone had been one of the longest in his existence. He often times found himself waking like clock-work, unconsciously waiting for No One's gentle steps against the marble floor. Even when No One had come to reassure him that, as he put it, he "wasn't mad," Draco was still unnerved. Over the course of many days the Slytherin had begun to wonder if No One was just not a figment of his imagination. His dreams, fantasies, illusions (or whatever he wished to call them) had never been this real in the past, but maybe, he supposed, now that he was older the element between fantasy and reality had grown thin...

Especially when he was getting drugged up by the day with anti-pain medication...

It wasn't as though he wanted No One to be a figment of imagination--it was much nicer to think of him as something real and tangible. Yet was it this possible to be so disillusioned?

Draco wasn't sure anymore. He wasn't sure about much nowadays--and this seemed very, very strange considering that he was a Malfoy.

He would be the last to admit he was unnerved.

"This is ridiculous," he grumbled to himself pulling the blankets off his torso. He had become quite overheated.

Things had not been going very well. What, considering he had that dream (though maybe a fantasy) the night that Hermione had been in the hospital.

Goodness, having dreams like that had been the last thing he needed just to make this relationship even more uncomfortable. He didn't even know what the bloke looked like and he was imagining things with him.

Draco sighed and grimaced. The boy was late.

Deciding that he really didn't care, he opted to go back to sleep considering he hadn't been sleeping well very well anyways. If No One didn't show up, that was none of his concern. There was no formal agreement between the two of them, anyway.

Lying down, the pale boy closed his eyes.

And then opened them.

Oh, who was he trying to kfool? Of course he cared whether or not No One visited him. The past several nights, he'd been making a lot of progress walking. One part of him wanted to not do well, just so No One would keep his arms around his waist, but he slowly started pulling away. First, his hands had rested upon his waist, and then on his shoulders, and last night, No One had looped arms with him and walked besides him. It was odd walking arm-in-arm with another boy in the dead of night up and down the hospital ward, but it was, well, fun. He smiled a lot when No One was around. That, in itself, was a rare thing, indeed. Malfoy's weren't notorious for smiling, but it seemed that just thinking about No One caused him to smile. He had to constantly remind himself to stop smiling during the day. However, it kept getting harder and harder to consciously stop from doing so. Like now. This was bloody terrible.

I'll have to work on that, he thought.

Draco sat up in bed, an intentional scowl on his face. He was becoming too bloody soft and mushy, and very un-Malofyesque. He didn't need any-bloody-one, figment of his imagination or not. He could walk by himself, he didn't need No One. Or anyone, for that matter.

Slowly rising from the mattress, the sightless boy swung his bare feet off the bed onto the cold floor and paused there, as though weighing the options. Whether or not he was ready wasn't the point--he needed to prove that he wasn't as dependent as No One presumed him to be. He wasn't a baby to be pampered--not that he didn't enjoy being indulged but, still, he was a Malfoy.

The nights had become progressively cooler with the onslaught of winter and, shivering, Draco sighed bitterly. Be it cold or not he would brave this and show the Slytherin persistence in him.

Raising himself off the bed slowly, the frail boy's legs were like that of a colt - wobbly and quivering, barely able to support his weight. Somehow it never seemed this hard when No One was around.

But he didn't need him. He was a Malfoy, and Malfoy's leaned upon no one for support.

But, he did lean upon No One for support, as sad as it was.

Dropping onto the bed, the sickly boy buried his head in his hands, allowing himself a moment of weakness. Just a moment.

He abruptly stood, the moment over, and took a determined step forward. He didn't need anyone. No. No, he didn't want anyone. He was fine by himself.

Taking several more steps, similar thoughts to those running rampant through his mind, Draco was convincing himself more and more that he didn't need anyone.

Suddenly, everything came crashing down.

Caught up in his own flood of emotions, Draco stumbled against nothing, or so it seemed. The cold night air surrounded his form and he heard the wind rush through his ears and his heart began to beat rapidly. The next moment he felt a bolt of pain ignite on his knees and the cold surface of the marble slice painfully throughout his body.

It took him only a moment to realize he had fallen, slipped, whatever one wished to call it--but there he was, stranded against that sea of marble, alone, and drowning in his own wave of arrogance.

The darkness seemed even more painful, and bitterly, Draco felt out for something, anything, just to know where he was. When he felt the bed frame not three feet away he realized how deluded he had really been.

Maybe, once, when he had his sight he could have been cocky such as he now attempted to be...but now, alone in this cage of his own making, he could not pretend anymore. He couldn't pretend he was strong when his weakness slapped him so brutally in the face.

Unconsciously curling up, he squeezed his eyes shut and sighed a bitterly tortured sigh. He refused to cry. No, he was better than that. If he was destined to be as weak as this than at least he could me emotionally strong...what had this hospital done to him? Even before, before this whole experience, he hadn't been this fragile. Yet it seemed that day by day he found himself growing more weak and exposed, like an oyster being slowly pried open.

And perhaps it was No One's fault.

That damn boy was having unprecedented affects on him, and he did not like this, he did not like it at all.

In taking a deep amount of breath, Draco remained amongst the troubled seas, and waited for No One to come and save him from this endless cold.

But the great oak door never opened, and only the silence remained.

***

Hurrying up the slippery steps to St. Mungos, Harry winced slightly as the strong wind from the north slapped his face bitterly. His fingers automatically reached for his gold and scarlet scarf about his neck and unconsciously tightened its position. The doors opened, and the medicinal scent hit my like a distant memory. This scent had grown very familiar for the raven-haired boy, what with his almost nightly visits to the hospital wing.

His expression grew stormy as he remembered that he would leave Draco all alone for at least the next four nights. Yet, this situation could not be avoided; he could not overlook and ignore Lupin's injury.

It had all started after classes earlier that day when Dumbledore had approached Harry as he had made his way towards Gryffindor tower in hopes to actually accomplish some homework which had been piling up over the past week.

Almost instantly Harry knew that something was troubling the headmaster, and thankful that Hermione and Ron weren't about, Harry questioned, "Headmaster?"

Dumbledore snapped to attention as though the old man he been in some sort of trance as he has swooped through the sparsely populated halls.

"Ah, Harry...," he began, nodding softly, his eyes bright, but not as bright as Harry had seen them in the past, "Just the person I was looking for..."

Harry blinked but said nothing. Perhaps they were going to have another chat as they had the day before. Yet, he thought not. He could tell that something deeper and darker was troubling the aging man.

"Come to my office, if you will."

Deciding it was best not to question, Harry fell into step behind the headmaster, slowly making his way through the halls he had come to know so well, even in the darkest hours of the night...

By the time the two had arrived in his large office, filled with the ever-familiar books and portraits, and, of course, Fawlkes resting calmly on his perch, Harry was anxious to hear what was troubling the Headmaster but would wait until Dumbledore began.

The headmaster, in his usual ways seemed perfectly content to take ample time to get to the heart of the matter. First he had given Fawlkes a bit of food, and then polished a globe absently with the sleeve of his robe, but then, quite finally, he settled himself down into his great padded seat with a heavy sigh.

"Harry...," he began, almost in a cryptic fashion, "What I have to tell you is not very...easy to do."

Sitting up a little straighter and gripping his books in anticipation, he gulped, but waited.

"You see, I have just been informed that our previous Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts has been, how would you put it, taken ill at St. Mungo's..." He paused, his blue eyes glancing at Harry's form with a look of pity and worry, "I thought would like to be informed, considering you were...quite...close."

Harry, idly blinking back inexplicable moister from his eyes, coughed slightly and questioned, "Do I have permission to go and see him?"

Dumbledore, his expression still grave, continued with a deep exhale of breath, "I admit that had been my intention in calling you here. I have already explained the situation to your teachers and they see no reason you cannot visit this weekend and Monday..."

"Thank you, Sir--I, I don't know what to say," Harry admitted, bowing his head and looking at the books resting docilely in his lap. What had happened? "Is it s-serious Sir?"

"He was injured while at work for the Order. It has not yet been discovered what ails him..." Dumbledore sighed bitterly, polishing his glasses with a red handkerchief, "I would have never wished for this..."

Harry could understand the Headmaster's emotions perfectly.

Now, sitting in the waiting room to St. Mungo's, Harry felt extremely guilty that he had so casually thrown Draco to the side in replacement of Lupin. After all, Draco was his friend. Wasn't he? Lupin, well, Lupin was more like family than anyone else alive...

Yet still, it troubled him that he had not even dropped by to inform the Slytherin that he was out of town for a few days...

Looking about the waiting room, Harry found an assortment of people and creatures all sitting down on white plastic chairs idly passing the time. Either they were waiting to be admitted to see patients, or some other form of business. From the looks of it, it seemed as though it took quite a bit of time to actually be admitted to see the patients.

Deciding to pass the spare time doing something productive, Harry quickly pulled a blank sheet of paper out of his satchel, as well as a ball-point pen he always kept with him incase he didn't have an quills handy.

Biting his lip nervously, he sighed, and gritted his teeth and began writing...

Dear Draco

After that, the words seemed to flow off his pen more quickly than he could manage. He was so engrossed in the letter-writing process that he was startled when he felt the worn and aged hand of a nurse gently tapping his shoulder.

Looking up through over-grown bangs, the old voice questioning "Mr. Potter?" greeted his ears.

"Uh, yes, that is me," he began nervously, quickly putting his pen and paper into his satchel before swinging it over his broad shoulders. "Where do I need to go?"

He hadn't expected his voice to sound so nervous and agitated, but now it seemed that when he was standing he felt even more ill-at-ease and more likely to stumble and fall onto the hard marble floor.

"To the third floor in the Intensive-Care wing. He should be the fifth bed on the right," the elderly nurse explained with a false smile of hope painted on her wrinkled features.

Nodding, Harry made his way, almost blindly to an elevator and pressed the button repetitively; until, at last, on the twenty-seventh try the door opened with a whirl and he walked, or rather fell, inside the polished brass enclosing.

The journey to the third floor was quick, but not swift enough for Harry's anxious temper, and before the doors had opened completely he was stalking down the quiet halls, his glasses glinting in the golden light from the late afternoon. It was a handy thing, he thought bitterly, that Dumbledore had a well stocked amount of Floo-powder in his desk or it might have taken a day or so to reach London. And, in his case, he hadn't a moment to spare.

He didn't have that much time to waste, not when (from what it sounded like) Lupin's life was in a state of limbo.

Opening the door cautiously, the emerald eyed boy slipped inside and cast his worried glance upon the long rows of beds. There, just as predicted, lay the man on the fifth bed to the right. Harry practically ran towards him, nearly tripping over his own feet, until he arrived at the foot of his former teacher's bed.

Lupin looked appalling, Harry noted forlornly. The man's face was abnormally pale and his breath came shallow and ragged as though there was something in his lungs rattling away. A dull sheen of sweat glimmered on his creased brow, and reaching out for a wash-cloth resting lazily in a bowl by the side of his bed, Harry dabbed Lupin's skin gently.

The man's eyes slowly opened and took a great while to come into focus. His expression was slow to form as well, but when it did, it was one of stunned disbelief and fear, "Harry?" he whispered hoarsely, his chapped lips hardly moving.

The boy sank to his side and leaned over the teacher's body and whispered gently, "Ssh, don't talk Lupin. It's not good for you..."

The man gave a determined sort of smile which only came out as a grimace.

There seemed to be no external damage, as far as Harry could see--there were no stitches, bandages, casts or anything of the sort, so the boy assumed the problem was internal. What could have happened? Something very serious it seemed, never had he seen or heard of anything like this--in the Magical and Muggle world combined.

A nurse appeared, almost on cue in a flutter of white and grey, and inched her way forward towards Harry. The seated boy, having become aware to her presence turned around and eyed her wearily.

The old lady nodded sadly and explained in a hushed voice, "The poor man suffers from some form of dark magic. We don't know what the spell is, but the hospital is working very hard on it..."

Working on it? Working on it? What the hell did that mean? Lupin could die before the figured out what the hell had happened to him--and they were working on it?

But the boy bit his tongue and turned back to Lupin who was watching him sadly.

"I'm sorry...," Harry whispered sadly, feeling his own body begin to tremble. He didn't know if he could handle another person dying...not Lupin, no, not now. He didn't have any strength left; he hadn't yet recovered from Sirius...or Cedric...or...anyone...

"If I die," the anguished voice of Lupin continued softly, his cheeks becoming flushed with emotions, "It will not be so bad...I'll get to see Sirius again...and...James...and...Siri--"

He stopped as tears began to drizzle down his cheeks, a steady stream, like that of rainfall against the windows.

Gulping back his own tears, realizing that it was now his turn to be strong, Harry quickly grabbed a tissue and delicately caught the tragic tears in its white edges.

"I-Its okay...," Harry whispered gently, quickly, hurriedly; anything that would make him not have to talk. If he talked anymore, he wasn't sure he could bear this burden. He needed some one to be here, anyone to be here--it couldn't just be him, alone, in this infernal place where the death stank so much that it stung at his eyes.

But then, in the recessed of his mind he remembered Draco and what the boy would have said to him...

Just deal with it, crying won't change anything you dolt.

A strangled smile came to Harry's lips and sighing, he tucked up the covers over Lupin and let the man fall, once again, into a shallow sleep...