Hope for a Cure

I had to skip my classes today- Draco kindly filled in; I could just picture him smiling evilly at the students (surely their dismay at seeing him would be as obvious as it was on our faces when Snape substituted for Lupin- I remember how sure Harry always was that he was evil. He was evil, but good at the same time- I don't know if I would have believed that that was possible back then. The same thing with Draco, of course- he's a right little bastard, but he really, well, is always trying to make these potions to see if they'll make me better. Some of them- most of them, actually- do, but then, after a while they stop working. When I went to him to ask him to substitute for me- it took me so long to crawl out of my bed I seriously considered staying there and letting the students sit in the classroom, staring at the wall- he said 'of course I will' it wasn't that much of a hardship after all- I only teach the two Newt classes- but his face as he said it- it was so pathetic, like his best friend was dying or something. Then I thought 'maybe his best friend is dying.' I mean, it's no secret that I'm going to kick the bucket soon- Padma keeps trying to convince me to retire to some secret beach she knows of, as if she thinks that I could survive without my books and my students, even if the cold dampness of the castle cuts into my bones and flays me- and Draco doesn't really, well, have any other friends. Most of his lackeys from school joined the dark side, and so aren't around to brag about it anymore- Pansy married Zambini and they had such a furious fight about that that their friendship never really recovered- she spends all her time now worrying about her drunken husband and idiotic child and has no time for him. He's not really on good terms with any of the other teachers, either; Russel thinks he's an asshole and Circe...okay, everyone just thinks he's an asshole. I don't even think Padma likes him and she's the headmistress- the only reason she doesn't fire him is because she has to admit (if only to herself) that he can clobber the information into his students better than anyone else could, something which is much more important in Potions than in, say, Transfiguration, where adding slightly too much parsley would, say, create a few more grains of sand rather than blow the entire castle to smithereens. I'm amazed that we never (and by this I mean 'I never' being mainly the person responsible for realizing things in my social group at the time) realized how very dangerous potions was. I might have had more respect for Snape if I had.

So there I am, swaying gently with fever, seriously considering the frightening idea that I am Draco's best friend and he's waiting for me to either collapse, say something else, like 'they're currently studying the numerical basis for gravity compensation' or something, or leave. Finally he said 'Hermione?' and I returned to the patchy remains of my senses.

Draco claims that he never got married or anything because it seemed too much trouble, but he once told me, while drunk, that it was because he saw so much pain and horror during the war that he has a hard time with the idea of sharing the world with someone- he doesn't want to love anyone so much that it would hurt him if they were damaged. Of course, he does anyways- it matters to him when others get hurt; if a student has had an accident or something, he's always the quickest to heal them. He's always concocting new potions to help people. But still I understand. He wants to build this shell around him to shield him from the world and love- any kind of love- would prevent it. That's why he doesn't have friends. It's not because he's an asshole, because, frankly, he chooses to be one. It's because he wants to drive them away so they can't hurt him.

I don't know what happened to him during the war, but it can't have been good.

It wasn't good for any of us.