Chapter Text
Air was quickly funneled out of the room, leaving behind a thick layer of the healer's words in its wake. The more Draco tried to breathe, the more he felt as if he had been hit square in the chest by a bludger. But no, that couldn’t be right. Draco had been hit by a bludger before, and it hadn’t hurt this much.
He knew Hermione wasn’t sharing in the sentiment. Her brain was most likely in a state of overdrive, thinking through statistics and possibilities and solutions. He could tell by the twist of her brow, the way her lashes fluttered and covered the pretty brown of her eyes he so loved to fall apart into.
The healer kept talking. Draco wondered if she knew no one was listening to her.
“—magical or muggle. Typically, most ailments are treatable through our remedies, but this one is a conundrum for us, Mrs. Granger-Malfoy. We don’t like to refer out, but we think seeing a muggle healer could really be beneficial for you. If they are unable to provide a diagnosis, the next step would be the curse department—”
“You think my wife is cursed?” Draco bit out sardonically, the first words he’d spoken since the label untreatable through magical means permeated the air. “You think I’d bring Hermione Granger to the healer without having attempted to help her through all other avenues? That she wouldn’t have considered a curse herself?”
Healer Tatovich blanched. “O-of course not, Mr. Malfoy. I was just reporting what our team concluded. Of course you would have already attempted to parse out any potential curses.”
Draco’s eye twitched. Hermione shifted on the bed, her knuckles turning white with the force of her grip on the crisp linen sheets.
“Right, well thank you ever so much for your enlightening information,” Draco threw out, vicious in every way but the hand he placed on Hermione’s back. “Please do keep in touch when you’ve found—quite literally—anything else.”
The pop of apparition cut off any response from the young healer. In any other circumstance, Draco knew Hermione would have reprimanded him to death for apparating in a hospital, but today, Hermione did not.
Draco landed rather unceremoniously in their home. His grip on Hermione was likely the only reason she was still standing, and he tightened it before heading towards the living room, pulling her so close to his chest that her curls drifted under his chin. The kiss he placed there was unconscious, meant more for him than anything else.
“Come now, Hermione,” Draco murmured, gently guiding her to the chaise. He sat her in his lap, situating her legs over his own. He didn’t like the far-away look she’d adopted at St. Mungos, and he hated even more that it hadn’t let up once they returned home. Home was the one place she always looked truly open.
“Darling?” Draco coaxed, fingers running lightly over her cheeks. Her lashes fluttered more. “Hermione, talk to me.”
He watched as her chest took in air, and then released it with great effort. Perhaps she was feeling the same effects Draco had fallen victim to in that blasted hospital room. He moved one of his hands down to the flat plane between her breasts, allowing the warmth of his hand to ground her.
It took several moments, but a few words slipped past her lips. “I don’t even remember the last time I went to a doctor.”
Doctor implied muggle, and Draco didn’t know much about muggle doctors. “We will find you the best,” he assured, even if that meant little to him at the moment.
Hermione finally turned her gaze to her husband, bewilderment and uncertainty twisting the lines of her mouth. Draco wanted to smooth them out with his fingers, to kiss away the fear that rested there, but he refrained. “How—how could a muggle remedy trump a magical one? How were they not even able to locate the cause of my illness? Magic is supposed to… it’s supposed to—”
Draco could hardly fathom the war raging in Hermione’s mind. He had grown up knowing magic. There was never a muggle equivalent to anything that he needed to make a comparison to. The floo was for traveling, brooms were for sports, owls were used to communicate. But since meeting, and loving, Hermione Granger, Draco had learned of many differences. Aeroplanes, baseball, cellphones; muggles and magic peoples were different, but the same.
There was a discrepancy, however, with medicine. A large one. And magic, according to all accounts Draco could find, was superior. Growing bones with a simple potion was only the beginning of such a delineation, and Draco was also having a hard time seeing how his wife was to be cured by a population that had to force their patients into a hard-shell cast for weeks when with magic it took mere hours. But he would not let Hermione see that fear.
“The healers could be wrong,” Draco attempted to comfort, running his free hand over her curls. “There are plenty of healers outside of England—in America, France. I will take you to all of them. And the muggle healers.”
Hermione fell to the side, head coming to rest in the juncture of Draco’s neck. This had been a long day. Such a long day. A plethora of diagnostic spells had been cast on her, and yet none could discern the root of her symptoms. Draco eventually forced them to stop after the twelfth one, watching Hermione flinch a few too many times in one afternoon.
“That sounds expensive,” she droned. “And time-consuming.”
Draco only continued the soft movement through her hair. “First of all, we have plenty of money. And second of all, this isn’t some troublesome chore, Hermione. This is your life.”
“But aren’t you tired of this? I’ve been sick for months. Fainting, fatigue, vomiting—I keep you up most nights with my restlessness. This appointment isn’t the first. Draco, now there is even more—”
“Stop.”
An abrupt silence overtook the bubble they had placed themselves in. Hermione instantly sewed her lips shut at the sharp intake of air from Draco. Draco shut his eyes and took a few more breaths, attempting to calm himself before he snapped at his wife.
His next words were low, full of warning. “I will never grow tired of taking care of you. Never wish I was free of this imaginary burden you seem to think you have placed on me. I would spend every night of my life awake at your side, every day cloistered up in some gods-awful healer’s office if it meant you were alive, Hermione. I do not appreciate the insinuation.”
For the first time since she began to feel unwell, Hermione had tears on her cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she cried, hiccuping. “I’m sorry, Draco, I just—I am just so tired of feeling ill. I want to feel better, to make life easier for you.”
Draco did not wish to take back the words that caused the tears. In truth, Hermione had been far too stoic for his liking. He had been the one angry and crying and inconsolable over the past weeks. He had been fretting and worrying and distraught. Hermione had simply laid down and taken her lot in life. It was alarming to Draco to see the fight missing in his Gryffindor. To see her shut down.
So he did not regret that his words made her face the reality of their situation. He only regretted the pain and defeat in her tone. The way even her breath shook.
“I would take a hard life if it meant you were in it.”