Chapter Text
Draco had seen plenty of bloody faces before. St. Mungo’s wasn’t exactly a place for the squeamish, and as a trainee in magical medicine, he had already handled more gruesome injuries than he cared to count. Spell damage, potion burns, hex-induced organ failure—it was all part of the job.
But this was different.
The man slumped against the alley wall looked like he’d barely made it out of a cursed battlefield. His lip was split, bruises already blooming across his cheekbones like ink in water. His knuckles were raw, skin peeled back in angry red gashes, shredded like parchment. And beneath it all, faint traces of lingering magic crackled against his skin, unstable, uncontrolled.
Draco stepped forward before he even realized what he was doing, fingers already reaching for the wand tucked into his healer’s robes. Then the man shifted, blinking up at him, and Draco froze.
Potter.
Of bloody course.
Potter’s one good eye—because the other was already swelling shut—focused on him, recognition slow but inevitable. He looked tired. Not exhausted, but deeply, bone-weary spent. Still, some things never changed, instead of wincing in shame or muttering some half-arsed excuse like any normal person caught bleeding out in a side alley would do, he just… grinned. All teeth. Reckless and maddening as ever.
“Malfoy,” Potter croaked, voice rough. “Fancy seeing you here.”
Draco scoffed, slipping his wand back into his pocket and crossing his arms. “Fancy seeing you bleeding all over the pavement looking like a pile of cursed dragon shite.” He arched a brow, gaze sweeping over the mess of bruises and spell-burns across Potter’s arms. “What the hell happened to you?”
Potter let out a breathy chuckle, wincing slightly as he shifted against the wall. “Would you believe me if I said I tripped?”
Draco rolled his eyes, already crouching down to get a better look despite everything inside of him screaming to leave now please. He reached for Potter’s wrist, frowning at the bruises purpling there. “No, but I’d believe you have the self-preservation instincts of a lemming.”
His shift had just ended, he had a long night ahead of him filled with research and case studies, and yet, somehow, he was here, peeling back the ruined sleeve of Potter’s robes to get a better look at the damage.
There were deep, spell-inflicted gashes along his forearm, shimmering faintly with residual magic. Draco scowled. He knew exactly what they were. Wandless hexes.
Potter had been in a fight. A magical fight. An illegal magical fight.
“You absolute idiot,” Draco muttered under his breath, digging into his bag for a vial of Dittany.
Potter just exhaled, tilting his head back against the brick wall. “Nice to see you too, Malfoy. Really missed your bedside manner.”
“You’re bleeding out in an alleyway at Merlin-knows-what hour, and you expect me to not insult you?” Draco shot back. “Where’s Weasley? Or are you keeping this suicidal hobby of yours a secret?”
At that, Potter’s gaze snapped back to him, something hard and sharp flashing behind his exhaustion. “Drop it, Malfoy.”
Draco hummed, unscrewing the Dittany bottle. “Ah, so does he know? Or would he turn as red as his hair if he found out his golden best mate was throwing himself into street fights like some unhinged Gryffindor cliché?”
Potter glared at him, but didn’t utter a word. Which meant Draco was right.
Draco smirked. “Hit a nerve, did I?”’
“You’re enjoying this too much,” Harry muttered, wincing as Draco dabbed the Dittany over the worst of his wounds. The gashes fizzled, knitting back together with slow precision.
“I take my entertainment where I can get it,” Draco said, voice dry. “Merlin knows volunteering at St. Mungo’s is hardly thrilling.”
“Right, because playing nurse is so much more exciting than what I do.”
Draco scoffed. “Oh, yes, of course. Because willingly getting hexed to hell in back-alley duels is such a noble, respectful pursuit.”
Potter clenched his jaw, but his magic crackled against his skin. Unsteady, unbalanced.
Draco narrowed his eyes. “You can’t control it, can you?”
Potter stiffened. It was subtle, barely there, but Draco caught it. The flicker of something raw beneath the bravado.
Draco inhaled sharply. “So that’s why you do it,” he muttered, more to himself than to the tattered man in front of him. “That’s why you fight.”
Potter didn’t answer.
And for one, Draco didn’t press further. Instead, he silently pulled out another vial, a pain potion, and held it out.
Potter eyed him warily. “Trying to poison me, Malfoy?”
“If I wanted you dead, I’d let you bleed out,” Draco said flatly. “Take it or don’t, I don’t particularly care.”
Potter hesitated for only a second before snatching the vial from his hand and downing it in one go.
Draco exhaled, running a hand through his hair, regretful of any and all choices that had led him to the past thirty minutes.
⁂
The last thing Draco needed was another problem. Between his course load, the relentless practice exams, and the mind-numbing bureaucracy of St. Mungo’s, he barely had time to sleep, let alone deal with Potter self-destructing in dark alleyways.
And yet, here he was. Again.
It had been three weeks since he’d found Potter bleeding out behind the hospital and if Draco had any sense of self-preservation, he’d have let it be a one-time mistake. But fate (or whatever cruel, meddlesome force controlled his life) clearly had other plans. Despite every rational thought in his brain screaming walk away, he was here, knocking back the last of a truly awful cup of coffee, waiting for Potter to limp through his door.
After the second time Draco caught Potter (not even four days after the first gruesome interaction, the idiot), the man had explained through tight-lipped, painful muttering that after some particular fights, he’s too done-over to use his magic. He can’t fix himself until the electricity lingering beneath his skin, ready to pounce, has simmered. Meaning it takes a while, hence the alley. Draco maintains that Potter is an imbecile.
The knock came right on schedule. Two sharp raps, like Potter wasn’t actively leaving a trail of blood across the hidden back door of St. Mungo’s ground floor.
Draco sighed, flicking his wand toward the rickety old thing to unlock it.
“You know, most people find a hobby to cope with their existential crises,” he called as the door swung open. “Something a bit less—oh, I don’t know—self destructive.”
Potter stepped inside, looking marginally less dead than the last time but still like someone had taken a bludger to his ribs. His robes were torn at the shoulder, revealing a deep gash that shimmered faintly with residual magic. The faint crackle of unstable energy still radiated from him, but it was less wild than before, like a storm barely kept at bay.
“Good to see you too, Malfoy,” Potter muttered, dragging himself toward the chair Draco had begrudgingly transfigured into something more comfortable after Potter had (quite hilariously) fallen out of it a few days prior.
“What is it this time?” Draco asked, already reaching for his supplies. “Experimental hexes? Enchanted brass knuckles? Did you finally pick a fight with something bigger and meaner than your massive Gryffindor ego?”
Potter snorted, wincing as he tried to roll his shoulder. “All of the above. Plus a bloke who thought it’d be funny to use an old blasting curse mid-match. Got thrown into a wall.”
Draco rolled his eyes so hard he nearly saw stars. “Charming. And what? You just walked away after? Limped dramatically into the night like the tragic hero you are?”
“Well, I wasn’t going to, but then I remembered how much you love playing nursemaid. Didn’t want to deprive you.”
Draco fixed him with a withering glare. “Merlin, you are insufferable.”
Potter just grinned, the infuriating bastard.
Draco didn’t dignify him with a response, instead setting to work cleaning out the gash. The skin was torn jaggedly, like whatever spell had hit him was designed to rip rather than cut. It wasn’t deep, but the leftover magic crackling along the wound made it tricky, like trying to stitch up a tear in fabric that kept fraying apart.
“Hold still,” Draco murmured, pressing his wand to the wound. A soft glow spread from the tip, magic sinking into the skin, knitting muscle and tissue back together. Potter tensed under his hands but didn’t move, letting Draco work.
It was almost unnerving, the silence between them.
“You know,” Draco said after a moment, his tone deceptively light, “I could report you.”
Potter exhaled sharply. “You won't.”
Draco tilted his head, arching a brow. “Confident, are we?”
Potter gave a half-shrug, grimacing as it pulled his barely-healed shoulder “You hate me too much to let someone else finish me off first.”
Draco tightened his grip, digging his perfectly manicured nails into Potter’s skin. His jaw clenched, and for a second—just a second—he wasn’t sure if he wanted to strangle Potter or prove him wrong and call up the Minister.
“Idiot,” he muttered instead, finishing the last of the spellwork before reaching for a salve. “And if I did report you? If I went straight to Weasley and told him his best mate spends his nights getting hexed to hell in back-alley fights?”
Potter tensed briefly. The careless smirk flickered just slightly, but Draco caught it.
“You won’t,” Potter said again, quieter this time.
Draco exhaled through his nose, rubbing a hand over his face. “No. I won’t.”
He hated this. Hated that the man was right. That somehow, despite every ounce of reason, he did care. That every time Potter stumbled through the door of Mungo’s dingy hospital backroom barely standing, something in Draco twisted in a way he didn’t know how to name.
Perhaps it was out of obligation. Potter had spoken out for Draco and his mother, letting them off almost scot free, as they lived through an easy year of probation while his father was sent to Azkaban.
Still, he hated that he cared if Potter lived or died.
And he hated even more that Potter knew it.
When Potter left that night, another half-healed mess barely holding himself together, Draco told himself (again) that it was the last time. That next time, he wouldn’t answer. Wouldn’t open the door. Wouldn’t care.
And like every time before, he already knew he was lying.
⁂
The next time came sooner than expected.
It hadn’t even been two days.
Draco had barely set foot in his flat before a rough tapping sound started near his kitchen window.
A tawny owl looking proud and disheveled held a crumpled letter in her beak. Not one of Draco's (admittedly small) circle of friends would own such an owl.
Well, other than Potter. But he refused to acknowledge that imbecile unless strictly necessary.
Yanking open the large glass window, he gently plucked the wrecked parchment from the owl’s beak and unravelled it. In urgent, childlike script, was two short sentences:
Need your help, back alley near Broomsticks. Please hurry.
H.P.
Draco hesitated. He wanted to say no. He should say no. But even as his mind screamed against it, his body was already moving, reaching for his cloak.
Damn it all.