Twenty Two Minutes
Title: Twenty Two Minutes
Rating: R
Word Count: 1,700
Warning(s): Angst, Panic Attacks
Summary: And the clock keeps ticking.
Author's notes: Written for dove_drabbles prompt: Ignore the Clock.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. This was written for fun, not profit.
The walls were closing in on him. As Draco ran down the length of the sterile hallway, he could swear they were narrowing, threatening to trap him in place and swallow him whole. His eyes stung and his heart raced, and he just kept on going.
The Mediwitch had to run to keep pace with him. She was a young girl whose name he couldn’t remember right now. As she gave him a rundown of his patient, her words sounded jumbled and fuzzy with static.
“…could be Dark Magic…can’t identify the source…lung collapse…not much time…”
It all washed over him. Perhaps he was finally going numb.
Good. That was good.
Nerves would only get in his way. What he needed right now was to summon whatever threads of sheer will and adrenalin were holding him together and approach this like any other case. With a detached, objective demeanour.
He had to be Healer Malfoy. St Mungo’s most sought after Spell Damage specialist. Never lost a patient.
Harry needed a Healer more than he needed a husband right now.
“How long?”
His voice was hoarse and he wished he’d had the presence of mind to hydrate before Casting. Harry was counting on him to be at the top of his game…
“Healer?” the puzzled Mediwitch questioned.
Draco could have slapped her. “How long does the patient have?” he repeated, biting out each word with a viciousness that made the woman withdraw slightly.
She scanned her file. “There’s a substantial drain on the magical core, Healer. Combine that with the lung perforation and the fracture- honestly, it’s a miracle he’s still…”
Draco’s menacing snarl cut her off before she could finish her morbid assessment. “That’s not what I asked,” he hissed, clenching his fists to keep from hexing her. “Give me a number, woman. How. Much. Time?!”
She swallowed audibly and lowered the file. When her eyes met Draco's, he saw real fear in them. “Twenty two minutes. If we Cast now.”
Twenty two minutes.
Twenty two minutes to save Harry’s life. To save his husband’s life.
Twenty two minutes.
It wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough.
It would have to be.
Draco cast a Tempus Charm.
10:48 PM.
The clock was ticking.
He turned on his heel and hurtled down the corridor.
****
10: 53 PM.
The ringing in his ears was a constant, punctuated only by the clock ticking down the seconds to Harry’s life.
Ignore it, Draco told himself firmly, trying to keep his hands from shaking. Ignore the fucking clock and concentrate, damn you!
Harry looked small and fragile, laid out on a gurney under the dim lights of the Casting Chamber. His face was wan and bloodless, the gash in his chest a macabre contrast to his rapidly paling countenance. Bruises littered his skin- a parting gift from the scum who had done this to him.
Draco told himself that it was the Stabilising Wards that were interfering with his spell-work, not his shaking hands and burning eyes.
You stupid, reckless fool.
He hated himself for not being able to evade the surge of terror building up inside him.
Why did you go after an armed suspect on your own?
The ticking was louder, he could feel every second against the thread of Harry’s fading pulse.
How could you do this to me?
“Status update,” Draco rasped.
“His magical core is still draining, Healer,” the Mediwitch reported carefully. “At this rate…”
Draco tuned her out and resumed his desperate Casting.
10: 56 PM.
Ignore the clock. Focus. Concentrate.
10: 58 PM.
Don’t you dare give up on me.
11:00 PM.
Please…
“He’s destabilising again,” someone on his right spoke up. “I need a Stasis Charm right now!”
No.
“He’s seizing up! Mediwitch, I need a status on the perforation!”
No. Harry, no…
“Recast!”
He was screaming now, and he didn’t care. The panic surged, blinding him, drowning him and the clock just kept on ticking.
11: 03 PM.
“Healer, we can’t! His body can’t take the…”
“I said recast, damn you!”
The spells danced from his wand tip, searching desperately for an elusive wound, a snapped thread, frantic attempts to repair something that should never, ever have been tampered with…
11: 06 PM.
“Healer, we need to stop! We can’t keep this up any longer!”
“We’re not stopping! I said recast!”
11: 07 PM.
“Healer Malfoy…”
There’s still time.
“Healer Malfoy, please…”
11:08 PM.
“Healer. He’s gone. I’m sorry.”
No. No, it couldn’t be…
11:09 PM.
Harry chest rose and fell one last time. Everything went still. Draco watched with unseeing eyes. The wand slipped from his fingers.
This can’t be happening, he thought numbly. He can’t leave me. He would never...
“Update,” the Mediwitch stated soberly. “Time of death. 11:10 PM.”
His time was up.
And the clock kept ticking.
****
Draco’s eyes shot open and he bolted up, gasping for air. The panic was still fresh in his mind, a gaping, stabbing wound that made him want to scream for mercy. His throat seized and his hands clawed desperately at his sheets, searching for an anchor he couldn’t grasp.
Harry, his mind screamed as the wave of loss and grief threatened to overpower him. Please, Harry. No please no I love you don’t leave me…
Then strong, capable hands grasped his shoulders, hauling him up until he was staring into determined green eyes.
“Breathe,” Harry said calmly. “Breathe, Draco.”
“Harry,” Draco managed in a choked gasp. He was still panting and try as he might, he couldn’t get his lungs to cooperate.
“It’s me,” Harry confirmed. He looked grim and worried but his voice and touch were soothing. “I’m here, Draco. It was just a nightmare, you hear me? I’m here. I’m with you. You’re okay. You’re okay, Draco.”
Harry.
Harry was here. He wasn’t dead.
Nightmare. Not dead. Not real.
Harry…
“Breathe for me, love,” Harry coaxed, running calming hands down his back and drawing him to rest against his chest. “Come on, now. You can do it. Just breathe with me…”
“H-hospital,” Draco stuttered. “You were…I couldn’t…t-twenty two minutes…”
Vaguely, he was aware that he really needed to get his heartbeat back to normal but the panic was still bubbling, dangerously close to the surface. He couldn’t stop the stream of half words and terrified nonsense pouring out of him, accompanied by shameful, stinging tears.
“I know, I know,” Harry murmured, taking a chance and pulling him close. He ran a careful hand down Draco’s back, whispering reassurances into his hair. “Hush now. It’s over. It’s all over, Draco. I’m safe. You saved me, remember?”
It was coming back now. It always came back in bits and pieces after nights like this.
The raid. Three months ago. The Aurors had rushed Harry in. It was a Thursday and Draco had been toying with the idea of going home early.
His hands moved as his mind flew back, piecing the memories of that horrible, terrifying day. He grasped at Harry, feeling warm skin slip under his fingertips. His chest, his shoulders, his stomach…with the slash of the Dark Curse they still didn’t have a name for. Draco’s shaking hands ran the length of Harry’s torso, feeling the raised indentations of the scar. It had almost been too late…twenty two minutes, the Mediwitch had said…
He’d saved Harry’s life with thirty seconds to spare.
Draco wasn’t certain when he’d started crying, but the tears always came after the nightmares, and once they did there was no stopping them. Harry hushed him and kissed his forehead like he always did, holding him close and murmuring gently in his ear. He let Draco cry, sob out his grief and fear and relief in strong, comforting arms.
It had been so close. He had come so close to losing Harry that day…Draco cried like a terrified child, tears spilling over Harry’s shoulders as he held on for dear life.
“I hate seeing you like this,” Harry whispered, his voice thick with tears. “I’m sorry, Draco. I’m so sorry I put you through that. Please forgive me, love. Please…”
Draco tightened his grip, and buried his face in the crook of Harry’s neck. The last of the tears ran their course and Harry still held him, careful and so gentle, like Draco would shatter into a thousand pieces if he let go.
“I love you,” Harry whispered softly. “I love you so much, Draco. I’m so sorry. If I could take it back I would, you have to know that.”
He couldn’t.
What had happened to Harry- to both of them that day- had changed his life. Draco had relived that horrible day in his nightmares more times than he could count.
But he wasn’t entirely out of silver linings.
The nightmares were rarer nowadays. In the beginning, they came for him every night but lately, they were fewer and far between. He wouldn’t say it was better, but anything was a marked improvement over reliving it every night. It helped that Harry had finally seen sense and quit the Auror Corps. In another life, Draco would have teased him for taking up George’s offer to work at Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes. Now, he was just grateful that Harry would come home to him every night, safe and sound.
The panic had receded by now. Draco’s sigh was part exhaustion, part relief when he pried himself off Harry and gave him a wan smile.
“I’m okay now,” he said softly.
Harry’s eyes still held a wet sheen. His grip tightened on Draco’s shoulders as he leaned down for a soft kiss.
“I’m here,” he promised, his voice soft but fierce with conviction. “I will never leave you, Draco. Never, I swear.”
The words were a balm, a soothing blanket that kept the fear at bay. Draco kissed his husband and shifted over, giving Harry room to lie down beside him.
Harry herded him over as soon as they were settled, stroking Draco’s hair and keeping him close. Draco closed his eyes and slowly let himself relax.
Someday, he made a promise to himself and Harry, it will be alright. He would never forget- not truly- but…he would be alright.
The ticking of the clock faded to nothing, drowned out by the sound of Harry’s strong, steady heartbeat.
And Draco slept.
Rating: R
Word Count: 1,700
Warning(s): Angst, Panic Attacks
Summary: And the clock keeps ticking.
Author's notes: Written for dove_drabbles prompt: Ignore the Clock.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. This was written for fun, not profit.
The walls were closing in on him. As Draco ran down the length of the sterile hallway, he could swear they were narrowing, threatening to trap him in place and swallow him whole. His eyes stung and his heart raced, and he just kept on going.
The Mediwitch had to run to keep pace with him. She was a young girl whose name he couldn’t remember right now. As she gave him a rundown of his patient, her words sounded jumbled and fuzzy with static.
“…could be Dark Magic…can’t identify the source…lung collapse…not much time…”
It all washed over him. Perhaps he was finally going numb.
Good. That was good.
Nerves would only get in his way. What he needed right now was to summon whatever threads of sheer will and adrenalin were holding him together and approach this like any other case. With a detached, objective demeanour.
He had to be Healer Malfoy. St Mungo’s most sought after Spell Damage specialist. Never lost a patient.
Harry needed a Healer more than he needed a husband right now.
“How long?”
His voice was hoarse and he wished he’d had the presence of mind to hydrate before Casting. Harry was counting on him to be at the top of his game…
“Healer?” the puzzled Mediwitch questioned.
Draco could have slapped her. “How long does the patient have?” he repeated, biting out each word with a viciousness that made the woman withdraw slightly.
She scanned her file. “There’s a substantial drain on the magical core, Healer. Combine that with the lung perforation and the fracture- honestly, it’s a miracle he’s still…”
Draco’s menacing snarl cut her off before she could finish her morbid assessment. “That’s not what I asked,” he hissed, clenching his fists to keep from hexing her. “Give me a number, woman. How. Much. Time?!”
She swallowed audibly and lowered the file. When her eyes met Draco's, he saw real fear in them. “Twenty two minutes. If we Cast now.”
Twenty two minutes.
Twenty two minutes to save Harry’s life. To save his husband’s life.
Twenty two minutes.
It wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough.
It would have to be.
Draco cast a Tempus Charm.
10:48 PM.
The clock was ticking.
He turned on his heel and hurtled down the corridor.
****
10: 53 PM.
The ringing in his ears was a constant, punctuated only by the clock ticking down the seconds to Harry’s life.
Ignore it, Draco told himself firmly, trying to keep his hands from shaking. Ignore the fucking clock and concentrate, damn you!
Harry looked small and fragile, laid out on a gurney under the dim lights of the Casting Chamber. His face was wan and bloodless, the gash in his chest a macabre contrast to his rapidly paling countenance. Bruises littered his skin- a parting gift from the scum who had done this to him.
Draco told himself that it was the Stabilising Wards that were interfering with his spell-work, not his shaking hands and burning eyes.
You stupid, reckless fool.
He hated himself for not being able to evade the surge of terror building up inside him.
Why did you go after an armed suspect on your own?
The ticking was louder, he could feel every second against the thread of Harry’s fading pulse.
How could you do this to me?
“Status update,” Draco rasped.
“His magical core is still draining, Healer,” the Mediwitch reported carefully. “At this rate…”
Draco tuned her out and resumed his desperate Casting.
10: 56 PM.
Ignore the clock. Focus. Concentrate.
10: 58 PM.
Don’t you dare give up on me.
11:00 PM.
Please…
“He’s destabilising again,” someone on his right spoke up. “I need a Stasis Charm right now!”
No.
“He’s seizing up! Mediwitch, I need a status on the perforation!”
No. Harry, no…
“Recast!”
He was screaming now, and he didn’t care. The panic surged, blinding him, drowning him and the clock just kept on ticking.
11: 03 PM.
“Healer, we can’t! His body can’t take the…”
“I said recast, damn you!”
The spells danced from his wand tip, searching desperately for an elusive wound, a snapped thread, frantic attempts to repair something that should never, ever have been tampered with…
11: 06 PM.
“Healer, we need to stop! We can’t keep this up any longer!”
“We’re not stopping! I said recast!”
11: 07 PM.
“Healer Malfoy…”
There’s still time.
“Healer Malfoy, please…”
11:08 PM.
“Healer. He’s gone. I’m sorry.”
No. No, it couldn’t be…
11:09 PM.
Harry chest rose and fell one last time. Everything went still. Draco watched with unseeing eyes. The wand slipped from his fingers.
This can’t be happening, he thought numbly. He can’t leave me. He would never...
“Update,” the Mediwitch stated soberly. “Time of death. 11:10 PM.”
His time was up.
And the clock kept ticking.
****
Draco’s eyes shot open and he bolted up, gasping for air. The panic was still fresh in his mind, a gaping, stabbing wound that made him want to scream for mercy. His throat seized and his hands clawed desperately at his sheets, searching for an anchor he couldn’t grasp.
Harry, his mind screamed as the wave of loss and grief threatened to overpower him. Please, Harry. No please no I love you don’t leave me…
Then strong, capable hands grasped his shoulders, hauling him up until he was staring into determined green eyes.
“Breathe,” Harry said calmly. “Breathe, Draco.”
“Harry,” Draco managed in a choked gasp. He was still panting and try as he might, he couldn’t get his lungs to cooperate.
“It’s me,” Harry confirmed. He looked grim and worried but his voice and touch were soothing. “I’m here, Draco. It was just a nightmare, you hear me? I’m here. I’m with you. You’re okay. You’re okay, Draco.”
Harry.
Harry was here. He wasn’t dead.
Nightmare. Not dead. Not real.
Harry…
“Breathe for me, love,” Harry coaxed, running calming hands down his back and drawing him to rest against his chest. “Come on, now. You can do it. Just breathe with me…”
“H-hospital,” Draco stuttered. “You were…I couldn’t…t-twenty two minutes…”
Vaguely, he was aware that he really needed to get his heartbeat back to normal but the panic was still bubbling, dangerously close to the surface. He couldn’t stop the stream of half words and terrified nonsense pouring out of him, accompanied by shameful, stinging tears.
“I know, I know,” Harry murmured, taking a chance and pulling him close. He ran a careful hand down Draco’s back, whispering reassurances into his hair. “Hush now. It’s over. It’s all over, Draco. I’m safe. You saved me, remember?”
It was coming back now. It always came back in bits and pieces after nights like this.
The raid. Three months ago. The Aurors had rushed Harry in. It was a Thursday and Draco had been toying with the idea of going home early.
His hands moved as his mind flew back, piecing the memories of that horrible, terrifying day. He grasped at Harry, feeling warm skin slip under his fingertips. His chest, his shoulders, his stomach…with the slash of the Dark Curse they still didn’t have a name for. Draco’s shaking hands ran the length of Harry’s torso, feeling the raised indentations of the scar. It had almost been too late…twenty two minutes, the Mediwitch had said…
He’d saved Harry’s life with thirty seconds to spare.
Draco wasn’t certain when he’d started crying, but the tears always came after the nightmares, and once they did there was no stopping them. Harry hushed him and kissed his forehead like he always did, holding him close and murmuring gently in his ear. He let Draco cry, sob out his grief and fear and relief in strong, comforting arms.
It had been so close. He had come so close to losing Harry that day…Draco cried like a terrified child, tears spilling over Harry’s shoulders as he held on for dear life.
“I hate seeing you like this,” Harry whispered, his voice thick with tears. “I’m sorry, Draco. I’m so sorry I put you through that. Please forgive me, love. Please…”
Draco tightened his grip, and buried his face in the crook of Harry’s neck. The last of the tears ran their course and Harry still held him, careful and so gentle, like Draco would shatter into a thousand pieces if he let go.
“I love you,” Harry whispered softly. “I love you so much, Draco. I’m so sorry. If I could take it back I would, you have to know that.”
He couldn’t.
What had happened to Harry- to both of them that day- had changed his life. Draco had relived that horrible day in his nightmares more times than he could count.
But he wasn’t entirely out of silver linings.
The nightmares were rarer nowadays. In the beginning, they came for him every night but lately, they were fewer and far between. He wouldn’t say it was better, but anything was a marked improvement over reliving it every night. It helped that Harry had finally seen sense and quit the Auror Corps. In another life, Draco would have teased him for taking up George’s offer to work at Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes. Now, he was just grateful that Harry would come home to him every night, safe and sound.
The panic had receded by now. Draco’s sigh was part exhaustion, part relief when he pried himself off Harry and gave him a wan smile.
“I’m okay now,” he said softly.
Harry’s eyes still held a wet sheen. His grip tightened on Draco’s shoulders as he leaned down for a soft kiss.
“I’m here,” he promised, his voice soft but fierce with conviction. “I will never leave you, Draco. Never, I swear.”
The words were a balm, a soothing blanket that kept the fear at bay. Draco kissed his husband and shifted over, giving Harry room to lie down beside him.
Harry herded him over as soon as they were settled, stroking Draco’s hair and keeping him close. Draco closed his eyes and slowly let himself relax.
Someday, he made a promise to himself and Harry, it will be alright. He would never forget- not truly- but…he would be alright.
The ticking of the clock faded to nothing, drowned out by the sound of Harry’s strong, steady heartbeat.
And Draco slept.