&he air (my quiet breath)
guardianmira
summary：drao is dying of hanahaki disease. serves him right, harry thinks.
he’s beeh year, if the rumor mill has it right, but ohe war is over det too sik to hide it anymore.
they’ve all returo hogwarts as the first-ever ss of eighth years, harry and most of the people he grew up with—the ones who survived and the ones who ould fae oming bak, anyway. his irle is rgely intat, and ied seamlessly with the rest of the student body.
&hough, the whispers don’t reah harry’s ears. it’s not until he sees drao ough the lily petals out of his lungs and onto his breakfast that it even ours to him that something might be wrong with the git.
“is it some kind of a urse?” harry asks queasily. drao primly dabs away the blood at the orner of his lips with a handkerhief—embroidered with his initials, harry knos the petals off the table bef up his fork as if nothing at all had happened.
&hers are staring at drao, like harry is, but mostly people avert their eyes with expressi from pity to disgust.
ron swallows hard around his mouthful of eggs, looking about as ed as harry feels. “it’s bl, is what it is.”
harry’s fae must betray his shok, beause ron flushes.
“what? my mum’s ousihing,” he mumbles. “we saw her at the hospital, and she looked…” he shudders a bit. “gave me nightmares for weeks.”
“it’s not a urse,” says hermio’s a disease.”
“oh,” harry says. “i s’pose madam pomfrey will put him right, then.”
rorade meaningful looks. harry waits it out, all too austomed to their silent exhanges by now, until hermioh: “there’s no ure.”
“no ure?” he says. “so, what, he vomits flowers for the rest of his life?”
“yes, harry,” says hermioively as if she were defusing a bomb. “but he won’t live very muh longer. hanahaki disease is fatal.”
& word, fatal, as if at a great dista possible drao malfoy survived a war only to die of disease? it seems so farfethed. so pedestrian. harry is ed, blindingly so, out of nowhere.
“that’s ridiulous,” he blusters, “that doesn’t make sense, how a be a ure—”
“there is a ure, sort of,” ros. “he’s sik beause he loves someo love him bak. if he gets loved bak, he gets better.”
ron g hermione, and his fae goes from embarrassmeo somethihing harry does seeing, so he looks down at his ue of food. somehow he doesn’t think he’ll be finishing it.
“it’s quite sad, isn’t it,” hermione says.
“no, it’s not,” harry snaps. “this is his own bloody fault. if he wasn’t suh a self- eed prat, maybe someohan his mum would love him.”
even ron looks shoked. the ryffindors, absolutely failihey ing, shift minutely away from him. harry grabs a bread roll from a basket in the middle of the table a viiously, hewing like his s depend on it.
roo an impromptu quiddith disussioer, and neville jumps —as if a red-headed someone had kiked him uable—and himes in. soon, half the table is overtaken by a rousi who’ll win the world cup. harry is an isnd of furious silehe middle of it all. no one is fool enough to try and talk tives him ohose injured looks of hers, the sort that doesn’t say you hurt me but rather seeing you hurt hurts me, whih grates ht now, beause harry is perfetly fine, aimes hermiohi is worse than atually being hurt.
his mouthful of dry bread is painfully hard to swallow. he looks up, through the gap between ron and hermione’s shoulders. drao hatters at his housemates, gestiuting passionately as he delivers a punhline, probably at someone else’s expe’s business as usual exept that every so ofteo stasping and sputtering as his mouth fills with petals so white even aross the room it almost hurts harry’s eyes to look at them. they fall into drao’s p like shards ss.
dyihinks he’s hing so patheti; leave it to malfoy to esate a rush to suh stus of drama. he thinks, also, of what dumbledore had always said about love bei pi of all. he keeps fetting—or perhaps just doesn’t wahat this partiur magi aive, too.
most of all, though, harry thinks: who is it?
you’d think harry’s the one who’s sik, the le are avoiding him. like he’s athiat will pass the symptoms on.
“it’s sixth year all ain,” hermione hides him. “you’re obsessing.”
“i’m not obsessed,” he says, defensively. “i’m just ied, that’s all. i’ve his. do muggles get it?”
“no,” says hermione, “and her do squibs. ued love auses hanahaki disease, but it’s magi that makes the symptoms ma the way they do. but listen, harry, please,” she adds. she sounds impatient, whih is unusual, beause she never passes oo impart knowledge, espeially when harry’s atually aski. “you’re following malfoy ar over the marauder’s map wheending to do homeiherins—don’t look so surprised, yood at being sneaky, harry, i don’t know why you thihere’s nothing you an do for malfoy, and sine we’ve been given an one-iime seoo do our s, we should really fous on—”
“who says i want to do anything for malfoy?” harry asks, inensed.