Author's Note: Enjoy!

Disclaimer: The following characters belong to J.K. Rowling, and this story derives from her original works, storylines, and world. Please do not sue me, I can barely pay tuition.

Hogwarts: Assignment #10, Healer Studies Task #2: Write about a coma.

Warnings: Hospitalized loved one

A Week Worth A Decade

Day 1

The Healers told Draco that he'd arrived just a day too late.

"No," Draco said, shaking his head. "No, she can't be…"

He had rushed to St. Mungo's as soon as he'd been contacted—as soon as he'd been told Astoria had been admitted. He'd been outside of the country—at Blaise's family home in Italy for his bachelor's party, ironically enough, so it had taken some extra time, but…

The Healer clucked his tongue and elbowed his intern.

"Don't say it like that," he ordered. "You're making it sound as if the patient has died!"

She turned back to Draco categorically, and then softened her tone.

"Mr Malfoy, your fiancée is alive. Her condition was quite critical when she was admitted, her body was exhausted from trying to fight off the infection, given the state of her immune system and so on. Her usual team of Healers consulted and determined that the best course of action to give her body the rest it needed to survive this was to place Ms. Greengrass in a Healer-induced coma."

At this, Draco felt dizzy.

"I… I don't understand," he said.

"We can go over the details of how this procedure works later," the Healer said. He reached out and touched Draco's arm. "Would you like us to take you to her?"

"Yes!" Draco said, breathless. "Yes, yes please…"

Day 2

He brought Astoria a bouquet of flowers. He wouldn't have, had he not been unceremoniously chased out of her room by a very concerned Healer who wanted him to go eat and shower and sleep. He'd only managed one of those three things, but picking up flowers on his way back to her had made the expedition feel somewhat worthwhile.

They were white magnolias and snowdrops. The smell of the first had always irritated Draco's nose and the shape of the latter had always seemed odd to him, but they were her favourites.

"She'll want to see them when she wakes up," Draco told the Healer who was checking Astoria's pulse as he twisted the vase so that it rested on her bedside table at the perfect angle.

"That may take time, Mr Malfoy," the Healer said gently.

"That's fine," Draco said. "I can bring her more."

Day 3

Mrs. Greengrass brought Draco a thick, yellowed brick of a paperback novel.

"It's a happy book," she told him. "Nobody is sick, nobody dies, nobody is in danger, nobody is hurt. I find that it's important to have a happy book to read while waiting for her to get better."

Draco took the book, not sure how to thank her for the kindness.

"I don't know how I'll be able to focus on this," Draco said, running his thumb down the book's spine.

"We may be here for some time," Mrs. Greengrass said sadly. She put her hand over Draco's and squeezed. "I know this is new for you, but I have waited at her bedside for over twenty years, young man. Trust me. You'll want a good and happy book."

Day 4

"I don't know if you can hear me," Draco said, propping his elbow up on the foot of her bed and leaning against it. "They did say that you might, and that at any rate talking wouldn't hurt. I wish I had more to tell you, but I really haven't done much but sit here, with you. I suppose I could tell you what the café is serving today. Maybe tell you about your ridiculous neighbour who seems to be raising fire-breathing poultry, although maybe that won't make you want to wake up. Next time I go home, I'll bring back a book of poetry and read from that—yes, that'll be much better..."

Day 5

When Draco woke up in the middle of the night, there was a blanket over his shoulders that hadn't been there when he'd fallen asleep. When had that been? The moon had still been shining through the hospital room window, then. Now there was a storm outside and its clouds obscured everything. His book had slipped and fallen to the floor.

There was a Healer in the room, quietly going about her nightly rounds. She was writing some notes down on the chart at the end of Astoria's bed.

"Do you need another blanket, love?" she asked.

"I thought these were for patients," Draco said, rubbing at his eyes.

The Healer shrugged.

"I'm alright, thanks," Draco said, settling back down in his chair. "Is she..?"

"Stable," the Healer said. Which Draco understood to mean that nothing had changed.

Day 7

"This is what you signed up for, when you asked her for her hand in marriage," Father told him as they sat at a table in the café, huddled over piss poor coffee.

"I know," Draco said. His grip tightened around his cup. "It's… it's worth it. And with all due respect Father, fuck off."

Day 8

The Healers were encouraged by what they saw, when they came in to measure Astoria's temperature and draw some blood and take her pulse and check her pupils and her breathing.

"Will she wake up soon?" Draco asked.

"Not yet," the Healer said. "We want to make sure not to rush this."

Day 9

"Mrs. Greengrass?" Draco asked, just as Astoria's Mum was about to leave.

"Yes, dear?" she asked, pausing to turn back towards him.

Draco chewed his lip.

"Are there any other happy books you might recommend I read?"

Day 10

They did it.

Today was the day they stopped pouring the potions keeping Astoria asleep down her throat and into the tubes that ran into her veins. Draco's heart beat. Part of him wanted it to be like one of Beedle the Bard's tales, where she just woke up at once. He would finally breathe right, for the first time in weeks, if her eyes fluttered open then…

"This is a good sign," the Healer reminded Draco, Daphne, and their parents. "But remember. This may take time. Astoria, when she is strong enough, will come back to us."

"She's the strongest person I know," Daphne said. She took her sister's hand and squeezed.

Day 11

So the delay had been too long for a fairy tale wake-up to appear. They'd missed that margin by a day, but that was alright. It would still be a miracle if today could be the day.

Day 12

Draco finished his book of poetry for the second time.

"I suppose I should get us some new material," he told Astoria. "Old rhymes won't make you want to come back. You deserve new sonnets."

Day 13

"Hello," Blaise said. He stood in the doorframe of Astoria's room with two cups of tea in cardboard cups.

"I thought visiting hours were over," Draco said—which was genuinely his first reaction although no way to greet a friend.

"That doesn't seem to be stopping you," Blaise said. He handed Draco one of the teas and sat down on the chair next to his.

"How is she?" he asked.

"Her breathing was a little shaky today," Draco said. "They worried that the pneumonia that got her here in the first place hadn't quite been shaken off, but they ran some tests and that was a false alarm."

"Thank Merlin," Blaise said. "Cheers."

He clicked his cup of tea to Draco's, though Draco wasn't particularly in the mood for a toast.

"When's the last time you slept in a bed, mate?" Blaise asked.

"I tried a few days ago, but couldn't," Draco said. "I'd rather be in the chair."

"She'd want you to take care of yourself," Blaise said. "When she wakes up and finds out you've been camping out in her room, she'll mother you into next week."

"If she wakes up," Draco said.

He had never said those words before. Had barely thought them—and on the few occasions that it had occurred to him, he'd treated them as slips and buried them.

"Draco…" Blaise said.

"I'm so scared," Draco said. "She's too good for this. She doesn't deserve this. She's… she's the best thing that's ever happened to me, Blaise. I didn't like who I was before I belonged to her. She was my salvation, and here I am, absolutely helpless and completely useless to her. And I keep worrying… I keep wondering if there's an end to salvation. If she dies, what kind of person will I be?"

"The kind of person who was made better by knowing her and who changed because of it," Blaise said. "Now; take a deep breath. Feel through whatever's going on here, and then exhale. If you worry about this much longer, she'll mother you into next week when she wakes up."

"When," Draco nodded.

Day 14

He watched Daphne paint Astoria's nails a midnight blue that would have brought out her eyes, had they been open.

"Problem, Malfoy?" Daphne asked. "Or do you just want me to do your nails too?"

"Sure," Draco said, too exhausted to talk more but more than happy to connect with someone, anyone, over anything.

Day 15

This was the fourth bouquet of flowers Draco had brought to St. Mungo's.

He'd made a habit of bringing some for the Healers to keep at their station at the end of the hallway too, and for the woman who never had any visitors a few doors down, and the man who missed his greenhouse while he was bedridden.

But only Astoria got white flowers.

Day 16

Draco waited outside Astoria's room, ready to ambush the Healer and her interns on their morning rounds.

"Mr Malfoy," the Healer said. "Good morning. Have you been to the café yet to get your—"

"Please be honest," Draco said. There was nothing more he could ask for even if there was so much he wanted. "Is it time to start worrying yet?

Day 17

Draco had officially seen every possible combination of rotating soups, sandwiches, and entrées at the café on the fifth floor. The witch manning the cashier seemed to realize this, because she slipped a biscuit into a paper bag and added it to Draco's order after he paid.

Day 18

Another patient in the wing passed away. Draco had crossed their husband and children in the café and around the hospital multiple times before.

Over the last two weeks, he had aged what felt like centuries. His bones had stored decades' worth of fatigue in their core, he had lived through a lifetime of worst-case-scenarios either through his fiancée's medical chart or in his head.

That night, he couldn't sleep at all. Even if he'd trust the Healers with his life, he somehow couldn't trust them with hers and spent the entire night watching her breathe himself.

Day 19

It happened. It happened while Draco was sleeping in the middle of the day, and so Daphne woke him up. At first, he assumed the worst since a swarm of Healers were in the room. Then he heard Astoria's usually canorous but currently quiet and scratchy voice telling the Healers she'd had some strange dreams.

"Astoria," he breathed. "Astoria, my gosh…"

Day 20

She'd made some room in bed for him and proceeded to snuggle up against his chest. His chin was tucked over her head, which was the perfect way for him to both feel and hear her breathing.

"I didn't mean to scare you," Astoria said.

"You did nothing wrong," Draco repeated. "This is your life. This is going to be my life too, once you're married."

"It was your life for the last 19 days," Astoria said. "Daphne told me. As did the Healers. They seem to think I did well for myself."

Draco smiled and kissed the top of her hair.

"I would have let you know I was sick. Honestly, I would have if I had known it was anything important—it all happened so fast," Astoria repeated. "Sometimes it's like that."

"Then we're just going to have to be faster than it," Draco told her.

Astoria pondered this for a second, like a rock she was running her fingers over, testing its polish before she skipped it over the surface.

"In that case… I have an idea," Astoria said. "It will be fast, but if that's what our life is going to be like…"

Day 21

Daphne and Blaise had been shocked when they'd told them the next morning, but Daphne had quickly snapped out of it and reverted to giving everybody orders to put the whole thing together.

Blaise's job had been to bring Draco home and force him to shower and put on clean robes. They'd picked up white flowers to decorate the room on their way back.

Astoria's wedding dress was still at the seamstress and unavailable at this time. Luckily, Daphne had gone deep into her closet and found her a red summer dress that dipped down the shoulders. Red dresses were good luck on wedding days, that's what Mrs. Greengrass had always said, and that was all the encouragement they needed to proceed.

They notified their parents, though they didn't care much if they came on time or not. Most of the ward was watching through the glass windows of the room.

They summoned one of the Healers on the floor who happened to be ordained to perform weddings.

And they went faster than their lives.

Stacked with: Hogwarts; Shipping War

Individual Challenge(s): Blooming Time; Black Ribbon; Black Ribbon Redux; Coil (Y); Slytherin MC (x4); Blissfully Tragic; Brush; Seeds; Tissue Warning; Times to Come; Old Shoes; Themes & Things A (Celebration); Themes & Things B (Risk); Themes & Things C (Flowers); Themes & Things E (Dress/Skirt); Ethnic & Present (Y); Rian-Russo Inversion (Y); Short Jog; Yellow Ribbon; Yellow Ribbon Redux

Word Count: 2232

Shipping Wars

Ship (Team): Draco Malfoy/Astoria Greengrass (Stellar Legends)

List (Prompt): Fall Medium 1 ("Vegas Wedding"/Elopement)