Chapter Text
It wasn’t as if life wasn’t in color.
He could tell you the Manor grass was green and the morning sky was blue.
No, life was in color, but so much was dimmed, as though cast in moonlight, less vibrant, more shade than true color, like a painter had stroked a mess of grey, watery pigment over a masterpiece. Less alive, more muted. Everything a shadow of its once sunny vibrance. The war had stolen it away.
Draco Malfoy was the moon, and with exceptions few and far between, true color was lost to him. The exceptions were important, the exceptions sparked feeling.
If asked, he could tell you the shade of red in his mother’s favorite Floribunda roses, the ones she would take the time to prune and trim herself, arranging in the same 18th century crystal vase his father had gifted her for their tenth wedding anniversary.
He could tell you the ocean hue of his best friend’s irises, not mediterranean in color, but stormy seas, reminiscent of tidal waves landing viciously on rocky shores. Theo’s eyes, that were always glinting with mischief, always challenging him to be more, dark and blue and deep, a steady and resilient presence in his life.
These two consistencies were enough, the rest didn’t matter.
“Draco, Dragon, did you hear a word of what I just said?” His mother looked disapprovingly down at him, how a witch of such small stature managed the feat was still a mystery to him.
“I- sorry mother. I was lost in thought, forgive me. What were you saying?”
“I have made you four sessions with the medwitch that I have been meeting with. You know? The one at Wizarding Wellness, the-“
“I am not going to your witchy spa, mum.”
“Draco, you absolutely will. I pulled several strings to get these appointments scheduled and you-“
“I will not be-.”
“DRACO LUCIUS MALFOY!” He pauses, tea halfway to his lips, “Look at my hands.”
For the first time, the seriousness of her tone has him pausing, glancing to her long fingered, graceful fingers. Hands, the effeminate mirror of his own, that daintily hold a delicate, white, tea cup. The cup sits on a matching china plate, it doesn’t shake, or tremor, doesn’t clink clumsily as it had since the war ended.
It’s steady, perfect. He hasn’t seen her hands so still in years.
It’s how he finds himself stepping into an undisclosed floo location, following very simple written directions after signing several forms that ensure discretion, healing to the best of Wizarding Wellness’s capability, and permission for a full body diagnostic scan. The last leaves him nervous, unsure if he is willing to relinquish that much information about his body’s condition to anyone.
The note had read, “Welcome to Wizarding Wellness, Mr. Malfoy. Your relaxation and wellbeing is of the utmost importance to us. In order to protect the experience of mental and physical healing, all parties involved remain confidential. Your assigned medwitch is magically bound to secrecy, as her identity will remain hidden to you as well. Please enter, disrobe, and lie on the provided table face down under the sheets, your healer will be with you momentarily.”
Disrobe, he scoffs, where the bloody hell had his mother sent him?
Soft, tinkling music meets his ears as he takes in the room. It’s plain, nondescript, but cozy, he supposes. The walls are a soft sage, the lighting dimmed the slightest bit and the table in the center was covered in soft cushioned blankets.
Here goes nothing.
Draco strips to his briefs before figuring they might as well join the rest of his clothes that are magically folding themselves and floating to a small table near the door. It’s a nice touch, he thinks, making the circumstance decidedly more magical. The entire situation should leave him on edge and panicked but all he feels is resignedly comfortable.
The bed is pleasantly warm as he settles in to wait, it doesn’t take long before a soft knock sounds from the door.
“Enter.” His voice is muffled into the rounded pillow but he finds himself too relaxed to mind much.
A soft melodic voice follows, “Good Afternoon Mr. Malfoy, I will be your Wellness specialist today.”
Wellness specialist, what an absolutely absurd title.
“If at any point you are uncomfortable please simply say, Hippogriff, and your treatment will cease.”
Hippogriff, honestly? He needs a safe word?
Trepidation prickles his skin but before he can truly ponder it, an overwhelming sense of calm permeates the anxiety.
If this were something to worry about, Mother would never have sent him.
“My first step is casting your diagnostic, I will remind you that this is completely confidential and just to give me an idea as to where we will begin today, hang on for a moment as I make a plan for your treatment.”
This bed is like a bloody cloud.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he wonders if he can buy a set of these sheets for his bed at the Manor.
She must have cast, as he can see a faint golden light highlighting the wooden pattern of the floorboards. Soft humming accompanies the chimes before the light disappears.
“I am going to touch you now, Mr. Malfoy.”
He hums noncommittally, truthfully, he could fall asleep, this room is entirely too comfortable.
A firm brush of fingertips against the back of his neck has him jolting back to awareness before what is happening hits him like a bludger.
A mood inhibitor. Something about the room is sucking the stress from his body like poison from a wound.
“Today, I will focus primarily on your hands and arms,” the wellness whatever murmurs, head much closer than before. “If at any point you are uncomfortable just use our discussed word.”
“The safeword." He can’t help but quip back.
“Yes,” he thinks he detects amusement in her voice but cannot be certain, “You carry an excessive amount of curse damage in your hands and arms.”
One arm in particular, he thinks.
A faint pressure, a wand he realizes, presses into his palm. Cool, soothing magic flows outwards, as though he’s running his hand through a fountain, followed quickly by two thumbs. The witch massages something pungent and slippery into his hands, steady, firm swipes that ease cramped pain he didn’t even realize he still held. “You are going to feel so much better.” Her voice is breathy and soft as she works. “As wixin, our hands are so important not only because they’re our channel for power, the way we hold our wands…but also,” her quite words trail off momentarily, “They are a huge part of the way we connect with others. Touch, it’s important.”
Her fingers slide between his, rotating his wrist, each finger, each joint until his hand feels more puddy than flesh and bone. It’s ridiculously gratifying and nothing like he has ever experienced before, he needs to understand more.
“How does your mood inhibitor work without having the client ingest it?” His voice is muffled, lazy, and even that is gratifying because when was the last time he felt so nonchalant about anything?
Her hands still momentarily, before beginning to massage firm circles into his wrist.
“You are the only person that has ever realized…I kept thinking someone would but-" her voice cuts off and he waits, invested in the answer.
“Muggle humidifiers, they turn water to steam and then sort of propel moisture into the air. I used the same technique to vaporize a microdose of draught of peace. It’s just enough to put people at ease…”
Fascinating. He’s breathing it in.
“Isn’t that illegal, dosing patients without telling them ahead of time?” He groans as her thumb presses a particularly painful spot in his wand hand before quickly soothing it away with the cooling magic.
“Technically, you signed your approval, it’s in the fine print.” This time he definitely hears smug amusement. “But if you are not enjoying the effects I can certainly turn it off.”
“Carry on, oh wellness witch, I feel bloody amazing.”
She huffs a whispered chuckle and the cooling wash of enchantment moves from his hands to his forearms. Whoever she is, she has brilliant hands, strong but soft, alternating between firm and then as soft as butterfly wings against his skin.
For several long minutes, he lets her work, content to close his eyes and enjoy the experience of tension melting from his body.
When she gets to his left arm, he stiffens, ready to face whatever ire this stranger might have for him, but her fingers never stop their work. A generous amount of some new tincture joins the first and she works it into his Dark Mark.
It’s intimate in a way that he would never allow another person and he thanks Merlin for the Draught of Peace constantly filling his nostrils.
She must notice his tension because her hand squeezes momentarily over his mark.
“This is an ointment of my own creation.” Her voice seems familiar for a moment, a note of pride sparking a memory in him, there and gone again before he can grasp it. “It counteracts dark magic, neutralizes it in the body so that it cannot continue to affect the wielder. It works on cursed scars and seems to have been effective on other Dark Marks.”
He can feel it, feel that part of him that has felt just a little bit cold, infinitesimally gloomy, fade. Not completely, but enough that a deep whoosh of air leaves his lungs. He hadn’t realized how much of that miserable feeling had become a part of him, a chronic unending thrum of darkness.
His eyes flicker open as she moves towards his head, thumbs kneading into a particularly angry knot in his left shoulder.
Pink.
He blinks.
Pink painted, dainty, bare toes meet his eyes. It takes more than a moment for him to take them in. Pink. Her toes are pink.
Like a flamingo. Like the umbrellas Theo gets in his fruity muggle drinks, the witches' toenails are so very pink, and mouthwateringly pretty.
“You are barefoot,” he doesn’t mean to say it, but is secretly quite pleased as her toes flex into the soft rug below.
“Yes,” a particularly firm pass of her hand has him moaning into the cushion and he watches again, as her toes curl and then straighten right below his face. “I don’t like to wear shoes when I work, it’s grounding.”
“Are you Lovegood?” Another thing he doesn’t mean to say but the tinkling laugh that follows is wildly gratifying.
“No, Draco, I am not Luna Lovegood. And even if I were, confidentiality, you recall?”
His first name, how oddly familiar of her. He realizes with sudden clarity, that the witch that is playing his arms and hands like a fiddle knows him.
“Draco is it?” The pretty little feet shift out of his line of sight and he feels momentarily bereft so see them go.
“Mr. Malfoy, I apologize.”
No, none of that, he needs to know who she is now. Now that there’s pink, a new exception, a new color in his world.
“We know each other,” his cheeks raise into the pillows' edges, and Salazar, when was the last time he smiled? He is gloriously naked and his medwitch is mapping his body like a cartographer, and she knows him.
She snorts, “I can neither confirm nor deny.”
“Cheeky,” he grins again, and bloody hell is he flirting with his wellness specialist?
“Even if we do, which I am not confirming, your appointment is very nearly up, and I am contract bound to silence.”
“But I get to come back?” He had not seen this coming, had thought to get it all over with to appease his mother and move along.
“Yes, for three more sessions, next will be chest and back.”
“You will touch my chest and my back?” The idea is exhilarating, he will get to see mystery pink’s pretty face. Surely she would be lovely, such dainty, perfect-
“Yes. Much the same as today, though with more ointment if your scan is anything to go by.”
The scars, right.
“But I will see your face?”
“No, Dr- Mr. Malfoy, my identity remains hidden by a localized enchantment. You will only see a portion of my face, not enough to know my identity. Now we need to do our post appointment check in?”
A safe word and aftercare. He wonders if she realizes how very sexually gratifying this all could be.
“How do you feel?”
He flexes, his fingers, his arms. He feels bloody fantastic.
“I haven’t felt this well in a very long time.” And it’s true, there’s still pain but everything is muted, an echo of what it once was.
“That is wonderful! I really think you could benefit from extra services but I understand this is a new experience for you. I will leave you now to get dressed, you may leave whenever you are ready but I am going to fix a tea that you should drink before you go. It has several ingredients that will help your body maintain the progress we made today.”
All of this comes out in a rushed, swotty lecture that once again brushes at the back of his memory.
“Thank you, I will do that.” Out of the corner of his eye, he catches it once more.
Pink, his new favorite color.