Teddy stumbles out of the Floo half an hour later, waving a jolly hello.

Draco had barely convinced Potter to stay for this, but eventually he'd managed. Potter's standing in the corner, his arms crossed, his face a map of fury and discomfort.

"Wotcher," Teddy says. "Don't you two make a lovely pair."

"Sit," Draco says. "Now."

"Er ... okay." Teddy's magical eye stares at him sideways as he takes a seat in front of Draco's desk, not hiding his concern.

"I get to look first," Potter reminds Draco.

"Fine."

For Potter, it's a game of timing. If Draco gets to Teddy before him, it's the perfect opportunity for Draco to cast another curse.

Draco only needs simple logic. Potter would not hurt his godson. If every other patient is badly affected, and Teddy isn't, that's basically proof. If Teddy's having problems too, then the outlook is far grimmer. Draco will have no way of knowing what's causing this, and no way of stopping it.

Potter tugs on the prosthesis, but it doesn't budge. He tries again, and Teddy makes a face.

"Er, Harry?" Teddy says. "All right, there?"

"I don't know yet. You can come check him now, Malfoy."

Draco approaches and tilts Teddy's face at a sharp angle. He begins prying at the edges of the metal goggle with his tools — traditionally used for taking prostheses apart when they need repairing.

Despite the unique making of Teddy's prosthetic eye, and the fact that his model is far older than Potter's, it does not separate from his head any more easily.

The band holding the prosthesis in place is still loose enough to wiggle around, but the goggle might as well be fused to the skin. Draco tries a few spells that all end in failure.

The placement doesn't look uncomfortable, fortunately, but Draco imagines it will present quite a challenge if Teddy tries to sleep on his left side.

"Have you had any symptoms recently?"

"Symptoms of what?"

"Of anything, anything that might be related to your eye."

Teddy shakes his head slowly. "I don't..." Potter's about to leap at the words when Teddy says, "Well, yeah, actually. I thought it was just from being around potion fumes for too long, but I saw some stuff on the wall of my lab earlier."

"What kind of stuff?" Potter asks.

"Markings, I guess. Little black shapes on the walls. I really thought it was nothing. Sometimes staring at flames for too long can do that to you."

Potter swears. "It's everyone, then. Dammit, Malfoy, if you did this just to cover your arse—"

"I wouldn't throw years of my life and all of my patients' well-being down the drain just to cover up having done something bad to you. I've thrown hexes at you all my life without hiding it. Why start now?"

"Hold on," Teddy says. "What's happening?"

Potter stays silent, so Draco knows it's up to him to reveal the news.

"Patients have been coming to me today with complaints. I thought it was something I could fix — or, at the very least, that I could buy some time to figure out what's causing the problems before I tell everyone. But it seems that my prostheses are currently irremovable."

Teddy frowns, tugging at his eye. Then his expression turns to dismay as he morphs the shape of his face again and again, and it still doesn't budge. "I took it off just last night!"

"I know."

"What the hell am I gonna do? Do you know how uncomfortable this thing can get?"

"I've been told."

"Fuck."

"Fuck," Draco repeats, emphatically.

Potter's glower grows dark, like coals losing their last memory of fire. "You can't stall anymore. You have to tell all your patients."

Teddy nods vigorously. "If there's even a small fraction of them that won't have put their prostheses on for the day yet—"

"I know." Draco picks up a quill from his desk, but he can't make himself begin writing yet. "Everyone will panic."

"That'll happen either way."

"But if I can figure out what's happening before I tell people..."

Draco knows even as he says it that it won't work. He has to contact the Prophet immediately, and he has to send individual owls to everyone that has ever received an eye from his clinic. Even they aren't all cursed. Even if it sends patients running to other countries to get treated by competing ocularists.

Draco nearly keels over in panic, because he knows how this will go. His patients won't trust him anymore. It won't matter how quickly he figures out what's happening and fixes it; this won't be forgotten. 'If it can happen once,' they'll reason, 'it could happen again.' Why would they bother with him in the future?

"How bad is this?" Teddy asks.

Draco wishes he knew. "It's nothing to worry over."

Teddy gets to his feet. "Incredibly bad, then."

"Yes."

"Really, really bad."

Draco snorts dryly. "Ladies and Gentlemen — top of his class at Hogwarts."

"We'll stay to help," Teddy says. "Right, Harry? We need to write the letters as fast as possible."

Potter gives a tense nod.

"I'll get Theia," Draco tells them.

As he exits the room, Draco grips his quill like a weapon. It won't protect him, though. He wishes he had something stronger to hold onto.

~

Draco pounds on Madam Pomfrey's office door as at least a hundred owls swoop towards him at once.

Her arm shoots out just a moment before they reach him. "In, in—" She yanks him past the threshold and slams it behind them.

Thirty indignant squawks sound from the other side before Madam Pomfrey aims a Silencing Charm at the wood.

Her sharp eyes land on him. "Sit, sit, good heavens, boy!

Madam Pomfrey pushes him into one of her cosy red chairs and ushers him to take a sip of tea. He can tell that it's been placed under a Warming Charm, which isn't surprising, considering that he's an hour late today.

Draco hadn't known how best to escape his clinic without getting pecked to death by birds.

"Minerva told me about your announcement in the Prophet.

Draco winces. "Yeah. Yeah. I'm fucked, aren't I?"

Madam Pomfrey thwacks him on the head. "Language, young man."

Draco rubs his cheek in annoyance. "I think I'm entitled to a little cursing, seeing as I've just had what might be the worst day of my life. Which is saying a lot."

"You're entitled to what I say you're entitled to. Now, if you're well enough to talk like that, you're well enough to help me restock my storage shelves."

Madam Pomfrey bustles about the snug little office she has just to the right side of the Hogwarts hospital wing, putting away jars of powdered moonstone.

She always makes Draco handle the top shelves because she can only reach them using magic, and she doesn't like trying to arrange potions using a Levitation Charm. Apparently, it's made a mess more than a few times.

"How much bloody powdered moonstone does one person need?" Draco asks.

"Hush. I won't be reminding you about your language a third time."

"I'm forty-four. Do you think I'll ever be allowed to curse in front of you?"

"Hardly. By the time you're not a young man any longer, I'd better be well beyond my death bed."

Draco does not look up from his tea. "What a cheerful thought. Don't suppose we've got long left?"

Madam Pomfrey clucks in disapproval, but her tone is fond. "Watch yourself, boy. You're going to need people on your side through all this."

He'd sent the last of the letters an hour earlier, after begging the Prophet to publish his official warning in a midday edition.

"Has anything like this ever happened to you?" he asks.

"You remember your second year, don't you?"

"Too well."

"I hardly slept for months. Do you think parents were thrilled when students were being Petrified left and right, and I had no answers for them?"

Draco hasn't thought about all that in nearly a decade. But he can only imagine his reaction if he heard Scorpius was Petrified when he was twelve. It isn't worth thinking about, but he's sure he would have ruined whatever burgeoning friendship he and Madam Pomfrey had at the time.

"Exactly," she continues, taking his silence as agreement, as always. "So don't go thinking you've got all the world's problems to yourself, now."

"Yes, yes, that's me told — but what do I do?"

"You just take it as it comes. No way to know what the response will be until it happens." She levels him with a look. "Eventually you should stop hiding out in my hospital wing and go back to your clinic. And you should talk to Potter again, as well. He may be able to help you figure this out."

Draco ignores the last bit. "But the owls. You have no idea how many Howlers and Floo calls and letters from 'concerned citizens' I'll get."

"You're going to have to face it eventually. There won't be as many right now as there will be later."

"Right now?"

"Well." Madam Pomfrey draws her wand from her sleeve, and a potion's vial comes flying towards her. She tips a bit into both of their cups. "Drink up."

Draco gives her a dubious look.

"Don't judge me until you're working with children all day, trying to keep them from escaping their hospital beds when they're supposed to be regrowing limbs. A little Calming Draught can do all of us well, sometimes."

It's true. And it's also a good reminder that Draco's job could always, always be worse.