Chapter Text
A chorus of crunches and snaps reverberated into the dim stillness, the sound traveling steadily through the still woods. It was created by stomping boots. Specifically, the stomping boots of one extremely brilliant, and extremely irritated, witch.
Her low, aggravated muttering accompanied the crunch of the foliage beneath her feet.
“...Bloody McLaggen...completely incompetent...the pompous peacock of a fool... sending me out here to the buggering depths of the forest to collect samples he should have had to me this morning, at the latest… ”
The forest to which the disgruntled witch referred was the Black Forest, the massive, ancient expanse of woods sprawling across the southwestern edge of Germany. As her muttering indicated, she found herself stalking through its depths early that Monday evening due to the professional shortcomings of her work colleague. One Cormic McLaggen, Associate Agent of the Ministry of Magic’s Department of Protections and Services for Non-Human Magical Beings.
Whose name the witch in question—one Hermione Granger, Executive Head of the Department of Protections and Services for Non-Human Magical Beings—had just that morning successfully petitioned to change it from “Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures.”
The name change, and the implications of combating prejudiced, wizard supremacy against their non-human counterparts that came with it, was something that Hermione Granger had been exceptionally elated about.
But all sense of elation had fizzled out immediately when McLaggen had swaggered over to her desk that afternoon. He’d done so not to congratulate her on the recent victory, but to nonchalantly inform her that he’d failed to collect the photos he’d been assigned to take of damaged pixie nests within the hollows of the Black Forest’s birch trees. Photos that were needed to serve as key evidence against an underground illegal market engaged in damaging the trees—and thus the pixies homes—to procure bark for wand-making; a direct violation of the Woodland Inhabitant Home Protection Act, a piece of legislation that Hermione had also commandeered.
Why had McLaggen failed to fulfill his duties to this case?
He’d been getting a bleeding haircut and had missed the portkey’s departure.
And so Hermione found herself trekking through the Black Forest after spending nearly two hours hunting down and photographing the affected pixie dwellings, hurrying to make her way back to the portkey meant to return her to London before the sun set completely.
More so than other woodlands, the Black Forest was nowhere for a witch to be a night. This forest was ancient, its inhabitants equally so. And that age granted them power. Dangerous power, made more so by the fact that no witch or wizard had managed to completely document the full catalogue of beings that dwelled here.
Given these disquieting facts, Hermione knew well and proper that she shouldn’t have ventured out into these woods so late. But her hands had been tied, morally speaking. The pixies' case had already been pushed back so much thanks to bureaucratic, red-taped nonsense. And the longer it took, the longer they had to deal with housing insecurity. Hermione couldn’t stand it—wouldn’t see herself, by personal fault or by extension of anyone she supervised—responsible for their plight. It was her job to help. And she could handle herself in these woods. She's dealt with far worse, after all.
Moreover, the warm words of gratitude the pixies had showered her with as she’d taken the photographs had further convinced her that she’d done the right thing to take the risk of venturing out here so late.
So she tried to keep that in mind when a loud crack rang out about twenty feet to her left.
Her thick head of curls snapped towards the noise, wand automatically raised and a defensive curse on the tip of her tongue. Hermione held her breath, ears perked and waiting for another hint of movement.
But nothing came. After another minute of listening, she kept walking. Quicker this time, but trying to keep any sense of fear she felt dormant.
The population of these woods could smell fear.
She wished not for the first time that she could simply disapparate, rather than having to make her way back to the portkey on foot, or rely on it at all. But she immediately felt guilty for the thought; the Black Forest fell under the jurisdiction of protected, sacred areas of the European Union of Magical Sovereigns. As such, apparation was forbidden here—an attempt by her German colleagues to limit the occurrence of cases exactly like that of the pixies’.
Another crack echoed out. This time about ten feet from her.
Lumos! The spell rang out in her head.
The tip of Hermione’s wand lit up, brightening the forestry around her with its ghostly glow. She could see much better now, and had to squint as her eyes adjusted from having to previously strain in dusk’s blue gloom. She would have performed the spell earlier, but again, she had to think about the inhabitants of the forest. Many of them were nocturnal, and didn’t appreciate light poking into their homes and surroundings despite the setting sun. Especially wizard-produced light.
So she kept her wand low to the ground, mind doing rapid calculations. She was about a two-minute walk from the portkey. But...that last sound had come from the same direction of the portkey’s location. Meaning that walking towards her ticket out of here meant getting closer to whatever it was producing such unnerving noises.
After a deep breath to steady herself, she decided to take her chances. She hurried onwards in a not-quite-run—lest something around her take her pace as invitation to give chase—following the light of her wand and ready to cut it off in place of a well-aimed petrificus totalus at any given moment.
She breathed a sigh of relief when the portkey appeared in her line of sight, a bright purple golf umbrella laying in the middle of a small clearing encompassed by the stretching silhouettes of silver birch trees.
She was but five steps from the umbrella when she brought herself to an abrupt halt. Yet again another crack rang out, a long, low... whine accompanying it this time.
The blood in Hermione’s veins chilled with the realization that the sound came from directly opposite her, at the other edge of the clearing.
Raising her wand in an attempt to see what it was, she reminded herself that she had gotten closer to it. Not the other way around. Whatever it was, it wasn’t chasing her. And it sounded…
Another keening whine echoed.
...hurt.
She quickly checked her watch. She still had another eight minutes before the portkey departed. Breath heavy and creating small, visible puffs of condensed air before her, Hermione cursed her sense of curiosity and compassion, and slipped closer towards the source of the sound.
“H...hello? Who or what’s there?”
Silence answered her, and she rolled her eyes at her uncharacteristic stupidity. There was a good chance whatever it was didn’t speak English, if it spoke at all.
Regardless, she moved closer still, spurred on by the fact that as she did so, she could hear something that sounded suspiciously like low, pained panting.
Another whine. It was almost...human sounding. But not quite. Something about its tone was off...ethereal. Hermione braced herself for what she might discover as she drew nearer still.
But nothing could have prepared her for what she saw.
There, reflecting underneath the pale glow of her wand, lay a massive...
...pile of feathers.
Her mind struggled to make sense of the image as she stopped about two feet from it.
The feathers were...gorgeous. Long and jet black, each about the length of Hermione’s forearm and overlapping each other neatly. She stepped back a bit as they shuddered in unison, another cracking sound ringing out as they shifted. And another whine of pain.
Hermione felt her eyes widen as the movement brought her a better understanding of what lay before her.
Wings. Two enormous wings, folded over one another and shivering. Their massive length and width completely obscured from view whatever form lay beneath them. Her mind prepared to supply her with a stringing list of creatures sporting such features, but interrupted itself with a surge of commiseration when yet another low whine keened out. Louder this time.
Whatever this was, it was clearly in distress. And Hermione felt obligated to help in whatever way she could. She glanced at her watch again. Four minutes until the portkey left. And she she needed to take it, or she’d be stranded in these woods for the night.
Not an option. Not if she valued her safety.
But maybe she could bring this creature with her?
She crept forward again, asking tentatively, “B—bist du verletzt? Hilfe?” Her German was as poorly pronounced as it was limited, but she prayed for the possibility that the being would understand, if possessed the ability to use human language.
She added English for good measure. “Hello? Are you hurt? Do you need help?”
At the sound of her voice, the wings shuddered violently again, the fluttering noise of the movement loud and startling.
But not nearly as much as what Hermione heard next.
“Get away from here. Now.”
The witch let out of a soft gasp of astonishment. She hadn’t actually expected her wish that the creature could speak, and speak English, specifically, to be answered. But fortune clearly smiled upon her. The voice was deep, but gravelly and hoarse. Strained. That confirmed Hermione’s worries. Whoever and whatever it was, it was hurt.
“Get. Away. ”
But with her conclusion in mind, the creature’s first and second warnings flew completely over her head, dismissed and forgotten.
Later on, she couldn’t have explained what precisely had compelled her to throw all caution to the wind and ignore such a command. All she knew at that moment was that this creature was hurting. Badly. And it needed her help.
It needed her.
She knelt down. Looking nearly possessed with concern, the witch reached out shaking fingers and rested them gently atop the feathers. She marveled at how impossibly smooth they felt. Cool and silky and...strong. The mass shuddered again, and to her abject disbelief, pushed into her hand. As if...as if it craved more of her touch. A whimper came forth this time, low and panting. Heart squeezing with sympathy, her breath hitched.
She was speaking before she realized, words low and soothing. “Shh. It’s alright. You’re not alone anymore.”
The feathers stilled—
“I said, GO!”
—and exploded in a flurry of darkness, surrounding her, enveloping her, and blocking her vision completely.
The next moment brought white hot agony slashing across her side, the pain searing into her flesh, her bones. Hermione shrieked, clutching at her ribs and trying to stand up, to scramble back, to get away. But she couldn’t see anything but pressing, infinite darkness, couldn’t feel anything but burning, clawing fire. She writhed, screaming again, begging for release from the pain, the dark, and felt her eyes roll back into her skull as she lost consciousness.
The last thing she saw, descending over her in her mind’s eye, was an Angel of Death, its porcelain face beautiful and haunted with black, black eyes... its dark wings swooping low to gather her limp form to its solid, warm body and take her away from the pain....
*****
Given that she was the child of two esteemed dentists, it was incredibly ironic that Hermione couldn't stomach the smell of sterile environments. Hospitals, being the absolute worst.
So the fact that she woke up in one put a damper on her morning, to say the least.
The first thing her conscious brain perceived was the smell. That cloying, nausea-inducing scent of bleach and ammonia and Merlin knew what other chemicals.
The second thing she registered was the need to be sick. Now.
Hermione jolted upwards, barely noting the foreign environment around her other than to snap her neck side to side, searching for some place to rid her stomach of its contents.
A small, pale pink bin lined with plastic slipped into her line of sight, the small, plump hand holding it shoving it into her own.
Her only gesture of gratitude was to immediately begin retching straight into it. Her diaphragm heaved, once, twice...four times before her stomach waved a little white flag, having nothing left to offer but bitter bile.
What certainly didn’t help was the fact with each involuntary heave, her ribs along her upper left side burned. Horribly.
Hermione groaned weakly, wiping her mouth and barely managing to mutter a shaky “thanks” when that same plump-handed healer waved her wand, vanishing the bin and its revolting contents away. She clutched at her side, hissing at the sting the pressure caused and looking down towards it to find she wore nothing but a thin, paper hospital gown.
She gingerly prodded at the skin beneath it, and ascertained from the tightness underneath her breasts and around her back and sides that the injury she clearly possessed had been carefully wrapped up with some kind of bandaging.
But Morrigan above, her side hurt!! She groaned again, her eyes slipping closed and she slowly reclined back onto the bed beneath. What the bloody hell had happened to her to land her in what appeared to be St Mungo’s with busted ribs? What day was it? Where had she been before waking up here?
The Black Forest. Yes...she’d been in Germany, gathering photographs in the evening thanks to McLaggen’s ineptitude. And then, then...
“There, there, dear.” Hermione looked up at the round, pretty face of the healer as the other woman fussed at the blankets around her, pulling them up. “Unfortunately, the injury you’ve acquired is resistant to most pain relief spells and potions. But never fear, love. Now that you’re awake, Healer Malfoy will be in soon to treat you with something more effective.”
“Oh good,” Hermione murmured distractedly as her mind tried to work backwards in an attempt to ascertain why the hell she was here. Pain relief. I’d like that very—
Healer Malfoy??
She shot up in the bed again, hissing as her side smarted with protest. “I’m sorry, who did you say is my doctor??”
The healer tutted disapprovingly, pushing her back gently. “Ms. Granger, please! You’ll hurt yourself if you keep jerking around in such a way!”
“Glad to see you’re finally conscious, Granger. Although I’d prefer it if you’d stop inconveniencing my staff.”
Hermione stilled, allowing herself to be pushed back into the bed once more as she stared to her right, dumbfounded, at the entrance of the hospital room she’d awoken in.
There, standing just over the threshold and intently analyzing a clipboard in his hand, was Draco Bleeding Malfoy, decked from neck to ankle in green.
Not the emerald of Slytherin’s green, Hermione noted with mounting horror. No—draped across the pale wizard's shoulders, fitted at his neck, and flowing down his arms and legs was fabric in the colors of mint and shamrock.
Healer green.
Dear Merlin…
“Thank you, Healer Higglesbee, that’ll be all for now. I’ll ping you if I need anything,” his smooth, deep voice directed his colleague.
“Certainly, Healer Malfoy!” The woman glanced back at Hermione, who met her kind eyes with a desperate, pleading look in her own. As if to say "please don’t leave me alone and at the mercy of this pompous tosser."
But Healer Higglesbee merely patted her leg reassuringly and turned, slipping out the room and closing the door shut behind her.
An oppressive silence remained. Malfoy’s downcast gaze still skimmed over the chart in his hand, white-blonde head bent over it as he slowly strolled over to the counter across from Hermione’s bed and leaned his hips back against it casually. He crossed one foot in front of the other, flipping a page of the chart.
Hermione huffed as dramatically as she could with wrappings constricting the movement of her ribs. “Well?”
Impassive grey eyes slid up to meet glaring brown. Raising his head, Malfoy assessed her silently. Hermione stared back as if it were a challenge, taking the time to secretly, reluctantly, marvel at how much he’d changed.
She hadn’t seen him in person since the Battle of Hogwarts, and seeing as she did all in her power to avoid gossip rag-newspapers—the front pages of which his face no doubt graced nearly as much as her own did—she’d had no idea how much he’d grown in the eight years since that dark day.
He’d matured into his features, any semblance of round, baby-facedness gone in place of hard angles flowing into smooth planes. His cheekbones were pronounced, but not overly so, framing a strong, Grecian nose and bow-shaped, pink lips that looked...rather nice when they weren’t sneering as she’d been used to seeing them. Through her glaring periphery, she noted that the sides of his towheaded hair were shorn, the top of it long and swept back, but unruly. As if it was constantly being pulled with frustration. Now that she thought about it, the skin under his slate eyes was faintly bruised-looking. Light purple, as if he hadn’t—
“Well?” Malfoy echoed her, interrupting her nosey analysis and making it evident with one word that although he’d physically matured, his personality was still at least eighty percent git.
Hermione’s eyes narrowed. “Malfoy. Such a pleasure to see you again after all these years. Are you going to tell me why the hell I’m here, and why the hell you’re here, for that matter?”
One blonde brow arched upwards. “I work here," he said slowly, as if speaking to an imbecile. His eyes flicked back downwards. "According to your chart, only your side is listed as injured. Should I add your head as well?”
Hermione scoffed, cheeks flaming with indignation. “You—”
He cut her off smoothly, looking back up. “Regarding the former question, I was hoping you'd be able to answer it for me. But for medical responsibility's sake, let’s make sure your mental faculties are truly intact first. What is your full name?”
Hermione scowled at him.
Malfoy stared back, completely unfazed. “Do try to be considerate of my other patients, Granger, whom I can't visit until I'm done seeing to you. There, see? I even gave you a hint. Now answer the question, please.”
“Hermione Jeane Granger.” The words came from between a clenched jaw.
“Good. What’s today’s date?
She paused. “...Tuesday, the twelfth of November?”
“Correct.”
Well that was good, at least. She’d been out for less than a day.
“What’s your age?”
“Twenty-five.”
“Occupation?”
“Executive Head of the Department of Protections and Services for Non-Human Magical Beings.”
Malfoy chuckled. Chuckled! “If you can remember that mouthful, I’d say there’s nothing too serious to worry about.”
Hermione parted her lips angrily to protest, but the wizard was already moving on, marking something on the chart he held.
“What’s the last thing you remember before waking up here this morning?”
She momentarily set aside her mounting irritation with the man before her to think back to what she’d remembered before his appearance. “The Black Forest. I was in the Black Forest taking photos to meet a work-related deadline.”
“During what time-frame do you remember being there?”
“...from around three to half-five, or six, I think. I remember it became twilight while I was there.”
Bollocks. Ginny was going to flay her alive for her stupidity. And Harry too, for the matter. Deadlines aside, what had possessed her to enter The Bloody Black Forest, by herself, and so close to nightfall??
“Who was with you?”
“Er...I was alone.”
The scratching of Malfoy’s pen stopped. He looked up at her, pale eyes narrowing in an echo of her self-reproach. “You were willingly in the Black Forest completely alone and with mere minutes to total nightfall?”
“If I want your judgement, I’ll ask for it, Malfoy,” she snapped, hating that said judgement was warranted.
“Healer Malfoy.”
“Ms. Granger. Titles go both ways here,” she shot back.
The healer in question snorted, sounding both irritated and amused. “Alright Ms. Granger. Do you remember what happened after you got your photos? If something or someone attacked you?”
Her brow furrowed, and she gazed down at her fingers twisting into the blankets by her waist. This is where her mental backtracking bumped into issues. Here, her access to her memory seemed to faze out, like meeting a gently closing door.
“I..I remember I was hurrying to get back to the portkey before it left. It was cold, and I was irritated at having to be out there in the first place.” Bloody McLaggen… “But...I don’t recall ever getting to the portkey. It's like the last thing I can picture is heading to the clearing where it was stationed—a purple umbrella—and then...nothing.”
She looked back up at Malfoy, worrying her lip, and found him watching her carefully, his expression inscrutable. Inexplicably, she suddenly became a bit self-conscious of how she must look after spending over twelve hours unconscious. She resisted the urge to pat down her no doubt wild curls. Bushy, as he used to oh-so-helpfully call them.
She shook herself of that creeping resentment for the Slytherin, trying to focus on the matter at hand. “...How did I get here?”
“Someone apparated you into the lobby at about half eight last night. You were unconscious and bleeding severely from your side. The secretaries stationed at the front didn’t see who left you here.”
“...so I have amnesia, and we have no way of finding out from anyone else what happened to me. Fantastic.” She sighed shakily, delicately holding her injured side and trying to keep down the unease welling within in her. What had happened to her? Lost in her mind, she missed the way grey eyes examined her every movement and expression.
Malfoy spoke again. “The good news is that you’re awake again, and that while you were out I brewed a potion to which I believe your injury will respond appropriately.”
Hermione looked up at that, astonished. Such a potion likely would have taken all night to brew from scratch, given that none of her injuries responded to standard treatment. Then again, Potions had been the one, singular subject that Malfoy had always bested her in. She’d told herself that that irritating fact had been due to the abject favoritism of his snake of a godfather. But this news had her grudgingly second-guessing that assumption.
A corner of Malfoy's mouth curled upwards, as if he knew precisely the kind of insulting thoughts she’d been directing towards his capabilities.
Regardless, he continued. “The bad news is that you're suffering from complete memory loss surrounding your attack, which made it difficult for me to determine whether the potion I plan to administer on your injury would actually work without resorting to empirical methods. But we took some skin samples from the wound while you were knocked out and ran some tests, and I'm now confident the potion will work effectively.”
A maelstrom of questions swirled in Hermione’s mind. What kinds of tests? What did they reveal? It must have told him what it was that had hurt her, or else he wouldn't be so confident in the potion’s efficiency, correct? What had her attacker been, then?
But Malfoy was standing now, walking towards her and checking her vitals on the floating monitor by her head. Her eyes drifted down his figure, and she couldn’t help but take notice of his stature—taller than she’d last seen—and lean build, graceful and slim, but with definite hints of muscle. He distracted her by resuming his questions before she could ask the first of her own.
“Are you allergic to any foods?”
“Just shellfish.”
“Any herbs, roots, or spices?”
She shook her head.
“Any tonics, potions, brews, poultices, or other medical concoctions?”
“Just Pepper-up Potion, unfortunately. And penicillin.”
Malfoy, who’d been tapping his wand at the number showing her blood pressure, paused at that.
“Penicillin?” He looked down at her, saying the word as if it were foreign to him, which Hermione supposed it probably was.
“It’s an antibiotic that muggles use. A type of potion that eliminates bacteria when ingested.” She stared at him with a clear challenge in her expression, daring him to reveal that his inane prejudices remained firmly in place.
He cocked his blonde head slightly, eyeing her back unblinkingly. “Huh. Ingenious.”
Hermione felt her brows raise towards her hairline. Well. That was unexpected.
Malfoy’s eyes glinted almost mischievously, with more than a hint of self-satisfaction. Hermione bit her lip, resisting the urge to say something along the lines of: so you’ve finally defeated your ingrained blood prejudice. Would you like a cookie?
But Malfoy’s next question wiped any and all snarky thoughts clean from her mind:
“Is there any chance you might be pregnant?”
A strangled sound pushed its way from Hermione’s throat, and stared at him, affronted. “Wouldn’t you like to know!”
A deadpanned grey stare looked back at her. “Yes, I would. That’s why I asked, Ms. Granger. The potion I’m about to administer to your wound could result in the miscarriage of a fetus.”
He flicked his wand, and a small wooden table topped with an even smaller cauldron appeared on the floor by the left side of her bed, its contents bubbling thickly.
Hermione blushed, embarrassed by her offended outburst when she logically knew Malfoy was right. In fact, healers asked her that question whenever she happened to visit one, and for much more mundane ailments than what felt like quite a nasty wound at her side.
“..no. I’m not pregnant.”
Malfoy strolled over to the left side of the bed, and began calmly twirling his wand over the cauldron in a counterclockwise motion. The viscous, fuchsia fluid within followed its movement.
“I didn’t ask whether you were pregnant, Ms. Granger. I asked whether there was any chance that you’re pregnant.”
Hermione’s nails dug into her thighs beneath the blankets over them. She didn’t argue, knowing that the distinction was an important one, damn him.
“No,” she bit out.
Malfoy’s gaze remained trained on the cauldron between them. “So you’re not sexually active?”
The witch threw her hands up with exasperation. “What the hell do you think, Malfoy?? I know what my response to your question implies, and so do you! Or maybe you’re too thick to realize it, given that you’re so keen on drawing it out as much as possible! So no, I’m not sexually active. Does that clear things up for you?!”
He smirked into the cauldron. The arsehole smirked.
Perhaps it was the fact that she’d woken up in a hospital, nose filled with that sterile scent she so utterly loathed. Perhaps it was the fact her side had been smarting agonizingly since she’d awakened thirty minutes prior, and that the pain was growing steadily worse. Perhaps is was the fact that she had no idea how she’d gotten such an injury, and that there was evidently no one who could remember it for her. Or perhaps it was the fact that her boarding school bully, the boy who’d verbally and emotionally tormented her and her friends for six years, had grown into a sickeningly attractive man and was now her presiding healer regarding the issue of her injury—and being a right bastard about it.
Whatever the cause, that smirk caused something in Hermione to snap.
“Wipe that nasty look off of your face, Malfoy, you arse! Not all of us have the extra time on our hands to dally between the sheets. Some of us have demanding jobs with clients that depend upon our flexible availability!”
The healer stilled his stirring of the concoction. His eyes slid to hers, narrowing with offense. “Didn’t have the time on your hands back at Hogwarts either, did you Granger?”
Hermione snarled. Leaning towards him against her better judgement. “Why would I have needed to? You took care of damn near the entire blooming class year’s bedroom needs!”
“Never yours, though.”
Malfoy was trying to get a rise out of her. Just like back in their school days. Hermione knew this, but just like in their school days, she couldn’t resist the bait.
“Luckily for you. You probably thought your prick would shrivel up and fall off if it got near a filthy mudblood. Or was it just the fact that Daddy would have made sure you lost it anyway?”
A low blow. And they both knew it.
But Malfoy only sneered. “Still a prude I see, Granger. Or perhaps your lack of ‘dallying between the sheets’ isn’t voluntary?”
Low blow for low blow. But Hermione stilled, her hands curling into fists. “I’ve punched you once, Malfoy. And it felt damn good. Don’t grant me an invitation to do it again.”
Malfoy eyed her clenched hands scornfully. “Ah. Definitely involuntary, then.”
Hermione straightened her spine as far as her injury would allow, her lips twisting into one of her famous scowls. “I want another healer."
He resumed his stirring, Hermione’s demand seemingly diffusing his previous tension.
“You can’t have one,” he responded, sounding almost bored. “Because there are none.”
Hermione wished she could hex him right there with no repercussions. “There’s not a single other healer available in the entirety of St Mungo’s?”
“Not one that knows how to correctly brew and administer the proper potion to treat your injury, no.”
Hermione flopped her head back onto the pillow behind her, feeling drained after her outburst—her body’s way of reminding her that she was in no position to be punching—or threatening to punch—anyone. No matter how much they deserved it. “Of course there aren’t,” she sighed.
“I assure you that this situation pains me more than it does you, Granger.” He sounded sincere, his expression briefly shifting from bored to unnervingly grave.
“I doubt it,” she grumbled. “Unless your ribs feel like they’re self-immolating as well.”
A flash of something akin to sympathy flickered on the man’s face. But it was gone as soon as it appeared.
“I need you to lay on your good side, facing me,” he ordered.
“Would it kill you to say please?”
“Most likely.”
The witch huffed, but did as the wizard directed, carefully rolling onto her right side. Her face flushed when the shift in movement reminded her of the fact that she wore nothing but a flimsy hospital gown. Her arse would have been completely exposed if it weren’t for the blankets at her waist. Never in my life... she thought to herself about the absolutely ludicrous nature of her situation as she tugged the blankets up a bit higher, eyes searching for something to look at other than Malfoy’s face.
She settled for scrutinizing the way he got the potion ready for administration, the petty part of her searching for something else to criticize him about. This turned out to be a mistake for two reasons. One, his mastery of potions had evidently only increased since their time at Hogwarts; the potion bubbled beautifully, its contents never once spilling over the lip of the cauldron and never taking on a sickening odor—a usual telltale sign that too much or too little of an ingredient had been added.
Two, when the healer set his wand down and began rolling up his sleeves, Hermione had the distinct displeasure of noting how sculpted his forearms were. Pale and smooth and roped here and there with veins that implied they held more than a bit of strength. Her vision zoned in on the left one, where she saw a glimpse of washed out, grey ink on the inner side of it. His Dark Mark.
Hermione glanced back up at him to find him watching her watch him, his expression as unreadable as ever.
He continued to stare at her as he spoke his next words, voice low and clinical. “I’m going to perform a spell to untie the top portion of your gown and remove it from your left side now, so that I can get to your injury. Your breasts have been bound along with it, so they won’t be exposed.”
Hermione’s face heated yet again, the mere thought of both her breasts and arse exposed in the same room as Malfoy nearly causing her the giggle at how mad the possibility sounded.
Malfoy’s lips twitched, as if his thoughts ran along the same line. “Do you have any objections?”
She had dozens. But voicing them wouldn’t do her any good.
“No,” she murmured.
Malfoy lifted his wand again, flicking his wrist in the formation of the disrobing spell she recognized. She both heard and felt as two of the ties of her slip undid themselves, the collar of the gown loosening as result. She then lifted her left arm as the left sleeve of the gown shimmied itself down her arm and off her hand, falling onto the bed below. The right side of the gown hung loosely at her shoulder, leaving her effectively rid of the garment from the waist up. She shivered, goose pimples erupting over her skin at the loss of the materials warmth, even though it didn't have much of it to give to begin with.
A glance down confirmed that her chest was indeed bound with bandages, but tightly so, her breasts pushed up and together and practically spilling out the wrappings, as if she wore a corset. Hermione squeaked, bringing her right arm up to push the fallen fabric over her décolletage and holding it there to preserve some semblance of modesty. Just who had been in charge of binding her up??
Malfoy cleared his throat, and when she looked back up at him his eyes seemed different somehow. Darker. But his gaze was trained on her face rather than anything down below.
“I need to perform another spell to unravel the bandages specifically around your upper ribs, where the injury is. And I should warn you that this potion is effectively a poultice—one that must be applied using my hands rather than a wand, so that the heat from them can help to activate it faster.” He watched her closely, as if waiting for her to lash out again.
Of course it had to be applied in such a way. Forcing Malfoy to touch her. Just under her bare breast. With his bare hands. When the only skin-to-skin contact they’d ever had had been her fist meeting his face back in their third year at Hogwarts. Hermione dragged her free hand down her own face, closing her eyes for a moment to collect herself before she completely lost it again.
“Fine,” she grumbled warily after a moment, lifting her lids again to meet his gaze. “Let’s just put the both of us out of our misery and get this over with.”
“Well said, Granger.” With that, he flicked his wand again, and the bandaging around her ribs alone loosened before vanishing completely.
Hermione held her breath as she looked down—
—and promptly sucked air rapidly through her teeth, hissing as she saw her wound for the first time.
Something had... clawed at her. That was the only way to describe what had befallen the mangled skin at her ribs.
Four angry, nasty gashes, each about a centimeter thick and five inches long, curved around her side from just underneath the curve of her breast to four inches southwards. They were evenly spaced, the broken flesh crimson and raw with clotting blood. The skin around the edges sported nasty purple, almost black colored bruises.
Hermione willed herself not to hyperventilate from the panic bubbling within her, knowing that the rapid rise and fall of her chest would only irritate the wound further. She peered up at Malfoy, who was busy performing a sterilization spell on his left hand before dipping it into the cauldron, withdrawing fingertips covered in bright pink, ointment-looking goop. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she wondered why he wasn’t using his dominant hand.
“Malfoy…” her voice was quiet and trembled just over the edge of slightly. He looked up at her, gaze calm as ever. “...you said you ran tests in the lab from a sample. I’m assuming that those tests helped you determine what harmed me. Why are you avoiding telling me what it was?”
If it had been a werewolf, her life was about to change drastically. These scars would last for the rest of life, causing her chronic pain from time-to-time. And...and she could develop from wolfish tendencies. She’d need to contact Bill Weasley immediately for help adjusting to her new reality.
“What was it, Malfoy?”
She waited for him to respond, staring at him and barely breathing. Beneath her expectant gaze, she watched as his jaw clenched nearly imperceptibly, his brow furrowing just as minutely. He looked away from her eyes, down to her wound.
“A veela.” His voice was low and curt, something Hermione couldn’t quite name simmering underneath it.
Her eyes widened, lips parting with an “O” of disbelief. A...veela?? One of those gorgeous, yet lethal, harpy-like females? Her mental image of Bill's face was replaced by that of his wife's. But the wizard was speaking again, reaching his poultice-coated fingers close to her side.
“This will sting, Granger. A lot.”
And then those digits were pressing against her, smearing the goop along the first vicious scratch. Hermione cried out as the injury seethed at the disturbance, needles of agony radiating from it. She jerked backwards involuntarily, her body demanding she get away from the source of the pain immediately. But she didn’t get very far. Malfoy’s right hand clamped down like a vice around the curve of her bare waist, answering her earlier, silent question as to why he'd chosen to apply the poultice with his left hand.
To hold her down with his right.
Escape from the medical torment prevented by his unforgiving grip, Hermione writhed in place, screaming again as he slid the ointment over the next scratch. She squeezed her eyes shut, barely feeling the tears that slid from them and down her face as a result.
It was carving into her. Slow, boiling acid with each cut. She was going to die. She wanted to. She prayed the next crucio would kill her, her body giving out right there on that floor and freeing her spirit from this cutting torment. From the sound of that cruel, demented cackle.
A low voice broke through the roaring in her mind. “Shh, Granger. You're alright." The tone was gentle. Soothing. Not the taunting, insanity-laced soprano her brain expected her to hear accompanying the sizzling dig into her skin.
"Two more, Granger.”
No...this voice, warm and steady, pulled her back to reality, and with it came the distant awareness that she’d never heard Malfoy like this. Never knew he could be heard like this.
A third stroke of flames slid across her side.
Perhaps because of the merciless pain and the horrible memories it surfaced, perhaps because of the hint of kindness in the wizard’s voice, or perhaps because of both, Hermione’s left hand shot out, clutching tightly at the forearm attached to the hand pressing her down into the bed. The feel of his skin, soft and warm over the obvious strength of the appendage, grounded her through the pain. An anchor she didn't have back then, in that house. She sobbed. Dug her nails deep into his skin.
But the wizard didn't pull away—didn't so much as flinch at her abuse, instead murmuring, “I know. I’ve got you. Almost done.”
And the ointment swiped across the length of last scratch, Hermione’s cry of pain quieter than its predecessors.
The hand at her waist loosened slightly, and pressed sideways rather than downwards now, easing her onto her back once more. Hermione still clutched at its forearm, breaths whistling rapidly between her gritted teeth as the fire at her side gradually cooled into warmth. And then tingled. And then...felt like nothing at all.
Only then did she release Malfoy’s arm, her own dropping limply to the mattress beneath her. Exhaustion bloomed over her, her entire body sagging with released physical and emotional tension. She kept her eyes closed as she heard more than felt bandages slither around her ribs once more and the gown right itself on her chest, not wanting to see whatever insufferable look Malfoy sported on his face at her wild display of weakness.
“Morrigan. That bloody fucking hurt,” she croaked out, more to herself than to him.
But Malfoy’s silence had her heavy lids sliding open despite their resistance, her vision focusing on grey eyes, tight with concern, darting intently across her torso. She noted the faint bruising under those eyes once more, and wondered what prevented this man, so much the same and yet so different, from sleeping.
Malfoy glanced up, catching her gaze on him, and his expression morphed back to impassive once more. “I don’t recall your mouth being this foul,” he remarked, setting about cleaning his hands of the wretched poultice.
“Really? That’s funny, I do recall you being this much of a foul git.” But the witch’s words didn’t have nearly as much bite as she’d intended. They came out slowly, almost slurring. And her lashes fluttered, giving up the fight of remaining upright.
Malfoy chuckled bitterly as she slid them closed again, her mind demanding she keep them that way for a little while. Just for a little while...
The wizard's voice echoed from somewhere far away. “Sleep now, Granger.”
She felt as though her body were floating...up and away from the stress of the morning…
The last sensation her body catalogued was that of soft, warm pressure wiping away the salty dampness from her cheeks.
*****