Title: The Golden Lady and the Ferret Prince
Author: ianthe_waiting
Rating: MA/NC-17
Disclaimer: The Harry Potter books and their characters are the property of JK Rowling. This is a work of fan-fiction. No infringement is intended, and no money is being made from this story. I am just borrowing the puppets, but this is my stage.
Genre: Mystery, Drama, Adventure
Warnings: DH-EWE, AU, Extreme violence, non-con, torture, M/F
Summary: Doctors Longbottom and Granger have been contracted to investigate the strange spell that has Draco Malfoy in a perpetual state of dreaming. Delving into dreams is a dangerous matter, one only Hermione Granger can do.
Author's Notes: I hate leaving things undone.
In somnis veritas
He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it. –Douglas Adams
I.
With the force of impact, he felt his teeth sink into the fleshy part of the inside of his lower lip. Blood gushed into his mouth and when the shock wave of impact subsided, he spat out this mouthful of blood, his brain still rattling in his skull.
There was a soft cry to his left and then the scent of petrol and motor oil…it overwhelmed his senses momentarily. His vision returned with sharp clarity and he realized he was alive. With this realization, he began to move, taking in the sight of carnage all around him and the dirty snow outside the automobile. The automobile had rolled at least four times and the roof over his head was knocking into his skull. The windows were broken out and the cold came seeping in like probing fingers to snatch away the heat of the once intact passenger cabin. He shivered as he found the latch of the seat belt and let the strap slide over his jumper-clad chest.
Adrenaline made him forego seeing if he were injured, the smell of petrol was permeating his nose, his eyes—danger, danger…
Another soft cry had him kicking open the back passenger side door, the crushed metal whinging, and he stumbled out of the vehicle, spitting more blood. His teeth had bit through his lower lip, and the pain was negligible compared to the cold that whipped around him. The front of the car was in ragged shards of plastic and metal, oil dripping to the ice and snow covered roadway, barely grated to allow automobiles to pass on the mountainside. The driver, and their guide was dead, crushed in between the steering column, dash board, and other parts of the automobile he did not know what to call. The front of the automobile was partially lodged into a high snow bank, teetering on the edge of the road ready to roll down the mountainside.
"Merlin, Hermione!" he shouted, realizing that his companion had been the one whimpering in the back seat next to him.
He moved, slipping back into the crushed vehicle and found her looking at him with wide eyes, her face bloodied from the broken glass, her legs pinned under the seat and part of the metal frame before her. The expression on her face made him fearful, and slowly, he unlatched the seat belt, careful that the buckle did not hit her face or rasp against her bleeding chest.
Finding his wand in the holster under the right sleeve of his jumper, hidden from the Muggle guide, he Vanished what he could of what was pinning her legs. She cried out at the loss of weight, but did not move. Finally, he could pull her from the car, her arms wrapped about his neck. His boots slipped on the snowy mountain road, as he carried her away from the car. It was as he set her down on a snow covered low boulder that the automobile tumbled down the steep escarpment, the petrol catching fire.
He shuddered at the sound, and knew that their luggage was destroyed, the samples they had taken, and a good deal of their work. However, he saw to his companion, who was just able to keep herself upright and forgot about it all. The blood on her face came from a gash at her temple. There were many contusions on her face, her neck, and hands, and as he moved to touch her jacket, she winced. There was another gash on her left side, the blood staining her blouse and running down to her long woolen skirt.
"My legs…" she whinged in a hiss, and he knelt down to look at the growing bloody patch of skirt on her left leg.
When he lifted the soiled hem to look at her lower leg, he gagged.
"I'm cold…" she whispered weakly.
He caught her before she fell off the boulder.
The closest hospital was in Lhasa, surely, but he did not know where. The return point, the place he could Apparate, was their rented room in Lhasa, but he knew that she needed a doctor who could somehow save her legs, stop the internal bleeding, and quickly.
Hoisting her small body into his arms with his wand tight in his right hand under her shoulders, he closed his eyes. The cold and shock was distracting, and like a fool, he screamed a roar. The exhalation of air in his lungs caused his bloodied lip to drip on to her head, but it cleared his mind.
With a lingering whimper, Neville Longbottom Apparated, his mind set on only one thing—saving his friend and the woman he adored more than any other.
In her own dreams, she often was a spectator. Her adventures were from a third person point of view, and from the distance, she knew she was indeed dreaming. There was safety in being a spectator, though there were moments during REM sleep where she felt what her body was supposed to be feeling. She felt arousal, sometimes sickness, and the freedom of flight dreams—as most people do when they can defy the law of physics.
Hermione Granger, generally, liked to dream, for in her dreams she was whole, young, and powerful. She was the master of her dreams, and only the rare nightmare shook that control from her grasp.
Logic oftentimes kept the nightmares at bay, but in those nightmares, she often dreamt of herself as she was in waking. There were no Dark Lords, no Wars, and no painful loss of loved ones. In Hermione Granger's nightmares, she was dying on a mountain pass in Tibet.
Hermione stumbled slightly and knocked into Neville Longbottom's overflowing desk in their small offices attached to St. Mungo's in London. Several rolls of parchment fell and as she bent down to retrieve them, a sun browned hand moved before her.
"I'll get that."
Hermione smiled as Neville took up the scrolls, but left on the rug was one last envelope with a flourished hand addressed to 'Drs. Longbottom & Granger, Spell Damage Specialists, c/o St. Mungo's, London.' Hermione took the thick vellum envelope in her hand as Neville rearranged his desk slightly.
Turning the envelope over, her light brown eyes moved over the address and she frowned.
"What's this, Neville?" she asked innocently, containing her disappointment in her partner and friend.
Neville Longbottom, aged twenty-eight, blinked his hazel eyes and reached out a hand for the letter. Hermione Granger, aged twenty-nine, did not give it to him, but showed him the address on the back of the envelope.
Dropping his hand into his lap as he sat behind his desk and sighed.
"I just…" he started, and groaned, ruffling his long dark brown hair, pulling several strands from the red ribbon at the nape of his neck. "I meant to show it to you, Hermione, honestly."
Hermione smirked sourly, continuing to her own desk, limping slightly and grunting softly as she sat down in her office chair, the letter in her hands. It had been opened, the silver wax seal broken.
Withdrawing the heavy vellum and tossing the envelope on her tidy desk, she unfolded the letter and scanned the contents. An eyebrow rose, and she read aloud as Neville sighed again and leaned back into his chair.
"'Doctors Longbottom and Granger, I was not sure by which channels to contact you, so I wrote directly. It is my understanding that as 'specialists' you can be engaged in a private capacity to heal those suffering from unique spell damage.
It is the wish of the Malfoy family that an interview be arranged to address the current state of our son, Draco. We have refrained from bringing him to St. Mungo's due to the discretion needed in his current situation. As it stands, we will be willing to fulfill, to the best of our ability, any requirements the Doctors may need, as well as pay whatever fees necessary.
Please reply by Floo or by Owl. Sincerely, Lady N. B. Malfoy, Wiltshire.'"
Neville bowed his head, abashed, as Hermione folded the letter and dropped it on her desk. He awaited her rebuke, but none came. Instead, he felt her eyes upon him.
"This was dated a month and half ago, Neville."
"Yes."
Hermione sighed her own frustration, rolled her eyes and leaned back into her chair, resting her elbows on the arms of the seat.
"We swore seven years ago that we would treat whomever we could, no matter their rank, status, and former affiliations."
"Yes."
"And the Malfoys are no exception."
Neville said nothing, his eyes moving to Hermione's sensible shoes and the stocking drawn over one thin ankle of flesh and the other of metal.
"I will write them immediately. I will think of some excuse, surely, as to why we did not reply earlier…"
Neville's eyes moved to Hermione's face, to the scar on her temple and the sloppy bun on the top of her head. Her expression was stern, and Neville knew that he would have to somehow make amends from keeping the letter from her attention. He had done it out of kindness, he had thought originally. Their workload had been too heavy when the letter came, and only three days before they finished their last case. They had just returned from Winnipeg, and all they had been doing since their return was consultations in the hospital.
The stay in Winnipeg had taken less time than they originally thought, but Neville was happy to be away from the snow. Snow brought too many bad memories.
Swiveling his chair back to his desk, he returned to his notebook, recording the last of the notes with the Winnipeg case for their records, trying to assess what to bill the Canadian Wizarding family they had helped.
The scratch of a quill against parchment behind him distracted his thoughts for a moment, and he let his own quill tip hover over the page. Through the years, he had always appreciated the way her quill would move over parchment, in rhythmic tones and scratches. Neville appreciated Hermione more than she would ever know.
The incident with concealing the letter had not been the first time he had, in his own way, protected her. Ever since the 'accident,' as they called it, he was more protective than ever. Hermione took chances far too often, especially in treating the unfortunate souls who had suffered from varying degrees of spell damage. Whether it was in trying to reverse a spell, finding new methods and means in treating the damage, or in the most extreme cases, risking herself to bring someone out of a coma or stupor, Hermione was adamant and tireless.
Neville supposed it had started when they began working together to heal his parents immediately after the War. Their work crossed disciplines—Potions, Herbology, Charms, and Arithmancy. The work that made them famous was a potion that treated the affects of the Cruciatius, a potion that gave Alice and Frank Longbottom weeks and eventually years of lucidity. Having his parents was the one thing Neville had wished for all of his life, and knowing that they would live a normal life again was a gift he could never return to Hermione in a fitting fashion.
The only picture he had on his desk was of himself, his parents, and Hermione at Christmas three years before. Hermione sat next to Alice, laughing about something Neville could not recall. It was one of his happiest images, the moment he clung to when he felt the least bit low.
"There now…" Hermione whispered as the scratching of the quill stopped and he heard her blow on the wet ink before folding the parchment. "Excuses have been made, my apologies sent, and now we wait for our next case."
Neville glanced over his shoulder to Hermione who was smiling to herself. He felt ill at ease.
The Malfoys, as far as anyone in Britain knew, kept to themselves after the War. There had been an announcement two years after the War that Draco Malfoy had married, but Neville could not remember to whom. The Malfoys were rarely seen in public, having managed to keep themselves out of Azkaban for their role in the War, and Neville supposed it was just as well.
For years, Neville had lost touch with much of that world. He was never interested in 'Society' or who had married whom, who had had children and who was working where. As far as Neville was concerned, it meant nothing to his and Hermione's work. More often than not, they were abroad. The offices attached to St. Mungo's was simply where they came when they were back in Britain, and at those times, Neville went back to his parents and grandmother in Shropshire while Hermione went to stay in a rented flat in a building Ron Weasley owned in Exeter.
Of course, they did keep in touch with some people—the Weasleys, the Potters, the Thomases, and the Finnegans. Still yet, Hermione was close to Ron who was quite wealthy, though it was more of an acquaintance in later years. Harry Potter was still a close friend to them both, and often they would meet when Neville and Hermione were in Britain. It was usually through Ginny Potter that Neville heard gossip.
Glancing at the wall clock, Neville frowned to see that it was after six when their day should have ended an hour before. He abandoned his notebook and stretched, wincing at the old pain in his back. Turning the chair to face Hermione, he found her standing, a letter in her hand.
"I'll post this, and we'll be off?"
He nodded. They always left the offices together, and Neville was very aware of the gossip surrounding them both.
The psychic apparatus of her mind was well balanced, Hermione Granger believed. If anything, id was under a tight reign. In her dream travels her id only manifested in her sexual dreams with faceless male partners. Occasionally a mask of a face would appear on her partner, and Hermione's logical mind, knowing that she was dreaming, would laugh.
Sometimes it was Ron, other times Harry, and occasionally Neville. All were handsome men, and all were her close friends. However, a new face would appear through the haze of dreaming and sex, and the face was one that was based more on speculation than fact.
Hermione had not seen Draco Malfoy since the Battle of Hogwarts. The mask was not that of a teenage boy, but a man, who looked like a cross between Lucius Malfoy and Sirius Black with blond hair. It was not a face she found distasteful; in fact, it made her body respond, in her dream and reality, positively.
Waking brought back all the aches and pains in her body, washing away the lingering mental weight of a male body leaning over her and the fullness she felt inside her body. Hermione was often frustrated.
Her id, subconsciously, called out for action.
In private, Hermione Granger let the pain in her body seep through to her exterior.
She lived alone in a nice flat in Exeter with all the amenities. Hermione had spent a great deal of money fixing the flat to her tastes, although she figured she only lived there two months out of a year. Lounging on the red silk divan before the fire after the workday had ended, she let her hair down and curled her body inward to remove her shoes. Then, hoisting up her long skirt, she flicked her thumb over a latch and pulled her prosthetic from her leg to let it fall with a 'thunk' on the rug. The skin of her thigh itched from the socket fitting so tightly.
It was not the prosthetic that pained her, it was the phantom pain she felt when it was especially cold. There was little she could do about it, she knew, and shifted on the divan to lay her head back and close her eyes.
An amputated leg was not much to pay to be able to live, she knew.
Hermione Granger had lived through a War, unscathed bodily, only to be involved in a terrible accident two years later. She did not remember much about the accident itself, but she remembered Neville saving her life. The doctors in Lhasa did what they could to maintain her life, but her left leg was ruined, crushed beyond the capability of the Tibetan doctors to repair. Moving her to see a Wizarding Healer in China would de-stabilize her, and Hermione let Neville make the decision: amputation or a higher chance of death.
Hermione could not fault her dear friend. He was injured terribly as well, though adrenaline did not make him realize it until later. He had bitten through his lip, fractured his skull, broken ribs, and torn muscles in his back and shoulders. Neville pushed his pain aside, too concerned about her. He stayed with her for the three months in the hospital in Lhasa, helped with her adjustment to the amputation above the knee, kept her mind busy with resuming their work. They had been investigating the unique magical applications of meditation methods used by the Tibetan monks secluded in the mountains. They had also been investigating claims of the use of a particular winter herb used by local mountain villagers to 'see the unseen.'
When she was finally able to return to Britain, it was on crutches, and with a new idea.
Neville helped her develop the idea to be implemented in the use of patients who were literally trapped in their own minds due to spell damage or brain trauma that kept the patient in comas. It was a method of therapy inspired by their travels through China and Tibet, study of Taoist and Tantric writings, the Subtle Body, Dzogchen, and other mystical sources.
They called it 'hypnagogic insertion' or HI for short.
Hermione opened her eyes, bringing her own mind back to her Exeter flat, and pulled her wand from the pocket of her skirt, Summoning her crutches from near the door. A sound had forced her to open her eyes, and at the icy window, a fine eagle owl was waiting to be let in. Slipping her hands through the forearm braces, she grunted as she lifted herself from the divan. Hermione did not use her crutches outside of the privacy of home. No one at St. Mungo's would ever see her shamble and balance on one small foot.
Opening the window to let the owl inside, Hermione shivered at the icy draft that came in through the sash. The owl dropped a letter on the divan, easily finding the perch with a bowl of treats and water set near the other window in the drawing room. The metal crutches clacked as she moved slowly to the divan to sit and take up the letter.
Again, there was flowing script on the front with her Exeter address. Hermione had purposely given the address, still slightly put out with Neville for concealing the original missive.
'Dr. H. Granger, thank you for your reply. We realize how busy you must be. No apology is necessary. It would please us greatly if you and Dr. Longbottom could come to the Manor in Wiltshire at your earliest convenience. Tomorrow at noon would be ideal for us. If this is acceptable, please Floo us on the receipt of this letter. Lady N. Malfoy.'
Hermione blinked.
"Eager, I suppose?" she mumbled to herself, glancing to the eagle owl who ate noisily on a crunchy owl treat.
Hermione moved to the rug, using her crutch to push away the metal monstrosity that Wizarding prosthetists considered 'top of the line.' Wandlessly Summoning the pot of Floo Powder down from the mantle, Hermione took a cleansing breath, staring into the fire.
Was she ready for another case, one that would keep her in a Britain gripped in one of the coldest winters on record?
Yes, she thought, she was…anything to keep her mind busy from contemplating her life and its obvious personal deficiencies.
Hermione dreamt about her childhood home quite often. She supposed it was because it was the place where she had felt the safest. It was also the place where she realized she was not like many other people, that she was a witch.
In her dream home, memories of the mundane comprised each room. The way that later afternoon sunlight would stream through the sheer curtains in the front room, or the way the garden door was often open to the lush greenery beyond, it all made Hermione feel safe. Even when her parents appeared in her dreams, it was to embrace her warmly. The dreams shifted often, and sometimes Hermione would find doors that did not belong, leading to places made entirely of her sleeping mind.
She was dreaming of her childhood home the night before going to Wiltshire, and upon the slightly conscious thought of Wiltshire, the dream changed.
Like a spirit, Hermione moved through a darkened parlor in the front parts of Malfoy Manor, and from a distance, she saw her younger self being Crucio'd by Bellatrix Lestrange. From her vantage point, Hermione could see the disgust and horror on Narcissa Malfoy's face. She could also see Draco Malfoy's face, stretched tight with shock. His hands shook from fear, and hesitation.
Echoing through the dream was Neville's voice, calling her name.
The dream changed again, and this time, Hermione was torturing Bellatrix Lestrange, and the Malfoys were clapping their hands in approval.
