When she first woke up in a cold white room, she couldn't see much.

At the foot of her bed, she could feel a pressure she could only imagine would be Crookshanks. That cat was always following her everywhere. It was dark outside, but there was just enough light shining off the moon for her to make out machinery only typically found in hospital rooms. She couldn't remember why she had been admitted, but it must have been horrible, judging only by how heavy her limbs felt.

Her body quivered as she tried to get up, making her feel faint and weak. Her eyes could barely focus on even a window without her head pounding. She tried getting up but her head protested. So did the nurse that she hadn't noticed standing there and checking her vitals.

"Don't move sweetheart," he'd said, "You're still sore." His voice did nothing to soothe her splitting migraine. He helped Hermione get back under the warm sheets of a bed that did not belong to her. After he'd tucked her in and rechecked her vitals, he began to leave the big but empty room.

"Why am I here?" Hermione stuttered from behind him, but was too slow in formulating her sentence, and because he hadn't heard, the nurse walked out. She decided to find out for herself.

Despite how much her body ached for her to stop moving, Hermione's curiosity kept her going. Crookshanks yowled as she shifted. Hermione stood out of bed, nearly tripping on the way, and set off her heart monitor. The now spiking heartbeat refused to calm down. She managed to observe her emergency room surroundings, and that there were no other patients around. She acknowledged the cast on her right arm, and the heavy gauze around her neck and left thigh, but couldn't do much more before there were two different nurses rushing to her bedside. Hermione realized that her heart rate still hadn't returned to normal, and the monitor must have alerted the staff.

One nurse left as quickly as she had come in, the other rushed to her side to coax her into bed. "You really shouldn't strain yourself dear. We'll be bringing in the doctor right now, you can relax."

"But what happened-"

"You were involved in a Muggle road accident, Ms. Granger," a deep voice from the end of the room caught her attention.

The doctor, tall, thin, and towering, wore black scrubs under a white coat. His hair was combed back and away from his face, but it was obvious that it wasn't his usual style of choice. He had recently returned from a surgical effort, one that had exhausted his patience. In his hand he held a small book. It was a Muggle novel she was familiar with, one that could only be enjoyed by the highly intellectual. He had been trying to get some rest before she had interrupted his time, sending him racing to the emergency room.

"I do apologize, doctor," Hermione's words dragged out as the painkillers that had been injected into her arm began to take effect. She made desperate attempts to catch a glance at the physician scrutinizing her. She couldn't. To her dismay, all she wanted was to be alone, but the nurses were allowing anything but. Talking over her words, they had already begun to inform the MD of her state. Crookshanks' meowing reflected her own discontent.

He began nodding as understanding dawned on him, and he promptly said the words "Sinus tachycardia. Get her up." to stop his nurses' bantering. Hermione crouched into a sitting position. "Can I go home?" the words that escaped were tired, almost hushed. They were also disregarded by the doctor. He pressed the back of his hand to her neck and forehead, taking note of her temperature. "She's burning up."

"Malfoy?" His voice was becoming eerily familiar to her. He ignored her and only glanced at her as he removed his hand. The gears of his thoughts that began turning were almost physically visible as this theory was stretched out and evaluated in his mind.

Healer Draco Malfoy held his stethoscope to Hermione's chest, and without warning. She flinched at its coolness but otherwise did not move as she looked at the Slytherin kid skeptically. Maybe she was hallucinating.

The medic proceeded to take notes on the clipboard he took off the foot of her bed. With his constant glances at her, Hermione guessed the news would not be pretty.

"Have you been consuming too much Muggle caffeine, Ms. Granger?"

The morphine they had injected into her was almost completely clouding her thoughts, restricting her widely known-of intelligence. "Um, what?"

"Coffee, Granger."

"Oh. Yeah," she waved almost lazily, "All... time, ever... day." Her words began to slur and her eyes started to close as she slipped into sleep. Malfoy was quick to make sure she didn't hurt herself falling down to her pillow, but otherwise left her to the nurses. The last thing he said before he left was an order for a stress test and a physical examination when she woke up in the morning.

Even though he had promised himself a night of no occupation, he found himself pondering too long on Hermione Granger, and the malady that had befallen her. Much to his disappointment, he had been correct about his hypothesis regarding her heart rate increase. The best medicine he could prescribe to her was a week or two of strict bed rest in a medicinal environment. The hospital was her best choice. Malfoy wrote up the document to be filed by morning, and returned to his book. Strangely, nothing could occupy his mind as efficiently as his old schoolmate's ailment, and it was the only thing that did until the moment he fell asleep in the doctors' lounge.

Hello all!

I'm hoping that I can keep up with this story. There will be several chapters. Please review to tell me what you enjoyed and what you didn't. Constructive criticism is welcome!

I use the internet for medical research. I am in no way educated in the medicinal field.

I have no ownership over Harry Potter or its characters in any way. All rights belong to J.K. Rowling.

Picture also not mine x