AN: Ok so this is my first attempt at a Dramione story. Hopefully this will go well…don't criticize me too much seeing as this is the first time I've published!
Summary: Hermione and Draco have now moved on in their lives. Hermione works as a Healer at St. Mungo's, and Draco works in Magical Law. It's been about 5 years since the end of the war, and they thought their lives would never cross again. Of course, Fate has a different plan in mind. Draco is admitted into the emergency ward, and Hermione is his attending healer. Of course, there comes another curveball. Two identical letters from one familiar person, and the lives of these two will never be the same again.
Prologue: Emergency
"Hermione! This one's yours!" Padma Patil shouted at her from the entrance of the emergency ward.
Hermione looked up from her coffee. She had just cleared her last patient to check out: The poor man had splinched himself quite badly after having a row with his wife and apparating drunk. She grabbed a clipboard and took over levitating the man from Padma.
He was pale with shaggy blond hair. His lip was split quite badly and his nose was twisted and broken. Blood dripped down his chin and mouth, like he had been in a fist fight. His black dress robes were in tatters, and his hawthorn wand was in splintering pieces that pierced his right palm. He had slash marks all over him like he had been hit with a particularly strong Sectum-Sempra but had been half-healed in an attempt to stop blood flow. Large bleeding welts covered his face, making it impossible to recognize him. A bludger-sized bruise blackened the middle of his chest. All in all, he was the worst she had seen all night.
She cast a series of complicated healing spells and pulled out a bone-mending potion for his ribs and chest. Holding his head up, she tipped the clear liquid onto his lips and he drank, grimacing at the taste and then groaning in pain. She then cast a spell on his hand to remove the wood splinters, but she knew she would have to sit down and go over it twice with tweezers the muggle way. She then cast a numbing spell on his hand and began to work on it, plucking out the pieces of wood. "Name?" she asked quietly.
"Malfoy. Draco Axabras Malfoy." Hermione stopped for a moment in surprise before going back to work on his hand while the charmed quill filled out his information on the clipboard.
"Can you tell me what happened, Mr. Malfoy?" she asked in a professionally cool tone.
"I was going to meet my witness outside of court and was attacked. They hit me with several curses. I'm not sure what else after that; I think I passed out," he said, moaning again as the healing pain in his chest grew and the numbing spell began to wear off.
"Well, Mr. Malfoy, you will have to stay for the next several days at least. Your chest is severely injured, and I cannot heal the bruising. Until the bruising has begun to heal, which it won't until your bones are healed, I cannot assure you that your ribs and sternum are completely healed. Until I clear you to be released, you are under my care. I am Healer Hermione Granger," Hermione said, still not looking at his face.
He stopped listening as soon as he heard her name. "Here, drink this. It will heal the welts on your face," Hermione said, tipping a dark green liquid up to his mouth. His hand was still numb, and the other arms were bandaged to prevent infection. He drank the foul slime, gagging, but was grateful for the healing sting he felt on his face.
"So, Granger went on to become a healer, of all things?" Draco croaked, a smirk in his voice.
"Yes, Malfoy. I enjoy it," she stated simply. She was not going to let him hurt her. He was her patient now, not her tormenter.
He attempted to sit up to say something, but her small hand gently pushed him back down. "If you do not lay down, Malfoy, I will have to give you dreamless sleep potion. You cannot be moving too much these next several days."
"Actually, Granger, that's exactly what I wanted," Draco croaked in his gravelly voice. A grimace shot across his face as her hand continued to press into his shoulder lightly. She immediately let go of him. She quickly gave him a dreamless sleep potion before leaving his room. What on earth had happened to Draco Bloody-Ferret Malfoy to get him into such a state, and why in Merlin's name did Padma have to assign him to her?