I do not own any rights to the books. Everything is JKRowling's.

Wandless Healings

Chapter 1: Introduction – Hermione POV

Hermione frowned, her frazzled hair falling around a sheet of parchment as she studied the list of available elective rotations for the sixth time. After graduating from Hogwarts, she had gone on to become a Mediwitch student, specializing in trauma and psychological assessment. She could do everything short of transfiguring a broom into a leg, but the Board of International Medicine deemed it necessary that she complete her fellowship before being certified for private practice. Of course, she didn't have to get a license… but she also wouldn't be able to work in any major city without one. And at 23, Hermione was certain that in order to find the love of her life, she would have to be exposed to many, many people. Many people. Many more than the thousands she had already met.

Which meant, she had to work in a city. A big city. A city as big as… London, for example. So, she had to get certified. She had to finish her fellowship. For another two years of her life.

She sighed in frustration, let the parchment fall onto the bed and curled comfortably onto her side. She had just passed the Degree of Competence exam, and rotations didn't start for another week. After an intense two months of studying, she had been looking forward to a nice vacation and visiting Harry in the outskirts of Moscow, where he was spending the summer in a Quidditch training camp. But then, she got the letter informing her that the elective advisor had gotten blown up in a hostage rescue mission (she had chosen WERR, "Wartime Emergency Response and Rescue", as her third year rotation) and would not be accepting new students, leaving her to chose a new one from the dwindling list of options.

Again, she found herself staring at the list. She wanted something exciting. Something life-changing! Ever since her adventures with Harry and Ron had ended at the end of Hogwarts, she felt somehow bored and unmotivated by simple book learning. While it was still important to her to do well in classes, she no longer felt driven to do the best she could do—only enough to get her into the competitive specialties and schools she wanted. Much to her friends' amusement, she had picked up a hobby a few years back: solving mysteries. In fact, she had been employed part-time by a private investigations firm, until the "husbands cheating on their wives" drill became too disillusioning, and she resorted to reading mystery novels instead.

There was nothing exciting left on the list. That was what it came down to. She didn't want to spend a year in any of the electives left. It would be a year of her life, wasted! Hermione resisted the urge to whine and settled for scrunching her nose at the offending parchment, huffing at it childishly. Well, it's not like there's a point in waiting on it another day. She sat up on the bed, dangling her legs over the side. Reaching for her wand, she swished it towards the fireplace and waited for the familiar face of the on-call attending to show up in the flames.

The green-tinged head of a woman appeared within moments, smiling in recognition. "Hi, Hermione. What can I do for you tonight?"

"I need your opinion on this elective rotation," Hermione replied, waving the slightly crumpled parchment carelessly. "I don't know which one to choose anymore. Honestly, I don't even care at this point… Do you know anyone who'll be running these classes?"

"Oh, hey, yeah… we're really sorry about what happened. Very unfortunate, that…"

"It's fine. I mean, I'm sorry too. It was a big loss for the entire medical community." It was the same line Hermione had heard and repeated to the entire staff of the London Wizard Hospital, and didn't care to get into details about the situation yet again. She rushed on, "But listen, do you know anyone who's teaching this year?"

"Well, you know, we're not supposed to give out that information yet, the final staffing judgments haven't been decided yet…" Hermione made a face at the flames impatiently and waited. "… If I were you, I'd go for 'Wandless Healings'," the attending finally replied.

Hermione scanned the list again, and raised her eyebrows upon reading the short description. "Well, I guess I didn't like any of them anyways…" But that was one I definitely did not want to pick, she thought. I am so done with potions… "How come?"

"Well, there's only one doctor who volunteered to teach it, so unless something drastically changes, then trust me – you would have made a safe choice." Merideth grinned.

"Oh?"

The green face gave an exaggerated wink.

Hermione smiled back. "Alright, well, I guess that's what I wanted to hear. Sign me up for that one then, would you?" Merideth nodded and looked away, and Hermione could hear a quill scratching her name into the sign-up sheet over the background sounds of the office door opening and patters of approaching shoes. Good. That's all set and done. "So, what's his name?" she pried as Merideth swung back around to face her.

The face looked around stealthily, and leaned closer into the flames. The sound of people approaching got louder. "I really shouldn't be telling you, but under the circumstances…" Merideth lowered her voice to a whisper. "His name is Dr. Snape," she said quickly before sitting back and assuming a business-like pose. "So, Hermione, is there anything else I can help you with?"

Hermione had blanched, her mouth hanging slightly open. She snapped it shut. "Oh. No. No, thanks. Thanks for your help," she finished feebly, barely remembering to say "Bye" before Merideth waved out the flames with her wand. Her mouth was open again, but instead of closing it she lay back against the headrest, feeling her heart thumping against her chest. Different Snape. Different Snape, she chanted to herself. It didn't sound convincing.

Jolting out of bed, she again waved her wand at the flames. "Harry! Harry!" she yelled into them, until a sleepy, unkempt man appeared yawning in the blaze.

"Hermione, do you know what time it is?" he asked.

"Listen, there's no one over, is there? Ok, good. I'm coming over right now. Put some clothes on."

Without waiting to hear his reply, she doused the fire and, grabbing her emergency traveling kit, teleported to Harry Potter's room in Moscow.