~*~

SWEETER THAN A NIGHTINGALE
by Tyde

~*~

Chapter One

~*~

Disclaimer: If you recognise it, I don't own it. If I did I would have bought a castle by now.
But I don't and I haven't bought a castle. JK Rowling is like Shakespeare in my opinion.
Her work is timeless :o)

~*~

The explosion had rocked the Central Line of the London underground system. There were hundreds killed and thousands injured and it wasn't just Muggles. A fair amount of wizarding folk had been using the underground that day and one of them was Ron Weasley.

He'd been boarding a carriage to meet friends in London when the bombs had gone off. He'd been blown off his feet and up and out onto the street landing heavily.

The Muggle emergency services had arrived before the Mediwizards and it was no use to interfere now. If they did it would break every law in the book to reveal themselves and help. A dozen or so witches and wizards were bundled up into ambulances and taken to the nearest hospitals along with the hundreds of Muggles also injured.

At school Hermione Granger had always wondered how it was that there were so many witches and wizards in Britain but so few jobs. If you were smart enough (which she undoubtedly was) there were jobs in the Ministry or at St Mungo's but these were in limited numbers. Shops didn't employ that many people and thanks to a lot of DIY spell books tradesmen and specialists were not needed.

She'd discovered that many magical folk got jobs in the Muggle world to support themselves and their families and seeing as she was a Muggleborn she figured it couldn't hurt to do the same. Due to all the many adventures that herself, Harry and Ron had had at Hogwarts she thought a career in medicine would prove useful.

Not wanting to be totally cut off from magical methods of healing she decided to do a joint internship at Bethnal Green Hospital in London and St Mungo's just outside of London.

She was stationed at Bethnal Green on the day of the explosion and it was all hands on deck to cope with the rush of patients. The number of people that came through the casualty section that afternoon seemed to go by in a blur. Dozens of faces covered in blood and scratches whizzed around in her brain. Some were unconscious, some incoherent and others were just purely in shock. After stitching up yet another gaping gash in a school kid's arm she was pulled aside by a fellow intern, Gemma Jenkins.

"Mione, I think there are a couple of your people in here," she whispered urgently. Gemma wasn't a witch but her uncle Derek was a wizard and she got a weird feeling in her stomach whenever magical people were around. It had taken an awful lot of courage to confront Hermione about it on their first day but she had and the witch now considered her a firm friend.

Hermione nodded at her friend "Mediwizards must have been too late. Have they been admitted yet? Are the injuries critical?"

She hoped against all hope that they hadn't already been assessed. Cause if their injuries had been critical and already assessed then she wouldn't be able to use methods she'd learned at St Mungos to fix them as it would raise suspicion.

"Just a few. There's one in surgery now, pretty horrific internal injuries from what I can gather by the chart," she handed it to Hermione who skimmed it quickly.

"The others are fairly mild, a few clean breaks from what I can see and cuts and bruises," Gemma said this all as they bustled down towards casualty. Crowding a few scared wizards into an examining room and quickly fixing their ailments she glanced at the clock to see it was now 2.00pm.

"Looks like I won't get that lunch break," she sighed and then remembered she was supposed to be meeting Harry and Ron for lunch that day.

An odd feeling began to form in her gut and she hoped against hope that it was wrong.

Bethnal Green Hospital was located very near a tube station of the same name and where one raised by a Muggle family would surely take the tube to if they were to meet someone for lunch at the hospital.

Harry would catch the tube she thought. He could be here, he could be that one in surgery right now. The thought never entered her mind that it could be Ron, he wouldn't take the underground, it was only recently he learnt how to use Muggle post and telephones.

She raced into the preparation area and scrubbed her arms and hands clean and donned some scrubs, a hairnet and a pair of gloves before entering the operating theatre. The doctor in charge turned his head to see who it was and merely nodded at Hermione.

"Good chance for you to learn about real surgery practices Granger. Stand next to Nurse Burlent and assist would you"

Hermione picked up a stainless steel dish filled with swabs and dared to look at the face of the patient. She dropped the swabs and the dish made a loud clatter on the floor causing everyone to look up in annoyance. The red hair was unmistakable and although she couldn't see his blue eyes that were always filled with laughter, she knew this was her friend Ron Weasley and he was dying.

She backed out of the swinging doors apologising profusely and ran straight into Gemma who had been looking for her.

"Mione, they're bringing more in and they need you in casualty. A man has been asking for you too," they continued down the hallway passing gurneys with people laying on them their faces twisted into grimaces of pain.

"Says his name is Harry Potter" Hermione looked sharply at her fellow intern and at the several heads that had swivelled in her direction at the mention of the name.

She ushered the magical folk into a spare room and started to mend their various injuries. She'd asked Gemma to send Harry in, hoping that he wasn't too badly hurt. A little witch, that had not yet received her letter for Hogwarts looked up at Hermione as she waved her wand over the broken bones in her leg.

"I only thought Muggles worked in Muggle hospitals. How come you are here? Why didn't the Mediwizards take us to St Mungo's?"

"I suppose they didn't get there in time. How does that feel?" The girl stood on her leg and to her delight found she didn't wince.

"Brilliant, thanks Dr Granger!" The girl's mother thanked Hermione and as she moved onto the next patient she felt a hand on her shoulder. The hand was clean and devoid of any blood or cuts. She threw herself into Harry's arms exclaiming about his escape of serious harm. His green eyes looked guilty.

"I wasn't with Ron, Mione. I had an appointment down the road this morning so I said I'd meet him here. I gave him the directions to get here via the tube and everything." He scanned the room quickly. "Where is he? Is he okay?"

Hermione collapsed onto a bed and rubbed her forehead wearily. "No Harry, he's not okay. He's in surgery now, he's dying Harry, I don't know if they can save him."

Harry looked at her bewildered. "Well get in there and fix him! You're a Mediwitch Mione! Fix him"

"It's not that simple Harry, I've only had hands-on training for ten months, I haven't done nearly anything as complicated as that. He's got massive internal bleeding, a collapsed lung..." she trailed off, the list was long and too scary to think about now.

"Hermione Granger you are the smartest person I know and you've always managed to find a way to fix things. Don't tell me now of all times you're going to give up. Remember in sixth year when Voldemort had me and Snape tied up in that cave and was torturing us for ages," he shivered involuntarily at the memory "you were the one that never gave up trying to find us. It was your cleverness that led Dumbledore and the others to save us. Although I wouldn't have minded in the least if they'd left Snape tied up there" he managed a small smile. "You can do this Mione, I know you can".

He gripped her hand in his and squeezed it gently, encouragingly.

"Having faith is a wonderful thing Harry but I might just make things worse."

"Hermione, it's RON, you HAVE TO TRY!"

Harry's voice had gone just a little bit hysterical. His best friend was lying in some Muggle operating theatre, dying. He couldn't lose him, he just couldn't.

Hermione thought of that pitiful sight she'd seen lying on the operating table, bleeping machines and sweat forming on the brows of the doctors as they struggled to save Ron's life. She nodded to Harry and told him to stay put. Wasting no time to scrub up she performed a spell that cleansed her and gave her new scrubs and a sterile face-mask instantly.

It was now or never.

~*~

Author's note: Please excuse my incredibly obvious non-knowledge of medicine terms and practices and stuff. I know I probably shouldn't have taken it on board to begin with but I'm fascinated with hospitals at the moment. Oh and I'm not British, I'm Australian, so all the hospital locations and tube information is also probably a bit dodgy.