Prologue
After the War, the wizarding world is reeling, especially after losing so many people to the violence.
There is a massive need for young witches and wizards to take up new callings, especially in the healing fields, but with St. Mungo's Healing School having been destroyed and most of the professors and professionals murdered by Death Eaters and other Voldemort sympathizers, the task to relearn the healing arts falls unknowingly upon the muggles and their schools.
Changes and challenges arise for many young witches and wizards, and the two brightest students of their year, Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger (unbeknownst to each other) both choose to study medicine and healing.
Draco is overcoming his prejudice towards muggles and muggle-born individuals, breaking through his father's conditioning and grooming, and has chosen, with the help of the Order, the Ministry, and even MACUSA, to uproot himself, move to America, and study and practice medicine, hoping that distance and anonymity in a foreign country would be just what was needed for a fresh start, and it was.
Draco started out in New York and was then matched with University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC) for his residence, so he moved to Baltimore.
As expected, he sailed through the programs and, in time, became a trauma surgeon at the world-renowned UMMC R. Adams Cowley Shock-Trauma Center in Baltimore; a place unlike any other, where he is at the forefront of non-magical advances in trauma care.
Hermione chose a different path and decided to study at Cambridge and focus on what she feels like is a tribute to her late father's practice; orthopedics (teeth and bones are fairly similar, after all). She is, of course, positively brilliant at it, with or without magic assisting her.
Her life has been significantly different since the war, and she and Ron have been dating for several years now after being on again and off again for a long time. Ron's been the co-owner of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes for years with George, and they've finally hit the point where practically everyone they know is married and has children and it's making Hermione nervous, though she won't admit it.
Molly is hinting at wanting more grandchildren and making thinly veiled attempts at persuading Ron to finally propose to her.
It isn't that Hermione doesn't want to get married, it's the fact that she feels like she's supposed to get married that alarms her.
Witch that she is, Hermione throws herself headlong into her career and tries her best to avoid ruining everyone's expectations of her.
Years pass and St. Mungo's rebuilds, but the healer shortage still takes a heavy toll on patient care and efficiency even a decade after the war, and the Ministry's Health Division is called in to assist.
Jobs are offered to any known witch or wizard with a medical background, especially to those who are from Great Britain.
Hermione jumps at the idea of being a healer and immediately answers the call, and, being the most experienced candidate, she is given the chief position for orthopedics and accepts, giving her the chance to bury herself in the job she loves to avoid her conflicting thoughts about possibly marrying Ron and spending the rest of her life with him.
Draco receives his offer in the form of a letter attached to a Portkey (apparently it's international wizard mail since owls don't do transatlantic flights). After giving it some thought (a lot of thought, actually), he realizes that this muggle world and the city of Baltimore, through all its faults and shortcomings, has grown on him, so he decides to stay.
A letter that speaks the truth is all that's needed to bring him home again.
Changing Times
Draco Lucius Malfoy was standing outside of the ER doors where the ambulances pulled up, taking a rare break from his shift, feeling the all-encompassing chill of Baltimore in mid-January, letting it freeze him to the bone and purify his mind when a tech came over his radio,
"Hey, Malfoy, we've got a chopper inbound from an accident on 70 towards Hagerstown, driver was DOA, passenger is a pregnant woman losing a lot of blood, things are about to get busy in here."
He sighed, his exhalation rising in a puff of condensation as he pulled his long white-blonde hair back up into a ponytail before coiling it atop his head and pulling his surgical cap back on.
"I'll be right in.", he replied, reentering the hospital.
Dr. Draco Malfoy was not a stranger to these things, in fact, he liked to think of himself as being built for this calling.
When he had first arrived in the states in the fall of 1998, he enrolled in a nursing program in New York, deciding that the best way to pay his debt to society was to heal the sick and save the wounded.
It happened just a few short months after the War had ended, his trial and subsequent proven innocence had been expedient, his father had gone to Azkaban where he belonged, his mother had been placed on probation and had somehow reconnected with her sister, Andromeda Tonks, and he had worked out a deal with the Order, the Ministry, and a delegation from MACUSA.
They all agreed that he would be on probation in the United States, far away from anyone who might pull him back to the dark side.
"I think Draco Malfoy will be willing and able to do anything to get as far from here as possible and to become a better person… I believe that, whatever he chooses to do with his life, it will be better than anything we could give him here in our community where he is still regarded as a traitor and a pariah, and likely will be for a very long time. This war has taken its toll on all of us, and Draco was only acting out of fear for his life and the lives of his family members. He was forced to join the Death Eaters to punish his father after he failed to bring Voldemort the prophecy… We've all done terrible things out of fear, myself included, I nearly killed him last year…I am not being punished for it because you've decided that I'm the Chosen One, why should Draco be punished for acting out of fear?", Harry Potter, of all people, said at his post-trial meeting with MACUSA officials, members of the Ministry, and senior members of the Order.
Harry had vouched for him and it was he whom Draco had to thank for his life today.
After getting his certifications as an RN and as an EMT (thanks to a time turner), he was put on an ambulance crew and it was there that he found his true calling; trauma medicine.
He realized that the war he had fought in back home had prepared him for his job as a paramedic nurse and that when he had been on the wrong side then, he was finally on the right side now.
The only times he seriously doubted his abilities to work in that field had been before September 11th, 2001.
After that, he was sure of his calling.
He had thought that the worst things he had ever seen and experienced was the evil of Voldemort and the battle at Hogwarts.
He was proven wrong that day.
His crew had been on a call near the financial district concerning a potential jumper, who had been talked down by an officer on the scene before anything could happen, when the news broke about an airplane crashing into one of the Twin Towers.
His first thought had been that it had been a tragic accident concerning a small plane.
He could remember the color draining from his crewmate Sierra's face as their driver, Jake, turned up the radio and they learned it was, in fact, a passenger jet that had collided with the tower.
The next twenty minutes or so was a blur to him, but he remembers being on the ground at WTC when the second plane hit the south tower.
His father's voice came back to him in that moment, "Muggle filth are capable of more violence and hatred than you could ever know…" and his blood had run cold at the terrifying thought that maybe, just maybe, his father had been right.
The next hours were spent assisting in the evacuation of civilians from the area.
He fought back the urge to vomit when he was inside a foyer in the south tower, treating a woman for shock when they heard a sickening smash from the glass high above them, only to look up and see a body, or what remained of it, slumped against the ceiling.
"Oh fuck, they're jumping…", came the shocked voice of Tyrus, one of his crewmates, as the woman he was treating cried out in horror.
The next hours and minutes were a blur.
He didn't care if MACUSA shipped his ass back to Azkaban for it, he was performing all sorts of powerful wandless magic with the help of his adrenaline rush to save as many people as he could, obliviating people before they could say anything about his sudden uncanny abilities.
He remembered the towers falling, running with civilians and first responders alike away from the debris cloud, casting multiple bubble-head charms as he went, trying to prevent as many people as he could from breathing in that all-encompassing dust.
He wasn't alone either. There were a lot of MACUSA employees out there in the streets doing the same things.
He helped rescue a group of men who had been filming a documentary about the financial district when the attacks happened and herded them to safety as best as he could and, unbeknownst to him, he was included in their footage.
His mother had heard of the attacks on muggle news and had actually called him with a telephone at his apartment, leaving multiple messages on his answering machine, begging him to call Andromeda's number when he could because she wasn't leaving her sister's house until she found out he was alive and safe.
He called his mum at the earliest opportunity to tell her he was safe, but that there was a lot of work to be done and that a lot of people were still trapped in the debris.
Narcissa had been crying in relief on the other end of the line, telling him to be safe and that she loved him, something she hadn't said to him in a very long time.
He volunteered and took extra shifts, working around the clock with other paramedics and even MACUSA officials to clear debris and treat survivors. Draco would live off of energy drinks, potions, and power naps for 48 hours and then sleep for a day before going out and doing it all over again.
That same pure blood that his father would have never had him spill for any muggle was donated willingly at a blood drive, the Red Cross worker telling him that he had an awesome tattoo when he saw the Dark Mark on his forearm.
Draco had nearly been ill at the comment, but bit back his sharp response to the unknowing muggle in favor of nodding a silent "thank you" instead.
Draco squashed those memories out of his head as he scrubbed in, coming back to his reality.
It was January of 2010, nearly twelve years had passed since the battle at Hogwarts, almost nine since 9/11. He had been fortunate enough to breeze through his residencies and fellowships and here he was, a new man, at the forefront of critical care.
He was a surgeon at UMMC Shock-Trauma and he was about to try and save two lives at once; a mother and her unborn child.
Nothing could wipe away his sins as a participant in Voldemort's crusade for power, no matter how young, scared, and stupid he had been.
He had grown since then, learned about muggles, and had even come to respect them. His life's work was to serve others and save as many lives as he could, full stop.
He pulled on his gloves and backed into the OR as the message went out that the helicopter, or MedEvacs as they were called in Maryland, had landed on the helicopter pad, preparing his team for whatever came into their trauma bay.
As he worked, he kept thinking of the offer he had received two weeks prior to come back to Britain and become a healer at St. Mungo's.
Would he give up this life here for an invitation and opportunity to rejoin the magical community back in England?
He had decided against it.
He belonged here.
That was that.
The victim was rushed in and Draco sprang into action, barking orders as his nurses and techs as they worked seamlessly around him.
"Riley! Get on the phone for Cezerek, tell her we need her ASAP!", he shouted to a tech as he evaluated the positioning of the unborn child in the mother's womb and heard the failing heartbeats of the child before deciding he needed someone more experienced on this to save this child's life.
That was something the old Draco would have never done, admit he needed help.
Hours later, he practically collapsed on his sofa in his Fells Point townhouse, having shed his pink scrubs and showered.
It had been a long shift and he was feeling it in his bones.
After trying to block out his cases from his mind, including the one unfortunate case when he couldn't save the pregnant woman who was involved in a deadly car accident, he was about to fall asleep.
Luckily, he could rest easy knowing the child had been saved. He had been able to assist Dr. Cezerek, their OB-GYN on call, in an emergency C-section and the child had been delivered prematurely, but still alive and in excellent health considering the circumstances.
The baby would spend several weeks in the NICU before going home with the mother's parents.
As much as he loved how exhilarating each shift was, how he was repaying his debt to society one life at a time, he did miss home and his mother.
He was seconds from sleep when there was a pop and a loud clunk on his dining room table.
Draco jumped up and looked at the place where the noise had come from, his wand drawn in anticipation.
Lying on his table was a small garden trowel with parchment rolled around its handle and fastened with heavy duty twine.
He summoned the trowel to his hand and pulled the twine off, unfurling the parchment as he sank back down onto the sofa.
It was a letter from Neville Longbottom of all people.
Draco hadn't seen the Gryffindor since his trial, where he had testified as a witness for his defense, telling the Wizengamot that he had assisted in the final battle against Voldemort by throwing Harry's wand to him and helping maintain the protective enchantments around the Great Hall.
He had no idea how Neville got his address, but he guessed that Theodore Nott had something to do with that.
When Draco decided to give in and get a Facebook account, one of his first friends aside from former classmates from nursing and med school and colleagues from his time as a paramedic nurse, had been, to his surprise, Theodore Nott.
Theo was still single, and doing well for himself despite his choice of using his family fortune to pay reparations to the people who had lost their homes and businesses to the war.
Theo had filled Draco in on what was going on in the magical community, mainly who married who, who was expecting children, the new professors that Hogwarts hired on, Quidditch, things like that.
He learned that Neville Longbottom had married Luna Lovegood and that they both taught at Hogwarts now, Neville as the Herbology professor, Luna as the Charms professor. Apparently, Sprout had retired after training Neville for five years. He had expressed a desire to stay and teach, so she passed the torch to him and had gone to live with her daughter and her grandchildren in Wales.
Flitwick was still a member of the Hogwarts staff, although he had retired from teaching Charms, he stayed on as assistant headmaster, head of Ravenclaw house, and choir director.
It just so happened that he was getting a letter from professors Lovegood and Longbottom about the healer shortage and how it was starting to take its toll in the form of malpractice cases involving healers that were far too old to still be working but refused to retire.
The letter was written in neat script with some dirt smudges here and there, and it was a plea for help.
Draco sat as he read the letter, his anger growing with every word.
According to the letter, Luna had been expecting their first child when a seemingly normal spell to check early fetal development was horribly bungled by an absolute fossil of a medi-wizard, resulting in a miscarriage.
Luckily, Luna hadn't been left completely barren by the spell, as that particular spell had been known to sterilize witches before and was actually the preferred method of permanent sterilization over a tubal ligation or hysterectomy.
Apparently, this hadn't been the first time something like this had happened at St. Mungo's either, although those incidents hadn't been brought up in the official letter from the Ministry's Health Division which had implored him to return to the British magical community as a healer.
It didn't surprise him that the Ministry would lie about something like that, but it did enrage him.
Neville went on in his letter, detailing many more cases of malpractice in all the departments at the hospital, from vanished bones and the need for Skele-Gro, to denial of pain management for muggle-borns, to botched therapy sessions with war survivors.
Frantic witches and wizards had been turning to muggle medicine and the magical healing arts were beginning to be lost as the number of witches and wizards who were turning away from healing magic grew. There were also drops in the birth rates, magical individuals choosing not to have children at all due to the high number of malpractice cases.
Draco couldn't blame them. They had been given a choice between muggle medicine, which they knew came with pain, or elderly, often racist and blood supremacist healers who were making grave mistakes in their practices, so they had withdrawn from the choice altogether.
Before he had thought to become a nursing student himself, he had been raised to think that muggle doctors were psychotic people who would cut people open for fun and hurt them instead of healing them… this incorrect assumption was very common among magical families, pure blood and half-blood alike (apparently once witches and wizards got a taste for medical magic, they tended to stick to it).
While it was true that sometimes magical healing hurt less, it was also true that a good amount of modern medicine was more effective. In healing magic, there was a spell for helping to stop hemorrhage, but he had learned from experience that the fastest way to stop the bleed in an emergency was by applying pressure and a tourniquet.
Before Draco could fully comprehend his actions, he was sitting down at his computer (yes, a computer, if his father had seen him now, he would've likely shit bricks) and typing a letter to send back to the greenhouses at Hogwarts with the trowel, hoping that Neville would intercept the message.
Neville and Luna,
I got your letter detailing the situation with St. Mungo's. I am sorry to hear about the miscarriage and I send my prayers for both of you as well as my condolences. I have already been notified by the Ministry's Health Division of the shortage in healers, but I am not a healer, I am a doctor. I have seen the best of both worlds and there is only one way I will operate if I should return; with a hybrid of muggle medical arts and traditional magical healing.
Which makes me wonder, how in Merlin's name did you two find out I was a doctor?
I'll see what research I can do with my connections at MACUSA (I suppose that's how you found out about it, those damn Yankees can't keep their mouths shut about anything, can they?) and I'll seriously consider the choice to come back, although I don't know who would trust a former Death Eater to heal them...
Sincerely,
Draco L. Malfoy, MD, FACS, FCCM
He printed the letter, sent it back with the portkey, and hoped for the best.
He received his response a week later, attached to a portkey, this time clunking down in the middle of his bathroom floor while he was taking a shower.
After nearly giving him a heart attack and making him yelp in a very undignified way, he approached the portkey and the parchment roll.
Draco,
Nice titles. Hogwarts has had internet access for a few years now, it's just become such a large part of life in muggle England that it's getting harder and harder to function without it. I must say that technology is extremely helpful, especially for muggle-born students to keep in touch with their families without raising suspicion, we do have tech charms and safeguards in place to keep students from sharing our whereabouts or posting to social media accounts about the school. We would have emailed you, we just couldn't find a current email address other than the one for your job, otherwise we wouldn't have bothered with the portkey.
Actually, Luna came across a documentary about 9/11 that they were streaming online over here last September in remembrance of the attacks, and you were in it. The whole student body saw it in their Muggle Studies classes (which are mandatory now). At the end, it said you were a doctor at a trauma hospital in Maryland. Luna googled it, and you came up on a list of doctors affiliated with the hospital. It was fairly easy to direct the portkey to you after that, remember, Luna is the charms professor, after all.
Thank you for expressing your condolences.
I think you'd be surprised at who would be treated by a former Death Eater. At this point, anything is better than those racist, barmy, positively ancient codgers over at Mungo's.
The ministry is cleaning house over there and I have it on good authority that the pay is great if you can become the head of a department, with your experience and certifications, it should be no problem, even if you didn't sit your N.E.W.T.s.
Sincerely,
Professor Neville F. Longbottom, Order of Merlin, First Class, Order of the Phoenix
Professor Luna E. Lovegood, Order of Merlin, Second Class, Order of the Phoenix, Quibbler Editor-in-Chief
PS: We've got fancy titles too!
PPS: Just email us next time: profneville04 and looneynargle
Draco just emailed them next time.
Alright, I've considered this position and consulted with my MACUSA connections, turns out that I am able to travel back to the UK if I want to, since I have dual citizenship in both the UK and the US. I'll see what I can do about tying up loose ends here and seeing about a replacement for my position on the go team here at Shock-Trauma. Chances are, once word spreads that I'm leaving for England, I'll get inundated with resumes and other surgeons trying to kiss my ass to get a better recommendation. Too bad for them, I already have my replacement figured out.
Draco
It was a day after he sent that email that a portkey from the Ministry arrived with the application as well as an email address.
Apparently, everyone was getting on board with the new technology.
If his father weren't in Azkaban, he would have had a stroke seeing all of this. As sick as that thought was, it brought a smirk to Draco's face.
In the next two months, he was formally tendering his resignation, having trained a new surgeon, Dr. Selena Rodriguez, a brilliant witch who had had years of experience as a critical care surgeon in the military and could handle the workload, having spent a lot of time in Afghanistan pulling shrapnel and such out of injured soldiers before she herself had been shot, losing some nerve feeling in her left leg and had been honorably discharged with the Purple Heart. He could trust her to keep things running.
Narcissa had been calling him excitedly since hearing the news of his return and then receiving boxes of his possessions by way of FedEx as he began the process of moving, telling him all the latest news from wizarding London.
On his last shift at Shock-Trauma, his colleagues had thrown him a farewell party, gave him a card that made him almost cry, and then had the party ended abruptly with someone driving by and throwing a victim with a GSW to the chest on the ground outside of the facility.
As Draco went home to his nearly empty townhouse, he took the time to wash and carefully fold his white doctor's coat and the pale pink scrubs with STC embroidered on the pockets, packing them into his suitcase.
He ordered takeout from his favorite Indian place down the street, and spent the rest of the night shrinking his remaining possessions down and packing them in one of his suitcases, disguising them as elaborate doll furniture.
He went down to his garage and carefully removed the gasoline from his car and motorcycle before shrinking them, putting them in stasis, and packing them with his other furniture. He packed his other suitcase with his remaining clothes and items from the house, and then decided to get some sleep.
Draco sighed as he pointed his wand at the blanket he had taken out of his carry on and transfigured it into a bed.
He would depart early in the morning for BWI, board a plane, and arrive at London's Heathrow airport that evening.
As he fell into an uneasy sleep, he wondered if he had made the right choice in returning to England. Would the wizarding community be open to a hybrid of magical healing and modern medicine? Would they accept him as being a reformed citizen? Would he have to work with the members of families that had known him during those years of war, those who knew people who had been killed, raped, and brutalized by the Death Eaters and snatchers?
Draco willed himself to sleep and sent a prayer to whatever higher power was out there that he hadn't made the wrong choice.