A/N Chapter two done pretty quick! Thank you, thank you. (bow, bow)
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Daphne smiled as she removed her gloves, pushing her chair away from the table where her patient lay. "So, you're all set here, Mrs. Grubshup." She grabbed the soap, beginning to scrub her hands. She turned on the faucet as the older lady began to sit up, eyebrows scrunched in confusion.
"WHAT?! I CAN'T HEAR YOU, DEARIE." She pushed her glasses higher up her nose. "I HAVE A BAD EAR."
Daphne chuckled, drying her hands. "You know, you really should consider the potion treatment we're experimenting on with ENT." She spoke louder, fixing the woman's bandage. "It's fairly new, but there's been a lot of success. I think it'd be good for you."
"OH, NO, HONEY. I'M NO ONE'S LAB RAT."
"Clearly." Daphne sighed, crossing her arms. "Okay, Mrs. Grubshup, I need you to promise me you'll stay away from the tentacular leaves, okay? This is the third time in two months you've come in. I'm afraid your husband won't feel like bringing you in a fourth time." The old lady opened her mouth to protest, but Daphne cut her off. "Besides, one more time and I'll have to send you for a psych evaluation. I'm sure you don't want that."
"THOSE LEAVES LIKE ME, GREENGRASS! I'M LIKE THEIR MOTHER!"
"You're like their dinner!" Daphne shook her head and gave a notecard to David Grubshup. "Here is her prescription for her treatments. I've upped the dosage because the marks haven't faded from the last attack. If you need anything you know where to find me, okay?"
The man nodded, taking the card and then her hand. "Thank you so much, Healer. I'll make sure she takes them."
"Okay." Daphne smiled, placing her prescription pads back into her coat pocket. "But if she does come in again, she'll have to go in for an evaluation. So, please keep an eye on her, Mr. Grubshup."
"Of course. Of course." The old man nodded and she squeezed his shoulder, exiting the room where Jeoffrey Lowell waited, a chart in his hand. She closed the door behind her, raising an eyebrow.
"Intern Lowell. What are you doing here? Didn't I place you on anti-jinx duty?" She took the chart from him and flipped it open, looking at the name. "Why do you have Ms. Granger's chart?" She began walking, the intern following behind her.
"Well, Dr. Long- Dr. Neville sent me. He's with the patient now." Daphne closed the chart, holding it to her side. "A -Apparently Harry Potter came to visit her. She knew he was in the other room and he swears he didn't say a word."
"How long ago did this happen?" She stopped, turning to the small, lanky boy.
"About 15 minutes ago."
"Fifteen minutes and you waited that long, why?" She tilted her head. "This is a high priority patient, Lowell, I don't have to tell you that. Unless I'm attending to someone in a life or death situation, you call me out of the room. You are not the Healer on call, okay? I am. If something goes wrong because you decided to let me work on a minor accident instead of figure out what's wrong with this girl, that's my ass on the line. Not yours. Do you understand?"
Lowell nodded, following behind her as she walked again. "I'm- I'm sorry, Dr. Greengrass. I didn't think-"
"No, you didn't." She shook her head. "She heard him from behind the double sided glass, you say. That's a problem we didn't foresee. We don't know what happened to her in this house. We don't know what he put her through. All we know is that we need to help her. She's not talking and when she does, it's the oddest thing. She knew when my husband,-" She paused, shaking her head. "-my fiancée- when my fiancée was going to get hurt and she heard someone breathing behind her wall. Those are not good signs, Lowell. No one has ever been able to do that. Something is different with her. And not just the trauma. Magically, she's….different. I need to sedate her, do some tests and draw blood. Preferably from the neck." Daphne paused in the middle of her rant and extended the chart back to him. "Her chart should have been updated before you handed it to me. Do that now and then I need you to discharge any patients that I've indicated and admit and treat those with problems you've learned to treat, okay?" He nodded and hesitated as she leant over a desk to pick up a quick quotes quill, unsure if he should leave. Daphne turned back around to find him standing there and an immediate look of annoyance covered her features. "What. Are. You. Still. Doing. Here?"
The boy shivered and ran down the hall, picking up a few empty charts on the way to the ER. Daphne sighed, running her hand over her face. The day had only just started and already she felt like killing someone. She fixed her hair using her reflection in the glass and smiled, fixing her dark blue scrubs over her belly. Time to get started on the Wizarding World's biggest mystery since Harry survived the killing curse.
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'One, two, three, four, five…' She counted the pens on her desk, her eyes flicking up to pens stacked neatly into the vase. 'Six, seven, eight, ni-' A rap on the door broke her from her thoughts and she straightened herself, patting her long hair down over her shoulders symmetrically. She crossed her legs and cleared her throat. "Come in." The door swung open and her hand twitched as the door accidently knocked over a stack of books. "I'm sorry, I forgot to take them back to the library."
"Forget?" He arched a brow, moving over to take a seat in front of her desk. "You never forget anything." He placed a leg over the other and dropped a few files onto her desk, disturbing the perfect spaces between the writing utensils.
"Well, I've had a lot on my mind lately." She muttered, forcing herself to look away from the mess and into his steel grey eyes. "I haven't had much time for anything after we found her. It's been….chaotic." Ginny moved to life a folder from the pile, bringing it closer to her.
"Right. Which is one of the reasons I came to pay you a visit." He pointed to the paper work before him. "See these? These are all my reports from the incident. From the very first day I took on this case, Weaslette. The latest ones are from last month." Draco shifted in his chair, opening a folder and showing the dates to her. "They were submitted last week when the deadline arrived. The chief- you remember the chief, right? Your boss? Well, he wanted these due last week. Luckily, mine made it to his desk. But yours, were never even written." He tilted his head. "Do you see where I'm going here?"
"Do I want to?" Ginny answered between clenched teeth.
"Oh, I think you do. See, I am good at my job, Weasley. I am very good." He chuckled, watching her. "Some would say I'm the best in the team." Ginny got ready to protest, but her fiery red eyebrows gave off her impression and he continued quickly. "No, see, that's my point. We are supposed to work as a team. But we aren't a team. You're good at your job, but I'm better. Together, we frightened nearly every Death Eater into submission after the war. Now, I didn't choose you, you didn't choose me. But I'll be damned if I let anyone get in the way of my work."
"Hey! Listen-"
"No, you listen! I did my best to find her. I spent two years looking everywhere for your precious muggleborn until you- not me- you decided to give up. Her supposed family. And I get it, I get it. You thought there was no way she'd still be alive after so long. She was gone, most likely dead, rotting somewhere. I didn't want you on the job! I specifically told Potter you wouldn't be allowed! None of you!" Draco stood, slamming his hands on the table. "But instead I get fucked! You found your way onto the group. And I decided I could tolerate that. Because you weren't Potter or his sidekick. I allowed you to stay and that's on me. But you do not get to sit at your desk every day, staring off into space while the rest of us do your job for you. I get that you feel guilty for giving up on her, I get that you feel bad because I was the one who found new evidence six months ago, because I found her. Because the first person she saw out of that hellhole was me. I'm not a total heartless prick, alright? I understand-"
"OH, SHUT UP!" Ginny stood from her seat, shaking her head. "You don't understand, Malfoy! You will never understand! You can only pretend." She pushed his files into his hand. "You might think you know what I'm feeling, but you have no fucking clue! It's not guilt, it's not even close to that! It's completely far past that. I stopped looking for her." She sighed, crossing her arms over her chest. "I stopped. And then I convinced everyone that…that there was no way Hermione Granger could still be alive after so long and I should have known better. I should have kept looking. We might have found her sooner." She looked up at the blonde, refusing to cry in front of him, but acknowledging her tear-filled eyes. "I didn't just lose Hermione…I killed her."
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She stood in front of the mirror, seemingly staring at herself. Her fingers ran over her head, lingering over the deep scars. Shouldn't they have been gone by now? The healers had underestimated her wounds, she guessed. Slowly, she pushed away from the mirror, turning her head just as the door opened and a nurse walked in with a tray and a sickeningly sweet smile. "It's time for your breakfast, Ms. Granger. It's a wonderful meal. Really. The kitchen staff works really hard to provide the meals for this hospital." Hermione eyed the nurse. Her dark hair was pulled back into a tight bun and she wore a pair of mint green scrubs. Her wand was tucked neatly into her pocket beside three pens and a nutrition bar. Honestly, she had to be at least four years younger than Hermione. The witch took a step toward the plate, making a face. Her eyes flickered to the doorway, where an auror stood. The nurse followed her gaze, shifting slightly. She suddenly felt very nervous around the famous witch. She turned back to Hermione with a big smile. "I'll be back in thirty minutes to collect your tray, Ms. Granger. It better be all clean!" With that, she exited the room, heading down the hallway and away from the people near the other side of the wall.
Neville sighed, looking over at Harry. His arms were across his chest in the exact position they'd been in when Lowell went to go call Daphne. He took a breath, ready to call her again when she turned the hallway. She hurried over, her white coat floating behind her. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. My idiot intern waited fifteen minutes before he informed me."
"Twenty, actually." Neville corrected, pushing away from the wall. "But who's counting?"
"Oh, I am going to kill him." Daphne muttered, shaking her head. It was only after a few seconds that she seemed to even register the-boy-who-lived. She smiled widely. "Oh! Harry, hi! How are you?" She leaned in, hugging him gently.
"Good, Daphne, thank you. I see that you're still…you know."
"Pregnant?" Daphne grinned, shrugging. "Yeah, you know, it usually takes about 9 months, so…just a few more to go."
"You must be really excited." Harry nodded, looking between the couple before him. A couple who stood almost exactly three feet apart. "I mean-I know I would be. If it were me."
"Oh, that's sweet." She squeezed his arm gently. "That makes one of the men in my life."
"I'm excited!" Neville chirped in, following the blonde into the office across Hermione's room. "It's a completely cool new chapter in my life!"
"Completely cool." Daphne repeated, twisting her lips. "Way to take the elegance out of the miracle of life, Longbottom."
"Okay, can we just focus here? Please." He shook his head, looking over at Harry, who shrugged. "Once she's finished breakfast, we'll sedate her, we'll take a few tests and if everything still looks normal-"
"-Neville and I have agreed that there should be no reason she can't see you." She interrupted. "Besides, maybe she'll open up to you what with you being her best friend and all." She smiled and turned, looking at her fiancée before catching herself. No, she was supposed to be mad at him for being mad at her. She cleared her throat. "But don't get your hopes up. We'll decide after all the results come back."
Harry nodded, smiling at the two. It wasn't much, it wasn't even a promise he'd get to interact with her, but it was better than nothing. It'd been four years since he'd seen her face-to-face. He never realized how much he liked looking at her when she was around. She was beautiful. Not in a way that made him want to jump her bones. Her beauty was always more reserved than that. She shone brightly since the first time he met her, excited and ready to make friends. He frowned, focusing on her form now. She was small, he noticed. Her skin no longer held that wonderful glow it did before everything. Even during the War against Voldemort. This was the worse he'd ever seen her. Her eyes were sunken and dull. Her skin was almost grey.
They watched her eat in silence, not looking between each other once. Not even when Daphne pointed out how her breathing was spaced out. One breath every ten seconds, the blonde had noted. They watched her pick at a grape and pop it into her mouth, keeping her eyes on the mirror. Harry turned his face from hers, taking a few breaths. "Could I bring Ron? He'd like to be here for this. I mean, I'd like him to be here."
Daphne nodded, her hand on his back. "Of course. Ronald is welcome to swing by anytime he'd like, Harry, you know that. Send him an owl." The black-haired boy nodded and exited the room again, heading towards the owlery. She rubbed her hand over her swollen belly, grimacing. "I'm fine." She whispered after noticing Neville's concern. "She's just kicking."
She licked her lips, leaving the room, brushing past the same nurse who'd dropped off the food. With her eyes downcast, Daphne was able to catch a glimpse of the nurse's pockets: a wand, two pens, and a half-eaten nutrition bar. She looked back up at the walls, turning the corner. However, no sooner had she turned than a loud scream was heard from Hermione's room.
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