Chapter 2
Draco could hear the screaming long before he reached the Permanent Spell Damage corridor. He ran faster, with the young healer who had come to fetch him hot on his heels.
"What were you thinking, leaving her alone?" Draco demanded over his shoulder as he hurtled up a staircase and through a set of double doors.
"I – I didn't know what else to do, sir," she panted, clutching at a stitch in her side as they flew through the corridors. "I was just levitating her a bit, you know, so I could change her bed linens. When all of a sudden she started screaming and crying. It…it was horrible. Gave me such a fright… She got hold of my wand and started firing curses at me. Unforgiveables too, by the sound of them! She must have missed me though, because I didn't feel anything, so I ran out of the room and slammed the door behind me. That's when I came to find you," she finished, thoroughly winded.
By the time she got to the end of her monologue, Draco had reached the door. He had to shove his way past the small crowd assembled in front of it and peered in the narrow window set in the door.
His heart sank when he saw her. Much like the last time he'd seen her outside of a hospital bed, Hermione Granger was sprawled face down on the floor. She clutched the stolen wand in one hand, while the other was wrapped tightly around a fistful of torn yellow curtains, which had fallen in a heap around her head. She didn't appear to be able to move, so she simply lay there screaming and sobbing on the floor.
Knowing first hand what an irate Hermione Granger could accomplish with a wand in her hand, Draco decided it would be foolish to enter the room without another trained healer by his side. He rounded on the sweaty, red-faced trainee beside him as she stood there gasping for breath, looking expectantly at him, as if waiting for instructions.
"Very well, Trainee…"
"Michaels," she heaved. "Isadora Michaels."
"Very well, Trainee Michaels, go fetch Mediwitch Thompson and tell her to bring her kit. We'll need a calming draught…and a syringe in case we need to inject her. And be quick about it."
"Right away, Healer Malfoy."
With that, Isadora turned on her heel and sprinted down the corridor and out of sight.
Behind the closed door Hermione continued to howl. It was a piteous sound, more akin to a wounded animal than a human woman. Draco couldn't bear to hear her in so much pain. Despite his better judgment and years of training, he instructed the crowd to stand back while he slowly and carefully eased open the door and quietly stepped across the threshold.
Once inside, her cries were a hundred times worse, echoing mercilessly off the barren walls and tile floor. He closed the door behind him with a soft click and her screams stopped at once. Her whole body went rigid as she struggled to lift her head.
"Who's there?" she asked, suddenly fearful. "Don't come any closer or I'll hex you!" she threatened.
"Everything is all right," Draco said in the calmest, most even tone he could muster. He took a step toward her. "My name is…"
"I said don't come any closer!"
A desperate panic was rising in her voice.
"I'm not going to hurt you…"
"Stupefy!" she yelled, struggling to lift her wand arm, unsure of the exact location of her would-be attacker.
Nothing happened. Draco was unsurprised. She obviously didn't have the energy to hold herself up, never mind perform advanced offensive magic.
He took another step forward.
"Please, I'm here to help you…"
"Stupefy! STUPEFY!" she called again, louder this time, but to no avail.
Still she waved the stolen wand flaccidly in Draco's general direction with one arm, while trying unsuccessfully to hold herself up with the other, her lolling head drooping with the effort.
"Incarcerous!" she screamed. "Expelliarmus! Stupefy! STU-PE-FY!" she practically grunted, determinedly punctuating each syllable with the wand.
Each new attempt at a spell was just as ineffective as the one before it and she quickly grew exhausted, her breaths coming in shallow spurts. Eventually she was forced to give in to gravity, letting her arms and head drop fully to the floor where she rested her forehead on the cool linoleum tiles.
"Hermione, please. Let me help you get back into bed," Draco said, crouching down beside her.
"Don't touch me!" she snapped, her body tensing once more.
"Have it your way, then," Draco said, not unkindly, as he gently levitated her back to the bed.
She grumbled in protest, clutching the wand tightly to her chest as Draco magically maneuvered her into a sitting position. He fluffed the pillows supporting her back and smoothed the covers over her legs from a safe distance across the room.
Once she ascertained that she wasn't in any immediate danger, Hermione burst forth with a dozen questions and half-formed theories about the nature of her current predicament.
"Where am I? Who brought me here? Where are Harry and Ron? What curse is this? It's not the full-body bind or the leg-locker curse because I can move, just not enough to walk or hold myself up… Where is my wand? Why won't this wand respond to me? Is it something to do with this room or is it part of the curse…"
Draco was fascinated. He hypothesized countless times what it might be like if she ever woke up, but never in his wildest dreams did he imagine that she could go from a twelve-year coma to full consciousness in the blink of an eye. Her mind was reeling at such a speed it seemed she couldn't get her questions out fast enough.
"Please try to calm down and allow me to explain."
She opened her mouth as if to ask another question, but decided against it and closed it again. She looked at him for the first time then, her brow furrowed in concentration. It reminded him of the expression she often wore back in their Hogwarts days whenever she was presented with a finicky potion or a particularly tricky translation in ancient runes. He was tempted to smile at the memory, but one look at the present-day Hermione Granger instantly brought him back to reality and the gravity of the situation.
"Ms. Granger, you are in St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries-"
"Which ward?" she asked, seemingly unable to stop herself.
"Permanent Spell Damage," Draco replied carefully.
"Oh god," she whispered, raising a trembling hand to cover her mouth. She looked positively stricken. "Wh-what happened to me? What curse did she use?" she asked softly, her voice nearly breaking at the end.
Draco couldn't help but notice her use of the word 'she.' She must think it was Bellatrix who put her here. He chose to ignore that for the time being.
"We don't know exactly. Your case is rather…unique."
"Harry and Ron…are they…?"
This time she wasn't able to stifle the small sob that escaped her lips.
"Fine. Both fine," he assured her.
Her relief was palpable.
"Are they here? Can I see them?" she asked, looking expectantly at the door.
"No…not tonight anyway. I imagine they'll be asleep. It is quite late, after all." His response sounded lame even to his ears.
She frowned at that.
"Exactly how long have I been here?" she asked. There was a definite air of suspicion about the question.
Draco sighed and turned away from her. Before he could respond, Mediwitch Thompson entered the room, with Trainee Michaels behind her.
"Oh, Miss Granger!" the mediwitch cooed. "It's so wonderful to have you up and about again! We're all just so pleased. How are you feeling? Is there anything-"
Draco silenced the older witch with a look, and her round, kindly face fell. Hermione ignored the newcomers. Her eyes did not move from his. She looked at him with such fierceness; Draco would not have been surprised if her eyes had bored a hole clear through his skull.
"How long," she demanded through gritted teeth. Her voice had become low and dangerous.
Draco replied automatically this time.
"Twelve years, three weeks, four days, twenty-one hours and…" He paused to check his watch, "…nine minutes."
No one said a word after that. A deadly silence engulfed the room. A silence so loud and oppressive, he could scarcely draw breath from the weight of it.
Draco couldn't seem to tear his gaze away from Hermione's, though there wasn't much to see anymore. Her eyes were completely empty. Her face a blank mask – as hard and still as stone. It was a look that would have made any Slytherin proud. That is, until her stony façade began to crack and the silence was broken by a sudden burst of wild, hysterical laughter.
Hermione Granger was laughing. It was a terrible, joyless sound; a mad cackling that made the hairs on the back of Draco's neck prickle.
"Twelve years?" she asked through another horrible bout of mirthless laughter. "TWELVE YEARS?" and just as suddenly her laughter turned to sobbing. Powerful, gut-wrenching sobs that shook her whole body along with the metal frame of her hospital bed, adding the groaning of metal and the squeaking of springs to the cacophony of sound echoing throughout the small room.
Hermione let the wand fall from her slackened grip, but no one moved to retrieve it. Pain seemed to gush out of her every pore. It washed over them like a tidal wave, keeping the three healers at bay.
Slowly, still trembling, she wrapped her arms around herself and began shaking her head back and forth.
"No, no, no, no, no, no, no…" she sobbed, repeating the mantra over and over again, her hands flying up to her face and beating against the sides of her head. Then her fingers began twining in her hair and, grabbing fistfuls of her curly locks, Hermione began to pull. Tugging and rocking and rocking and sobbing and sobbing and screaming as great clumps of hair parted company with her scalp.
He was beside her in an instant; ready to restrain her as her whole body began to seize violently.
"For the love of Merlin, help me hold her down!" he snapped at the two witches standing by the door. "She's having a seizure."
Mediwitch Thompson came to attention at once and hurried to the other side of the bed. She managed to grab hold of one of Hermione's arms, leaving Draco free to restrain the other. Hermione thrashed wildly between them, screaming incomprehensibly; her small body still wracked with tremors and sobs.
"Michaels, prepare the syringe. Two parts calming draught, one part dreamless sleep. Now!"
The trainee healer did as bade. Draco watched her prepare the injection. Though her face was tear-stained, her hands were steady.
"Good, Michaels. Now come over here and hold her still," Draco commanded.
The young witch obeyed without question, showing surprising strength when confronted with the writhing Hermione, whose screams had reached a fever pitch.
"No, no, no, don't make me sleep again. Don't make me sleep again. Please don't make me sleep again," she cried as Draco eased the syringe into her arm.
"No, I don't… I know who… please…"
Unable to fight the effect of the potion, Hermione slumped back down onto the bed and the ward was silent once more.
A/N: Everyone say thank you to Aidenk77 for being an amazing beta and sounding board on this fic! The devil is in the details! Also, if you're into H/H stories, he's written a bunch of great ones - check 'em out!