"Sorted Too Young"
Dumbledore tells Snape, "Sometimes, Snape, I think we sort them too young."
CHAPTER 13 – THE HOSPITAL
His eyes remained locked on Hermione for fear she might end up out of sight and he alone here with no one he knew, stuck in the muggle world in a muggle hospital. Hospitals are scary places when you are a wizard in a quiet wizard hospital where magic heals you swifter, even if it isn't instant. For Draco, who has lived a life with everything instant, a muggle hospital was almost beyond terrifying. Usually the doctors have come to him, never this. Never the other way around, not while he was conscious anyways.
Hermione returned to him and took his hand seeing how pale and scared he looked with wide eyes and white lips. An orderly came by with a wheelchair. He gave careful simple instruction and managed to move Draco to the wheelchair with less agony than expected. This might be the first bit of respect Draco could offer a muggle in his current situation. He summoned some decorum, the tiniest ounce of it, and thanked the man. The man looked at him in surprise and gave him a friendly smile. The orderly truly did not think someone in as much pain as Draco would be able to muster manners, most can't.
Draco practically clung to her hand the entire way he was wheeled until they entered a private room where the orderly informed them that the doctor would be here soon. Draco begged her to stay in the room, so Hermione blushed and politely turned her back as the orderly helped Draco into the humiliating hospital gown. The orderly's light commentary about bruising and swelling worried both Hermione and Draco. He made some note on a form for the doctor to read. It is then that Draco realized the oddity and concluded that the orderly was actually a nurse. He had never expected anyone other than a woman in that field and found he appreciated that it was a man, considering the obligatory nudity he had to endure.
Shaking either from the cold in the hospital or from shock, Draco quietly pleaded for a blanket. Hermione looked over sympathetically and covered him. Again he clutched her hand and she stayed with him till the doctor arrived. It was the muggle, squib, that he had seen before. He had new respect for squibs and muggles after the first few times he met this doctor. The doctor gingerly examined him and Draco mentally conjured many unforgivable hexes and curses in his mind. Those all vanished as the bed he lay upon was wheeled into a strange room with a giant metal tube with lights that they were apparently going to fed him to.
He lost all sense and wits that moment in terror stricken panic. It took many minutes to restrain ad calm him and assure him that all it did was take pictures of the inside of him. In the end, they drugged him into a still stupor. The drugs at least also dulled the pain or somehow made it so he cared not that he was in agony. The pink hippogriffs looked great in their green wizarding robes. The doctor removed the blanket and placed a heavy lead cloth over Draco's privates to protect them from the imaging rays of the CAT scanner.
About an hour or maybe two later, Draco woke in a bed in a private room. Hermione was sitting beside it holding his hand still. He wondered how long that had been. With awareness, the pain was starting to return as well, though less so. Draco's wizard doctor was in the room, discreetly stowing away his wand. "I have made some reparations. The shoulder is not broken, but the muscles are in bad shape. Time and care will correct that," He started to explain. "The hip was easy to fix, though it too has seen muscle and tendon strain. I have provided your girlfriend with a salve recipe she can brew."
"I'm not his... girlfriend."
"She not my… girlfriend."
The doctor chuckled. His brother came in and flicked a light that lit a wall. He tacked up a series of images from the CAT scan. "The results now on file for you, Mr. Malfoy, show strains and bruising. You are very lucky that the only breaks are one cracked rib, though I am sure it feels like the four it was. The knee, I can't do much for at this time. We could-"
"No! Don't amputate!" Cried Draco, a shrillness lacing his words.
The doctor came over and gently patted his arm, "No no. I was going to say cast it again, but we know that didn't improve it much before. I'll provide a brace instead to give you regular support. We took out many of the stitches while you were out. The forearm needs more time though. Be easy. Try maybe to avoid stairs? Hermione has the prescription for pain medicine, salves and instructions for care."
Draco sighed in defeat. It was back to constant care.
"You should be back to your pre-fall state by the end of the week, I think."
Draco remembered the questions he had, but considering Hermione's presence stuttered the three of them out and almost didn't even voice the sex one. The two doctors exchanged looks that did not bode well. Draco swallowed hard. He didn't even realize he gripped Hermione's hand harder.
The wizard doctor finally nodded, "I think your love life will be fine once you get past the majority of the pain, but due to some pains that may be with you for the remainder of your life, expect some interference. As for flying, we'll see. I am not saying yes, but I am also not saying no. It might prove impossible. Then again, it might prove easier than walking."
That was the imprisoning statement though. The muggle doctor pointed to the image of Draco's ruined knee. "I am sorry Mr. Malfoy. This is not reparable. It might have been if your body could have healed via other means, but it resisted all that. You will, with some determination on your part gain a degree of mobility, but I think the cane will be a permanent part of your attire. You will have good days and bad ones as you grow older, but injuries this severe… I am sorry. We have done what we could."
Draco thumped his head into his pillow. His jaw tenses as he ground his teeth to forcibly maintain composure. "Can I go now?" He asked tightly.
"As soon as the nurse returns with the brace we've had measured for you."
Draco dressed with some help. His knee had been fitted with a brace. He had a light brace for if he were just lingering in the house and relaxing, which he wore now, and a heavier brace he could wear over his pant leg. Hermione assured him she could transfigure it so he could wear it under, though it will still be a bit bulky. He would need to retailer his clothing. His chest was bandaged for the cracked rib. Deep breaths still burned, but that was thankfully easing. His right arm was tied into a sling to take some of the strain off the shoulder muscles. He moodily stood on his own to use his cane. He needed to get out of here, before he lost his composure which was dissolving faster than he was comfortable with.
He hobbled slowly out into the cold damp night air, chin held snobbishly high. No muggle was going to see him in a state of weakness any further. Hermione thought he was being completely ridiculous at this point, but didn't argue with him. The news he got was not great and must be hard to process. She apparated them back to the Weasleys'. When they stopped at the bottom of the stairs with him looking up at them warily, she offered, "We could open up the sofa to be a sofa bed?" Harry had left a note on the kitchen counter that he would drop in the next morning. Some mail rested with the note. Draco nodded tiredly to his new caretaker.
He dosed on and off through the night. Nightmares woke him often as they usually did, however these included the tube he was eaten by that took pictures of him before spitting him back out. He never wanted to go to a muggle hospital again… or any hospital for that matter. If I am going to die, please let it be on my feet fighting for … something good. Or let it be in the comfort of my own home.
In the middle of the night he woke in agony. Hermione had held vigil over him and when he woke she brought out the salve she had brewed during his trouble slumber. He sat still while she rubbed his neck, back and shoulder with it. Then she rubbed it gently into his side for the ribs he bruised. A moment of both reddening and she rubbed it into his hip. Rubbing it into his knee had him hissing in pain. He breathed for a little bit when she was done before she applied it to all the new bruises he had earned in the fall. He closed his pale blue eyes and simply let her.
She hadn't really noticed before, but his eyebrows and eye lashes were blond. His hair was a white blond as usual, but his eyebrows always seemed dark and so she had wondered if maybe he bleached his hair. But up close, she could see the eyebrows were a mix of light brown and blond. His eye lashes were brown yet tipped pale blond. She lightly dabbed some of the salve on a bruise that had formed on his chin from his fall. His hand found hers as it had in the hospital. She paused. He opened his icy eyes that held hers for a long few seconds. "Th… thank you." It came out as a quiet husky deep whisper. She smiled and offered him a draft to help with the pain and to help him sleep a more solid few hours.
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