Trouble at the Reserve

Amid the celebrations of the newest addition to the Black family, Fred and George Weasley announced that both of their wives were pregnant, and due on the same day; what a coincidence. But after the party died down, it was back to real life and back to the reserve for Hermione and Charlie. The next two months brought nothing but boredom. Hermione had just hit five months along when something, or someone decided to happen upon her.

There was yet another shipment of dragons, but this time they were more ill-tempered than the last batch. Normally they didn't get this many shipments this close together, it would take a full year before dragons were trained anyway. But now it was far more dangerous to be near these dragons. One trainer after another was coming with injuries here and there all day, but it was the very end of the day when the final patient came into the ward. Charlie brought in the trainer, his name was Beau. Beau was a fairly new trainer, just out of the training period, but quite cocky. He had teeth marks up his left arm and a burn down that same side of his torso. Hermione doffed her robes to give her more mobility to work. Charlie plunked the man down on the table and went to get checked out for a minor burn with her other healer. Beau was not a happy camper, swearing furiously as Hermione was healing the cuts on his arms and disinfecting as she went. The gashes were slow to close and quite painful because the dragon's teeth has taken some of the extra flesh along with it.

"Alright, stop being a big baby," Hermione grumbled as he kept moving his arm away and the spells were going places that they shouldn't.

"Well you're hurting me bitch!" he growled.

"It wouldn't hurt as much if you weren't fighting me then it would go quicker and you would be out of pain sooner," Hermione said, yanking his arm back. She managed to close up the majority of the cuts on his arm that she could see through the blood and she went to go get the burn salve so she could get that on as quickly as possible. When she turned back to him, he had his wand drawn. Hermione dropped the jar of salve and drew her wand quicker than she could blink. "Put the wand down," she said softly.

"You need to work faster!" he yelled, throwing a spell her way. Hermione blocked it easily.

"Shut the hell up and let me help you!" she growled back, gripping her wand tighter. He threw another spell at her and she parried it away. "I said STOP!" Hermione was a pissed off pregnant witch. She unleashed some magic and it knocked him on his ass. Hermione turned quickly to get the dropped jar and he threw one more spell her way, and the tent glowed with blue light just as Charlie was coming out of the other treatment room. He saw the man cast at his wife's back and flew into a rage.

Charlie jumped on the young man and proceeded to beat the ever loving shit out of him. Fists were flying and Charlie couldn't even care less that he was practically killing this person. His friend Tom ran in when he heard the commotion and grabbed Charlie around the middle and yanked him off. Two other trainers took over with the punishment of Beau.

"Check on Hermione," Tom insisted to Charlie, squeezing him tightly, not letting him rejoin the action next to them. When Charlie heard his wife's name, he immediately calmed down, then began fighting to be released again, this time for a different reason. He was trying to get to his fallen wife. Tom let him go and just watched him for now. Charlie scampered over to Hermione's side. She was lying on the floor like a limp ragdoll, her bell protruding slightly.

"Hermione?" Charlie said softly, caressing the hair from her face. He gently rolled her over and took her into his arms. With one arm around her back he cradled her head. "Baby? Open your eyes!"

Hermione didn't stir.

Charlie stood up with his wife and turned to the other healers in the room. "Where's the emergency portkey?"

One of the ladies handed him a popsicle stick and it began to glow.

"Don't let him free," Charlie warned Tom about Beau. "Keep him in the cell until I get back."

Tom nodded. Charlie was now whirling away with Hermione in his arms protectively. He landed surely in the waiting room at St. Mungo's. Hurrying to the front desk he spoke frantically, "My wife, she's pregnant and was attacked by a spell. I don't know what it actually was."

"Go right down the hall and you will see a sign for spell damage, tell the Healer down there and they will get to her right away," the receptionist said, actually showing some concern for a patient.

Charlie did as he was told and raced down the hall to the spell damage ward and talked to the healer in charge. He sent them to the room immediately to his left. Charlie set her down on the bed and brushed the hair from her face. The healer came in with a scribe in tow and began waving his wand.

"We need to see what kind of damage was done," the healer explained. "I see she's expecting? How far along is she?"

"Five months today actually," Charlie croaked out, staring at his wife's still body.

"Well, congratulations, and the baby seems to be fine," he said, a blue light from the tip of his wand showed. "And it's a boy."

"A boy?"

"Yes, now, can you describe the situation?"

"Well, I work at a dragon reserve in Romania. My wife, Hermione, is the healer in charge there. We got a rough shipment in and a few people got it worse than others. The worst one, I carried him in and went to get treated myself. When I heard a scuffle, he was yelling and she was yelling right back. Then I heard her scream and a blue light filled the tent. Needless to say I beat the shite… pardon my French… out of him. Then I brought her straight here."

"Blue light you say?"

"Yeah."

"Alright, that kind of spell does a bit of nerve damage," the healer said, ceasing his wand movement. She got hit in the back from the look of things and it didn't actually penetrate her spinal column; she's lucky."

"What does this mean?"

"She will need to stay here for a little while, get some physical therapy and occupational therapy, make sure everything is in working order. Then she will be given some exercises to be done at home."

"How long are we talking?" Charlie asked.

"Depending on the damage, two weeks to three months," the healer replied honestly. "We won't know how extensive the damage is until she's woken up, and that has to happen on its own."

"How long do you think that could be?"

"A few hours to a few days," he replied. Charlie groaned, and clasped Hermione's hand in his.

"I need to write to the reserve, let them know," Charlie said. "Do you have an owl I can borrow, actually, three?"

"Of course," the healer said, they will be brought to you immediately. The scribe gave him quill, ink, and parchment. Charlie sat there and wrote to the reserve first, since it would take the longest to get there. He said he would be back as soon as Hermione woke up and got settled in. He wrote to Sirius next, letting him know what happened to his 'daughter', and he wrote his mother as well. After sending the letters off, he settled in his chair and stared at his wife. She was still so beautiful; she looked like she was sleeping.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

It wasn't a few hours later when the letters arrived and Sirius and Molly rushed to the hospital. Once they were in the room, Sirius hugged Charlie before settling down on the opposite side of the bed, holding Hermione's other hand. Molly hugged her boy tightly, whispering softly in his ear that everything was going to be okay. Charlie broke down in his mother's arms. The first time he had felt any emotion other than anger since the whole incident happened. He explained the situation to his mom and Sirius as best he could before breaking down again. Molly led her son to the small couch on the side of the room and sat down with him.

"What did the healer say?" Sirius croaked. He was now stroking Hermione's hand gently.

"She could wake up from any time to a few days, but she still has to stay here for two weeks to three months for therapy. He said the spell may have caused some nerve damage."

"And the man responsible?"

"That child is locked up at the reserve until I can go back and deal with him. I was put in charge while the director was on vacation," Charlie said angrily. "But I'm not going back there until Hermione wakes up though. I will have tried to calm down by then, don't worry."

"Are you sure it's best that you deal with him?" Molly questioned warily, not wanting to set her son off.

"Yes, I am the authority on the reserve, and the others won't let him off lightly either; they all love Hermione there, and he is a cocky son of a bitch."

Molly didn't even scold him for his language. She was furious at the person responsible for putting Hermione in this place, but she could do no more about it than support her son and his wife during this hard time.