Week 7 Trope: Healer/Patient
Rating: T
Word Count: Exactly 777
Warnings: Vomit, seizures
Result: Roseharpermaxwell's Hidden Gem

Burning Hearts

Hermione arrived on a gurney. Her hands were fisted, knuckles white against the starched stretcher sheet. Breath wheezed from between her teeth, even and tightly controlled.

Draco was the only Healer-on-Call.

Still, the intake team stopped.

Cold crept through him, as if rising from the morgue beneath his feet. Even now, the prejudice lingered. A black mark against him no matter what shade of green he wore.

"Please."

Hermione's eyes, bright with agony, met his. She nodded.

In Emergency Triage, that was enough for consent.

The intake team wheeled her into a bay. Soundproof curtains closed around them.

Once upon a time, Draco might have hesitated to touch her. No longer. He pressed a hand to her forehead and felt fever's dry heat. The pulse at her throat fluttered beneath his fingers, weak and thready.

"What happened?"

"Searching Carrow Court." Her breath came short and sharp as she lost control of the pain.

"What did you touch?"

"How did you—"

"Tell me."

But her time was up.

Hermione lurched sideways and vomited onto his shoes, the contents dark and viscous with blood. Then, she began to seize.

Draco stood at the foot of Hermione's bed, willing her to wake.

It had been two days.

Draco questioned every decision he'd made in that time. Logically, he had done the right thing. He'd saved her.

But the optics.

The ghost of adrenaline fizzled through his veins as he considered what it must have looked like: Hermione's shirt ripped open, him driving a needle straight into her heart. Healing was full of forced intimacies, but the memory of her body—startlingly small, uncomfortably vulnerable—would haunt him.

Whispers of removing him from her case circulated through St. Mungo's. His peers doubted his objectivity, his ability to care for her, heal her.

"Fuck them," he whispered.

"Fuck who?"

He flinched, faraway eyes drawn back into focus. Hermione was awake.

"How are you feeling?"

"Terrible. What happened?"

"Malediction," he answered. "A blood curse. You shouldn't have been at the Carrows'."

"I was following a lead."

"To what?"

Hermione ignored his question. Much like objectivity was expected of a Healer, silence was required of an Unspeakable. She looked instead at the drip in her arm. "What's this?"

"Bezoar extract. It will slow the malediction's progression, but it won't stop it."

The implication hung heavy between them.

"I'm going to die?"

"No," he snapped. Then, more gently: "No. They'd throw me into Azkaban if I let that happen."

"Then there's a cure?"

"No," he said. "Not yet."

That night, St. Mungo's reassigned him, but Draco's plan was already in motion.

Hermione's condition had stabilized.

Magical Law Enforcement had conducted its own search and returned predictably empty handed.

Draco had scoured Malfoy Manor's library, inspected its vault, and confirmed his theory.

He'd been to Carrow Court once as a child. He remembered it being dark and cramped, but its shadows had deepened over the years. Evil had settled into every crevice and joist. Even the land felt hostile.

Fortunately, the blood wards weren't able to recognize a blood traitor.

Though curse-breaking had been part of his Artefact Accidents specialization, the Carrows' vault was difficult to break. The house groaned, exhaling a cold, musty breath when the door finally opened.

The reality of the Carrows' rumored poverty was revealed not by the small circle of light from Draco's wand, but by the echo of his footsteps. But Draco sought something far more valuable than Galleons: a single, shriveled organ at the room's center.

Though it was near midnight, Hermione's lit wand was tucked behind her ear. A book sat propped open on her knees.

Draco cleared his throat, suppressing a smile when she jumped.

"I thought they removed you from my case."

"I have a theory," he said. "It can't wait."

He sat beside her bed and set his souvenir from the Carrows' vault hovering between them.

Hermione leaned forward, eyes narrowed and assessing. Then, she recoiled.

"That's a heart," she said, aghast.

"The heart of Cronus Carrow," Draco said quietly. "I believe it's the source of your malediction."

She looked at him with wide eyes. "What do we do?"

With a tap of his wand, Draco set the heart aflame.

She gasped, body drawn forward, each muscle taut as the curse surged out of her. Only when the desiccated heart had burned to carbon did Hermione's body sag back against the bed.

Hermione reached for his hand. Draco took it, running his thumb across her knuckles as she cried silent, relieved tears. When she finally fell asleep, Draco remained by her side, meditating on the fate of his own heart.

Maybe his could burn for her, too.