A/N Thought I'd try something new for the fandom. It's almost completely written. It's a Muggle AU, but hopefully I've been able to stay true to the characters. Yes, I know there will be questions about Hermione's name. They will be answered in time. Just hang in with me lol.

Hermione

Bloody Hell.

"Come on, sweet princess. Tonight's not the time to let me down. Turn on for mummy."

After an encouraging rub on the dashboard and a gentle stroke of the steering wheel, I turn the key in the ignition again. Nothing.

Zip, nada, zilch.

The Queen is dead, long live the Queen.

My parents have been on me to get a new car for years; since I graduated Med School at least. But she was the first thing I bought with my own money, and I'll be damned if I give her up without a fight. Sure, Paula (short for Impala) may not look like much, and she may like to tease me now and then, but she's never let me down in a pinch. Day after day, she turns over like Big Ben's hourly charm. Or at least she did. It looks like I pushed her one trip too far.

It couldn't have come at a worse time either. After one a.m., I should have been off work two hours ago, but the supervising attending on B shift called to say they were going to be late. Being the only senior resident on A shift at the time, it was officially my A&E until somebody showed up to replace me.

I try to coax my car once more, but she just laughs at me via the utter silence coming from the engine. There aren't even any lights on the dash. Maybe it's the battery? Could I get that lucky?

If I had a shift tomorrow, I'd go back inside and sleep on a spare bed somewhere but tomorrow is my first day off in a week, and hell if I'm going to spend it in hospital.

Thumbing my mobile to life, I debate calling my parents for a ride. They'd come, of course, but then I'd have to listen to Mum or Dad or worse, both, lecture me all the way home on how this would never have happened if I'd let them buy me that new car five years ago. Or every time they've tried to since then.

Angelina then.

Angelina Johnson is my best friend in the world and a trauma nurse at Saint Mungos. I barely hit the call button before I remember she's at her current boy-toy's house for the night. She'd come to get me too, but then I'd get the wingman versus cock blocker lecture from her. I know it by heart by now.

Honestly, it's not my fault.

I have these things called standards. She thinks all a guy needs to be good boning material is 'single with a dick,' and I just can't agree with that.

That leaves me walking or the local ride-sharing app. When I open the app on my mobile, I cringe at my rating and my most recent review. Angelina and I may have had a tad too much to drink that night, but I blame the unexpected puke party that happened in the back seat of the car squarely on the bloke driving it. If he hadn't taken those corners so damn fast, none of that unpleasantness would have happened. With a rating that low, it could take an hour before someone agrees to pick me up.

Walking it is then.

I live a little over two miles from the hospital, so it's not exactly a trek. However, it is the middle of the night. There's a reason why my hospital treats the most violent wounds in the Borough, and most of those come in on the night shift. I look around the parking lot, taking in the dark corners and abandoned sidewalks.

Still, so long as I keep my head down and my feet moving, it'll be a quick walk back to my flat. I shove my mobile into my pocket and hit the lock on my door.

With my bookbag tight to my back and my hand wrapped around my pepper spray, I hit the pavement.

Saint Mungos is in the heart of downtown Hogsmeade District. Our city is broken up into two halves, separated by a body of water large enough to boat across. The wealthy half of town is spread out in outlandish residences and small cookie cutter communities to the east of the lake. On the other side of the bridge, affectionately known as Cheapside to the locals, industrial areas and businesses are interspersed with houses that don't require a dress code to enter.

It also houses eighty-nine per cent of the town's crime and poverty.

The weather is typical for late September. While it's ungodly humid and uncomfortable during most days, at night, the temperature drops until there's a chill in the air wafting from the surface of the lake a few kilometres over. I'm wearing joggers and a long-sleeve running shirt, my typical off duty attire, but I'm thankful I remembered to grab my windbreaker out of the back seat of my car. I hate strenuous activity when the atmosphere is like this. The power walking will keep me warm, but the sweat it produces will chill my skin. It's an excellent way to get sick.

The moonlight and the streetlamps provide enough lumination on the sidewalk that I'm not walking entirely in the dark. The shadows make weird shapes on the cement around me, elongating and distorting images and activating my imagination.

I'm nowhere near the only person walking around the city this late. It's surprising how alive our city is at night. Even if it's a different type of liveliness than you see during the day. It's the type of activity you find when you enter a cave long hidden from the sunlight, yet find it thriving with vitality. There's a whole ecosystem out here that only blooms in the dark.

The air carries the smells of a city laying down to rest. There's moisture in the wind, carried from the lake, and the atmosphere almost feels heavy, compared to the way it does during the day.

Every few metres, there's a body trying to sleep curled close to a building. With shopping buggies filled with belongings and a nest of bedding on the ground, they've made themselves warm and safe as they can be sleeping on Lincoln street downtown.

I pass women on corners chatting amongst themselves while waiting for a potential customer. Several of the ladies I recognize from A&E, so I nod and smile and wave in their direction. There are clusters of men, boys really, trash-talking each other in the glow of a McDonald's arches. The words sound harsh, but the tone in which they are delivered to each other gives proof that the language is just for show. If push came to shove, I'm sure they'd all scatter in different directions.

I hope.

The older men are more circumvent in their activities. Whatever they have going on, they don't want to draw the attention of anyone who happens to make their way down the street.

I keep myself as inconspicuous as I can while still maintaining a watchful eye on my surroundings. 'Make sure your head is on a swivel,' was pounded into my brain from my self-defence teachers, and it's a habit I've kept with me since childhood.

A glance at the street sign confirms I'm less than a mile from home.

A guy walks in my direction thirty meters ahead, but before I can decide whether to cross the street to avoid passing him directly, he takes the decision out of my hands and does so himself.

He smirks at me, not attempting to hide the way his eyes devour my form.

"Don't worry duckie. I won't scare you, none."

I chuckle at the intended insult, but smile tightly and bob my head in his direction, nonetheless. He shuffle-walks himself to the other side of the road.

"Unless you want me to bother you? Cause I have all sorts of tricks up my sleeve to give a good girl like you a fun time."

He's walking down the middle of the street, backwards, and against my better judgment, a real grin escapes my face. A car comes between us heading the same direction as my stranger, and he takes a few steps closer to the other sidewalk to get out of its way. He pays no attention to the vehicle but waits until it passes to start talking at me again. He isn't frightening me, but I certainly have no intention of engaging with him either. I simply shake my head no and grace him with a wave before facing forward once more.

I never slow my pace.

"Oh, come on now. Don't be so cold, sweet cheeks."

The next holler spikes my adrenaline slightly, and I resist the urge to turn around and look at him. His voice sounds further than it had a moment ago, and I can't hear his footsteps anymore.

But he also seems a little offended.

Suddenly tires squeal across the pavement. Whipping my head around to see where they're coming from, I watch the white sedan flip a bitch at the red light. Gunshots break the stillness of the air ringing out in rapid succession.

Pow. Pow. Pow-Pow-Pow.

In the heartbeat it takes me to register what's going on, I swear I see the sonic boom part the air in front of me.

Without thinking, I drop to the pavement, covering my head with my hands and squeezing my eyes tightly as possible. Every echo of the muzzle blast rips through my body like a physical blow, though I remain untouched from the bullets. I can taste fear on my tongue, and my stomach clenches with the need to purge itself of my last meal.

Quick as it started, it stopped. The tire sounds disappear down the opposite way they came from, and silence blankets over the stratosphere. The only noises audible over the blood rushing through my eardrums are the desperate gasps of a dying man coming from across the street.

With my hands still laced protectively over my head, I raise my eyes enough to see my heckler, who moments before was filled with a zeal for playful annoyance, now splayed out on the pavement with his blood coating the ground beneath him.

Instinct and training take over, and with a shove of my hands, I'm half running, half crab crawling across the street to reach him. I hit the concrete with a velocity that is sure to leave my knees bruised when I wake up tomorrow. Ripping my knapsack from my back, I jab the emergency button on my mobile and drop it to the ground on speaker.

Yanking my bag open, I pull the first aid kit from inside, only to realize how horribly inadequate it is for the situation in front of me.

"Hang in there, buddy. I'm a Doctor at Mungos, Dr. Herman. I've got you, sir."

I push him onto his side and internally cringe at the moan that rips from his body. I try to see if he had any exit wounds.

"Emergency, which service?"

I'd forgotten about the ringing coming from the ground and jerk in surprise when the robotic voice bursts into the air. My head snaps in that direction so forcefully I give myself whiplash. The operator pulls my concentration away from my patient and bile rises in my throat. I glance left and right, thinking about the car returning to ensure it completed its job. The only thing that keeps my hands in place are years of training and practice.

"This is Dr. Herman Granger of Saint Mungos. I'm on the corner of," I glance at the street signs again, "Hogwarts and Diagon. I have a gunshot victim, five shots, maybe more. At least two are still in him. Send an ambulance."

I have no way to stop the bleeding on this many bullet holes, but try my best anyway, using the gauze from my kit and then my jacket. I straddle his thighs and try to use my body to slow the seeping of his wounds.

The voice of the emergency operator is still talking, but I block it out, concentrating on saving my patient.

I can't, of course.

I knew that the minute I saw the amount of blood leaving his body. I knew from the first moment my head left the pavement. That doesn't stop me from whispering platitudes and reassurances into the night sky while his blood quickly covers my hands and torso. It doesn't stop the tears that spring to my eyes when I see the life finally leak out of his.