i. steel
Four a.m., Sunday morning. Blood everywhere, on walls, on clothes, dripping onto the floor. Hermione almost wishes for the simplicity (complexity?) of magic, and plunges gloved hands into her patient's chest, searching for the source of bleeding.
A stabbing victim, this guy is, and Hermione wonders for a second about his life before pushing the thought from her mind-- she's learned, over the years, it's best not to know. They're all going to die anyway, rich or poor, magical or muggle.
"Time of death?" The nurse asks from near by.
"0403." Hermione says, and wishes for a cup of hot coffee.
ii. vein
"It all fucked up when Harry died." Ron says, voice heavy with exhaustion. His hands are too hot against Hermione's skin and she shrugs, brushing away from him, lights a cigarette with a practiced flick of the wrist.
"We were done before then, Ron." She replies, voice ragged with too much nicotine, pale fingers bleeding yellow in the reflection of a streetlight outside. "You remember what Remus said- 'It's not the war that will end us, it's the battles'. He was right and he fucking knew it- must've driven him mad, watching us make the same mistakes he did the first time."
Ron turns to give her a bitter smile. "When'd you become so pessimistic?" he asks.
"When'd you become so complicated?" Hermione asks in reply, eyes glinting in the dim light.
iii. blood
Hermione doesn't really love Ron. She did once, sure, back when they both thought they would dead before their mid-twenties. Ron still loves Hermione-- the way he loves the rush of blow, the crackle of acid, buzzing inside his skin, electric heat and silent power. He's tried to quit going back to her, but invariably wakes up to her tired face and ragged hands.
"Bastard." Hermione says, scrubs a hand across her face. Her nametag catches the celing light and glints off of Ron's bed, highlighting the gold of his hair.
"My mum'd kill you for saying that." he says weakly, old grin dimmed by age, exhaustion, sheer lack of caring.
Hermione shrugs. "She'd kill you first for becoming a junkie."
"Yeah, there is that."
Hermione turns to press her hands against the window, staring into the London night, watching as clubbers stumble home, off to sleep or fuck or bleed. (They will clutter up her emergency room, waste her time, leave her aching for more suffering.) "The next time this happens." She says finally, and turns to look at him with cool eyes, "I'm not saving you."
Ron shrugs. "You will. You need me."
iv. paralysis
Hermione tried blow once. She spent the next day with a migraine, moaning every time she moved, and swearing to never do it again. The rush--good, yeah, and god she felt fucking powerful-- left her drained and powerless in the end. More? Ron asked, eyes fever bright, dirty cigarette dripping ash at his feet.
She gagged in response, and Ron had simply shrugged, and pulled a razor from his pocket.
Hermione thinks, now, that that was the end. She said nothing of it to Ron and left for the hospital, where she spent the night retching between surgeries.
Now she wonders why she never said anything, did anything.
"The human heart looks like a bloody fist." She tells Ron later, soaked in blood and grime. "Fucking horrid, and that's what sends oxygen to our brain, our toes, sends your precious fucking coke through your body."
Ron stares straight through her, pupils dilated.
"I'd like to fucking give show you yours." Hermione snarls, and slams the bedroom door.
v. death
Hermione wonders who Ron Weasley was (is). Gryffindor keeper, junkie, best friend of the boy who fucking died like everyone else, guy she loved for three years (and fucked for five more, but that's all irrelevant).
"You never could understand the truth." She says, softly, and does not think I love you. She deals in facts now, not emotions, in the present and not the past, and besides he's not gonna hear it anyway.
Bastard.
She doesn't love him. She doesn't hate him either. She didn't want to be the one to not save him.
"Time of death?" The nurse near by asks.
"0403." Hermione says, softly.
In the end it's his heart that kills him, pumping precious blood through ruined veins, onto too-pale, freckled skin, spreading to Hermione's scrubs, skin, even her face (wiping away sweat not tears).
The nurse comes forward to tug Hermione away, hands cold against Hermione's bare arms. Hermione follows blindly, takes the proffered cup of coffee, drinks it in one painful gulp.
"I have to get back to work." She says, hollowly, and tucks her bloodied gloves into her coat pocket.
Hermione doesn't love Ron. She doesn't love the feel of skin beneath latex gloves, the feel of nicotine filtering into her body.
Addiction isn't about love, or drugs, or fucking want or desire. It's about need.