A/N: Look, I'll be the first to put my hand up and say this fic was written a little last minute... But I was so keen to throw at least one fic in for FleurmioneWeek2020! So bear with me :)
"Doctor Granger, we have a difficult patient," said Mrs Robbins.
Mrs Robbins was the matronly head nurse at St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries.
She was a short and stout woman, with greying hair and a kind face. She reminded Hermione Granger a little of Mrs Weasley, if she was honest. She certainly had the guilt-tripping down to a fine art.
Mrs Robbins had approached the young Doctor Granger no less than fifteen times in the past few days, trying to get her to deal with the same difficult patient.
Hermione Granger was one of the younger Mediwizards at the hospital, but her raw talent and no-nonsense attitude had quickly made her a go-to option for staff and patients alike.
Hermione suffered no fools.
Despite her pretty freckled face, wavy brown curls and smooth tanned skin, Hermione was a bit of a battle-axe in the workplace. The years of hen-pecking Harry and Ron at Hogwarts had prepared her well.
So, Hermione was not surprised when the nurses began pestering her to wrangle this latest difficult patient.
According to Mrs Robbins, this patient had come in after a nasty injury and had been in a permanent bad mood since. She had brought at least five of the staff to tears so far. The worst had been when she had driven a particularly intimidated new doctor to hand in her notice.
So now, Mrs Robbins was clasping her plump hands under her chin, her face wrinkled even more than usual as she scrunched it up to wheedle Hermione into dealing with the patient.
A stern talking-to from Hermione was known to bring even the most unruly patient in line, Mrs Robbins pointed out.
Hermione was leaning against the nurses station, her white robes hanging loosely from her. She was sucking thoughtfully on the end of a quill, partway through filling out a form for one of her patients.
She weighed it up internally. She could go and deal with this patient in the short break she had now… Or wait for it to get worse. If she waited for things to get worse, Mrs Robbins had a tendency to find Hermione right at her busiest, nagging her until she relented.
Hermione checked her gold Muggle wristwatch.
"Fine," Hermione caved, causing Mrs Robbins to smile widely with relief, "I have some time now. What room is the patient in?"
"13D," Mrs Robbins called out after the already departing doctor, "Be careful—she's a feisty one!"
Hermione had this routine down to a fine art now. She would come in, get up to speed on the patient's status, and then simply give them a no-nonsense rundown of their situation. If the patient didn't pull their head in at that point, she would then continue to tell them in no uncertain terms that the staff were simply not there to be the patient's punching bag. It didn't make anyone feel better and it didn't help anyone heal faster.
Hermione walked at a fast clip, weaving through the roaming staff and patients with ease. She spotted the room immediately. Hermione swept into the room, picking up the patient chart from the end of the bed in one fluid motion, beginning to read it without even looking at the patient first.
"Female, 28, no history of illness," Hermione murmured aloud, reading the chart.
"Asterisk noting patient is part-Magical Creature… But not what kind of Magical Creature… That isn't a terribly helpful note from the attending doctor," Hermione mused, tapping her chin with a finger.
She heard the patient clear her throat irritably, obviously put out by being ignored. Hermione inwardly grinned. The temper swell before Hermione put the patient in place… Hermione knew it well.
"Injured leg in a nasty curse while working in a…" Hermione leafed the page over, "Crypt! How unusual!"
At this, Hermione finally looked up from the chart.
Her breath caught in her throat.
Fleur Delacour (formerly Fleur Delacour-Weasley) was sitting up in the hospital bed, a perfect pout on her fine features.
The part-Veela was looking quite good considering the circumstances. Her platinum blonde hair was loose and cascading down her shoulders.
Hermione usually found the boxy mint-green hospital gowns ugly. But the one on Fleur looked positively high fashion.
"You're finally going to acknowledge me, then?" Fleur asked tersely, quirking a perfectly groomed eyebrow.
"I… Uh…" Hermione cleared her throat, trying to regain her composure. Fleur Delacour or not, this was a difficult patient she needed to deal with.
Fleur's plump lips pouted further and Hermione felt her knees get a little weak.
"You… Uh… You seem fine…" Hermione mumbled, her eyes quickly flicking back to the chart, as if she had been caught looking at something she shouldn't.
Which was always how she used to feel when looking at Fleur…
"I am not letting this Godforsaken hospital discharge me until they have adequately healed me!" Fleur snapped. Her voice was cold and annoyed, but the lilt of her French accent still made Hermione's stomach tickle a little.
Hermione consulted the chart in far more detail, pushing a number of thoughts out of her mind.
"You… aren't healed adequately?" Hermione asked slowly, almost as if she did not trust her own voice. She chanced a glance back up at Fleur.
The Frenchwoman's sapphire eyes flashed with her infamous temper again as she pulled the hospital sheet off her legs with one sharp movement.
Hermione's breath caught in her throat again as she found her eyes glued to Fleur's legs. The blonde's hospital gown had ridden up, showing the full expanse of her long and toned legs from the upper thighs down.
"What's wrong? Your legs look lovely-"
Hermione felt her face burn slightly as she cleared her throat yet again.
"—Er, I mean, I fail to see what the problem is," Hermione added quickly, swallowing heavily.
"Come here," Fleur demanded. Hermione felt herself obeying the blonde without a second thought, moving so close to the hospital bed her legs were pressed against the side.
Fleur grabbed one of Hermione's hands, pulling it away from the chart and placing it on her lower thigh, just above her knee.
This time Hermione's face burned like a furnace. She pulled her hand out of Fleur's grip and off the blonde's leg.
"I—Uh—What?!" Hermione babbled hopelessly.
She wondered forlornly how things had gone downhill so quickly since she had entered the room in such a composed manner.
Fleur looked at her in disbelief.
"It is scarred," Fleur pointed out.
Hermione let her eyes drop back to Fleur's leg. Indeed, there was some scarring. Angry pink lines intersected above Fleur's knee. It looked like it had been quite a nasty curse.
"You're lucky they closed the wound," Hermione pointed out, trying to pull herself back on track, "The scarring isn't such a big deal in the grand scheme of things."
Fleur scowled at her then, so deeply that it surprised Hermione.
"Er, what?" Hermione asked, thrown off again.
"It is ugly," Fleur said petulantly, "Fix it."
Hermione looked at the chart again, at the details of the curse that had ravaged Fleur and brought her so close to death before the Healers had closed the wounds.
"I can't," Hermione replied simply, "Some wounds just cannot heal without leaving a mark."
Fleur blinked at the words, her entire icy façade dropping suddenly, abruptly. She looked to one side, her pretty dark eyelashes fluttering as she appeared to blink back tears.
Hermione wondered if this was really about the scars.
The nurses had commented that the 'trouble patient' hadn't received a single visitor during her entire stay in hospital.
"Fleur…" Hermione said softly. She reached forward, possibly crossing a hundred different boundaries, and pulled Fleur's face by the chin until she was looking at her again.
"You're not ugly," Hermione said quietly.
Fleur's eyes were swirling with emotion. There seemed to be a multitude of different layered meanings passing between the two.
"I know," Fleur said, in a weak attempt at defensiveness.
"A long time ago, I was in a similar situation," Hermione said, smiling slightly, "Nasty scars that I didn't want to be left with forever. Feeling… Alone and scared…" Hermione ventured the last words out carefully, afraid of spooking the reserved blonde.
Fleur averted her eyes again.
"I was lucky enough to have a beautiful, amazing witch to look after me and tell me it was going to be okay," Hermione said, feeling a little lighter at finally voicing some of the words she had wanted to say for years, "I know I might not exactly be her first choice of company… But perhaps I could return the favour?"
Fleur lunged forward, kissing Hermione chastely on the lips for a split second, before pulling back again.
She averted her sapphire eyes once more.
"I…" Fleur seemed to be struggling between putting her walls back up and expressing herself. She sighed. "I would like that."
Over at the nurses' station, Mrs Robbins found herself remarking upon how curious it was that Doctor Granger left the patient's room with the largest smile on her face.