Of Medicine and Magic (a series of Dramione one-shots)

by FlyingMouse

Hermione and Draco just started training to be Healers at St. Mungo's Hospital. Although Draco still harbors hidden feelings for Hermione, Hermione has no interest in Draco. Instead, she has been falling for one of her patients, Tom Riddle, mainly because his illness has been taking up the majority of Hermione's time at the hospital. Not to mention Ron is also one of her patients..

8. Giant Dragonflies Spit Sparkling Saliva

"The Sparkling Salivators are coming!" Cried Lexa, looking out the window of Ron's room in the ICU.

Hermione stood beside her Healer mentor and stared at the sky. A swarm of nine-foot-long dragonflies filled up the sky. They were spitting sparkling saliva at the buildings below, and every building that got splattered with saliva would sizzle intensely before crumbling to the ground.

"Their saliva is like acid," muttered Hermione. "Very, very intense acid. I read about these things in M.B.'s Genotopia book."

Ron rolled his eyes and groaned. "Damn M.B. for making up creatures like these."

Hermione looked over her shoulder and frowned. "Hey, that's my lab partner you're talking about. It's not her fault—it's the thief's fault for stealing her Organink Wand and bringing those things to this world."

Lexa spun around and raced out the door. "We have to release our Acidifier Dragons! Only they can withstand those dragonflies' saliva!"

Hermione followed after her mentor.

"Wait, Hermione!" Ron called. "You said you would stay here to talk with me about our engagement!"

Hermione whirled around to glare at Ron. "We are not engaged, Ron! I called it off years ago, and there's no second chance!"

"At least talk to me about it! You promised you would at least stay here and discuss it with me this afternoon!"

A loud crash sounded from outside as another building crumbled to the ground. Hermione flinched and threw her hands toward the window. "Uh, Ron?! Hello?! The city is under attack and I've got to help?"

"Please," Ron scoffed. "What could you possibly do to help? Men ride the dragons to fight those disease-carrying dragonflies, while women are only supposed to feed and nurture them."

Hermione stomped up to Ron and glowered down at him on his bed, fists clenched. If he wasn't as sick as he was, she would have grabbed the neck of his shirt to shake him. Ron shrunk under her intimidating glare.

"Well Ron," Hermione spoke in a casual tone, though her face looked like she was ready to kill. "Despite the sexism implied in your comment about the roles of men and women with the dragons, I just want to point out that women are still playing an equally important, if not more important, role than the men here. Think about it: caring and feeding the dragons is a heck of a lot more necessary and essential than just riding them. So sure, there may have been a gender segregation here, but it isn't really a bad thing- at least not in this case." She turned and walked away, but continued to speak. "There are contexts in which the gender segregation is just discriminatory and unreasonable, but here, I would say that the segregation actually makes the women look more useful—if society is willing to accept that caring and feeding the dragons is more or equally useful as riding them."