Hello, all! I'm glad this story has been so well received, even if it is an uncommon pairing. As promised, here's the second half!

Four days – or a broken cheekbone and four damaged ribs later…

Hermione was ashamed to admit that she had become woefully lax in her duties. So much so that she had to turn her desk to face a wall, as sitting facing out her window all day was only inviting the temptation to stare. She supposed she never really noticed it with Harry and Ron, both boys closer to being her brothers than anything else, but staring at a nice arse in Quidditch leathers astride a broom was a wonderful way to while away the afternoons. Cormac's arse in particular was a very fine thing…

Hermione shook her head to clear the unbidden thought and, with a low growl, ground the tip of her quill so forcefully into her parchment that it snapped, sending black ink in a splatter across her desk.

"I must be going crazy," she muttered to herself as she tossed her now useless quill into the bin. "He's an arse. He's always been… Terrible kisser, too."

"Healer Granger?" a soft, feminine voice called out, interrupting her niggling thoughts.

Caris, one of the Beaters – and a deceptively strong thing for her short stature – was levitating a pained-looking Cormac behind her. Hermione let out a sigh, and gestured for her to guide him to the bed. He immediately settled his hands behind his head and glared at the ceiling with such intensity that Hermione – had she not been a creature driven by rationality and sound logic – might have sat and waited with anticipation for the holes he might have burned through the plaster.

"What happened?" Hermione asked as she moved to take her wand from her desk drawer.

"He fell off his broom from about five or so metres off the ground. It sounded like he broke something. Loud crack and everything. It was brutal."

Hermione gave a wry smile. "Thank you, Caris. I'll take care of him from here."

With a perky little wave at Cormac, Caris skipped through the ward and out the door. They listened in silence as her footfalls became little more than echoes, then nothing.

"Cormac," Hermione began with deceptive sweetness as she drew nearer to his bed, "you do realise I've only been working here for a little over a month, yes?"

He didn't take his eyes off the ceiling, a deep scowl lining his face. "Contrary to what I'm sure you've come to think of me, yes, I have realised that. Very, very aware of it, in fact."

"Good." She cast the charm over her eyes that would allow her to see within his leg. "Then you would also be able to recall that, in the time I have been here, I have seen you more times than I could count on two hands for varying degrees of injury."

"Again, yes. I can count, you know."

"Then, if you wouldn't mind, would you be able to tell me exactly how you seem to find a way to damage yourself so consistently?"

He turned to her and gave a cheeky grin. "Just lucky, I guess."

"Be serious!" She cancelled the charm and reached up to flick his ear, and felt most gratified to see a flicker of pain briefly mar his handsome features. "Is this frequency of injuries normal for you, Cormac?" she asked in exasperation. "If so, I can certainly understand why the team had such trouble finding a new Healer. You probably singlehandedly drove the poor soul to insanity."

"All for you, love," he smoothly retorted, wincing again when she poked firmly against his bruised leg. "Bloody hell, Granger. Surely the concept of good bedside manner isn't lost on you, too."

"All for you, love," she retorted. "Now hold still, or it will hurt even worse. Unless you've decided to take the painkiller this time?"

"It's fine," he said dismissively. "Can't hardly feel it now."

Hermione shot him a disbelieving look. "You have a tib-fib fracture. I doubt very much that the pain isn't an issue."

"Perhaps if I took my pants off?" His expression was deceptively innocent, but Hermione knew better. "Would that help?"

She rolled her eyes in exasperation. "Just roll them up to your knee, if you can."

"And if I can't?" he asked, batting his long, almost girly eyelashes.

She gave him a disingenuously sweet smile. "Then I suppose I'll just have to cut you out of them."

He quirked a brow at her, and a lazy, amused smile crossed his lips. "Kinky."

"For the love of God, Cormac, no!" she cried, her cheeks heating up with a magnificent blush. "Would you stop with the stupid innuendo? I just –"

He cut her off with a loud, booming laugh. "You are far too easy to bait, Hermione." Winking at her, he leaned back against the pillows of the bed and said, "But I'm afraid the pants actually do have to go. Quidditch leathers don't exactly leave you much room to breathe, let alone the space to roll them up."

Hermione felt a smirk pull at her lips. "Now who's kinky?"

"Hey, I didn't choose what I had to wear; I just wear it well."

"You have absolutely no shame, do you?"

"Should I? I'm a confident man, Hermione, and I know what I want. I see no reason to shy away from or play down my attributes. Ego is healthy; modesty seems rather silly to me."

"You know, it truly is remarkable how a little humility can bring you crashing back down to earth when that ego of yours gets too out of hand," Hermione stated, the beginnings of a sly grin pulling at her lips. "Like, oh, I don't know, your newfound devotion to complete and utter gracelessness on a broomstick."

He scowled again, though it was more playful than annoyed this time. "My flying serves a purpose, thank you very much. Besides, Keepers are known to be reckless. How else could we make half the saves we do?"

"But it doesn't do your team much good when you're spending all your time here as a result," she retorted. Before he could get another word in, she used her wand to cut a long slit down the seam of his leathers and resumed the X-ray charm on her eyes. "Now, lie still and stay relaxed for me. Talk if you need to, since you're still too bloody stubborn to take the damn painkiller."

He let out a snort and crossed his arms behind his head. "If a woman can give birth to a live human being without the aid of being numbed, I can bear getting a bone reset, I think."

"Careful, Cormac. You sounded nearly compassionate."

"I did?" He grimaced. "Well, that just won't do… hmm. I have a degree in Magical Law. Lawyers are the most heartless bastards around, aren't there?"

Hermione paused in her perusal of his inner leg and looked up at him quickly, biting back a scream as she did since the charm that allowed her to see to his bones was still active, so she only saw his skull. "I didn't know that," she said, ignoring his last comment.

He shrugged, his gaze focused on the ceiling. "Like I told you the other day, there's a lot you don't know about me, love."

She rolled her eyes and focused her gaze back on his leg, murmuring the necessary incantations to knit the little splinters in the bone back together. "What made you complete a degree?"

"I can't play Quidditch forever. I'd be dead before long playing the way I do."

"Then why did you choose to pursue professional Quidditch if you have the degree? Surely it would have been the far more sensible option."

He let out a warm laugh. "Who wants to do the sensible thing all the time, Hermione? If I'd gone straight into Magical Law out of Hogwarts… Merlin, I'd have gone insane. I pursued pro Quidditch because I love the sport, and because I'm actually pretty good at it, too."

"Really?" She smiled slyly. "I don't recall you ever making the team at Hogwarts. I don't even think you had even tried out for the team prior to sixth year."

"I'll have you know I was the victim of vicious sabotage when I tried out in sixth year," he retorted, giving her a knowing look. "And as for the other years… well, with Wood there as Keeper for as long as he was, I never stood a chance."

"Wood was gone by our fourth year," she pointed out. "You could have tried out then."

"True," he conceded with an idle nod, "but by that time, I guess the shine had worn off the idea. Besides, I was part of a small, regional team that played during the holidays. That was enough for me."

Long seconds passed in near silence as Hermione whispered the spells to mend his broken leg. She was painfully aware of Cormac's eyes on her, never wavering from where her form was crouched beside his leg except for when a particularly large splinter in the bone knitted itself back together under her wand.

"You should let me take you flying, Hermione," he spoke suddenly. "You'd have fun."

She let out a laugh. "Your flying skills are clearly nothing special, Cormac. Five minutes on a broom with you and I'm certain we'd both be dead."

He let out a lamenting moan. "Where's your sense of adventure, Hermione?"

"You'll have to forgive me, but I think I left it somewhere at the bottom of Gringotts. Probably in the Lestrange vault. Can't be too sure, but I'm in no hurry to retrieve it."

"That was clumsy of you," he spoke in an odd tone, "leaving something so important behind."

"And yet I don't particularly care at all." She cancelled the charm on her eyes and stood up from her seat, satisfied. "Your leg is fine, by the way, just let me get you some Skele-Grow."

Cormac let out a dramatic groan and flung his arm over his eyes as she nearly skipped over to the cabinet where the potion was contained. "That stuff is beyond foul, Granger!"

"Back to surnames, are we, McLaggen?" she called back to him.

"While you insist on forcing me to drink that heinous concoction, yes."

"Stop being so bloody stupid on your broom and you might not have to drink it again."

"I swear you're only giving it to me because you want me to lose my stomach all over your floors."

"Yes, that must be it," she retorted, thrusting the little cup in his face. "Drink up and you can leave."

He quirked a brow at her and she could feel her stomach clench in response. "So desperate for me to leave, are you?"

"You aren't the only one here who requires my services, you know. Perhaps you should leave and give everyone else a turn."

He shook his head with a smug grin. "I've never heard anyone else knock, Hermione."

"You think I never noticed that you Silence the door when you come in?"

His grin turned sheepish and, when combined with the single, golden curl that fell over his eyes, the look of it did funny things to her stomach – like incredibly inelegant acrobats were drunkenly tumbling and butterflies with tattered wings were fluttering a storm just to stay aloft. She felt rather ill all of a sudden with all the activity in there.

"You caught that, did you?"

She cleared her throat and took in a deep breath through her mouth to calm the onslaught of activity in her stomach. "They don't call me the Brightest Witch of the Age for nothing, you know."

"And I'm not entirely certain you're as smart as they say you are," he quietly admitted as he tipped back his Skele-Grow with another painful wince. "You're brilliant, yes, but as far as observation goes, love? I'm not sure you can see what's right in front of you; not without dissecting what you see to the point where it loses all meaning."

Hermione furrowed her brow, her mouth set in a deep frown. "What on earth do you mean by that?"

He rolled his eyes and shook his head, a tiny smile pulling at his lips as he eased his long frame from the bed. "Think about it. But don't think too hard, alright? It's not as difficult as it looks." With a final wink, he was out the door, leaving Hermione more baffled than ever.

XXX

Ten days – or one split lip, one black eye, a broken jaw and six dislocated fingers later…

Hermione nearly fell from her chair in fright as the door slammed open and collided with the wall behind it so forcefully that she could feel the echo and vibration of it reverberating through her desk, up her arms, and all the way down to her feet.

"Honey, I'm home!" Cormac's voice resonated down the length of the room.

She pressed a hand to her chest and took a deep breath to calm her racing heart. "Welcome back, darling," she dryly replied once her breathing evened out. "I was starting to wonder where you were."

Cormac grinned and settled himself on his – now usual – bed. "I could get used to this domesticity thing with you, love. It's quite nice, actually."

"Unfortunately for you, Cormac, I'm not sure I ever could." She pulled her lime-green Healer robe over her shoulders and fixed the second and third buttons. "So, what have you broken, snapped, strained, sprained or otherwise damaged today?"

His answering smirk was the embodiment of sin itself as he shucked his shirt, tossing it carelessly to the floor, and started on the fly of his Quidditch leathers.

"Hey!" Hermione shrieked, reaching out to cover his hand with her own to stop him. Cormac paused and regarded her with a smirk and a quirked brow before his gaze drifted downwards to where her hand was cupping him. Flustered, she squeaked and flushed before pulling her hand away, shoving it deep into the recesses of her magically extended pockets where it wouldn't be able to grope anyone anymore. "What on earth do you think you're doing?"

"Showing you my injury," he calmly stated. He continued with the fly of his pants and rolled them down to his knees, revealing a large, violently purple bruise marring most of his thigh, bare arse and lower back.

"Where the bloody hell is your underwear?" she demanded in a tone far too breathy for her liking.

The sinful smirk was back as he surreptitiously covered himself with one hand and reached behind himself for a pillow with the other. He positioned the pillow over his bits and sat down on the edge of the bed, not appearing to be even the slightest bit uncomfortable with his blatant nudity. "Underwear doesn't fit under these pants, Hermione. Too restrictive."

"Not even… I don't know… some sort of sock? A system of ribbons, perhaps?" she asked desperately.

He threw back his head and laughed deeply, one hand coming up to wipe a tear of mirth from his eyes. "While engaging in this line of conversation with you is nothing short of wonderfully entertaining, I think we're getting off track, don't you?"

For the second time in as many minutes, Hermione felt her cheeks burn. "What happened?" she muttered, drawing her wand from her pocket.

"Copped a Bludger to the leg."

Her eyes went to the bruise again, staring at it with a slack jaw at the sheer size and colour of it, and she suddenly felt irrationally angry. She growled to herself and stomped the length of the room to a cabinet that held various salves and potions and seized the silvery-blue tub of bruise-removal cream.

"Is there something wrong with you?" she asked exasperatedly. She slapped his shoulder, annoyed when his warm flesh didn't so much as ripple under her harsh touch, and fell into the seat with a frustrated huff. "Really, Cormac, you've been a professional Quidditch player for close to a decade – there is absolutely no way you could be this uncoordinated."

"This has nothing to do with me being uncoordinated," he defended. "I got into an argument with one of the Beaters."

"And they launched a Bludger at you?" she asked him, sceptical.

"They're a ruthless bunch," he answered vaguely.

She uncapped the tub, gathered a large dollop of the cream on her fingers and began to massage it into his thigh in large, slow circles from the middle outwards. The bruise slowly faded from the nasty shade dark purple to a progressively lighter mauve then to a sickly shade of greenish yellow. "Surely you don't like being hurt so bloody often!"

"I haven't minded," he stated with a confident smirk, his broad arms crossed behind his head as he leaned back into the pillows. "I've rather enjoyed your attentions."

Hermione froze and felt her cheeks flush and stuttered out, "That was… my attentions… This is all purely professional, Cormac! I'm a Healer, remember?"

"Right," he said indulgently. "I just imagine you running your hands and eyes all over my body then, do I?"

"I'm checking you for injuries!" Hermione interjected shrilly. "Which, even you have to admit, you seem to have more often than not!"

"And you check quite thoroughly, too, wouldn't you think?" he challenged, raising one perfectly groomed, blond brow in defiance. "Do you check everyone else so meticulously, I wonder?"

Indignation rose in her like a cresting wave, roiling and tumbling within her mind with little regard for composure or sensibility. "Would you prefer I skimp over my duties as your Healer?"

"I don't know, love. Would you?" He gestured with a lazy downwards glance to where her hand was still drawing slow circles on his thigh and up to his hipbone, despite the fact that the bruise had long-since disappeared.

She pulled her hand away as though his leg were aflame and squeezed it in a tight fist to distract herself from the bizarre and rather melodramatic notion that her hand no longer served any distinct purpose if it couldn't keep touching him. "I… I…" she stuttered.

Cormac lifted a hand to gently brush her fringe from where it was hanging over her eyes. "You're adorable when you're floundering, love." He spoke the words softly, a glint in his eyes she had never taken the time to notice before. His free hand reached down to clasp one of hers, and she gasped at how well his large, warm, calloused hand fit with her smaller, perpetually ink-stained one.

He leaned in close, his fingers reaching up to brush a curl away from her face when he whispered, "There is nothing wrong with liking me, Hermione."

"Of course there is!" she exclaimed in a tone far too high and shrill for her liking. She pulled back, cleared her throat and went on calmly, "I'm your Healer, Cormac, and never mind our history –"

Cormac scoffed and rolled his eyes again, dropping his arm back down to his side with a muffled thump on the mattress. "You cannot possibly be referring to one failed date –that you only went on to make Weasley jealous, mind you– when we were sixteen as history."

"It's enough," she snapped. "Besides, in the Muggle world, there are laws that prevent a medical professional from becoming involved with a patient. It's illegal, Cormac; a massive conflict of interest!"

"Then it's a bloody good thing we aren't in the Muggle world, isn't it?" Cormac retorted heatedly.

"You are missing the point entirely!" Hermione cried. She tugged at the frizzy strands of hair that had escaped the tight confines of her ponytail and multitudes of pins and let out a growl of frustration. "We can't be involved, Cormac! And even if we could, a merely physical attraction is nothing in the long run."

He let out a chuckle and shook his head. "Who said it was merely physical, love? Because it definitely wasn't me."

He pushed off from the bed and hitched up his pants. He didn't bother to redo his fly, and the sparsely-haired expanse of skin that remained did little to deter her gaze from falling lower and lower still, sending her imagination into overdrive. She gulped as he stalked towards her, his eyes alight with nearly predatory intent. Her own eyes widened, and she took several slow steps back until she hit the wall.

"You may not have wanted to notice it back then, but I had a massive crush on you at Hogwarts, Hermione. Still do, as a matter of fact, though I would not for one minute describe what I feel for you now as a schoolboy crush." He boxed her in against the wall, bracing his arms on either side of her head. The scent of peppermint and citrus surrounded her, dizzying and warm. "And you know what? It was never your looks, though you have always been fucking gorgeous to me." He leaned in, whispering his words in a tickle of breath against her neck. "It's that stunning mind of yours.

"I'm not after a declaration of undying love," he went on, turning his head just enough so his nose brushed just below her ear. "I just want you to think about it. We could be good, Hermione. Brilliant, even. And I think you know it, too. I can see it in your eyes every time you look at me: you want me, just as badly I want you, and you don't know what to do about it."

He pulled back suddenly, his eyes boring into hers with an intensity that made her shiver. Slowly – slow enough that she could stop him if she truly wanted to – he moved in again and kissed the corner of her mouth before moving his lips over her cheek and forehead and up to her temple. Her eyes fluttered shut, her knees trembled, and her breath left her in a shaky gasp.

"Let me know when you've decided to stop running, Hermione. I'll leave you alone for now, but I won't wait forever."

He pulled away without another word and strode purposefully from the room. Hermione immediately fell to the ground, her knees tucked up under her chin as she sucked in a deep breath. Warm tracks of tears flowed down her cheeks, and she angrily brushed them away. She cursed everything: she cursed Harry and Ron for even making her consider taking this stupid job in the first place. She cursed Cormac for being so bloody different and yet not different at all. She cursed the pesky feelings she wasn't sure she had the strength to keep tamping down. But most of all, she cursed the fact that Cormac was right; she wanted him more than she had ever wanted anyone, and she had absolutely no idea what to do about it.

XXX

One surprisingly injury-free week later…

Hermione cradled her head in one hand and tapped out a tune she could only describe as 'rhythmically challenged' with her quill in the other. She had been trying valiantly and failing for the past four hours to fill out her monthly reports while still trying to come to grips with her sodding girly emotions regarding Cormac's confession and ultimatum the week previous.

He had been frustratingly true to his word; he hadn't come up to her office once in the past week, for treatment or otherwise. The only indication she got from him which acknowledged her existence was a small nod at the weekly staff and player meeting, but the heated itch of his gaze on her followed her everywhere. If nothing else, though, the distance was giving her plenty of time to consider the situation from every angle.

She had filled the entirety of a new notebook simply with reasons why dating Cormac wouldn't be the worst thing to ever happen to her, and was well on the way to filling another with reasons why it would. She had spent hours one night Floo-calling Harry for his thoughts on the matter, for it was certainly his fault she even found herself in such a situation to begin with. Even after indulging in her love for list-making and consulting the person that perhaps knew her best, she had still only come to one conclusion she felt absolutely certain about:

She wanted Cormac. If she was being completely honest with herself, there was a part of her, buried somewhere, deep down, in a place she hadn't the heart to acknowledge before now, that had probably wanted him since she was seventeen.

She had been just about to give up on her stupid reports and take out the notebook holding her detailed list of grievances against the man who currently would not stop occupying her thoughts when a single, piercing scream split the air from the ground below, leaving her sitting stock still in her plush chair, caught in a moment of sheer terror.

"Healer Granger!" a panicked voice screamed from the pitch below. "Healer Granger, please! We need you down here now!"

Without another thought, Hermione seized her wand and Apparated from her office to the pitch, finding the players standing in a huddled ring around an awfully familiar body she could only just discern from between the many pairs of legs obscuring her sight. As the pop of her Apparition made her presence known, the players – all ashen-faced, with their lips pulled into taut lines – each took a step back to reveal the body on the ground, and Hermione's stomach took a painful, diving swoop.

Cormac's prone body was lying in an awkward position on the ground, his limbs sprawled every which way, and his head set at an odd angle on his neck. Save for the shallow dips of his chest, he was unmoving. Hermione felt the blood rush from her face as a wave of panic surged through her.

"What happened?" she demanded. She fell to her knees beside Cormac and held two fingers to his neck to gauge his pulse. It was slow and weak, but there.

"He… he t-took a B-bludger to the head," Caris stuttered, her voice quivering. "I didn't mean… I thought he was ready… cast Arresto Momentum, but…"

"Stop it," came a firm voice from somewhere behind her, but Hermione didn't find that she particularly cared who it came from, not while Cormac was still unconscious. "It wasn't your fault, Caris."

There was a murmur of assent through the group before it fell silence again, save for the sniffling of some of the younger females on the team.

"I need to get him upstairs. Now." Hermione stood and pulled a paper clip from her pocket and held her wand above it. "Medicus Portus."

Stowing her wand away with shaky hands, she took the paper clip and carefully slipped it into Cormac's pocket, and waited the five seconds it would take for the specialised Medical Portkey to whisk him up to her ward and into one of the beds. She Apparated with a violently loud crack immediately afterwards, and tried to tamp down the feeling of nervous sickness roiling around in her stomach.

"He's just another patient," she whispered to herself as she brushed a tear from her eye. "Just another patient…"

She closed her eyes and took a quick, deep breath, enough to manage her nerves, and time seemed to slow down. Her face was set with a steely, determined resolve as she darted about the room with a cold, clinical sort of precision, grabbing various potions from the cold storage and from the bubbling cauldrons in the adjacent potions lab where she brewed in her spare time. She quickly decanted them into tiny glass vials and set them in a row on a tray: one to bring down the internal swelling, Skele-Grow to repair any fractures in the skull, one mild painkiller, and one to combat nausea, if – or, rather, when, she amened ferociously to herself – he awoke.

Hermione carefully set the tray down on the table by Cormac's bed and quickly set about uncorking the vials to pour the contents down his throat.

Quickly, and wandlessly, she cast the X-ray charm on her eyes and glanced about Cormac's head. Her mouth was set in a hard line when she saw the visible bruising and swelling, but she knew she knew she would never know the extent of the damage until Cormac was awake again.

Using her thumb and forefinger, Hermione gently parted Cormac's lips and poured down his gullet the potion to decrease the swelling. She rubbed the base of his throat, encouraging him to swallow it down. Keeping one eye firmly on Cormac's brain, she watched – and held back a sigh of relief – when the swelling slowly, but surely, began to decrease. After nearly half an hour of careful watching and waiting, the swelling was gone, and she allowed herself to breathe freely once more.

She uncorked the Skele-Grow and tipped the acid-green concoction down his throat. She felt a tiny smile tug at her lips when, even when unconscious, Cormac still flinched slightly at the taste.

Now, there was little else to do but wait.

She pulled the blanket around his waist and removed his clothing with a cursory flick of her wand, taking the briefest of moments to appreciate his toned chest and arms, and replaced them with a regulation hospital robe, embroidered with the Tutshill Tornadoes crest in a sparkling, golden thread over the right breast. It stunned her still the amount of money the Tornadoes seemed happy to sink into such ridiculous extravagances.

She retrieved from her desk a stack of patient files which needed her notes and brought them back to Cormac's bedside where she worked silently for almost five hours. Sunlight turned to darkness, and her eyes strained to read under the soft light from the flickering candles which lit automatically at sunset. She set down her quill and stretched her arms high above her head with a long, loud yawn. Her neck and elbows gave a satisfying click as the bones snapped back into place.

She glanced over at Cormac, finding him a state much the same as she had left him in before: eyes peacefully closed, face unlined, breathing deep and even. She reached out and gently brushed away a curl that had fallen over his eyes, her fingers skimming lightly over his skin. They trailed from his forehead to his temple, down his nose and along his lips until the quiet moment was broken by a soft groan and a twitch of his eyelids to which she immediately pulled her hands away. Merlin knew what he might think of her should he ever find out she had molested him in his sleep.

"What happened?" he asked in a groggy slur.

"You were hit by a Bludger," she explained in a whisper. "You were knocked out, and it caused your brain to swell, but it's under control now."

He attempted to sit up, but she stopped him with a hand to the shoulder. "You need to rest, Cormac," she implored him. "Please, lie back down."

He closed his eyes and let her guide him back down to the pillow. "I don't remember any of it."

"I didn't think you would."

"Did I fall very far?"

"Not too far," she assured him as she sat back in her seat. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she made a mental note to find pillows or cast cushioning charms on the chairs; they were horribly uncomfortable to sit in after a time. "Only from about twenty metres or so up, but from what Caris managed to tell me, she was able to cast an Arresto Momentum on you just in time. The damage was mostly done by the Bludger, not the fall."

"But I'm alright now?"

"A good sleep would do you well, but I see no reason why you wouldn't be fine. You should probably stay here for a few days, though, just in case."

"Thank you, Hermione."

"You're welcome, but no thanks are necessary, Cormac. I was only doing my job."

He let out a weak chuckle. "I'm pretty sure I wouldn't still be here if you hadn't, so I say again, thank you. I'd have died a thousand times without you around."

"I don't want to run anymore," she blurted out.

He opened one tired eye to look at her, his brow furrowed. "What did you just say?"

She took a deep breath and reached over the bed to take one of his hands in hers. "I said, I don't want to run anymore."

He let out a long, deep breath in a whoosh and settled his head amongst the pillows. "That's what I thought you said."

"That's all you have to say?" Hermione felt rather indignant. "After that… that… what you did in here the other week, and now… seriously, that's all you have to say?"

"Hermione, darling, believe me: if I had my full faculties about me right now, I would take you up against that wall right there and ravish you to within an inch of your life. Unfortunately for the both of us, though, I'm feeling rather dizzy at the moment. Those odd, colourful pictures you put up are making me feel sort of ill. Spinning around and whatnot."

"They are?" Hermione leapt from her seat and practically tore the pictures from the wall, settling them print-side down on the bed furthest from Cormac's before making her way back. "Is that better?"

He nodded his head once and scrunched his eyes closed. "This is probably the only time I'll ever consider stark white to be an improvement, but yes. Much better."

"Here." She took a pale pink potion contained within a thin, glass vial from the tray next to her and held it gingerly out for him to take. "For the nausea."

"Hmm. Thank you." He took the vial from her hand, brushing his fingers lightly against hers as he did so, and tipped it back. He let out an immediate sigh of relief and turned his head to face her, a grin tugging at his lips. "Much better. Wasn't sure I could turn my head without losing my stomach all over your pretty shoes."

Hermione glanced down at her once shiny, now scuffed black flats, adorned with a chain of little appliqué daisies around the edge. Hardly appropriate for the workplace, she knew, but they were far too comfortable not to wear to a job where she spent much of her time on her feet.

"Thank you for the consideration," she eventually said.

"Don't mention it," he brushed her off. "So, what changed your mind? My near-death experience or something else?"

"I don't know that it was something that changed my mind. I just had to think about what you said." She let out a deep breath in a sigh. "Thinking you might be dead for even the briefest of moments might have swayed me a little, though. I'm not entirely sure what I would have done if you'd been killed."

"Merlin's saggy tits, Hermione!" Cormac exclaimed. "If all I had to do to get you to say yes was get near-fatally hit by a Bludger, I'd have staged it ages ago!"

"Staged it? You mean… you were hurting yourself on purpose?" she whispered. "Why would you do something so… so incredibly stupid?"

He looked completely unaffected by her outrage. "Because I can't get you to so much as say hello to me outside of this office. But I feel like I should say that this actually was an accident. I certainly didn't actively go looking to be knocked in the head today."

"And, what? Your refusal to be medicated was some sort of ridiculous attempt to impress me?" When his only reply was a light flush of his cheeks, Hermione growled and threw her hands in the air. "You are… unerringly stupid, Cormac. You should know, if you watch me as closely as you say, that I'm not one to get all girly and giggly over such a thing!"

"You're hardly the sort to get girly and giggly over anything, Hermione," he pointed out. "I had to hedge my bets."

"Well, you can tick off idiots who don't take pain medication and purposely get themselves hurt!"

"I think I must have been a little bit smart." He smirked, and she scowled to see him looking so damn triumphant, even while tucked up in bed with a bandage around his head. "After all, I did get you to fawn all over me, didn't I?"

"And what happens when you get hurt, hmm? What are you going to do then?"

"You mean hurt worse than I already get?" he teased. "You'll fix me up," he confidently stated. "You always do. Hell, maybe you could just kiss it better?" he slyly suggested. "That'd be far better for both of us, I'd wager."

With a mischievous smirk, she leaned in, hovering her lips barely an inch above his. Before he could close the distance, she pulled away, pressing her lips to the spot on the side of his head where the Bludger made contact.

"You're a horrible tease, you know that?" he grumbled, even as he leaned in to her touch.

"I have no intention of wearing you out just yet, Cormac, not when you still might be somewhat concussed," she stated with finality as she pulled away. "When you've recovered – properly, mind you – then we can explore this… whatever this is between us."

"No need to be so vague and shy about it, Granger." He grinned and settled back against his pillows. "We can explore this burning, searing lust between us, and see if it goes the way I'm hoping it will."

She returned his smile and turned to leave, waving her wand to extinguish the candles above his bed. "I see absolutely no reason why it wouldn't."

AN: And there you have it! I had so much trouble writing this one, but it was fun all the same! Leave a review if you've got a moment (and let me know if Cormac's a character you'd like to see more often...) and I'll be back later!