Healer-in-Charge Pye's face was serious on Monday morning, as Hermione took her seat in the chair in front of his desk. He had never been so serious about an assignment before, and the gravity of the situation gave Hermione pause.
"Thank you for accepting the assignment, Hermione," Pye started. "I'm glad I can rely on you to put aside your personal feelings in the interests of the patient."
"You know I'm dedicated to my job, sir," Hermione replied. "But there's no animosity between Malfoy and I, hasn't been for a long time."
"Good." Pye peered at her for a moment, before turning his gaze to the folder that sat on his desk in front of him. Writing in the top corner pronounced, Malfoy, Draco Lucius. "This is going to sound like a very strange story, Hermione."
"My life has been a strange story, sir," Hermione smiled.
Pye smiled grimly, and nodded. He handed the folder to Hermione, and gestured for her to open the folder.
She glanced through the papers in the file quickly, saving the less important information for a closer read later.
St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries
Case File: No. 214597
Name: Malfoy, Draco Lucius
Date of birth: 05/06/1980
Malady: Unidentified
"Unidentified malady?" Hermione asked, brow furrowed.
Pye sighed. "Unfortunately so," he answered. "He was first admitted ten months ago, about a week after New Year's. He'd attacked a colleague unprovoked, but couldn't remember anything of the fight or why he'd started it. He was admitted for amnesia, but the Healer in charge of him couldn't find any reason why."
The details seemed to match the story Harry had told her, so Hermione nodded.
"So his superficial injuries were healed, and he was dismissed," Pye continued. "Then, a month later, he was admitted again." The Healer In Charge's brows furrowed. "His mother had found him in a state of deliria. He was talking to himself, cowered in a corner of his room at their home…She attempted to placate him, and he attacked her."
"Did he remember that?"
Pye shook his head. "He was admitted to the Dylis Derwent Ward for monitoring, and screening tests were performed, for jinxes, hexes, malignant spellwork. Nothing was detected. There's nothing that could explain why he was talking to himself, or why he has these amnesiac episodes."
Hermione glanced down at the file again.
Symptoms:
Random and recurrent episodes of amnesia, in which violent behaviour is displayed
Frequent headaches
Patient claims there is a voice in his head, and often converses with it
"These symptoms have continued?" she asked.
"Yes," Pye confirmed. "The amnesia episodes, the violence, that doesn't come very often, only once in a while. But the headaches are constant, and he is adamant that there is a voice in his head that won't go away."
"A voice in his head?" Hermione raised a brow. Pye cocked his head, just as sceptical as she was.
"His violent episodes make him too dangerous to be dismissed," Pye said. "But we have no clue what could be causing them. No leads."
Hermione was silent. Incurable indeed.
"Come," Pye said, standing up. "I'll take you to see him."
Hermione followed him along the corridors of the Fourth Floor.
"Are we not going to the Dylis Derwent Ward, sir?" she asked, noticing their surroundings.
Pye shook his head. "He's been moved to the Janus Thickney Ward," he said. "Spell Damage is our best guess right now, and it certainly seems permanent enough to warrant a room there."
Pye stopped for a moment at the entrance to the Ward, to inform the Healer sitting in the entry booth of Hermione's new assignment, so that she would be able to make her future visits to the Ward without being questioned. After that brief pause, Hermione followed Pye down a secluded corridor, to a door at the very end.
With a muttered good luck, Pye opened the door.
Hermione wasn't sure what she had expected. Perhaps a frail, pale Malfoy, cowering in the corner of the room. Perhaps a Malfoy who was delirious and muttering to nothing in particular. Certainly not what she was seeing now.
Malfoy was sitting up straight in his bed, reading, of all things. And though he did look a little worse for wear, he seemed to be as healthy as one can expect. His face might have been gaunter than it was, but still held its aristocratic edges, and his hair, while not styled as usual, was the same platinum blonde she remembered. His pyjamas weren't the Hospital-issued lavender ones, but pale grey pyjamas - silk, by the way the sunlight gleamed on the folds.
"Granger?" His tone held surprise.
"Malfoy," she greeted, walking into the room.
She looked around the room; it seemed comfortable enough, far from a cage. Sunlight streamed through the window on the wall opposite the door, and the room was nicely furbished, for a hospital room. His bedhead stood to the left of the window, the low bedside table beside it fitting comfortably underneath the pane. As she glanced to the wall opposite the bed and the window, she saw that he even had his own separate bathroom.
Malfoy may be a patient, but he was a privileged one.
He eyed her lime green robes with a raised brow, placing his book onto his bedside table. "I didn't know you were a Healer."
She shrugged as she walked across the small room towards his bed. "I haven't been here long, only two years."
He smirked, the familiar sight unsettling Hermione even more. Wasn't he meant to be delirious?
"Well, you can't blame me for not noticing," he said now. "I was far too busy with my Auror job to notice you."
Despite his perplexing sanity, the familiar banter eased her, bringing her back to the last of their days at Hogwarts. There was his insult, as always, but she knew that they had stopped being meant as offence a long time ago. There was his bite, but with none of the venom. She pulled up a chair beside his bed. "Still self-absorbed, I see," Hermione smirked back. "As always."
"But would you rather I be any other way, Granger?" Malfoy snarked.
She spared a glance at the small stack of books on his bedside table, the only thing gracing its pale top. Her hand itched to straighten the haphazard pile, but she stopped herself. They seemed to be the only thing that was distinctly Malfoy in the room, even the messiness of it, the only thing making it feel more like a dorm room and less like a hospital room; she couldn't bring herself to take that away.
"So, what are you doing here?" Malfoy asked. "I wouldn't have pegged you for one of my visitors."
"I'm your new assigned Healer."
Malfoy raised a brow. "What, they ran out of people to fix -"
His face crumpled suddenly, and he cried out in pain. Hermione jumped, watching in alarm as he clutched his head.
"Malfoy, what's wrong?" she asked hurriedly. She approached him, a hand extended hesitantly, but suddenly, he hissed in a low, raspy voice, "Go away."
Hermione jolted back.
"O-Okay," she stuttered, about to walk backwards and out of the room, but then Malfoy spoke up again.
"Not you," he whispered. He turned to her, his face set in a grimace, but seeming like he was in less pain now. "I apologise, that…that wasn't me."
Her training kicked in, and she immediately pulled out her wand, casting some pain relief spells over Malfoy.
"Is that better?" she asked, anxious.
"No, pain relief spells don't work on this," he answered.
Hermione frowned, never having encountered such a situation before.
"Don't worry," Malfoy added. "It'll go away."
Unsure what else to do, she settled for Conjuring up a glass of water and handing it to him. He took the water gratefully.
"What do you mean, it wasn't you?" she asked.
Malfoy glanced at her for a second, before taking a deep breath. "It was…the thing," he said. "The voice in my head. It's just…angry, I guess, now that you're my assigned Healer."
Hermione stares at him in silence, mouth slightly agape. Malfoy let out a wry laugh.
"I knew you wouldn't believe me," he said. "None of the others did. If anything, you should be flattered." He pulled himself upright again. "It's scared of you. Maybe you can get rid of it after all."
Hermione struggled for a reply, but before she could, a knock sounded at the door. They both turned to see Hannah's face poking through.
"Hey, Mione," she said. "We need you. Emergency Ward."
Hermione nodded. As she walked out of the room, she glanced back, to see Malfoy still in pain, but grinning wryly at her.
"You alright there, Hermione?"
Hermione started. "Sorry?" she said to Hannah, who was looking at her strangely.
Hannah shook her head, going back to her case file for her current assignment. As with every Monday night, they were scheduled to be on the night shift at the Emergency Ward on the Fourth Floor, but it was a quiet night, and Hannah had taken to studying her current assignment.
"You've been quiet all night," Hannah said.
Hermione glanced down at the blanket in her hand. She had been meticulously making every bed in the Ward, tidying every bedside table and making sure everything was in its assigned place. It calmed her, to know that at least outside of her mind everything was in order. But she had been doing it with movements like those of a robot, or an animated puppet. She seemed to be mindless, she knew, but her mind was far from idle.
"Sorry Hannah," she said. "It's my new case. It's… tougher than I anticipated."
She walked over to Hannah and sat in a chair nearby.
"You know I'm always happy to help." Hannah smiled, before going back to her own file.
"Thanks, but I think I need to gather my thoughts about all of it first."
For the next while, they each sat in comfortable silence, each studying their assignment. Hermione pored over Malfoy's case file, brief as it was.
Malady: Unidentified
Symptoms:
Random and recurrent episodes of amnesia, in which violent behaviour is displayed
Frequent headaches
Patient claims there is a voice in his head, and often converses with it
Proffered remedies:
Pain relief spells, administered during periods of intense headache
Shocker Spells, administered during violent episodes
Private room with safety precautions in place
Investigation into possible causes of violent episodes and possible remedies underway
Malfoy was delirious then, to have claimed a voice in his head. That, or insane. Only insane people had voices in their head.
But try as she might, she couldn't get that image out of her head. The image of him smiling at her, in pain.
The Emergency Ward kept Hermione busy all Tuesday, but it gave her time to think. Malfoy may be crazy, but that pain he experienced was real, and it was her job, her duty, to make that pain go away.
It was barely light outside on Wednesday morning, when she made her way to his room.
"You're back," Malfoy said as she walked in. "I was expecting a new face to walk through that door. Thought you'd given up like all the others."
"In all the years you've known me, Malfoy, have I ever been the type to give up?" Hermione asked. The air in the room felt musty and heavy, so she crossed the room and opened the window. Fresh, cool air flowed through. "The day I do that is the day you become humble."
Malfoy let out a soft chuckle. "What are you talking about? I'm the most humble person you've ever met." Turning back to him, Hermione rolled her eyes, but was glad to see that the fresh air had helped lift the pallor somewhat from his face.
She crossed the room again, and settled on a chair beside his bed, taking out a roll of parchment and a self-inking quill. "Now," her voice took on a professional tone, clinical, almost. "These headaches, like the one that occurred on Monday when I was talking to you."
"Yes?"
"How often do they occur?"
He only stared at her sceptically for a moment before answering. "Everyday. Almost constantly."
Her eyes furrowed as she wrote on the notebook. "How intense are they?"
"For most of the time, it's…mild enough to be dismissed but intense enough to be annoying."
She grimaced sympathetically. "Most of the time?"
"They usually become more intense just before a…just before I become violent."
"Right." She paused her scribbling for a moment, hesitating. "These amnesiac episodes." She glanced at him somewhat apologetically, noticing the darkening in his eyes. Somehow, though, he seemed to understand that she didn't mean to be crude or offensive, she was simply being straightforward and doing her job. "Is there a pattern to when they occur?"
He thought for a moment.
"Not quite," he said. "They're kind of random. I never know when. Well…the headaches are always more intense before. And…" he glanced at her quickly. "And the voice starts talking to me."
Hermione's hand paused in its scribbling, but only for the briefest of moments.
"Thank you," she said finally, closing the notebook. "I know they've given you pain relief spells for the headaches, but they're not helping much are they?"
Malfoy shook his head.
"Hopefully I'll be able to come back with something more helpful."
With that, she headed for the door, feeling for the first time since she walked out the same door on Monday, that she had a purpose.
All through the day, when she wasn't busy on shift, she worked on the potion. The small library in the Hospital had the right texts that she could research for the right ingredients - mandrake root, dittany leaves, salamander's blood, all known for their curative and painkilling properties. The potion gave her something to throw herself into, something to challenge herself with. Based on her research and studies, she developed a method to the brewing, written neatly onto a piece of parchment that she kept on her at all times.
Boil wine
Add salamander blood - stir 5 times counter-clockwise
Leave for an hour
Stir 3 times clockwise
Add dittany leaves - stir once clockwise, then once counter-clockwise
Leave for 24 hours
Then add mandrake root
Leave for 20 minutes, then finish with counter curse to Bogey Curse
The brewing put her back in a methodical, analytical mindset. Malfoy was clearly a complex case, perhaps with more than one problem, and it was clear it wasn't one she could solve overnight. She had to approach this step by step, solve one problem at a time. First, she had to fix his headaches; after that, she'd worry about the amnesiac violence, and whatever else was ailing him.
She had made a promise, when she started Healer training, to help ease pain and preserve life. Malfoy was no different, and she'd be damned if she couldn't ease his pain, too.
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