Chapter Two

~Ellie~

It was quicker to jump on our bikes to get to the hospital instead of negotiating the Friday night traffic. We rode in silence, Draco's mind no doubt where mine was at; those poor people who'd been caught up in such a horrific accident.

At the Emergency Department staff entrance, he suddenly turned to me, grabbing my left hand, rubbing his thumb over my wedding band. "Are we alright?" There was such a vulnerability in his voice, his eyes, I did something I wouldn't do so publicly in our work environment. I reached up, kissing him firmly.

"Yes, I promise." His shoulders relaxed, and I cursed myself for my fears causing his own.

"I'm glad."

"Let's go do our thing." I winked, which dragged a self-assured smirk to his lips, before we walked through the double doors. There we parted to the gender separated change areas. It could be either minutes or hours before we would speak again.

…

"The next arrivals will have to stay here until there's space on the wards." I mused to my colleague, Adam, who'd just reported how many more crash or explosion victims would be arriving. Apparently, the rescue teams were confident it was the last of the trapped, and there were some in a critical way.

"Unless they end up down in ICU..." He muttered. I raised a brow at him. We couldn't think like that, but this was the worst mass accident to ever befall the city. The night wore on us all. So far, we'd lost four people in ED alone. Five more passed in ICU.

A call over the PA system alerted us to the first of the new arrivals and with a determination to ensure my next patient survived, having lost an elderly man an hour earlier, I washed my hands and hurried to the swinging double doors. A stretcher rushed in, a small child at its head. My heart stopped a moment, before restarting again and I quickly exchanged information on his condition with Mel, a paramedic I'd seen all too much of tonight.

No sooner had Mel run through his condition, the boy started convulsing, fresh blood spilling from his pale lips. "X-ray, now!" I instructed as the paramedics slid the boy over to one of our beds and rolled him safely on his side, ramping up the sides of the bed to keep him from falling out. A nurse re-hooked him up to oxygen on one of our tanks as four of us pushed him into radiology.

"Shit." Gavin, our head radiologist cursed, seeing the boy. "He needs CT."

"He's not still enough. X-ray on his chest, ultrasound if needed." I replied. "What's left in the blood bank? He's A Positive."

"We've got that." Someone replied from behind me and raced off.

"Gavin had the boy X-rayed and the results to me in moments and then we were rushing him into theatre, and I was hastily re-scrubbing up with Adam at my side as someone else suctioned the blood from the boy's upper airways. He was only a child, he couldn't die, he couldn't.

~Draco~

"Draco!" I spun on my heel, abandoning the patient notes I'd been checking over to face one of the nurses, Izzy. "We've got another one, head trauma." Nodding I returned the notes and strode out to meet my next patient.

"Female, early twenties, no ID on her. Serious head trauma to the frontal."

"Lobe damage?"

"Unlikely but Cat her." I nodded. "Blood loss from left leg injury and head injury. She's had half a unit of O Neg, but that's all we had and not nearly enough to get her out of danger. Three, maybe four broken ribs and right arm dislocated."

"Right." I observed the unconscious form, tangled auburn curls trailing to splay over the pillow as the nurses and another paramedic shifted her from ambo stretcher to one of ours. She looked familiar, something about her face... "Let's get her x-rayed." I made a quick scribble to her notes. "Someone get a unit of O Neg, I want her hooked up immediately." My gaze moved over Izzy's shoulder, sighting Ellie. She was leaving one of the theatre rooms, arms tight around her middle, head down. Shit, had she lost a patient?

"This fell out of her pocket when we shifted her." Izzy interrupted my worries, holding up a narrow object about the length of an office ruler. I stared a full several seconds at the wand she held out before coming to my senses and taking it. My own magic immediately thrummed through my veins. I hadn't held a wand since the war...

"Looks like an artistry implement of some kind. I'll be sure it stays with her." I replied, carefully pocketing it, following them into radiology. While they set up, Izzy helped me remove the bandage from the woman, well witch's head. It was an injury to her forehead, and while deep her brain was probably fine. The scans would show more.

While they scanned her, I wondered again at her identity. If I recognized her, and she was a witch, I needed to know who it was. I took her wand out, examining its design for some clue. My mind flashed back to third year, this very same wand thrust at my throat, before an irate Hermione Granger, punched me.

"I know who she is!" I called out to no-one in-particular, as someone entered the room.

"Draco, there's no O Neg left, the bank's depleted."

"What!" I stared back at the unconscious witch as scans were complete and Gavin now x-rayed her rib area.

"We haven't any more O Neg."

"Shit." I wracked my brain. If only I had a blood replenishing potion... not that I had the ingredients to begin to brew one, and if I did, I was surrounded by muggles. I needed O Neg… Ellie. "Get Ellie, now!"

~Ellie~

"Draco needs you." I nodded, donning clean scrubs and retrying back my hair before pushing my Nikes back on. The young boy, I hadn't been able to save him. His spleen had ruptured, adding to his injuries, and he'd died under my useless hands.

"Elle?" I looked up at Alexa, her brown eyes filled with compassion. "Adam said there was nothing you could have done. Don't beat yourself up." I sighed, nodding as I followed her back into the night's madness, running a hand across my stomach, pushing back just how much it hurt knowing there was a mother out there who would never see her child again.

"Ellie." It was so good to see him, and I wanted to just run into his arms and cry, but that could wait.

"We are out of O Neg in supplies, she's only just hanging in there." Draco gestured to the deathly pale, curly haired woman lying unconscious on the stretcher.

"Okay, let's get set up." We were both blood donors, and I was O Negative a universal donor, meaning anyone could receive my blood.

While one of the nurses, Izzy, quickly set up for the transfusion, I checked over Draco's patient. Her heart rate was elevated, and the blood pressure reading stated it was dangerously low. I didn't want to think how she'd lost so much blood.

Finally, Izzy was ready, and I sat as still as I could in a chair whilst Draco expertly inserted an access line into my forearm. I hadn't had one put in since we were med students practicing on one another, and although he was now exceptionally good at getting them in patients' veins, I still winced. Glancing at the woman in the bed, I chastised myself. One needle was nothing compared to the pain and danger the victims of that accident had and still were going through. The lives lost.

I watched as Draco flushed the pre-primed line with saline before drawing back. "Perfect." He murmured, removing the syringe to twist a connector on the end. Within seconds, I was connected to one of the machines on the IV pole, my blood slowly making its way along the thin tubing, into the machine and then across to the second one which Draco's patient was connected to.

Izzy had left, and checking the woman again, Draco made notes before kneeling at my side. I studied his face, noting the dark rings under his eyes.

"I know this is unconventional, but I couldn't have her die." He ran a hand back through his hair and sighed. "Her name is Hermione Granger, she went to school with me." I know my eyes widened, and I won't lie, a sliver of fear crawled cold across my skin.

"Will she recognize you?" He gave a short bark of laughter.

"No doubt she will. I'm not exactly the type which blends in." I nodded, shifting to rest my free hand on his arm. Draco had a habit of attracting attention wherever he went. White-blonde hair, mercurial eyes and looks and a tall build that could kill. No, he did not blend in.

"Do you think she will say anything?" I worried aloud.

"Maybe, I don't know." He flashed me a smirk, suddenly twirling a carved and polished stick between his fingers. "I've got her wand, so at least I'll have the upper hand to begin with-"

"But you're worried."

"I imagine she is rather high up in their politics and what not now. Hopefully she'll go on her way and leave me be." He pocketed the wand before scrutinizing me. "Feeling alright, no side effects?"

"I'm fine."

"You didn't eat dinner in the end."

"I had that late lunch." I pointed out although I knew it was lame. By his raised brow, I knew he didn't believe my lunch excuse from earlier.

"Yes, the 'late lunch'." He rolled his eyes.

"I'll explain, just not now, when we are home again." He stood, pressing a chaste kiss to my forehead.

"As long as you are well, that is enough. I can wait."

"Thank you." I whispered, suddenly wanting to cry again. I shook my head, clearing it while his back was turned checking on his patient. A witch! Not just any, one who knew him. One who might turn his world back upside down.

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