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CHAPTER 10.

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"Mrs. Fitzgold is stable right now. I only need you to inform the nurse on this floor to check her every 45 minutes and monitor her blood lead levels every 2 hours. It's very late as it is Katherine, you can leave soon after." Hermione offered.

"Oh it's no problem Healer Weasley. It's been such a hectic night. I don't mind staying the night." Katherine piped.

"Oh no dear, that's not yet even your duty yet, you've overstayed your normal shift hours. You need not stay. It's ok." Hermione argued.

"Are you sure?" Katherine asked worriedly.

Hermione looked at her soon to be intern fondly. In the past few days, she had gotten close to her. Well, as close as Hermione could let any human get with her.

The younger witch was very much like Hermione was in her teenage days, although Katherine was intelligent, she was receptive and silent. Not talking unless absolutely necessary. She did everything that was asked of her and more.

She had noticed Hermione's reclusiveness and also her reaction to the new patient, Draco Malfoy. She had not asked anything, but had suspected that Draco was not only a patient. But she didn't want to intrude in her personal matters by asking her.

She knew that Hermione was tensed about his condition and that she was doing anything possible to revive him completely.

She wanted to help her with this; she had grown quite fond of the Healer as well.

Hermione smiled. "Absolutely. I'll tell you what. Tomorrow I'm going to check him with the legilimency monitor. You can come in early and help me with it."

Katherine beamed. "Really? I'd love to. I've never seen a legilimency monitor being used before."

"Yes. It's extremely restricted. That's probably why he was transferred here. Wizarding Sydney, Washington and Moscow are the only 3 cities that have hospitals that have legilimency monitors. And every time you use it, you need a valid reason and need to get registered before using it. Because of its extremely invasive nature, one cannot use it freely. Imagine if everyone started using them? There would be mayhem." Hermione explained.

Katherine nodded sincerely. "I can imagine. Although I don't know how it will work. Will it tell you the thoughts Mr. Malfoy had while he was in the game?"

Hermione shook her head. "No. Even better than that. Have you heard of something called the penseive?"

"Yes. I have. But I've never seen one or been inside a memory." Katherine replied.

"Okay. So the principle is the same. When you connect its cords to the patients head, the adjacent screen lights up and shows us exactly what happened as if it were recorded. Instead of being IN the memory, we can see it from outside as an audience." Hermione explained.

Katherine seemed impressed. "Wow. That's incredible."

"Indeed it is." Hermione answered. "I've sent a petition to the ministry. By tomorrow we should have the permit and we can conduct the test if required. Till then, tonight I'm going to try using all possible de-charming spells I know on that rogue bludger."

"Oh yeah. The coach sent the bludger with one of his players." Katherine said and blushed.

Hermione suspected that the player must have certainly flirted with Katherine while on his errand. Quidditch players were known Katherine was a beautiful witch.

"Hmmm." Hermione said with an abstract look towards Katherine. "I presume this certain sportsman will be visiting the hospital often?"

Katherine looked uncertain how to answer this question, so she just opted for silence, hoping that her blush would subside.

"Okay Healer Weasley. I'll see you early tomorrow morning. Good night." Katherine mumbled before leaving.

Hermione laughed at her junior's discomfort. The sound of her own laughter seemed so foreign to her. She could probably count on her fingers the number of times she had openly laughed since she had shifted here.

Draco's letters had lightened her mood considerably. But she was still sceptical about meeting him face to face. She didn't know if she was ready.

Ready or not, she was his Healer now. So she had to see him. There were no two ways about it. The petition had her name as attending Healer. And the law demanded that she follow him up till he was cured or dead. Whichever was sooner. Of course he wouldn't die in his condition. So she had to be in touch with him till he got better.

Sighing, she decided she would bother about it when he woke up. There were at least some 15 more hours of sleep left.

She made her way towards her cabin where the bludger was kept.

A hot cup of tea first and then she would get cracking on the offensive bludger.

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Surprisingly, the case of the animated bludger frustrated Hermione enough to fall asleep for a bit.

She awoke quite fresh even after only 4 hours of sleep. She had spent the better part of the night trying all possible spells and charms on the bludger. None worked. And Draco continued his sleep patterns happily.

He would wake in 7 hours and Hermione needed to use the legilimency monitor on him before that. In fact, the game had lasted for an hour and ten minutes, thus she needed to check his memory of the game in less than 5 hours.

Just as she brushed her teeth and washed her face, Katherine came in excitedly with a parchment in hand.

"Healer Weasley! The permit has arrived. We can do the test now."

"Oh good. I was just thinking that we need to buck up before he wakes up." Hermione replied.

Hermione and Katherine made their way towards Draco's room and Katherine promptly went about connecting the monitor to Draco.

Hermione checked his other vitals and after ensuring that he was fine and that all the connections were in order, she set the date and time of the Quidditch match in question on the monitor and waited for it to retrieve the sleeping patient's memories.

She and Katherine settled on the chairs in front of the monitor.

"Okay fellas. Good luck. Remember to switch after 3 goals. Malfoy and Peters stay put. Donovan, keep a lookout for the goals. Go on." The coach yelled.

The team followed each other out and one by one they mounted on their beautiful speedshifter brooms into the airfield.

The players settled themselves into their respective positions. Hermione was not much well versed with the rules, but watching Harry and Ron's every match had given her enough knowledge about the game.

She could make out that there was one beater and one chaser less, so that's why the shuffling was taking place.

She happened to see the gold fluttering for a fraction of a second and could notice Draco's eyes linger at the snitch too, but just as they saw it; it was off in the air and invisible again.

Then she noticed the bludger, it was roaming about on its own and it swerved towards one of the players on its own accord. He ducked and the bludger took off again.

The game continued for a bit and the bludger came dangerously close to Draco once, but a chaser drove it away thankfully.

A few circles around the pitch and Draco had spotted the snitch. The seeker of the opposing team had spotted Draco spot it and he kept close to him in hope of seeing it himself.

And then he saw it.

But not before Draco.

Draco dived towards the left and for a second the other seeker looked confused but swerved a slight left to corner Draco but this slight stalling cost him and Draco took this advantage to swerve a sharp right and go straight in the line of the snitch.

He sped forward maniacally with his arm outstretched to its limit.

The other seeker was a foot away, trying to gain momentum, but Draco came awfully close and was a hairs breadth away from the wings of the snitch.

Hermione and Katherine were almost glued to the screen, having gotten up from the chairs and actually in front of the screen by now.

Draco's palm curled around the snitch and he pumped both his fists in the air as a sign of victory. His team mates were hoarse from cheering. But suddenly there was silence.

The charmed bludger was making its way toward Draco with alarming speed.

Before Draco could even finish smiling his wide smile of victory, he had been hit and his body plummeted down with his broom hanging in its place, as it was.

The screen went blank immediately because Draco must have lost consciousness on impact.

But neither the blow nor the blanking of the screen shocked Hermione and Katherine. They were standing in front of the screen, mouths wide open, and eyes wide in disbelief.

"Did you?" Katherine started.

"I did. But how is it possible?" Hermione said.

"I can't believe it." Katherine breathed.

"Now I know why no one knew what happened. We barely managed to make out." Hermione said.

Katherine nodded. "Mr. Malfoy is still in this state because he thought he caught the snitch. He almost did. But he didn't feel or see it slip again when he pumped his fist."

Hermione nodded excitedly. "Exactly. The game is not over yet."

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There!

She's found the reason!

Hope you enjoyed the little mystery!

Thanks for reading!

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