CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Summary: Nine years after the war, Hermione's the Head of the Auror Department that specialises in dealing with Magical Creatures and fugitive Death Eaters that are loose in the Muggle World. With the fugitive Death Eaters no longer hiding in Britain, she's tracking rogue Death Eaters in the United States, which leads her to The Winchester brothers. The Witch and The Hunters are a dynamic trio that no creature, being or beast wishes to mess with, Magical or Supernatural. Hermione/Dean pairing. Rated M for a reason.
Disclaimer: I don't own original canon characters or events, just those that I create myself. Everything belongs to J.K Rowling and the creators of Supernatural. I am not making a profit posting this fanfic.
Page count: 7
He shook her lightly in his arms and her eyes slowly opened as if it were a chore. "Don't you dare fall asleep on me!" He warned.
"I'm tired," she mumbled.
"I don't care; if you fall asleep, I'll shoot you."
"Okay," she muttered in agreement but her eyes drifted closed.
He shook her more furiously and her eyes opened once more, slower than they had before.
"Don't make me slap you," he threatened.
"Like to see you try," she snorted weakly.
"Hermione!"
Dean tore his eyes away from her, only just noticing that Sam was kneeled beside him and that her friend Harry was running over to them, his hood down and robes hung open. He looked to have a few injuries himself; a burn on his torso, one on the side of his face and one on his leg, along with a few cuts on his face and his glasses were cracked and his hair sticking out at odd angles as if he'd been electrocuted. With everything he'd witnessed in the last couple of hours, Dean wouldn't be that surprised if he had been and there was a spell for such a thing.
"What happened?" Harry demanded, dropping down to his knees and a wave of jealousy swept through Dean when Harry pushed some loose curls out of Hermione's face and she tiredly leaned into his touch, struggling to keep her eyes open.
"The Cruciatus," she mumbled.
"Again!" He panicked. "Hermione, you know what the healers said about that curse, if you were hit with it again it could kill you, if not, have a serious impact on your health, you may never recover." Horror filled Dean at his words. "How long? How long?"
Dean pulled himself out of his thoughts and looked at Harry blankly.
"How long was she under the curse?"
"A minute, two at most," he answered.
Harry breathed a sigh of relief. "Alright, that's good, longer than five minutes and that's when we have serious problems. The battle's over, we won. Death Eaters are being transported to the British Ministry to be processed and those that're badly injured have been taken to St. Helga's for treatment. I'm afraid we can't move her; we can't risk worsening her injuries. I'll port-key to the hospital and return with a healer, I'll be no more than five minutes. Try to keep her still and do not let her fall asleep." Harry said in a no-nonsense tone that they were surprised by. "I'll be right back, okay?" He said to Hermione, his voice softening. She did her best to nod and he smiled at her sadly before leaning down and pressing a kiss to her forehead. "Don't you dare fall asleep."
"We both know that I probably will," she muttered in response.
"Well don't, I'm not afraid to pull the Molly card."
"You wouldn't dare,"
"We both know I'd do anything when it comes to your safety, including going to our pseudo-mother to scold you until you're red in the face and so ashamed of yourself, you'll want to disappear. And if you leave Ginny, she'll kill you. So will George, and Bill and Charlie and..."
"I get your point, I won't fall asleep," she weakly promised.
"That's the Hermione I know, welcome back to sanity."
"When I'm better, I'm hexing your arse."
He snorted. "Wizard's duel it is," he nodded before taking out the port-key from his pocket and disappearing from view, leaving Dean and Sam staring at the empty spot before they turned their eyes back to Hermione.
"Are you okay, Hermione?" Sam asked her worriedly.
"Of course she isn't!" Dean snapped, glaring at him murderously.
"I'll be fine, Sam," she ignored Dean's outburst. "It's not like it's the first time I've been tortured." She tried to smile but it looked more like a grimace.
"Just how many times have you been tortured?" He looked terrified of learning the answer.
Before she was able to answer, Harry reappeared with a stern-looking middle-aged woman wearing green healer scrubs and white robes over the top, her greying hair tied tightly in a bun and glasses perched on the tip of her nose, dark eyes hidden behind the lenses.
"Mr. Potter has explained your situation," she stated calmly, getting down on her knees and pulling a medical bag out of her pocket, unshrinking it and opening it up before digging around inside. "He has mentioned that you have been tortured before, Miss. Granger, before I can give you treatment I need to know just how many times you have suffered under the Cruciatus."
"I'm not certain," she frowned tiredly. "We're well into double digits, over the last ten years I would say approximately sixty-three."
The healer dropped the potion she'd just retrieved from her bag onto the floor in shock and horror and it smashed, glass littering the ground and the potion seeping into a puddle.
"What about that time you had to go to Budapest for a case?" Harry mentioned.
"Oh, I forgot about that, sixty-seven."
"And Egypt, Peru, Japan, Finland, Russia..."
Hermione sighed. "Okay, so maybe we're higher than I originally thought. I forget."
"How the fuck can you forget you've been tortured!" Dean demanded of her.
"It's a common occurrence in my life, one incident blends into another until I can't tell them apart; I can't remember where I was, who it was or when it was."
"Miss. Granger, how are you still alive? I have never heard of someone surviving past six hours of the Cruciatus, and that's with their sanity no longer intact," the healer spoke, a nauseous expression on her face and her skin paling.
"We're not sure; combined I've been exposed to well over one hundred hours of torture. Sometimes it lasted for a couple of minutes, other times hours. In one case it was three days before I was able to escape and capture my target, it was a rescue mission as one of the Aurors under my command screwed up and went into a situation blindly. He was held for a week before I was notified of him not checking in with my deputy, it took me three days to find him and three days to get us both to safety. He's been on the Janus Thickey ward at St. Mungo's for the last four years," she spoke sadly.
"Miss. Granger, I am not sure how to treat someone in your situation, anything I give you may possibly kill you, the risk is too high," she said regretfully. "You'd need a miracle, I'm afraid there's nothing I can do for you. We just have to pray that God is listening and that he will help."
"Maybe not God, but an Angel," Sam muttered to Dean as he leaned closer to him to keep the healer from hearing.
Harry must've heard as his eyes flickered between Hermione and the brothers before he took the healer and apparated out of there without so much as a warning.
"Cas! Cas! Hermione needs you!" Dean yelled, looking up at the sky. They waited but nothing happened. "For fuck's sake! Where's Cas when you need him?" Dean snarled in anger.
"Dean, I'm tired, I just want to sleep," Hermione's eyes drifted closed.
"No, Hermione, don't fall asleep!"
He shook her in his hold and her eyes closed; she wouldn't wake. The panic he felt multiplied tenfold when he lifted her eyelid to see her eyes had rolled into the back of her head and she didn't look to be breathing.
"Cas!" Dean bellowed as loud as he could, his voice breaking slightly as Hermione lay lifeless in his arms.
"Dean, Sam?"
Their heads spun around to see Castiel approaching them, he looked around the rubble and blood covered rooftop, his eyes landing on them and his head tilting to the side like a confused puppy.
"Get the fuck over here, Hermione's hurt!" Dean ordered.
Something inside of Castiel seemed to snap and his face turned to worry and his steps quickened. When he saw Hermione's form, he dropped to his knees beside her and stared at her silently, blankly. He'd seen Hermione hurt many times during her life, he'd even seen her shot by Dean, but he'd never seen her so lifeless.
"What happened?" He asked, unable to tear his eyes away from her, something inside of him twisting painfully. It was almost as if...A part of him was dying.
"Less talking and more healing!" Dean snapped, causing Castiel to startle and he slowly pressed two fingers to Hermione's forehead as Sam eyed Dean thoughtfully. He'd never seen him so...So afraid of losing someone except for him. What the hell was going on with his brother?
Castiel frowned in concentration.
"What's wrong, why isn't it working?" Dean panicked, seeing that it was taking far longer than it usually would.
"She's close to death," Castiel muttered.
"WHAT!"
"She's close to death," his frown deepened. "Her injuries are substantial. Her body has shut down so that her magic may try and keep her alive, her magical core is in overdrive, I can feel it. It's thrumming through her body, swarming every cell and nerve ending, trying to repair the damage but it's too extensive, even with magical healing she wouldn't have survived."
"Are you saying she's going to die?" Sam said quietly, eyeing Hermione in horror.
"No, she's not going to die," Castiel spoke resolutely; he wouldn't allow it. "I've never healed injuries as significant as these before. She's been tortured again. The dark magic is lingering inside within her, attacking her organs and they are shutting down."
"But you can save her, right? You can help her?" Dean all but begged.
"I can save her," Castiel nodded.
They fell into silence and it was almost ten minutes later when Castiel removed his fingers from her forehead, a tired look entering his eyes as he took a steadying breath. They noticed that although blood still stained her robes and dirt still covered her face, her burns had healed, a new layer of skin replacing the old, her cuts had healed and left no scarring, the wound on her side stopped bleeding and sealed and her skin no longer looked pale or sickly.
"Why isn't she waking up?"
"She's in a coma; although she is physically healed, her magical core needs to right itself. It needs to regenerate and get her magic flowing back through her body as it's what sustains her, it keeps her alive and healthy. There is nothing I can do to speed up the process and I am unsure of how long that process will take. Her mind appears to have shut off and I found that she has erected strong mental barriers which I had difficulty trying to gain access through. She needs to process today's events. Until she wakes, she will remain in this state but physically she is fine, all that you can do is wait. When she wakes, you must tell her that if she falls under the curse again in the future, she will die and there will be nothing I can do save her, it would kill her instantly."
Dean let out a breath and shifted Hermione in his arms. Although his arms were starting to go numb, he wasn't going to set her down on the cold, hard rooftop.
"Where were you?" Dean asked and he looked to him with tired eyes and a drained expression. "Where were you when she was attacked? She told me she called for you but you never answered her. You left her and she was almost raped," his voice turned angry, his glare murderous.
"She did not need me."
"She was attacked!" He snarled.
Sam flinched back in surprise at the anger held in his brother's voice and expression. Had he ever seen him so furious? He didn't think so.
"But she did not need me. If she had I would've been there. She took care of Bowman herself, just as I knew she could. I would not have let him hurt her; I would've intervened if it was required of me."
Dean didn't reply knowing there was no point in arguing with the Angel, he didn't and couldn't process emotion as humans could, so he let his eyes fall to Hermione's face, being relieved to see she was breathing, that she looked healthy. If he didn't know she was in a coma he would've thought she was just sleeping peacefully.
He didn't even notice Castiel healing both him and Sam of their injuries, nor did he notice Castiel exiting the rooftop, leaving only him, Sam and Hermione.
"Dean, it's getting cold and the sun's setting, we should get her somewhere warm, somewhere comfortable where she'll be safe," Sam spoke, pulling him from his thoughts. "I saw a motel about fifteen minutes from here when we were driving, maybe we can stop there," he offered.
Wordlessly, Dean reached for Hermione's fallen wand and shifted her in his hold as he stood up, carrying her in his arms and walking through the door and down the stairs until he reached the ground floor and he exited the warehouse. They received a few strange looks from the remaining Aurors that were cleaning up and dealing with the aftermath but they ignored them.
Dean was glad to see that the spell Hermione had placed on the Impala had worn off and without asking for help from Sam, he put Hermione onto the back seat and he climbed in with her, resting her head gently against his leg and letting his arm curl around her stomach to keep her in place lest she falls off the seat and injure herself. Sam climbed into the driver's side and turned on the ignition, pulling away from the battle that had taken place. He drove at a leisurely pace as to not jostle Hermione and keep her as comfortable as possible and once they reached the motel, Dean climbed out of the Impala, being mindful of Hermione and he headed to the reception area.
"Two doubles," he muttered tiredly, dropping money onto the counter, not even bothering to count it, nor to ask for two rooms. There was no way in hell he was leaving Hermione alone and without protection.
He took the room key from the old man behind the counter that way eyeing him warily, likely due to dirt and blood smudged on his face and the white robes he was still wearing. He was sure he looked a sight.
Dean quickly returned to the Impala and silently retrieved Hermione, carrying her to their room as Sam followed after him with his arms laden with their duffle bags. Sam opened the door for them and Dean entered the room, placing Hermione down gently onto the bed furthest away from the window and closest to the bathroom.
"Was there only one room available?" Sam asked.
"Yes," Dean answered without hesitation, although truthfully, he had no idea, he hadn't asked.
Sam didn't comment as he placed the duffle bags on the floor and watched as Dean shifted Hermione out of her robes, removed the arsenal belt from around her waist and he took off her boots, placing her spare wand on the bedside table along with her other wand. He pulled the blanket from beneath her and covered her with the blanket before he grabbed a chair from the small table and dragged it over to the bed, dropping himself down in it and sighing tiredly, running his hand through his hair and over his face.
Sam demon proofed the room, placing salt and hiding demon traps in all the appropriate places, before excusing himself from the room and going into the bathroom, to clean away the dirt and dried blood, removing his robes and changing into clean clothes. When he exited the bathroom, Dean hadn't moved from his place by Hermione's bedside.
"I'm going to get us some food, is there anything you want?" Sam asked his brother. Dean shrugged in reply, still not taking his eyes from Hermione's sleeping form. "She'll be fine, Cas said so himself, we just have to wait for her to wake up," he said, clapping Dean on the shoulder and then leaving out the room, locking the door behind him and taking the key with him.
Dean sat in his chair in complete silence, watching the rise and fall of Hermione's chest, not daring to look away in case she stopped breathing.