CW: Gore
"Get Snape!" Hermione screamed, leaping into action. She flew to Cedric's side as he collapsed. Cedric didn't seem to care that his side was hemorrhaging, instead shakingly offering the rose of blood to her, which Hermione impatiently brushed aside, holding her hands over his side tightly to try and help stem the bleeding. "Viktor, get help!"
Up close, the wound in his side looked much, much worse than she'd expected – instead of just a gaping wound from a knife (which would have been bad enough on its own), the edges of his skin had curled in, turned black with necrosis. Her mind flying, Hermione spared a thought to cast a containment charm on the dagger that had fallen to Cedric's side, hoping to keep it from nicking anyone else, before she looked closer at what she was dealing with. She cast a Cleansing Charm at his side, making Cedric howl in pain, and though Hermione winced - she was able to get a better look at the wound without all that blood in the way.
The necrosis didn't seem to be spreading quickly, seemingly affecting only the parts the blade of the knife had touched. But Cedric had stuck the knife into his side – into his stomach, into his organs – and internal necrosis, hidden and unseen, no matter how slow –
It wouldn't stop, Hermione thought in a panic. She knew it wouldn't stop – Tom Riddle's ring had had a similar curse on it, and it hadn't stopped until it'd killed him. Tom's lessons on cursebreaking flew through Hermione's mind, two of them dismissed in a heartbeat, before she reached out with her magic into Cedric's wound, feeling for what felt different, what was aberrant, what didn't belong. As soon as she felt the foreign Dark magic –an oily ice so cold it burned – she grabbed the necrosis, her own magic laden with determination, and yanked.
Cedric screamed, and the horrible sound was deafening up close and personal, making her ears ring. The Dark magic under her hands roiled, fighting back, but Hermione grimly held on, forcing as much raw magic as she could into his rotting flesh. She had no idea of a counter-curse, and she didn't have time to deconstruct the necrotizing spell, so overwhelming the original magic and burning it out was the only option she had – even if it made Cedric howl, his voice filling in the Entrance Hall like a banshee's wail in awful ear-splitting shrieks.
The oily cold of the necrosis squirmed under her magic, as if trying to squirm away from her grasp, but Hermione was having none of it – if she was going to save Cedric, she was going to save Cedric, damnit. Reaching out with another part of her magic, Hermione grabbed ahold of the ley line that ran through and underneath Hogwarts, full of raw magic, and she grit her teeth against the pain as she used her body as conduit to channel the magic directly into Cedric's body, determined to overwhelm the curse and burn the Dark magic out. Cedric keened and screamed under her hands, sobbing, but to her relief, Hermione saw the black necrosis begin to recede, leaving just pink, bloody torn edges of skin and flesh behind.
Hermione exhaled, breathing hard as she looked at the wound, ignoring the agonizing pain of the ley line's energy lingering in her hands and arms as she let the ley line go. Now that the Dark magic was gone, Hermione was left with another problem: Cedric was bleeding to death on the floor in front of her, and it didn't look like an Episkey was going to be much help.
"Here." Hermione looked up to see Susan Bones dropping to her knees next to her, handing Hermione the rose of blood Cedric had tried to give her. Susan was pale, but her eyes were determined. "Put this back in him, and then we'll try and seal him up."
Hermione took the rose without thought – dark red, so dark of a red – before she turned to regard his wound once again.
It was as good an idea as any.
Touching the rose of blood was horrifying; cold and gross, a revolting, weirdly-congealed wet texture, and Hermione tried not to think about it as she shoved it as deep as she could into Cedric's side, provoking another scream of pain. She tried not to think about the sudden warm wetness enveloping her hand up to the wrist, and she desperately tried not to flinch as Cedric shrieked as Hermione bumped up against something – grazing his kidney or something in there, she wasn't going to think about it too much – as she pushed the rose back into his innards and let go.
Her hands were now covered in blood as she pulled free, drenched in bright red, and Hermione immediately put her hands back over the wound, her eyes looking up wildly to meet Susan's.
"Follow me as soon as you can follow," Hermione told her, before closing her eyes and reaching to her magic once again as she began to sing. "Vul-ner-a San-en-tur, Vulnera Sanentur…"
The odd healing spell she'd found so long ago pulsed under her hands, rippling out of her and into him, and Hermione could feel the spell start to slow the flow of blood under her hands. Susan joined in as Hermione repeated the song, singing again, and Hermione could feel Cedric's skin start to knit together under her fingers, his skin extending unnaturally, melding together into awful warp threads and cords of flesh. Hermione sang again and again, desperately trying not to think about what she could feel happening under her hands – his flesh twining and weaving itself back together, the edges melding, moving under her hands – and Hermione sang and sang and sang, with no concept of time, until she could feel nothing more moving under her touch and the wound was fully closed.
Hermione looked up to discover that Cedric had fallen unconscious at some point during it all. He seemed to still be breathing though, so that was a plus.
"That's all I can do," Hermione said, finally pulling away from him. She looked up to see Professor Sprout and Madame Pomfrey were standing there at the ready, both of them looking pale. "He needs a Blood-Replenisher—"
"We'll take it from here," Professor Sprout assured her immediately, flicking her wand and lifting Cedric's body into the air. She and Madame Pomfrey immediately left for the Hospital Wing nearly at a run, with Susan leaping to her feet and sprinting after them – leaving Hermione kneeling there alone on the floor in a pool of blood.
A sudden exhaustion hit Hermione as her adrenaline began to drain from her system, rendering her so dizzy for a moment she thought she might pass out. She took a deep breath, exhaling carefully to try and get her bearings. She didn't know if she'd been hyperventilating, but steady, reliable oxygen wouldn't hurt, right?
The air smelled strongly of copper and iron – Cedric's blood lingering on the stones, on her robes, on her hands—and Hermione shoved the thought out of her head as breathed steadily, finally looking up and around, her eyes taking in her own situation for the first time.
Students ringed the Entrance Hall, all of them staring, whispering, gossiping, and murmuring, their eyes fixed on her. Viktor stood by the entrance to the Great Hall with Snape right behind him, along with Dumbledore, Moody, Karkaroff, and the other Triwizard Judges. Bagman's mouth was agape, while Crouch wore a look of horror Hermione had never seen on his face before. Fleur was held in Madame Maxime's arms protectively; Madame Maxime looked frightened, but Fleur was beaming at Hermione in pride, and Hermione felt her heart lighten just a little.
Amidst the whispering, Professor Snape came forward, kneeling in the blood without hesitation. He took Hermione's hands in his own, turning one of them over, observing.
"Very—very little of it is mine," Hermione managed, trying to reassure him. Words were somehow hard, even though she had her breath back now; her voice somehow missing, weak. "Only a little – I think maybe a thorn on the blood rose stabbed me—"
"You are very lucky, Miss Granger, that your attempt to overpower that curse did not rebound and leave you dead." Snape's voice was a quiet murmur as he cast an Augmanti charm to clean her hands of blood, followed up by an Episkey charm. "Where did you learn that Healing spell?"
"Uh—I read it, once," Hermione said, wincing as Snape helped her to her feet from her knees. Her knees ached from pressing into the stone for so long, a sudden pain she hadn't expected slamming into her legs. "It was on a piece of music, and I—I don't know, I just reached for it with my magic—it all happened so fast—"
Snape crouched down, very gingerly picking up the obviously cursed dagger, and stood up once more. He looked at the knife, turning it over in his hands, then looked at Hermione, and Hermione could see him visibly withhold a sigh.
"Please come with me, Miss Granger," he requested. His eyes were grim. "Things have just gotten a lot more complicated."