10-4

Chapter Two

When Draco's eyes opened, it was to florescent tube lights, weird textured ceilings and the smell of alcohol. He was in a wheelchair, someone pushing him down the hall at an urgent pace. 

"Granger! We need you, stat!" the person pushing him called out, turning into another hallway 

Draco blinked, his vision doubling and swaying. Granger. He knew that name from somewhere...

He was pushed into a large room, the walls and counters lined with tools and equipment. 'Granger' turned, and Draco's whole world came crashing down.

Granger.

Hermione blinked, clearly stunned to see Draco, but she turned her attention to the nurse pushing him. "What's going on?"

"Shotgun to the back. The pellets need to be removed and probably stitched up."

"Broken bones? Punctured organs?"

"Vitals are decently normal, so no, I don't think so. He came directly from a fight about thirty minutes ago."

"Thank you, Sarah. You can go."

Draco heard the door shut as Hermione sighed, pulling on a pair of latex gloves. "Can you move your fingers?"

Draco blinked before nodding dumbly, flexing his hands into a weak fist.

"Okay, good. Can you take off your shirt or do you need help?"

Draco moved to take it off, but he winced and let out a soft moan of pain. "Don't overwork yourself," She warned. "Here, grab on."

Draco slung himself around Hermione with much assistance, stumbling over to the table-bench-thing where she helped him sit before untucking Draco's shirt and carefully but swiftly undoing the buttons and peeling the soaked shirt off of his arms and back. 

She dropped it onto an empty tray nearby, prompting Draco to turn slightly. Hermione whistled under her breath. "Going by the spread, he was quite close. You're lucky your magic protected you, otherwise you could be dead right now."

"Magic? But-"

"Your inner core will always be magic, restricted wand or not. Thankfully, yours is quite powerful- That's the only thing that saved you. From that distance, you would've been dead almost instantaneously."

"Lucky me," Draco muttered bitterly before raising his voice slightly. "How long will this take? I have to get home."

"A couple hours, at most."

"A couple hours?" Draco shook his head. "No, my son- He's home by himself. I don't have time for this, I need to-"

"The officer that brought you in said he'll bring in- Scorpius, was it? Don't worry, your son will be here soon."

Tentatively, Draco finally gave in and nodded, letting Hermione clean up his back with a cloth and alcohol.

"What are you doing here?" Draco asked, looking over his shoulder to watch her work. "Last I knew, you were still in London."

"My mum has fallen ill, so I've been here for a few months. Figured I'd pick up a job in the meanwhile."

"I haven't seen you," Draco questioned cautiously. "I'm in here a lot, but I've never seen you."

"I'm worked back to back. I'm the only person in this shitty town- No offense- with surgical training beyond four months, so everyone immediately sends people to me. If you haven't had anything worse than stitches, you haven't seen me. Even broken bones- they have plenty of doctors to send you too."

Draco winced as Hermione started examining the wounds, seeming completely absorbed in her work.

"When did you get tattoos?" She asked, metal tools clacking against the table as she started prodding at Draco's wounds, making him flinch.