The Darkwood Wand

Night Fourteen-Patience

Back to our story! Hermione returns to the infirmary on Saturday to sit by a sleeping Draco.

"I looked at the Quaffle, and the Quaffle looked back at me. We needed every point, but the Quaffle didn't understand that. The Quaffle didn't care. The scarlet ball felt heavy in my hand, wanting only to fall to the ground and rest. I hated the Quaffle, and the Quaffle hated me."

Hermione slumped in her chair, thoroughly bored. She was reading aloud "My Quest for the Quaffle," by Chaser Dragomir Gorgovitch. "Draggy" held the record for the most Quaffle drops in a season, and Hermione, for one, was not surprised. The wizard had a tempestuous relationship with Quaffles, claiming they all wanted to sabotage his career.

Sheer nonsense, of course, but it was the all she could do for Draco while he slept off his healing potions. The book also distracted Hermione from the infirmary's other unresponsive patient, who still lay vacant and drooling two beds away.

Hermione set down the book and smoothed Draco's white-blond hair off his forehead. His dark eyebrows and lashes stood out starkly against his pale skin, but there was faint color on his cheeks and mouth. Hermione tried to straighten the bedding, but the thick coat of murlap salve she'd applied on his skin had stuck Draco to the sheets.

Surely he would wake. He needed to wake. It was already late afternoon, Grey clouds blotted out the slanting sun and the long shadows made Hermione shiver. At the stroke of ten tonight, the Vanishing Spell would take her back to that room. She couldn't run. She couldn't hide. The Vanishing Spell was out of control and they were no closer to breaking it.

"Please, Draco, please wake up," she whispered. I'm scared. She bent down and kissed him softly on the lips.

Draco lay motionless, like a marble Sleeping Beauty reeking of murlap.

With a sigh, Hermione picked up the book again. She had just finished Chapter Nine ("The Pros and Cons of Quaffle-Pocking") when the ward's curtains were swept aside with a clatter of metal rings. Madam Pomfrey sailed in, flicking her wand, and a long bandage wrapped itself around Draco's face.

"What—" Hermione began, then stopped as two wizards entered into the ward. Both wore the lime-green robes of St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. Finally.

The older Healer was waving a clipboard. "As I said, Madam Pomfrey, your patient notes are quite thorough but I still have questions about the original—"

"All inquiries are to be directed to Headmistress McGonagall," the matron said coolly. "I suggest you get on with your duties."

The other Healer was giving Tennant a swift examination. "No response to external stimuli," he reported. "Vital signs stable."

"Madam Pomfrey, can you at least explain how—"

"All inquiries are to be directed to the Headmistress, Healer Pratt."

The Healer scowled but said nothing as he and his colleague loaded the big wizard onto a stretcher. They lost no time conjuring oddly shaped cushions and tucking them around their patient's head and body until it looked like Tennant was being packed for shipping. Pomfrey was signing documents, her expression stony.

Hermione rose to her feet. She felt the strangest urge to say goodbye. To acknowledge Tennant's departure in some way. There was no one else. Madam Pomfrey didn't even spare a glance. Tennant's teachers and classmates at Durmstrang were far away in a scandal-ridden school fighting for its survival. Hermione found herself remembering when Tennant first strode into the Great Hall. So commanding, so charismatic. Powerful.