Signum Vitalis (a dramione story)

In which there is the usual sort of ending

She had to get Draco to the hospital. She doubted his brain was getting enough oxygen. How long before there was permanent brain damage? She needed to get him out to the apparition point. Or the floo. The floo was closer and didn't have the risk of splinching.

"Levicorpus," she muttered, allowing the spell to raise Draco's body up to shoulder height. His arms dangled awkwardly behind him and his head flopped grotesquely back. His eyelids opened to expose unseeing eyes. He isn't dead, she told herself. Not dead. Not dead. She resisted pushing his eyes closed.

Slowly she walked Draco's body to the floo. She didn't have enough control of the spell to move him into the fireplace. She had just decided that she would have to drag him into the fireplace when a hand touched her shoulder.

Ron was beside her, smiling gently. "I'll help you." He grabbed the floo powder and then looked at her questioningly.

"New York Wizard Hospital," she supplied shakily.

Between the two of them, they hoisted up Draco's dead weight. They half staggered into the fireplace. Ron threw down the powder and yelled their destination.

As they squeezed through the floo system, she scraped her elbows on the walls of several fireplaces. Hermione worried that a particularly small fireplace would spit one of their team out before they had made it to the hospital. However, with only a few scratches each, they finally made it to the hospital's floo station.

They stumbled out into the reception area that Hermione barely remembered from her last visit. Almost immediately, a healer rushed towards them.

He summoned a floating gurney and they assisted in sliding Draco onto it. Once she was no longer supporting Draco, her body started shaking. She barely noticed when Ron gave her a supporting arm. The healer was firing questions at her and it was all she could do to focus enough to answer. When he stopped his questions, she realized there was something she hadn't told him. Or, at least, she didn't think she had.

"It was yellow," she told the healer. "The spell was yellow."

"Yes, yes," the healer replied. "No visitors beyond this point. Go check in over there." He made a vague gesture to their left and then disappeared with Draco behind a set of double doors.

Her shaking was getting worse and she barely could understand the paperwork she had been given.

Ron gently took it from her hands. "I'll fill out everything I can," he said.

Hermione nodded. She pulled her knees up against her chest and curled into the chair. She rocked back and forth, trying to slow her breathing.

Ron poked her shoulder. "Hey, Hermione. What's Malfoy's address?"

Hermione stopped rocking and glared at him. Why was he poking her? What was his problem?

Ron raised his eyebrows. "Hermione?"

Right. He was trying to help her. She took a steadying breath and tried to remember what he had been saying. "Er... I don't know Draco's address."

Ron muttered something that sounded like 'good.'

She narrowed her eyes at him. "I love Draco," she almost snarled.

Ron raised both hands in front of him. "Okay, okay. I kinda bloody got that from the way you were crying over his body."

She stiffened.

He slowly reached out and rubbed her shoulder. "He is going to be okay."

She scowled. "How could you know that?"