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Five Days	By : RavieSnake Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Draco/Hermione Views: 7592 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters/concepts from it. I make no money from the writing/publishing of this story.

Chapter List
- 11
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- 13
Day Five: Afternoon
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Hermione blinked her heavy lids open and immediately shut them tight against the glaring white light. She raised her hand to her head and then shot her eyes open again when she realized it was her right arm.
“Draco!” she yelped, bolting upright in what turned out to be a hospital bed. She swiveled her head around frantically, darting her eyes in every direction. She was definitely in a hospital room - a brightly lit, otherwise unoccupied hospital room. Only her bed and a bedside table, atop which sat a bouquet of flowers and her wand, were present.
She looked down and tore aside the sheet that was over her bottom half to reveal her bare legs extending out from beneath the plain, white hospital gown that someone had apparently changed her into. She reached her trembling hand back up to her head and winced slightly at the feel of the tight bandages encircling it.
“Draco…” she whispered.
The door to her room suddenly cracked open and she snapped her attention up to see Ron stepping inside with a cup of something in his hand. His eyes bugged out when he noticed her awake.
“Hermione!” he cried, hurrying to her side and setting the drink on her bedside table. He turned to her and rapidly scanned his eyes over her in relieved but careful appraisal. “Hermione,” he repeated, “you’re…you’re awake.”
Hermione’s mouth opened and closed several times as she gaped at the impossibility that he was standing beside her.
“Are you okay?” he asked worriedly as she continued to silently stare at him. “Is it your head? Are you in pain?”
“Ho…how?” she managed to breathe out.
Ron gave her a wide, tremulous smile. “We found you stuck in that fissure. We got you out, brought you here to St. Mungo's. You’re safe now. You’re okay.”
“Draco,” she said, her voice cracking, “Draco…where…where is he…?”
“You need to lie down,” Ron said, gently grasping her upper arms to try and push her back. She only resisted against his touch at the evasive response.
“Tell me he’s okay!” she nearly growled.
"Hermione, you've hurt your head. You need to rest and shouldn't be worrying about Malfoy right now."
"You tell me where he is!" Hermione demanded so fiercely that Ron recoiled. Surprise and hesitation both mingled over his freckled face as he blinked at her.
“You shouldn’t be worried about him,” he said. She leaned forward and grasped at his arms.
“Where is he?” she demanded again. “Why won’t you tell me he’s okay!?”
Ron still looked reluctant to answer. “He’s, uh…” he trailed off when Hermione’s fingers tightened around his arms. “He…he’s on the floor below.”
When Hermione began to look panicked, Ron rushed on in an effort to assuage her agitation. “They’re still working on him,” he said. “John’s down there waiting on a report about his condition, okay?”
She calmed slightly at that and closed her eyes. Ron took the opportunity to ease her down again and she laid her head back carefully. “He’s alive,” she whispered in mild relief. Ron made a noise like he was about to contradict her statement but quickly decided against it. Hermione still noticed.
“Ron…?” she quietly pleaded, her eyes snapping open. “What is it?”
Ron’s eyes searched her face for a moment and he took a deep breath and pulled his wand. He quickly conjured a chair and sat down before leaning forward. Hermione immediately grabbed his hand.
She sat up again and gripped her fingers into his. “Ronald…?”
“Hermione…Malfoy was already dead when we got him out,” he said apologetically. Hermione’s lips quivered as she clutched her other hand to her chest with a pained gasp. She shook her head slightly.
“But…but you said…you said they're working on him,” she stammered desperately, unwilling to accept his statement. “There must be a chance to…” She stopped when Ron shook his head regretfully.
“The only reason the Healers are still trying to revive him is because Lucius Malfoy won’t let them stop,” he said.
“Lucius?” Hermione inquired, brow furrowed in confusion and despair. “He’s on house arrest…”
“The hospital contacted him the moment we brought you two in. He and Narcissa are both here under Auror supervision until…”
Hermione swallowed hard, tears welling. “Until what?”
Ron gave her a sad smile. “Until they finally call it all off and stop trying.”
Hermione slumped back in the bed and cast her gaze downward. She noticed the flawlessly healed skin of her left hand in Ron’s. “How long have we been here?” she asked hesitantly.
Ron released her hand and sat back himself. “Eight hours,” he answered quietly.
Hermione covered her face with her hands and started crying behind them. Ron watched her uncomfortably for a moment. “Hermione…?”
“Eight hours,” she muffled miserably. “And he’s still not…”
Her torso shook with her quiet sobs and Ron ran his hands through his hair looking unsure of how to proceed.
“I…I need you to tell me what happened,” he notified gently after a minute. Hermione didn’t answer right away as she sniffled behind her hands. Ron simply waited in silence, his hands still at the back of his scalp.
“We-we fell in,” she finally started a minute later through hiccoughing breaths. “It-it was an ac-accident.”
“I gathered that much,” he said.
Hermione lowered her hands and gave him an annoyed look. “Well, that’s what happened,” she said with another sniffle.
Ron dropped his own hands and scootched forward in his chair. “Why were you with Malfoy?” he redefined his question. She merely shook her head and he looked at her with brotherly concern before picking up the cup he’d set down earlier.
“Here,” he said, offering it to her. “It’s water. It’s dry as hell in this place.”
Hermione swiped at the tears on her cheeks and then reached out for it. “Thank you,” she whispered as she took it. She drank a small sip and then just held the cup at her bottom lip and stared down at her feet.
“He…he heard about the plants out there. He came out to collect them like I did,” she began to explain. “I’d found a patch of Thugwart and was preparing to harvest when he showed up and…”
She started to cry again and Ron produced a handkerchief that he held out to her. Hermione swapped the cup for it and dabbed at her face.
“What happened when he showed up?” Ron prompted her to continue, setting her cup on the table.
Hermione sniffled. “He…he claimed he’d already found that patch and wanted me to move to a smaller one he’d discovered further south. I refused, of course, and we…we got into a shouting match and we weren’t paying any attention to where we were stepping and…”
“And you fell into the fissure,” Ron finished for her. She nodded.
“I started to fall first,” she said, “I reflexively grabbed for him to try and stop myself, but…he was too close and the ground was pebbly and…”
“You both went in,” he completed her sentence again. She merely gave another nod as she blew her nose. Ron watched her wipe her face for a moment and then asked, “How long were the two of you in there?”
Hermione swallowed around the lump in her throat. “Four days.”
Ron gaped at her. “Four days,” he echoed in disbelief. He slumped back in his chair. “Four days,” he repeated in morbid awe.
“We survived off of the rain water,” she explained in monotone. “And by tandem casting for warmth.”
“Tandem casting?” Ron’s curious voice interjected.
Hermione looked back up at him. “Our arms were trapped and we had no wands. So we pressed our faces together and combined our magic to cast warming charms.”
“You and Malfoy pressed your faces together?” he asked incredulously.
“We did what we had to,” she said, averting her eyes again. “We helped each other survive.”
Ron’s brow furrowed. “Yeah, I suppose that git would do anything he needed to to save his ar-”
“Don’t,” she cut him off angrily. “Don’t you dare speak ill of him.”
“What happened in there, Hermione?” he asked, sounding frustrated when she buried her face into the handkerchief and started to cry again.
Hermione shook her head slightly, but she was spared from answering when there was a knock at the door. Ron got up at once and went to it, and Hermione looked up and watched anxiously as he opened the door to reveal John just beyond.
The Aurors-in-training exchanged a hurried whisper and then Ron glanced back over his shoulder at Hermione.
“I need to have a quick word with John. I’ll be just out here in the hall and I’ll be right back, okay?” he said with a forced smile that looked far from reassuring. Hermione said nothing, but Ron still slipped into the hall and pulled the door shut behind himself.
When she heard the click of the door, Hermione grabbed her wand from the table beside her bed and flicked it at the door. At once, the image of what looked like a projected screen appeared on the wall beside it. Hermione squinted at it as a transcript of the conversation that was happening just beyond in the hall magically formed on the wall.
.
…but stable. She seems strangely concerned about Malfoy.”
“Understandable, I’d suppose. Being stuck together like that…I imagine you form a bond.”
“I don’t even want to think about it.”
“Me either.”
"And him? Did they finally give it up then?”
"Nah, they got him back.”
.
Hermione audibly gasped at that, but read on as the words kept coming.
.
“No fucking way.”
“Took a dozen Healers and ol’ Lucius owes the hospital a new wing, but yeah, mate, they fucking did it.”
“Fucking hell.”
“Yeah, but he’s still a mess. They moved him up here to room 114. He’s breathing on his own finally, but he’s still out. And they couldn’t save the arm.”
“When will he wake up?”
“They, uh…they don’t know if he will. There’s brain activity since they gave him the nerve restorative potions when he first came in, but he’s not responding to any stimuli. He could wake up in five minutes or two weeks… or never.”
.
Hermione clutched at her wand and the sheet at her side as she stared at the wall waiting for more words.
.
“Shite, I’m not looking forward to telling her,” the conversation picked back up.
“You want me to?”
“No. You’re gonna have your hands full with the report on Malfoy.”
“You’re sure? I’ll do it.”
“No, it should be me. I’ll, uh, I’ll see you back at headquarters later. Thanks, mate.”
“Sure… Hell of a first rescue, huh?”
“Not exactly my first.”
“Right. Well, um, good luck. See you when you get done.”
.
Hermione flicked her wand when the door handle began to turn and the words on the wall immediately disappeared. When Ron walked back in, Hermione sat up in the bed.
"I want to see him," she said. Ron stilled in the doorway and then frowned at the wand in her hand.
"You did that eavesdropping spell you invented, didn't you?" He didn't wait for an answer as he shook his head and clicked the door shut. "I've been tellin' George to try and recruit you for years to help develop new sneaky stuff like tha-"
"I want to see him," Hermione repeated forcefully.
Ron sighed and put one hand on his hip and pinched the bridge of his nose with the other. "You can't," he replied apologetically.
Hermione narrowed her eyes at him. "He's alive and I want to be there when he wakes up."
He shook his head again as he came forward and retook his seat at her bedside. "You're not his family, Hermione," he reminded her, "so they won't let you in without his consent."
"He'd want me there," she countered surely.
Ron gave her a pitying look. "Lucius Malfoy wants you arrested for attempted murder,” he said bluntly.
Hermione’s eyes went wide. “What!? That’s…that’s preposterous! It was an accident! We BOTH fell in. You, you can’t-”
“Hermione, we know,” he tried to placate her, “we know. No one believes that you were out to kill Malfoy. It was pretty obvious from the circumstances that it was an accident. But you know how Lucius is; he’s got to blame someone.”
“Am I under arrest then?” she snapped.
Ron shook his head. “No one is going to arrest you. But until Malfoy wakes up and specifically asks to see you, there is no way anyone’s going to let you near him.”
Hermione said nothing to that and simply cast a despondent look down at her legs. Ron frowned in concern again as he watched her begin to look catatonic. He set his wand on the table and then reached forward to gently pry Hermione’s wand and used handkerchief from her curled fingers. She made no effort to resist the action and Ron sighed as he set the items aside with his own wand.
“You should lie back down,” he ordered lightly, standing to coax her down in the bed with his hands on her upper arms. Again, she complied without resistance and then curled up into a fetal position once she was down. Ron sat back down again and roamed his eyes over her sullen face. A tear trailed down her cheek and he shifted awkwardly in his chair.
“I, uh…I called your parents,” he said, sounding desperate for something to cheer her up. “Your mum said that she and your dad will be on the first flight out of Australia.”
Hermione simply closed her eyes.
“Harry, Gin, and Gabby will be in to see you tomorrow…and Mum sent over these already,” Ron continued, glancing at the bouquet. “Hermione…”
When she still didn’t respond beyond clutching tighter at her middle, Ron ran a hand through his hair again and let out an exhausted huff.
“Look, I…I know you’ve been through a lot,” he started awkwardly, “I…I can’t even imagine…but you’re okay now, Hermione. You’re alright and you don’t have to be sa-”
“He’s not alright,” Hermione interrupted with a sad whisper.
Ron’s mouth twisted as he regarded her. “Hermione,” he said, his tone managing to come across as apologetic and condescending at once, “I know you always had a bit of a weird soft-spot for Malfoy, but you think you’d be -”
“I love him.”
A thick silence fell between them after her quiet admission. Ron just stared down at her in bemused shock.
“You think I’m barmey,” Hermione said, her face pulling into a miserable grimace.
Ron opened and closed his mouth several times before saying, “I think this is just some sort of bizarre traumatic coping syndrome or something or other. You being single and then getting trapped with him for days, thinking you’re gonna…” He trailed off when Hermione began hugging at herself even more tightly.
“Hermione,” he tried again after a moment, “I don’t know what happened between the two of you in there, and I don’t think I want to…but, trust me. You’re not in love with Malfoy. You just need time to get yourself right again.”
Hermione swallowed hard and finally glanced up at her long-time friend. “Will…will you at least let me know when he wakes up?”
Ron frowned slightly. “Hermione, he might not ev-”
“Just, please?” she cut him off. “Please tell me when he’s awake.”
“Yeah…yeah, okay,” he agreed reluctantly.
Hermione closed her eyes again and tugged the sheet up to cuddle under. “Thank you,” she said. Ron merely nodded and then held a silent watch over her then until she quietly drifted back to sleep.
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- 13
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Five Days