Draco felt a slight pressure near his elbow before turning into temporary nonexistence. What the--oh shite.
In no more than a second, he appeared with a POP! in the living room of his flat in the middle of London, Hermione clinging to his arm. He turned to look accusatorially at her just in time to see all of the blood and make eye contact. "Oh, shite!" he said as she passed out and slid to the floor.
Despite being in shock, Draco managed to reach out just in time to grab her arm and prevent her head from crashing into the floor or cracking on the edge of the coffee table. He gently lowered her unconscious body down to the ground between the table and the couch, and noticed that the blood seemed to be coming from her right leg. Pulling up the fabric to knee-length, Draco was able to see the issue clearly: A chunk of flesh, about the size and shape of a baseball cut in half, was completely missing out of her leg. Splinched.
Draco felt a twinge of panic deep in his gut. "RITZY!" he called out, followed by another crack. A small house elf, about three feet tall, appeared at Draco's right. He had two enormous ears that flopped around madly with the slightest movement of the head. His smaller-than-average green eyes widened considerably when he saw Hermione laying on the floor, and even more when he saw the gaping hole in her leg. He let out a very high-pitched squeak and slapped his hands over his mouth.
"Ritzy," Draco commanded in a voice much calmer than he felt, "Keep your emotions under control." The small elf managed to tear his eyes from the wound to look at Draco and slightly nodded his head while attempting to compose his face. "Go to into the potion cupboard under the sink in the guest bathroom. I’m going to need a Dreamless Sleep Potion, Blood-Replenishing Potion, Essence of Dittany, and Painless Potion. Get the kitchen table cleared off and covered with a clean sheet. Now, Ritzy."
Ritzy nodded his head once abruptly, ears shaking wildly, and quickly Disapparated.
As soon as the house elf had gone, Draco’s calm facade dropped immediately. He frantically turned to look at the woman lying on his living room floor, dead to the world. Hermione’s face was growing paler, and her leg was still bleeding freely. He looked around wildly for something, anything, to wrap around her leg. Nothing in sight was sufficient; he had no blankets lying out, and all of the furniture was black leather. Without hesitation and without bothering with the buttons, Draco pulled his shirt over his head. After transfiguring one of the sleeves into a piece of gauze and the rest into a bandage, he began wrapping up the wound on Hermione’s leg. A quick "Scourgify" cleaned up the blood on the floor, and he gently picked Hermione up with one arm under her knees and the other around her torso.
Carrying her as quickly as possible without jostling her into the adjacent kitchen, Draco barely noticed that the table had already been cleared and covered in a bright white sheet as he set Hermione down. Once he had situated her, Ritzy appeared with all of the required potions.
Draco was in his element. Unthinkingly, he unwrapped the wound and reached for the Essence of Dittany, administering three drops into the gaping hole. Within seconds, tender new skin began to appear over the exposed flesh. It won't stop the pain, he thought, but at least the wound won't get infected. Messily throwing the cap on and hurriedly plopping the bottle on the table, he reached for the Blood Replenishing Potion. Noticing how immensely pale Hermione had become, almost as white as the sheet she was laying on, he knew that it was essential that she take the potion as soon as possible.
Draco conjured a glass with his wand and paused before pouring in the Blood-Replenishing Potion. When Hermione woke up, she was going to be in excruciating pain; the thought made him feel sick. Her emotional distress was his fault, and now this physical affliction was as well; having been so blinded by the rage and sadness inside of him, he hadn't been completely focused on his destination. He filled the glass a third of the way with Painless Potion, and filled the rest of the space with Blood-Replenishing Potion. Mixing it, he handed the glass to Ritzy.
He spoke soberly to the small house elf. "I'm going to wake her up. As soon as she is able, you need to force her to drink this. All of it." Ritzy nodded once sharply and took the glass from Draco's hands.
Each took one side of Hermione--Draco her left, Ritzy her right--and Draco lifted his wand and flicked it in the direction of her face."Ennervate."
Hermione's eyes snapped open and, almost instantly, her face contorted with anguish. Just as she opened her mouth to cry out in pain, Ritzy lifted the glass to her mouth, tipping the contents inside. Clearly not knowing what else to do, Hermione swallowed every last bit of the concoction, practically choking on it. The frantic look in her eyes began to quickly dim as the potions started to take their effects. Draco's tense shoulders relaxed slightly.
Hermione looked over at Draco with dazed eyes, and he held up a small purple bottle. "Dreamless Sleep Potion," he said as an explanation.
Closing her eyes, she gave him a weak nod. He helped her sit up while Ritzy administered the potion. Draco laid her back down gently as sleep took over her and her breathing became even, her face perfectly serene.
"You may go, Ritzy," Draco said tiredly. Suddenly sleep sounded wonderful, but the adrenaline was still burning through his veins. "I'll clean this all up. Just... go visit my mother or something." Ritzy--who was very fond of Narcissa Malfoy for some peculiar reason--was both comically surprised and confused, and Draco let out a snort of laughter. With a small, "Thank you, sir!" Ritzy Apparated away, leaving Draco and Hermione alone once again.
Rubbing his hand over his eyes and then getting to work, Draco thought back to the events of the past hour. None of this would have happened if he hadn't felt that damn tattoo burn...
Draco sat at his desk for the Merlin-knows-how-many-ith time that week reviewing his notes. He was also pulling his third all-nighter in the past five days, and he was exhausted beyond all compare. He frowned sleepily at the pieces of parchment in front of him. None of the Ministry's top Potion's Master's tests had come out even close to being right, one had gone horrifically wrong, and now they would have to wait until the next full moon to try again.
As a lowly apprentice, he was the one stuck with all of the paperwork detailing what went awry in the tests, and all potential fixes for each one. He couldn't remember the last time that he had actually helped with the development of the test potions; it must have been months.
Resting his head in his hands, he couldn't help but wonder to himself if they would ever find something to cure lycanthropy. The fact that Wolfsbane Potion only worked on eighty-five percent of werewolves was becoming a problem. Society was still prejudiced, even after the Dark Lord's fall. While he didn't exactly sympathize for the wretched creatures, he knew what it felt like to be looked down upon because of something beyond your control. His frown morphed into a disgusted grimace.
"Nice face, Malfoy."
Draco froze shuffling through his papers and stiffened. As if my day couldn't get any worse... He internally groaned."Maddox..." he mumbled.
Abe Maddox was the absolute best Potion's Master to ever have been employed at the Ministry of Magic, and that was really saying something. It also just so happened that his Muggleborn wife had been murdered by the Death Eaters during the war for not giving into their demands, and since then Maddox had trusted practically no one. Especially those former Death Eaters that had managed to stay out of Azkaban.
So, naturally, he would become Draco's main supervisor.
Maddox creeped into Draco's cubicle and peered over his shoulder, observing the paperwork he was working on. He smirked.
"Behind on paperwork, I see. Perhaps if the work load is too much I could always bring in a different apprentice. It would be as easy as--"
"No," Draco interrupted. "I'm perfectly capable of finishing all of this. Without assistance."
With a raise of his eyebrows, Maddox cleared his throat, and without so much as a farewell, he walked out of the small cubicle and into his main office. Draco's death grip on the pile of parchment loosened as he dropped them to his desk. After stretching out, he grabbed a fresh report sheet and his favorite quill and got back to work.
It was because of his distraction that he didn't notice when his wrist began to itch. When the itching sensation eventually became more of a burning, Draco realized with a start that this was more than a simple mosquito bite. The irritated redness of his skin from his scratching made the tattoo more clearly visible; golden in color as a result of the magic that had permanently placed it there, a small dragon rested on his wrist just over his pulse point, practically invisible unless looked at at the correct angle. He flinched as stomach clenched and a shot of panic zapped through his body.
He started to nervously tap his quill. Draco knew that, miles away, a certain person was holding a certain box, and that at the moment that particular box was opened, he would be automatically transported into the same room as the girl who broke his heart.
Draco fumbled to pull out his wallet and slowly slid out the piece of parchment hidden inconspicuously inside. The creases were worn deep from being folded and unfolded hundreds upon hundreds of times. He cringed internally as he read the words that still hurt, even after eight years.
Draco-
You disgust me, you loathsome Death Eater. I never want to speak to you again! Just leave me alone, you monster!
Closing his eyes, he had barely just put the parchment back in his wallet and tossed it onto his desk when the tattoo burned red-hot and with a Pop! he was gone.
Draco closed the cabinet doors after putting away the potions in their proper places and went back to the kitchen. He looked over at the table and grimaced. I can't just leave her lying on the table. How horribly uncomfortable...
Picking her up again, he maneuvered his way through the living room and down the hallway to the guest room, where he laid her down on the bed. For the first time, he allowed himself to really look at her. Her once-bushy hair had settled down somewhat into loose curls. Her skin was still as clear as it ever was, but the foreshadowing of lines began to touch the corners of her eyes and mouth. Her body was slender with slight curves and a soft figure.
Draco smirked. Nothing athletic about her; definitely still a bookworm. She had grown out of her slightly awkward teenage self; she was her own person now, and Draco liked what he saw.
He wondered what else about her was the same, and decided that he'd really like to find out. I only got one kiss, Draco thought to himself. Maybe Weasley taught her a few things. After all that time with Lavender... With thoughts of Weasley in his head, his eyes flickered unconsciously to the ring that rested on Hermione's left hand.
Mentally punching himself for his absurd daydreams, Draco strode into the kitchen. Crumpling the dirty gauze and bandages, the adrenaline finally burned through, Draco realized how unbearably tired he was. After he finished cleaning up the kitchen and blearily walking into the living room, Draco flopped down on the smooth leather couch, covering his face with his arms. With Hermione sleeping peacefully on the bed in the guest room, all evidence of recent events had seemingly vanished. Minus his fatigue, of course.
About twenty minutes of empty-minded bliss later, he fully realized for the first time that he still had no shirt on.
Taking his time getting up and stretching, he walked down the hallway to his bedroom, just across the hall from the guest room. What he could really go for was a nap. Opening the door, he looked at his bed and, shirt completely forgotten, he sprawled out and almost instantly fell asleep, dreaming of brown curly hair and adolescent eyes sparkling with rebellious mischief.
***