Dark Arts in Dover
Draco’s second thought was, ‘It’s a curse,’ and he turned to Romilda, who was looking on with a somber expression. “Vane, it’s a curse,” he whispered, reaching for his wand as he glanced around.
“What?” she asked as she turned to look at him like he had hit his head. “She drowned you idiot.”
Draco grabbed her wrist and dragged her back. “Maybe she did but that blue is a curse and no amount of thumping her bloody chest is going to fix it.”
She pried his firm grip off. “Malfoy, not everything is a curse. You’ve seen the papers, she– Well, she wasn’t doing okay. This is awful but not unexpected.”
Draco shook his head. “I don’t believe a word written by that lying cunt of a woman. We have to get her to one of our hospitals.” He had his wand in a firm grasp just inside his coat.
Romilda looked over at him with concern. “Curses don’t make–”
“This one does. How do we take the scene? I know it can be done. There is a command or something.” His agitation was growing as the gurney squeaked and groaned at the rhythmic pounding of the CPR.
Romilda looked at him like a petulant child. “That’s not done at this level. We let them take her in and then one of our people will step in and transfer her when the time is right.”
A ringing grew in Draco’s ears and his dark mark started to burn beneath the tattoos he had done to cover it up. He took several steps back into the shadows, eyes fixed on the blue arm that dangled off the gurney, and drew his wand. The darkest of the arts he had learned were all non-verbal spells and it was one of those that he drew upon and cast upon the scene in front of him.
Not a single spark left his wand but the air around him suddenly became so thick that light could not penetrate, and the muggles in front of him could not move or breathe. He had seconds at best to wade through the air he had transfixed, gripping his wand in front of him, as he wrestled to keep the spell cast. Draco shoved aside the medics, pushed the one on top of Granger firmly, and reached out for her cold blue wrist just as he started to lose his grip on the spell. But it was enough and drawing on the dark arts once more, he whisked Hermione away in a silent swirl of black smoke right as the air righted itself and the medics all fell to a heap atop the empty gurney.
Draco and Hermione apparated into the waiting room of St. Mungos with a loud crack of apparition that made the art on the walls rattle and dust cast down from the foam-tiled ceiling. Patients gasped and shrunk back but Draco’s eyes were only on Hermione as her lifeless form collapsed to the sterile white tiles. He scooped her up into his sopping-wet arms and strode to the stunned witches at the front desk.
“She’s been cursed and needs a curse breaker urgently,” he said with the ferocious command of an ex-death eater.
“If I could just get some information, sir,” the lady said as she fumbled for a quill and clipboard.
This woman was useless to him so Draco turned and waltzed through the swinging doors. The passionate objections and surprise gasps from the waiting area fell on ears deafened by focus.
“I need a curse breaker,” he shouted as he prowled down the hallway past curtains, gurneys, and rooms.
A thin blonde witch with goggles on her head and burn stains on her robes stepped out of a patient's room and announced, “I’m a curse breaker,” just as she saw Draco standing in the middle of the hallway with a limp blue Hermione Granger in his arms.
Draco rushed forward. “She was cursed and doesn’t have time.”
Hannah Abbott threw her hands up and took a step back. “What have you done, Malfoy?” she asked in alarm.
“Is that– That’s Hermione Granger!” Hannah exclaimed as she peered into Draco’s arms but kept a careful distance. Thankfully she snapped to action quickly.
“Charlie, I’m taking 149. This one might be a doozy!” she said, leading Draco into the room next door.
“Where’s the gurney or bed?” he asked, looking around the room of stone walls with a stone palette in the center of the floor.
Hannah was pulling on dragon hide gloves from a drawer in the corner as she answered, “Curses do all sorts of nasty stuff to things like metal and fabric. Stone is safe. Here set her down. It’s chilly but you are right, we don’t have time,” and she pulled her goggles down over her eyes as Draco lowered Hermione to the stone and stepped back.
It was only when Hannah reached for her wand and Draco almost drew his reflexively that he realized he had been holding his breath and let it out with a big gasp.
Hannah turned at the sound, realizing that he was still there, and gestured crudely for him to get out. He wanted to stay but he knew better, and carefully backed out of the room until he was just outside the small reinforced window. Hannah circled her wand around Hermione twice before a blinding electric blue glow lifted from her body and hovered just over her.
The glow was so bright that Draco had to look away, just in time to see Pavati Patil marching toward him with a scowl.