“Ron comes first. Harry will always take care of him first. He doesn't think clearly when the people he regards as family are in danger. He doesn't realise he's risking others,” she said, lifting her chin. “He's always been that way.”
Draco stared at her. “So who cares for you, Granger, if Potter doesn't?”
She blinked.
“I don't need anyone to care for me,” she said stiffly, but her voice shook. “It wasn't an accident, Draco. I
His expression hardened. “You let yourself become expendable to Potter.”
“The more weaknesses Harry has, the more vulnerable the entire Resistance is.”
She hadn't thought Draco could look angrier than he already did, but he suddenly looked ready to explode.
“When I think I can't hate Potter more, he finds a new way to prove me wrong,” he said, pulling out several more potions and handing them to her.
She tried to pull the corks out with one hand but couldn't manage it. She was pretty sure if she had to move her left wrist again, she would faint.
“What happened to your left hand?” he abruptly asked, snatching back a vial and unstoppering it for her.
“You — broke it.”
He seemed to get paler.
“It was already injured,” she said in clarification, “I got hit by that acid curse. By the time I managed to counter it, the bones were pretty much wrecked. You just happened to grab it.”
“You should have told me.”
He reached into his robes and pulled out the kit she'd given him for Christmas. He snatched the analgesic from its slot, doused a cloth, and wrapped it around her wrist and hand.
Hermione nearly gasped with relief as the burning subsided.
“Do you need me to remove the bones?” he asked after a moment as he watched her cradle her wrist against her chest.
She looked up at him. “Could you? I–I was going to do it myself, when I got a chance.”
Removing bones with precision, especially shards, was a painful process. Unless she wanted to regrow her whole arm, it was going to be a slow ordeal that would be difficult to remain focused and steady-handed throughout. She'd planned to deal with it after she went back to check on Ron.
“I know the spellwork. Do you want me to stun you?” he asked.
“N-no. I should stay awake, unless you already know all the names of the bones in the hand and wrist.”
“No,” he said, glancing away, his mouth pressed into a hard line.
Unwrapping her hand again, she cast a diagnostic spell over it and surveyed the damage. Aside from the deep pockets the acid had burned into the flesh, there were four bones that had been crushed and another six with varying levels of corrosion, including her ulna. She'd have to debone half her forearm.
She stared at it for several minutes before drawing a sharp breath and looking away.
“The fifth metacarpal first.
The sharp stabbing pain as the bone in Hermione's hand abruptly vanished nearly made her scream. She dropped her head against Draco's shoulder and shuddered.
Pain without the adrenaline surge of battle was harder to handle.
“Then the hamate.
She was crying into his robes by the time he had removed all the bone shards. Half her forearm and most of her palm were largely boneless and lay puddled in her lap.
Draco pulled a bottle of skele-gro out. She gagged it down and then winced as the stabbing, needle-like sensation of the regrowing bones enveloped her arm.
He poured Essence of Dittany across her entire arm to repair the pockets of corroded tissue. She was tempted to scream at him.
“Don't!” She tried to grab the vial away from him. “It's a waste. I can heal them with spellwork after the bones regrow.”
He glared at her. “Shut up.”
She fell silent while he doused her arm a second time and then rummaged through more materials from his supplies and assembled a magical cast with surprising efficiency.
“Why do you have all this?” she asked, surveying all the supplies as he wrapped the frame around her hand and up around her elbow, so that the bones could regrow straight.
“I got it for you,” he said. She stared at him in surprise. “After Hampshire, I was worried you'd show up injured again. I thought if I had everything you might need on hand, I'd worry less.”
Hermione's heart hurt inside her chest as he helped her get the sling of the cast up over her head.
“But — this is a lot. This is practically a casualty ward's entire inventory list.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I didn't know what kinds of things were crucial for casualty healing at the time. I researched it. Then I got a long lecture on healing common battle injuries as a Christmas present last year. It helped me round it out with anything I'd missed.”
Hermione blushed.
“You could become a healer,” she told him. “You have a natural talent for it.”
The corner of his mouth twitched faintly. “That's one of the most ironic things anyone has ever said to me,” he said.
The conversation stalled.