“Lie on the table,” she instructed Draco in a sharp voice. She flicked the wand and summoned several vials to herself. She felt a rush through her entire body but forced herself to ignore it.
“Take all of these. Then I'm going to stun you.”
“No,” Draco said in a flat voice as he downed the line up of potions.
Hermione didn't look at him as she summoned the bandages and cut off the entire sleeve of his shirt. “Draco, I don't want you to watch me cut off your arm.”
“I doubt it could possibly be more traumatic than anything I haven't already experienced,” he said through his teeth. “Don't you
She glanced up at him for a moment and found that he was nearly grey and his eyes were burning with determination. And terrified.
Nine attempts.
He'd seen nine Death Eaters die while trying to remove their Dark Marks. If she stunned him and it went wrong, he wouldn't wake up, he'd just die. This would be goodbye.
She pressed her lips together into a flat line and summoned an additional potion. “Fine. Take this now, then.”
While the potions activated, she took his left hand in hers and used the wand tip to trace several glowing lines across his skin around the circumference of his forearm, trying to save as much of his arm as she could while still carefully avoiding the Dark Mark burned into his skin. Then she anesthetised his arm from the shoulder down.
“Are you certain there's no other way of removing his mark?” Lucius' condescendingly vicious voice interrupted her concentration. “How much research did you actually—”
Draco silenced his father with a sharp flick of his wand, still gripped in his right hand.
Hermione was casting spells faster than she had ever done spellwork in her life. She knew his health and vitals intimately. She conjured over a dozen diagnostic and monitoring spells around him. His heart rate was elevated but steadily slowing as the potions took affect.
One of the diagnostics turned blue, indicating that all the potions were fully integrated. She brought his left hand up to her lips, squeezing it and pressing her lips against it once before meeting his eyes.
“I love you. I love you,” she whispered. “This will work, I swear.”
Then she pinned his arm to the table and immobilised him.
*****
She began with the process of internally ligating and then cauterising the veins and arteries in his forearm. The fewer places he could bleed from when she started cutting, the lower the risk. The curse was designed to force him to bleed to death; any opportunity for blood loss increased the risk, even with the Phoenix tears.
When the diagnostic scan showed that the blood flow to his forearm had been completely stopped, she drew a slow breath and ran the wand along one of the lines she'd drawn across the skin.
Draco jerked involuntarily as she ligated and then severed the nerves in his arm. She didn't let herself look up.
She angled the wand at a sharp diagonal angle and began cutting through his skin and muscle down to the bone.
She vaguely registered the sound of Narcissa sobbing. She kept working.
Draco gave a ragged gasp and suddenly there was blood everywhere, the cauterised veins and arteries forcibly beginning to open themselves. The diagnostic spells began flashing and turning dangerous warning hues. Draco's heart rate sky-rocketed.
She cast a powerful stasis spell on his arm and snatched up the Phoenix tear potion.
She tilted Draco's head up and upended the contents down his throat, casting a spell to prevent his body from regurgitating it. She could feel him shaking through the immobilisation.
She met his eyes as her wand spun rapidly in her fingers, and she cast spell after spell on him.
“Hold on. Stay with me. I'm going to save you. Trust me. You're not going to die.”
His eyes were locked on her face as she cast spells on his heart to stabilise and slow it until the potion took affect.
She touched his cheek as she studied the diagnostics. “You and me and our baby. We're all going to be free. I'm going to save you. We'll go so far away no one will ever find us. You have to hold on.”
The diagnostics stabilised, and she dosed him immediately with a vial of blood-replenishing potion.
Hermione didn't have time to even register her relief. She started re-cauterising all the ruptured veins and arteries as quickly as she could.
“Draco, look away,” she said in a voice as taut as a bowstring. She didn't have time to verify that he had.
She turned back, muttered a spell, and cut through his radius and ulna.
His arm was removed.
Her hand shook slightly, and she countered the sticking charm, clinically moving the severed limb away, covering it with a cloth.
She could feel the time running out.