#oneequaltemper

Hermione isn’t typically clumsy. In fact, she’s never really been one to take a tumble— never really scraped her knee as a child or landed on her hands, leaving her palms raw and gravel-filled. Other than her unfortunate, but also fortunate, injury the night she met Draco, she’s not really one for needing any kind of medical attention.

She’s never had a stay in a hospital, never needed to urgently see her GP other than for the flu or that time she was down for nearly a month with glandular fever during her first year of university (a little gift from Ginny’s brother after she let him stick his tongue down her throat once). She’s lucky that way and she knows it. Still, she remembers as a kid being a little bit envious of the attention given to a girl in her class when she’d broken her arm. For ages she considered that maybe, possibly, an injury of that sort wouldn’t be too bad.

Alright, maybe not her whole arm but…even a toe! A broken toe couldn’t be too painful.

Alas, it was never in the cards for her. She stays out of the A&E, out of the hospital entirely, out of her GP’s office except for her annual physical. No cast for her friends to sign or sympathy to gather. Just her perfectly healthy, non-injured, never-broken-a-bone self.

Until, of course, a normal, everyday walk with Ginny, a larger-than-necessary iced coffee in her hand and a tote bag over her shoulder, her sunnies slipping down off her nose as she rummages in her bag for the book she’d just finished reading that her friend had asked to read next. Her sandals are a little bit loose because they’re rubbing against the side of her foot and the pavement is a bit cracked and uneven because…well, it’s London, and her attention is entirely elsewhere when she trips over one of the stupid little cracks and crashes to the ground.

A blinding pain rips through her arm but all she can focus on is the way her iced coffee has exploded on the pavement, splattering her white cotton dress…a complete and total waste of £3.50.

“Oh fuck.” She hears Ginny’s voice from somewhere above her but her neck is stiff and her temple is pounding. “Shit, Hermione, you’re bleeding. Oh God.”

She groans and catches sight of her plastic cup, iced coffee pooling on the pavement and pieces of ice scattered about and…she pouts. She hadn’t even been able to take a single sip before she’d ended up sprawled along the pavement. Her mouth has gone all dry and funky and—

“Hermione? Are you even listening to me?” Ginny asks, her voice halfway to a shriek. “Fuck. Oh— fuuuuck, your head. You’re bleeding!”

Her hand automatically comes up to press against the throbbing spot on her temple, rubbing the spot like she might be able to make the ache go away, but when she pulls her hand back she catches sight of something red on her fingertips. 

Paling, Hermione gracelessly pushes herself up to sitting and stares unmoving at her fingers, coated in her own blood. “Oh fuck,” she murmurs, mimicking Ginny. “Did I cut myself?”

“Stop moving! You’re getting blood all over your dress!”

She frowns and looks down at the white cotton, twisted awkwardly around her hips and exposing the tops of her thighs, rubbed raw from her pavement landing, until she sees a bright red stain spreading along the material. Her mouth falls open in surprise and shock— how much could her head possibly be bleeding?!

Lifting her hand once more, she touches the throbbing spot on her temple, wincing as she looks at her fingertips, once again coated in fresh, slick blood. 

“Oh my god,” she mumbles, her breath coming fast. “Okay…okay…um, head wounds…head wounds bleed a lot! But i-it’s okay. It’s fine!”

Ginny groans, grabbing the hand she’s waving at her face and holding it still. “It’s not from your head, it’s from your arm! Now, stop moving, I’m— I’m going to call an ambulance.”

She frowns, peering down at her arm, finally seeing the jagged, torn skin along her forearm, profusely bleeding and dripping down onto the cotton of her dress. It’s…utterly disgusting. Her stomach clenches at the sight, her arm a mess of blood and bits of gravel, the skin torn. She’s too afraid to look too closely, to see what lies beneath— muscle, bone, sinew.

Her uninjured hand claps over her mouth and she looks away, taking in a deep breath through her nose and closing her eyes shut tight. If she looks at it any longer she’s absolutely going to be sick, right here, fallen down on the pavement next to her spilled iced coffee and a nice big jagged rock that seems to be the culprit for her predicament.

“Don’t call an ambulance,” she mutters, catching sight of Ginny pulling her phone from her pocket. “I, um, I’m okay. I’ll just…I can go on my own.”

Ginny glares at her. “Hermione, no. You’re bleeding literally everywhere and people are staring and no one is just going to ignore you walking down the pavement like this!” She whisper-shouts in a way that makes her feel like she’s being scolded.

“Do not call an ambulance,” she repeats, pushing herself to her knees. “I can walk— there’s nothing wrong with my legs.”

“Well there’s certainly something wrong with your head—”

“Ginny—”

“No! You need to go to A&E—”

Hermione groans, stopping her slow movements to stare up at her friend. “Ginny— listen to me. If you call an ambulance you know where they’re going to take me and I…I cannot go there. He’ll absolutely lose his shit over this.”

Ginny stops, mouth popping open with her hand propped on her hip. “Are you kidding me? Your boyfriend is a doctor, you’re injured, and you don’t want to see him?”

Blowing out a low breath, Hermione holds up her uninjured arm, making grabby hands at Ginny. Clasping her arm, she steadies herself and very carefully, very slowly, pushes herself up to standing. Once she’s relatively balanced on her feet, she cradles her injured arm to her chest. 

“You don’t get it, Gin. He’s so protective of me, he’s never going to let me out of his sight again.”

“Well, I don’t really blame him! You look like you’ve been shot!”

Hermione looks down at her dress and grimaces— she’s not wrong. There’s a deep red stain all over the skirt of her dress but also over the bodice, right across her chest where she cradles her arm. It’s odd, though— she doesn’t feel much pain from the gaping cut, not like she should.

Maybe that’s…not a good thing.

“Shit,” she mutters, eyes closing just as she staggers on her feet, swaying. “Shit.”

Ginny wraps her arm around her waist and huffs. “Fine, I won’t call the ambulance. But we’re going to the closest hospital and if you stumble once I will make the call.”

“But that’s—”