“I doubt it could possibly be more traumatic than anything I haven't already experienced,” he said through his teeth. “Don't you dare stun me, Granger.”
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.
She smoothed the bones, drilled several tiny holes and then washed the entire area with Essence of Dittany before summoning a spool of acromantula silk and rapidly suturing the tendons to the bones. She'd visualised, practiced, and reviewed the procedure a thousand times in her room, the precise order of every movement. Once she'd completed the myodesis, she began wand-suturing layer after rapid layer of stitches. They were quicker to perform and more forgiving than the spellwork she'd used on his runes. Her fingers twitched, and she didn't have time to fix the crooked stitches.
She was running out of time.
Stitch after stitch, layer after layer until the fascial tissue met neatly.
*****
“Ferula,” she said, drawing her wand along his skin. Bandages wrapped firmly around his arm nearly up to his shoulder.
“There,” she said, stepping back and giving herself a moment to breathe raggedly. There were drops of perspiration on her face. She was still gasping with relief as she countered the immobilisation on Draco. He was barely conscious. She began carefully inspecting all the diagnostics and monitor spells surrounding him as the sand in the hourglass ran out.
He was stable, although drained both physically and magically. There were still traces of the curse, but the most deadly aspects were countered. She gave him a potion meant for countering vampire antivenin, and it improved his blood platelet count.
Lucius banged his shackles loudly against the bars of the cage. Hermione turned sharply, and countered the silencing spell Draco had used on him.
“I hope you're done. You've run out of time. I'm being summoned,” he said in a tight voice.
Her stomach plummeted, and she nodded. She pulled on her coat, cloak and gloves, and, with a flick of her wand, cast a spell on Draco to make him lighter. She wrapped his robes and cloak tightly around him, muttering warming charms, and put a dragonhide glove onto his remaining hand before taking hold of his right arm, pulling it over her shoulder to help him stand.
She picked up Lucius' wand from the table where it lay and held it towards him. “You can do it? You'll do it?”
He sneered at her as he jerked his wand from her hand. “Get out of my house, Mudblood.”
Hermione spelled all the supplies and extra wands into her satchel and slung it over her shoulder, turning and half-carrying Draco across the room towards the door.
“Draco…” Lucius spoke when they were nearly out of the room.
Hermione wavered over whether to pause or keep going. Draco twitched.
She swallowed hard and stopped, turning him back.
Lucius was staring across the room with the same starved expression he'd worn looking at Narcissa.
“Father. Mother,” Draco said, his voice low and forced.
Lucius rested a hand on the bars of the cage. “I was proud of you.”
Draco was silent for a moment.
“Right…” he said, the word barely more than a whisper.
Narcissa stared at Hermione. “Save him.”
Hermione nodded. “Yes.”
Lucius looked at Draco for a moment longer before his eyes dropped to Hermione. “Get him out.”
Hermione tightened her hold on Draco and walked quickly out the doors of the South Wing.
Bobbin and several other elves were standing outside, holding the reins of the Granian. It was saddled and pawing the gravel impatiently, prancing as it stood waiting at the doors.