Ride or Die

Do No Harm

Chapter 2: Do No Harm

Hermione Granger stepped in front of her locker and sank back onto the bench, feeling a thorough throb of exhaustion course through her. She'd once thought - stupidly - that medical school had been hardest thing she'd ever done; she'd been so, so tragically wrong.

"Granger," Dean barked from his locker down the row, "you good?"

"Yeah, fine," she replied weakly, though in truth, she doubted her legs would hold her much longer. "Long procedure," she explained unnecessarily.

"You're telling me," Padma sniffed, materializing on Dean's left. "Fascinating, though, wasn't it?" she prompted, nudging Dean. "Amazing."

"I'd have killed to scrub in on that," Dean agreed, glaring sulkily at Hermione. "Watch yourself, Granger," he added with a wink, and Hermione, despite herself, wondered for a moment whether or not he was capable of following through on that claim.

There was something fairly merciless about Dean Thomas, she thought, and she'd noticed it right away. Perhaps it was by necessity; he, famously among her intern class, was from Diagon originally, the prodigal son who'd returned home instead of seeking fortune elsewhere. He'd worked his way through state school for college and med school and when it came to his own success he was hungrier - in a wolfish way - than anyone Hermione had ever met.

"You lucky bitch," Padma grumbled at her in agreement, shaking her head.

Padma, Hermione knew, was capable of murdering Hermione for a surgery, and could just as easily hide the evidence without a trace. Padma had graduated top of her class from Stanford Med, just as she'd been top of her class in undergrad. Unlike Dean, she'd taken the job at St. Mungo's not for the glamour - ha, Hermione thought, laughing internally - of small town life in Diagon, but for the unexpectedly unparalleled oncology department. Padma Patil, Hermione knew, was a true surgeon; she would come in steadily, slice out her competition with a scalpel, and then close up the wound and walk away without remorse, heading instead to a bigger name hospital once she'd collected her accolades.

St. Mungo's surgical internship was tougher than Hermione could have ever imagined, and it had more than a little to do with the caliber of her competition. She was used to being the smartest, the best in her class - but so were they. She'd never met anyone as intense and relentless as she was until she'd met the other interns, Dean and Padma included, who generally seemed overjoyed to sacrifice food, sleep, and happiness in order to secure a residency.

With some exceptions, of course.

"You going out later?" Dean asked, shoving past some other interns to throw himself down beside Hermione. "You look like you need a drink."

"Going out?" Hermione echoed skeptically, glancing between him and Padma. "You're kidding."

"Social lives are healthy," Padma said with a shrug, arriving to stand beside them. "Besides," she added, "you don't want us getting into an alliance without you, do you?"

"You would turn a drink invitation into a threat," Dean muttered to Padma, rolling his eyes. "Come on," he urged, turning to nudge Hermione. "You've lived here for six months and haven't gone anywhere."

"Where exactly am I going to go?" Hermione said dubiously, kicking off her shoes. "Don't tell me there's some secret burgeoning downtown I don't know about."

Padma and Dean exchanged a glance. "She's not wrong," Padma said, and Dean laughed.

"Eh, maybe not, but Rosmerta's is fun after a long day," Dean said with a grin. "In its own, uniquely Diagon way. Besides," he added casually, "you can meet my boyfriend."