Of Medicine and Magic (a series of Dramione One-Shots)

A Cockroach Crawls Up Draco's Nose

Hermione was the first to arrive at the anatomy lecture room, ready to start her first day working with patients as a Healer trainee. She had spent the past two years learning the biomagical foundations of the human body and all the magical and nonmagical types of illnesses and treatments, and today was finally the day she could set foot in St. Mungo's Hospital where she could put all her knowledge into good use. All she had to do was wait 30 minutes until Dr. Milette Barkson showed up to assign her and the other Healer trainees to their first hospital wings.

As she sat on the middle chair of the front row, she suddenly felt something slimy cover her head. She turned to her reflection on the glass window to her right, and screamed. Her hair was gone—instead, there were long, slimy, brown worms piled atop her head, extending in and out.

"AGH! WHAT IN THE WORLD?!" Hermione jumped up and whipped out her wand, only to realize that she had no idea how to address this issue.

"Restorio Scalpus!" Shouted a familiar voice from across the room.

Instantly, the worms on Hermione's head were replaced by her normal, curly-brown, bushy hair.

Hermione whirled around to see Draco Malfoy cracking up on a seat three rows behind her. "Ah, I'm so glad the Auror Department allowed me to part-time so that I could pursue a career as a Healer! There are so many awesome spells that only Healers and Mediwizards could learn." He raised his eyebrows at her and smirked. "Practicing such spells on Mudbloods will be the best part of Healer training."

"Draco, I'm going to hex you to oblivion!" She spoke through gritted teeth. She aimed her wand at him. "Respiroachusso!"

A cockroach blasted from the tip of her wand and flew toward Draco's face. Before Draco was able to say or do anything, the cockroach landed on his nose and crawled up his nostril.

"Ahh!" Draco flinched and nearly fell out of his seat. He stood up and glared at Hermione. "Dammit, Granger, if you don't eliminate that bug, I'm going to have those worms crawling out from every hole on your body!"

"You do realize that you're just one strike away from being expelled from the School of Medical Magic," Hermione said coolly. "So if I tell Dr. Barkson that you just used one of the Physio Spells on me again, your career as a Healer will already be over."

Draco clenched his fists, glowering. "Oh, and you don't think you'd be getting into any trouble for giving me a Nasal Roach? Those things shit in your nasal cavities! I'm going to be little brown chunks of roach shit falling from my nose all day!" A chunk of brown slime was already leaking out from his right nostril as he spoke.

Hermione held back a laugh as Draco angrily grabbed a nearby tissue and blew his nose. "Agh. Gross," he grumbled, stomping over to toss the brown-soaked tissue into a trash can.

Hermione raised her eyebrows at him. "Don't worry, the roach will die within 15 minutes, so by the time Dr. Barkson gets here, you should be back to normal."

Draco made his way toward Hermione, glaring at her face to face. "I don't care about any probation I'm on, Granger. I'll find a way to cast sparkling bacteria into your bloodstream so you'll start bleeding out of all holes in your body."

Hermione glared at him. "Well then, I'm going to find a way to summon flesh-eating spiders inside your body so that all your organs will be eaten up."

They spent the next 15 minutes bickering and threatening to hex each other with the most absurd, gut-wrenching types of diseases they had learned about, although never actually casting any of the spells they threatened each other with. By the time it was 8:00AM, the doors opened and a flood of Healer trainees arrived. Luna Lovegood was among the first to step in.