This is a one-shot for my friend Jasmin, Chaser 1 for Pride of Portree. I offered to write a one-shot with her story prompt of choice. She wants me to write Dramione, which is, admittedly not exactly my favorite pairing (at least on paper), but it's still something new, so I'm going to do my best! She also requested that Amortentia be used, so I'll be working it in there as well. Ehehehe….

Psychosomia

"Malfoy, Draco?" The stand-in Potions professor, a Ministry-appointed witch by the name of Hollywreath, looked over her rose-tinted half-moon glasses and smiled blithely.

"Here," came a familiar curt voice from the back of the room.

Half of the class shifted to look, including Hermione, who was more surprised than anything. The Malfoy family had mysteriously disappeared after the War while she'd been helping tend to the wounded and later assisted with the renovation of the castle before starting her seventh year at Hogwarts a year later than she ought to have had to do so. There had been whispers of them having escaped abroad to stay with family members until the aftermath of the war blew over. In many circles, the name Malfoy was synonymous with coward.

Of course, while Hermione was not one to gossip and she did not have much in the way of sympathy towards the spoiled, pointy-chinned bigot, she still could understand that he'd been pushed into fighting a war far too young. She remembered the look on his face when he'd run to his parents in the final fight. She remembered how sick and broken he looked during their sixth year and felt guilty for not having figured it out sooner. She'd just been happy that he'd left her alone.

She gave him a sympathetic glance, trying to catch his eye so that he knew that there was at least one person in the sea of glares who didn't think of him as a coward and a traitor.

For a moment, his gray eyes met the dark amber of her own eyes and they widened slightly.

Hermione couldn't help herself. She beamed.

Mission accomplished!

Then he screwed his expression into a sneer and stuck out his tongue in a childish display of disgust, which caused quite a bit of snickering from the other Slytherin students, though they still sat a respectable distance away from him as though not to get any of the disgrace on them.

And Hermione wanted to punch him right in his smug stupid face.

"Oi."

Hermione turned and scowled in the darkened secret passage that she was pretty sure only she, Harry and Ron had discovered thanks to the Marauder's Map.

"Oh, it's you," she said irritably, turning up her nose as though she'd smelled something off.

"I... I just wanted to let you know…" Draco started, "Er...the thing...where...and...um.."

Hermione felt the urge to smirk. He'd never been so unsure of himself before, and his face was beginning to go all blotchy and red with embarrassment.

He took a deep breath and looked at her shoes as though they were the most interesting shoes he'd ever seen.

"Let me start over. I never…" he paused, "That word. The M word. I...it was stupid of me to call you that."

Hermione looked at him skeptically and crossed her arms.

"Exactly why would you apologize about something like that now?" she said suspiciously, "That was ages ago. I think you pretty much summed up exactly how you feel about me at that point."

Draco stumbled back against the stone wall as though he'd been slapped.

"I..that wasn't.."

Hermione arched an eyebrow, unimpressed and walked to the end of the secret passage, which let out near the Great Hall. Draco followed her, hunched over and scowling. After a few minutes of hearing his boots tapping along behind her, she whirled around.

"Seriously, Malfoy. What exactly are you up to? Do you have a bunch of your little followers waiting around with a tape recorder to document my supposed naivete?" she asked sardonically, "Or are you just hoping that I'll fall for your little song and dance and become best mates? Just because Harry and Ron have decided to go straight into Auror training doesn't mean that I'm at a loss for friends, you know."

But she was at a loss for friends. Even though she was considered a war hero by many, there were still some who remembered how badly it had gotten at Hogwarts while she and her friends were languishing in the woods in the worst excuse for a quest that Hermione had ever heard of. And there were far too many who simply wanted to be near her so that her fame would rub off on them too.

Hermione hated it. She now fully understood how much Harry had felt under the seemingly positive and scathingly negative attention he'd been inundated with from the time he'd begun his studies at Hogwarts.

"Tape re-what?" Draco said confusedly, "Is that some kind of a m-muggle thing, Granger? And you know that Goyle is in Azkaban and Zabini had to flee the country with his family after that whole incident at Gringotts after the Ministry used the destruction as an excuse to see exactly what was being stored in family vaults. And...Crabbe..."

Hermione felt immediately terrible as she remembered the horrible fire in the Room of Requirement. Crabbe had been an awful, piggish boy, but she still didn't think he'd deserved to be consumed by living fire.

"I...sorry, that was uncalled for," Hermione said, her stomach suddenly aching terribly as the old thrumming anxiety from the war rose up and she could feel the arm that still bore the words that marked her as a Mudblood stiffen involuntarily.

Draco opened his mouth to say something, but he never got the chance to say anything, for at that moment, two Gryffindor fourth year boys had rounded the corner, saw Hermione looking pained and had pulled out their wands to hex the lone Slytherin student without a further thought.

After all, there were consequences for hesitation at the Hogwarts they'd attended the year before.

Hermione whirled, pulling her own wand and raising a Shielding charm that blocked both herself and Draco, who lay immobile on his back on the hard stone floor.

"What were you two thinking?" she scolded, her expression scornful.

"Well excuse us for trying to protect a fellow student from one of those damn snakes!" shouted one boy, Adrian Scrimgeour, if Hermione remembered properly.

So many had died in the war. And so many more were damaged in ways beyond mere physical wounds.

"Yeah!" shouted the other, one Brady Churchapel, his lip pulling back in a snarl, "Just because you think you're the bloody Princess of Gryffindor doesn't mean we're your servants! We reserve the right to hex a scummy snake on sight. After all, he would do the same to us."

"Just get out of here before I get mad enough to send a patronus to the Headmistress!" Hermione shouted back fiercely, "And ten points from Gryffindor! Each!"

"Fine! Go be with your scaly snake of a boyfriend but don't come crying to us when he bites you!" Adrian shouted back as Brady made a rude gesture.

"He's not my boyfriend! Don't make me take an additional twenty points from my own house, because I will!" Hermione snarled back, her face nearly feral, "And if you really want to experience some nasty hexes firsthand, I suggest you keep running at the mouth, because my patience is growing shorter by the second."

The two boys looked shocked but turned tail and ran up the stairs anyway, just in case Hermione made good on her threat.

Hermione turned and knelt down, undoing the Total Body Bind and Stinging Nettle Hex on Draco, casting painkiller charms on the various welts that were springing up now that he was no longer frozen in place.

"Ugh," he groaned, "Who knew being Head Girl was such a pain, eh? Even I know better than to call you-ow-Princess."

"Among other things," Hermione said with a smirk.

"I said I was sorry," Draco replied cooly.

"No you didn't," Hermione replied, "You merely said a bunch of apologetic-sounding words without actually saying anything of the sort. You can't possibly think that I'm stupid enough not to notice. I may be Gryffindor but I know Slytherin cunning when I see it."

"Well, I'm sorry about underestimating you, that's for sure," Draco muttered, looking sullen.

Hermione snorted.

"There's the Draco I know and love," she said, her face going scarlet the second she realized what she'd said, "I mean...I don't….er...love you or anything like that oh god just stop talking right now Hermione seriously stop it."

"You in the habit of talking to yourself, Granger?" Draco replied, smirking openly now.

"Just ignore what I said," Hermione replied stiffly, "No seriously, I just...I was just trying to let you know that back in class, I understand what you were going through. Even though we've been at odds ever since the first time we rode the Hogwarts Express, I just...and then you had to snub me on top of all of it!"

Hermione realized that she was nearly shouting and she was amazed that no one else had appeared to witness her making an utter fool of herself.

"Ugh, you know what? Come with me!" Hermione grabbed Draco around the wrist and pulled the bewildered Slytherin boy up the stairs.

He knew better than to ask where they were going.

When they reached the fifth floor next to the three dancing trolls, Draco felt like bolting.

"It's ok, Draco," Hermione said, "I checked the room after...well...after. It still works quite well, and I'll be sure to ask it to provide something decidedly junk free."

Shit. When did I start calling him by his first name? Like he's some kind of friend. Or..or...no. I'm being ridiculous. I only said...it was just a stupid slip of the tongue!

She dropped his wrist and he stood against the far wall watching her pace back and forth until a door materialized against the bare wall, just like it had back then...and then…the fire…

Draco's eyes had gone wide, seeing memory made real. His mind replayed the heat and sulphurous stench of those flames, growing larger and larger until they were like a great creature with horns and teeth and claws made of molten death.

"Draco? Draco! What's wrong?" Hermione was shaking him by the shoulders and he felt himself draw a deep breath as though he was coming back from very far away.

"I'm...I'm fine…" he muttered, but Hermione could feel that he was quivering from the grasp she had on his shoulders.

"It's ok," Hermione said soothingly, grabbing his wrist more gently than before, "We'll just go in here and talk a bit.

She opened the door, and for a moment, Draco had the mental image of a giant, fiery dragon's head snapping at him as he struggled to hold onto the broom and not fall into the ocean of molten flame below him...but when he looked up, the room inside was warm and inviting and blessedly free of any clutter.

The room itself was a rich maple honey color, with lots of wooden accents. It almost looked as comfortable as the Hufflepuff common room, which was quite well known to most Slytherins, as it was the place to go for all of the best food after hours and besides, the 'Puffs knew how to throw a party. A couple of comfortable chairs sat by two frosted glass windows, where the amber rays of late afternoon filtered in. A couple of bookcases stood across the room, but they were neatly arranged. A table sat between the chairs with a number of snack foods and two goblets.

"Come on then," Hermione said, pulling him inside.

He almost jumped when the door disappeared abruptly behind them, but then he remembered that it did that normally and tried to control his labored breathing so that Hermione wouldn't see that he was nearly about to have a panic attack. Sitting in the chair furthest from the bookcases, Draco leaned over with his elbows on the table and stared skeptically at the food.

"Should we even eat this stuff?" he asked, picking up a piece of cheese with a fork.

Hermione shrugged, "It's perfectly safe. I should know. I've eaten food here before when I was...well...let's just say that being Head Girl can be more trouble than it's worth and leave it at that."

"Well, if you've already tried it out with no ill effects," Draco said, shrugging in a manner that made him look like a shadow of the cocky boy he'd been so long ago as he grabbed the goblet, "Bottoms up."

He knocked back his head, gulping the sweet liquid down in seconds.

"Not bad," he remarked, placing the cheese he'd speared with the fork before on a buttery cracker, "Tastes familiar but I can't put my finger on it."

Hermione swirled her goblet around in a circle before taking a sip.

"Wait, what's this flavor?" she said, smacking her lips together, "It's delicious. Honest. The most delicious thing I've ever tasted in my life."

"I dunno," Draco said with a conspiratorial grin, "But maybe we can get more. Room? Oh Room? Please top a fellow off?"

He snickered when the liquid filled up nearly to the brim of his goblet.

They both downed three glasses before having drunk their fill. But by that point, they both were feeling quite good indeed.

"I dunno what was in there," Draco said, hiccuping slightly, "But I sure wouldn't mind the recipe."

"I know I've tasted this before," Hermione said languidly, "But I just can't remember where!"

"I don't hate you, you know that, right?" Draco said suddenly, his face scarlet, "In fact, it's kind of the opposite you see, it's funny really."

"I don't see how any of that is a laughing matter," Hermione replied with a slightly dazed look on her face, "Though I must admit, I'd love to see you as a ferret again. I might even like to pet you, after all I will admit you were pretty cute."

Draco blushed even more deeply.

"Um...well..H..Hermione, what you said before...it was true," he stuttered, "I didn't apologize, not really. It's not something I'm very good at."

"A Malfoy admitting he's not good at something?" Hermione laughed, "Now I've seen everything!"

"I'm serious!" Draco replied, hating the slight whine in his voice, "The thing is...Hermione...I am sorry for calling you a terrible word. I'm sorry for being an insufferable arse. I'm sorry for all of the pure blooded nonsense. Don't look at me like that, Hermione! It's true! It was nonsense and I fell for it- hook, line and sinker! My family is the most important thing to me, but after my dad...after he got put in Azkaban, I realized exactly what all of the posturing had brought us."

"I don't know what to say," Hermione said softly, looking down at the apple slice she was chewing daintily as though it was absolutely captivating.

"I can apologize for things that I didn't do if that will help," he replied, his gray eyes going desperate, "Like that one time when Goyle slingshotted bogies into your hair in Potions class, and I didn't say anything. Or when Crabbe tripped you when you were carrying that really heavy book out of the library and you dropped it and the spine flew off the side and we laughed about it for a week."

"What is going on with you, Draco? You sound a bit sloshed!" Hermione said, laughing in a way that made her sound quite tipsy herself, "Don't tell me that you drank some kind of love potion and are now madly obsessed with me!"

"You drank it too!" Draco replied, "So does that mean you feel the same way?"

"Potions do not make you love people, not even Amortentia," Hermione repled haughtily, "But they can make you kind of obsessive, and now that I think of it...that smell…"

Her eyes widened with realization and she turned around in her chair.

"OH MY GOD. Room of Requirement?! Did you drug us with Amortentia?!" she shouted angrily, shaking her fist.

Neither of them expected a reply, but a tiny parchment appeared on the table a couple of moments later. Hermione looked around irritably and then picked it up and unfolded the paper.

"You need to understand how you feel," she read, "What does that even mean? Dosing us with a love potion isn't going to-"

"I love you, Hermione Granger" Draco said, quite seriously, and Hermione turned her head abruptly to goggle at him open mouthed.

"What….did you? No, you couldn't, that's...that's…" she stammered.

"I've loved you every day since our second year," he replied seriously, "I tried to ignore you. Then I tried to make you hate me, which succeeded splendidly, I might add. And then I tried to replace you with Pansy Parkinson of all people. But it never worked, and now...and now we're here and what the hell, I might as well try honesty. It's the only tactic I haven't used yet, after all."

"No...that's...are you listening to what you're saying?" Hermione replied, a little hysterical now, "I drank just as much as you did and I'm not going on like this."

"But you're feeling something, aren't you?" Draco said desperately, and he thrust his hand across the table, placing it over hers before she had the chance to pull it away, "Maybe just for an hour...just for today...you could...you could feel the same?"

"You're not joking...are you?" Hermione said uncertainly, her cheeks growing warm as she felt his pulse jumping against the skin on the back of her hand.

"Hermione," he said softly, like a sigh, and she could feel her heart jumping in her chest too.

A soft popping noise made them both turn their heads. A comfortable couch had materialized against the far wall, its cushions incredibly plush and inviting.

"Come on, then," Draco said, grabbing Hermione's wrist gently and leading her over.

Hermione let him.

"If we're going to be lovesick idiots until this damn thing wears off," Draco began, "Then I propose that we just let things happen and then we can decide how we feel afterwards."

"But none of this is real," Hermione protested, grasping his hand and pressing it against her chest, which was throbbing painfully, "What if you're disgusted afterwards? Maybe we should just try to-"

"No," Draco interrupted, gulping at the abrupt and intimate contact, "I would never be disgusted with you, Hermione. And besides, if none of this is real…"

He leaned closer and closer to her, wrapping his hand around the back of her head and angling her chin up so his lips were mere centimeters away from hers.

"Then does it really matter if I do something like this?" he whispered, pressing his lips against hers at last.

Hermione moaned audibly as she began to kiss him back, her hand going to the front of his robes and grasping onto them as though desperately trying to hold on.

"It's not real," she gasped huskily as he broke away from her before kissing her again, "But you're right. It doesn't matter. It feels amazing. No matter what I say later, I want this. If I don't have to think about it, I'll be honest. I want more."

She was pressing into him, draping her body over his, pushing him down with her lips until he was flat on his back and she moved over him, stroking a stray strand of white-blond hair from his face and tucking it behind his ear gently. Her hair fell in a bushy ring around his face, and he felt as though he was looking up through a forest of chestnut curls at the shining noonday sun. Hermione was practically glowing as she smiled down at him with her dark amber eyes half-lidded in pleasure. She was so vulnerable, and a part of him hated how easily she could do this.

How easily she bared her throat to a former enemy.

But the instinctively biting comment froze in his throat as she slid her hand down under his chin and caressed his neck, bending down to kiss the sensitive skin along his collarbone where the loose fabric of his robes had been pushed aside and he found himself moaning unintelligibly as she rubbed against his body and kissed his neck until he could bear it no longer.

"If..if you don't stop soon...I...I won't be able to stop…" he gasped.

"Who says...I would let you?" she panted back at him, closing the distance between their lips once more.

"I can't believe you missed the rest of the day's classes, Hermione!" Neville said with a worried expression, "And it's way past curfew! I even looked for you in the infirmary because I figured that's where you'd have to be...to...wait, what's wrong with your hair? Has it always been like that? It looks like you've been in a windstorm!"

"Hmmm?" Hermione said dazedly as she stroked her unruly locks and realized that it was practically standing on end, "Oh, yeah..hnn...well...better go fix that, then."

She left a very confused Neville staring worriedly after her as she made her way up to the girl's dorms. She flopped down on the queen-sized mattress in the Head Girl's private dorm and let out the deep sigh that she'd been holding in for what felt like ages. It wasn't fun to get a scolding from the Fat Lady and then get stopped and interrogated by Neville, of all people. In fact, Hermione knew she wasn't like this, not normally.

But something had happened. Something far out of the norm, and there was no going back.

The worst part was how her heart and her body ached to be by his side even though they had only just parted. Had the Amortentia truly not yet worn off?

Hermione rolled over and groaned, but then, a glint on the table caught her eye and she realized that she still had work to do. She pulled the cloth napkin from her robes, the corner stained in the mystery fluid that had been served in her drink in the Room of Requirement.

She had to know.

Approaching her Potions set-up, Hermione set her cauldron to simmer as she poured in the Consequat Indicitus potion she'd kept on hand ever since second year. It was forbidden to use formally in class or during tests, of course, but Hermione figured that if they just left the instructions in the Potions section of the library, it wasn't exactly like it was illegal or anything, and it had been one of the best ways to figure out how she'd made a mistake with ingredients or handling when writing Potions essays and homework assignments.

Once the liquid was at a rolling boil, she dipped the corner of the cloth napkin into it and watched the liquid be pulled from the wet fabric, noting the color change and writing down the ingredients as they puffed into smokey words above the cauldron.

"That's impossible," she gasped, when she'd finished writing ingredients and a final word, the word that described what could be made of these ingredients when prepared, had dissipated into the air.

There was no Amortentia, or for that matter, no love potion of any sort in the liquid she'd just tested.

It was simply quite high-grade Elf-made wine, with such a low alcohol content that it wouldn't render even the most lightweight of lightweights mildly tipsy.

Which meant...

"Oh god," she whispered, a sinking feeling intensifying in her stomach, "What I'm feeling...it's...real."

The next morning, Professor Hollywreath was late to her morning Potions class. Hagrid had been teaching the mandrake babies to sing in Greenhouse Six again and it had caused quite a kerfuffle that morning as a number were beginning to hit puberty, which caused their tunes to become quite a bit more...deadly. She'd had to assist Professor Sprout with soundproofing spells all morning and she'd missed breakfast and was quite certain that the Venomous Tentacula had gotten fresh with her on the way out.

So when she reached the door and could hear that the Seventh Year class within was obvious in some sort of chaos judging from the sound of voices within, she seriously considered just turning around and packing her bags and leaving the country forever.

But Hannah Hollywreath had been a Ravenclaw student and she knew that the logical part of her brain would not be able to live with itself if she went through with such a mad thought.

With a world-weary sigh, she summoned every ounce of strength and courage she possessed and opened the door.

The desks and chairs had all been pushed to the corners of the room as though a giant explosion had hit the room. Both Gryffindor and Slytherin students were shaking their fists and shouting and gasping and laughing and crying and pouting. But in the middle of the room, she saw something so odd that she had to blink twice to register the sight. Two students, one in crimson robes and the other in emerald green, were locked together tightly, kissing one another in a manner that made Professor Hollywreath turn scarlet.

"Whatever is going on here?!" she shouted, feeling the wind taken out of her sails when she realized that no one had even noticed her.

She grabbed a Slytherin student, who was bawling his eyes out, and shook him until he looked at her.

"What happened, Corvin?" she bellowed over the din in the classroom.

"Neville got too close to the Emotionalis potion you'd set out at the front of the room and...and…" the boy broke out into tears again.

"Oh good lord!" Professor Hollywreath fumed, and she pulled out her wand, freezing everyone in place.

The room went utterly, eerily silent and she ran to her potions stores to pull out the antidote, which she boiled in the humidifier that she kept for purposes like this and filled the room with a pleasant-smelling scent. After fifteen minutes, she was certain it had taken the intended effect and she cast the counter-curse.

Everyone slumped to the floor, exhausted but unharmed. That is, everyone but Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger, who continued to kiss one another as though there was no one else in the world.

When everyone noticed this, the class erupted into another uproar, with Slytherin and Gryffindor students all talking at once, some shouting expletives, while others looked strangely impressed. Only Neville stood there dumbstruck, with his mouth hanging open as though it was about to hit the floor.

"SILENCE!" bellowed Professor Hollywreath as she pointed her wand at her throat and amplified her voice.

Everyone stopped at once and stared. Even Hermione broke away from her truly prodigious snogging session and she looked at her professor with a mortified expression as Draco held her more tightly with a protective expression on his face.

"I have no idea what is going on, but suffice to say, I've had a long, unpleasant night dealing with mandrakes and therefore have absolutely no patience for teenage shenanigans!" Hollywreath said with a sniff, "So if you would all grab your desks and chairs and place them in their appropriate places and turn your textbooks to page 408, I will begin my lecture."

With a slight muttering under their collective breaths, everyone moved to do as she'd asked.

"So…" Hermione said, looking up with the feeling that the world had fallen away and everything that she'd previously thought she knew had changed, "I checked last night...in the drinks...there wasn't any…"

"It wasn't Amortentia, was it?" Draco breathed with the tiniest of smirks, and his eyes had gone nearly silver.

"I guess that means that all of that...what we did together...was real," Hermione replied softly as she helped him right a table.

"Thank Merlin!" Draco replied with a grin, "Because I was about to say, if that was all a dream, I'd be tempted to take a Draught of Living Death."

"Don't even joke about things like that, Draco Malfoy!" Hermione shot back, but she returned his wicked grin with one of her own and Draco felt his heart swoop.

"I guess I know exactly what is going to be the talk of the Great Hall for the rest of the week," Draco said, looking around at the furtive glances they were getting from their fellow classmates, "You may find yourself becoming just as much an outcast as I am."

"I think you'll find that after having been Undesirable #2 for more than a year, I've got quite a lot of experience in that sort of thing," Hermione replied with a sniff, "It'll take more than being the most unpopular person in existence to make me give up on you, you know. After all, I've made it through seven years of being friends with Harry Potter, and if that doesn't tell you something about my survival abilities, then I don't know what will."

Out of nowhere, Draco laughed so loudly that Hermione almost jumped.

"Touche," he said, "Now let's get through this class as quickly as possible. For even without the help of a love potion, I'm finding it difficult to keep my hands off of you...among other things."

Hermione went scarlet as she felt her body growing warm with desire. She shook her head to clear it, which didn't exactly work, but it kept the thrumming ache at bay.

"Talk about motivation," she breathed, sliding into her chair and opening her textbook with a determined air.

"You don't know the half of it," he replied, slipping into the chair next to hers, opening his textbook with one hand, as the other slid over to rest softly on her knee, making Hermione swallow the squeak that nearly made it out of her lips.

Hermione smiled as she thought of what would happen once Rita Skeeter got word of this unconventional news as Draco mused about his father's reaction when he heard about it and realized that he just didn't care.

For once, neither of them were worried about what anyone would think at all because they had each other and that was enough.