Muffin Crisis
It had been almost a week since the mysterious phenomenon started.
Hermione had several times caught with a grimace, the conversation that hovered amongst the girls about how said mysterious phenomenon had managed to convert Draco Malfoy into a more mysterious hunk; in fact, they seemed to think his act of stoic and indifference attractive instead of disturbing and annoying. For Hermione's part, it was immensely perturbing how the whiney, cowardly and intolerable sleazebag that she'd known for so long suddenly turned into who he seemed to have turned into. It also bothered her how his abrupt transformation appeared to give him better wits that had so far, easily aided him to outsmart her in their few latest verbal wars. Added to the fact that he did not even gloat—which he used to always do—and merely waltzed away without another backward glance; Hermione had never felt more passionately browned off.
"Maybe he's hit his head somewhere and the long-entangled fibers in his brains finally got freed." Hermione speculated. She hugged Crookshanks in her arms and leaned against the spire on her left, looking over the magnificent expanse of Hogwarts' lake. Despite her intense dislike (subtle substitute for "fearfulness") for flying, Astronomy Tower had been her second favorite place in Hogwarts (second to "library", of course). Whenever she was feeling brain drain, she'd climb all the way up to the tallest tower; whenever she was having yet another pointless squabble with Ron and got her heart terribly stamped, she'd climb all the way up to the tallest tower. To be fair, the ancient construction did not necessarily suffer listening to her rambles of once upon a broken heart every time she came; sometimes she dropped by just to enjoy the scenery and the wind—like today. "Careful," Hermione muttered when Crookshanks reached his paw toward the tempting little birds that skirted the balustrade.
Suddenly, Crookshanks turned his head the other way, and he seemed to be craning his neck curiously to stare at something past Hermione. What could be more interesting than birds?
Hermione turned to look, and her eyes widened to the size of a galleon.
There he was, a madcap in the form of Draco Malfoy—barefooted, balancing himself on the balustrade as if he was an aspiring apprentice in the carnival. He looked up and caught Hermione's eyes, and then, rather offhandedly, he resumed his traveling along the flat surface of the tower's barrier.
"Malfoy!" Hermione couldn't help shrieking. "W-what are you doing?" she was so not here when he fell; she would make the playoffs as one of the suspects who might want to murder him. After all, her only alibi would be a ginger cat who was currently more fascinated in the corpse-to-be. "Get down!" Hermione ordered, pointing an index finger commandingly at him, while her other hand grasped on to Crookshanks a little bit firmer, as the cat seemed to be getting ideas on following Malfoy's suit. "Get down this instant, Malfoy!"
Draco glanced at her again. Then, quite uncharacteristically, he made some moves that could have been interpreted as dancing.
The heck?
"I didn't ask you to squirm!" Hermione bawled.
With a believably innocent face, he pointed out,
"But don't people say "get down" in a disco, as in "let's dance"?"
Hermione blinked.
"Well you're not exactly in a disco!" she pointed back. "How did you know what a disco is? No, forget that. What is wrong with you?"
"I'm just walking around."
"If that's your idea of walking around—" Hermione inhaled deep, hanging to dear threads of sanity. She'd take back what she'd said about his transformation had given him better wits. "—just hop off, Malfoy. I won't care as much if I'm not here, but I am. So you better hop off."
"Hop off." Draco echoed.
Hermione looked into his grey eyes intently, and they seemed strangely empty, vacant, inexpressive. She tried to look again for confirmation, but he started to turn facing the abysmal heights that would eventually lead to his gruesome death, and Hermione found herself bawling out,
"Not that way! This way!"
"Oh." poker-faced, Draco turned the other way and hopped off the balustrade, his bare feet landing gracefully on the cemented floor.
Crookshanks wiggled off Hermione's arms and hopped off her hold, strutting toward Draco. The blond Slytherin looked down to gaze at the ginger cat as it lingered around him. Judging from the look on his face, one would've assumed that he had never seen a cat before; his grey eyes widened comically when the furry creature stroked itself against his legs, and he looked up at Hermione with a child-like expression, as if silently imploring; "It doesn't bite, does it?"
By then, Hermione was seriously contemplating whether he had actually hit his head somewhere. It must have had been a pretty knockout blow too, considering the way he was acting. Hermione stared at him for moments, and he stared back at her blankly; she hadn't yet figured out what, but something was definitely amiss.
Frowning now, Hermione stared some more, and Draco blinked once, before resuming the practice of boring holes into the back of her head.
It was him who broke the silence.
"Did I lose?" he prompted.
"What?" Hermione asked, somewhat distractedly.
"I just blinked. Aren't we playing who could stay unblinking the longest?"
"… No. We aren't." Hermione shut her eyes and heaved out a sigh. "Look, Malfoy. Are you playing with me?"
"I don't know. You just said we aren't—"
"Did you hit your head somewhere recently?" Hermione cut in, not happy that she was curious about what was happening to him, plus perhaps a little worried. Then, she comforted herself that she should be piqued and concerned, because whatever his ailment was, it could be infectious. Draco looked mildly confused at her question, and Hermione elaborated, "Did you fall recently, and maybe hit your head? Or maybe you got into a fight and got smashed on the head with a chair or something?"
Draco shuffled his feet and glanced down at Crookshanks, shaking his head.
"But Blaise and Pansy say I'm acting odd." he reported. "Even the others have started saying so."
"Mm." Hermione didn't wonder. "Do you know who I am, then?"
"Hermione Granger, the Muggle-born who's been on top of me since the past years."
"E-excuse me?"
"I've always been second to you in grades, Granger. Why ever would you think I don't know who you are?"
Oh, *that* on top.
Hermione watched when he crouched down in front of Crookshanks, his palms on his knees. He stared at the ginger cat almost as curiously as the ginger cat stared at him.
"What is it?" Hermione asked with caution.
"Its face." Draco said in monotone, poking a long, white index finger lightly at Crookshanks' whiskers. "It has a frightful face."
Hermione flinched.
"Oh really?" she struggled to remain composed. "You said it like it doesn't bother you at all."
"It's not my cat." he said matter-of-factly.
Hermione twitched. If he was saying it in his normal, drawling voice which was filled with contempt and mockery, Hermione would've proudly pulled out her wand and hexed him into oblivion, but the fact that he had said it with such… Innocence, it somewhat gnawed at her conscience to harm him.
Then, it clicked.
"Malfoy?" Hermione called, crouching in front of him so that Crookshanks was circling in the middle of them. Draco looked up, and his grey eyes were lucid—clear and, ugh, beautiful, but that was not the point. Hermione shook the observation away. "Don't you think you're lacking something?" she asked.
"I lost my left shoe when I ran from Millicent Bullstrode. I left the right one at the staircase."
"…" Hermione chose not to make any comment. "I meant characters." she said, chewing at her lips and searching for the exact word. "Well… You're acting strangely and you're not wearing your permanent smirk today." she said, ignoring the contradiction in her sentence. "As if, I don't know, like you've lost something; characters? Moods? Feelings?"
At that, Draco smiled, but it was light and didn't seem to be filled with anything. If Hermione would be so frank, she would have said that his smile made him look adorable.
"Maybe I've lost feelings." he said. "Or we wouldn't be having this conversation."
"Exactly!" Hermione raised her punch with enthusiasm in the air. Being the solutions-master that she was, she stood up and began racking her brains for, well, solutions. "There's no denying it. You've been deprived of your feelings, and we're going to get them back."
"We?" Draco looked up at her. Hermione paced around a good measure, and then turned to nod with all due seriousness at him. "Why?" he asked. "Feelings… Aren't exactly essential for a living, or else I would've been dead."
"So you admit you're feeling nothing?"
"I wouldn't say nothing, but I do feel light, like nothing really matters."
"What about your friends? Your family? Don't they matter?"
Draco was silent for some time, and then he frowned.
"I don't know." he blinked and the frown disappeared, his face again looking emotionless. "So living without feelings isn't normal, is it?" he asked.
"I certainly don't like it." Hermione said. She wanted to say that later when they found his "feelings" again, she would like him to re-consider his feelings about abhorring her, but she couldn't bring herself to say it. "Well, first of all, we have to find out whether you've actually lost your feelings. Living in the wizarding world and Hogwarts at that, I wouldn't be too surprised if it's true." Hermione looked at Draco, and she found him looking at her with a smile. "I thought you couldn't feel?" she asked. Draco nodded. "Then why are you smiling?"
"I think I'm grateful." he said.
"You think you're grateful." Hermione droned.
"Because you hate me, and you still want to help me." he explained. Hermione frowned. She hated him? It had obviously been the other way around. Draco carried her "frightful-faced" cat and pushed himself to stand. "After all, who needs a reason to smile at someone? Isn't it one act of kindness, or something?"
Hermione made no reply, although she did think it was ironic; coming from someone who had simply smirked and bullied throughout the years he'd been breathing in Hogwarts.
~;~
That morning found Hermione reading at the Gryffindor table when everybody else was actually happily digging in their breakfast.
"Ish phat weally imphortant?" Ron asked with his eyebrows furrowed, habitually chewing and talking at the same time.
"Yes, it's really important." Hermione confirmed, not taking her eyes from the leather-clad tome that she had picked up from library two days ago after the meeting at the Astronomy Tower. She had figured it was best to start with a book that talked about "strange and seemingly inexplicable conditions", and so she was, but so far two days had been spent carrying the large (and heavy) book around, and still she hadn't yet stumbled upon anything close to Malfoy's current situation. He was doing his part by investigating anything unfamiliar that had happened to him in the recent past days. "I'm finished," Hermione decided, taking another sip from her goblet of orange juice before gathering the tome and her book bag.
"But your Arithmancy won't start until half an hour." Harry remarked.
"And you haven't even eaten." Ginny pointed out.
"I'm not hungry." Hermione smiled, making her way to the massive double door after dropping a "see you later" to her friends.
"She won't be hungry when there's a book in her hands." Ron clarified.
As expected, Hermione found herself being the first person who set foot in the Arithmancy classroom. Then again, the subject alone wasn't exactly a favorite—there were hardly a dozen students in whole.
Hermione sat down in her customary seat and promptly resumed her reading. Not five minutes later someone pulled a chair next to hers, and a white hand placed down two muffins on her tabletop.
"Eat." a by-then familiar, monotonic voice ordered. Hermione turned to see Draco Malfoy sitting facing her. She stared at him a long moment, contemplating—he must have had noticed her not eating in the Great Hall, or something, or else he wouldn't have purposely taken her breakfast. "You don't make the muffins disappear by staring at my handsome face." he said.
Abruptly Hermione turned her eyes on the muffins, blushing furiously. That sure took her by surprise, despite how nonchalant his voice sounded. Hermione mumbled something incoherent and grabbed the first muffin, biting into it while keeping her eyes firmly on her book's page.
"Have you found out anything yet?" she asked once her face felt cool again.
"I have." Draco replied. Hermione turned ecstatically to hear him, but he didn't elaborate. She opened her mouth to prompt, "Well?", but that was when he continued, "About a week ago, Blaise shoved into my mouth a bran muffin."
Hermione must admit, it was the least that she had expected.
"And then?" she asked.
"It tasted odd, I remember that, but I chewed it and swallowed."
"Um, Malfoy, what does it have anything to do—"
"I was having a fever back then," Draco proceeded as if he didn't hear her. "It was the night when I was supposed to patrol the school with you." at that, Hermione recalled their patrol night and remembered; indeed, he did look unhealthy, in fact she'd even been worried if he would suddenly drop and die. He'd looked flushed unlike his usual "pale" color. "I kept whining about not wanting to skip patrol because I didn't want you or Potter or Weasley or all of you to find out that I skipped because I was sick."
There, Hermione had to snort.
"You didn't hesitate to show everyone how you were "badly injured" after being stamped by a Hippogriff back in third year." she remarked.
Draco's expression remained blank.
"Everybody knew it was fake, anyway." he brushed it off casually. "So that night Pansy wanted me to skip, but I refused, so Blaise shoved my mouth a muffin because I didn't eat anything during dinner. He said it was enough to last me all night. After that I went patrolling with you. I think it was the next morning that I started "acting strange"."
Hermione hardly bought it.
"So you're saying the muffin took your feelings away?" she wanted to confirm. Draco nodded, and she was at a loss for words. "Don't you suspect that it was the fever that shut something in your brains?"
"No." Draco said blandly. "The muffin wasn't a normal muffin. It was Crabbe's muffin. He and Goyle had just finished scrubbing the cauldrons in Snape's dungeons. Yesterday when I asked them, they finally admitted that while scrubbing, they had broken a phial in the dungeons and its blue liquid had stained some of their muffins."
"And they still brought the contaminated muffins back to you?!" Hermione couldn't keep herself from shouting.
"They're always very reluctant when it involves food." Draco explained, unperturbed.
"God knows what the blue liquid had been, Malfoy." Hermione pointed out vehemently. "I'm just glad for you that you haven't started growing horns or anything." she glanced at the half-bitten muffin in her hand, and completely lost her appetite. In fact, she didn't think she would find muffins desirable in the next twelve months.
Draco leaned back in his chair, pushing it to stand on its two back legs. He watched as Hermione put the muffin in her hand on the tabletop, shook her head and flipped the pages of her large book while muttering something under her breath.
"I've asked Snape about it." he finally said. Again, Hermione turned to him; her curiosity surpassing her irritation. "He told me the blue liquid was an incomplete potion, and that it has the effects involving "feelings" when it's consumed. Especially since it's not yet perfected…"
"Did he tell you how to reverse its effects?" Hermione asked impatiently.
Before Draco could answer, Padma Patil and her friends walked in the classroom, and Draco stood up from his chair.
"I better be leaving." he decided. Hermione wanted to press on the matter, but he said, "You'll know all about it later."
The Ravenclaw girls eyed both of them with sheer interest; after all, it wasn't a usual sight to see a harmonious combination between Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger.
Hermione smiled politely at them, ignoring their blatant prying look. She watched Draco walk to the front door, and before he stepped out, he turned back. He raised his hand and smiled at her. It was a simple, friendly and innocent smile that she would probably never see on his face again once he'd regained his so-called "emotions", but at that moment it was all that it took for Hermione's face to burn without mercy, and her heart to beat with vigor, while Padma and her friends launched into speculative, conspiratorial whispers.
~;~
Although she had been promised that she would "know all about it later", Hermione didn't actually see Draco Malfoy again until dinner. It seemed that he had simply vanished into thin air after sending her "breakfast", not bothering to even show up to classes for the rest of that day. Hermione was beginning to think that he didn't want to have anything more to do with her, since he'd probably figured out the way to get his "emotions" back. When all is said and done, they knew the inevitable would come—they would return to be enemies just like before.
The Great Hall was buzzing with clattering utensils and chats as usual. Nearly Headless Nick was trying to get some of the first-years to lose their appetite by wringing his severe head vigorously in front of them, but instead, Neville was the first one to turn away from his meal, clamping his hands to his mouth while his face turned rapidly green. Hermione sat between Harry and Ron thinking about Malfoy of all people—all the time stabbing viciously at the quiche in her plate—and the more she mulled over him, the angrier she got.
"I mean what is wrong with pureblood and muggle-born mixing?" she blurted out dissatisfiedly. Harry's spoon stopped mid-air on the way to his mouth. Ron chewed and stared at Hermione wonderingly, while Ginny raised an eyebrow. "The world's already full of hassles—racism, bribery, killing, discrimination, thievery, global warming—"
"Did you hear how she only said "pureblood" and "muggle-born" mixing?" Ron whispered.
"Yeah," Harry frowned thoughtfully. "What about me?"
While Hermione continued to spill discontentment into her dinner plate, Ginny averted her eyes toward something—or someone—who caught her attention as he headed to their table. It took Hermione another few seconds before she realized that most of those sitting across from her were staring at something—or someone—behind her head. She glanced to her left, finding Harry already turning toward the same direction, and she glanced to her right, where Ron was just swirling around to come face to face with—
"Malfoy?" the redhead blurted out with perplexity, and unsurprisingly, anger. "What the—" he was cut in when Hermione heard the monotonic voice from behind her,
"Granger, I need to talk to you."
Pursing her lips, Hermione craned her neck to look at the Slytherin. She climbed out of her seat to suggest for them to find a more suitable place to talk, but she must mention, for someone who couldn't feel, he looked rather worried.
"Yes?" Hermione prompted, trying to act as though it was a completely normal occurrence for Draco Malfoy to drop by the Gryffindor table to have a chat with her. He simply stood there for seconds, his grey eyes suddenly turned downcast and his forehead creased into a faint frown. It seemed that he was deeply reflecting upon something. "Malfoy? What's wrong?" Hermione asked, disregarding the looks she was given by her fellow housemates.
"Actually, I don't have anything to talk to you." he said. "Snape said if I'm going to get my feelings back, I'd have to kiss a girl."
"Oh." Hermione wondered where he was going from there. Not only her fellow classmates, the whole neighborhood had turned into busy bees and strained to grasp on to their conversation. "Well, I guess, maybe he was joking." she said with a badly faked laugh; Snape didn't strike her as a joking-person, in fact he wouldn't strike anyone as a joking-person, but with the way Malfoy was currently acting in front her, Hermione had the strangest idea about what was going on in his mind. "It doesn't sound real to me that the way to reverse a potion's effects is to kiss someone."
Apparently, Draco had made up his mind. Without bothering to consider the fact that they were being openly watched, he took Hermione's face in his hands and leaned down. Before she knew it, his lips were on hers, and they weren't precisely asking for permission either; he closed his eyes and kissed her as if it was the one thing that he had wanted to do for a long, long time. Eventually, being washed of shock and confusion, Hermione's eyes fluttered closed and her hands found their way around his neck, and she returned his kiss unhesitatingly.
Ron released his fork and it clattered noisily to the floor; the sound seemed to go by Draco and Hermione without notice. He climbed out of his seat and wiggled his finger accusingly at the both of them, his eyes widening like most of the audience's while his mouth opened and closed a few times, in desperate need of words.
"This is, this is… I knew it, I knew it!" he declared.
"That Malfoy is a good kisser?" Ginny prompted, looking oddly contented at what was taking place.
"Maybe there is something in my muffin and I'm just seeing things." Harry whispered, squinting keenly at his blueberry muffins for backup evidence.
~;~
The Great Hall was loud with voices of disbelief and a variety of other reactions. Some of the students who seemingly supported star-crossed lovers were whistling and shouting approvals over the din. At the High Table, Hagrid shook the long table for teachers when he stood up to get a clearer view of what was happening. Madam Pomfrey and Filch each frowned and pursed lips respectively upon the center of attention.
Dumbledore chuckled.
"And so you informed me that you told Draco he would have to kiss a girl." the Headmaster recalled. Snape gave a brief nod as a response, his eyes trained on his godson and Hermione. "Anything else you would like to specify?"
"I told him he needs to kiss the girl he likes." Snape elaborated. "Of course, the fact is it won't do him anything good—except, by the looks of it; get him a girlfriend. The potion's effects can't stand another week. He'll be as good as he was in a few more days."
"Childish." McGonagall decided in a reproaching tone. Dumbledore peered over the two professors from behind his moon spectacle, its glasses winking. "It doesn't sound plausible at all, I wonder how Mr. Malfoy fell for it. Why ever did you do it anyway?" she demanded.
"Because," Snape drawled, glancing over at McGonagall with a scornful sneer. "Unlike some people, sometimes I joke."
-fin-
Aika's Note~
Yes, OOCness everywhere, I noticed, :sighs:
The inspiration for this story came from a real story; my seventeen year old cousin lost his memory after an accident back a few months ago. He used to be overflowing with confidence and a jerk-ass, but his "new" self was very modest and shy and quiet and polite indeed… I seriously couldn't look at him without cracking when we got re-introduced by our parents. So I thought I wanted to make Draco lose his entire memory and see what could be done next, but somehow it turned out this way. :shrugs: I dunno, I just… Sidetracked. Soon I'd be posting something even queerer, who knows? Meanwhile, my cousin has regained his memory and is currently dating the girl he's known years ago, but only fallen in love with during his amnesiac period.
:end of rambling:
It won't hurt you to drop me a line right? Review please? Thank you, :)