Author's Notes: I wrote this for the dramionelove fest in LJ. It was fun to write and I hope it's fun to read too! The prompt asked me to add weirdness and I hope not to disappoint. I may write a sequel but I'm not completely sure, write in the comments what do you think!
Prompt: Unwell by Matchbox 20
Warnings: Drug use for recreational purposes. Please have in mind that I've never been high/drunk, the couple reactions may be over the top... or not.
Stephanie thank you very much for betaing this for me! I couldn't have published this without your help!
PART I: The Manor
The first party of the big one- year anniversary of Battle of Hogwarts, celebrated on the eve of Valentine's Day, and Hermione Granger was going to spend it alone. Okay, technically not alone, but even in a room full of people it is possible to feel alone.
The Ministry of Magic was hosting the First Victory Ball at Malfoy Manor. After the war the Ministry held trials for Death Eaters and everyone related to them. Rodolphus and Rabastan Lestrange, Mulciber, and other Death Eaters were sentenced to the Kiss.
Others, including the seniors Malfoy, Nott, Crabbe and Goyle, were condemned to life sentences. Their sons were pardoned as well as their wives. But they had to pay money for their dark deeds, leaving their manors to the Ministry.
That's why Hermione was supposed to feel safe at Malfoy Manor—it no longer belonged to the Malfoys. She ought to feel scared, she thought. She was tortured on the same floor the Ministry and his wife were dancing on, after all. But in that moment, all she felt was a deep sadness.
Her sadness wasn't entirely related to this place. She had felt this way since Harry and Ron left for Romania to escape the death, pain, and loss that war left in England. She didn't blame them, but how dare they leave her picking up the pieces? Since The-Boy-Who-Lived wasn't there, the magical community relied heavily on The Brightest Witch of their Age.
She became a poster child for the magical community, taking on interviews and a pile of cases that only she, a nineteen-year-old girl, could do.
Sadness was soon replaced with loneliness. The entire Weasley clan was mourning their loss. Hermione was "family" too, but they all needed time alone. She couldn't help but feel like an intruder to their pain. She stopped going to their Sunday gatherings.
Instead she tried to stay focused on her work.
An interview with the Head of the new orphanage, a meeting with the Head of the Department of Magical Relations, a bill for the Department of Magical Creatures, a trip to Hogwarts to determine if the new Headmistress could start a new school year… so much to do and here she was wasting time trying to look comfortable with older witches and wizards that only knew her for her name.
The Ball was making her anxious, so she escaped to the bathroom. She tried to focus on the pros of being at the party but the only benefit of being here she could think of was that she could rest from all the paperwork.
All year long, all Hermione did was work. Even with so much to do, she knew it wouldn't last forever. She couldn't avoid the search for her parents forever. Hermione couldn't retrieve her parents now-she was too scared. The thoughts that maybe they hated her for sending them away or that she'd rather be in the magical world than with them were eating her soul. What if they hated her? Even if they weren't with her now, they were all she had.
But despite that, she couldn't summon enough courage to go for them. Not yet.
She felt like failing. She felt isolated. Her constant feeling of sadness and loneliness was overwhelming. All her emotions suddenly escaped her in form of tears, like a broken dam. One minute she was standing and the next she was crying her eyes out in a bathroom in Malfoy Manor. Every minute of melancholy, misery and mournfulness that she suppressed was crashing down on her in that very moment.
She cried for Fred, Tonks, Remus, Mad-Eye, her parents, and all her friends. She cried so hard that she didn't feel a pair of arms press around her. She wasn't aware that the pair of arms was leading her outside, into the cool night air.
When she calmed down and opened her eyes all she saw was a pair of grey ones staring back at her.
Draco Malfoy was holding her in the gardens. She disentangled herself from his embrace, quite shocked. How did she not feel the trip from the bathroom to the gardens? Did anyone see them? Did he want to hurt her?
"Did you cry enough?" Malfoy asked.
"What is it to you?" she snapped. "Want to be seen with me so the Ministry doesn't take more of your money?"
"If that were my idea, I wouldn't have hold you here, where nobody can see us," he sneered.
"Sorry," she said. All she knew about Malfoy was that he lived in London. She could see that he had changed. He now had longer hair, a more muscular body, and lonelier eyes.
"You soaked my shirt, Granger," Draco said without a trace of a sneer.
"Sorry," she repeated.
"Don't think about that. You didn't say anything I haven't heard before."
"That doesn't mean that it was right to snap at you when you just helped me... why did you do that?"
"I took pity on you. You sounded like you were going to die. Even if the Manor is not mine anymore, I don't want more people dying in here," he lied. He had been about to have a last tour of his former home when he heard her crying. She was crying so hard that he thought that she was going to break, and he didn't want anybody else to see her like that. He took her to the gardens for fresh air.
"Thanks," she replied.
"You should leave," Draco told her.
She thought he had changed, that clearly he didn't care that a Muggle-born was in his home or that maybe they could be civil with each other. He had held her for pity's sake!
Draco laughed at her shocked and angry expression.
"I didn't mean the Manor, Granger. You should leave your job as Ministry's puppy. Leave all your responsibilities and rest for a while. It's a year after your year on the run. Even Potter left."
Leaving was something she had been thinking about for a while now. She would be glad to leave her Ministry job, even for a short time. Sleeping till midday, not running because she was late, and not planning every single moment of a week... that would be delicious, she thought. But if she did that, she would feel guilty for leaving everything behind. Hermione couldn't just disappear.
"I couldn't leave my job," she lamented.
"Is not like you're poor and you need the job. You carry the weight of the 'peace' of the English wizarding community. Even if you belong here, Granger, it's not just your responsibility to fix everything. It's everyone's."
"I don't have anywhere to go."
"Like I said Granger, you're not poor. Your Merlin First-Class award left you some money. Use it."
"You sound eager for me to leave the country." She narrowed her eyes.
"I understand you. After my mother and I were pardoned and handed the Manor, I took charge of my family's business. I didn't know what to do. I felt that I couldn't fill my father's shoes," Draco responded.
"And your mother?" Hermione asked.
"She made up with her sister and took her and her nephew to France to forget all the bad memories."
"Then, all the Malfoy business is under your care."
"Not anymore; I delegated it to a group of trusted wizards. I intend to leave for a while and take care of it later."
"You are going to leave." She felt sad, not because he was going to leave but because she was remembering when Harry and Ron told her that they were just going to go "on vacation."
"Yeah." In that moment he had an idea. "Come with me."
"What?"
"Come with me... to France."
"Why France?" she asked.
"There is where my ancestral home is," he shrugged.
"Isn't your ancestral home here, at Malfoy Manor?"
"The origins of my family are in France, as the most ancient House of Malfoi. There's an entire book about that. You could read it in my library. It's even bigger than the one here."
"Why?" she asked skeptically about such a generous offer.
"I've been thinking of your first time here since it happened. I've had nightmares about you and all the people that were killed here. I want to redeem myself and my name, but I can't do it with the dead. You're my last chance."
"I want to get away… for a while. I want to search for my parents and relax for once."
"Come with me," he repeated.
Should she trust him? Should she throw away safety and self preservation to pursue an adventure?
No, she shouldn't. But she did it anyways.
PART 2: Preparations
Draco took Hermione's hand and Apparated them to a park in London.
"Where are we?" Hermione asked.
"I don't know where you live, I Apparated to a park near my flat. I thought you'd want to retrieve clothes or something for the trip," Draco shrugged.
"Oh! Well, I recognize the park. I live down the block." she unconsciously took his hand and walked through a pair of swings.
"Not bad," Draco mused.
"Despite what you think, that Muggles are barely human and all that nonsense, it doesn´t mean I live in a hole. I may not be as wealthy as you but I'm not poor."
"Calm your tits down Granger, I didn't mean it like that."
"Sorry. I'm not used to being civil to you," she apologized.
"Same here. I don't know what to say. I repeat everything in my head that I want to say but it all sounds offensive, so I try not to talk much," he laughed.
This wasn't bully Malfoy. The man next to her was Draco. An awkward Draco, but still Draco. Hermione stopped and stood in front of Draco and raised her hand. "Let's be friends, that way you don't have to break your brain thinking what is appropriate to say or not say to me. I'll do the same."
A friendship with Hermione Granger. If they had been in the same
situation two years ago he would have laughed at her. Now the offer to be his normal self with her was tempting. He was going to take her to his ancestral home. She could be his mother's friend and she could leave the "Golden Girl" role for a while. It was a win-win situation.
"For the record, you proposed this. Don't be offended afterwards." He shook her hand.
Draco and Hermione reached the end of the park and walked down a street. All the houses around had a homey look; Draco liked that. Years after living in a massive house that hosted just three people, he had a new appreciation for small houses, and the ones here adapted to his tastes. Not bad he thought again.
"Why didn't you leave with Potter and Weasley?" Draco asked after a few steps.
"My nature wouldn't allow me to just leave at the beginning. Besides, they wouldn't have the same freedom with me than they do on their own," she responded.
"They didn't invite you," he guessed.
"No, they wanted time alone," she sadly said.
"I wouldn't be surprised if they come back announcing a romance," he mocked. Despite the comment about her friends she laughed.
"Look at that tree. I had my first kiss in that tree." She pointed at an old tree in the middle of the street. The tree was impressively tall and leafy and had benches around it.
"Who was the brave person to kiss you?" he asked, sitting on the nearest bench.
"Christopher Lewis, a boy from my school," she sat next to him.
"Was he as handsome as I am?"
"He was blond like you, but not as pointy." She blushed.
"Oh, then is he as good a kisser as I am?"
"I wouldn't know." She blushed even more.
Draco stared at her brown eyes. He realized that never in his life had he stopped to see a girl's eyes. He didn't know if it was because it was the first time doing so, but for him Granger's eyes were beautiful. He leaned his face towards hers and took her lips with his.
Tempting strokes of lips, tiny bites and delicious pressure of mouths…he took her breath away. He let go of her and shot her a smug grin.
"Is he a better kisser that I am?" he asked again.
"I can give you that you're more handsome, but just that," she laughed.
"May I repeat performance for a better grade?" he leered.
"Do you kiss your friends like you kissed me?" she asked.
"I don't have friends that I can kiss," he responded.
"Pansy Parkinson?" she frowned. She remembered the pug-faced girl. Every time she went to the girl's bathroom she was there announcing to anybody with ears how a good kisser Draco Malfoy was.
"She was more like my practice table than a friend. I would kiss her, she would announce how good I was and like magic I was chased by half the girls in school, even if I was a complete twat to them. Believe it or not Granger, you're my first female friend. You're my first, Hermione." He smirked.
"But you're not mine," she laughed.
"I didn't know you were such a scarlet woman." Draco teased.
"Twat," she shot him a dirty look.
"See, I bet I'll kiss you by the end of... the night."
"Stop arsing around and let's go. Just a couple of houses more." She stood up and helped him stand. They walked down the lonely street and he realized it was almost midnight. He didn't say to his mother that he was going to arrive—they were going to scare the shit out of her, that was for sure.
They stopped in an old Victorian style house. It was painted white with French windows and was wealthy but yet small and cozy. He pictured himself living in a similar house. He asked her how her parents got to have such a house and she replied that she was from a family full of doctors, or Muggle Healers.
They entered by the front door and he was amazed of the number of books in the living room. The room had two doors and a hallway at the back. Hermione told him to wait for her and disappeared into the hallway.
She headed to her bedroom. He had no desire to snoop in her living room, so he decided follow her. Her childhood bedroom was a cream-white room with a child size bed and a large bookcase with a desktop.
He sat on her bed while she retrieved a purple purse and started filling it with clothes, books and other personal items.
"Earlier you said that you wanted to search for your parents. Where are they?"
Hermione stiffened. "I- I sent them away.
"I casted a memory charm and send them to Australia. They don't know they have a daughter," she said without looking at him.
Draco lay down on her bed and gazed at the ceiling. Granger's parents don't know her, he thought. If she would have died then she would be buried without family. Despite everything that happened with my father, he still knows me and I know him. Neither of us, nor mother would have died alone.
After fifteen long minutes of watching Hermione pack, he got bored. Draco stood up and began to look around her room. She had a big chest against a wall with pictures, both Wizarding and Muggle. He saw one where she was with an older version on her, probably her mother, he thought. There was one where she was hugging and laughing with Potter and Weasley, maybe in their second year.
"Are you with Weasley?" the Slytherin asked.
"No. We shared a kiss in the middle of the war, but after that we didn't have time or inclination to pursue a relationship."
"Good," he murmured.
He thought she didn't hear him, but Hermione looked at him with an odd expression. "I mean, you can do better than that."
"You think?" she raised an eyebrow
"Yeah, you're not ugly and you can properly use a wand."
"Are you complimenting me?"
"After seeing you curse Greyback to hell, I don't want to be in your bad books ever again Granger," he chuckled.
That would be almost impossible, she thought.
Part III: The trip
"Ohh little Hermione had dolls! Who could have thought that the almighty war heroine is such a girl," Draco taunted while she was holding two Barbie dolls.
"Stop playing with my dolls!" she grabbed them from his hands.
"Calm down Granger. What else do you have here...?" he snooped in the same chest where he found the dolls.
"What the hell is this?"
"For pity's sakes Draco! Stop playing with my toys!" Hermione said, annoyed.
"Don't you want people to know that you played with toys and not just books? Don't want to ruin your bookworm reputation?" he taunted.
"Draco!"
"Granger, this is not a toy. What in hell is this?" Hermione saw in his hand a plastic bag and remembered what she had there.
"Um… they're magic mushrooms." She blushed.
"What?"
"Well… three months ago I saw a friend from my old school. We had a sleepover here and she saw me drained from work. She said I should try them but I had doubts. I guess she left them here in case I decided to change my mind."
"And what do they do?"
"My friend said it helps to relax you and could make me feel good. In her words: 'You could have a good trip with this, Hermione.'"
"But that was three months ago; by now I don't think this is edible... I want to try them."
"Are you out of your mind?" she shrieked.
"I want to feel good, unless you have a better idea." Draco leered.
"Don't be stupid."
"How am I supposed to eat them? Just shove them down my throat?" he asked.
"No silly. I guess eat them with some food." She shrugged.
Draco left Hermione's bedroom and headed to the kitchen. He reached the sitting room and tried to go down the hallway. The kitchen was the last room, but everything seemed empty. He tried to find something edible to eat, but nothing. There was nothing he could eat with the mushrooms.
"I usually don't eat here. You won't find anything." Hermione said, reaching the kitchen.
Draco had an idea. "Missy!" he shouted.
"Master Draco." An elf appeared.
"Bring food and some drinks," Draco ordered. When the elf disappeared Draco addressed Hermione. "Not a word, Granger. I'm going to try these and you won't stop me."
"I don't want to look after you while you're high." She whined.
"Try them too, then."
"B-b-but… I don't want to!" she said.
"Yes, you want, to but you're afraid to try."
Before Hermione could respond Missy the elf appeared with the most delicious food Hermione had seen in a while. She remembered that she hadn't eaten since lunch and her stomach growled.
"No mushrooms, no food," Draco taunted.
"Ok but we'll lock away our wands and ward the house so we can't Apparate outside," she ordered.
"Deal."
Eating the mushrooms wasn't as bad as Hermione thought. They didn't taste disgusting, but she couldn't identify their taste alone because her taste buds were too busy savoring the delicious food Missy brought.
Waiting for the effect of the shrooms, Hermione learned how good of a listener Draco was. She found herself talking about her loneliness and her secret wishes to tell everyone who neared her desk at the Ministry to go to hell. He knew when to laugh and when to keep quiet. He was good company.
An hour later both of them felt the effects as their conversation leaded to the silliest topics she had ever talked about . They ended up on the kitchen floor.
"You know, when I was little I wanted to be a bird," Hermione said.
"Why?" Draco asked.
"I always wanted to taste a rainbow. I just assumed that because birds could fly really high they could eat rainbows."
"When the hell was that?" Draco laughed, lying in the floor next to her.
"Dunno, when I was three." Hermione laughed, too.
"Well I always wanted to be a Dragon."
"Why?"
"I wanted to eat my grandmother so she would stop talking."
Both exploded with laugher.
"Was she awful?" she asked.
"I don't really remember. I just know that I wanted to eat her when I was two."
Hermione now could see what her friend meant about "having a good trip." Now she could see all the intense colors around her, like she was living in a moving painting. All the shapes and colors were so beautiful and different that she hardly could believe that she was in a plain kitchen. Maybe if she waited a bit more she could see fairies appearing. Everything seemed possible now. She felt truly magical for the first time in a long time.
"Granger?"
"Huh?"
"Why are we on the floor?" Draco asked.
"Why? We can't be on the floor?"
"I guess, but let's go to your room."
"Why?" she asked.
"There's a lot of Valentine's hearts around here and I can feel they're after my hair." Draco said.
"And you want your hair intact," she guessed.
"Correct."
Somewhere in the sitting room they had a little distraction with a fishbowl, but in her defence Prince Terry, her fish, was worthy of admiration. When they finally made it to her room, she put some music on and lay in her bed. Draco made it next to her.
"You know Granger. You should taste me," Draco said.
"Why should I?" she asked.
"I may not be a rainbow but I definitely see one. Try me before it swallows me!"
"Stop it! I want the taste it before it swallows you!" she laughed.
Draco got up and took Hermione and ordered her to move like a big bird. She obeyed.
"Maybe if we pretend to be a big scary bird, it will go away!" he laughed.
Both bodies danced like big hens for an eternity. She closed her eyes and imagined she was an ancient priestess trying to scare away a dragon. She turned to see Draco doing the most bizarre movements she had ever seen. But even at his silliest he managed to look handsome and elegant.
He was her Dragon and she didn't want him to go away.
"I would trade my job at the Ministry to feel this way forever," Hermione said, lying again in her bed.
"What way?" Draco asked.
"Free."
"I know what you mean," he responded.
"Draco?"
"Huh?"
"Would you think I'm crazy if I tell you that I want to trade my brain for something less bothersome? That I don't want to be me anymore? That I hear voices in my head stopping me from get away and telling me to do "the right thing" or the "responsible thing"? That I'd rather be the one who talks to me instead of hearing a single order from my work? That I'd gladly turn into a bird and live in the woods eating rabbits than live my life? That I don't want to be golden anymore? What if I want to be a rainbow instead?
"I don't think birds can eat rabbits, Hermione," Draco said.
"I want to be like I used to be before the war. I- I just want to be a bird, Draco," Hermione cried.
"I don't think you're crazy, Hermione. You're just a little unwell." Draco held her. He could relate to her. She had big shoes to fill and society expected a lot from her. Just like his father used to expect from him.
Hours later both could feel that the effects of the mushrooms were passing and he was aware of the bizarre picture they were.
He, Draco Malfoy, was holding Hermione Granger after dancing in her room like hens to prevent a rainbow from swallowing him. And they were in said room because they were following fairies that came from the kitchen.
Sometime in the future they would laugh at this.
Part IV: The Aftermath
"Shh... Shh... You're a good bird. The best bird I've ever talked to," Draco soothed after a long silence.
"We could fly to France and feel good again, and we could try to find a rainbow to eat," she mumbled into the crook of his neck.
"Yes, anything you want. Except maybe eating worms." He stroked her hair.
"Even gummy worms?"
"Even whatever that is." Draco felt Hermione fall asleep after their discussion about worms. He was glad and a bit disturbed that he witnessed Gryffindor's Golden Girl falling into desolation like any mortal. Holding Hermione Granger gave him hope of having a place in this new society. If he she could, then he too could redeem himself and gain a friend in the process.
Part V: The Next Morning
Hermione woke up the next morning held by two big arms around her. The last she remembered was telling Draco that they should fly to France and eat worms. Her cheeks reddened in shame at her silliness, but then she remembered his dreams of being a grandmother-eating- dragon.
Today was the day she would escape from what she was supposed to be. Her first day of freedom and she was sharing it with her former enemy. She couldn't deny that she felt something for the man next to her. It could blossom into love or friendship. I was cool either way.
She had the courage to pursue it like he had the courage to invite her to his home.
Hermione didn't want to stop and think about what her loved ones would say about her relationship with the blond. Not today.
She got up to finish packing the essentials, took a bath and found a home for her fish with the neighbor. Draco woke up minutes later and Apparated to his flat to take a bath even when Hermione offered him the main bathroom.
They met in her sitting room and he gave her a heart-shaped chocolate. "For my first friend. Happy Valentine's Day."
"When we get to France remind me to teach you the good of gummy worms," she said, kissing his cheek.
...
At midday, Molly Weasley saw an owl scratching one of her windows trying to deliver a letter. She took it and fed the poor bird with some treats. She saw that the letter was addressed to her and decided to open it right away.
It read:
Dear Molly,
I've left to France with a friend. I don't know when I'll come back but it won't take long. Don't try to find me and please tell the others that I'm ok. I'll owl all of you later.
Love always,
Hermione
The End.