Chapter Three

One Way Or Another

It was hardly an hour later, and Hermione felt her heart beating faster, and faster against her rib cage. She bit the inside of her cheek in order to keep a passive expression. She couldn't let anyone know what she was feeling, or that anything was wrong. However, that wasn't the case. Everyone in Charms knew that something had to be wrong, because she didn't raise her arm once. She gained a few incredulous stares, including one from Professor Flitwick a stout man with a squeaky voice. Purposefully she focused on her notes. They weren't in her usual neat handwriting, they were scrawled, looking almost as bad as Ron's. She couldn't keep her hand from shaking. She bit her cheek harder.

"Ms. Granger?"

She raised her head regretfully. She had no idea what the question was. "Yes, sir?"

"Will you please answer my question?"

"I - I don't know, sir. What was the question?"

His face dropped. "Have you been paying attention? Are you sick?"

"I've been listening," she said ignoring the second question so she wouldn't have to lie. "Ummm... I can't..." She couldn't remember. What was the question? She had been listening to the lecture with rapt attention because it was the only thing that was keeping her focus off of the way her heart was twisting, the numbness.

"Perhaps you should go to the Infirmary -"

"No, sir, I just came from there... I'm okay."

Professor Flitwick was doubtful, but he directed whatever the question was at Dean Thomas. She inhaled a deep breath stopping at the squeeze of her organs.

"Hermione," Ron breathed in her ear, "are you okay? You don't look so good."

"Thanks, Ronald," she growled back, "I'm fine, please, stop asking."

It was the question of the month. If she was okay. Comments that she didn't look well. It was getting old. She deluded herself into thinking that no one was noticing it, but they were. She wouldn't be able to hide it for long, that she wasn't weak, so weak that she wasn't able to tell her two best friends about it. It was time that she got answers, and she raised her hand.

Professor Flitwick squeaked in happiness at the sight of her hand. "Yes! Ms. Granger!" Apparently he had asked another question.

"I'm sorry, sir, maybe I should go to the Infirmary. Do you mind?"

Looking chagrin he waved his hand, "yes, Ms. Granger, go ahead. Mr. Weasley will pass on the homework to you."

"Thank you, sir." She hurried from the room her head down letting her bushy hair hide her red face.

In the hallways she pushed up the sleeves of her robe. Her face wasn't just red with embarrassment she was truly hot. Sweat gathered at her hairline preparing to drip down her face. It was in the dead of winter, snow fell in a blizzard out the windows, and it was chilling inside, but it didn't register with her. The only way she knew the cold to be true in spite of the snow was the sweaters all the students were wearing. Ron had even stoop so low to wear the maroon Weasley sweater his mother made him, though he covered it up with his robe. She only knew because of the joke Harry made that morning at breakfast.

Hermione went inside the Infirmary, and immediately took off her robe. She placed a hand over her chest. She felt her heart. She felt it like there were no flesh, and bones blocking her way, every beat moved beneath her as if trying to knock her hand off. It hurt.

"Ms. Granger, back so soon? Lie down, I'll get some chocolate."

"No, please, Madam Promfrey, I don't want any." She lied on the bed the sweat now pouring off of her in sheets.

"I'm sure it'll make you feel better. Did you eat the piece I gave you?"

"Yes... I think it made it worse. I don't know."

"How long have you been feeling like this dear?"

"A month, or so. At first it was just a loss of energy, but then it got worse. My chest hurts, I go numb, I get dizzy. Today I'm hot. Something's wrong."

Madam Promfrey felt her forehead. "You're burning up, but it's not a fever..."

"So does that mean there's nothing wrong?"

"No. There is something wrong with your symptoms... Be still, I'm going to do some tests."

Hermione closed her eyes relaxing as Madam Promfrey waved her wand over her. Tears leaked out of the crinkles of her eyes as the pain intensified. Hermione felt the darkness. It pressed it on her. She let it wanting the pain to go away.

Goblets, plates, platters, forks, spoons, and other assorted mealtime instruments scraped, and moved over the plates on the four wooden tables in the Great Hall. Every student gathered to eat with their houses chattering, and eating. It was loud, and busy. Draco pretended to laugh at the mudblood jokes that passed around the Slytherin table, his two dumb, muscled mates that flanked him, Crabb, and Goyle laughed too hard, too slow.

Draco gave the Gryffindor table the slightest glance, something to barely be noticed. He scanned it in haste to find one certain girl among it, but Hermione wasn't there. Ron, and Harry sat with Seamus, Dean, and Neville discussing something animatedly. They didn't seem to find their missing friend disturbing in the least. Draco huffed in disgust, but then thought of earlier that day. Had she fainted again? It couldn't be anything too huge or else he would hear about it.

"I don't feel so good," he announced to his surrounding friends. "I'm going to the Infirmary. I'll see you all later."

"Think if you go there you'll get sicker," Blaise, a smarter mate of his, dark, and lanky warned. "That mudblood Granger is in there."

Draco stopped from pushing his chair in. So he was right. "She is? What happened?" He tried to make his voice sound indifferent.

"Don't know," he shrugged.

"I'll be sure to hold my breath. Don't want her germs to enter my lungs." He stalked away.

Once he was outside the large double doors he broke into a run. He ran up several staircases cursing loudly when he had to wait for one to move towards him in order to move to the next. He couldn't get there quick enough. He hoped that Blaise was wrong. If she was there for a second time, could it be because she came to her senses about resting? No, that couldn't be it, Hermione never came to her senses she was too damn stubborn.

Draco didn't pause a second outside of the Infirmary door. That's why he ran headlong into it. He reiterated the swear words he used before. The door wouldn't budge, but that wasn't right it was always open, it was never locked. He banged his fist on it, but no one answered.

"Madam Promfrey," he yelled. Still, no one answered. Something was wrong... What if some student had broken twenty bones by the Whomping Willow, or been transfigured into a flamingo with a chair leg in Transfiguration? He could be bleeding out of his ears by a wayward spell, and he could bleed to death right at the base of the door. They would find him in a pool of his own blood, because no one answered the damn door.

He grunted angrily, and sat beside it. It would have to open sometime, and when it did he would be there. Unfortunately, he waited late into the night. Professor McGonagall, the strict Transfiguration teacher with black hair streaked with gray found him.

"Mr. Malfoy, what are you doing?"

"Waiting for this door to open," he said bored out of his skull.

"The Infirmary is closed."

He stopped himself short of rolling his eyes, or remarking with one of the tons of sarcastic comments he was thinking. He rose a questioning brow at her instead. "Why?"

"I'm not permitted to say. You look fine, are you feeling well?"

He thought of lying. Stomach ache, headache, nausea, lots of ill-related matters floating in, and out of his thoughts as he tried to pick an appropriate one, one that would get him through the locked door. None were urgent enough, serious enough that he could get by with. He was a natural at persuasion like his father, but none of it worked on McGonagall, she wasn't fooled by many lies. That was very inconvenient.

"It's nothing that can't wait," he told her.

"Then go on to your common room. Don't go loitering the corridors."

Curtly he nodded. Too bad he couldn't bleed out of his ears on cue. That would make that wretched witch give him access.

Draco didn't realize how late it was until he got to his common room. Normally it was filled to the brim with students, but the green, and silver room in the dungeons, under the lake was completely empty, the fire died out. No one waited up for him, not that he was surprised. He plopped himself down into the comfiest chair to consider his position, the things he knew:

1. Hermione was sick.

2. She fainted, and he took her to the Infirmary.

3. Madam Promfrey insisted that it was stress.

4. The Infirmary is closed.

5. He was getting into it one way or another in the morning.