A/N- So sorry for the delay guys, life happened but I won't ever give up this fanfic so don't you worry. Thank you for all your reviews, subscriptions, and faves. Now, to help you remember, a summary of what's happened thus far:

After the war, Hermione and everyone in her year returns for a seventh year at Hogwarts. It was great to be back in school with nothing to worry about except schoolwork. People were more tolerant about muggleborns. However, her happy bubble is burst by Draco Malfoy who is still a nasty to her. Hermione unknowingly drinks a love potion put in her pumpkin juice by some young Slytherin pranksters. The first person she bumps into after the incident is Malfoy and she begins having strange urges to touch him. She doesn't notice it at first. She had a different reaction to the potion than most people. Instead of reacting in an attack of lust, she just begins becoming tired and disconcentrated, unable to even do her schoolwork. However, whenever she encounters Draco, her energy returns to her and she can function normally. In the last encounter, she forces a kiss upon Malfoy, and that's when she knows she has been affected by the love potion too. She runs to get some antidote potion from Madame Pomfrey but is informed that the antidote ran out and won't be available for another month.

I haven't done disclaimers and I think it's mandatory to do so? I do not own Harry Potter.

Chapter 4

Hermione walked away from the infirmary with shaking legs. What was she going to do? What was she going to do? She has kissed Draco Malfoy last night and she knew that soon she would want to, need to do it again. On top of that, Malfoy had probably spread last night's incident to half of the school. She couldn't deal with any ridicule or taunting at the moment. She felt trapped. Her skin was sweating and her pulse was beating erratically. Hermione took a deep breath and began running to the one place she always went to when she needed to solve a problem. The library.

Once she stepped into the vast room, with its high ceilings and never ending book aisle, her eyes sparkled with hope. There had to be an answer to her predicament in here. She was never one to give up because of a problem. She had two full hours before her first class. She was going to use the time to find a solution. Either way, making an entrance at the Great Hall for breakfast was not appetizing to her at the moment. Especially if he was going to be there spreading his half truths. At least one good thing had resulted from last night. Hermione felt boundless energy and her mind was whizzing at a mile a minute.

She took about a dozen books off the bookshelves. Books specializing in love potions, potions to confuse the senses, potions that dealt with pheromones, and books about the properties of potion ingredients. She started on the love potion books. They weren't very helpful. Since love potions were forbidden in Hogwarts none of the books had any actual love potion recipes. There were descriptions on various potions, description on antidotes, history about famous potion makers, and extraordinary cases involving the concoctions. The actual potions and antidotes would be in the restricted section. She had access to it as a seventh year student but she would have to request access from Madame Pomfrey later. She threw those books aside. Hermione started to look at the pheromones books. If she couldn't get an love potion antidote perhaps there was a specific ingredient that would at least assist her in handling the problem. An ingredient that would block her pheromone receptors so she was incapable of lust. She found a potential recipe that would block her pheromone receptors. However, the side effects were dizziness and sleepiness. The Touch-Me Love Potion was already giving her those. She was sure this additional potion would knock her out for good. She needed something that wasn't going to make her sleepy. Pepper-Up Potion was listed as helping with drowsiness but she had already been taking it and it hadn't helped at all. There was mention of a Flame Potion that made you incapable of love by essentially making you irritable and hateful towards everyone. There was a warning on this particular potion because some people reacted extremely aggressively to this recipe and in some cases the effects were permanent. She didn't want to risk that. She had already reacted weirdly enough to the Touch-Me Love Potion.

Her wand shot sparks. She had set it up as an alarm for five minutes before Charms class. She gathered her notes and her quill. She would come back to check the restricted section of the library later.

As she walked down the hall she got herself mentally prepared for the onslaught of taunting that was sure to come. "Don't mind what they say. It's all not true any way. Don't let it bother you Hermione. You're better than that." She repeated to herself in her mind. She had her poker face ready.

She entered the classroom two minutes before class began. A few classmates by the door turned their head towards her. Hermione almost flinched but she determinedly look straight at them. The students turned in their seats and continued having their conversations and arranging their school supplies. Hermione was surprised, they didn't seemed to be maliciously whispering anything about her person.

"Hi Hermione!" Neville called out to Hermione's left. He was sitting on the seat right on the edge of the aisle right next to the door. "Where you able to complete the homework? I couldn't find anything about the lunar effects on the Cutler countercharm. I looked for hours and hours!" Neville doesn't seem to have heard anything about the incident last night with Draco. Of course Neville wasn't usually the first to know about such things but the rest of the class didn't seem to know either. And Draco Malfoy never wasted any time to humiliate. He must be saving the incident for another time. Or maybe the pedigree wizard's reputation would be ruined if it came to be known that he came into any physical contact with a Mudblood. Either way, Hermione was relieved.

"Hermione?" Neville was staring at her because she was still standing there by the door, not answering his questions.

"Oh sorry Neville, yes I did find the answers for the Cutler countercharm. Did you look through the lunar effect annual archives? You had to look carefully but there were about three cases on Cutler countercharms reacting strangely every five years or so."

"Wow, really? I didn't think to look through those. Ugh!" Neville covered his eyes with his hands. "I tried so many charms books."

"If you want I'll let you look over my essay. Professor Flitwick seems to be late." Hermione said, reaching for her satchel.

"Really? Thank you much! I'll repay you next time we go to Hogsmead! My treat!" Neville said, moving down the aisle to give Hermione room to sit.

"Oh there's no need Neville. I know that you worked hard on your essay. I saw you at the library the past few days." She smiled as she sat down. She passed the parchment with her essay on it to Neville. He looked over it and began writing on his own paper every so often. Meanwhile, Hermione watched him work, lost in thought, restless because what she wanted to be doing was looking for an answer for her predicament. And why had Malfoy not said anything about last night?

"There! Thank you so much Hermione! You're always saving me from myself." Neville's voice snapped her out of her thoughts. He was giving her a shy smile and passing her paper back to her.

Hermione smiled back. "Don't say that Neville. You're a great student." Hermione was glad to have friends like Neville. It felt good to help him out. Normal. Something she hadn't felt like for a while. Professor Flitwick entered the room and class started.

After charms class, Hermione had another two hour break before dinner. She hadn't seen Harry and Ron all morning. She couldn't miss dinner or they would worry about her. Until then though, she would head to the library and attack the restricted section.

She went down to the library and approached Madame Pomprey. She told the librarian she had to use the restricted section of the library. Luckily, Defense Against the Dark Arts class had assigned a paper recently that required research in the restricted section. Otherwise, Madame Pomprey wouldn't have believed her when she said she needed the section for an assignment. Like always, Madame Pompfrey still gave Hermione a suspicious stare before allowing her into the restricted section.

Hermione stepped into the roped off section. The restricted section always gave Hermione the feeling of the forbidden. It seemed darker than the rest of the library. Perhaps because the bookshelves were stacked closer together and there weren't as many open study areas. Here Hermione could find what she was looking for. Actual love potion recipes.

After a good twenty minutes of searching, she found exactly what she needed. Amortentia. The most powerful love potion in the world. A few pages after the potion potion was the Amortentia antidote. Amortentia was in essence a lust potion, just like the Touch-Me Love potion. The person who drank Amortentia fell into a deep infatuation with the person whose essence was in the potion. In that sense it was a smarter potion because it was person-specific, unlike the Touch-Me Love potion. However, Amortentia still affected a person's deepest and most basic feelings of lust. Hermione figured that the strongest love potion in the word must be countered by the strongest love potion antidote in the world. The Amortentia antidote would surely be able to negate the effects of the spell she was currently under.

Hermione quickly copied down everything on those pages. Including the love potion. It might come in handy later. Hermione scanned done the Amortentia antidote ingredients while she copied. Ashwinder eggs, moondew, lovage. All the ingredients seemed pretty basic, except...bicorn horn. That ingredient was rare and it didn't come supplied in the seventh year potion kit, which was relatively advanced. She would have to order it...or try to sneak into the potion master's ingredients cabinet once more to steal it. But if Snape caught her...

Hermione laid down the book and bit her lip in thought. If Snape caught her it would give him all the rights to expel her. Even though she was Harry Potter's right hand and the best seventh year in the school, he would have the right. And even after all that happened, even though he was technically one of the Order members, he didn't give Gryfindors any slack. She still couldn't exactly figure the man out. What drove him? But she knew that stealing ingredients from Snape would be risky.

She finished copying the pages from the book, concentrating on the words, because she couldn't think of what to do at the moment. She checked the time when she returned the book to its shelf. There was still a half hour before dinner so she packed her things and headed to her dormitory to freshen up. She took a shower and she thought about her choices. Steal the bicorn horn or place an order for it from Diagon Alley or wait out the month or use the risky pheromone potions. She knew she couldn't wait out the month without doing something stupid. She wouldn't be able to complete her assignments. Including the progress exams that were due in just two weeks, right before the Valentine's Day ball, to test the seventh year's preparation for NEWTs. She has a very bad feeling about the pheromone potions. And orders on special items usually took months! That only option left was...Snape's cabinet. She turned off the valve of the shower and stepped out onto the rug.

As she dried herself and got dressed, her resolve got stronger. Hermione's mind started racing, like all those months ago in the war when she had to come up with battle tactics. Her friend's lives weren't at stake this time, but her future was. If she didn't take care of this problem now, she wouldn't be able to get tops scores on her NEWTs. She was also leaving herself at risk of a nasty rumor about Malfoy and herself spreading. Her reputation would be ruined and she would have wasted her education at the best school of witchcraft and wizardry. She knew what she had to do.

As Hermione Granger walked out of her room that evening, she left a neatly folded pair of black jeans and a fitted black t-shirt laying on her four poster bed. It was an outfit she often wore on her nights of battle during the war. She was going to be wearing it again tonight.

A/N- I was thinking about writing Chapter 5 (which I think is going to be very exciting) before posting up Chapter 4 so the wait was shorter (especially since this is more of a plot builder chapter that I wrote gulp by gulp since I've been busy). But I decided just to post it up now. Sorry for the delay. I'll be free in two weeks and I'll write lots of good long chapters. :) Meanwhile, I'll start and keep writing Chapter 5 slowly in these two last weeks of class.