(Hey you guys! Thanks for all the follows and everything! This chapter is going to be sooo much longer. There will be Hermione/Draco time...also Draco's

Slytherin friends will be making an appearance in upcoming chapters! I must warn you that this might be a triggering chapter for some.)

("Think of OCD as an "overactive alarm system." The rise in anxiety or worry is so strong that a child feels like he or she must perform the task or dwell on the thought, over and over again, to the point where it interferes with everyday life.

Most kids with OCD realize that they really don't have to repeat the behaviors over and over again, but the anxiety can be so great that they feel that repetition is "required" to neutralize the uncomfortable feeling. And often the behavior does decrease the anxiety — but only temporarily. In the long run, the rituals may worsen OCD severity and prompt the obsessions to return.")

Chapter Ten: A Beautiful Mind

Mathematicians won the war. Mathematicians broke the Japanese codes... and built the A-bomb. Mathematicians... like you. The stated goal of the Soviets is global Communism. In medicine or economics, in technology or space, battle lines are being drawn. To triumph, we need results. Publishable, applicable results. Now who among you will be the next Morse? The next Einstein? Who among you will be the vanguard of democracy, freedom, and discovery?

~Helinger

June 26th

Alex knew she should be a happy carefree twelve year old on her birthday, but she wasn't. She constantly felt like her heart was going to jump out of her

chest. She had night terrors most of the time that seemed to linger way after the night had slipped away. The day she spent with her biological parents was

the last good day her aunt had. When Alex returned the next morning, she found Andromeda unable to walk down the stairs alone. School ended later that

week, which was a odd blessing this year. As always she got straight A's, and would be in honors classes her sophomore year. This summer she began

living two lives; the carefree twelve year old who excelled at the dance studio by day, and the depressed, terrified girl who held her aunts hand during every

chemo treatment at the hospital.

Lately she found herself repeating her strange routine for hours. It was bad enough that she had to go through each of her dances exactly six times perfectly

before she was satisfied. If she messed up, she had to start from the beginning and redo it another six times. Her anxiousness and worry about her aunt

caused her to mess up often. Today Alex could tell, wasn't going to be a good day.

"There's antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium, And hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium, And nickel, neodymium, neptunium, germanium

And iron, americium, ruthenium, uranium, Europium, zirconium, lutetium, vanadium, And lanthanum and osmium and astatine and radium..." Alex sung the

elements song softly to herself as she stood over the bathroom scrubbing her hands with antibacterial soap and scolding water. She winced slightly as she

rinsed the soap and blood off her hands and pumped another handful of soap as began to wash them a fifth time.

"Alex! You've been in there almost a half hour! I have to go to the bathroom!" Ginny whined through the door.

"Leave me alone...I'm not finished..."

Draco had been coming over to see his sister so often in the past couple weeks that when he showed up today he just let himself in. He didn't expect to see

Hermione sitting on the couch. He stopped in the living room doorway, immediately feeling his stomach drop when she noticed him. Hermione was chuckling to

herself as she took in his 'deer in the headlights' expression. "Relax Malfoy, Alex already told me you come over daily after work..."

"I am relaxed..." He said stiffly. Hermione knew that look in his eyes and it frustrated her. Guilt.

"Seriously Draco? I don't need your pity or guilt. What's done is done. I don't want Alex to start connecting the dots, do you?"

Draco's coughed nervously "Of course not. I just didn't expect to see you here..."

Hermione shifted uneasily in her seat. "Well, Andromeda has been under the weather, so Ginny and I thought we'd stop in..." She didn't make eye contact,

which told him she knew.

"I know about the cancer treatments...the chemotherapy is taking its toll on her. Alex explained the effects to me..." Draco replied in a matter of fact tone.

"How long have you known? We just found out the other day..." She was trying to keep the surprised confusion from her voice.

"Alex told me the day she spent the night at the manor." He glanced up the stairs, he seen Ginny heading down, looking rather annoyed.

"What's got your knickers in a twist Wesley?" Draco leaned against the door frame, ignoring the lingering look of bewilderment on Granger's face.

"Your sister has been in the bathroom for an hour! I'm going to pee my pants!"

"There's an old outhouse out back by the barn..." Hermione replied thoughtfully, composing herself from the shock that Draco knew about Andromeda's illness

before any of them did.

"I'm not going anywhere near that outhouse! It stinks..." Ginny sat down in the plush recliner that sat in the corner and pouted.

Draco snickered and Hermione give him a dirty look before turning back to Ginny "Did you ask her to let you go?"

"Yes. She said 'leave me alone, I'm not finished yet.' There was water running, I think she's attempting to put makeup on herself or something..."

"She better not be..." Draco's tone was dangerously stern. Hermione on the other hand, got up from her seat and leaped from her seat, sprinting up the stairs.

Draco nearly got knocked over in the process. Confused at the urgency, he decided to follow her.

Hermione was knocking on the bathroom door when he reached the top step.

"Alex, it's alright. They are clean..." He watched her speak into the door in a strange soothing tone. The water faucet shut off, and the door opened. Alex

walked out of the bathroom, trying to pull her sleeves down over her hands carefully "I'm sorry, I wasn't finished when Ginny knocked, then I messed up and

I had to start all over..." When she looked up at saw Draco standing behind Hermione, dressed to the nines as usual, her face paled. 'Guess there's no point

hiding anymore...'

Hermione gently took Alex's hands in her own "Come on, you know the drill..." Alex sighed heavily and pulled up the sleeves of her long sleeved thermal shirt

one at a time. Draco acted on his first instinct which was moving Hermione aside, grabbing Alex by her upper arms "What happened?"

Hermione stepped back and stared at Draco surprised. She had to admit, he was extremely protective of his sister.

"I...I couldn't help it..." She stammered, feeling overwhelmed to have him interrogating her. This was one of those crazy things she did that she hid from as

many people as possible. This was the reason to that. She flinched when he took her hands in his and examined the state of each one. "Alex, why did you

do this?" The expression on his face was one of frustration and concern.

"I have to wash them six times for six minutes each, otherwise they aren't clean...if I get interrupted...I have to start the whole sequence again..."

"Your hands are raw and bleeding Alexandrina. Doesn't that tell you that maybe, just maybe they are too clean?" He was having a hard time keeping the anger

out of his voice. For some reason, whenever someone he cared for got hurt he got extremely angry. Not at the person, but just in general that something

happened to them.

Alex shook her head "No...not until I wash them six times in a row for six minutes...I just have to."

"That's ridiculous, you quit doing this!" He didn't mean to shake her, but he often had trouble controlling his temper.

"DRACO! You stop intimidating her like that!" Hermione pulled him away from her. He shook her hand off his arm and narrowed his eyes "She's hurting herself

with this nonsense.."

Alex had back against the wall, brushing a few stray tears from her eyes hastily "I'm sorry...I can't help it. It's something I have to do..."

Hermione sighed "She's telling you the truth Draco...she can't help it. It's a part of who she is..."

He looked over at Alex, who had her head hung in shame and felt disgusted with himself for losing his temper even a bit with her.

"I told you, I do stupid things I can't control..."

Hermione took that opportunity to speak "Alex, go downstairs and get the bandages for your hands. We need to wrap them before you get an infection and

can't do your back-flips and round-offs."

Draco saw his sister take this as an escape and fled down the stairs. He noticed she skipped every other step and turned back to Hermione who looked

positively defeated. "She can only use six of the steps to get up and down the stairs..."

"Why? That doesn't make any sense..."

"It doesn't for her either, but grabbing her up and ordering her to stop won't cure the behavior."

"Is...is she cursed?" He finally managed to ask after a few minutes of awkward silence. It was the only explanation for him as to why a person would have to

repeat things over and over again.

Hermione simply shrugged in a bad attempted at ignorance. It was Alex, who had quietly made her way back up the stairs, hearing their conversation, that

answered Draco. " It's called Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, a legitimate psychological illness that usually goes hand in hand with anxiety disorders, as it is

also considered one. They don't know what causes it, though it is theorized that it is genetic, because there are usually more than one person in a family with

it. It's inbred in my genes, not a curse that some witch or wizard..."

Draco jumped at her voice and turned to look at her. "Don't the muggles have a pill to cure it like with your anxiety and panic attacks?" He tried not to look at

her hands. He didn't understand how she could do that and not acknowledge the pain. The more he thought though, it made him remember something from

when he was younger. Grandfather Abraxas Malfoy had a habit of repeating things over and over. He was also very paranoid of germs and sickness. It was

pretty ironic that how much he tried to prevent germs from reaching him, he still caught Dragon Pox and perished.

"No...it's different." She shifted in place feeling terrible that she made him freak out and blow up the way he did. "I got the bandages Mione..." Alex was trying

to steer the conversation away from her list of problems, but it was pretty much hopeless.

Draco reached into his pocket and withdrew his wand. "Bandages?" He crinkled his nose at the sight of them. Why wrap up the wounds when a spell could

instantaneously get rid of them? "Come here. Let me at least heal them for you. They look like they hurt..."

"Not really...I don't really like magic being used on me..." she ran a hand through her hair, feeling like this was going to be a losing battle. "You positive, your

just using a healing spell?" When she looked at him with those big grey eyes, all of his frustration from before instantly dissolved. He reached out and stroked

her golden hair gently "It's just a healing spell, I promise. Do you trust me?"

Alex took a deep, nervous breath and nodded slightly.

Hermione had stepped back and just watched the two siblings interact with one another. She was surprised at how quickly Alex had taken to Draco. Then

again, as she thought on it harder, she wasn't surprised at all. Alex had always been so forgiving and accepting. What she found strange and different was

how sweet he was towards her. He definitely wasn't the same selfish, maliciously evil bully she went to Hogwarts with.

Draco lowered his wand and whispered "Vulnera Sanentur..."

'Calm down Alex, just calm down...its not going to hurt...' Alex looked terrified, but she forced herself to remain rooted to one spot and let her hands heal. It only

took a few moments and it looked almost as if nothing had happened. She rolled her sleeves up and examined them, then grinned "Wow...that didn't hurt."

Draco shoved his wand back into his pocket and looked at her "Of course it didn't hurt. Why on earth would I do anything to hurt you?"

Alex shrugged "I didn't say that exactly...I just don't trust the concept of magic in general."

He just shook his head and laughed slightly "I swear, if you didn't look just like me, I'd question you being a Malfoy..." Alex then leaped up and wrapped her

arms around his neck in a hug "Thank you!" She gave him a quick peck on the cheek and took off down the stairs two at a time " There's sulfur, californium, and

fermium, berkelium, And also mendelevium, einsteinium, nobelium, And argon, krypton, neon, radon, xenon, zinc, and rhodium, And chlorine, carbon, cobalt,

copper, tungsten, tin, and sodium. These are the only ones of which the news has come to Harvard, And there may be many others, but they haven't been

discovered."

Draco slid down the wall to a seated position, absent-mindedly running a hand through his soft blonde hair. "She's so...different..."

Hermione watched Alex disappear down the stairs and just smiled "She's brilliant. Most of the greatest minds in history were plagued with psychological

problems..."

He just shook his head and sighed "Really? Is that so?" He said in a slight sarcastic tone. Hermione however, choose to ignore it and continue.

"John Nash was a mathematical genius in game theory, differential geometry, and partial differential equations was a paranoid schizophrenic, Issac Newton

had all the signs of being Bipolar, Paul Erdos had Obsessive compulsive disorder, and Kurt Godel had both Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and a Severe

Anxiety Disorder...in the end he died from his extreme anxiety..." Hermione rambled off the names and saw the horrified look on his face with the

last name "That was years and years ago when people didn't know too much about mental and psychological illness..."

"Our world will never understand her..." There was a sadness in his voice. Alex had got strange stares from their father as it is from her intelligence, their

mother smiled, but didn't know what to make of her either. He knew for numerous reasons she'd never fit in with the society their family was part of.

A door opened and Andromeda stood there staring at the two "It's true they probably won't, but in this world she will be world renowned, and change the

course of history..."

Draco turned to look at his aunt and immediately felt his heart sink. She was ghostly pale and thin, standing there with support of the door frame. He

immediately went to her, but she held a hand up to stop him "I'm fine Draco. I can still walk."

Hermione looked at her wide eyed "Andromeda, if you aren't feeling well, you can lay down. Don't over exert yourself."

Andromeda made a shallow sigh and rolled her eyes "Hermione, I am fine, besides nothing is going to stop me from spending time with my niece. It is her

birthday after all."

Draco didn't protest, he simply nodded, feeling a bit of anxiety himself when she asked them to help her down the stairs. He had held back from telling his

parents about Andromeda's condition, but over the past few days her health was declining fast. He knew he had to tell his mother soon.

(And thats chapter ten! I hope you guys like it! John Nash, Paul Erdos, and Kurt Godel are real Mathematicians, look them up. It's a very interesting read! I'll be working on chapter eleven tonight!)