Chapter Fourteen: Potions and problems

Hermione looked at the neatly chopped piles of ingredients arranged before her.

"Good enough?" She asked Draco who had his back turned to her.

"Yes Hermione as always they are better than the average potion master could do."

"What do you need next?" She asked him always the astute student.

"Err wolfsbane."

"I don't need err Draco check it." Draco knew better than to argue against Hermione in a mood so he looked beside him to a thick bundle of parchment it contained pages of instructions written meticulously in Hermione's small and tidy handwriting. It was a long list of instructions translated from the runes nearly two months earlier and was spread across over twenty three pages. The pair had worked through the instructions and were now on page twenty two. With each page Hermione became more paranoid that they had made a mistake and thus insisted on triple checking every action that either of them did. On the one occasion when Draco's misreading of Hermione's handwriting almost meant that he almost added porcupine spines instead of porcupine quills to the potion she had become even more concerned checking timings, ingredients and dates with more accuracy that anyone Draco had ever known. He was glad that they would finish the potion in a few days if for nothing than to save Hermione's sanity.

Hermione herself was not glad they were reaching the end of 'the project' as she had named it in her head. With each passing day it became less an academic project and more a real potion that she would have to feed her friend with the hope it would cure her of a horrible ancient curse that very few people had ever heard of. Hermione's head spun with ideas, there where too many variables with this 'project'. She could have translated the runes wrong, the potion could be wrong in the first place, Draco could have made a mistake in the potions usage or the variable that she was concentrating most at the moment: the making of the potion itself. It wasn't hard to imagine that a mistake had been made in the potion. It was the most complicated potion that either Hermione or Draco, both experienced potion makers in their own right, had ever seen.

"Lavender Hermione," Draco asked of her and she passed four neatly bundled sprigs of lavender into his right hand. Draco added the flower delicately before looking at his watch. "We just need to leave it to simmer for an hour now," he yawned. It was 7pm in the evening and both were exhausted. The potion was so delicate that they had regularly had to wake up in the middle of night and add an ingredients or stir the potion or simply watch it during a particularly delicate phase.

"Food?" Draco asked Hermione.

"Yes add the wormwood root then we can call it a night."

"Good," she yawned Draco would have laughed at her but he didn't have the heart she simply looked how he felt. The pair ate dinner at the teachers table in the Great Hall as he ate Draco looked at Hermione he had noticed for a while now her pale pallor and her slim frame. She had definitely lost weight, the curves he so loved were disappearing he looked up at her as she picked her food. Tonight it was chicken, peas and potato but she ate barely a third of it. Draco wracked his brain trying to think of the last time Hermione had finished a meal. He watched as she pushed her food around her plate, cut it up and reached it to her mouth before finding an excuse to down the fork. Draco tried not to stare at her but he wondered why he hadn't noticed before. He slept beside her every night now how had not noticed her weight loss or change in demeanour.

By the time the pair made it back to the potions classroom Draco's temper was at boiling point wordlessly he added the neatly chopped piles of dandelion roots and wormwood roots before lowering the temperature of the caldron leaving it to gently simmer.

"What is going on Hermione?" Draco asked the moment the action was completed. She looked at him with a quizzical face throughly confused about what he was asking. "Don't play games with me you aren't eating, your not sleeping enough."

"What are you talking about?" She laughed but the sound did not appear genuine. Draco did not reply but stared at her.

"I," she paused "Ginny I am just so worried about her that I can't sleep and I am not hungry."

"Hermione," Draco said crossing the room in one bound and scooping her face in his hands.

"Don't stay silent please why didn't you talk to me?"

"You were busy," she tried to look away but he held her head firm. "you had a potion to concentrate on."

"I am never too busy for you." He said exasperatedly "please talk to me in future do you really think I can concentrate with my girlfriend wasting away in front of me. Hermione cracked a smile.

"I am hardly wasting away."

"You are losing weight though just promise me you will talk to me, that you'll eat and you will go to Madam Pompfrey and get a dreamless sleep potion."

"Ok."

"No that's not good enough."

"I promise."

"Better," he kissed her forehead and took her hand. The pair made there way through the Hogwarts castle they took a slightly long route although Hermione was leading Draco knew where the pair were going because they went there every night for the past few months: to see Ginny.

The younger girl had lay in stasis in the room provided for her, she looked to the world as though she was sleeping and unlike in the early days of the curse she barely produced one rose petal a week. Hermione knew something was wrong the moment she rounded the corridor. She ket go of Draco's hand and ran forward. The door of Ginny's room which was normally locked was open. Hermione rushed into the room to see Ginny who had been lying in the same place for months sat upright.

"Ginny?" Hermione asked barely able to believe her eyes. She rushed forward and hugged the younger witch. "What? How did this happen?"

"My true love," she replied cryptically when Harry entered the room from a small side room. Hermione had to blink furiously to check she wasn't imagining things before she believed her best friend was stood before her.

"What are-" but she never finished her question as at that moment Draco entered the room and looked at the scene before him Hermione and a newly awake Ginny sat on the bed with Harry stood in front of them

"You?" He said pointedly drawing his wand. "I am going to kill you Potter,"

"Draco no," Hermione stood up placing herself between Draco and Harry who had also drawn his wand.

"You better have some bloody brilliant explanation Potter," Draco asked barked.

"I heard about Ginny in the french press a month ago. After the wedding I hid in Caen in France it was the first place a a porkey would take me. I swear I had no idea what had happened to her I had no idea what I had done so I have been working my way back since then. I couldn't contact anybody they wouldn't listen to me. I knew what the cure was-"

"Oh merlin please tell me it wasn't loves true kiss?" Draco asked sceptically raising an eyebrow. When no one replied he simply said "bloody hell" whilst miming vomiting. His demeanour then became serious "you make me one promise Harry," he said his voice becoming more serious as his body language. "Don't you dare hurt her again." He finished fiercely.

"Agreed," Harry said seriously "as long as you make me the same promise about Hermione."

"What?" Hermione scoffed looking up at her friend's unusually stoic face. "Oh no," she finished seeing his face not change. She turned to Draco "I'm not holding you to anything this was whatever it was."

"Hermione," Draco smiled leaning in "you have come to mean everything to me. I am not going anywhere."

Thanks for reading so far PLEASE REVIEW just the epilogue to go and then we are finished!