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Chapter 14 –
"Oh, great," Hermione said as she clutched her lacerated hand. She leaned down and patted Draco's cheek. "Draco, wake up."
Her father walked in and yelled for her mother. "What happened to Draco?" he asked.
"He fainted."
"Why?"
Hermione held up her towel wrapped hand.
"Gracious, Hermione, it's always something with you," her mum said as she walked in the house. She went to get a wet cloth to put on Draco's forehead.
Her dad said, "Good thing we didn't name you 'Grace', because you certain are accident prone." He unwrapped her hand as Phyllis attended to Draco. "Well, ouch, that looks like it hurts. You need stitches or you might have to go to St. Mungo's."
"Can you take care of it yourself?" her mother asked, as Draco started to come around from his place on the floor.
"I don't know. Dad, could you go up to my room and get my wand from my purse?" she asked.
Draco said, "Why am I on the floor?" He sat up and threw the wet cloth off his head.
Phyllis said, "Hermione knocked you out cold." She laughed and so did Hermione. Draco looked confused and stood up. Hermione turned so her back was to him. She didn't want him to see her hand again.
Edward came down and said, "I have your wand."
"Mum, come with me to the bathroom and help me heal my hand," Hermione said, her back still to Draco.
"What did you do to your hand," Draco said. He turned Hermione around, and looked at the cloth and felt nauseated. He bent at the knees.
"Sit down, before you faint again," Edward said.
"I didn't faint!" Draco said as Hermione and Phyllis left the room. They headed for the downstairs bathroom.
"Fine, you swooned." Edward laughed.
Draco said, "I didn't swoon either."
"Whatever, you still ended up out cold on the floor. You didn't faint yesterday when she cut her knee," Edward said.
"Well, there wasn't very much blood that time, was there?" Draco said. He put his head in his hand, while he sat at the table. Just the thought of all that blood made him want to 'swoon' again, as Edward put it.
"We can't eat this salad now," Edward said, throwing away the food and cleaning up all the blood. Draco looked over at the counter and had to leave the room.
Draco knocked on the door of the downstairs toilet and said, "Hermione, your dad said you cut you hand pretty bad. Do you need to go to St. Mungo's?" He started to come in the bathroom, but Hermione blocked the door. She looked out at him through a crack in the door.
"I think I might. I'm not sure I can do this myself, because it's a deep laceration, but please, I will have Mum go with me, you stay here," she pleaded.
Phyllis left the bathroom, and closed the door again. "Draco, I'll tell Edward we're leaving. You stay and help with lunch." She walked down the hall to the kitchen.
Draco knocked on the door again and said, "It's my fault. Let me take you, please. I am your husband." Hermione opened the door again. Draco tried not to look at the completely blood soaked dishcloth around her hand, but couldn't help it. The smell of the blood made him taste a slight metallic taste in his mouth, and he winced and closed his eyes.
"For goodness sakes," Hermione said. She pushed him out of the room with her good hand and said, "Mum will go with me. She can side-along apparate. You stay here."
"No," he said through the door. "I want to go. I was just trying to show you something else about me that you didn't know. I hate blood. This is actually the third time in my life that I fainted at the sight of a large amount of blood."
Phyllis stood outside the door again as Hermione opened it and said, "You didn't faint the weekend we met when I punctured my hand, or last night when I hurt my knee. Good thing you didn't become a Death Eater."
"What's a Death Eater?" Phyllis asked.
Hermione didn't know her mother was out there, or she wouldn't have said that. She opened the door again and decided in order not to answer her mother's question, she would have Draco take her. She said to Draco, "Fine, you can take me."
They sat in the lobby of St. Mungo's, waiting for a healer, when Draco said, "I'm useless, aren't I? What if it had just been you and I around."
"Then I would have revived you and I would have brought myself to Hospital," she said.
"What if you had lost so much blood that you couldn't walk?" he said.
"Then I would have floo'd St. Mungo's, or called for help on my phone," she reasoned.
"What if your husband ruined your phone with the garden hose?' he asked.
"I would have crawled for help," she said.
"What if you passed out, too?" he asked.
"Then I would have laid there and bled to death," she said.
"I'm serious!" he said.
"I am, too! I would have bled out, and when you woke up, you would have passed out again at the sight of all the blood," she said with a smile.
"I don't want you to die," he said.
"That is an unpleasant thought, isn't it?" She laughed.
"It's not very manly for me not to be able to take care of my own wife if she's bleeding to death," he said, looking at the floor.
"Oh, Draco," she said, "no one would ever question YOUR manhood."
Just then, a Healer called out, "Hermione Malfoy?"
Hermione stood up and walked over to the Healer.
"Hermione!" he said. "I wondered if it was you, because let's be serious, who else has the first name Hermione, but the Malfoy part threw me a bit."
"It's actually Hermione Granger Malfoy," Hermione said.
Draco leaned over her shoulder and said, "No hyphen."
They both followed the Healer to a little room. Hermione said, "Draco, do you remember Terry Boot? He was a Ravenclaw in our year at school."
Draco shook his hand and said, "Slightly. Nice to see you, Boot."
"You too, Malfoy." He started to remove the cloth from her hand, and Draco stood up to look out the window. Terry said, "I heard you were taking a couple of weeks off work, but I didn't know you had gotten married. Congratulations to the both of you."
"Thanks," Hermione said.
He started to heal her hand and said, "This is a nasty laceration, and very deep. I think there is some tendon damage. You were right to bring her here, Malfoy, because she wouldn't have been able to heal this on her own." Draco turned around. That sentence just made him feel guiltier. "You lost a lot of blood, too, so you will need a blood replenishment potion, as well as a potion for the pain, and one for possible infection. In fact, you lost so much blood, I doubt you would have made it here on your own. I will also have to bandage your hand. I don't want you to use if for a week, okay? Since I'm your boss, I am telling you to take another week off work, an extended honeymoon, okay?" Terry ran off to get the potions.
Draco turned as he left the room and said, "You lost a lot of blood. See, you might have passed out and then where would we be?"
"Draco, just shut up," Hermione said. Terry took that moment to return. He gave Hermione a questioning look and she explained, "Draco thinks this is his fault, and he feels bad because he fainted."
Draco frowned at her, especially because she told someone he 'fainted'. Terry laughed and said, "Squeamish, Malfoy?"
"Not in the slightest, Boot," he remarked.
"I'm joking about the passing out," Hermione lied. "He's upset because I can't multitask as well as he does, that's all."
Terry left the room again for a moment and Draco said, "Don't tell people I passed out!"
"Well, you did, so I didn't see the harm."
Draco sat beside her now bandaged hand and said, "You can't multitask very well, can you. You can't even cut lettuce and be kissed at the same time. That's not a hard thing to do, you know." He gave her a small smile. "I'm a useless husband, aren't I?"
"Please, get over this. You aren't useless at all," she said. "It was a small little faint, it doesn't make a difference."
"What if you cut your hand off and it bounced across the floor?" he laughed.
"I refuse to play 'what if' with you again. Especially about my hand 'bouncing' around." Hermione grinned.
"I am perfectly serious, Granger! I need to be able to take care of my own wife," he labored. He stood up and paced the small exam room.
"Why, I can take care of myself," she answered.
"You shouldn't have to," he snapped at her.
"It's nothing! It was an accident, and so what if you fainted!"
Terry walked back in, once again, at an inopportune time. He said, "Draco, a lot of people faint at the sight of blood. It's not that big of a deal. Did you hurt yourself when you fainted?"
Draco glared at Hermione and said, "I'M FINE!"
Hermione shook her head and Terry handed her three vials of potion. He said, "Just take it easy tonight. Don't get the bandage wet. Have someone help you change the bandage later, I gave you some clean gauze and tape in there, too." He turned to Draco and said, "Help her with the bandage later, because she won't be able to change it herself."
"I'll have my mum help me, Terry," she said. Draco took a deep breath to keep from exploding. He told them they were free to go. She took the bag with the three potions and handed them to Draco. After Terry left them in the room, Hermione said, "Do you feel up to disapparating both of us? I do feel a bit woozy."
"Yes, I feel up to disapparating us," he said sarcastically. "Hell, I think I could even handle the fucking bandages, Granger!"
"Well, I didn't know if you fainted at the sight of a wound or not!" she said sincerely.
"No, wounds don't bother me, but gauze and tape scare the shite of me!" he said.
"You're being stupid and immature and I don't like this side of you, so stop it right now!" She held out her right hand, and he grabbed it promptly and he apparated them back to her parents' back patio.
"Perfect timing, lunch is ready," Edward declared.
Hermione told her parents she wanted to go up and wash her hands. Draco followed her upstairs. She deposited the vials of potions on her dresser and went to the bathroom vanity. As she was washing her 'good hand', Draco said, "Well, it seems we both showed an unattractive side of ourselves, in our little folly known as show and tell."
"Pardon?" she asked, drying her hand.
"I showed that I'm a sissy who faints at the sight of blood, and you showed that you're mean and vindictive, which frankly, trumps 'sissy' anytime. While you don't like that side of me, I don't think I like that side of you," he said. He pushed her away from the sink and started to wash his hands.
She stood staring at him in utter shock and disbelief as he washed his hands. She said, "Mean and vindictive? When was I mean and vindictive? Do you know what vindictive means?"
He went out to her bedroom, opened the dictionary on the shelf and looked up vindictive, and then slammed the book shut and said, "Yes, I know what it means and I used it in the right context. You're vindictive, because you made fun of me and wanted to hurt my feelings."
Hermione picked up the book, put it on the bed so she could look up a word with one hand and said, "Stupid, it says, see Draco Malfoy." She slammed the book shut. "I didn't make fun of you! I told Terry, but then I told him you didn't faint, and I can't help it if he came in and overheard! My dad was making fun of you before we left, but I wasn't! Listen, Draco, just because you feel guilty or ashamed or whatever it is you feel about the fainting episode, which by the way, I will never mention again, don't take it out on me!"
"You're the one that keeps pressing the matter!" She continued to rant as she pointed a finger from her good hand at him. "You're the one making ridiculous comparisons and posing stupid 'what ifs' not me. I was trying to keep the mood light by joking about it, because I could tell you were taking it all too seriously. I was trying to relieve your feelings, not hurt them! However, if you think I'm mean or vindictive, I apologize!" She walked past him and headed downstairs.
He yelled after her, "Even your apology was mean!"
He picked up the dictionary and threw it on the floor. Then, in a fit of anger, he opened her closet door, ripped down her poster, threw the pieces in the closet, and stormed outside. He could be mean and vindictive, too!
Hermione was already sitting at the picnic table. Edward was putting the steaks on everyone's plates. Draco walked up to the table and sat across from Hermione, instead of beside her. Neither looked at the other. Phyllis looked at Edward and raised her eyebrows. Edward shrugged. He didn't know what was happening between the two.
"Steak done enough for you, Draco?" Edward asked.
"Fine, Sir," he said.
"Hermione, more salad? I made some without blood." Her mother laughed.
"Sure, whatever," Hermione said, pushing her food around her plate.
"How's the hand, kiddo?" her father asked.
"Fine, well, actually, it hurts a bit," Hermione said.
Draco threw his fork down. Hermione looked over at Draco, but said to her father, "Forget I said that Dad. It feels great. Doesn't hurt at all. If I said it hurt in a mean or vindictive way, I am sorry." She looked back at her food.
"Did they give you something for pain?" her mother asked.
"Yes," she answered, still not looking up.
"How long do you have to wear the bandaged?" she asked Hermione.
Hermione threw her fork this time and said, "Seriously, do we have to keep talking about my fucking hand!"
"Button, Hermione!" her mother yelled.
"Sorry!" she said. "I can't do anything right today." She looked back down at her plate, and soon, she started to cry. "Excuse me, I think I will go get some of that pain potion now, my hand is throbbing. I'm sorry for the language, Mum." She stood up and left the table.
Edward turned to Draco and said, "I hope you at least intend to finish eating your lunch. We don't want you fainting again."
Hermione walked in her room and sat at her desk. She unfolded the paper airplane list and read it again. She couldn't even accomplish a list to make her perfect for him. He accomplished her list. Did that make him perfect and her imperfect? She really wondered. She went to the dresser, took some pain medicine, picked up the list again, and went to lie upon the bed. She actually had gotten a lot of the stupid list done. She wrote the poem, she baked the cookies, she laughed at his joke, she tried to cook his favourite meal, she wore his dirty t-shirt, and she romped with him and got hurt and didn't cry. That just left the talking dirty during sex, the sporting event, and then Sunday in bed, and the passing gas. Not too bad. She folded the list back into the airplane, and as she did, she realized that she was in the wrong for telling Terry about his fainting, and she was being sort of condescending, and frankly, she could have been more sensitive to his insecurities about his manhood, but she wasn't mean or vindictive. Maybe he really didn't know what that word meant.
She pointed the airplane up in the air, and threw it. Draco walked in the room and caught it mid flight. He put it back on the desk, and sat beside her legs. He put his hand on her thigh and said, "We really don't know each other very well do we?"
"I guess not," she said in a small voice.
"I was being overly sensitive about 'the incident'," he admitted.
"The incident?" she asked.
"Well, you weren't going to mention it again, and I can't get myself to admit that I, you know, F-A-I-N-T-E-D (he spelled out the word), so I've decided to call it 'the incident'," he explained. "We will call the hand laceration the 'prior incident'." He laughed.
"Neither of those are going to be code words for sex though, right?" she asked.
"Not at this time," he said, with a crooked smile. "I took it too far, and I hurt your feelings. I'm sorry."
"I didn't take your feeling seriously, especially with all the 'what ifs', and I thought you were just being your normal, annoying self, so I'm sorry, also," she said. She sat up. His arm was still across her legs.
"Does your hand really hurt?" he asked.
"Yes," she said hesitantly.
"Your Mum was upset that we wouldn't be able to enjoy the pool, since your hand in bandaged. So I told her since we were both off work the whole next week, thanks to the prior incident, also known as your cutting your hand, that we would come and spend the day around the pool, on Wednesday, weather permitting," he said. "We wouldn't have time to swim now anyway, since we have to leave for the Manor in a couple of hours. I told my parents we would be there between five and seven, but when they heard we came here at 4pm, they demanded equal timing, so we have to leave here by 4pm. I already told your parents."
"How did they know what time we came here?" she asked.
"I talked to my mum before we left yesterday," he said.
"And yet you're just telling me all of this now," she reasoned.
"Yes, another thing for you to know about me, I am, my dear, a procrastinator."
"That was nice of you," she said, without meaning it. "We have to get in a better frame of mind before going to your parents, because I really have a feeling we need to provide a united front against them, agreed?"
"Yes, agreed," he answered. He touched her cheek with his finger, and with his thumb, her rubbed her cheek. "I am so sorry I was hateful. You weren't vindictive. I guess the word didn't really fit very well. I meant to say insensitive."
"Because that's such a better thing to call your wife," she said slowly, with a patronizing smile.
"Exactly," he said. He took her bandaged hand in his and kissed the palm, right over the bandage, which covered the laceration.
"You have a point, when you say we don't really know each other," she said, as she scooted closer to him, so she could hug him. They faced each other, her legs by his right hip, and they hugged. While still holding him, she said, "I didn't know how sensitive you would be, and that's the point of dating, to get to know these things, so people don't make mistakes like this after they're married. We didn't date before we married, so I didn't get a chance to know these things."
"I think my sensitivity is my problem, not yours," he said quietly in her ear. "You hit the old nail on the head when you said I was embarrassed and ashamed. I really should have been able to take you to Hospital without passing out, and I should be able to change your bandages. Oh, and don't tell Lucius or my mother about that incident, okay? My father will see it as a sign of weakness."
She pushed away from his embrace and said, "I hope not to find myself alone with him to ever have to have a conversation, but it I do find myself in that position, I will talk about the weather."
"He likes hail and thunderstorms the best," Draco said as a joke.
"Do tell," she said back. "I would have thought him more of a sunshine, rainbow type of man."
He ignored her sarcasm, and said, "Don't tell him about the Granger no hyphen Malfoy thing yet either, okay?"
"As far as he is concerned, I am Mrs. Draco Malfoy, frumpy little hausfrau, who only does what you tell me to do, wear what you pick out for me to wear, and you alone tell me what to say and think. Subservient in everyway imaginable."
"That sounds good, stick with that plan," he said. "Hey, Granger, subservient in everyway imaginable? Because right now, I can think of a hundred different ways."
"Too bad we have to leave in a couple of hours," she said. She scooted off the bed and said, "I think I will see if I have any fancy dresses here in this closet. I want a choice of what to wear, and I only brought one dressy dress." She opened her closet door and saw her Justin poster ripped to shreds on the closet floor. The only part still on the back of the door was a corner of the poster, stuck there with a small piece of tape. "JUSTIN!" she said. "What did that mean and vindictive man do to you?" She kneeled down and started to pick up the pieces of poster.
Draco walked over to the closet and said, "I can't believe your dad did that to your poster. That wasn't nice."
She stood up with the pieces of poster in her hand and said, "You know my father didn't do this!"
"I bet that Brian fellow snuck in here and tore it to shreds. He seemed like the type," he said.
"Ryan didn't do this either. Why, Draco? All Justin wanted to do was to hang in my closet and look pretty and remind me of my youth. Did you have to take out your anger at me on him?" She began to put the pieces together on the bed.
There was a knock on the door. "Come down, Draco," Edward said opening the door, "We thought we could play a board game before you leave." Her father left the room and Draco turned and gave Hermione a fearful look.
"Don't look at me," she warned, "You're the one that said you would be happy to just play a board game with them, so run along and play. I need to fix my poster, and then make sure I pack all our things for later. I'm sure he will let you pick the game. He has them all."
"Please, come with me. I don't even know Muggle games. Which one should I pick?" he asked.
"You don't know Muggle games?" she asked. She could be mean and vindictive, and tell him to pick the most boring, long and complicated game there was, but instead, she said, "Pick something call cribbage or maybe Bridge. They aren't board games, they're played with cards, but I think you won't mind them too much." She smiled at him. He walked back up to her and leaned over and kissed her cheek.
"I love you, Granger." He pulled her to him again, and she took a deep breath as his head lowered to hers. He put a hand firmly on her lower back, and the other brushed her cheek, as he lowered her to a dip, and kissed her lips with the slightest, but most tantalizing kiss. He stood her back up and said, "Yes, I think I really do love you."
"I hope you really do, because our love is about to be tested the moment we go to the Manor," she said. He started out of the room and she said, "Wait up. I can pack later. I want to play with you."
"We have to stay up here if you and I are going to play," he said with a wicked gleam, "however, if you're referring to the game, I would be pleased to have you on my team." He took her 'good' hand, which was her right one, and together they walked downstairs.
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