Hermione woke up to a headache and the sudden gratitude that the Slytherin dorms were dark. There were, she mused, some benefits to being in a dungeon under the lake after all. She sat up and made an inarticulate sound of protest at how unpleasant that movement was and went to pull herself out of the bed and down the hall to the girls' shower only to realize there was a body in her bed.
She narrowed her eyes as she regarded the very asleep, very blond boy who had a pillow over most of his head, leaving tufts of hair poking out, and one arm dangling down to the floor. She twitched the blankets away and confirmed that he was fully dressed as, she noted with a quick, nervous look down, was she.
That was a relief. That was better than the alternative.
She tried to reconstruct how she'd ended up in a bed with Draco Malfoy and, if it wasn't quite a mystery, it did seem, as she thought about it, like something that she should have stopped at the time. Theodore Nott and how he'd made her glass bottomless had been a bad idea. The way she'd let Draco Malfoy glom onto her neck had been a bad idea. The way she'd – oh Merlin – shared embarrassing stories with them about her time in that tent with two boys had been a very bad idea indeed. But that all paled compared to the fact she hadn't sent Draco Malfoy away after he'd escorted her to her room. "A gentleman always sees a lady home," he'd informed her in the very serious tones of a drunk. A gentleman also, apparently, checked a lady's room for boggarts, and tucked her into bed, and kissed her forehead, and then lay down for just a moment because the room was spinning.
She climbed over him, cringing at what that did to her, and his only reaction was to grunt and turn over; she stopped at the door and eyed him with a smile that, despite her pounding head, she couldn't quite make go away. "You're an idiot," she muttered as she stumbled down the hall.
When he returned having discovered that no, a shower was not going to be sufficient to this hangover, Draco had rolled over again and the pillow had fallen to the floor. As she put her things away she looked at the boy – man really – asleep in her bed. She supposed some people were beautiful asleep. Harry hadn't been. Ron hadn't been. It would seem that Draco Malfoy was the third in her series of men who looked more like fools in their sleep than anything else. His jaw was slightly open and his neck was crooked in a way she suspected would hurt when he woke up.
She contemplated waking him and then decided she cared more about finding a pain potion. If Theodore Nott had gotten her that drunk and hadn't packed hangover remedies along with that whiskey she would have things to say to him.
Rude things.
She stalked toward the common room, head pounding with each step, where she was met by an abominably cheerful Theodore Nott who said not a word but just held a glass with some potion in it toward her. She grabbed it and downed it and nearly sagged with relief when it worked almost instantly.
"Feel better?" he asked.
"I think I might hate you," she said. Theo's face immediately became guarded again and she shoved the glass back into his hand. "It's a joke," she said. "I'm teasing you."
He relaxed a fraction and said, "I knew that."
"Over-sensitive much?" she asked.
He shrugged. "You have your issues, Granger. I have mine."
"Hermione," she said. "I don't like being called by my family name anymore."
"Then you have to call me Theo," he said. "Otherwise I'm being rude."
"Oh, well, we mustn't have that," she said. "Theodore Nott, rude to me. The world might stop in shock."
"Now who's over-sensitive?" he murmured.
She was tricked into a laugh and looked back the hall toward her room. "Do we wake Draco or go to breakfast without him?" she asked.
Theodore summoned another vial of the hangover potion and handed to her. "Leave this with a note," he suggested, "and let him sleep it off. He's not exactly a morning person."