Whatever had possessed her to let Malfoy come stay at her house had left her mind that evening.

He had only three things he had to do: get plenty of rest, take his medications and stay out of her way. If he could have handled those three tasks she would have been fine. He couldn't, of course.

"I whole heartedly and absolutely refuse." He declared.

"It's only three pills. If you don't take them you'll never get better. Do you want to play Quidditch again or not?"

"I am not consuming any more of that foul Muggle shite."

"They were helping weren't they? The pills? You said the seizures had diminished while you were staying at the hospital. Antiepilepsy drugs have been used for years. They work!"

"No."

"If they aren't giving you any negative side effects why do you care if they're Muggle or not; as long as they're helping! It's not like they automatically fix you overnight either. It could take weeks for the drugs to take full effect but you'll never know if you don't try."

He was staring down at the little tablets on her dining room table like they were troll boogies.

"No."

"Well, if you don't want to listen to me, fine. I can't force you to take them. Guess you'll have to say goodbye to all your Seeker training."

She was about to leave the table when Malfoy picked up the smallest of the three pills and put it between his teeth. He bit down hard and grimaced before crunching a few more times then gulping down a glass of water.

She batted her eyes a bit and tried to stifle a snort. "You're chewing them!?"

Malfoy looked at her like she had told him that bears shat in the woods. "Of course! I'm not going to suck on them and savor the flavor!"

She couldn't help it. Hermione gasped out a loud cackling laugh that would have made Bellatrix Lestrange proud. Her new housemate seethed.

"You're supposed to swallow them whole, dummy!" She was finally able to stammer. It hadn't occurred to her that of course Draco Malfoy would have no clue how to take Muggle medications. "No wonder you hate taking them so much. They must be horrible tasting. Didn't they show you how to swallow pills?"

"Swallow them whole!?" He lifted a capsule the size of his pinky nail up to her face. "Do you want me to choke to death!?"

"Don't be ridiculous. Muggles swallow pills every day. Put it on the back of your tongue and take a big sip of water."

Malfoy sat up straighter so he towered over her. "It can't be that easy. You're messing with me."

She groaned and rolled her eyes dramatically. "Give me your cup. I'll get you some more water."

He was right, it wasn't that easy. Instead of just swallowing the capsules Malfoy seemed to panic every time the pills had to move down his throat and ended up spitting the half dissolved globs back up onto the table in frantic heaves. She was crying from laughing so hard after his fourth attempt.

"Shut up! It isn't funny!"

"I don't know, Malfoy, I'm pretty sure the polite thing is to swallow, not spit."

His face purpled at her comment. "Excuse me, unlike you I was not raised with such barbaric health care. If they hadn't tried other ways of getting medications into my body I wouldn't believe you that this was necessary."

Hermione buried her face in her arms to silence her laughter after imagining what other techniques they might have used to administer his meds.

"Just keep trying. You want ice cream?"

"If that's your attempt at trying to make the situation better, than no. I prefer better sustenance than ice cream."

She rose and stomped into the kitchen. "Very well, brother dearest, I'll see what I can do."

Her kitchen was woefully neglecting on the sustenance department. After scrounging a bit she was able to dislodge a lumpy loaf of bread, three eggs, and a spoiled carton of milk. Besides the ice cream Hermione didn't keep food at home. Since Ron had always been the cook she had diverged to eating most of her meals at the Ministry cafeteria after he had moved out. She dumped the eggs into a pot of boiling water and levitated out the gallon jar of Snarplelax that she hadn't opened yet.

Malfoy had finally managed to deepthroat and swallow his pills by the time she had the soft boiled eggs ready.

"I'm going shopping tomorrow." She offered as a somewhat apology.

"Good. I don't eat eggs."

She scowled. "As in you can't eat them or you won't eat them?"

"Both. Eggs have too much cholesterol and they upset my digestion."

"Cholesterol? Really? I think that's the most Muggle thing I've heard you say yet. Which is saying something considering the whole hospital thing." She snatched back the plate of eggs she had made for him and started spooning them into her mouth.

He watched her eat for a moment. "You shouldn't be eating them either. Poor diet is the leading cause of death for Muggles."

"What is the matter with you!?" She hollered. Hermione threw her spoon onto her plate and slumped back in her chair while crossing her arms.

"I was just commenting on how it isn't ideal for a woman to only be eating ice cream and eggs."

How dare he! Here she was opening her home up for him and he was insulting her on her diet of all things! With the stress of the War, the ordeal of breaking up with Ron, and her strenuous new job, Hermione had gained a few dress sizes over the past two years. She'd never be huge but she certainly would never be called skinny. Malfoy, in comparison, was as lean and muscular as a Norwegian Ridgeback on muscle growth potions. She doubted he had eaten a mouthful of ice cream since his third year at school.

"WHAT?! Who the fuck taught you manners?!" She bristled. "You never EVER comment on what a woman eats!"

Malfoy's face paled sickeningly. With his hair color it made him look frostbitten. "I wasn't," he swallowed, "that came out wrong, I apologize. I wasn't saying anything about your figure! I just was….uh...what I was trying to say…"

It was strange to see him try to backtrack his words. She couldn't recall a time when she'd seen the haughty Slytherin ashamed of anything.

"I was just trying to warn you about poor eating habits is all. Muggleborns are more prone to heart disease with their unfortunate breeding and such."

Ah, so it wasn't a slight on her weight but on her blood status.

"God dammit, Malfoy! You know what? Forget it. If you're going to treat me like this then I'm going to have to ask you to leave. I already am working twelve hour days, I don't deserve to come home and live with a roommate who thinks I'm a filthy Mudblood with heart disease!"

Silence followed her outburst and Hermione swore she saw the man flinch at her language.

"You're right." He barely whispered. "I'm sorry."

He may have been stroking her heartstrings with those giant crystal eyes but there was something genuine about his apology that tickled her. Had she yelled at Ron or Harry like that they would have given it right back to her. Malfoy had crumpled into himself instead.

She sighed and rubbed her eyes. "Don't look at me like that. It makes me feel like I hit you or something. Look, it's been a really long day and we're both exhausted. If you could eat a little bit it would make me feel better."

He nodded and pointed at the monstrous jar of Snarplelax. "Is that…?"

"Please," she shoved the jar over to him, "take it. I can't stand that stuff."

Snarplelax was the most horrendous food Hermione had ever seen. It was mostly pickled newt limbs and gizzards preserved with mincemeat and something akin to horseradish. It tasted like fruit from a tin that had been burned in the bottom of a cauldron. Purebloods, to her utter bewilderment, gobbled it up like Christmas pie.

"This is imported from Italy!" Malfoy nearly swooned as he turned the jar around and examined the label. "Even my father doesn't have such high quality product at this quantity. Are you sure…?"

"Eat it. I beg of you. The Ministry gave me that as a congratulatory gift when I got promoted. I tried to leave it at the office for Arthur Weasley but he insisted that I keep it."

Malfoy opened the jar like he was opening his first birthday present ever. He pulled a gelatinous newt leg from the sticky muck and popped it into his mouth, cooing over it and licking his fingers. Hermione gagged.

"Speaking of Weasley," He pulled a tail out of the jar to suck on, "what happened to Ronikins? I heard he was living with you."

"Ach gross. How can you eat that shite yet complain about taking three little pills?"

"It's delicious."

"Blech! Ron moved out a few weeks ago. Could you eat it with some toast or something? I have bread."

"No thank you. So you two broke up?"

She paused to scowl at him and to push the eggs away, too disgusted by his newt eating to continue. "That's none of your business."

"I take that as a yes then? Good for you. You're out of his league. Extremely foolish of you to move in with him in the first place."

Hermione didn't know if she should be complemented or insulted. Insulted probably.

"Again, your manners are delightfully terrible."

"Just being honest." He grinned at her while crunching through the bones in the newt tail. "By the way, if they're making you work twelve hour days then you should hire someone to get your groceries and cook for you."

"Like a servant?" She rolled her eyes. "Not all of us are as exceedingly wealthy as you."

He continued to grin at her after fishing out another lump of Snarplelax from the jar with his fingers. "Well, you certainly aren't poor. I don't know many witches your age owning a house this large."

Large house indeed. Her parents had purchased the property when Hermione was six. It was nothing close to Malfoy Manor, but the cozy brick five bedroom tudor was such a treasure, she couldn't give it up after her parents had left for Australia.

"It's my… I inherited the house. And unlike your family I am doing perfectly fine without the need of servants or even house elves."

He shrugged. "Suit yourself. My father had a high powered Ministry job at your age and he barely managed to eat lunch everyday let alone clean an entire home. It was a much larger home, to be sure, but still."

"Still, he had house elves." She bantered. "Sorry, you're going to have to suffer here without undyingly loyal kowtowing slaves. I would never own a house elf. And after seeing how your family treated Dobby, I don't think I would trust you with one anyway."

It was a deep hit to smack at him but she had been waiting for years to get some closure on Dobby's behalf. The result wasn't as rewarding as she had expected. Instead of readying herself to scream Malfoy to bits in punishment for the house elf's mistreatment, she was plagued with an uneasy feeling of shame as the blond beside her lost his appetite and closed the lid of the Snarplelax jar. His face looked even more distraught than when she had called him out on his blood status comment earlier.

"How do you know about Dobby?" Malfoy said quietly. His voice had deepened an octave and his eyes flickered as though the room were lit by candlelight.

"Well, that's kind of a long story." She began. Malfoy gestured for her to continue and she sighed and rubbed her temples. It would be just her luck to get a migraine from this. "Dobby warned Harry about the Chamber of Secrets back in second year. He knew that the Chamber was going to be opened because…"

Hermione froze. Did Malfoy know that it was his father that had caused the eventual release of the Basilisk? Did he have any idea that Lucius Malfoy had given Tom Riddle's diary to an eleven year old girl? From the baffled look on his face, she presumed he didn't.

"Because why?"

"Um, I don't know. Elf magic maybe?"

Malfoy raised a disbelieving eyebrow at her but she ignored it.

"So, Dobby tried to prevent Harry from coming to school that year. He followed everything Harry did and sabotaged many of his actions. It got to a point that he became almost infatuated with Harry and, well, Harry became sort of attached to him."

Draco frowned. "Is that why Potter set him free?"

"That was part of it."

The other part being that your father's a right arsehat that treated Dobby like crap. She wanted to say but didn't.

"What happened to him? He belongs to Potter now, right?" Malfoy said, a slight twinge of hope in his tone.

"Um. Well, uh, no actually. He worked at Hogwarts for a bit and then, uh." She felt her face flush and looked away from Malfoy.

"What?"

"Bellatrix threw her knife at Harry when they Apparated away from your house after she tortured me." Hermione managed to blurt it out as fast as possible. Best to get it all out at once. "Dobby blocked the knife with his own body. He didn't make it."

Malfoy's eyes widened to the size of Galleons. He seemed to be looking past her; gazing at something that wasn't there. Hermione guessed he was trying to fight off tears but after a long silence he spoke with easy clarity.

"I see." He took another long sip of water and looked into the glass thoughtfully. "And you're right about what you said before; father was cruel to the house elves. He beat Dobby's mother to death on my eleventh birthday when she burned the cake. I'm pretty sure he killed Dobby's father as well." He said blandly. "Thank you for telling me that. I'm glad Dobby got out." He put the glass back down. "Even if it wasn't for very long."

Hermione stared at him.

He beat the house elf to death? She fathomed. Just for burning a cake?

"Merlin, I'm sorry." She said. Malfoy merely shrugged.

"Well, my father's a horrible person. That shouldn't surprise you. There are reasons why I'm not speaking to him anymore. It bothers me how he didn't end up in Azkaban forever while others who have done far less did."

Her mind scanned a brief image of Sirius Black's gaunt face plastered against the walls of Diagon Alley in his wanted posters. She shuddered.

"I think I will take you up on that ice cream." Malfoy interrupted her thoughts. "Perhaps some clotted dairy products will brighten my mood."

Hermione gave him a sweet but burdened smile. "You can have as much as you like."