AN: I'm so happy you guys enjoyed the double chapter week! Thank you so much to everyone reading and a special thank you to everyone who takes the time to comment. As we get into the home stretch of this story, it really helps keep me writing and motivated! A super extra special thank you to my alpha: LaDeeDaa and beta: astrangefan, both of whom are incredibly busy people but have been on top of edits and suggestions as I write like a maniac!

Sneezewart

"I know I'm not exactly as fit as an Auror or an Unspeakable, but I was in Dumbledore's Army just like you," Padma said, her nose in the air. But the illusion of upset was immediately dashed when she fell into a fit of giggles.

Hermione smiled in return, happy to know she didn't actually offend her friend whom she was certain could destroy Death Eaters with one arm behind her back. "I didn't mean to imply you were incapable, Pads," she assured. "I just want to be sure you are ready. Harry and I are used to the Energy, but for those who aren't - even Aurors - it can be a bit…"

"Terrifying?" Padma filled in.

"Well, maybe not terrifying, but it's certainly off-putting. Ask Neville. I think he's quite relieved for the chance to go home to Luna for the holiday and not have to think about it for three weeks," Harry supplied.

"Too right," Hermione agreed.

"Well, I'll have to manage. While your magic is returning, I'd still like to keep a close eye on you until you're at full strength. Where you go, I go, I'm afraid," Padma said.

"I understand…"

"That is, unless you have a dashing Malfoy to keep an eye on you. I shall not be following you up to the Astronomy Tower or the Prefect's baths," she grinned.

"Merlin's sake," Harry groaned. "It's bad enough they are together, must you always be so - lewd about it!" He shivered as if Padma had just said the most disgusting thing he'd ever heard, and Hermione couldn't help but giggle.

Dramatic git.

"Oh, now who's the prude?" Padma asked. "I don't recall you being so squeamish when you fucked Parvati over a table of shrivelfig plants in my gran's greenhouse when we were supposed to be tidying up for tea…"

Harry's ears turned bright red, and Hermione slapped her hand over her mouth to stop the laughter that wanted to burst out of her. Padma's complete lack of fucks to give was one of her best qualities, honestly. "I don't know what you are talking about…" he choked.

Hermione snickered. "Come off it, Harry. We all have sex. We all know we have sex. Let's just move on."

"Yes, but it was much easier to stomach when I never had to meet the people you had sex with," Harry pointed out. "While Ron was more tolerable than Malfoy, it wasn't pleasant thinking about the two of you either." He shuddered as if the memories still lived beneath the surface constantly haunting him.

And the Academy Award goes to…

"Well, I hardly fantasise about what you and Pav get up to either," Hermione replied.

"You are both ridiculous," Padma observed. "Everyone is going to want to picture Malfoy and Hermione together when it comes out. It's all so…forbidden romance." She stared off in the distance like she was envisioning just such a thing.

"Oi!" Hermione cried. "You are meant to be a studious professional! Not reading that rubbish."

Padma looked back at Hermione and grinned wider. "I have time on my hands for all manner of reading. Besides, with the sexual tension coming off the two of you in waves these last weeks, I haven't once needed to crack a book over the last few days."

"Anyway," Harry said, decisively changing the subject. "Shall we head down to the grounds?"

"Yes," Hermione said. "Let me just leave a note for Draco."

Jotting down a quick note for him when he returned from the potion's lab - where he now preferred to brew since he was given a wand - Hermione pulled on her shoes and met Padma and Harry by the portrait hole.

They chatted idly as they moved through the familiar corridors, down to the Entrance Hall and out the front doors of the castle. "Reckon McGonagall is around?" Padma asked. "I wonder what that old broad gets up to with no kids to order about."

"I assume she just turns into a cat and wanders the grounds," Hermione said with a shrug. In fact, she hadn't actually given it much thought, but Minerva's ability to blend in with the scenery must have come in handy more than once.

"I hadn't thought of that," Padma said. "Merlin, can you imagine the things she overhears - or worse, sees!"

"I shudder to think," Harry said, but he was grinning and so his earlier upset seemed to have passed.

"It's such a beautiful day," Hermione noted. The early April air was warm and pleasant, and just as the day before, the sun shone down on the grounds. It was odd having so much sun in the middle of Spring in Scotland, but Hermione was happy for it.

"It would be such a good day to fly…" Harry said, looking longingly toward the Quidditch pitch.

Hermione snorted. "For someone who doesn't like Draco, you sure share his one track mind."

Harry rolled his eyes and led them toward the Forbidden Forest.

"Okay, so, what I want to try to do is see if we can get a look inside the barrier without giving his soul - or whatever it is - anything to attach to," Harry said, his tone more serious as he stepped into his role as Auror.

"Right," Hermione nodded. "We'll use the protego corpus spell. Harry, you cast it. I'll investigate." Harry looked like he wanted to argue, but the fact was that Hermione was the expert on dark energy and horcruxes - or as much as anyone was an expert. She was the Unspeakable. This was her case, and he knew that. His trust in her made her smile to herself.

With a nod, he readied his wand and cast the spell, "Protego corpus…" he breathed against the warm air and Hermione immediately felt the sensation of the spell settle over her. It wasn't dissimilar to the disillusionment charm which felt like an egg cracking over the top of your head, but in the case of this particular spell there was a stronger tingling. It wasn't a long-lasting spell, which is why it was rarely used in battle. You couldn't be sure when someone would hit you with a curse, and the false sense of security the charm provided could end up being more dangerous. People took more risks and fewer precautions.

Harry then pointed his wand to the barrier, whispering counter spells to allow just Hermione through the wards. The barrier had been set so strong that wards on top of wards had actually visually obscured the area where the Energy was trapped. This served two purposes, firstly, it gave Aurors and anyone wandering the grounds a visual perimeter which was helpful, but it also made it so that there would be visual cues if the wards started to fail.

As he modified his wards to allow Hermione though, she could see a section of the perimeter shimmer and then clear for her. She could see inside the wards as clearly as if they didn't exist.

She took a deep breath and moved forward past the wards, wand outstretched. Her heart was hammering in her chest, but she kept her breath steady and her mind clear. Fear was fine. Panic was not. She would not panic.

She quietly centred her mind. "Essentia revalare tuum." She was immediately drawn toward the back of the warded area, left of centre, where there was a section of bushes and plants - some of them flowering plants and some bearing fruit. The strength of the Energy pulled toward them. She felt sure that her theory was correct. Voldemort's soul was living off a plant and it was pissed about it.

Her skin prickled as gooseflesh ran down her arms. It was an eerie kind of silence inside the wards. She felt something there - something dark - but she couldn't be sure from where it was emanating exactly. Certainly, it was in the back section of the square perimeter, but she couldn't narrow it down more than that. She inched closer.

Before she could investigate the plants in that section of the grounds, she felt a whoosh as a strong, Dark presence rushed passed her with a force that almost knocked her down.

A cloying sweetness filled her mouth and she immediately felt sick to her stomach. "Harry," she called weakly. It rushed past her again, as if bouncing off the walls of the wards like a muggle pinball machine. She couldn't see it, but she could certainly feel it. It was cold, fast, and made her shiver as it passed. It wanted her. It was trying to take her. She could tell it felt her presence and knew she'd make a better host than whichever plant it had been inhabiting for months.

She didn't know how much time she had, but she knew she had to get out of there fast before the protego spell weakened - or worse, fell completely. She could see Harry and Padma waiting on the other side of the barrier anxiously, apparently not able to see or hear her clearly.

Whoosh! It slammed into her and she stumbled but kept her footing.

She ran.

With every ounce of energy she possessed, she dug her trainers into the thick grass and ran to the edge of the barrier where Harry and Padma were standing. She felt lightheaded and her stomach heaved, but she swallowed down the bile and burst through the barrier, turning around just in time to see the leaves of the middle bush in the far end of the barrier give off a green flash of light.

There.

Before she could even celebrate the new information, she fell to her knees, hunched over as she vomited into the grass in front of her.

"Hermione!"Harry cried.

"Reset the wards," Padma instructed, her voice tight as she moved over to Hermione and knelt next to her.

Hermione could hear Harry muttering spells as she hurled again. Her body felt shaky and ill, her joints feeling ancient.

"Hermione," Padma said softly but intently, "what happened? Tell me what's happening."

"It - wanted - in," she panted, dry heaving as her fingernails bit into the hard ground, grass and dirt stuck underneath them. "It felt me - there…" she tried to explain but she couldn't stop the convulsions in her body from trying to purge everything in her body.

"Hermione, are you okay?" Harry asked, kneeling on her other side and scourgifying her sick at the same time.

"F-f-fine," she stuttered, her body beginning to still, the sick feeling still running through her. She took gulps of air and moved back to sit on her calves, trying to calm her body and mind. She didn't want to panic. The feeling of the Energy around her had terrified her, sickened her, and she knew she'd been lucky the protection spell had held.

"No-no one goes in there without a better plan," she said finally. She felt capable of speaking again. "The protection spell held, but I'm not sure how much longer I had," she explained.

Harry rubbed absent circles into her back as Padma took her vitals, and she continued. "It sensed me in there. The minute it sensed a person it tried to change hosts." She swallowed. "But I was able to see exactly what it is living off of," she went on. "The middle bush - it's actually an overgrown section of Sneezewart. That's where the Energy returned to. That's it's home until it gets a more suitable host."

Harry nodded. "Okay, let's get you up," he said, his hand going to her elbow to help her.

"Scourgify," Padma said, aiming her wand at Hermione's clothes, some of which had been victim of her projectile vomiting. "Let's get you into bed," she said, helping Hermione from her other side.

But as she rose, she immediately fell again. "Mmmmmm," she moaned in pain, her hands going out in front of her to catch her fall.

"What?!" Harry cried, dropping immediately to her side again. Though he'd remained fairly calm to that point, the panic in his voice had risen when she fell the second time.

"The cruciatus…" she bit out, unable to finish her explanation. Her stomach and chest were ablaze as she felt the muscles of her torso locking up. She should have known. Throwing up almost always triggered an attack.

"Nnnnnnn," she gritted between her teeth as tears leaked from the side of her eyes. The pain was unbearable and talking didn't help.

"She needs a massage, but I don't want to do it out here," Padma said quickly. "Lift her. Let's get her inside."

Harry nodded and she felt him pull her into his strong arms as he cradled her to him and stood, carrying her as if she weighed nothing. She bit down hard as his long strides jostled her. It hurt but she wasn't about to make him feel guilty.

Her fingers dug into his shoulders as he buried her head against his broad chest, and she tried to breath in and out through clenched teeth as Harry carried her quickly and steadily toward the castle. A whimper finally escaped her as he started up the steps from the Entrance Hall.

"Hold on, Hermione," Harry said urgently. "Just a bit more."

She nodded weakly against him, hating her body and the lack of control she had over it.

Fuck the cruciatus. Fuck Bellatrix LeStrange. Fuck Voldemort.

She was panting through the pain, her fingers probably leaving bruises in Harry's neck by the time Padma opened the portrait hole and they stepped through into the common room.

"What's wrong with her?" she heard Draco's alarmed voice before she turned and saw him standing in the middle of the room, a parchment in hand, his eyes wide and scared as he took in the sight before him.

"She just needs a therapeutic massage," Padma answered quickly as Harry moved Hermione over to Draco's bed. If she hadn't been completely out of her mind in pain, she would have been able to appreciate just how significant his choice of placement had been in showing his acceptance of Draco's place in her life.

"Cruciatus?" Draco asked, but she could tell from his tone he already knew the answer.

As Harry laid her down and Draco was at her side instantly. "I can do it," he said, urgently, taking her hand in his, his eyes searching hers for an explanation.

"Do you know how…" Padma started.

"Yes, she taught me," Draco explained distractedly. His hands were already at the hem of her shirt, his warm fingers sure and firm. "Where?" he asked Hermione. She could see the intensity inside him nearly coming off him in waves. He was terrified.

"Torso," she bit out. "It's b-because I threw up," she gritted out. His brows furrowed with a million questions but thankfully he didn't ask any, he just pulled her shirt up over her head leaving her bra on as his hands moved from the top of her shoulders down her chest and to her stomach over and over, applying the perfect amount of pressure as her manipulated her muscles back to life.

She silently thanked Merlin she'd taught him exactly how to do this particular massage. He was an adept learner.

"Uhhhh," she moaned as her stomach muscles began to relax, but just as she got the feeling in her stomach again, she felt the urge to retch. "I think I need a bin," she warned miserably.

Padma was at their side in an instant with a waste bin which Hermione promptly threw up into. Having nothing left in her digestive system, it was all bile and she groaned at the taste in her mouth. Luckily, though, the sick feeling finally left, and she fell back on the pillows as Draco continued his ministrations on her upper torso, freeing her muscles from their rigour prison one at a time.

He was warm, strong, and his fingers knew exactly how to touch her. She saw Harry shift impatiently as he waited for some sign that whatever Draco was doing to her was working.

"Yes…" she hissed as her chest and shoulders finally relaxed and she could take in a full, deep breath. She let out a sigh and felt as if she could melt into the soft down comforter on the bed.

Thank Godrick for this blanket.

Draco helped her back into her shirt before turning toward Harry. "Do you want to tell me what the absolute fuck happened here?" he finally asked, seething.

Hermione, now free from the agonising pain and the sick feeling of Dark Magic, took note of Draco's tense stance, his shaking fingers, and the barely controlled rage under the surface of his intense, dark grey eyes.

Harry, for his part, didn't rise to the bait. Instead, he answered Draco's question as directly as possible. "When Hermione went past the wards, Voldemort's," Draco flinched infinitesimally but he said nothing, "horcrux - or whatever it is - it tried to attach itself to her."

Draco's fingers turned in on themselves forming tight fists as he let out a harsh breath. He looked as if he might be the next to get sick in the waste bin. "Obviously she went in with a protection spell. It didn't break the spell but…"

"It's a mild form of magic sickness," Padma supplied. "Hermione is unused to being in close contact with concentrated Dark Magic and her body rejected it. So, she got sick. It's very common among people exposed to Dark Magic. But getting sick triggered the cruciatus response."

Draco immediately looked at Hermione, taking her in from head to toe as if he was searching for some kind of injury. "The protection spell held," he said aloud almost as if he needed to assure himself. "Do you feel anything now?"

"No," Hermione said, shaking her head. "Just very tired. But I would like to brush my teeth."

Padma snorted. "Come on, let's get you cleaned up."

"I'll do it," Draco said, standing instantly and Harry and Padma exchanged a look but said nothing.

"Okay, but this is specifically for cleaning," Padma said, smirking slightly. "She's in no condition for extracurriculars."

Draco's steel grey eyes glared hard at Padma, a biting insult on the tip of his tongue, but Hermione reached up and squeezed his hand. "She's kidding, Draco," she said with a smirk of her own.

Draco let go of whatever scathing thing he was about to say and, instead, pulled Hermione up by the hand and - summoning a pair of clothes and for each of them as well as their toothbrushes and paste - led her out of the common room and toward the Prefect's bathroom.

Hermione felt to-the-bone tired, but she made it to the Prefect's bathroom with little incident, though Draco didn't seem to be speaking to her. She knew he hated when she took risks, felt paralysed by the inability to protect her. Even getting access to a wand hadn't made him less protective. After their afternoon in the Astronomy Tower, she didn't think that his protective instincts would wane. But the fact was that sometimes her job was dangerous, and he had to learn to accept that.

Inside the expansive Prefect's bathroom, Hermione first set about brushing her teeth. The taste of bile in her mouth was becoming unbearable. She took her brush from Draco and watched as he added paste to both of their brushes. They began brushing in unison.

She smiled to herself. While there were charms and spells to not only clean your mouth but freshen your breath, Hermione had always brushed manually. It was a habit from having two dentists as parents. It was a ritual that made her feel better - more in control of her oral hygiene. What surprised her was that Draco apparently also preferred the muggle way of maintaining his teeth.

She spit into the sink, and as she was rinsing her brush for a second go, she asked, "Why don't you use the spells now that you have a wand?"

Draco blushed slightly but spit too and answered her. "I like brushing," he admitted with a shrug. "Your parents were teeth experts, right?"

Hermione nodded. Draco continued. "If their daughter who has access to all the proper spells still prefers to brush, seems foolish not to do it as well."

Hermione smiled, pulling the brush from her mouth before spitting into the sink again and using her hand to cup water into her mouth for a final rinse. He did the same. For some reason it made her feel warm and tingly inside. Far from the boy who thought Muggles were not only useless but contemptible, he was taking hygiene cues from their experts.

But her smile wasn't met with one of his own. He still looked tense and as if he was barely containing a kind of anger - she wasn't sure she wanted unleashed. "Come," she said, moving to the taps and turning them on in just the right sequence she liked.

As the bath filled, she pulled her shirt over her head and quickly unclasped her bra, throwing both in the corner. Draco was watching her intently, but it was not a wanton stare. He was not taking in her naked form, aroused. He still looked worried and angry, and she felt too tired to even think about sex, if she was honest. There was a strange kind of intimacy, undressing in front of a man without the expectation of sex.

After a beat he pulled his own shirt off and they silently undressed before climbing into the massive pool. Despite whatever Draco was working through in his head, his hands were on her the moment they submerged themselves in the steamy water, pulling her close to his side as he rested his head on top of hers.

"Are you really okay?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

Hermione let out a long breath and wrapped an arm around him. "I'm really okay. I was scared. It was scary. But I am fine. I knew about magic sickness, obviously," she explained. "But I've never seen it happen that fast - and with a protego cast."

"The first weeks that The Dark Lord took up residence in the Manor…" Draco began, swallowing hard as he thought about how to continue.

"My mother had been through it," he went on. Hermione listened, turning in his arms so that she straddled his lap. She wanted to look him in the eyes as he spoke. "Her childhood home had Dark Magic flowing through it constantly. She never practised, but…"

Hermione nodded. She remembered Grimmauld Place and figured that Narcissa's childhood home would have been just as toxic if not moreso. "She never allowed Dark Magic in the house. Father kept some things, but they were warded in a part of the Library I was never allowed to venture into."

His hands moved up her arms and into her hair as he continued to speak. "When the Dark Lord came, Dark Magic permeated the place. I was sick for weeks. When my body got used to it, I didn't know whether to be happy the sickness was gone or worried that I had become so accustomed to it that it no longer affected me."

"Oh, Draco…" Hermione breathed, pulling him close. "I can't imagine living with that and worse," she said.

"It kills me that you came that close, that Dark Magic got that close to you. That he got that close," he said.

"It's not the first time," Hermione said with a shrug. She lifted herself so that her breasts were exposed and ran a finger along the scar along her ribcage. "Dolohov's curse was a Dark curse. But I was unconscious during the effects."

Draco's eyes wandered down to the scar and his eyes narrowed. "I'll kill him," he promised. His voice was so calm as he traced his finger along the scar around her exposed breast. She didn't know exactly how to respond. She decided it was a part of Draco she wasn't entirely prepared to unlayer.

"He's in Azkaban, Draco. Don't waste your time," she said, deciding to deescalate.

"No," Draco said, gripping her chin in his fingers, holding her face in place as he stared into her eyes intently. "I will destroy him." His intensity excited and scared her in equal measure. "I will make him beg, make him apologise, and then I will end him."

"Draco…" she didn't know what she was even pleading, but she knew that he couldn't actually kill Dolohov. She didn't want him anywhere near Azkaban ever again. But if it made him feel better to believe he could have some kind of control in the moment, she let him have it.

"I feel like every time you leave my sight you end up hurt," he admitted, his hands coming to rest on her hips.

Hermione had to admit that lately it did seem that way, but these were incredibly unusual times. "I'm okay, Draco. Magic sickness happens, and we are both prone to the cruciatus aftereffects. I'm not damaged beyond repair. In fact, after a bath and a nap, and I'll be as good as new."

His fingers flexed against her hips and his eyes softened slightly. "I don't want you to go back in there."

Hermione smiled, "I don't plan to go back in there. It was too close a call. We can't rely on a protego - especially if the Energy has any kind of sentience - and we have to assume it does at this point. I take risks, but only calculated ones. I'm not suicidal."

His body began to relax, and she hugged him close again, kissing him softly on the lips. "Hermione, if you don't want to be thoroughly fucked, it might be a good idea for her you bathe yourself and we get out of here."

"And what if I do want to be thoroughly fucked?" she asked, innocently, looking up at him through her lashes. She knew exactly what she was doing, and while she hadn't intended to have sex with him when she arrived, the excitement of his vow to murder the man who'd cursed her, and the relief of being safe washed over her and gave her renewed energy.

"Don't tell Patil," he growled before attacking her mouth and pulling her hips against his own. Hermione smiled to herself. Ten minutes ago, she'd been far too tired to even consider sex with Draco, but the mere suggestion of his own arousal and she was wet and panting - begging. Merlin, she never thought she'd get so much joy from begging Draco Malfoy anything, let alone for him to fuck her until she couldn't see straight.

She sighed happily as he slipped inside her and they both gripped each other tightly as they slammed into each other over and over, water sloshing around them on all sides. Her quim clinched every time he moaned her name, or told her how tight she was, how good she felt, and how much he wanted to fuck her every day for the rest of his life.

She sighed as she came with him still hard, urgent inside her and he breathed her name like a prayer as he spilled inside her, placing a soft gentle kiss on her shoulder as he did.

Her tired body was only further exhausted both by the sex and the tingling lethargy that always took over after she came. When Hermione immediately went to Draco's bed, crawled in, and wrapped the blankets around her she heard Padma sigh dramatically. "Do I have to chaperone the two of you to the bloody bathroom?"

Hermione smiled to herself and drifted off into a very satisfying sleep.