Chapter 4: Sickness
Hermione walks through her unlocked window and sees a silhouette of a man lying on her bed. As she gets closer, she sees that it's Malfoy.
"Get the fuck out of my room." She orders.
He stands up and comes closer to her. He comes about a foot away from her and looks her in the eyes. Hermione feels her heart race as he draws closer, but refuses to let the fear show on her face. Suddenly, he looks down at his feet. This confuses Hermione. She's never seen him look down before unless he was looking at something.
Then she hears him say something, but its so quiet it can't be what she thinks he said.
"What?" she asks.
"I said…I'm sorry." He whispers still looking at his feet.
She thinks to herself, 'I can't believe it! He's apologizing…to me!'
"I had no right to be violent with you. I crossed the line," he looks up into her eyes, "so I'm sorry."
She looks at him and can see the sincerity in his eyes. "Well you should be. I won't be a victim to abuse, especially if we're going to be married. You need to treat me with respect."
He laughs to himself, "No I don't." He looks her in the eyes. "I may not have the right to hurt you but I don't have to respect you. I don't even have to like you. Don't confuse marriage and friendliness." He turns around and walks out the door.
She stands there still looking where he originally was. She sighs and decides to change. She changes into a tank top and boy shorts and crawls into bed.
About an hour later, the window opens and Ginny walks in. Hermione's still awake but doesn't feel like talking, so she lies in bed and pretends to be sleeping. Ginny looks at her and decides to go to sleep too. She gets changed into her tank top and pajama bottoms and crawls in bed next to Hermione.
Later that night, at about three o'clock, Hermione wakes up to a horrible sound coming from the bathroom. It sounds like someone is throwing up. She gets up to go investigate. As she walks in the bathroom, she finds Malfoy with his face in the toilette.
"Jesus! Are you okay?" Hermione asks.
He hacks a few more times into the toilette and looks up at her like she's stupid.
"Do I look okay to do?"
He looks so pathetic, she doesn't know whether or not to be angry with him. It seems like he has enough problems at this time.
He stands up and washes his mouth out in the sink. Hermione continues to stare at him until he suddenly collapses under himself. Luckily Hermione was aware enough to grab him and break his fall before he hit the ground and held him in her arms on the floor. She felt his skin against hers and realized he was burning up…bad.
"Malfoy, you're burning up!" She drags him over to the tub. She turns on the cold water and lets the tub fill up. As it fills, she strips off his clothes so he's left in only his boxers. He tries to protest, but is too weak to fight her off.
When the tub is full, she turns off the water and tries to pull him to his feet. It was far more than just impossible to lift him with her arm strength alone, so she wraps his arms around herself and using her strong leg muscles, stands up and lowers the both of them into the icy water.
The water feels like icy daggers being stabbed into her one at a time, but she knew this must be done, at least until she gets him to the infirmary. He lies there in her shaking arms and finally calms down. His anger dies and the cold water feels almost comforting to him. He doesn't care that he's battled this woman for the past 6 years or that the water was so cold he could barely feel his toes. At this moment in time, he's in heaven.
Finally his fever has gone down so they were okay to get out of the tub. Unfortunately, they are both too weak to climb out of the tub. Malfoy is too sick and all of Hermione's muscles have tightened due to the cold water. So Hermione does the only thing she really can do. She pulls the plug from the bottom, moves Malfoy to a safe distance, and turned on the hot water. If the water is at least cool instead of ice cold, she'll be able to move her muscles.
Once the water turned cool, she turns off the hot water, puts in the plug, and sits with him awhile longer, just long enough for the feeling in her toes to come back.
About 10 minutes later, she's strong enough to lift both her and Malfoy out of the tub. She throws his arm around her shoulder and drags him to the couch. She sets him there and runs into her room to grab her wand. When she returns, Malfoy looks like he's about ready to throw up again. She quickly conjures a garbage can and sets it by his side. Then she says a quick drying spell to dry off herself, Malfoy, and the leather couch. She sits down next to him so his head is right by her lap.
"Why are you being so nice?" Malfoy asks barely above a whisper.
"Because you need help. The infirmary isn't open until morning, so you need someone to take care of you until then. It looks like I'm the only one around." She answers.
"You could have left me to rot though. After the way I've been treating you and talking to you, I have to say I'm surprised your sitting with me now."
"Well, if we're going to be married, we half to learn how to work as a team. If you need help, I'm going to help you."
He closes his eyes and barely whispers, "Thank you."
Hermione smiles, "your welcome."
He scoots up so his head rests in her lap. Hermione pulls down the blanket from the back of the couch and covers him up. She lays her head back on the sofa, and quickly falls asleep.
They both wake early due to the shining sun cascading through the window and into their eyes.
Malfoy tries to sit up but fails and falls right back into Hermione's lap.
"I'm going to go to the infirmary and see if Madame Pomfrey is up yet. If she is I'll have her come down here and look at you. I'll be right back." She gets up and heads out the door.
As soon as she leaves, Ginny comes out of Hermione's bedroom. She still has last night's make-up on and he hair is in disarray. She heads down the spiral steps and sees Malfoy lying on the couch, obviously sick. She quietly laughs to herself. 'So there is justice in this world,' she thinks to herself. She goes into the bathroom and washes off her make-up and brushes her hair. She heads back up to Hermione's room and changes. Just as she's about to leave the common room, Hermione walks in followed by Madame Pomfrey.
"I'm gonna be busy here for a while, so why don't you head down to breakfast and find Harry and Ron?" Hermione tells her.
"Is everything okay?" She asks starting to feel a bit anxious.
"Everything's going to be fine, just go…please."
Feeling rather insulted that Hermione chose Malfoy over her; she walks out of the room in search for Harry and Ron.
Meanwhile, Madame Pomfrey heads straight for Malfoy and checks him from head to toe. Hermione waits anxiously.
"Well Mr. Malfoy, it looks like you've caught some muggle virus. I couldn't tell you what it is; it's not my training. All I can tell you is to drink a lot of fluids, sleep as much as you can, and try to keep the fever down."
"Great, so there's nothing you can do for me?" Malfoy asks.
"I'm afraid not." She answers.
As she walks out Hermione comes closer to Malfoy. He's completely harmless now, so she has nothing to worry about. She sits next to him and he looks up at her.
"Aren't you afraid you're going to get sick too?" He asks in bewilderment.
She laughs a bit, "I've had the flu before Malfoy. I've lived through it. Plus, I've had my flu shot."
"What's a flu shot?" he asks.
"It's a deadened form of the virus you have injected into me. It makes my immune system fight it off so when I actually get the virus, my immune system recognizes it and it can kill it." She explains.
"So you won't get sick like me?" he asks.
"Not likely."
He pulls he down on the couch so she's lying across it and he cuddles up into her and rests his head on her chest.
"Good." He says.
They laid there for about an hour in silence. They were both so comfortable they didn't want to say anything or do anything that could possibly ruin it. For the first time in Malfoy's life, he appreciates someone. He was so happy Hermione's here to take care of him when he's unable to take care of himself.
"We should get you to bed," she finally said to Malfoy.
They get up (he's finally strong enough to support himself) and head for his room.
It was the first time she's seen the in inside of his room. It was almost exactly like her room, only instead of red and gold, there was silver and green. Plus, where her room smelt like roses, his smelt like stale cigarettes.
He crawls into bed and gets comfortable. Hermione looks down at him, just looking at him. He looks like a helpless child.
He feels her eyes on him and he opens his eyes to meet hers.
"Will you lay with me?" He asks her.
She smiles at him. She can't believe she's about to say this, "Of course."