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: Love Sex and a Bottle of Vodka :
: Chapter Twenty-five :
The first thing Hermione felt was the complete agony her head was in. It felt as though someone had taken a nail and driven it through her head.
"Mmghf," was the most she could manage but she heard someone hurry to her side.
"You stay quite still, dear." It was Madame Pomfrey. "I'll fetch something for your head." Soon, Hermione felt something mercifully cool being put on her forehead and the ache started to fade. She opened her eyes to a blur of colors and gripped Madame Pomfrey's wrist. The peach and white swam before her eyes.
"Is everyone okay?" she croaked. Using the back of her hand, Hermione rubbed at her eyes and focused on her surroundings. She was in the infirmary, at the far left end of a row of cots. She could see Draco, still asleep, next to her, but Harry, Ron, and Ginny were sitting up in their beds; Ron was voraciously devouring what appeared to be porridge that McGonagall kept spooning into his bowl, with the most maternal expression on her face that Hermione had ever seen. Harry and Ginny, however, pushed their bowls away. Hermione pushed herself up onto her elbows.
"That's a question we should all be asking you," Madame Pomfrey said. "But yes. Draco is still sleeping but I believe you silly children haven't killed yourselves off."
"Us silly?" said an indignant Ron. "You lot nearly killed us all!"
"And for that we apologize," Dumbledore said, placing a hand on Ron's shoulder to calm him. "The faculty was frantic; it was quite hard to calm them." The other faculty members in the room flushed a faint red and busied themselves with other things. For McGonagall, that meant to pour the remains of the porridge into Ron's bowl.
"Well?" asked Snape crisply. "Was it successful then?"
"What?" Hermione was bewildered for a minute. "Oh." Hermione suddenly realized that she did remember everything. She even remembered not remembering.
"Yes, I think we were quite successful," she said, with a slight smile on her face.
"Well then, I have an entire student body to explain to that you five are well and alive," Snape said, turning on his heel. As he left, Ron swallowed and wiped some porridge off his chin.
"I reckon he looks a little disappointed, eh? He probably hoped that one of us would have croaked during the ordeal." McGonagall chided him but Harry chuckled. Next to Hermione, Draco started to stir. Hermione picked up her pillow and thumped him in the back with it.
"Wake up," she urged.
"Watch yourself, woman," he mumbled and she giggled. Draco opened his eyes and blinked several times. His face split into a grin as he struggled to bring himself up into a sitting position.
"Finally, we're all up," Hermione said.
"You remember me," Draco said. "I mean, do you still remember me?"
"Yes, I think I remember just about everything now," Hermione said. "And it feels quite nice as well."
"Well then, if it's not too much trouble, I think we would all like to hear the whole story?" Dumbledore said, with a definite question mark punctuating the end of his sentence.
"Not until Severus returns," Madame Pomfrey said, as she crushed some herbs to add to a kettle of hot water. "And Hermione, there will be one more…well a headache spell, not unlike the ones you've experienced before you were healed. This will be different however, a flashback of the moment the split in your mind started to happen. And then it will all be over and done with, no more headaches, nothing."
"Oh." Hermione shrugged. That didn't sound too bad. She'll just have to wait it out until it happens and finally it will gloriously be over. No more headaches, no more memory gaps…Hermione stretched her arms over her head, smiling. It felt good.
"You didn't get started without me, did you?" Snape asked, as he returned.
"Well then," Dumbledore said, pulling up a stool and settling himself around. He looked at them from over his signature, half- moon spectacles. The five students looked at one another and then, as one, four of them turned to look at Hermione.
"What? Me? I go first?" Hermione asked. She was answered by vigorous nods. She huffed, a little exasperated, but began.
"It shouldn't really be my narrative, you know. I just went along with Harry and Ginny." She glanced at them. "And apparently they knew what they were doing."
"We noticed that she was crying but it wasn't just tears, they were blood," Ginny said, gesturing with her fingers, touching her cheeks. "So Harry and I researched in the library. We searched through virtually every medical book."
"Muggle subject books were useless," Harry added. Ginny nodded.
"But serendipity had it that we found this awfully old article about her ailment," Ginny continued.
"They mentioned this man who had tried this outdated method and we looked it up. We figured it would be worth the risk," at this, Harry hesitated but then looked at Dumbledore confidently and almost defiantly.
"We didn't want her to lose parts of who she was. Not to mention, her functioning abilities were at risk. If you forced me to choose again, I would do the same thing," Harry said.
"So would I," chimed in Ginny.
"And me," added Ron, swallowing the last bit of his porridge.
"None of use wanted to do this," Draco said. "But we had to and we'd do it again." Dumbledore examined each of them carefully.
"I'm not going to punish you or prosecute you students for what you have done," he said, slowly. "For I see in your eyes that you had thought it through thoroughly. I only wish you had trusted us enough to tell us so we could help with the procedure." The five exchanged glances with one another.
"But," Dumbledore continued. "I fully understand and I apologize once more for what tragedy we could have caused."
"I don't understand," Harry said, frowning. "We needed the Room of Requirement to keep us hidden but you required for it to be found."
"I'm afraid it got quite confused," Dumbledore said. "And it was hard for it to gauge whose requirement was more urgent. We found the door but it refused to yield, most likely saving all of your lives." Hermione accepted the warm cup of tea that Madame Pomfrey handed her.
"Well, I'm just glad that it worked," she said.
"How did it work?" Ron asked. "We all reckoned Draco was a goner. You too, until we woke up ourselves and Madame Pomfrey reassured us that you guys weren't." Hermione felt her brow furrow.
"The split had been mended just as the rope broke, we figure," she said. "Because my mind was healed, Draco wasn't sucked into the void and instead, I sort of…housed him in my mind until the incantation ran its course." Hermione looked at Dumbledore for approval.
"I believe that's a quite accurate guess, Ms. Granger," he said. "The human mind has the ability to house another during the course of a spell. There are several spells for these, this particular one being one of them, Secret Keepers being another." At this, Harry looked down and picked at the blanket with his fingers.
"Hermione did indeed keep Draco in her mind until he was sent back to his own body. The urgency made Draco heal the split faster than the spell's allotted time." Ron put a hand to his forehead.
"I'm sorry I asked," he moaned.
"Next time I am giving you children and order to come to us first if you are about to try some new hare-brained spell you come to us first," McGonagall said.
"Let it go, Minerva," Snape said, to all of their surprise. "They're alive and we're all thankful. But that doesn't mean that you all will have an extension for your report that's due on Friday."
"Oh no," Ron groaned.
"I've already finished it," Hermione offered.
"Don't say that," Harry said, falling back onto his pillows. "I just want to sleep." Madame Pomfrey jumped up at that.
"That's right, these children need their rest. Now, Professors, if you don't mind exiting the room…" As Madame Pomfrey passed Ron, she gave him the smallest wink and whispered, "I'll convince that cantankerous Severus to give you all an extension."
"I love that woman," Ron declared, as he lazily stretched.
"Do I smell a wedding ring?" Harry teased, eyes closed already. Hermione smirked as well and realized she was awfully tired. She lay back down and pulled the covers snug around her. She found that she was facing Draco and she smiled.
"Have I mentioned how glad I am that you remember me?" Draco asked, eyes starting to close.
"Only several hundred times, yes," Hermione answered, grinning. "But I don't tire of it."
"Shush, lovebirds, I need my beauty rest," Ron called, from the other side of the room.
"You don't know how desperately you need it," Ginny said. Ron's yelp of indignation and Draco's sleepy smile were the last things Hermione registered as she fell asleep.
Hermione was suddenly jolted awake. She sat up straight in her bed as though she had been shocked and felt her body start to convulse as a headache started to grow in her head. Madame Pomfrey was at her side in an instant, gripping her shoulders to try and contain Hermione's jerky movements.
"Just ride it out, dear," she said, soothingly. "Just wait it out and it'll be over." It was much worse than her earlier experiences. Hermione felt herself jerk forward and gag and then suddenly she was falling into herself, into blackness, and everything became loose and strange.
Hermione shook her head, or she tried to, and found that it was quite impossible to make any sense of what was happening. She was…falling…maybe. Or perhaps she was just floating. Bright lights were surrounding her and suddenly Hermione felt as though she was waking up from a fainting spell. She felt marbles in her mouth and the strange tingling sensation in her hands and feet. Hermione checked her surroundings but then suddenly realized Madame Pomfrey's words. She would have a flashback to when her mind split had begun.
This was it.
Hermione was back at the raging Muggle club. Strobe lights and music bounced off the wall and Hermione found herself dancing, talking, flirting, and drinking all in a too fast manner, as though someone had pressed fast-forward on her life. As she was zipped through all of the events of that night, Hermione felt herself being pulled away as well. The world fell apart once more as she lost her conscious thought. She felt herself being shaken although it took her a moment to register it. Her eyes were open although she couldn't really see. She blinked several times as she regained her consciousness.
"It's over now," Madame Pomfrey said, inspecting Hermione's eyes. "Yes, I think that was the last of it." Draco had woken up as well and was sitting on the edge of his bed, leaning forward, looking anxious. Hermione lunged forward and gripped Draco's wrist.
"No, no, it's not over," Hermione said, shaking. "I remember, I remember everything now."
"Yes, that's to be expected," Madame Pomfrey said, soothingly.
"No," Hermione insisted. She searched Draco's eyes. "Draco…I remember who it was at the club."