Chapter Ten

Draco floated in and out of a pain-fogged haze, never quite able to break the surface of consciousness. Mostly, he was lost in tangled dreams, many of them bizarre and frightening; occasionally, though, he was dimly aware of someone gently bathing his skin, whispering words of comfort in his ear, pulling a blanket up under his chin.

And sometimes, he would imagine that he heard Hermione Granger's voice. She was usually reading to him, from time to time telling him about the gossip flying around the Hogwarts halls, now and again commenting on the weather; what she said hardly mattered, since he couldn't remember from one second to the next what she had been saying. But her voice itself was enough to calm him. As her words rolled over him, his troubled dreams would smooth out into ribbons of green and gold, submerging him in a pleasant oblivion where her voice was the only thing that was real and his pain was a distant memory.

He could not for the life of him understand where he was, how he had gotten there, or why no one woke him up. Sometimes, on the verge of wakefulness, he would panic. Why can't I wake up? his mind, imprisoned in his body, would shriek. Am I dead? Am I dying? I need to wake up! Wake up!

Then he would hear Hermione's voice again and feel the silky touch of her palm against his brow, and he would relax. She was taking care of him, she said; he didn't need to be afraid, she wouldn't leave him, not for an instant, she vowed. He could hear the honesty in her voice. He wanted to thank her, tried to reach up and squeeze her hand, but his limbs were made of lead and he was so, so very tired…

After three and a half weeks, Hermione had become a staple around the clinic. Madam Pomfrey – who, during their third sleepless night of nursing Draco through a raging fever, had asked Hermione to call her Poppy – soon entrusted her young assistant with the full-time care of Draco. Hermione was relieved of her charge just a few hours each day to sleep in the cot next to his. She suspected Poppy would have given her more time off if Draco hadn't needed her so badly; each time he began to thrash and moan, only Hermione's soothing words could calm him. And it was imperative that he be kept as still as possible so he didn't tear his wound open again.

Draco endured every complication Healer Fairmont had predicted: His fever soared, most often at night, and he never fully regained consciousness, although sometimes at the height of his fever he would yell strange words, nonsense words, that Poppy said were just part of the delirium. Once, about two weeks into the ordeal, he howled, a sound so foreign and frightening that Hermione's hair stood on end. Thankfully, that didn't happen again.

Perhaps most frightening for Hermione were the seizures Draco suffered during the worst of his fevers. Standing by helplessly, she and Poppy could do nothing but watch him flail uncontrollably on the bed until the convulsions stopped, leaving his breathing shallow and ragged. The deep wound in his side constantly oozed blood; the pale skin around it blistered into great, pus-filled boils that Hermione learned to treat with a healing salve and to wash gently so as not to tear his tender skin.

In fact, Hermione was learning a great deal about healing – like how to change Draco's sweat-soaked pajamas and sheets without jarring his wound, and how to dribble water from a sponge between his lips to keep him hydrated without choking him in his semi-conscious state. Snape even explained to her how the Lykos Potion he was making would work to off-set the worst effects of the curse; while they couldn't prevent the first change from happening, they would be able to prevent subsequent changes, he assured her.

Healer Fairmont seemed pleased with their patient's progress on his weekly visits, but Hermione was terribly concerned by Draco's appearance: He rapidly lost weight, his fair skin became virtually colorless, and his eyes sunk deep into purple-rimmed sockets. He was still handsome but frail – horribly frail, like a white rose trembling on a frost-dipped stem. When Poppy retired shortly before each dawn, after Draco's fever had once more dropped and his breathing had again evened out, Hermione would press his slender fingers gently to her lips, close her eyes and will her own strength into him; if necessary, she had already decided she would keep him alive by sheer force of will.

Their days, awful as they were, became routine: Bath and clean clothes and sheets at dawn, to wash away the night's fever-sweat; wound dressing shortly thereafter; healing potion for his punctured lung at mid-morning; reading (usually of Hermione's homework – she read aloud to him because Poppy believed he could hear her) until early afternoon; wound dressing; more reading. Not long after the moon rose, so would Draco's fever, and she and Poppy would work non-stop to keep him comfortable until the steely gray of dawn crept across the sky. Only then would he and then Hermione and Poppy finally be able to drop off to sleep.

It was exhausting, wearying, unrewarding work, but Hermione never thought about quitting. And somewhere in those three and a half weeks, she let herself fall in love with Draco Malfoy.

Ginny brought Hermione's assignments each day and stayed for a few minutes to chat quietly. She reported that Harry, Ron and Draco's friend Ivan Nuxoll had each cost their houses 100 points, which, understandably, had not made them very popular; yet even though Ginny didn't say it, Hermione got the distinct impression that everyone outside of Slytherin House was quite proud of Harry for, as they saw it, "besting" Draco Malfoy. If those same people could have seen what Hermione witnessed everyday, she knew they would have changed their minds – no one deserved what Draco was suffering – but Dumbledore was adamant that no one besides Hermione and Poppy could see Draco. Even her conversations with Ginny took place on the other side of a white screen shielding Draco from prying eyes.

Ginny reluctantly filled Hermione in on the details of Harry and Ron's punishment. Both had been suspended from two Quidditch games; if McGonagall hadn't wanted to win the Cup so badly, Hermione suspected they would have been kicked off the team entirely. They also had to serve three weeks' worth of detentions with Filch, and while they didn't end up dangling from their thumbs in the dungeons, the tasks Filch came up with for them were distinctly unpleasant – like scrubbing mold and mildew off the dungeon floors without magic.

Ron, Ginny said, had also suffered the additional blow of being stripped of his Prefect's badge – a decision McGonagall had made and Dumbledore had not contradicted. Hermione found this a bit extreme, but to her surprise, Ginny had little sympathy for her brother – "He knew the risks when he agreed to be Harry's second," she said with a shrug. "Like Mum's always telling him, actions have consequences."

She felt differently about Harry, however. "I'm worried about him," Ginny remarked more than once, showing far more concern for him than for Ron. "He's really withdrawn, doesn't hardly speak to anyone. He isn't eating much. Last week he skived off Transfiguration twice, and McGonagall threatened to give him more detention if he didn't start coming to class."

Hermione didn't know what to say. She was worried about Harry, too – just not as worried as she was about Draco. And she couldn't help feeling rather put-out that neither of her supposed best friends had come to see her or tried to contact her in any way since the night of the duel; she assumed they were angry with her for sticking by Draco, but she didn't mention her hurt feelings to Ginny, who volunteered nothing on the subject.

Honestly, after a couple of weeks Hermione was too weary to care what Ron, Harry, or anyone else thought about her living in the hospital wing and acting as Draco's full-time nurse. She had a job to do, and to her, that was all that mattered.

Finally, on the day of the next full moon, Harry did make an appearance, and despite her wounded feelings, Hermione had to admit she was relieved to see him. The tension had been building inside of her for days as the dreaded night of Draco's first transformation approached; the previous evening, his fever had spiked and then broken, leaving him eerily still ever since – no moaning, no thrashing, no moving of any kind. Hermione was bone-tired and terrified.

So when Harry, escorted by a thin-lipped Madam Pomfrey, stepped quietly around the screen separating Draco's bed from the rest of the hospital ward, Hermione did the only thing that felt natural: She walked into his out-stretched arms and sobbed for a full five minutes.

Once her sobs quieted to a severe case of the sniffles, they sat down together on the cot beside Draco's bed. Harry wrapped a strong arm securely around her shoulders and held her close against his side, as if he could shield her from the pain that surrounded them.

"Tell me," he said simply, and the whole awfulness of the last three and a half weeks came pouring out of her.

Poppy brought tea but otherwise left them alone. When Hermione finished her story, Harry turned her face up to his and looked her squarely in the eye. With a tiny shiver, she remembered the night they had kissed – had it really only been a month ago?

It seems like a lifetime has passed since then…And now I'm in love with someone else, utterly and completely in love…

"I'm sorry, Hermione."

And Hermione forgave him. Just like that, weeks of anger and resentment she hadn't even realized she was holding inside melted away, and she relaxed into Harry's side, secure in his embrace. "It's okay," she told him, and it was. "You didn't know this was going to happen. Nobody did."

He said nothing. She suspected Harry would not forgive himself so easily, but that was a battle for him to fight, not her.

After a short silence, he asked, "What happens now? I mean, after tonight?"

Hermione chewed on her bottom lip, fear making her limbs feel weak. "No one's said, actually. I think we're all afraid to think that far ahead, in case…" She couldn't say, In case he dies, couldn't force the words past her throat, but Harry took her meaning. "I think Dumbledore will keep him here. He hasn't even told the Malfoys yet, you know. Poppy said he didn't even tell the Board of Governors."

"Lucius Malfoy is still in Azkaban. The Death Eaters he testified against have almost all been convicted. The Daily Prophet says he'll be released sometime next week," Harry told her. Hermione was surprised to find that she hadn't even thought about the events in the wider wizard world for almost a month. "I can't imagine Lucius'll take this very well, the way he feels about 'half-breeds' and all that. Do you think he'll take Draco out of school?"

Not if I have anything to say about it, Hermione thought grimly, silently vowing to fight Lucius Malfoy to the death if he tried to lock Draco away in the Malfoy mansion. Aloud, she said, "I think he'll have to get through Dumbledore first."

"Do you want me to be here tonight?"

Hermione considered it, touched that Harry had offered. She was just beginning to realize how difficult this situation was for him. "No," she finally decided. She wanted to say, I don't think Draco would want that, but feared Harry would take it the wrong way. "I'm going to need your help more later. I have a feeling no one in this school will be Draco's friend now, except for you and me."

Harry sighed. "Well, there's a concept," he observed dryly. "Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter, mates."

Hermione nudged him in the ribs with her elbow. "Stranger things have happened," she said, and they grinned at one another.

It would be the last time she smiled for a long, long while.