DISCLAIMER: I don't own Harry Potter or any of the characters. 'Sides, you'd get more blood out of a turnip then you would money out of me! HA!

AUTHORS NOTE: Yea, a Harry chapter! I'm all happiness and stuff! J

SUMMARY: Harry feels like he's in hell, Draco's living through a nightmare. Can they help each other before it's too late to save either one?

FROM THE LAST CH. The ministry would never believe the truth. Fudge would convince himself that Dumbledore was trying to protect his student and take matters into his own hands. The idea of what would happen then caused the nausea to return even worse than before. Shell shocked, he rose from the chair and exited the room, never realizing that he hadn't answered the questions.

Tainting the Innocent

Chapter Three

A tyrant, a bloody tyrant, Harry thought fiercely. Hermione had been forcing him and Ron to do flash card drills for various subjects since summer break. With mid-terms only a few months away and finals just around the corner after those, they apparently needed help. She reasoned that since NEWTS classes were so difficult she had the god-given the right to be even more anal about their schoolwork than before. A mutiny was in the works, make no mistake about that!

Harry had somehow managed to receive an O in potions, thereby qualifying him for auror training. No one could have been more astonished then Snape or Harry, though Hermione claimed it was all thanks to her marvelous tutoring skills. Ron had just barely missed the O, scoring an A instead. The Os he did receive, however, qualified him to train as a trap-springer for Gringgots Bank. Hermione, of course, scored perfectly on everything, but decided to go along with muggle relations as her career. She figured, who better than a muggle-born to deal with muggle issues.

All this was very well and good, Harry was proud of his friends and happy for himself, but why did Hermione have to torture them with all of this studying and extra homework? There were better things he could be doing, like flying about on his Firebolt. Lots more fun, that, than sitting here going over the properties of manticore bladder linings or ogre toenail clippings. Separately, the two ingredients sound disgusting (not to mention dangerous). Not surprisingly, when mixed, they produce a potion that causes extreme vomiting. Quite popular among assassins and such since it is undetectable and death follows ingestion shortly if the antidote is not administered. He was slightly confused on why Snape would be teaching them this, and all of the students resolved to be careful of what they ate and drank for a while. The git was still promising to poison a student one of these days, and that potion would be very unpleasant.

Harry had just snuck a peak at Hermione, trying to figure the best time to rush her and escape, when a gaggle of Gryffindors tumbled through the portrait laughing hysterically. Seamus led the group in a stumbling trek across the common room, whooping and hollering incoherently, the smell of fire whiskey evident. Ooooh, the look Hermione gave him!

"Seamus, what in the world do you think you are doing? Those are first years, and you have them roaring drunk!"

"Awww, c'mon 'Mione, it was just a bit of just a bit of o-orientation. Not gonna hurt them none. Promise."

"Don't be absurd, of course it's going to hurt them. They are children, and as such should not even be consuming alcohol. And you got them drunk!" Her voice steadily rose as she said that last sentence. She looked shocked that she was yelling, Hermione makes it a rule never to raise her voice, and took a second to compose herself. "Seamus, I have to give you and all of your…little friends a detention for this."

"What!" The young man looked appalled. His mouth started working as he tried to come up with an argument that would change her mind, but the fire whiskey slowed his thoughts. Finally, he caught on something. "But Hermione, McGonagall'll kill me," he explained slowly, as if speaking to a child. He seemed to think that took care of that.

"Well, I am sorry, but you should have thought of that before you contributed to the delinquency of minors. Your self included, Seamus." His eyes grew owlishly, his bottom lip began to tremble, and he whimpered like a puppy. Everyone knew Hermione was a sucker for the puppy face. She gave an explosive sigh and threw up her hands in exasperation. "Fine!" He looked happy enough to spit. The puppy face worked every time. "I'll come up with a much less incriminating reason for the detentions. Maybe I'll say you organized them to dissolve canary crèmes in each dorm's pitcher of water." He didn't look so happy anymore. He tried the face one more time, but Hermione gave him a withering glare. "That is as much as you get, so quit with the whimpers."

Deciding to be happy with his mediocre fortune, he sauntered over to the trio with a goofy grin stretching his face, grabbed Hermione, whipped her down into a dramatic dip, and kissed the daylights out of her. He then proceeded to spin her around, slap her bottom, and exclaim, "That's a good girl." Ron and Harry made a run for it before the fireworks began to fly, although they did hear Seamus yelping in pain as Hermione threw one Sparks charm after another at his bottom. The two of them hadn't realized Hermione even KNEW some of the words she was yelling at that git