Hm...I am not entirely staisfied with this chapter as I think I could have put more stuff into it. The thing is though, I don't know what else to put. Anyways, as always, I'm sorry for not updating sooner. I will be gteting very busy so I really have no idea when the next chapter will come. Thanks as always to everyone who reviewed!

Disclaimer- I do not own Harry Potter or any of its characters. They are all owned by J. K. Rowling but I do own those characters that you do not recognize.


True to what the mermaid had said, Draco and Hermione had not been allowed to talk to each other. On more than one occasion they both had tried to sneak in conversations when they thought that others were not looking but Hermione was always pulled away as though she was doing something scandalous while Draco was smacked on the head and told to get back to work.

At the moment though, Draco had nothing to do. The other mermen that he worked with were all down in the main village doing something or the other. Draco had been invited to join them but he did not want to. The only thing on his mind was figuring out how to talk to Hermione.

He hid behind a curtain that was near the hall that Hermione came out of every evening to pick gillyweed for the mermaid. Galileah was her name. She was not one to be crossed.

Much to his luck, he only had to wait a few minutes before Hermione swam out of the hall. Much to Draco's annoyance, she was humming something that refused to leave Draco's head after he heard it. She had an oddly calm expression on her face that Draco was not sure that he liked.

He swiftly followed her as she maneuvered her way through the ship. Soon, she got to a small wooden door that led to the fields containing the gillyweed.

Draco raised an eyebrow as he watched her swim into the fields, still humming. There must have been at least fifty acres of gillyweed down here. The lake was not even that big from above causing Draco to surmise that the lake probably extended far under the school or that this was not even the lake at all.

Looking around to make sure that no one saw him, he swam into the fields and stayed low. He narrowed his eyes as he waited for the right moment to get her.

Hermione, oblivious to him, kept on gathering gillyweed and putting it into a quaint basket that she dangled on her arm. Draco watched as she swam closer and closer to him. Finally, he grabbed her and pulled her down, basket and all.

Hermione's eyes widened slightly as Draco clamped his hand over her mouth. Draco was surprised that she did not scream.

"Relax, Granger. It's just me."

Hermione smiled slightly and pried his hand off her mouth. She patted her hair, which was floating in ringlets around her face and said, "I'm not supposed to talk to you, Malfoy." Her voice sounded rather distant and vaguely melodious to Draco.

Draco rolled his eyes and replied, "So?"

Hermione picked up the gillyweed that had floated to the ground from her basket and said, "We could both get into trouble."

Draco grabbed her wrist and hissed, "Screw that. We need to get out of here. It's been five days already, Granger."

Hermione pulled out of his grasp and gave him a dreamy sort of look that startled Draco to no end. Her brown eyes widened with happiness as she looked at Draco, who was slightly unnerved by her manner. "I rather like it here, Malfoy."

Draco gazed at her with narrowed eyes. "What?"

Her dreamy look remained as she replied, "I like it here."

"I don't care," spat Draco, frowning slightly as Hermione remained calm. "I want to get back to the real world, Granger."

"This is real, Malfoy," she replied, a smile spreading over her face. "When will you open your eyes and see it? Down here, you can get away from everything up there." She looked down at him, the dreamy expression back on her face. "No pain...it's an escape."

An ugly look appeared on Draco's face as he grasped her shoulders hard. His grey eyes bore into hers as he hissed, "What the hell is wrong with you?" She stared right through him. As he waited for an answer, he found that for some reason, he missed seeing her face.

Draco shook his head and tightened his grip on her shoulders. "Alright then, if that's how you really want it. Just proves my point. You're nothing but a weak mudblood."

She smiled eerily at him and said, "Oh dear, why is every single pureblood I come across emotionally unstable? It's rather sad." As she said this, Draco somehow managed to catch a whiff of her breath...

"Have-have you been drinking, Granger?" Draco looked at her with a surprised expression. Her breath smelled sort of like something he had smelled in firewhisky.

Hermione turned away from him and began humming. Once she started picking more gillyweed, she answered, "Of course not. How can I drink anything? We're in water..."

Draco grabbed her arm and said, "Did you drink anything apart from water recently?"

Hermione's brown eyes became slightly glazed as she replied, "Well, there were things in the hall for us to eat and I was feeling so hungry so I decided to eat...it tasted wonderful by the way." She smiled at him and said, "I think I'll go eat some more once I'm done here."

Draco let go of her arm and rubbed his forehead. "The food's making you crazy..."

Hermione smiled at him, the dreamy look back on her face. "I'm not crazy, I'm free..." With that, she turned and went back to picking gillyweed.

Draco narrowed his eyes as he watched her go. There was definitely something funny about her. He knew without a doubt that it was that food she ate. He was glad that he hadn't touched any of the food offered to him. Draco did not want to end up like her. She was right about this place being a world where you could forget everything else but that did not mean that you could escape to it. Everyone had responsibilities and in Hermione's case, there were people who cared about her and would be angry and worried that she was missing. He had to get her back somehow, as crazy as it was.

"Wait!" he called.

Hermione turned to him elegantly and asked, "What is it now? I have work to do and I've already told you that I'm not allowed to talk to you."

"You know that that's just the food talking for you. It did something to you, Granger."

"I'm perfectly fine," she replied glibly, turning her nose up at him.

Draco's gray eyes flashed as he said, "You're not thinking logically. Why would you want to do work like this? You know that you're better than this." He looked around and whispered, "We're both better than this."

"I see that you're rather anxious to talk, but unfortunately, we could both get in great trouble as I've told you a countless number of times."

"Yes, yes, yes, I know-"

"There's a ball next week, you know." The dreamy look in her eyes intensified as she looked at him. "We can talk then if you'd like."

"Next week is a long time away, Granger and we don't have time for that."

Hermione turned away from him and replied, "You don't have time for it but I do." Looking back at him she said, "Please stop talking to me or else I will be forced to call Cass on you and it won't be a very pretty sight." Turning away from him, she said, "It is indeed a wonderful evening.

Draco watched with anger as she swam away from him. He wanted so badly to wring her neck right now but then, he would never be able to escape without her. Then again, he wasn't exactly sure that he would be able to get her help. She was apparently in very poor mental health. And that look she had given him when she told him about the ball. Draco shivered as her glazed eyes appeared in his mind.

He swam back to the ship in defeat wondering how he would be able to save her from whatever the food was doing to her. He wasn't even sure if it was food. It could have been some sort of underwater drink that somehow drugged her. Draco knew that she was one of the smartest witches at Hogwarts. He would never tell her that but she should have been able to tell that there was something wrong with the things she was eating. Even if she hadn't, Snape had always told them never to eat or drink anything that you hadn't prepared yourself.

As he swam into the hall reserved for the merman, he wrinkled his nose with disgust as the heavy scent of alcohol washed over him. He watched with contempt as the others flailed into the hall, crashing into the walls on the process.

One of them ambled over towards Draco, jeering at him and said, "Eh...look it's the runt..." He shoved a bottle of liquor into Draco's face and asked, "This stuff...hiccup...too strong for you?"

Draco shoved the merman over and muttered, "I'd say." He swam over to one of the chairs that were not taken and sat down, observing the others. Many of them were plain drunk like the one Draco had shoved. He smiled despite the situation. It must have been an extremely strong drink to get someone drunk in water.

A few of the others, huddled together seemed as though they were on muggle drugs. Yes, Draco Malfoy knew what muggle drugs were. No, he did not do them because he found them a waste of time. What those muggle drugs did, potions could do even better.

Draco frowned slightly. A lot of them had that dreamy sort of expression Hermione had on her face when he talked to her. It could have merely been a coincidence but Draco did not believe in coincidences. That being said, he quietly swam up to the mermen and asked in a quiet voice, "What are you doing?"

They opened up slightly to show Draco that they were huddled around a rust colored bottle that was fizzing slightly. Draco watched disgustedly as they passed the bottle around, taking huge swigs of it. One of the mermen held it out to him and when Draco refused, he said, "You really should drink this. It's wonderful stuff."

Draco pushed the bottle away and muttered, "I'm fine."

The merman pushed the bottle back towards Draco and said, "Have some, it's wonderful..."

Draco leaned back and frowned at the merman. "I said I don't want any."

Another one of the mermen grabbed the bottle away from his comrade and shoved it into Draco's mouth. Draco almost gagged as he punched the bottle away. "What the hell is wrong with you? I don't want any."

The one who had shoved it into his mouth looked at him with a far off expression. "We were supposed to give it to you before today..."

"Now it's all ruined," complained the first merman as he swam off. Most of the other mermen left complaining as well.

Draco looked at the remaining merman with a confused expression. He looked back and grabbed the bottle. "What is this stuff?"

The merman looked away with a dreamy expression and replied, "Concoction of Reverie..."

Draco snorted at the name and asked cautiously, "What does it do?"

"It's normally just a drink used to put the drinker out of misery," replied the merman monotonously. Draco sneered as the merman giggled slightly. "This one's drugged though."

Draco dropped the bottle, which floated slowly to the floor. He raised an eyebrow and looked around. Most of the other mermen were asleep for some reason. Probably too much to drink. He looked back at the merman he was talking to and asked, "A drugged drink, huh?" He leaned forward and asked, "What does the drug do?"

The merman sighed and giggled once again, causing Draco to feel slightly uncomfortable. "It makes you feel happy. No pain at all..."

Draco edged his chair away slightly as a dreamy expression appeared on the merman's face. It mirrored the one that he had seen on Hermione's face almost exactly.

"What drug?" he asked urgently.

The merman leaned back on the chair he had sat down on and mumbled, "Astorath root..." His head dropped down as he fell unconscious.

As Draco saw this, he was glad that he had not swallowed any of it when it had been pushed into his mouth. Judging by the how much the others had been drinking, if Draco had taken as much as they did, he would have been dead by now from an overdose. He concluded that the merfolk must have developed some type or resistance towards it. And about Granger, well, she was lucky that she only took a little.

Draco racked his brain for any information he could remember about the root. It was an illegal herb up there and as far as he knew, it only grew in extremely cold places. The lake must be very cold if they could find it down here. Then he remembered something.

Astorath root was used in cases of extreme pain. You needed special permission from the ministry to use it otherwise it was completely illegal for any sort of use. Over the summer, his mother had fallen down a flight of stairs and Draco had to take her to St. Mungo's. She had to have an operation done on her for some odd reason that Draco could not recall. He had to wait an excruciatingly long time for her surgery to finish so he decided to go for a walk.

He was on the fourth floor when he was nearly knocked over by an old mediwitch followed by two others levitating a man who had turned blue and was bleeding profusely from both ears. They were being followed by a screaming woman and another mediwitch who was doing her best to calm her down. Draco had stopped in his tracks and stared at them as they passed by him. He distinctly remembered the mediwitch telling the screaming lady, "He's been give a sedative...astorath root. It'll make him feel no pain for about five hours. We should have him mostly fixed up by then..." Before he could hear any more, Draco had walked out of the room not wanting to stay for any longer than he could.

A thought suddenly occurred to Draco. The mermen told him that they should have already given it to Draco. That meant that Hermione must have been eating or drinking this stuff for a while. The mermaids must have cajoled her into having it and since it's a drug, she must have developed some sort of dependency on it. And if it wore off every five hours, that meant, Draco would have to be very careful.

He fully planned on going to the ball. There was no way anyone would stop him. After all, it was the only time he would have to talk to her. He would have to keep her with him until the astorath wore off. He had never seen the effects first hand so he had no idea what to expect.

This place was proving to be rather friendly indeed. Getting whacked on the head by mermen, having mermaids shout at you, getting force fed, and the best part, getting drugged. It almost made Draco not want to leave. Almost.