Oh hello. I'm back. How are you? Well, I hope.

Anyways, shit kind of goes sideways in this chapter but it was kind of fun/sad to write. That person who commented about Won-Won will likely enjoy this chapter.

As always, please review. For those who did, thank you! I love hearing your opinions. It's great to see everyone's feedback and for those of you who are trying to work out the mystery, I'm glad to see you're getting into it!

Love,

Cherry


The Floo did turn out to be a lead in the case. It had been unregistered and news of its existence alone was a breakthrough for the Ministry, which prompted the searching of other ex-Death Eater homes for more unregistered Floos, and judging by the article in the Daily Prophet, many more were found and promptly destroyed, the owners greatly fined for their "forgetfulness," as many claimed kept them from registering their Floos. According to Ron, Draco didn't know who was on his father's list of approvals, which brought about a new brick wall, but it was a step in the right direction.

Hermione went back to work, keeping her word to Draco as she searched records and books for more information on the mortuus textus hex. When her research at St. Mungo's turned up next to nothing, she began spending hours and hours at libraries, checking out every book that even mentioned the hex, letting the search absorb her time. Ron noticed, of course, and made his stance on the situation well known.

"He's a git, Hermione. Who cares if he's got a little boo boo, he's not dead."

"And I suppose you deserve me to heal you of your little scratches because you're so likable." Hermione retorted, referring to the tin of experimental healing salve she'd invented and given Ron after a particularly nasty fight with an amateur wizard who fancied himself the next Lord Voldemort. Though Ron had never been a vain person, he used it at the sign of any little scrape.

Ron didn't have a good retort.

It was one night, sitting in bed, that Hermione was reading a book containing diaries from historical healers, and one of the entries directly discussed the healing process of mortuus textus when it wasn't treated immediately. Any chance of sleep gone, she read the page multiple times before scanning others from the same healer for more notes. While the healer had tried Hermione's methods of treating the hex, it was through four sessions of deep cleansing that the damage was finally repaired. The healer noted the name of the potion he used, but didn't include a recipe, which then prompted Hermione to begin digging through her own books, searching for the mundet salutem potion. When she'd exhausted her personal supply of books with no luck, she unwillingly climbed into bed, intending to find the recipe the next day at work.

She did, as luck would have it. In an old potions book coated with years upon years of dust. Browsing the ingredients list, most of the items were kept in stock at the hospital, and it required a week to brew each treatment, which needed to be fresh and couldn't be brewed in advance. While that news was disappointing, Hermione sent Draco an owl updating him on his treatment, and put in an order for the ingredients she was missing.

It was when she was dressing for dinner with Harry and Ginny that Hermione noticed how quickly the past month had gone. While she had become accustomed to boring nights in and the random fight with Ron, the two had seen each other only a handful of times since their last couple's dinner, something she was certain was not by accident.

"Hello, Ginny." Hermione greeted as she stepped through the Floo. Ginny greeted her from her position setting the table.

"Evening. You look nice." Ginny nodded toward Hermione's plain, rust coloured wrap dress and Hermione shrugged.

"It's been a pleasant few days, I suppose." She answered, her mood having improved since she'd received the Petrified Bbilliwig and Morning Dew just a day before, allowing her to finally begin the potion for Draco's treatment.

"Oh? That's good news. I imagine Ron's been taking advantage of that good mood, eh?" Ginny wiggled her eyebrows and Hermione hummed in agreement, though the last time Ron had even looked at her like she was anything special had been in October when she'd taken him to Dijon and all the wine he drank made him a little more romantic than his usual self.

"Hello, Hermione." Harry greeted as he stepped through the Floo, Ron following shortly after. "Evening, Ginny." He greeted his wife with a kiss on the cheek. "What's for dinner?"

"Doro wot." Ginny answered as she brought a basket of what looked to be a spongy flatbread, setting it on the table.

"Doro what?" Ron asked as he hung his coat up.

"Doro wot." Ginny repeated as she came back into the room with a dish filled with a red soup. "Chicken stew, really. It's Ethiopian." She waved her hand flippantly and Harry raised his eyebrows at Hermione, who shrugged innocently.

"Don't look at me. I've never even had Ethiopian food." She argued.

"You all should relax. It's quite good." Ginny spooned everyone a bowl and they all sat, Hermione next to Ron and across from Ginny. Ron was the first to take a bite, coughing heavily as he scrambled to grab his cup of water.

"Oh Ronald, it's not that spicy." Ginny chided as she took a piece of flatbread and dipped it into the liquid. She ate it happily, humming a bit. Hermione hesitantly tried the dish and - while it was indeed spicy - she rather enjoyed the flavor.

"So how's work, Hermione?" Ginny asked as everyone settled into their meals.

"Work is work." Hermione answered cryptically, knowing that Ron didn't like what she was getting up to lately. "I had a woman come in the other week with a blast-ended skrewt injury."

"She know Hagrid?" Harry asked, eating his doro wot with reckless abandon. Being married to Ginny meant being prepared for any type of food, ever since she'd toured the world while playing for the Holyhead Harpies.

"No." Hermione answered. "I even asked her, but she said she'd never heard of him. Merlin knows where she got the skrewt from. And where it ran off to once she lost control."

"It ran off?" Harry asked, raising his eyebrows. "Should I be alerting Krowerby over in the Pest Advisory Bureau?"

"No you should not." Hermione answered. "I mean, it's one blast-ended skrewt, how dangerous could it be?"

Harry mumbled something Hermione couldn't quite make out.

"What was that?" She pressed and Harry shrugged.

"Nothing. So Gin, you went to see your mum?" Harry shifted the subject smoothly and Hermione let it drop, happy for the change in topic anyway.

"Yep." Ginny wiped her mouth with her napkin and nodded. "She was happy to see the boys, and even watched them for a few hours so I could go shopping with Luna. She said she wished you'd come, Harry." Ginny looked pointedly at her husband, his ears turning red at the comment. He didn't respond. "Course she's seen enough of this one lately to get her fill of this group." Ginny nodded toward Ron, whose eyes shot up at his little sister. He went to kick her under the table but missed, hitting Harry instead.

"Ow!" Harry jumped, looking accusatorily at Ron. Hermione looked between the two, watching Ron move his lips silently at his sister.

"You've been going to the Burrow?" She asked, a funny sort of feeling growing in her belly. "When have you found the time since you've been so busy with work?" Hermione continued, knowing that this pressing would only lead to answers she didn't want to hear but in that moment, she didn't really seem to care.

"Here and there." Ron answered weakly, shooting a glare at Ginny, who raised her eyebrows as she witnessed the beginnings of a fight. Harry put his head in his hand, having grown up around the two and knowing what a fight between them meant.

"So Robards is giving you time off then, is he? When you've been so bogged down with the Malfoy case." Hermione could feel her voice rising and didn't even notice as she began to stand. The others did, though, and began discreetly urging Ron to back down. He swallowed thickly and looked up at Hermione with wide eyes.

"Maybe we should discuss this some other time, yeah?" He pleaded.

"No, I think now is brilliant." Hermione - now fully standing - tossed her napkin onto her plate. "Have you been at your parents' the last few weeks?" Ron nodded meekly. "So those times when you wrote that you couldn't make dinner, or had to cancel plans. It was because you were off with your mummy and daddy?"

"Well what did you expect, Mione?" Ron got defensive, not liking the tone Hermione was taking on. He began to rise too, and Harry and Ginny began clearing the plates hurriedly. "You're off Merlin knows where all hours of the day-"

"I'm at work, Ronald!" Hermione shouted, not even noticing as Ginny cast a Muffliato Charm at her children's bedroom. "Where you claim you are, but you're really off gallivanting around with your family!" In truth, Hermione was angry that Ron had been lying to her, not that he'd been with Molly. She was a little jealous that he still had that relationship, but she supported it fully. Everyone deserved to have their mother.

"You're so wrapped up in what happens to Malfoy - and it seems that you've forgotten what a knob he was to you in school - that you're not even home when I try to visit you!" Ron shouted back, his face turning nearly as red as his hair.

"I'm trying to cure a dying patient!" Hermione yelled back. "Maybe if you did your job and found out who murdered his parents, I would've found a better cure by now and have been done with it all!"

Ron narrowed his eyes, breathing heavily. Hermione stared back with equal fervor, the room deadly silent between them.

"Well I'm so sorry that you don't think I've done a good enough job as an Auror. Maybe you could've done better had you not been a coward and refused the position when it was offered to you with the rest of us."

"Ronald!" Ginny spoke sharply, admonishing her brother.

"No, Ginny, it's all right." Hermione answered evenly, a cold wave washing over her much like a Disillusionment Charm. "He's entitled to his feelings. At least now he's being honest." Hermione glided across the room, retrieving her cardigan from the coat rack that bowed to her as she approached it. She turned back to the room, refusing to look over the scene before her. "This has been an informative evening. I'll write to you, Ginny. Harry." She nodded at the couple - both looking as though a bomb was about to go off - before walking to the fireplace, and Flooing home.

"You're in late." A voice called from the doorway and Hermione looked up, smiling politely at her colleague, Emily Biggerstaff, who worked on the third floor.

"You too." Hermione noted as she stirred ground Dittany into the mixture she was brewing.

"Oh, my son ran into a patch of wild rice and got himself a nice, large rash." Emily explained as she read through the labels on the cabinets. "Came to get him some Goosegrass to chew on."

"Ah." Hermione nodded, returning her eyes to the recipe in front of her. Once the ground Dittany has dissolved, stir the potion clockwise until it turns periwinkle.

"And your excuse?" Emily made conversation as she continued to dig about the drawers. She worked in Potion and Plant Poisoning, where did Spell Damage keep their stash of Goosegrass?

"Just brewing a potion for a patient." And avoiding my troubles. Hermione smiled politely, stirring slowly. The potion shifted to the correct colour and Hermione moved onto the next step. "It takes a week so I thought I'd get a head start." She continued when Emily only stared at her.

"I was going to ask: who comes in on a Wednesday night without good reason?" Emily grinned as she found the right drawer, pulling a small bundle of roots from the drawer. "You know, I should really let him suffer for making such a poor decision." Emily muttered as she looked at the Goosegrass in her hand. "Oh well. Boys will be boys." She smiled at Hermione before disappearing from the room, off to treat - and lecture - her son.

Boys will be boys. Hermione snorted at the idiom. Her boy was certainly being something at the moment, though she didn't think she was likely to brush it off like Emily was doing.

Coward. The word rattled around her head as she chopped fresh Nettle. She had never thought herself a coward. Overly cautious, yes, but never cowardly. For Merlin's sake, hadn't she proved herself when she fought, side by side, with Ron and Harry to take down Voldemort? She certainly didn't feel like a coward when she thought about those nights she ran, staying just out of the reach of Snatchers. Or when she refused to give up any information despite being tortured nearly to death -

Her breath caught in her throat, anger bubbling in her chest. No. She wasn't a coward. And it wasn't being a coward that kept her from becoming an Auror.

"Thought I might find you here."

Annoyance grew in Hermione's stomach. "Go home, Ronald."

"No." Ron was stubborn, and as he stood in the doorway to the room, Hermione shot him an exasperated look, dumping the Nettle into the cauldron. It began boiling.

"I don't want to see you right now." She punctuated every word, placing her hands on her hips when the boiling slowed to a bubble. At least she was done dealing with that for the night.

"And I didn't want to fight." Ron countered. "I didn't want you to find out that I was going to the Burrow more nights than not because I knew you wouldn't react well."

"Shocking that I might not like that my fiancé was lying to me." She dryly retorted, covering her cauldron with a towel before setting it on a shelf to brew for three days. She tucked her potions book under her arm and tried to pass Ron, freezing up when he blocked the doorway.

"Move." She spoke quietly, but Ron didn't listen.

"I'm not going anywhere until we bloody sort this out!" He pulled at the roots of his hair, looking down at the woman he loved. "We can't get into a fight like this because I told you I was working late when I was visiting home. It's just stupid."

Hermione's eyes flashed angrily. "If all of this was a result of your trips to the Burrow, yes, it would be stupid, but it isn't, and maybe it's because I'm a coward, but I refuse to stand in my place of work and let you argue with me!" She pushed past Ron, who followed her as she hurried to the lift to return to her office on the first floor. Ron caught up and got in with her.

"I'm sorry I called you a coward." He tried to reason. "I-I was angry because you accused me of not doing a good job at work."

"Because you accused me of letting my attention shift to Malfoy!"

"It has shifted to Malfoy!" Ron exclaimed, following Hermione as she walked down the empty hall to her office, where she left her potions book and dirty lab robes.

"You asked me to take care of him." Hermione explained plainly, watching Ron's expression closely. "And I took an oath to treat anyone who walks through my doors, no matter how much I like or dislike them. The hex he was on the receiving end of is distinct and uncommon, and I refuse to let you morph what I do for him into having more meaning than my need to treat a patient with a rare case. You should know better than any that my interest in Malfoy extends as far as his injury is concerned." A small pang made Hermione realise she wasn't being completely honest, but Ron wouldn't understand that the tenderness she felt for Draco came from a place of empathy, not affection. He would see it as a betrayal.

"I'm sorry." Ron said, looking to Hermione for reassurance. "'Spose I was just jealous." He mumbled and Hermione sighed, knowing it was her turn to comfort Ron.

"I suppose you were. I forgive you." She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around his middle, letting Ron rest his head on her shoulder as he hugged her back. When the two parted, Hermione let him kiss her, recognising a pattern: things would stew until they reached a head, at which point one of them would apologize and make up with some form of intimacy.

As she lay in Ron's bed that night, Hermione felt nothing but bitterness at the thought that her life had been reduced to such an unhealthy cycle. Turning over, she pulled the sheets up to her chin and closed her eyes tightly, willing sleep to come. Like most nights as of late, it didn't.


"And you?" He asked. "Don't you have a life to live outside of caring for me?"

Hermione looked at Draco and squinted as though she was thinking terribly hard about something. Draco didn't understand the look - a first for someone raised to read people - but it was unsettling, an emotion he wasn't familiar with being on the receiving end of.