Alright so life's getting insane which is why this update has taken so long. I'm sorry. But the long chapter makes up for it, right? Right?

Thank you for all the support and feedback! I'm glad to hear I'm doing a better job; while I'm writing this for fun, I do want to improve because it makes be a better writer and allows me to write a better story for all of you. Please tell me more because I want to know how all of you are feeling about it! I get a little rush when I read your reviews.

Also, the preview of the next chapter at the end of this one is a little taste of how crazy chapter 7 will be. Maybe your words will get me through finishing it so I can get the chapter out sooner ;)

Love,

Cherry


The day of Draco's first treatment, Hermione cleared her afternoon, knowing not how long the process would take. All that had been outlined in the notes had been that she'd have to knead the contents of the cauldron into the skin until it was all absorbed. Given that there was nearly a litre of potion, Hermione imagined it was going to take a while.

Admittedly, she didn't mind. Treating Draco meant getting to leave work early and satisfy her curiosity about how well she'd brewed the potion. And it meant she could check in on how he was doing, but that part she wouldn't confess.

Hermione ate lunch in her office, avoiding any questions she would receive if she'd gone up to the tearoom on the fifth floor. Several other healers had found out about her secret patient, and all of them had questions; how did he survive, did he really bear the Dark Mark, the list went on and on. Those who actually worked in Spell Damage were miffed that Hermione had been given the job, quietly claiming that it was nepotism that earned her the position. Hermione supposed it was true. Harry and Ron trusted Hermione with their lives, and Harry had insisted that she continue to care for Draco since Ron had pulled her into the case that first night. The remarks did sting a little, though. Hermione was knowledgeable and resourceful, and had Draco been left under the care of any of the Healers in Spell Damage, she wasn't certain he would still be alive. Not that she would say that to any of her colleague's faces.

At precisely one, Hermione shed her lime green work robes (she refused to wear such a luminous garment in the presence of her former bully) to reveal a muggle jumper and trousers, took her jar of potion and bag of medical supplies, and went to the Apparition point on the ground floor, Disapparating to Malfoy Manor. Like before, Draco met her at the gates, and in the daylight, the property looked even more rundown than she remembered.

"Still looking to snag that Groundskeeper position, eh Granger?" Draco asked, raising an eyebrow when Hermione scrunched her nose at him.

"No, but I'm beginning to think you might want to push through the interviews and just pick someone before anything else dies." Hermione walked through the open gate, falling into step with Draco. It was odd - she noted - that she was already so comfortable in his presence. He was still the spoilt little boy she'd known in school, constantly expecting things to go his way, but the malicious nature of his anger seemed to have calmed. Perhaps it was enough to reassure Hermione that he wouldn't aimlessly lash out and resort to calling her names. Or worse, should the desire arise. They walked together in silence, and it was Hermione's nosiness that instigated a conversation.

"Has there been any change in your parents' case?" It was brash and likely bound to offend Draco, but Hermione had spent the last week avoiding Ron's company, and as a result, she'd received no updates on the secret Floo, the murders, or the missing limb.

"Potter's passed the Floo along to some analyst, Quizenberry I think his name was, claiming he was the leading expert on tracking and examining the use of Floos that aren't government monitored. Said they're outside the scope of what Aurors do and he needed a professional to do the work for him." Draco smirked a little at the memory. "I think it might've killed Potter a little. Having to hand something over because he couldn't do it himself."

Hermione rolled her eyes, resisting the urge to slap Draco across the arm. They weren't that chummy.

"Do they have any leads?" She continued, trying to gauge Draco's reactions to her questions.

"Shouldn't you know that?" He asked, a wave of indifference crossing his eyes. "Potter and Weasley are your friends. They tell you everything, don't they?"

"Not about cases." Hermione justified, knowing that if she asked, both boys would tell her anything she wanted to know about any work they'd ever done, but since she wasn't speaking to Ron, that meant talking to Harry, who was busy raising two children in addition to his work; she couldn't bother him with something he would find to be trivial.

"Then we're in the same boat." At her look of confusion, Draco elaborated. "Any question I've asked has been answered with a noncommittal explanation about how they're working with what they have, the case is unique, the usual excuses. It's utter tosh if you ask me. They just don't have any answers and refuse to admit that's the case."

"Well it is unique." Hermione noted as they walked up the grand staircase and down the familiar path to Draco's office. "Even your injury is unique. I cannot tell you how many medical journals I had to read through to even find a similar case."

"And I'm certain you found it to be such a chore." Draco smiled, knowing exactly how happy Hermione was to find herself buried in books. He'd witnessed the enthusiasm more than once while they were at Hogwarts. There were nights he'd found her in the library during his rounds as prefect, books stacked in precarious towers around her as she slept, her face jammed into the center of whatever she was reading at the moment. He had never bothered waking her - mostly due to the fact that he wasn't allowed to dock a fellow prefect house points for being out after hours, which took away the fun of it - but the image of Hermione like that - her harpy qualities masked by sleep, bushy hair swallowing her petite features - it was distinct and unlikely to ever disappear from his mind.

"I never said it was a chore." Hermione replied coyly, knowing she'd rather enjoyed the task, both for its intellectual pursuit and its ability to allow her to ignore the problems present in her own life.

When Hermione entered the office this time, she noted that the desk and one chair had been covered with sheets, a pillow set at the far end of the desk.

"Thrump was insistent that this all stay very sanitary," Draco started, "and he wasn't certain if you'd like me lying down or seated upright so he prepared both."

"Lying down." Hermione said, gesturing to the flat surface. "The potion has a low viscosity; I'll have an easier time keeping it from running all over the place if you lie down."

With a nod, Draco shut the door behind him and approached the desk, noting that again, Hermione busied herself with her belongings as he unbuttoned his shirt. He appreciated that, he supposed. It's not as though he'd wanted her to see him in an undressed state, the least she could do as a professional was make it seem clinical.

When Draco had removed his right sleeve and tucked his shirt to his left side, he climbed onto the top of his desk, scoffing under his breath. He was an adult, damn it, and here he was crawling about the place he worked because he'd been caught off guard by some intruder. It was demeaning, to say the least; he was a Malfoy.

Hermione produced the jar of potion and when Draco saw it, he actually laughed a full-bodied laugh. Hermione stared at him awkwardly as he propped himself up, redness tinting his pale cheeks as he continued to laugh.

"And just what is so funny?" She asked, putting a hand on her hip while the other held the jar precariously.

"That." Draco said between breaths, pointing at the container filled with a translucent, powder blue liquid. "Please tell me that's all four doses."

"No, it isn't. It's one." Hermione retorted, turning her nose up at Draco's exhibition of rather juvenile behavior. He sobered at the statement.

"So then do you pour it on and wipe it off?" He asked, not liking the glint in Hermione's eye as she approached the desk, setting the jar by Draco's hip. She pulled up his leather chair and plopped down in it, shoving her sleeves up her wrists and onto her forearms.

"It dissolves into the skin. I hope you brought some reading to do while I work." She opened the container and dipped her hand in, taking a small scoop into her cupped hand, and slapping it down onto the pink mark on Draco's side. He yelped at the frigid liquid and glared heavily at Hermione.

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?" He grumbled, leaning back and letting Hermione beginning prodding the mixture into his skin. Ten circles, then fifteen back and forth strokes; continue the cycle until it absorbs, the book had said. She followed the directions closely, returning Draco's glare as she switched to the strokes.

"It's almost like you read my mind." Hermione deadpanned. "There's nothing I wanted to do more with my afternoon than give Draco Malfoy a massage."

"Then you should be a little more gentle." Draco admonished, wincing as Hermione collected another small bit of potion and clapped it down on his skin. "This hardly resembles what I would consider a massage. Hey!" He yelped as Hermione increased the pressure of her small fingers into his side, rubbing at his ribs with bruising force. "Isn't this consider patient abuse?"

She shot him a look and reached her hand that wasn't in use out behind her, a book flying off the shelf and into her grasp. She placed it on Draco's chest, raising her eyebrows at him. "Something else to focus on."

Draco picked up the book and read the title, snorting. "House-Elves & Self-Hatred. Was that an intentional move?"

Hermione didn't answer and instead continued to knead and rub the potion into Draco's stomach, having barely made a dent in the contents of the jar. She'd be there all night if she didn't get moving. The work was decidedly tedious yet rhythmic, allowing Hermione to get lost in her thoughts. She wondered if Draco was handling his parents' deaths as well as he was projecting. He'd seem to lose himself that first night she'd come to the manor, or at least let himself fall into a drunken stupor as a method of coping. And his mother. He was angry for his mother. Was he still? Was he heartbroken? Resigned? At which stage of grief was he? Did any of that grief extend to his father?

"So is your knack for wandless magic broad, or reserved only for finding books when you don't want to move from your chair?" Draco drawled, engaging Hermione after what must have been an hour of work. Her eyes flicked up to him but he wasn't looking at her, his brow knit with deep interest in what he was reading. Hermione looked back to her work.

"It does come more naturally for that which I have an inherent desire." She answered honestly, slipping into educator mode as she had done so often with the boys during their days at Hogwarts. "It's like with nonverbal spells, really. Some just come more naturally and work more effectively without requiring the concentration - mental and emotional - needed to enact them. Accio is definitely one of the simpler, though I find myself partial to Episkey or Tergeo, but I think that stems from my work. What kind of healer would I be if I couldn't perform the basics without my wand? Interestingly enough, I've found that Tergeo - quite helpful for assessing what injuries there really are underneath all the blood - works miraculously while under duress; peculiar given the nature of wandless magic, but noteworthy for healing." When Hermione looked back up, she found that Draco had abandoned whatever had interested him so much in his book, and was instead watching her closely, a guarded expression in his eyes. She couldn't identify the look, but it made her redden from embarrassment. She'd been rambling.

"I'm sure you already know all this." Hermione altered the course of her tangent. "You excelled at nonverbal spells in school, wandless magic must come to you the same way." She busied herself with another handful of potion.

"No." Draco's voice was soft but clear, and at his answer, Hermione's hands stilled and she looked up at him. "I only excelled at nonverbal spells because I'd been practising before the school year ever began. I was expected to have the skills of an adult the moment I took on the burdens of one."

Draco refused to speak openly of his time under Voldemort's reign, especially his sixth year. The decisions he made during that time were irredeemable and haunted his every waking moment, haunting many of his sleeping moments as well. Things hadn't been too bad at school, save for Snape's watchful eyes trailing his every move, but those moments when he was granted contact with home - they were hell. The Dark Lord never ceased work, constantly feeding Draco thoughts and actions he believed the boy should do while at Hogwarts, and the consequences if he didn't...one might think the threats idle, as none were acted upon, but coming from a man as powerful and unbalanced as Voldemort meant each was as frightening as the last. He had the ability to enact any one of the dangerous methods of intimidation he used against Draco, and the knowledge that the tiniest step out of line meant everything as Draco knew it would end was daunting.

The letters from his mother were the worst. He was breaking her heart, and each reassuring little comment she wrote only made it all the worse when he went back to doing the Dark Lord's bidding. You're stronger than you know, Draco. You're greater than your father has ever been. You're my son, Draco, and I love you. Each message had been run by Voldemort before making its way to Draco so they had to be carefully written, but Draco knew what she'd meant: he was better than what he had allowed himself to do and she forgave him for it.

She was wrong, of course, but it was a nice sentiment.

"I could teach you, if you like." Hermione offered, her hands stilling when she realised what she'd said. She didn't really want to help Draco, did she? Yes, she could tell what torment he was putting himself through - though she didn't know the extent of it - and she didn't like to watch others suffer, especially when she was so familiar with the feeling, but to help Draco Malfoy learn something new; the fifteen year old that still lived inside her laughed. Draco recognised the significance of her proposal and didn't take it lightly. It was an unspoken olive branch, an outreached hand offering help to a fallen soul, and it was being extended from one of the heroes of the war to an ex-Death Eater.

"Imagine it." He said with a small smirk. "The brightest witch of our age providing private lessons to me. Snape would be rolling in his grave if he could hear it."

Hermione let out a short giggle at that, knowing Draco was right. "I like to think he'd condone your furthering of your education, accepting that just maybe I would be a good tutor."

"Right." Draco rolled his eyes. "Yes, that's definitely what the Snape I knew would've thought. That 'insufferable know-it-all' insult was just to mask his true feelings about how brilliant you are."

"I knew it!" Hermione jested, earning a genuine smile, though it faded quickly.

"Maybe you can teach me another time." Draco finally gave her answer. "I have quite the number of affairs that need sorting before I can focus on leisure." He returned to his book and Hermione paused her rubbing, willing herself to ask the question that had been on her mind since their last interaction.

"How are you?" She asked, immediately putting all of her focus into working the potion into his skin. She didn't want to see his reaction, especially if he was offended by her impudence. But she needed to know if he was all right. It was somewhat selfish; she wanted to know if her experience following her parents death - the fear that she hadn't protected those that mattered most to her, the anxiety that there had been a way to prevent it all from happening, the vast, empty hole that plagued her entire being since it had happened - was uniquely hers, or if Draco went through something similar.

"That's a rather loaded question, Granger." Draco's voice was quiet. "My parents were murdered, my assets seized until their case is resolved, my employees treat me as though I'm a shell that's likely to break should they apply pressure in the wrong place, and I've got an irreparable injury that requires the brightest witch of our age to come rub a little ointment on it every so often like I'm a wounded kneazle."

There wasn't hurt, or anger, or even bitterness in his voice, just indifference as if he spoke statement of fact, not passion, and Hermione felt sheepish for even proposing that he wouldn't be all right. She'd seen the way he was able to correct whatever emotion he was going through as though it was a pesky gnat buzzing around his head, and all he needed to do to squelch it was swat it away. It was an impressive skill - one that likely came in handy when playing a game of poker - but it hardly meant that he was all right. He could be suffering from pain associated with the hex, for all Hermione knew, and he wouldn't let anyone know even that.

"I wouldn't compare you to a kneazle." Hermione lightened her mood, knowing Draco wasn't going to answer any question she had that easily. "That's unfair to the kneazle."

Draco stretched one eyebrow up. "You know they say war changes people, and I think it's doubly true for you, Granger. I never remember you being so childish with your insults in school."

"That's not fair." Hermione played along, taking another handful of potion into her fist. "I called you a cockroach once; I think comparing you to a different animal is on par."

"Par?"

"Muggle saying." Hermione explained. "But I think you might be distracting from the fact that you know I'm right."

"I might be." Draco conceded, letting the subject drop. Hermione followed his lead and fell into silence, returning to focussing on the potion and her efforts at getting it to absorb into Draco's skin. Secretly, she was gentler with her movements now, aware that Draco was avoiding her question, but she didn't let it deter her from getting her work done. After all, she was a professional, and feeling badly for the patient would never affect her quality of work.

It was beginning to get dark when Hermione poured the remainder of the potion onto Draco's stomach, his skin nearly resistant to the copious amount of liquid it had taken in in the past hours. Finally pleased with the level of absorption, Hermione leaned back in the chair, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand. Merlin, she was tired. Her hands were pruny, her hair was beginning to frizz, and her fingers were numb from the constant work they'd been doing. She was ready to go home and take a nice bath before crawling into bed and starting her day anew in the morning.

"That's it for tonight." Hermione spoke for the first time following their conversation hours prior, looking up at Draco, who had discarded his book on the table and was already halfway sitting up and redressing. "I'll begin the second batch tomorrow so it should be ready by next Thursday, if you're free then."

"I should be." Draco buttoned up his shirt and slid off the desk into a standing position. "I don't have many extracurricular hobbies." Draco stared at Hermione as she began packing her bag with the empty bottle. "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.

"Even if I do have a life outside of you, it's one night a week." She answered, pulling her bag over her shoulder.

"And the nights you need to brew the potion, assuming you're not getting paid to treat a patient that's not in your specialty." Draco pressed as he followed her out of the office and toward the foyer.

"True enough." Hermione nodded, noticing Draco was working his way closer to the truth than she was frankly comfortable with. She couldn't mask that emotion from Draco, and in a quick moment of feeling guilty, Draco met her honesty with some of his own.

"I'm fine." He spoke, and Hermione looked over her shoulder, furrowing her brow. "To answer your earlier question." He justified. "There have been moments where I'm not, but I can't dwell on them, so I'm fine."

Hermione slowed to a stop, processing what he said and Draco breezed past her, refusing to discuss the issue any further. He wasn't interested in commiserating and that disappointed Hermione, but she was willing to take what she could get, even if it meant only a grain of truth hours after the fact. On her way out the door, Hermione, paused, turning back to face Draco as he stood in the doorway.

"I've heard talking about it helps." She spoke, chewing on her lip as she thought. "Not that I've ever tried it, but that's what everyone tells me. Thrump might like to hear what his master has to say." Brown eyes met grey and Hermione shrugged, waving her hand once as she turned again and walked down the pathway to the Apparition point just outside the gate, leaving Draco to wonder just what he had gotten himself into.


"I don't care if it sounds ridiculous to you, Hermione." Ron blustered. "You've been obsessing over Malfoy from the moment I dragged you into the case, and since then, I've gotten none of your attention or care, and I'm supposed to be the one you love, but instead of spending your time with me, you're choosing to spend it with Malfoy. I get it. You choose him."