A new chapter - sorry it's been a while but I've not given up on this story, just getting a wee bit of writer's block! Hope you enjoy it, leave a review if you fancy please and thanks :))

-HermionesPolyjuice xo

Chapter 11

"Crap," Hermione exclaimed. She slammed the book shut and looked up and out of the window. The sunset could be seen from where she sat, the sky a deep pink and red. She had been sat in the armchair for at least 6 hours without even noticing the time disappear. She hurriedly put all the books back, deciding she would come back the following day to purchase them, and practically ran out of the shop, narrowly avoiding an elderly man as he made he way through the door into the shop. She apologised but had made it halfway down the street before he even turned around to see what the whirlwind had been. Hermione ran as quickly as she could back to her flat, taking just a few moments to appreciate the beautiful sunset.

"I'm so sorry –" but Hermione broke off at what she saw as she pushed open the front door. Draco was stood in the middle of the kitchen, a muggle apron on, humming to himself as he flipped something on the stove.

"What are you doing?" Hermione questioned as she hung up her coat.

"What does it look like? I'm cooking the best dinner you've ever had," Draco responded with a smirk.

"OK, that's quite the claim, I look forward to seeing how truthful you are," Hermione said as she pulled out a couple of glasses and poured some elf-wine into both.

"Oh, don't you worry, Miss Granger, this will be better than any meal the house elves made at Hogwarts. Oh shit, I've burnt the onions," Draco suddenly exclaimed.

"Can I help?" Hermione asked, unable to contain the laugh that left her lips

"Not really, I'm pretty set here," Draco said after cursing several times as he threw away the blackened vegetables. Hermione chuckled.

"Really, I can't say it looks like you are." Draco was scrubbing angrily at pan as if he was trying to remove the memories of the burnt onions.

"You could cut some more onions for me if you don't mind," he said without looking up from the pan. Hermione giggled but stood up and walked to side where an onion sat on a chopping board. She picked up a knife and started to cut it into strips.

"There's no need to cry about onions, Mi," Draco teased as Hermione rubbed the tears away for the fourth time.

"Oh, shut it, Malfoy," she hissed. "Just because you're too pissed off to do a good job."

"Touché," Draco responded with mock horror. Hermione growled but scraped the onions into the pan and sent the chopping board to the sink. She scrubbed her hands and wiped at her eyes once more, making Draco laugh.

"Anything else to do or are you just going to verbally attack me some more?" Hermione asked once she was sure the eyes were better. Draco stood there for a moment, staring deeply into the pan.

"Yes, I do think we need another onion. Could you do the honours?" he said so seriously he almost looked comical.

"Sod off," Hermione scowled. Draco just laughed.

"I'm going to leave you to this and have a bath." Hermione announced after she had set a knife to magically cut up another onion. She picked up her glass of elf-wine and carried it along to the bathroom, stomping her feet a little louder than necessary as Draco wiped away the tears of laughter that were leaking out of his eyes..

[-||-]

Just over an hour late Hermione was found at the sink washing up the dishes as Draco reappeared from his room, a couple of bags in his arms.

"So, I took a little trip to Diagon Alley earlier," he explained as Hermione dried her hands, casting a curious eye over the bags now sitting in the middle of the table.

"You went all the way to London, why?" Hermione asked curiously, sitting down opposite Draco.

"I couldn't be bothered to find where the closest magical community was here, so it was just easier to go back there," Draco explained. "I needed to get these." Draco pulled a brown paper bag from the pile and Hermione noticed that the stamp on the front was telling he had been to the apothecary. From inside the bag Draco revealed a number of ingredients, including but not limited to powdered silver, aconite, salpeter and moonseed. It didn't take long for the wheels in Hermione's brain to click; she knew exactly what those ingredients were for. Her heart skipped a beat. He had gone all the way to London to get very expensive potion ingredients just for her. She felt the tears appear in the corner of her eyes. Never in a million years did she expect Draco Malfoy to do such a thing.

"Oh, Draco. You didn't have to do this. These are so expensive. You shouldn't have done," Hermione said shocked, her voice soft and a number of tears trickling out of her eyes.

"Of course I did. It takes 3 weeks to brew and we have 27 days until the next full moon, so I need to start making it tomorrow," Draco responded seriously fiddling with the lid of one of the bottles.

"You don't need to make it, Draco. It's fine, I can do it myself," Hermione insisted, although she wasn't entirely convinced about that statement in any case.

"Given that you've yet to succeed in brewing this potion I somehow don't think you're going to be able to make it before October," Draco said sombrely, raising an eyebrow.

"No need to rub it I've failed myself," Hermione muttered sadly looking down at the table. She had rarely ever failed at anything, certainly not at making a potion. She had made the Polyjuice Potion at the mere age of 12 for Merlin's sake. There was no reason she should be failing at the Wolfsbane and it was frustrating her to no end just knowing that she was incapable of making one of the most important potions of her life.

"I'm not rubbing it in, Hermione. You haven't failed yourself. You've had big things to adjust to and just by looking at the potion earlier I can see how easy it is for it to be ruined. But like I said before, potions are my speciality if I do say so myself so I'm going to help you. I'm going to make this potion for you, so you don't have to keep relying on Lupin's stores and you can start to feel self-sufficient. And if you want to help, I dare say I would appreciate the assistance from the know-it-all," Draco added with a smirk, that made Hermione smile back at her friend.

"Thank you, Draco. But don't feel you have to do this. I'll be able to crack it myself at some point."

"I don't have to, but I want to, Hermione. I want to help you through this hardship and if by making sure you have Wolfsbane available when you need it then so be it, that's what I'll do."

"Who would have thought you would be so caring?" Hermione teased as she filled up their glasses of elf-wine.

"I'm a changed man," Draco added with a laugh. They duo clicked glasses together and shared a smile. Hermione drunk deeply from her glass as she pondered over what her life had become. In just a few months she had become a werewolf, she had made friends with her worst enemy from school and she had moved to the other side of Europe. What on earth was the rest of her life going to be like?

[-||-]

The next morning, Hermione awoke suddenly to the strong smell of burning. Draco had burnt a lot of food whilst they had lived in the hut, so it was something she was quite used to. But this time it was different kind of burning and the feeling of suffocation didn't help her thoughts. Something that wasn't food was burning, but it was something that was very familiar. Hermione jumped out of bed, pulled on an old sweatshirt and hurried towards the open-planned kitchen and living space.

"Well, shit. What in Merlin's name have you done in here?" Hermione exclaimed covering her nose and mouth with her jumper as she reached the rooms that were filled with a thick, grey smoke that smelt distinctly of melted metal.

"I had a bit of an issue," Draco's voice came from a few metres away.

"No shit Sherlock," Hermione said rolling her eyes as she pulled out her wand. She gave it a flick and the smoke disappeared almost immediately. Another flick and the room smelt more floral than of melted metal. Hermione looked into the middle of the room where Draco was kneeling by a pile of copper goo, a forlorn look spreading across his face.

"Problems with the Wolfsbane then?" Hermione questioned unable to stop the snigger as she banished the melted cauldron and the mess it left behind. She walked to the other side of the room and opened the window. She stuck her head out, appreciating the fresh air and oxygen.

"Oh, shut it," Draco said tersely standing up and stomping towards the kitchen. Hermione turned away from the window and watched, amused, as Draco began pulling out eggs and bacon and putting them into a pan.

"So, what went wrong then?" Hermione asked trying to be casual but struggling to keep a straight face as she sat down at the table and poured herself a glass of orange juice.

"I think I stirred the blaze powder one too many times anti-clockwise before adding the eel eyes," Draco moaned. "A stupid mistake to make."

"Don't worry about it, Draco. You're out of practice. Give it a couple of hours and we'll go again and this time we'll be successful," Hermione said seriously as Draco piled some bacon and eggs onto her plate.

"It's just frustrating ya know? To make such a first-year mistake. But yeah, maybe I am just a bit out of practice. I'll try again later," he said sitting down opposite Hermione and starting on his own breakfast.

"Yeah, I don't think even I made that mistake," Hermione said with a smirk, earning herself a glare from the silver-haired man opposite. The friends sat in silence as they finished off breakfast after which Hermione announced she was going to go and pick up some books from the bookshop before they started on the potion at lunchtime.

Before Hermione left, however, she made sure she altered her appearance ever so slightly – just enough so that someone she knew wouldn't recognise her immediately but not enough so she looked completely unfamiliar. She made her hair darker and straighter, lengthened her face and changed her eyes to a deep green. She stared into the mirror and a completely different woman stared back. It was somewhat off putting. Satisfied, however, she left the flat and stepped out into the cool, autumnal air, wrapping her jacket tighter around her shoulders as she set off down the street.

It wasn't long until Hermione was pushing open the door to the bookshop, the bell tinkering lightly above her. Hermione waved at Deana as she headed over to the shelves she had left the books from the previous night, confused as to why she received an odd look back along with a wave from the shop owner. Only as she thumbed the third shelf did she remember she had altered her appearance, so clearly, she was unrecognisable. Although an ingenious idea, she did perhaps rush into it a little bit. Oh well, she wouldn't always have to keep up the appearance if she didn't want it.

Once Hermione was sure she had found all the correct books she carried the large pile to the till to pay for them. She was just packing them away into a rucksack when the door opened and the bell went off again. Hermione turned around to see who had entered and dropped a particularly large book onto the floor, her mouth open in shock at who she saw. The man hurried the few paces towards Hermione and bent down to pick up the book.

"Here you go," he said handing it back to her, his deep blue eyes boring into her face.

"Thanks," Hermione muttered, taking it from him but without looking him in the eye. She stuffed it into her bag and practically ran out of the shop, staring at nothing other than the old carpet. She let the door bang behind her and just like the night before took off at a run down the street back towards her apartment. She burst through the door and went straight to her bedroom, collapsing onto her bed as she wordlessly locked the door and reverted her looks back to normal knowing she was now safe. How could she have been so stupid? Of course he lived here and of course she was going to run into him at some point.

Hermione let out a groan of annoyance, summoned a glass from her bedside table and threw it hard at the door. She watched it fall to the ground and smash loudly. She fixed it, summoned it and threw it again. She did this three more times until she heard Draco pummelling on her bedroom door and begging her to let him in.

"Hermione, come on, let me in." She lazily unlocked the door and rolled onto her side facing the wall as Draco entered. She heard him sit down on the bed behind her and reach out to touch her shoulder.

"Hermione, what happened? You know you can tell me anything right," Draco muttered softly, concern filling his voice. Hermione groaned but rolled over to face her friend, who was somewhat surprised to see her eyes dry and set given her reaction of smashing glasses and locking herself in her room.

"I saw him," she whispered almost inaudibly.

"Saw who?" Draco asked, confusion evident in his silver eyes.

"Charlie. Charlie Weasley."

(A/N: hope you enjoyed it, sorry it's a tad short but I quite like where I ended it! don't forget to leave a review (I didn't get many on the last one and it made me think you guys don't like the story?))