CHAPTER NINE

Draco's POV

It was all over school. However, since no one talked to him he didn't know until much later what happened. When Hermione was absent in therapy Monday, he wasn't completely surprised. He hadn't heard anything from her all weekend and figured the cold shoulder wouldn't have ended under the scrutiny of Daisy. Deep down he was still hoping she would show up. He wanted her to want him as much as he wanted her. Disappointment was such a bitter taste in his mouth.

"I'm sure you all noticed our missing member, Ms. Granger." Draco's head perked up at the mention of her name. Daisy continued with her announcement, "It is clear that Hermione has not been handling her feelings well because during this weekend she overdosed. She ingested quite a bit of pills and accidentally cut her arm. She's in Saint Mungo's and should return to school later this week. In light of this, let's work today on creating a loving environment for her to come back to. This includes not asking her about what happened but instead expressing encouraging thoughts to help her through this rough time. We can use this as a reminder that bottling our feelings results in negative outbursts. Let's go around the circle and discuss what we are struggling with."

Draco knew that her arm being cut was not an "accident". He sat for the rest of the session in a quiet fog, unsure of how to feel. Yes, he cared for her. There was no point in denying it. He needed to assess the situation and find out what to do. Option 1: He could not doing anything about it and let the ball be in her court. No, that wasn't going to happen. Option 2: He could go and visit her before she came back to school. The problem with this is how would he get special permission to leave? Sure, Dumb and Dumber would have no problem but persuading McGonagall to agree to HIM visiting HER? Improbable. Option 3: Sneaking out of the castle to go see her. The repercussions from that could end with him being kicked out of school which is what he had been successfully avoiding so far. Option 4: He could send her a letter. This is where he was when the session ended, freeing him to go to the remainder of his classes.

Potions was next, he actually needed to pay attention to that. Although the distraction allowed some of his emotions from the news abate. Nonetheless, when he sat down in Muggle Studies, a class that McGonagall had signed him up for without so much as asking for consent, his attention shifted to composing the letter.

Hermione Granger

Hermione

Dear Granger

Granger,

I hear that you managed to land a spot in Saint Mungo's. I know Daisy is annoying but she's not that bad. I hope you are not still angry with me. Come back soon.

Malfoy

Many other sentences had been cut leaving the end result very short. He was thinking that it would be for the best, to help gage where she was with him. After class, he made a beeline to the owlery before he lost his nerve.

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Hermione's POV

Two very unapologetic faces were staring at her from the edge of her bed. Harry and Ron had come to visit her but Hermione doubted it was from their own volition. She had awoken this morning after being unconscious for 18 hours. Everything hurt, stomach, arm, head. The main doctor had yet to come in but nurses had been in and out all morning, not leaving her alone for more than a second. The last thing she wanted was to deal with Harry and Ron. Part of her hoped they actually wanted to be here and apologize. That hope had quickly been crushed when she had seen their faces. Harry was eyeballing the room, probably seeing how it was different than the standard muggle hospital room. Her blood pressure stats were magically projected onto a white board on the right. There was a cabinet near by full of emergency potions. One thing that was similar to muggle medicine was an IV in her left arm, apparently the pain potions worked faster when injected intravenously. Her right arm was in a wrapped sling. The worst part, the thing they didn't want to look at, was the feeding tube snaking through her nose. In order to administer a continual dose of food the feeding tube was necessary. At least, that's what the nurse said, or whatever magical nurses were called.

"How are you feeling?" Harry managed to spit out. There was too much of a pause from when they walked in for his question to be anything but obligatory.

"Do you care?" She asked back, still mad from their fight, but she lacked the energy she once had.

"Look, don't make this any harder than it already is." Ron remained Harry's silent sidekick, letting him fight their battles again.

"I'm sorry this is so hard for you." Her voice dripped with dark sarcasm. While she wanted to spew her anger out onto these two clueless boys, she remembered that for a long time they were her best friends and restrained herself.

"Do you even see yourself?" Once again, Harry was the spokesman of the two. "You look like death. What is wrong with you? Get help, Hermione."

"That's easy for you to say." The energy she gained from actually sleeping for 18 hours was starting to drain away. "Just go away." She rolled her head to the side, staring at the wall was preferable to looking at them. Within a few seconds they had left.

It wasn't long until a nurse was back in the room. They knew. They could read her body like it was a chart. She was in a robe which meant they removed her clothes. They saw the scars. The bruises. The shadows of the bones protruding. The chipped finger nails that had a tinge of blue. Nothing about this was beautiful, she wished it was.

The two days passed in a haze, like the last several months. The feeding tube took care of her hunger, the blankets took away the cold, spells took away her need to go to the bathroom. She could lay in this bed giving up while everyone else tried to keep her from sinking below the surface. McGonagall had been here. She heard her voice talking to the doctor but Hermione pretended to be asleep when the door opened. She couldn't muster the effort to care.

Draco's letter came on Monday. Hermione was surprised when the nurse said she had mail. He cared. He missed her. For a long minute she just wanted to be back in the room with him, curled up on his lap. When he was really sure that she was asleep, he would play with her hair. What he didn't know is the movement woke her up, she never slept deeply anymore. The first time it happened she made the mistake of twitching and he immediately stopped. The second time she forced herself to stay still and keep breathing evenly. He liked the curls he used to tease her about so cruelly. Several minutes went by and the desire to have him here didn't diminish. She started thinking about how he could get here without anyone knowing, thinking was easier now that she had food pumped into her system for the past three days. She liked that there wasn't a choice, it meant that she didn't have to fight herself anymore.

"Ms. Granger?" While she had been thinking a doctor had moved to the edge of her bed. "Is now a good time to discuss what happened?" Hermione just stared back at her. The staff had gotten used to her behavior so the doctor continued without her verbal consent.

"When you were admitted you presented with damage to your stomach caused by an abundant amount of drugs, dehydration, and serious blood loss from a laceration on your right arm. After you were stabilized, we discovered you were also malnourished and had several cuts over your legs, all in different stages of healing. After a consult with the psychological Mediwizard, he hypothesized that you suffer from depression and what the muggles call situational anorexia nervosa." The doctor paused to see if she had a response. Nothing. "When you cut your right arm it was deep enough to nick one of the nerves that led to your hand. Although we repaired the tear, you will have permanent numbness to your fourth and fifth fingers. I believe the muggles call that your ring and pinkie fingers." Nothing. The doctor sighed. "Hermione, you were lucky that you didn't cause worse damage. Cutting is a serious problem and so is starvation. If you go much more you will weaken your heart to a fatal extent." Hermione could tell that she cared, she looked nice enough. "We offer therapy here, you should truly consider it." Nothing. The doctor resigned herself to the idea that she wasn't going to get anything out of this deeply troubled girl. "Let me know if there is anything I can do for you."

Before she was out the door, Hermione impulsively spoke, "Could you send a letter for me?"

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Draco's POV

There was a slight tremor to his hand as he shoved it into his pocket. His brain had not caught up to understanding and processing his surroundings. One minute he was in class, ignoring the professor, and the next he was being led to the headmaster's office. He had been terrified that she had discovered any one of the times he had broken the rules and was preparing to be kicked out. There wasn't much he cared about in this castle but it was still more home to him than the Manor. That place stopped being a home the second Voldemort had sat down at the head of the table. Then in another flash, McGonagall was saying "don't make me regret letting you see her." He had quietly suffered through the remaining classes until the bell rang for the final time that day. Purposefully nonchalantly, he walked into the designated spot, pulled the portkey out of his pocket and was off.

2381.

He pushed the door open. Thump. Thump. Thump. She looked better and worse at the same time. While she didn't look like she was about to blow away any second, she still looked fragile and small. A broken bird. She had a tube in her nose and a tube in her arm. He wanted to look away from the sharp harshness of reality but then her eyes met his. She smiled. It was weak and stretched her skin tight across her face but she smiled.

"Hi."

"I think I'm in the wrong room." She looked shocked, preparing for the worst. "Because the Hermione Granger I know would never ask McGonagall to send the likes of me for a visit." That earned him another smile but this one was sad.

"Maybe I'm not the girl everyone thinks they know." The mood turned serious. He moved over to the chair conveniently placed next to the bed. "You can be whoever you want to be." His heart rate sped up. Thoughts of panic and worry over rejection plastered the inside of his mind as he laid his hand on top of hers. She had made a move by getting him there, he could make an effort back. Looking up, expecting her to be angry, he saw tears forming.

"Can you just hold me?" Her voice cracked as she implored. Before she could change her mind, he carefully angled himself onto her bed, making sure to not tangle himself in the cords. While laying in a hospital bed is not the most comfortable thing, her arm in the sling was making their combined shape awkward, neither one cared. The world outside of the room just melted away.

"Draco?"

"Hmm?" His head was turned into her hair and his arm around her tiny waist.

"I'm sorry."

"For what?" He had a feeling that he knew what she was talking about but he wanted to hear her say it.

"For what I said to you last. I didn't mean it." With that she moved her hand over to be on top of his, the tips of her fingers delicately tucked into his. He let that sit in the air for a minute before he replied.

"You know how you can make it up to me?"

"How?"

"Come back."