Chapter 5 - Wednesday evening

Hermione slept for the rest of the day, completely oblivious to those entering and exiting the dorms. She was exhausted from all of the physical activity. And there had been a LOT of physical activity. She had fond memories of the few times she had sex with Ron during the war. Stolen moments that were at the same time awkward yet desperate, passionate yet shy, fumbling yet sweet.

What she experienced with Draco was completely different. He must have spent at least 30 minutes on the shower floor eating her out as the hot water pounded down on them. She had lost count of her orgasms. She knew oral sex was supposed to be pleasurable and she'd certainly enjoyed it when she forced Malfoy to perform it on her in the library, but the way his tongue worshipped her body as she writhed on the ground brought a deviance to the act she never thought was possible. The man was so devoted to her pleasure he hadn't noticed how chafed and bruised his elbows were from the tiles on the floor. And so she healed him afterwards, again. It was the least she could do.

Her wand alarm went off at five o'clock in the evening, and she raced down to the hospital wing, eager to be in complete control of her faculties once again. She wanted to continue having sex with Draco, but as herself, making conscious choices.

And without hurting him.

Unless he wanted her too.

"Madam Pomfrey!" she called out impatiently. "Madam Pomfrey!"

"Yes, yes, Miss Granger. I have your antidote. Everything is ready." Madam Pomfrey came around the corner holding a vial. "Now just take—"

Hermione grabbed the vial, uncorked it, and chugged down the contents. She wiped her mouth off on her sleeve afterwards.

Madam Pomfrey looked at her with amusement.

"Sorry, Madam Pomfrey, but it's been a rough two days."

"I'm sure it has," she said with a knowing smile. "As I was about to say, the effects will be immediate and you should have no further issues requiring…relief. At least, none that are artificially induced."

Eeeeek!

The vial dropped from Hermione's hand and shattered on the floor. She ran out of the room.

What was with Madam Pomfrey and masturbation?

The Medi-witch chuckled to herself and went back to attending her sick patients after repairing the vial.

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Hermione entered the Great Hall and headed over to the Gryffindor table, winking at Draco along the way. He flashed her a quick smile, much to Pansy's chagrin. She sat down next to her friends and began to spoon food on her plate, rivaling Ron's stockpile. After everything that happened today, she was ravenous.

Harry and Ron looked over at her warily.

"Uh…" Harry, the king of eloquence in uncomfortable situations, began.

"Everything's taken care of. I'm back to normal," she assured him while heaping another spoonful on her plate.

Ron and Harry each let out loud sighs of relief.

Hermione began to shovel food into her mouth in a way that was very uncharacteristic of her. Ginny, Lavender, and Harry stared. Ron didn't notice, as he was busy shoveling food into his mouth at the same pace.

Hermione looked up and asked with a mouth full of food, "What?" She swallowed. "I did a lot of running today."

They shrugged and went back to eating.

"So," Harry began. "I still think we should consider Zabini, Parkinson, and maybe Nott, even though Malfoy says they wouldn't do it. You never know what's going on between the Slytherins. Especially after that fight this morning."

Hermione snuck a glance over at Draco. Feeling her eyes on him, he looked up, made a hole with his left hand, and inserted his right index finger through it. She smirked at him and turned back to Harry.

"You know," she said, pointing her spoon at Harry, "I didn't tell you, but it's likely a Prefect." In spite of her conversation with Malfoy, she was eager to tell her friends about her latest theory. She was confident that neither Ginny nor Harry were behind the potion even though they could have gotten the password from either Ron or Lavender. Ron wouldn't do it. He was like Ginny. Any anger would be explosive and in public. Harry could be sneaky and he certainly didn't enjoy being the middle man during Ron and Hermione's fall outs, but she couldn't see him pulling a stunt like this. On her anyway. He wasn't one to encourage fighting or drama between his friends. And Lavender was… well, Lavender. Dumber than a bag of nails.

There must be something Hermione was missing. Someone she had overlooked.

Ron glared at the Slytherin table. "Malfoy's a Prefect."

Hermione didn't miss a beat. "Definitely not him, Ron."

Ron shifted his glare to her. "I'm not finished with him."

Lavender sighed, clearly on the verge of tears. "Oh, for Merlin's sake, can't you just leave it alone?" She shoved her tray away, got up and walked out, leaving her food half eaten.

Ron looked up with his fork still half out of his mouth. "What? What did I do?"

Ginny sighed and went up to go after her, but Hermione stopped her. "Things are better between us. I'll go see if I can help."

She ran out to catch up with Lavender.

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"Lavender!" Hermione called out to her as she walked to Gryffindor Tower. "Hey, hold on!" She tried jogging to catch up, but the pain in her knees came back to her. "Lavender, wait!"

Lavender didn't stop, and continued on up and through the portrait. Hermione walked as fast as her pained legs would carry her. She entered the portrait hole to see Lavender quietly crying on the plush chair in the corner of the Gryffindor common room.

Hermione walked over to her. If it was Ginny, she would have hugged her right away. But it was still too awkward between the her and Lavender for hugs. Well, she had to try, right?

She put a tentative arm around Lavender's heaving shoulders.

"Hey! Hey!" she said in a soothing voice. "I know Ron's a git. Do you know how many times I've cried over the stupid things that come out of his mouth?" Lavender didn't answer, so Hermione continued, "He can be such an idiot some—"

"It's not him!" Lavender cut her off.

"Pardon?" asked Hermione, taken aback.

"It's not him! He's a perfectly good boyfriend. It's just that…." She sobbed into her hands some more. "He still loves you..."

Hermione opened her mouth to protest.

"Don't bother. I know you have more history than we do," she sniffed, and wiped her nose. "Can I really fault him for wanting to avenge you?" Her voice softened. "It's admirable, really, the passion he shows."

"But –"

Lavender threw her hands in the air. "If you were to tell him that you've changed your mind, he'd dump me in a heartbeat and go running to you."

"That's not true!"

Lavender suddenly turned around towards Hermione in anger.

"Isn't it? You're so much better than I am! You're smarter, and he takes you more seriously. You've got ambitions. You don't study Divination because it's-" she made air quotes with her fingers, "-utter nonsense. It doesn't matter to you that the Ministry has tens of thousands of prophecies in their vault and that the war was won with the help of one! You think those that do study it, like me, are… what?" Lavender snapped, cutting off another one of Hermione's protests.

Hermione opened her mouth again but Lavender was right. She was really ashamed of how she had been treating Lavender since she had become a "regular" in their group. But she couldn't find the words to express it.

Lavender continued, glaring at Hermione. "You're not just some airhead he's on the rebound with. And I hate it!" she yelled before she turned back to sobbing.

Hermione had never felt so low in her life. She had been absolutely awful to Lavender. She didn't realize how painful the way she had treated her had been, especially with Lavender's insecurity about Ron. She had mistakenly assumed that Lavender hadn't noticed her eye rolls and off-hand comments. Apparently, she was more observant than Hermione thought.

"Lavender, I'm sorry that I've made you feel this badly. I really am. Nobody else felt that way about you, you know? Everyone told me that I was being too harsh on you, and they were right. And recently, I've changed my mind about you. You're really good for Ron. We've all noticed changes in him, me included. He's happier than he's ever been before, more considerate, and he's completely nutters over you. And yes, I'll admit it. I didn't like you two together. But all of those changes in him are because of you."

Lavender looked at her in contemplation, then her pretty face scrunched up in anger again, and she stood up, towering over Hermione. "You sanctimonious bitch!" she spat at her.

Hermione took a step back, warily.

"What you're really saying is that airheads make him happy!"

Hermione denied this vehemently, even though that was exactly what she had been thinking. "That's not what I'm saying at all!"

"Oh, no? You wouldn't even take my notes from the classes you weren't paying attention to. I'm not smart enough to copy notes from? Not even History of Magic, Hermione?" Lavender's voice was dripping with scorn. "Really?"

"Come on, Lavender! The Ravenclaws are the top—"

"Forget the notes! I'm not smart enough for you to waste time being civil to?"

"You weren't exactly—"

Lavender's voice raised an octave as she became more hysterical. "I'm not smart enough to be in your group?"

"No one said-"

"I'm not smart enough to be with Ron?"

"Lavender! That's not—"

"I'm not smart enough to have slipped you the Lustfarae?"

Hermione thought she heard wrong. "What?"

"I couldn't possibly have pulled that off, could I? It's a bloody simple potion, but oh no! It had to be a Ravenclaw! Or a Slytherin!" Lavender cried some more.

"You—" Hermione was still trying to process the information. Her surprise was quickly turning into anger. "You, WHAT? You—" she sputtered.

Lavender smiled meanly at her, wiping away a few of her tears. "I put the Lustfarae in the salt shaker the night before. That's why I was nice to you that morning, so that we would sit together. Everyone was distracted by Ron when I was getting him off and didn't notice when I placed it in front of you. After you used it, you were looking in the opposite direction when I vanished it."

Hermione ground her teeth. "I can't believe you would—"

Her eyes blazed at Hermione's. "You knew I hated you and you never even considered me a suspect! I was too stupid to be capable of something like that, wasn't I? You just said so not five minutes ago!"

"That's not true!" Hermione shouted back, her anger returning in full force. "I didn't consider you because I trusted you! Like I trusted Ron!"

"You trusted me?" Lavender yelled incredulously. "Liar!"

She knew she had lied but continued to deny it. "I'm not—"

"Merlin, Hermione! Didn't you notice something was off that morning? After the way you've treated me for the past half year, why would I have been nice to you all of a sudden? You don't deserve it!"

Hermione raised her voice. "You never liked me to begin with!"

Lavender yelled back, countering her. "You shut me out! Once I got back with Ron and joined your group, you never gave me a chance! You made me feel unwanted from day one! Everyone else was nice to me except you!"

"Well, I was right to be! You were way out of line with that stunt. Are you completely daft?" Hermione screamed at her, purposely insulting her intelligence.

Lavender dug her nails into her palms.

Hermione, remembering her embarrassment, started shaking with anger. "And after that day in Potions?" She could almost feel steam blowing out of her ears as she relived being exposed to the class and rutting herself on Draco in public, while Ron and Harry lay tied up on the ground.

"I could have hurt someone!" she continued screaming, absolutely furious. "Did you even think about the consequences of what you did? Or would that hurt your head too much?"

Lavender snarled.

Hermione narrowed her eyes and closed the distance between them. "Ron really is too good for you!" she spat at her.

Lavender smirked down at Hermione through her tears. "Well, maybe I'm not so smart. I thought I took Crabbe's quill that day."

Hermione scoffed, "You couldn't even do that right-" Her eyes widened as she understood the implications of Lavender's admission and her last fuse blew.

"CRABBE?" she shrieked as she lunged at Lavender.

Lavender squealed in surprise. Not expecting the assault, she was thrown bodily to the ground as Hermione clawed at her.

"What the – ? Get the bloody hell off of me!" Lavender howled as Hermione tried to get her in a headlock.

"Oh, just you wait! You've got a lot more coming your way! Fucking bint!" Hermione grunted with the effort. "—can't believe you – AAAH!"

Lavender pulled on her hair to pry her off and Hermione wailed at the pain. Hermione pinched Lavender's underarm and she screamed, immediately letting go of her hair.

The two struggled on the ground amidst shrieks and pants for breath. Despite her smaller size, Hermione managed to turn Lavender around face down on the ground and twist her right arm behind her back.

"Do you know how horrible it was that day?" Hermione yelled at her and twisted her arm harder.

"Aaah!" Lavender struggled to extract her wand with her left hand while Hermione continued to yell at her.

"I could have seriously hurt someone! I attacked Ron and Harry! And what if someone else used the salt besides me? What if you didn't vanish the salt in time?"

Hermione pressed her knee into the small of Lavender's back.

"Oomph!" Lavender strained. She almost had her wand.

Hermione continued to taunt her. "Why don't you get one of the Ravenclaws to plot your revenge schemes for you next time? At least they wouldn't have –"

She never got to finish her sentence.

"Petrificus Totalus!"

Hermione's body froze.

Bollocks!

She was too cocky, too busy taunting and not paying attention. That was the second time she had underestimated Lavender.

Lavender breathed a sigh of relief and extracted herself from Hermione's hold. She tilted Hermione back gently until her frozen form was lying on the floor, legs splayed from having straddled Lavender. Under any other circumstances, both girls would have found her position extremely funny.

How nice, Hermione thought sarcastically as her head gently touched the floor, she doesn't want to do me any physical harm.

Panting for breath, Lavender opened her mouth as if to start a fresh tirade. She then changed her mind and closed her mouth. Her shoulders sank in defeat. She pressed her palms into her eyes, but couldn't stop the tears from flowing again.

"Do you know what it's like..." she started in a quivering voice, but a loud sob cut her off. She tried again. "Do you know what it's like to be somebody's rebound? To be so completely in love, yet never knowing if they really, truly love you back in the same way?"

Hermione stared at the ceiling. From the position that Lavender had laid her in, she didn't have much other choice.

"You've been a shadow over our relationship since the beginning." Her shoulders heaved with sobs. "Last year, he chose you over me. Remember? And you didn't even want him. You changed your mind."

Hermione remembered how uncomfortable her relationship with Ron had been after Voldemort's defeat, when she had come to the realization that she didn't love him the way that he had loved her. He had been crushed.

"And I loved him, even then. And it hurt when he left me for you in sixth year. Do you know what that felt like? To be discarded like leftovers for somebody else?" Fresh tears streamed down her face.

Hermione had to admit that she'd never given much thought to Lavender's feelings two years ago. The Won-Won's and Lav-Lav's had gotten on everybody's nerves. Harry and Ginny were both relieved when it seemed that Hermione and Ron would finally get together in the end. She was perfectly capable of feeling bad for rejecting Ron, but she had never imagined what Lavender must have felt after Ron rejected her. She had never even considered Lavender. Lavender was simply beneath her notice. She felt terrible.

"It really hurt. And I tried to get over him. But then he came to me again, and I knew—" she conjured a tissue and blew her nose in between sobs, "I knew that he only came because you had rejected him. I knew it and I didn't care, I just wanted to be with him. I still loved him, even though he didn't love me."

Hermione felt her anger slowly subside. She really felt sorry for her.

Lavender dropped to the ground and hugged her knees. She gulped back her tears. "He loves me now, I know he does. But not like he loves you. He's always loved you. And I..." She bent her head down, pressing her forehead to her knees. "I just hoped that he would grow to love me more with time, but this whole –" she waved her hand in the air, "— thing completely backfired. Watching Ron go ape-shit over Malfoy having his hands on you just..." She gave a resigned sigh. "I'll always be second to you."

Despite herself, Hermione was feeling bad for Lavender. She sounded so full of despair. But she couldn't be right, could she? Was Ron still pining for her? They were good friends. They were friends with a history, yes, but friends and nothing more. She knew that Ron had loved her once; it was obvious from how he had taken her rejection. But did he still love her in that way? They were hardly alone together anymore since the war, which occurred during that summer. He was always with Lavender.

"And you just made it all worse. I know I'm not as smart as you; I know I wasn't as brave as you were in the war, I know I didn't share the adventures you two had here at Hogwarts growing up. But you didn't have to make it so painfully obvious."

Hermione would have cringed if she could have moved her face muscles. She hadn't truly realized how awful she had been. And coupled with Lavender's insecurities, well, that was like rubbing salt in the wound. A big, gaping wound.

"You treated me like I was insignificant. Not worth your time, not deserving of anybody's friendship in your group. Not deserving of Ron. Well, maybe I don't deserve Ron if I can't make him love me more than you. I'm not you, and being myself isn't good enough."

Hermione was in shock. Was it possible that Lavender's self-esteem was that low? She felt horrible.

Lavender's breathing came in a gasp as she fought back another sob. "Well, if you were hoping that one day I'd just get the hint that I was unwanted and leave, you may just get your wish. Tell McGonagall what I did, tell Snape, tell Ron. I'll admit to it, I don't," she said, wiping away the tears that started streaming down her face again, "I don't fucking care anymore, it hurts too much."

She slowly got up, dragged her feet towards the stairs and climbed up. Hermione heard the door to the girls' dorms shut and she was able to move her limbs again as Lavender released the spell.

Hermione stretched and stood up. She could hear Lavender's sobbing all the way from the dorms.

As she listened to Lavender's muffled crying, she thought about how she never did give Lavender a chance, and had snubbed her ever since Ron had decided to pursue her. She had completely disregarded her and never gave a thought as to how Lavender must have felt this whole time, what with Lavender trying to be accepted by their group and Hermione's unforgiving stance. All the while, Lavender worried that Hermione would change her mind and Ron would leave her. For the first time, she began to think that she really was a complete and utter bitch.

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Hermione was sitting on one of the sofas, still deep in thought when everyone started filtering into the common room. Ron plopped down next to her.

"Is she okay?" he asked. Hermione stared at him. He did care about Lavender. That much was certain.

"It's not you, Ron," Hermione said, smirking. "For once."

Ron punched her arm.

"Ow!" she said, rubbing her arm. "That hurt!"

"Wuss."

"I did a lot of arm exercises today. I'm really sore!"

Looking into Ron's eyes, Hermione smiled warmly. She did miss the times they had together now that he was attached to Lavender at the hip.

"She's had a bad day. I think it would help if you told her how you felt about her. She's up in the girls' dorms now, but maybe she'll come back down later."

"Thanks, Hermione. You know," Ron stared at his hands, "it really means a lot to me that you two are getting along now. She'd kill me for telling you this, but I think," he glanced over at her, "I think she really looks up to you."

Hermione gulped. She didn't think she could possibly feel any worse about her mistreatment of Lavender.

Ron looked down at his hands again. "She admires you a lot. I don't think you realize how much a friendship between you two would mean to her." A huge grin spread across his face. "And I'm glad that it's finally happening. It means a lot to me as well. I just want to see her happy."

Hermione felt like an arse, but she forced a smile to her face. "Good. Things will be better between us," she promised.

He smiled back at her, not breaking the eye contact. It had been a while since the two of them had been so close together since she had given him "the talk." Was Lavender right? Was he still in love with her?

Hermione swallowed.

"Ron?"

"Yeah?"

"If someone had given Lavender the Lustfarae instead of me, what would you have done?"

She could see the wheels turning in his head as he imagined the girl that he loved rubbing herself all over someone else. His eyes darkened and his whole body tensed as a murderous scowl appeared on his face.

"What kind of question is that Hermione? I'd kill the git. And I wouldn't give a shit as to what you, Harry, or even she wanted. He'd have every fucking bone in his body broken. The only reason I'm not going after Malfoy now is because Lav asked me not to. The whole thing is upsetting her."

"Sorry, Ron. I didn't mean to make you angry."

He got up to play wizarding chess with Harry, muttering to himself. Hermione smiled, Lavender really was a good influence on him. And his answer satisfied her. She felt secure in the fact that he really did love Lavender.

Chapter end notes:

Did I manage to fool anyone or was it obvious that it was Lavender? It's hard to tell sometimes.

Next up: How will Draco and Hermione interact without the influence of the potion?