No One Noticed

By Mireekian

Saturday, Six in the Morning

Various methods of torture popped up in Draco's mind when he thought about what, exactly, in excruciating detail, he was going to do to Blaise as soon as he got his hands on him.

Maybe he would lock him in a room with acromantulas.

Or, better yet, lock him in a room with all of his prior girlfriends. See if he survived that.

Or, he could bloody well lock him in a room with Granger while feeling miserable, and see if he got out of THAT alive. He'd feel even more miserable after she got through with him…

Draco was shaken out of his sleep by a persistent hand on his shoulder and the gentle swath of the cloth he vaguely registered set atop his forehead. Perhaps his mind was still on his dream (nightmare, more like, not that he'd ever admit that to Granger) when she woke him up, because he could still feel his mother's arms around a six-year-old version of himself, right after getting Scarlet Fever.

So he reached out.

His hand made contact.

He clutched.

And he pulled.

Then he heard it.

"Malfoy… what are you doing?"

She'd said it so innocently, so caringly, so lovingly… it burned his throat with his disgust. Or maybe that was just the blush creeping from his ears to his cheeks, to bloody well cover every inch of his body.

His mind raced feverishly with excuses, and the fact that her arm was softer than any pillow definitely would not suffice. He contemplated telling her that she reminded him of Crabbe's grandmother, with her flabby arms and such, but found he couldn't bring himself to say it.

"'M hot. Your arm… isn't."

"I can tell," she commented wryly, and Draco grit his teeth at the humour in her voice. "Your whole face is burning up."

Perhaps he was being paranoid, but he was quite certain she wasn't hinting only at the fact he had a fever.

Panicking, he thrust her arm back, frowning as he turned his head, filled with despair. Moving his arms that quickly had sent a jolt of white pain through his skull, and the action had been far more difficult than he'd anticipated.

He had to growl to clear his throat enough to talk clearly – his sinuses were completely clogged, and if his chest became any more congested he might begin to fret.

"Granger?"

"Hmm?"

He blinked twice and realized she'd moved away, and immediately his heart began to beat faster. Was she just going to leave him here to die–

No. He hadn't thought that. He wasn't going to die, of course not! It was just some silly cold. A flu, nothing more. A little affliction caused by Blaise's bloody girlfriend, who he swore he would hunt down and dismember if Granger ever told anyone about what had happened.

"Where are you going?"

Her movements looked blurred to his darkening eyes. He wondered if he was going insane. After spending so much time with the resident Gryffindor princess and brain, he supposed it was quite a large possibility.

Granger turned around and even through the haze on his vision he could see her smile brightly. "No where… I just have a secret formula for you. If you can get yourself up, you can have it pretty soon."

Instantly he scrunched his nose as he heard her moving around in their small attached kitchenette, which was hardly more than a cupboard, a sink, and a small oven and stove. Come to think of it, if he inhaled deeply, he could just catch the taste of burning wood in his mouth.

The smell was comforting, so he found himself ignoring Granger's request and sinking deeper into his comforter, trying also to ignore the shuddering tremors running through his hands.

"Malfoy? I thought I told you to sit up. You won't be able to drink it otherwise."

Draco wearily opened his eyes and saw her leaning over him with a marginally-annoyed pout, her wild hair tied on the back of her head in a messy bun. "Potion?" he asked, disgusted by the way his voice shook like a leaf. Merlin, he was sounding like Longbottom with all his stuttering. A mental image of Gryffindor's klutz sporting the trademark blond hair nearly had him puking.

"Not quite," Granger said, setting a mug on the side table. "But every time I'm feeling like absolute crap, I just make this. It's ten times better than any pepper-up potion, and even works for the flu. Here, sit up and take some."

Grimacing, Draco reluctantly did as he was told, tensing his stomach to help him swing his legs off the sofa, when… nothing happened. His body was not moving. His body wasn't supposed to not move.

He expertly hid his growing panic with a snide, "I'm not drinking some fetid, muggle remedy. Malfoy's never lower themselves to having to resort to muggle… experiments!"

Granger took offence to it, obviously. But this time she surprised him. This time she knelt down on her knees next to the sofa and stared hard into his eyes. He met them stubbornly, and for a moment he felt as though stuck in time, two equally powerful magical beings staring each other down.

Then her honey eyes narrowed and time continued around them.

"You can't," she said figuratively. It was the lack of emotion in her voice and the blunt, matter-of-fact way she said it that made Draco's blood boil. "You can't sit up by yourself. So instead of showing physical weakness, you resort to mental weakness by degrading yourself in the eyes of the public by degrading yourself. No one likes a bully, Draco."

Just the last time Draco was awake (minutes, hours…?) she had eaten up his insults like an oblivious child, and yet now, she was calling his bluff. It was this fact that put his anger on hold for surprise. "Where did you learn all that psycho-analysis, Granger – were your parents sent to the loony bin 'cause they went crazy for fixing too many teeth? Or were you sent there, you lousy Mu–"

"STOP!" she suddenly screamed, and Draco flinched from the sheer noise her vocal cords could pump out. He cringed into his comforter, staring at first with wide eyes at the raving lunatic.

Well, not exactly raving.

In fact the way she was looking at him – like he was a new guinea-pig for a crazy experiment – sent shivers down his spine. He'd seen Blaise's girlfriend with the same crazed glint in her eyes. Maybe he should introduce them, see who could blow themselves up first. At the moment, he really couldn't care less which one survived, for they were both equally to blame for the entire situation.

At least in his eyes they were.

Maybe neither of them would survive.

He vowed to get them to meet, and then he'd bring up the subject of extremely difficult, high-risk, could-cause-major-catastrophe-if-done-incorrectly-by-blumbering-Longbottoms-or-clumsy-muggleborn-bookworms… potions.

Then he'd move to America before the British apocalypse.

Oh, was Granger talking? He tried to focus his thoughts and when he found he'd fairly succeeded, he listened to her teacher-esque lecture.

"I've been researching your symptoms, because they're different from those affected by the flu in the Hospital Wing, and I think there's a good chance this isn't caused by some bug going around."

Draco dared a peek out of the blankets clutched over his head (gingerly, of course), and with his eyes urged her to continue.

"I think someone may have poisoned you with a hex at dinner. You seemed fine at the end of Arithmancy yesterday before dinner, but then you collapsed right after you left. If you ingested a spell, it's highly dangerous. My guess is that whoever did it to you played on the fact you were bound to insult someone grievously, and whenever that happened, you would be afflicted with a great headache, with each one progressively worse. It's been twelve hours since dinner – haven't slept yet – and in those, I'm guessing you've had about… how many major headaches?"

"Three, if you count the one after dinner," he supplied with a scowl. He shrugged the comforters off from around his head when Granger got up and began to pace across the hearth in front of him. Draco's eyes followed her lazily, intent on staring at something to distract his head from thinking. If he thought, he felt his headache would only get worse, and there was only so much he could take.

She was chewing on her bottom lip, an expression of utter contemplation on her face, and Draco decided to centre in on that. He was quite good at admiring lips… often he had to think of other girls' lips when Pansy came in for his own, just to make it bearable.

He wondered if it would make his father mad if he thought of Granger's from now on. She did have wonderful lips, after all. They were plump and red, probably from Granger worrying them so much. She would never need to wear lipstick to colour them, which would make it easier to kiss…

Then he vowed his father would never find out what he thought about when he snogged Pansy. Or who, for that matter. No, it would be his little secret that the best lips he'd ever laid eyes upon happened to belong to Granger.

Merlin, he was losing his mind.

Luckily she snapped him out of it before he could make any stupid, reputation-ruining comment. Or action.

"No, I don't think the first one counts for much of anything. But then, if you had one and… did you faint then?"

"Malfoy's don't faint, they lose consciousness," he sneered angrily, ignoring the way her eyes rolled exaggeratedly. Best way to take out almost being caught staring at a Mudblood's lips would be to take it out on her. "But no, I didn't. I would have preferred that, however."

"Well, it's safe to say that each one is getting progressively worse." She suddenly smiled brightly, far too cheerily. It made Draco sniff with disdain… and the fact his nose was running. Couldn't she have thought to reignite the fire? It was freezing… Why wasn't he in his own bed again? Oh yeah. He couldn't move. Right.

"If you get even three more fits, Malfoy, I'm pretty sure you might get a permanent infliction. Ever heard of epilepsy?"

He had, actually. As a result of inbreeding, one of his father's uncles had the disease. He was put out of misery early on after the diagnosis, but Draco had met him just before he died.

"So, what, because I insulted someone once upon a time, I'm now cursed to never speak a mean word again or I'll get retarded?" He swore foul enough to make Granger squeak.

"It won't be retardation, Malfoy, and that's not even the politically correct way of saying mentally challenged! And epilepsy isn't even that! Chances are, you'll be able to live out a normal life if you keep from insulting anyone."

"So I'm doomed," he said gravely, wanting to sink into the floor. "All because no one noticed some revenge-centered loser put a hex into my drink. I'm going to die alone…"

"Well, I wouldn't argue with that…"

"Shut up, Granger."

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A/N: Sorry for the long wait on this one, too. Now that school's started up again, updates will be lowered to once a week. But they'll be longer, I swear! And BTW, my neck's all healed (thanks Meggily and Silidons for your concern!!), but I am now suffering the affects of the mandatory fitness tests… curse you, P.E., CURSE YOU!