Hermione slept for a day and a half, only waking twice to go quickly to the toilet before collapsing on the bed and going to sleep again. Luckily for her, she was so exhausted, when Hermione was awake, she didn't have time to dwell and cry about Aj's death, or worry about Draco's state.

Madam Pomfrey turned up now and then, and Hermione was completely un aware of it. The witch made sure Hermione slept soundlessly, feeling so much pity for her.

"You poor thing." She'd mutter before leaving the room and returning later on.

Hermione woke at midday of what she thought was her third day back at Hogwarts. She couldn't be too sure, but when she got up, and walked around, getting rid of the tension and muscle ache she had developed, all the pain and memories came crashing back to her, like a large wave on the beach, with tremendous force.

Hermione fell to her knees clutching her stomach, no longer able to cry- she had run herself dry. She cradled herself, wishing that Draco was there to comfort her.

Ginny was shaken awake by Harry that morning, and looked around startled.

"Where am i?" she said slightly confused.

"Hogwarts." Harry said looking at her. "You bump your head?"

Ginny groaned. "No. I remember. I was just in another place…woops."

Harry nodded understanding. "Yeah…Anyway, time to get something into your system…I've been watching you" he paused and mentally slapped himself for how stalkerish that sounded- Ginny just blushed. "And I saw you aren't eating. So, if I must, I shall force feed you like a nine month old."

"Right…" Ginny said slowing taking that in. "And if I don't eat it?"

"You don't want to know." Harry said winking. Then he grew serious. "You wouldn't want to fade away to nothing by the time Hermione's ready to talk and-"

But Ron came running through the portrait hole, grinning.

"Ron?" Ginny asked, momentarily thinking her brother was on drugs.

"Dumbledore…he said Hermione's up and awake…" then his face fell. "But she's not seeing anyone."

"What?" Ginny said, falling off the couch and clumsily getting to her feet. "She's up? Where is she?"

"He won't say." Ron said frowning.

"I can guess." Ginny said.

"You'd be wrong." Ron said sneering. "This is a huge place- she could be anywhere!"

"Oh Ronald, excuse me, but wasn't it me who said she was here?" Ginny asked rising an eye brow and glaring at her brother.

Ron snorted and looked away. "Whatever Ginny. You don't know everything."

"No, I don't. But I know enough." Ginny said stubbornly then pushed past him roughly and left the common room.

Harry's shoulders slumped as he followed Ron out the room and down into the Great Hall. He sat next to Ginny, who was eating her food with force and not saying anything.

"It feels like it's another term." Harry said trying to make conversation. "Except its missing a few people."

"Yeah so true." Ron said tensely. "Only missing a few gits, Hermione, Slytherin scum…"

Ginny flew to her feet, her face in dawning comprehension. Her face broke out in a huge grin as she looked at Harry, her eyes telling a story he couldn't pick up on.

"That's it!" she squealed.

"Ginny wha-"

But Ginny grabbed Harry's hand, and ran from the hall.

Mrs. Weasley stopped them in the Entrance hall. "And just where are you going?" she asked eyeing them.

"I have an errand to run!" Ginny said almost shouting.

Mrs. Weasley looked at her strangely before stepping aside and letting Ginny run past.

"Ginny…where…where…are we…going?" Harry panted as they ran flat out down the grounds and down the road to Hogsmeade.

"St. Mongo's." Ginny replied swiftly then she stopped suddenly and raised her right arm and waited.

The purple bus appeared, and she raced on, accidentally leaving Harry to pay Stan. Once they were sitting, and Ginny had gathered both her breath and thoughts together, she told her plan to Harry.

"It's a long shot, but if we can wake Draco up, and bring him back here, he can make Hermione feel better, or at least help her to feel better." She said, in awe of her own mind and smiled triumphantly.

"That's a plan." Harry said thoughtfully, then frowned. "You have only one major flaw."

"What's that?" Ginny asked turning to look at him.

"Well, Malfoy. They cant wake him up… and he's a major part in this plan, or so it would seem." Harry said logically, sounding almost like Hermione.

Ginny sat in thought for a minute. Her mind was racing through the brief conversations she had had with Draco that weren't exchanging verbal insults and thought long and hard about his and Hermione's relationship.

The bus was at their destination.

"Ah, Ginny? We're here…" Harry said softly.

Ginny got up and walked off the bus with Harry closely behind. "Harry, I have a job for you." She said taking control.

He looked at her, one eye brow raised.

"Go and get the coldest water you can find." She said smiling as her plan came into form.

"What?" he said confused.

"Get the coldest, and the hottest water. GO!" she said when he didn't move.

"Are you sure?" he said. "Why don't we just ask the hospital…"

"No! Get on the Knight Bus and go to Antarctica, get the cold water there…and get the hot water somewhere else." She said thinking.

"Er ok."

Ginny hugged him before running up to the mirror and telling the Wotcher to let her in. Once inside, she ran up to Draco's room and asked the nurse to get her a chair and a mirror.

The woman looked at her strangely, and left to get what she requested.

Ginny let herself into Malfoy's room and looked at him.

"I don't trust you that much," she said looking at him, still un moving on the bed. "But I love Hermione like sister, and I will not let her perish this way. Not when I can do something about it!"

Ginny waited in the chair Hermione had indented. The nurse returned ten minutes before Harry did.

He walked in, carefully balancing the cups of hot and cold water he had collected. Harry looked strangely at the mirror and spare chair in the room.

Ginny asked him to set the water on the table and sit down.

"Ginny, what are you going to do?" Harry asked curiously.

"I'm going to look into his soul." Ginny said shaking slightly.

"What?" Harry asked rising his voice then lowering it so not to draw attention from the staff.

"I'm going to look into his soul." Ginny repeated. "I've read, in one of Hermione's books, of course, and it said that although someone can be unconscious and what not, their soul is not. With the right spell, I can talk to his soul, and wake him up- with luck." She explained.

"You're nuts!" Harry said though he was in awe of her courage.

Ginny only grinned and pulled out her wand. " anima" she said pointing her wand to Draco's heart and sitting next to him on the bed.

"Harry, pass me the mirror." Ginny said holding out her hand.

Harry, who was in a state of shock, picked up the pocket size mirror and gingerly gave it to Ginny.

She took it and held it tightly while waiting then she gently opened Draco's eyes, ignoring the scary and empty, deathly look.

Suddenly, a white figure was looking back at her through Draco's eyes. "Wake up Draco." Ginny said silently in her head. "Wake up for Hermione's sake."

The white figure, or as the book called it, a Shadow Of Life looked at Ginny. Ginny raised the mirror and reflected the face of Draco back at the Shadow.

To Harry, that looked odd, but then, this was odd! To Ginny, she knew what she was doing. The mirror was like a movie to the Shadow, reflecting all the memories that Draco had of Hermione. Ginny held the mirror there for three minutes before the "movie strip" (really, the memory strip) of Hermione ran out, and there was nothing there.

"Wake up Draco for Hermione!" Ginny said again in her mind. "Wake up you sleepy bastard." That wasn't really in the spell, but Ginny just felt like saying it.

"The two waters Harry!" Ginny said urgently.

Harry hurriedly got the two cups and stood by Ginny's side, waiting for further instructions.

"Poor a bit of the cold water in each eye." She said quietly. She knew it would kill his eyes later, but she didn't care at the moment. Once Harry had, she instructed the same amount to be done with the hot water.

"Now pour the rest of the cold water on his face, then the rest of the hot water." Ginny said and started to feel better.

Harry did as she said.

"Please Draco, wake up and save Hermione!" Ginny begged one last time before the train of thought was broken and she looked at Harry. "And now we wait."

"For how long?" Harry asked still holding the cups.

"Depends…hopefully not too long…" but just as she finished speaking, Draco's eyes closed and he opened them again, awake.

"My eyes hurt!" he said gruffly, rubbing them with the backs of his hands.

"Stop complaining." Ginny said crying with happiness.

"Where's Hermione?" Draco asked sitting bolt up right and looking around, seeing Harry and Ginny, but no Hermione.

Ginny and Harry explained the situation to Draco as quickly as possible. He looked stunned about Aj's death, but knew Hermione would be taking it a lot worse.

"When are we going back?" he asked, not caring that he had been asleep for almost a week, therefore his limbs were limited to movement.

"In about two hours." Ginny said thinking about the hospital.

At that moment, Ludavin burst in the room and saw Draco awake. She squealed with delight and told Draco that he was extremely lucky, and bottled him up with potions to restore his strength.

Draco explained that he needed to leave that day. Ludavin was hesitant, but once he showed he was fully recovered, she couldn't do anything to stop him. She said he could go once he had two more potions.

Ginny and Harry waited outside the room for him.

"Why the water?" Harry said, voicing the question that burned in his mind since Malfoy woke up.

"Well," Ginny explained. "Where he was, there was not temperature, or feeling. So by drowning his face in both hot and cold water, you brought his conscious mind back to our world, and the feeling back. By putting it in his eyes" she continued, "Its like, your drowning his soul back into his body…make some sense?"

Harry thought for a second then nodded. "Yeah, sort of."

Then Draco came out, and they walked out of the hospital, Draco walking slightly stiff.

Within minutes, they were walking up the grounds to Hogwarts, Draco slightly behind Ginny and Harry, his legs still sore and not following properly.

Hermione sat in her room. Though she felt a little better now, she still wasn't ready to talk to anyone, and only wanted to be alone. She knew the one person who could make her feel better, but he was a long way away, and wasn't coming to her aid any time soon.

Hermione was curled up on a chair, her back to the room door, staring at the sun setting when she heard the door open.

Thinking it was the matron, Hermione didn't stir. She had started crying again twenty minutes ago, and hadn't been able to stop herself. She was cradling her stomach, and occasionally rubbing her head, trying to calm down.

She didn't hear her visitor cough. When she didn't hear the matron fluffing the pillows and saying "Poor Dear," for the hundredth time, Hermione turned her head around slightly. But there was no one there.

Must be her head playing tricks on her.

She stood, needing to stretch her legs. She walked over to the window and looked out, the green silky bed sheet dragging on the ground behind her. Hermione hadn't left it alone, silence she had come.

She heard someone cough behind her, but again she thought it was just her mind.

"you know, I've never really liked it when the sun sets." An all too familiar voice said from behind her. Hermione's steady flow of tears increased as she heard the voice she was sure she was never going to hear again, at least, for a while.

She turned slowly around and saw the person she had imagined hugging her for the last three days, encased in the setting sun's light.

Draco smirked at her, holding his stiff arm with the other while he looked at her. "It always reminded me of blood." He continued gesturing to the sun.

Hermione's mouth ran dry as she looked at him, praying, hoping he was real.

She walked slowly towards him, ready to fall over crying if it was just a vision, tormenting her.

But it wasn't. She stood in front of Draco and gingerly reached out an arm and grabbed his hand. When hers didn't go through his, she collapsed into his arms sobbing and crying.

Ginny had warned Draco of this, and he sank slowly to the floor with Hermione cradled in his arms, letting her soak his shirt with her renewed tears and fears.

YAY!

DRACO's BACK! WOOP WOOP! EHEHEHHE

Hehhe, I like that spell I made up to awaken the unconscious. Hehehe.

I hope this chapter didn't make too many people cry…

In the next chapter, we find out who it was that cursed Draco and killed Aj…

Oooo wait and see!

HEHEHE YAY!

Aj.