Feeling Faint: Chapter 3

"Draco" echoed over and over again in his head. The world was still black, and he groggily noted that the feeling of nausea had not quite subsided.

"Draco"

"Draco" He groaned wearily in response.

"Draco"

Shut up, he told the echoing voice in his head. The voice would not leave him alone. Would not let him sleep.

"Draco"

But, while the echoing was annoying, it was soft and feminine and it did make him feel comfortable...

"Draco"

He hummed contentedly, deciding to stop fighting it. It was not so bad. In fact, it was growing to quite like it.

"D-Draco?" And then the voice was real. Coming from outside his head. And he inhaled sharply when he remembered who it belonged to. Both voices, the real and the echoing one in his head, belonged to the same person.

His eyes fluttered open, and Hermione Granger was peering down at him, her lips parted nervously. He was stunned as it all came rushing back to him. Katie Bell. The bathroom. Panic attack. Granger. Yelling. More panic attack. Fainting.

Faint-ing. He had just fainted in front of Granger. Fuck. How humiliating. Blood flooded his face in embarrassment.

"Draco. Are you alright?" she asked evenly. "Do... Do you need me to take you to the hospital wing?" He did not even entertain answering her. Instead he spat out the only question that had been floating around in his head.

"Why are you calling me that?" He had meant it to come out viciously, but it came out as more of a strangled gurgle. Not as intimidating as he had hoped.

"What?"

He tried again, "Why are you calling me Draco?" he snapped.

Hermione was taken aback. She didn't know why. She hadn't noticed she was doing it, to be honest.

"You fainted, I was just-"

"I didn't ask you what happened to me, I asked you why you called me by my first name"

"I—"

"Not so good with the words are you? Spit it out."

"I don't know."

"You don't know?" he sneered.

"That's right."

"Brightest witch of your age, my arse."

Hermione recognized a lost cause when she saw one. And she also hated admitting that she didn't know something. So, abruptly, she stood up, dumping him from her embrace. "You are despicable."

As Draco met the cold unforgiving bathroom floor, he realized that Granger had been holding him in her lap.

"Glad to see you're feeling better." she said flatly. "Conserve your energy once you get it back. You'll clearly need it for next time, because we are not done talking about this."

And with that, she turned on her heel and marched away.

Draco was dumbfounded. His mind was foggy, and he felt like piss. Anger rose from deep within him and he slammed his fist on the floor tiles.

"AAARGH" he yelped, clutching his now throbbing hand. His gaze went back to the bathroom entrance where she had just been, and he just stared at it, replayed everything. He wasn't even thinking about the Katie Bell incident that had started this whole thing. Just about the past couple minutes with Granger. Nothing made sense, and everything made sense.

That filthy fucking mudblood had had her hands on me— She caught me when I fell — She was touching me? I could vomit up everything I've eaten the past month at the thought of her vile hands anywhere near me — Remember when she was angry and beautiful before I fainted? — What the? SHUT UP — She stayed with me when I was passed out — That bitch should have never followed me in the first place… Nosy, interrogative freak, Granger is — "Draco"…

Draco was not used to voices in his head. He was not used to them at all. And worst of all, a tender, warm feeling had crept into his ribcage and nestled itself there beneath his heartbeat, and it would not go away, which frustrated him beyond belief. He couldn't take it anymore. He wiped his face with his sleeve and swallowed his nausea. Getting up on shaky legs, he willed them to move steadily, and proceeded out of the bathroom and down to the dungeons, not stopping until he'd reached his dormitory. He ripped off his sweat-soaked school uniform, remaining in only his pants, and he flopped down with a huff on his bed. He could justify skipping the two classes he had left in the day to recover from his episode.

But even as he drifted off into slumber, her voice continued to echo around inside his head.

"Draco"

He fought it at first. But, like before, he eventually resolved to let it stay. Only because it was comfortable.

And it was the best sleep he'd had in months.

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Hermione ignored the stares from other students when she emerged out of the boys bathroom. How could someone so beautiful he be so cruel, she thought. She walked back into the Great Hall to find Harry and Ron murmuring between themselves at the Gryffindor table, and she slid onto the same bench as Ron, where she'd been prior to going after Draco.

"That took a while. What'd you do to him, Hermione?" asked Ron.

"Yeah, did you ask him about Katie?" Harry chimed, anxious for information to support his case, no doubt.

"I didn't do anything to that loathsome, evil, good-for-nothing arse!" she snapped.

"Jeez, okay, okay it was just a question... Don't have to bite my bloody head off." Ron trailed off defensively,

She sighed, realizing her anger was misplaced, "I'm sorry. I really am. Nothing. He told me nothing. It- It was a waste of time." This last confession made her unexpectedly sad. She tucked a bit of her hair behind her ears and looked down at her hands. "I think I'm going to go to the library. I'll see you two in the common room later." she said, getting up.

Hermione tried to remember the last time she'd been this disappointed. It bothered her immensely that Draco Malfoy had had such an effect on her, and his question still haunted her, Why did you call me Draco?

And that was the thing. She really didn't know. Hermione Granger did not know why she called Malfoy by his first name. She had never called him Draco out loud before. Not to herself, not to Harry and Ron, and certainly not to Malfoy himself. Not even really in her head... She tried to imagine the situation reversed: if Draco called Harry, Harry instead of "Potter", or if he called Ron, "Ron" instead of some offensive mutation of "Weasley". Or... if he called her Hermione. She imagined that being so physically close to him today had allowed her to really see him more clearly, revealing that there was potential good in him. Bringing them just a little bit closer to being able to see eye-to-eye. Maybe a smirking Draco Malfoy would be able to call out to her one day, smiling "Hermione!" The daydream came to her surprisingly easily, and she caught herself smiling slightly as she relived it a couple of times.

But he doesn't call me Hermione. He calls me Granger.

She deflated and sighed, entering the library at last. She was still disappointed, and she reckoned she would continue to be.

But the daydream had brought about the return of the small bit of warmth radiating in her chest.

One day in the not-so-distant future, Hermione would smile back on this moment and think to herself, And, if I'm being honest: once it was there, it never really went out.

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If I do continue this, it will most likely evolve into a series of shorts like this that bounce around, yet connect, throughout the rest of the plot that JK set through the end of HBP, and then I'd ignore the epilogue and take things in my own direction after that. And if that happens, the tile will most likely change. But we'll see what happens!

Constructive reviews are appreciated! Thanks for reading. xoxo