Chapter 2

The heat smoldering in his throat increased tenfold when he shut the door.

What began as the pleasant, tingly aftertaste custom of firewhiskey grew quickly into an uncomfortable burning sensation in the pits of his stomach. As though he'd spent the past hour downing a bottle of kerosene instead of Ogden's Old, and had just swallowed a lit match.

"Ugh…" Without bothering to unpack, he sat down at the desk. Granger, it seemed, had not touched the furniture in the room. His face burned up underneath his palms.

There was a long mirror hung on the door. While his reflection was not covered in Fiendfyre (as he'd suspected), there were red, angry patches erupting over his skin. He began to shiver uncontrollably all over, even as he felt he could open his jaws and breathe flames.

Something was wrong, but he had no idea what. Panic constricted his breathing. He groped for his wand in his pants, and pointing it at himself, he choked out "Episkey."

Draco was no accomplished mediwizard, but the spell was weaker than expected. It cleared his throat of the invisible blisters that seemed to have erupted, but aggravated further the rashes on his skin. To make matters worse, his vision was blurring. Whether this was due to the strange burning or from the alcohol, he didn't know.

He swayed on his feet, and knocked a lamp over. It smashed to the ground, making a terribly loud noise.

"Malfoy? Are you ok-" Draco didn't give her a chance to finish. In one swift motion of surprising coordination, he jumped to his feet and yanked the door open. Granger had one hand in knocking position, the other gripping a wand. She was wearing a white camisole and sleeping shorts with her hair tied up. He couldn't help but notice how much prettier she looked without the bulky, black school robes.

Her eyes widened. "You're covered in blisters!"

"I realized," he said wryly.

She walked in, and he sat down in a chair, trying all the healing spells he knew. But he wasn't stupid. Muggle born or not, he admitted that she was probably the one witch who could and would help him in this situation.

"Do you think someone cursed you? What were-" She paused, and sniffed delicately. "You've been drinking!"

"Now's hardly the time," he snapped. "Know any spells? I've tried all the standard ones and Episkey and even the flame-freezing-"

"No wait. Were you drinking firewhiskey?" She pulled her wand out.

"Yeah, why?"

"My guess is that it was expired. You've got Whiskeyburn."

"Whiskeyburn?" What? "I thought that was a myth." The only time he ever heard of that was in pop songs, when witches and wizards sang about shagging, dancing, and drinking so hard they got "burned."

"It's not," Granger said curtly, rolling her sleeves up and indicating for Draco to take off his jacket. "It's what happens when the liquor is bottled improperly. It's all quite complicated." Here she shot Draco a look heavily implying that he wouldn't understand. He resented that, but he bit back retorts. He wasn't going to sentence himself to a night with Madame Pomfrey's suspicious questions by pissing off the one person who could help him.

"Most bartenders can easily tell when the whiskey is bad. I can't believe that any sane person would sell this stuff to you." A sane person, maybe not, but a Confunded one?

Of course, Wilkes would never bother to check why exactly a waitress was hauling out five bottles of firewhiskey. Draco thought back to the other boys and wondered how they were holding up. Blaise had probably cured his own burn by now, but the other three were not quite so high up on the intelligence scale.

Why did he hang around them anyway? The only one among them that he moderately respected and would consider a friend was Zabini. Even now, he wasn't feeling much sympathetic towards Wilkes, Nott, and Avery. Especially not Wilkes. Draco touched a red blister blossoming beautifully up his wrist and hoped Wilkes would burn in hell.

"I'm going to extract the alcohol. We need to get you to the bathroom." Granger made a motion as if to drag him by the arm, but he quickly jerked it out of her grip, coming to his senses.

"If I'm going to piss it out," He ignored her disapproving look at his language. "You can just cast the charm here. No need for you to go with me."

"You can't just urinate it out," she said. "The whiskey's got to come back out from the top."

"Like, I have to get sick?"

Here she shot a mischievous grin at his forehead. "Bit higher than that. Come on." She stood him on his feet, and he swayed a little, still a bit drunk.

Sighing, she wrapped an arm around his waist so she bore a bit more of his weight. Being a solid head taller, he balanced precariously over the Head Girl. The two made their way to the third door leading off from the common rooms.

"You're heavy."

"Shut up."

And then, like floodgates opening, the alcohol kicked in. Draco felt light as a feather, happy as can be. He wanted to know if Granger had secretly casted a Cheering spell on him. Everything faded a bit and even the burning felt more bearable.

When they reached the door, Granger had to hold her wand between her teeth to fumble with the door knob. Draco's hand eye coordination had deteriorated quite a bit by then, and he was seeing about three copies of everything swaying about.

He wanted to go to sleep. Maybe he was already asleep. Maybe nothing was real. The only thing that really grounded him to the moment was Granger's slim arm looped behind his waist, and her shoulder underneath his palm. It wasn't altogether an unpleasant feeling.

"Your hair smells nice," he told her.

She looked alarmed and then grinned slowly. "You are going to have so much fun tomorrow morning."

She walked them over to the rim of the bathtub, as he could no longer do so.

"Big tub," he told her.

"It certainly is," she replied in an amused tone that rather reminded him of the one his mother adopted around small children. "Tilt your head back."

He did as her voice and her hands around his temple urged. It wasn't a pleasant position to be in, and he felt his abs tighten to hold him in place.

Then she leaned over him and everything was okay because he could see cleavage.

"Ready? Immunada Extractum." She gave her wand a complex wave that he had trouble following, and tapped his head. The results were immediate.

First, his drunken stupor dissipated. Damn. Every blister ached, his throat hurt and he could feel everything. Draco gritted his teeth.

The pain faded though, and he to his shock, he watched the red marks disappear, receding back from the bottom up.

Granger watched him with a smug look, and indicated for him to lean back a bit more.

He glanced up at her, annoyed. "What's this for-" He was cut off as he felt the burning sensation shoot up into his scalp. For three seconds, he literally thought his hair was melting. But as soon as it came, it was gone. He reached a hand up into his hair, and found it soaked in a golden liquid vaguely reminiscent of firewhiskey.

"It came out of my hair?" He raised his eyes to Granger, who was already filling the tub with water.

"Your scalp. Come on, you've got to wash it out before all your precious blond hair fall out. No magic."

As he knelt, head in the tub, he saw why she'd had him leaning back. On the marble of the tub, there was a puddle of golden liquid, formed from drippings from his hair. The water washed it away, and he felt cold soap trickle down his neck.

"I can wash my own hair."

She raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure? Because if you miss a spot, you'll be waking up tomorrow with bald spots to go with the hangover."

Draco reflexively raised a hand to his hair, and the motion didn't go unnoticed by Granger. She laughed and pushed, perhaps with a bit more force than necessary, his head back into the water.

As she lathered and worked the soap in, he asked, "Why are you helping me?" He knew that she was a goody-two-shoes Gryffindor, but this was a little too generous.

"Don't think you're getting this for free," she said, as she gave a particularly hard rub on his temple. "You're going to be doing my rounds for the next two weeks."

He snorted, but secretly he felt a bit guilty. He would never do double rounds, and they both knew this. She really was doing this as a favor to him. Maybe he really should put more effort into being Head Boy.

Or maybe…

Maybe this was her purpose all along! To make him feel bad and then subliminally manipulate him into being a better person! He narrowed his eyes at her, but didn't say anything. She thought he was stupid, but who was laughing now!

Malfoy was wearing an expression that would not be out of place on a maniac. Was he drunk again?

"I know-" he began, a characteristic sneer already forming on his lips. Hermione rolled her eyes and dunked his head in the water, rinsing out the soap. Sweet, sweet silence.

He came up sputtering and choking; she only felt a tiny bit bad. She began a second lather as he began to babble inanely about a conspiracy plan that she was hatching. Hermione was amused.

"Hey! What'd you-" Hermione dunked his head in a second time, after she'd made sure she'd allowed him to breath.

"That's-" This time, she cut him off by throwing a towel on his head and rubbing vigorously. He threw her off, and looked out with angry eyes from under the towel.

"I can dry my hair myself," he said.

She stretched and stood up. "Alright." As she made to walk out the bathroom, she felt a strong grip close over her wrist.

"Wait, where are you going?" He looked confusedly at his own hand, wrapped around her wrist.

Hermione froze for a second too. The Draco Malfoy standing before her with his blond hair dripping into his Quidditch T-shirt seemed like a totally different boy than the short, pale boy who had tormented her for six years straight.

"I'm going to sleep," she said, shaking her head slightly.

"Is that it?"

"Uh, yeah." She left him quickly.

Later on that night, in her room, she thought about how the pathetic, small boy hiding behind two golems of friends and desperate to please his parents changed. That person would never have been picked as Head Boy. But now…

While the intimidating cold face was still there, as well as a shared slice of his parents' prejudices, it seemed that he was all grown up. He was probably doing it to guarantee her help, but he didn't call her "Mudblood" once the entire night.

A/N: To everyone who reviewed: I love you. All 4 of you.