Disclaimer: The ownership of anything you recognize? Not me. The ownership of this plot? All me. JKR owns all things Harry Potter related, Brad Paisley still owns the title of this story, and the chapter has Limp Bizkit to thank for the title.

Chapter Twelve – Keep Rollin' Rollin' Rollin' Rollin'

It was a Saturday when Hermione stepped downstairs wrapped up in a robe to ward off the chill she was feeling. Having not slept well since Ginny had caught on to her sneaking into Malfoy's room at night the exhaustion had begun to take its toll on her body. The chills were the least of her problems. Well no, the fact that her hair had lost some of its wildness was the least of her problems, and probably the only good thing to come out of her being so tired. But if you added in the black circles under her eyes, how glazed her eyes were constantly, and how she had been losing weight because she was just too tired to be hungry – everyone was getting worried. But she still refused to take a draught for it.

"Oh, good. You're up. Some owls have just arrived for you kids." The young brunette looked up at the Weasley matron and then nodded. If she had her dates correct then it should be about time for their school letters and book lists to arrive. Picking up a piece of toast off of the large plate in the center of the table she chewed off a small section of the end while she took her own letter off the leg of one of the school's owls. While she opened it she passed the rest of the toast to the birds and let them take turns taking bites out of it as their payment for delivery. "Young lady you better eat more than that little bite of toast today."

With a small smile playing on her lips she took the other letters for her friends and for Malfoy and made her way upstairs to wake everyone and let them know that breakfast was almost ready. She would come back down later to get Malfoy's plate set up before bringing it to him. Even if she hadn't been taking very good care of herself lately, she had been taking excellent care of her patient. He was doing so well in fact, that she thought he may very well be on crutches in the next week or so.

She was already into the room she shared with Ginny when her best friend walked into the room behind her. "I heard Mrs. Weasley say something about owls?" She turned to look at the raven-haired man and nodded. She knew that he wasn't a great sleeper on the best of days, especially not since what had happened at the Ministry and losing his godfather. "What did they send this time?"

"Go get Ron and come back in here. Everyone has a letter." She didn't bother lowering her voice for the sleeping girl. She was about to get woken up anyway. As soon as the boy was gone she sat down on the bed beside her only best friend that was a female and shook her promptly. "Gin, wake up or I'm going to take the blanket off when Harry gets back in and show him what you wear to bed," she sang. The girl growled but woke up and dashed over to the dresser to grab better clothes before the boys could come back.

By the time the two boys had finally made it back into the bedroom and sat down on Hermione's bed both Ginny and Hermione were dressed for the day. And Ginny had even managed to fix up Hermione's hair so that it hung in a limp fishtail braid over her shoulder. "Alright. Now that everyone's here. We all got letters. Hogwarts letters, and booklists." She passed out each of the letters and then waited while everyone opened theirs.

Ron was the first to exclaim over his letter. "Bloody hell, I made prefect. Can you believe it?" He pulled the badge out of the envelope, his grin larger than anyone had ever seen it before. "Hermione did you get the other one?" The brunette could only nod before the blue-eyed man started jumping up and down and running around the room like a lunatic. You'd have thought he had done more than just made prefect by the way he was acting.

The other person in the room to exclaim over their letter was the bespectacled man sitting next to where the other man had vacated. "I made Quidditch Captain!" He was perhaps the most surprised out of everyone in the room that such an event had happened, but the other three's mouths gaped open just the same. Hermione would have thought that a seventh year would have been made Captain for the team, but apparently it was obvious to everyone that Harry was by far the best player on the team. Hopefully he would be able to handle the stress that she knew such a job would entail. Harry was used to being told what to do and doing it to the best of his abilities. He wasn't used to having to boss around an entire team. Or to be in charge of who made said team.

By the time Mrs. Weasley called them down for breakfast Ginny had already mentioned to her crush that she would be more than willing to help out with anything he needed as captain. And she also mentioned that she was planning on trying out for the team. Luckily for all of them, Ginny was good enough that she didn't have to worry about not making the cut. What they really needed to worry about was Ron. Playing against his own family he wasn't terribly bad – at least not compared to Hermione – but he had never seemed to work well under pressure. Not when it meant as much to him as getting a spot on the team did.

Rather than sitting at the table with her friends, Hermione filled up a plate with everything that had been placed at the table and took the plate and the last letter up to the boy who had been secluded from everyone. It was a full feeling letter so she had to wonder if he had received a badge also, whether it be one for Quidditch Captain or for prefect. Dragging her feet into the room because she didn't feel like bouncing, she walked inside and laughed when she saw the look of extreme concentration on his face. He had one leg resting atop a handful of pillows and he was bent forward as much as he could without hurting his ribs, trying to reach his ankle for what looked like an incredibly uncomfortable itch.

"Do you need some help?"

Draco Malfoy literally jumped into the air when Hermione spoke up. He glanced over at her, a small glare on his face which only caused her to laugh harder. "I don't need your help, Granger." His snarl was short lived as the itch came back in full force and he was forced to relent. "But I wouldn't mind it."

Knowing that it was the best she was going to get, Hermione pulled the lone chair closer to the bed and handed him his letter while she took to sticking a pencil down the cast on his leg to itch his ankle. When he had sat back in a relaxed stance but still hadn't opened the letter, Hermione gave him a look. "Get to it, Malfoy. What is in your letter?" Her gold flecked eyes traced his hands as he stuck a finger under the lip of the envelope and checked through its contents.

"Well would you look at that?" The blonde pulled the badge out of the envelope and let it fall to the bed. Hermione could tell by sight that the young man had indeed been made prefect like her and Ron. He didn't seem nearly as excited though. When his eyes met her own, the curiosity must have been evident in her eyes because he simply sighed and shrugged his shoulders. "It's a nice thought and all but what am I going to be able to do? It's not as if I can even move from this bed. And I'll be expected to patrol? The thought is laughable at best."

Hermione picked up the small pin, looking over the green background and the snake behind the large "P". Running her thumb over the metal she moved closer to the head of the bed, reaching out and pinning the small metal accessory to Malfoy's pajama shirt. "We'll have you moving around before you're expected to patrol. I'll make sure of it."

Draco didn't answer, simply looked away from her with a frown playing over his face. But she noticed that he didn't say that she couldn't do it either. And that gave her hope that she really could.

The day that they finally arranged for the four teens to go into Diagon Alley – auror assisted – Hermione walked into the bedroom with a giant grin on her face. Malfoy frowned the moment he saw it, knowing that it couldn't possibly mean anything good for him. "What's got you so happy? The Weasel finally get his head out of his arse and ask you out?" The brunette chuckled and shook her head, pulling a chair into the room. The chair had huge wheels on both sides instead of legs. He knew automatically that it must be some kind of muggle contraption, but for the life of him he couldn't understand why she had it.

"You're getting up today so we can go get our school supplies," she told him. She led the chair over to the edge of the bed and looked at him expectantly. "Well? Let's go!"

Gray eyes glared at her from underneath his brows. "How exactly do you expect me to get into that chair?" True that his ribs were pretty much better and he was able to move around a lot better, but his leg was still a mess and he was unable to move it the way anyone with joints would because of the plaster. He wasn't even sure that the chair was safe. It rolled, for Circe's sake. How did he know that it wasn't going to start rolling the second he tried to sit down?

"I've locked the wheels already. You just need to swing your legs down to the ground and then lift yourself to the chair. It's easy." Yeah. Super easy. For someone with two working legs. But Malfoy pushed through the anger and self-pity and dropped both of his legs down to the ground like she mentioned. The chair was a bit lower than the bed, but his arms had always been strong. He should theoretically be able lower himself onto the chair without a problem. Regardless of the fact that it had been a couple of months since he had worked out.

It wasn't impossible but it sure was a lot harder than he'd thought it would be. Unsure of how to make the chair roll he turned back to look at the brown-haired witch who was grinning at him like he'd just won the war for them. "Are you going to stand there like a dolt or are you going to tell me how to work this thing?"

Sticking her tongue out at the man Hermione shifted around the bed so that he had plenty of room. "Okay now you're going to use your own hands to wheel the chair out of the room and down the hall. Mrs. Weasley already turned the stairs into a ramp for you to wheel down. With the instructions in his mind Malfoy gripped the wheels and pushed, but they didn't move. Pulling them instead he was once again rewarded with: nothing. The chair wasn't moving. "Oh! Right, I locked the wheels. There are two levers by the wheels, push those both forward to unlock the wheels first."

Sighing that she hadn't instructed him to do that in the first place he did as he was told and then began rolling the chair. It was tricky trying to turn around and get out of the room, especially getting out of the door without banging his hands on the frame – which happened a number of times. The hallway was no better since it was only slightly wider than the wheelchair. But eventually he made it to where the stairs should have been, in their place a large two story ramp, The sight was daunting, but he pushed forth not wanting to be considered a baby for being too nervous to do it himself.

Breathing deeply he tried not to think of everything that could go wrong and then pushed forward, making sure to keep hold of the wheels so he could stop if need be. Good thing too, since halfway down the chair picked up speed and he felt like he was going to topple over before he even made it to the bottom. Gripping the wheels he slowed the chair down just as he hit the bottom floor, his heart racing. He sincerely hoped he didn't have to use this chair for very long. He wouldn't be able to do so without killing himself.

"Harder than it looks, isn't it?" Potter asked the boy as he walked into the room. He'd heard the sounds of wheels rolling but he hadn't quite believed Malfoy would be rolling himself. He figured the boy would feel that he was too special and needed to be wheeled everywhere. Surprised, the raven-haired male handed over potion that had been mixed up. They all knew that it would be easier to walk around if it wasn't known that Malfoy was the one in the wheelchair. "If you don't want to drink it we can always shove it down your throat, ferret." Green eyes flashed behind a pair of glasses so Malfoy put the vial to his lips and swallowed the repulsive concoction.

A/N: Sorry that this chapter is so short, guys. Truthfully I just wanted to see if anyone was still interested in the story. If you are then I will try and make sure the next chapter is longer.