Chapter 2 – The Lake Shore
Draco's palms were dampening as he sat in the Charms classroom. He didn't know what to think, or even how to think; what was going to happen to Hermione, and even more worrying: what would happen to Draco if that potion turned out to be illegal? The lesson had passed by without Draco having heard a word that Flitwick had uttered.
He raced down to lunch, walking as fast as his wobbly legs could carry him without looking too suspicious and sat with his cronies. Draco didn't take the slightest interest in the food spread out in front of him, instead he watched as Hermione walked in with Harry and Ron. The two boys were having a conversation to themselves, leaving Hermione to walk dazedly by herself, seemingly oblivious to anyone around her. She stared off into space, deep in thought, even as she sat down and plated up some food.
"Oi, you alright mate?" Blaise waved a hand in front of Draco's face.
"Oh – yeah I'm fine, just zoning out I guess," Draco lied to his best friend, but Blaise just seemed to shrug it off and dived into his lunch.
Draco pretended to enjoy his food, casually glancing over at the Gryffindor table to still see if Hermione was either alive or still looked normal. Nothing happened whilst Draco was sitting there and the Slytherins headed down to the greenhouses for their Herbology lesson, which Draco now remembered was with the Gryffindors.
They all assembled to listen to Professor Sprout's introduction to the sixth year and also their instructions on pruning the Venomous Tentacula. The class divided up five students per plant, and got to work. Draco wasn't exactly paying attention to the plant he was supposed to be snipping and was frequently a victim of its giant thorns. Hermione was at the far corner of the room, and almost seemed to be humming to herself while snipping the leaves of her plant, stealing glances at Draco every so often.
When the class left, Hermione caused her friends to stay behind when she clumsily spilled a pot containing a self-fertilizing shrub.
"Oops! I'll stay behind and clean it up, Professor," she giggled and looked at Draco.
Hermione did seem to be acting odd, even though Draco didn't know her very well and he decided that he peek at his potions book later to see if any potion fit the description of the tiny phial she drank. During his last lesson of the day, Defense against the Dark Arts, Draco grew antsy and was constantly looking at the time; he swore five minutes had gone by and when he'd look, the hands of the clock didn't seem to move at all.
When he was finally in the Slytherin common room some time later, he began searching through his copy of Advanced Potion-Making, looking for orange-colored potions. Every single potion he'd found either didn't have the side-effects that Hermione was showing, or was to be taken when one was expecting to walk through black fire. Frustrated, he tossed his book back into his bag and heard a small clunking noise. He reached into the bag and pulled out the insect stuck in amber. He lost track of just how long he stared at it and before long, his mind wandered and he began to feel proud of whom he was; like no matter what anyone would tell him, he could have anything he wanted. His friends bustled into the common room breaking his trance-like state and Draco thrust the insect back into his bag before anyone else could see it.
"Can you believe we already have homework for Charms?" Pansy complained as she sat next to the fireplace.
"I know, what were we supposed to do again?" Draco didn't even know they were given homework, as his mind was far too preoccupied through every single class.
"One foot of parchment about nonverbal spells," Pansy rolled her eyes and made to start on the essay right away.
"I'm going to the library to get it done then, I'll catch you all later," Draco left the common room with leery eyes following him.
He exited the common room in a rush to research the mystery potion some more and knocked someone over nearly tripping over them in the process. He looked down to help the person up and saw that it was Hermione.
"Granger, what the hell are you doing in the dungeons?"
"I was waiting for you, of course," she smiled and helped herself off of the stone floor.
"What? Why were you waiting for me, and how do you know where the Slytherin common even is?"
"Oh, Harry has this map of Hogwarts that shows all of the places and all of the secret passage ways, too. Ha, I probably shouldn't have told you that," she smiled dreamily once again. Confused, he headed towards the library and she followed him like a lost puppy. She also joined him, uninvited, to a table near a window and followed him to the shelves and right back to the table once again.
"Whatcha studying?" she asked his as she rested her chin on her hands with her elbows on the table. She was leaned as far as she could go without raising her bottom off of her chair, and she was staring at him. For a moment, Draco stared back, his eyebrows furrowed with confusion.
"Why did you follow me here?" he asked, trying to figure out what that potion really did to her.
First, all she did she cock her head a little and smile a bit wider.
"I really like you, Draco."
Five potion books were now stacked on the table in front of them, but he didn't need to lift a page. It had to have been a love potion that Hermione swallowed, and Draco had never felt his stomach drop as far as it did at this moment.
Hermione gladly helped him with his Charms essay while she sat with him, and finished her own once she had the heart to peel her eyes off of his face. They were in the library through dinner and didn't leave until well after the sun had set over the grounds. When they left, she walked him down to the dungeon and nearly followed him into the common room when Draco had to stop her.
"What are you doing?" he had his arm held out blocking her entry.
"Coming with you," she said as if it were a normal everyday occurrence, "you don't want to spend time with me?" her eyes filled with tears before Draco could realize that he had to play along with her insanity for now.
"No, I do, I'm just really tired and we have classes tomorrow morning. Er, meet me in by the lake around four o'clock tomorrow okay? We'll spend some time together then," Draco had no idea what he was going to do with Hermione in the middle of the day when his friends would probably be expecting to hang out with him, but he could find no other way out.
"Oh, okay. Well, goodnight Draco," she then hugged him tightly, and all he could do was stand there awkwardly within her arms.
"Night," he said quietly as she walked away with an extra bounce in her step. He turned around and entered the common, thoroughly shaken up and with no idea what he was going to do about her.
The following morning, Draco went through his classes just as he did the day before, but one thing that changed. Instead of trying to see if Hermione was okay, he was trying to avoid her as much as possible and he was forever hopeful that his friends would never find out about the potion she had taken by accident. He struggled to keep a calm façade around them while trying to think of ways to fix it.
After lunch, he went to History of Magic and regretfully glanced at the clock. It was 3:45, and he would soon have to endure sitting by the lake with Hermione much too soon. He got lucky when his cronies decided to make their way down to the common room to do homework. Draco walked down to the shore of the lake constantly checking over his shoulder to see if anyone was around, but to his relief, the grounds were completely deserted. Hermione was lounging beneath a nearby tree with an open book in her lap, and Draco walked up to her casually while trying to think of what to say.
"Hey," he took her attention off of the book and she was on her feet in a heartbeat. He half-smirked and didn't look directly into her eyes, "Listen, er, what do you think is going on betwee-"
Before he could finish his question, she had flung her arms around his neck and kissed him square on the mouth. Draco blinked from the sudden impact of her body, but his eyes popped back open when he realized what was happening. Hermione's body seemed to melt against his as her lips remained glued to his. Draco pushed her off as gently as he could and looked into her eyes as she gazed back at him with furrowed brow.
"What's wrong dear?" she asked him, backing away about an inch or two.
Draco couldn't remember what he was going to tell her, and was having trouble trying to explain why he had just denied her kiss.
"I…Uh, well, I don't really know how to explain it, you see," he stammered, fighting the urge to just tell her about the potion mix-up in class the previous day.
"Oh god! You don't want to be with me do you?" she backed away even further looking as though she had just heard that her whole family was dead.
"No, no that's not it. I just don't know what this is, you know, between us." He moved forward cautiously, trying to calm her down.
"Well…You're with me aren't you? Like a boyfriend?" Her chestnut brown eyes were pleading with his and until he could find a way to make her better, he saw no other option.
"If that's what you want, then yes," Draco felt defeated and she hugged him once again, nuzzling her head on his shoulder and sighing with content. "I think we should keep this quiet for the time being though, like our own little secret, okay? Don't tell your friends, I won't tell mine, and we'll set up times to meet up away from everybody else."
Hermione got off of his shoulder and, still embracing him, looked at his face with a smile.
"I'll do anything as long as I can be with you, Draco," she rested her head once more on his shoulder.
'I was afraid of that,' Draco thought to himself.
The week seemed to drag on as Draco was the busiest and most stressed out that he'd ever been at school, even more so than studying for last year's O.W.L.s. He was trying to juggle his classes, homework, friends, and his secret, unplanned relationship with Hermione. He was also exhausted; having to deal with these things took up most of his day, and trying to find the correct antidote for Hermione kept him up late most nights. There were a few pages of his Advanced Potion-Making book with the corners folded down, but he wanted to try as many as possible.
It was finally Friday night, and Draco was spending the evening with Hermione in a secluded corner of the library, flipping through as many potions books as the table could hold. A few of the antidotes he had already found were repeated in a few books, one only worked on males, and there was one fact that had greatly unsettled him. He was looking through one of the last few books when the page read: Most love potions contain similar ingredients such as Ashwinder Eggs and Moonstone, which both enhance a potion as is stored for long periods of time, and the difference of love potions comes from the order in which one adds the ingredients as well as the amount one would put in.
Draco reread this sentence over and over again until the only word that his mind was wrapped around was 'enhance'.
"Granger?"
"I'm your girlfriend, Draco, you really can call me by my first name," she said looking up from her essay.
"Sorry, er, Hermione… Do you know if love potions can strengthen over time?"
"Oh yes, and quite quickly, too," she said with her familiar tone intelligence, "why do you ask?"
"Oh, just curious is all," Draco felt numb, and he began shutting all of the books he had taken off of the shelves and got up to put them back. Once back at the table, he distractedly started on his Astronomy homework, and noticed that Hermione had stopped writing. Feeling her gaze burning the crown of his head, Draco waited for her to say something, but nothing came out. He looked up at her and she was resting her chin on her hands again, seeming to be completely content with staring at him.
"What?" Draco asked, trying not to sounds rude.
"Nothing, I just like looking at you; you're quite handsome you know."
This was going to take a lot of getting used to, and it was little compliments like these that made Draco so keen on finding an antidote as quickly as possible.