A vindictive, cunning voice judged Hermione while she was in the shower a couple of days later.
You're neither sorry nor disappointed that Malfoy didn't turn back into his normal self.
Hermione twisted the shower faucet until water stopped running down her person.
That's not true! It's a shame that the potion didn't work, she hissed back inwardly. But she couldn't lie to herself really – while she was truly sorry that the potion was null and void, she couldn't help but elated at the fact that that meant that while the Potioners worked on another cure, she would have more time with Malfoy.
Her inner Gryffindor refused to have this though, and so for the past few days Hermione kept sending letters to both Harry and Ron and the Potioners, pestering them to come up with another cure as soon as possible. The Potioners replied to her with hasty scribbles of apologies at the earlier failure and that Hermione should be expecting another cure in a few days.
Well I should be, Hermione thought. Malfoy had been on edge lately since the potion-that-did-not-work incident, more so than usual, that she wondered if Malfoy's tail could get any straighter and more rod-like and just break at how much tension it was giving out.
Walking to the vanity and wiping her entire body, she drew a cartoon cat on the fogged-up mirror before smiling at it and slipping into her lacy red knickers. She wrapped her towel around her, realizing that she had left her make-up bag outside and went to go get it. She bodily pushed the door behind her as she got back to the vanity, and tore her towel off her and began wiping her hair and face properly with it, clad only in her knickers.
She was just about drying her chest area when the bathroom door began opening slowly, emitting a creaking sound. She froze, watching the door as it became wider and wider, inch by inch.
Was it a ghost?
No.
A white furry body promenaded into the bathroom, seemingly intent on going somewhere, before noticing a pair of legs.
Its white head moved upwards and grey eyes locked with Hermione's brown eyes and they both stared for a few moments.
And then, albeit extremely late, realization set in.
"OH MY GOD, MALFOY!" Hermione screeched, the decibel of her voice increasing by tenfold as she scrambled to cover her topless half and – whole body really – with the towel as quickly (and as clumsily as her shocked-self could muster) as possible.
In her mortification and after turning into the shade of a telephone box, hair all over her face, she turned an accusing glare at Malfoy who was still in the same spot.
"Malfoy!"she said, scandalized. She was about to yell and say something like "Don't you ever knock?" or "Why didn't you say something?" or "Next time, make your presence known so I have time to react!" but she found that his current state, unable to speak and make obvious noises, would trump all her accusations.
Instead of sending her an apologetic look (hah, as if), or leaving, Malfoy just waltzed towards the litter box and climbed on top of it. Hermione watched him, but after a few seconds of watching Malfoy stare at his litter box, he turned his head towards her.
His eyes were narrowed and full of vexation, clearly communicating a "Do you mind?"
Hermione sputtered, and huffed, and puffed before storming out of the bathroom.
Git, git, git, git, git, git! She paced back and forth at the space in front of her bed, and bit her nails.
"I can't believe he actually walked in on me like that, practically naked!" she muttered under her breath. "I hope he didn't see anything."
Oh well, even if he did, at least thank Merlin for the fact that I was wearing one of my better knickers.
Suddenly satisfied and feeling not-so-appalled anymore, she relaxed.
And then she frowned.
Wait, why does that matter?
She was about to go through a full-blown analysis of why her current knickers were better than anything Malfoy could have possibly walked in on and why she cared about what Malfoy thought about her knickers … but she got distracted by the bathroom door creaking open a little bit and out stepped Malfoy, walking almost-sluggishly towards the bedroom exit. Before he disappeared though, he sent Hermione a look.
And Hermione thought that it reminded her of human Malfoy's usual smirk.
Bastard.
Hermione went to work turning beet red every five minutes at the recollection.
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It was a Thursday night that had Hermione feeling like she really ought to get a cat after Malfoy turns back into his human form. She imagined that as soon as Malfoy wants out of her life as soon as he gets cured, she would be back to her quiet, dainty flat with no cat and that would be quite depressing.
They had lasagne for dinner, and Malfoy had managed to get cheese and sauce all over his snout and still left traces of them on his snow-white fur no matter how many times he tried to lick it off.
It made quite a disturbing picture, Hermione thought; it was as if Malfoy was feasting on blood. She lifted Malfoy and brought him to the bathroom where she filled the bathtub with a sufficient amount of warm water to wash Malfoy's snout with – and decided to just give him a bath while she was at it.
The sight of a nasty-looking, extremely grumpy Malfoy soaked with water didn't stop Hermione from laughing out loud at the appeal of it all.
"Don't look at me like that, Malfoy," Hermione teased, "Didn't your Pureblood etiquette lessons teach you to not make such a mess during dinner?"
She had also opted for the blow-dryer instead of a normal Drying charm to use on Malfoy, just for the heck of it. The outcome was a much puffier and shinier Malfoy, but Malfoy seemed content to have Hermione to card her fingers through his fur while having warm air directed at him.
Dismissing him before his usual telly time, she decided to skip her own and sat cross-legged on her bed to continue a small project that she had been doing. She was arranging pictures of her, Harry and Ron and everybody else that mattered in her life into a huge, bulky photo album.
She had enchanted a Muggle camera to be able to snap pictures during Hogwarts and had collected a truckload of them, and it was a shame to just leave them lying about, forgotten.
Deciding on which photo made her hair look less bushy, she saw Malfoy come in from the corner of her eye.
She turned to him, "What's the matter? Did the telly go off?"
Instead of stopping, Malfoy just made his way towards the bed while Hermione listened carefully for any sounds coming from the living room. The telly was on, judging from the sounds of explosions and conversations coming from the general direction of it, but Malfoy clearly wasn't interested in what they were showing.
"Not your cup of tea, huh?" Hermione said to him, as he watched from the floor, tail swishing about.
He jumped and landed on the bed, nosing at the stacks of glossy, unmoving pictures and the big photo album that rested on Hermione's lap.
"Muggle pictures," Hermione informed him, "They don't move like the magical ones but I think they're as lovely. Come here, I'll show you some of my pictures."
Malfoy moved after a while and positioned himself next to Hermione, his front paws on her lap as his head shot out to look at the album curiously.
She flipped the album to the very first page, and described the picture of her choice.
"Well, that's me as a baby," she said, sighing, "I know, I know. Not really a photogenic one. And then that's me when I got my first Hogwarts letter – but you're right though, I did have beaver-like teeth, ugh. Thank Merlin I got that fixed."
Malfoy just peered at every single photo, not moving from his position.
"And that's the three of us," Hermione pointed at the picture of The Golden Trio, all holding hands and grinning happily, "On Graduation Day."
She moved to the other stacks of pictures and began to leaf through them, until she landed on a picture of Ron and herself exchanging a kiss.
"Ugh, God," she laughed, and showed it to Malfoy, "That was just after Graduation, when we were both still dating. Better not put that in there." Malfoy looked almost positively sick as he looked at the photo but thankfully Hermione tossed it onto another stack.
"Oh, hey, you're in this picture," Hermione grinned, showing Malfoy an individual picture of her smiling brightly in Hogwarts' courtyard, and pointed at Malfoy who was standing with his friends not far behind, sneering at her, "You were looking at me like you normally did, sneer on as usual."
"Let's put that in," she decided, and started to put glue at the back of the picture and positioning it in the album before pressing on it with her palm.
Malfoy continued to watch her as she put individual pictures of Harry and of Ron inside her album, both quiet with the occasional explanation and sound of protest from Hermione at bad pictures.
"Oh my, Ron was completely sloshed during this," Hermione laughed as she studied a picture of The Golden Trio again, Harry with his eyes shut and Ron almost falling over and with a sober Hermione in the middle. "You know, we should take a picture one day, all four of us. Since you're practically part of the group now -"
A loud tap on her window broke into the conversation.
It was a large, barn owl, a Ministry's owl and it continued to tap until Hermione got off the bed.
"Hold on, hold on," she said irritably, "Ministry owls have no patience."
Hermione opened her window and in flew the giant bird, a small package attached to its leg. She freed the owl from the package and ripped off the letter stuck to it.
"Owl treats are there," she said to the owl, absently pointing towards the jar of owl treats.
Dear Miss Granger,
Enclosed in this package is the cure for Mister Malfoy. Apologies for the delay. Procedures are as before.
Yours sincerely,
Matthias Hopkins
Ministry Official No. 21839
Ministry of Magic,
Department of Potions Research
Hermione almost turned to Malfoy with a pang of regret before felt the owl's great wings brush against her head.
She looked at it as it finished eating a lot of owl treats than most owls do, as it turned a watchful eye on Malfoy. Hermione, too, looked at Malfoy and found that he was watching the owl mischievously, his tail making a giant 'S' in the air.
"No, Malfoy, you can't attack it, or kill it," Hermione scolded, "It's a Ministry owl. You'll get us all into trouble."
Luckily, before Malfoy could utilize his claws and end the owl's life, the owl decided to fly out of the window and disappear into the night.
"Well, Malfoy," Hermione said, smiling, "Looks like you got another cure."
This time, it was a burgundy-coloured liquid.
Hermione injected it into the folds of loose skin around Malfoy's neck as she did before and they both went to bed.
Fingers crossed.
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Something was amiss.
Hermione's eyes opened blearily and looked at the time. It was an hour before she would have to wake up for work, and she had no idea why she woke up that early.
She sensed that Malfoy was not sleeping behind her as he usually did. Instead she was alone, in a cold bed.
She sat in bed and looked around.
"Malfoy?" she called, with a pang of sadness in her chest. Maybe Malfoy had turned back into his human self sometime during the night and decided to bolt before he was forced to deal with the awkwardness.
Hermione sighed and got out of bed. Oh, well.
She stretched leisurely, trying to just get on with it and not think about how sad she felt all of a sudden … and then she saw it.
Next to her bed.
Some sort of gloopy, sticky, translucent grey pool of liquid on the floor.
"What is that?" she stared at it before walking towards it, and gasped as she saw it trailing out of her bedroom.
Heart hammering wildly all of a sudden, she began to follow the trail.
"Malfoy?" she called out, voice wavering out of sheer worry. "Malfoy!"
She waited for the great white cat to come prancing towards her, but he didn't. She took a deep breath and followed the trail of grey liquid, and then her heart literally sank into her stomach as she saw that another colour joined the trail, a maroon, deep red kind of – blood.
"Malfoy," she called out, feeling like she wanted to cry all of a sudden as she followed the trail still.
She stopped in her tracks.
The trail had stopped somewhere near one of her bookshelves and she looked around in panic. She quickly scanned the entire area, looking at the sofa, in the other bathroom, in the kitchen – no sign of Malfoy –
And then she caught sight of a familiar white body, lying limply on the floor just right next to the balcony.
"Malfoy!" she cried out before running towards him, sinking onto her knees.
Malfoy's eyes were shut, and he was cold – with dried blood around his snout. He was breathing, but very shallowly and he was shivering.
"Oh my God, what happened?" she sobbed, heart beating uncontrollably as she tears began to flow freely down her cheeks.
Malfoy was trembling almost deliriously then, and something snapped in Hermione. She immediately got onto her feet and grabbed a box and filled it with comfortable cloth. Then, she cast a Lightening Charm on Malfoy before carefully levitating him into the box – and with not a moment to spare, she Apparated.
In St. Mungo's, after much hysterics and calls for action from Hermione, the Healers immediately took charge of Malfoy and Hermione had quickly explained about the cure she had given to him last night.
The Potioners were summoned immediately, and the three of them disappeared into a room along with the box that held Malfoy, along with a Healer.
Alone and confused and scared to death, Hermione sent a Patronus to Harry and Ron, notifying them of what had happened. She had also sent another Patronus to her boss at the Ministry.
They immediately came by and waited patiently with Hermione outside of the door that held a sick and possibly dying Malfoy.
After possibly two hours of waiting, of pacing and of nearly bursting out into tears, the door opened.
"Well?" Hermione rushed towards the Healer, who came out of the ward with the three Potioners.
Harry and Ron stood behind her, looking as pale and worried as Hermione did.
"Well, nothing to be worried about," the Healer, a lady, said, "We almost lost him for a moment back there."
Hermione bit back a sob as she bit her lip, Harry and Ron exclaiming with a "WHAT?!" behind her.
"But he is stable now," she continued, "His breathing and temperature are back to normal, and he is in deep sleep as of now."
"What happened actually?" Harry interrupted.
"It was the Potion. It was supposed to be the perfect mix for the cure but the spell that hit Mister Malfoy in the beginning had been infused with Dark Magic, as we are all aware. However, as soon as the Potion began to flow in his system, it had somehow begun to battle with the Dark Magic that is also in his system. In the midst of that, his body system began to become very unstable.
Hence the grey discharge along with blood. Unfortunately though, the Potion did not work, again and the Dark Magic currently imbued in his system overrode any changes the body might have tried to make. In fact, it made it worse, just before you came in here."
Hermione was suddenly angry.
How incompetent can these people get! That cure almost killed Malfoy, for fuck's sake, how can they just stand there calmly –
Harry's hand tightened around her shoulder and he shook his head at her, as if knowing what she was thinking and what she was about to do. She nodded at him and took a few calming breaths before addressing the Healer and Potioners again.
"So what now?" she asked.
"Now, we continue researching," one of the Potioners said, "It is the only thing we can do now. We will also try to get the other Aurors to dig out information from Umbridge, regarding the elements that she used to create the spell in the first place. We believe that she is our only hope in curing Mister Malfoy at this point. We have dealt with a lot of Transfiguration spells gone wrong, as well as ones that are infused with Dark Magic, but never before had the cures malfunctioned like this before."
"I see," Hermione answered stiffly.
"We have to keep Mister Malfoy here for a week," the Healer said to Hermione, "For observation purposes, just in case. We have extracted all traces of the Potion from his body, but we can never be too sure. We shall keep him in here for the moment."
Hermione's heart broke at that, but she nodded mutely.
"Can I see him?" Hermione said in a small voice.
"Of course," the Healer nodded and led her to the door, before opening it for Hermione.
Hermione almost forgot to say thanks as her eyes landed on the still-limp body, lying in the middle of something that looked like a Muggle incubator.
She walked towards him and watched as his body rose and fell with each breath and Hermione felt at least a little bit thankful that he was now breathing normally.
"I'm so sorry, Malfoy," she whispered to the sleeping cat, "I am so, so sorry."
Hermione allowed herself to shed tears of worry and tears of relief before calming herself down enough, just in time for Harry and Ron to burst in through the doors, watching cat-Malfoy sorrowfully.
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Hermione had been watching the ceiling for quite some time now.
In the midst of darkness and silence, the only thing she could hear was her own sighs and the occasional muted sounds of cars passing by on the streets down below.
All of a sudden, her heart clenched painfully.
She shut her eyes and turned to her side, forcing herself to get some sleep.
I miss him.
TBC!
Read and review, please! Heehee.