"Couldn't you have tried Veritaserum?" Hermione asked Harry and Ron when they met after work on Friday.
"On Umbridge? Yes, repeatedly. But get this," Harry said, a grave expression on her face, "The old bag is actually resistant to it."
"What? How?" Hermione frowned as they browsed around the stores in Muggle London – which were now decorated with tinsels, holly and Christmas ornaments.
"Dunno," Ron shrugged, fiddling around with one of the psychotic-looking Santa Claus figures on display, "We've laced her tea, the pink ones, with Veritaserum every time we interrogate her. And it doesn't work! It doesn't fucking work at all!"
"Have you tried torturing her a little?" Hermione asked, eyes narrowing at the mental image of Umbridge giggling deliriously like she always did.
"We can't do that," Harry shook his head, "Would love to, but can't. Plus I have a feeling she might enjoy it."
Hermione sighed heavily, for two reasons. One was that she was very upset that there was no progress on Draco's cure. Two was that she couldn't find anything for Draco in this store. She had bought Harry's and Ron's Christmas presents already, both neatly wrapped with a pretty bow on top, lying innocently underneath her bed (she hadn't put up her Christmas tree yet). But so far nothing in here reminded her of Draco, or made her want to buy it for Draco.
With wrapping an arm around Harry and the other around Ron, they both walked out of the store.
"We're going to increase the dosage of Veritaserum," Harry said finally, "Until Umbridge spills. No one's ever needed that high of a dosage so we're still waiting for new batch to be ready."
"I see," Hermione nodded.
Just as they started looking for places to have dinner, Hermione caught sight of a music CD store on her left. She watched as a woman in her mid-twenties slipped a CD into the demo-player, grabbed the headphones and started bouncing her head and tapping her foot to the music she was currently listening to.
Hermione beamed.
"Wait here, boys," she said to them before sprinting into the store.
Harry and Ron both waited outside, talking about Quidditch again (Hermione surmised), their breathy laughs making white puffs of air appear due to the cold weather.
After almost twenty minutes, and after Ron's stomach started conversing with him about its wishes to digest some dinner rightaboutnow, Hermione emerged from the store looking entirely proud of herself, a black package decorated with snow-white bow at the top in her hands.
"What? Who's that for?" Ron pointed at it.
"Not you," Hermione said succinctly.
"So it's mine, then?" Harry asked, a hopeful expression on his face.
"No, I've already got you both presents. They're …" she stopped herself at the two too-interested-looking boys, "Somewhere. This one's for Draco."
"Oh," they both chorused.
"Yes. So that's my Christmas shopping done," Hermione smiled, "Nothing else to worry about now."
"What?" Ron squawked, "You mean you've finished buying presents for everybody?"
"Yes," she nodded, nose high in the air.
Ron groaned – he hated Christmas shopping. Not only did it leave a huge hole in his wallet, but it took too much effort, he said.
"And I'm pretty sure Harry's halfway done," Hermione looked at Harry, "After all, Christmas this year's at your place, right?"
Harry nodded, "Halfway. Got probably the other half left. I'll go look around tomorrow."
Ron groaned again.
"I suppose you haven't even started?" Hermione accused.
"That's not true!" He turned red, "I have … bought a few things … here and there."
"That's nice, Ronald," she teased, "Only a billion more people to go."
As Harry and Ron began to bicker about where to have dinner, Hermione glanced down at the black package in her hand, stroked the black wrapping paper and the white bow, all the while smiling fondly at it. She took out her wand, shrunk the package and placed it inside her bag.
Turning her attention the two still-arguing boys in front of her, she rolled her eyes and pushed herself into the middle, arms around them both.
"Let me decide where to have dinner, then," she said with an air of finality, and both boys just followed.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x. x.x.x.x.x.x.x. x.x.x.x.x.x.x. x.x.x.x.x.x.x. x.x.x.x.x.x.x. x.x.x.x.x.x.x. x.x.x.x.x.x.x. x.x.x.x.x.x.x.
It was the thousandth time Hermione sneezed that morning.
It was a Saturday and she decided to just decorate her entire flat. She hung Christmas socks all over, the wreath on her front door. Saving the best for last, she got the Christmas tree out of the storeroom and put it up, the Muggle way. Naturally, that would mean lots and lots of dust and broken decorations.
She mended them all but couldn't escape the dust that invaded her nostrils.
Despite the happy, calm vibe the Christmas music in the background was providing, it was the occasionally decorated with the sound of violent sneezing.
So there she was, standing on top of a chair while pulling out the tangled branches of her artificial tree. For many years, she tried to make her tree look like the ones they have in malls or the one that Hogwarts, but hers always ended up looking really messy and overdone.
In the midst of hanging a blue ornament, her wards began to shift and an almost-mute ring started to echo throughout the flat.
Hermione got down from the chair, and ran towards the door, swinging it open.
There were three familiar faces and three familiar-looking neon blue (ugh) uniforms. The Potioners. One of them was holding a cage.
"Good evening, Miss Granger," one of them greeted politely, "We've brought Mr Malfoy with us. We have already collected all the necessary samples and we have yet to await the missing ingredient that Umbridge has yet to tell us for the final cure. Until then, we're positive that Mr Malfoy will be much more comfortable here."
Hermione's heart lurched and her spirits soared as she watched the Potioner lowered the cage to the floor and flipped the trap door open.
And out stepped one gloriously white and regal paw, and the other followed before he stretched – half in half out.
But Hermione was having none of that. She quickly grabbed Draco and pulled him out of the cage, not having the patience to wait as he made his grand entrance to give him a big hug – or rather, a big squeeze. In fact, Hermione squeezed him so hard that Malfoy emitted an odd sort of sound – like a 'meep!' or … a 'heek!'
"I missed you, Draco!" she held him at an arm's length as she looked at him all over – pristine and clean, looking healthy and well like he did before the incident – and he was looking back at her with wide, grey eyes, as if traumatized. "I missed you a lot!"
"Well, that would be all, Miss Granger. We'll take our leave," all of them nodded, "Good bye."
"Bye, and thank you!" Hermione said, flashing them a bright smile before all of them Disapparated.
"Aww, Draco!" she squealed again, before crushing him to her again, the 'heek!' sound escaping from the general direction of Draco's mouth.
"Oh, I can't tell you how happy I am to see you, to have you back," she prattled on, holding him at an arm's length again, "It was really weird not having you around – and I was so, so, so worried, Draco, you have no idea."
She finally set him down and then released a huge sigh of relief.
"We'll have a nice dinner tonight," she announced, "But I have to finish setting up the Christmas tree first. You can go watch telly; I can switch it on for you, if you like."
However, Draco didn't start walking towards the living room area, she moved to where her half-finished Christmas tree was, and sat down next to the box of decorations.
"Oh, okay then," she shrugged and got up on her chair again with another box of decorations in her hand.
After she finished decorating the entire tree, with Draco sitting lazily nearby (and occasionally grooming), Hermione went to fetch an entire bag of presents.
Neatly stacking them up and positioning them to look like they were artfully arranged, she didn't tell Draco that the black package with the white bow was his. She smiled knowingly to herself before putting it underneath the tree.
"So that's it," Hermione let out a tired breath, hands on her hips, "I think we should light it up."
Draco woke up from his dozing state and his ears perked up as Hermione ducked behind the tree to flip the Christmas lights on.
Immediately, the Christmas tree was bedecked with chasing lights of blue, red, green and yellow.
Hermione's mouth hung open for a little bit in awe for she gave a tiny laugh, as excited as she was every time she lit up her Christmas tree.
"Well, that looks wonderful, doesn't it?" Hermione said before she sat cross-legged on the floor, watching her tree with fascination.
Draco moved to sit next to her, and Hermione's hand automatically started stroking his fur.
And there they both sat, watching the lights and enjoying both the Christmas music and the warm ambience.
Until Draco started licking his mouth purposefully in front of Hermione and tapping her lap with his paw.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x. x.x.x.x.x.x.x. x.x.x.x.x.x.x. x.x.x.x.x.x.x. x.x.x.x.x.x.x. x.x.x.x.x.x.x. x.x.x.x.x.x.x. x.x.x.x.x.x.x.
They fell back into their old routine with no difficulty at all with the lazy weekends and hearty dinners and warm bed.
So when a Ministry owl came with a brown package on the 21st of December, while Hermione was reading to Draco, she almost wanted to take out a gun and shoot it.
But the way Draco's head perked up and eyes looked longingly at the package, she knew she couldn't have done that to Draco.
She literally ripped the letter off the package, snarled the direction of the owl treat at the owl (who rolled its eyes at her), and scanned through the handwritten, stiff-sounding note.
Dear Ms Granger,
Enclosed in this package is the final cure for Mister Malfoy. Rest assured that this one will definitely work. It will, however, take a few days to take effect. Procedures are as before.
Yours sincerely,
Matthias Hopkins
Ministry Official No. 21839
Ministry of Magic,
Department of Potions Research
Hermione sighed and watched as the Ministry owl flew off, and a few seconds after, her eyes widened as another owl came whizzing in.
It was Pigwidgeon.
"Hello there, Pig," Hermione said and stroked its head before removing the letter from its leg and directing it to the owl treats. She tried her best to ignore the menacing look Draco was giving Pig from where he was perched on the table.
Hermione,
We are 100% sure that this cure will work. 100%. Finally got it out of Umbridge two days ago. Couldn't resist the high dosage of Veritaserum after all. This is the cure, and after this, Malfoy will be back to normal.
Will take a few days to work though.
Harry & Ron
Hermione turned to Draco who was eyeing Pig very interestedly.
"Well, Draco," she said, "This will definitely work."
After dinner, Draco sat patiently on the dining table as Hermione prepared the injection. This time the potion was pink in colour – reminiscent of Umbridge's favourite colour. Hermione visibly shuddered in disgust before smiling confidently at Draco's questioning look.
"If you're wondering," she answered, "It's because this spell was partially created by Umbridge. The only thing missing from the other cures was this special ingredient of hers. That's why it's pink. It's her favourite colour, if you remember from Hogwarts. Everything was pink – and … full of cats."
Hermione suddenly linked those two together – Umbridge was a lunatic who loved cats and the colour pink. Maybe those cats that she had at home were people, after all. She quickly grabbed a parchment, wrote her thoughts down and sent it off to Harry and Ron, asking them to check her all her cats, just to be safe.
After the potion was injected into Draco's system, they both went to watch some telly before climbing into bed.
Draco was resting on his paws on Hermione's chest, while she stroked his ear. Draco's eyes were shut in bliss.
"I really, really hope the Potion works this time, because …" she trailed off.
Draco's eyes opened to watch her.
"Because … because if it doesn't work, something bad might happen, again," she said, swallowing a lump in her throat.
Never been able to handle an animal dying, she lied to herself.
"I don't want you to die, Draco," she said, scratching the top of his head. Her eyes were glistening slightly and she sent him a watery smile.
She took a deep breath and shut her eyes, still stroking his fur until she lulled both of them to sleep.
TBC!
Read and review, hehe.
The last two chapters will be up at the same time as this one, so enjoy!