"Sorted Too Young"
Dumbledore tells Snape, "Sometimes, Snape, I think we sort them too young."
CHAPTER 15 – VERITABLY CONFUSED
Draco eased himself into the cooling bath. He almost called to her for his wand to discover she brilliantly left it by the bath for him. It was like the thought of everything. A little awkward left-handed flick and he charmed the water hot again. AAhhhhh…. He sunk to his chin in it. Dunking his head briefly, he commenced washing. This would completely be more enjoyable if he did not hurt so much. He really hoped that potion helped.
The heat seeped into the most paining muscles and joints and eased some of Draco's discomfort. His determination to enjoy the bath was valiant. He forcibly ignored his knee and hip and rib and shoulder… Ok, it was hard to ignore, but he tried real hard.
Hermione followed the potion recipe carefully and prepared a small breakfast for them both. She nibbled her breakfast while the potion simmered. Now and then she glanced to the bathroom. It was quiet. She had really expected him to be moaning and groaning. Malfoy usually was dramatic. Although lately he had been more stoic about everything. She hoped he was not drowning. Finished her breakfast and finished simmering the potion, she divided the brew into two small cups the size of shot glasses. One would sit till lunch to be taken cold. The other, she carried on a small tray with a little omelette and toast.
Draco semi-dozed, enough to be relaxed, but was aware enough not to drown, just barely. The door opened and Hermione entered. "Granger!"
"EEP! Malfoy!"
He covered his privates with his hands under the water, blushing and shocked that she barged in while he was naked in the bath. "What the hell! Don't you knock?"
Hermione averted her eyes, "Yes. And I did, twice! Then I warned you and counted to ten! You didn't answer. I thought you drowned!" The tray clattered loudly as she placed on the sink side. "Oh please, Draco. After living here for even a few days, I think I have seen more boys than you do in the boys locker during quiddich. Geez! You don't have anything I haven't seen." She was still very flushed with embarrassment despite her brash words. She kept turned away from him, but occasional slid just her eyes to him to peak.
Draco squirmed in her presence. His pains jumping to his awareness and making him grunt.
"Here is some food and the potion." She handed him the little hot cup without looking. "You should si-"
Draco snatched the cup and gulped it down in one swallow.
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Tried to say sip it slow and eat between sips." She hoped what he did was ok and understood that he must be in a great deal of pain.
"Granger… get out… please."
She stepped out after making sure his cane was in the bathroom, leaning beside his clothing. She waited outside the door in case he needed help. Inside she could hear him struggle to stand and move, the muffled attempts to smother his own noises that gave away how much ever movement hurt. She peaked through the crack she left in the door. He balanced awkwardly on his good leg to dry, a towel around his waist.
He fumbled with a t-shirt, sat on the toilet to fight his boxers then his pants on. He had to stop often and pant through the pain. He knew she was just outside the door, but he had had a taste of independence and loathed having to have lost it so soon. He nibbled some of the omelette on a piece of toast. The pain was already starting to subside. He sighed with great relief as a grin eased into his features and he smothered a giggle for no reason. He stood and the world tiled a little. He stumbled to the door forgetting to bring the cane at all.
The door to the bathing room opened and Draco leaned too far out. Hermione yelped in surprise as she caught him from falling. She struggled under his weight, "Draco… your cane."
"I feel great. I don't need it today."
She tried to chastise him, but he was clearly too drugged to care. They staggered together to the main room and the sofa where they fell together onto the sofa. He still held her while tangled there. "Draco, I need to get up."
"No you don't. I like when you are here. You are so smart and safe. I know you can be trusted." He almost slurred.
Hermione managed to at least wriggle into a more comfortable position where he was less likely to regret his actions morally or physically. Finally she managed to be sitting on the side of the sofa beside him as he lay stretched out. His arms held her around the waist.
"Has anyone ever told you how beautiful you are? I noticed at the dance."
She wondered what dance he referred to and concluded he was delirious.
"You were the smartest girl, but I wasn't allowed to like you. Father… I… he made sure I was not allowed and that I would not forget. But I could like you in my head. He was not good at taking thoughts from me with dark magic, like the Dark Lord. And then at the dance… I am glad you went with Krum. He treated you good. You were so pretty, I couldn't stop looking. Pansy almost noticed and left me for some other guy for the night."
She swallowed at the words just spilling unrestrained from him.
"You didn't really know how to dance. I want to teach you one day. Then you left. Weasley was such an ass I wanted to punch him. You cried on the steps and I made sure no one disturbed you. That was as close as I was allowed to get. No gentleman should make a girl cry. I'm so sorry I made you cry too."
Hermione vowed to look up the ingredients to this potion, because this much confession out of a stoic man like Draco was somewhat disturbing.
He reached up and brushed her hair from her face. "I don't think you are a mudblood. You are too amazing a witch to be that, but I still have to prove it to the world. I will… one day… I will prove how to tell in the blood. Maybe those muggle blood doctors can help…"
"Draco, I think you should…" He pulled her closer to him and her breath caught.
"Don't worry. I like you, but I won't kiss you. I'd ask permission first. Maybe… later… when you don't hate me so much…" He closed his eyes and took some slower deeper breaths, almost inhaling the scent of her.
Moments later Hermione realized he was out cold, asleep from the potion. She carefully extricated herself. "Wow… Draco." She didn't know what to say or think. There is no way he could have meant anything. He was drugged. She pulled a blanket over him and adjusted the easy brace for his knee onto him to sleep without doing himself further harm. She's do the other bandaging, but that would mean waking him and getting him sitting up.
She pulled out the potion ingredient list and started digging through books. She even used the floo and called up harry to look through his books for her. She was right. More than half the ingredients were the same! The pain potion could be used as a veritaserum, especially if swallowed too swiftly on an empty stomach. She groaned and smacked her hand into her face. Lesson learned. Give him food first, then the potion.
She vowed never to tell Draco what just transpired. He'd just deny it, or say it was the drugs and then never take it again. While he slept the morning, she cleaned up a room for Teddy, who would be arriving tomorrow apparently. Then she cleaned up the kitchen. And sat with a bunch of books she asked Harry to send by floo for her. She needed to do something normal to work past the weird thoughts and feelings, the confusion instilled in her by Draco's confusedly confessed truths.
By lunch Draco moaned in his sleep and stirred awake. "Hermione…" She looked up from her book. Draco swore she lived in books and would die without one in her presence. She helped him to sit up and fetched the salve. "Why did I bother getting dressed if I have to expose myself to be treated?" It was a rhetorical complaint. He didn't seem to recall anything he had said earlier. Hermione intended to leave him ignorant.
They ate lunch together before she offered Draco the cold potion. He sipped it as directed after his lunch. He worried over being confused and out of sorts for tomorrow. He knew things were confused even as the potion in its round two took effect and left him too unsteady to be on his feet, not that he should be on his feet. "Tomorrow, we wait till after everyone is gone before I take that potion." He sat for a long while trying to focus and keep himself from saying things he wasn't sure made sense.
Hermione watched him with mild amusement and helped herself to his letters to read through them till he either resigned himself to sleep or succeeded in saying something coherent.
After he finally napped a little he gestured and forced his tongue to work, "Mione… read… out loud." So she read them carefully out loud while he lounged and thought. They discussed about how to handle the day. It would be rough without the pain killing potion, but Draco preferred his wits about him. He insisted over and over that she MUST pretend to not know the Daily Prophet would show up.
She looked over his letter from Hogwarts again, "You need to reply to this, Draco." She wondered when they stopped calling each other Granger and Malfoy and moved to first name bases, he even started the short version of her name as Harry and Ron called her. She accepted that he mostly only did that when he was too unfocused or hurting too much to say her whole name. Hermione supposed that it was the grudging respect they now seemed to have for each other. Her respect for him having been first instilled once she understood his motives over the years and his last acts in the war, then these letters and his plans. He was taking risks indeed, and they could go well or poorly for him.
He held the letter in his left hand reading it through again. She asked him what he had written to her in the first place. He shrugged nonchalantly. Then she asked what his plans were. He shrugged again. "You?" he asked in turn.
"I was thinking of studying history and law, maybe even muggle history and law too and then joining the Ministry as a liaison." It had been on her mind on and off.
"That sounds like a lot."
"Or," she reconsidered, "Specializing in charms and transfiguration and breaking new ground in these areas." She grinned with a little excitement. "Maybe both."
"Now THAT is a lot."
She crossed her arms and glared at him. "So? I think I can do it if I want to. You haven't answered me though."
He sighed, she was like one of his hounds with a bone. "I need to look into accounting, business, investments…"
"But what do you want to do?"
He had never really considered what he wanted. Growing up he always got what he wanted, though it always had to be within the expectations of what he thought his father wanted him to want. What he personally wanted was a bit of a mystery, even to him. The silence stretched while he though. "Maybe specialize in charms and potions. There are some things I would like to see that no one seems to be doing research in, but I don't think I even know where to start to take on that field. Also, I think I would be better off supporting or funding research by people who are willing to do as I tell them. Like research such curses that cannot be broken so far. Maybe put more effort into healing people like Neville's parents or finding a way to rid myself of the dark magic in my body so I can heal. Or understand why and how werewolves are created and how to better control them. Snape mastered a potion for Lupin, maybe I can use that to help Teddy, or learn to modify it to help other werewolves, or even cure them. Or…" Now that she got him going, there was so much he really wanted to do. He noticed he had been rambling and shut his mouth.
"No, go on. I want to hear this. It is amazing to hear you have dreams of the future that do not involve …" she didn't finish that sentence, because really, Draco wasn't the same person she had grown up thinking he was. "Your ideas of the future are bright and not dark. I want to hear more."
Color rose in his cheeks. "I… I want to understand why muggles are muggles and why wizards are wizards and how one can emerge from the other. Sometimes muggles birth a witch like you. Sometimes squibs are born pout of pure blood families. Sometimes I think that the fight to keep pure blood families pure is like the breeding of fine hounds and sometimes I think it is nothing more than just social … social…"
"Discrimination? Bigotry?" she offered.
Draco nodded.
"For the record, Draco, I don't hate you. Hating takes up too much energy. I like to save that for the people who really really deserve it, like your father." She stood and piled her books neatly by the chair. "Will you be alright for a little while? I want to have a shower, change into clean clothes and check on Harry. He hates being alone in Grimauld Place. Creacher is such a vile elf that does his best to make life there miserable." He nodded and she took the floo to visit Harry for a while.
Draco spent the remainder of the afternoon trying to compose his reply to the headmistress of Hogwarts. He wondered how much he could accomplish and maybe he could do as Hermione planned and take his N.E.W.T. exams early and use the free times to fill in studies towards his goals. He had not mentioned to Hermione his interest in the dark arts. But he did have an interest there. If he could understand the dark arts well enough, maybe he could discover how to better counter it or protect from it. But wasn't that auror training? His forefathers would all roll in their graves if he became an auror. What Slytherin ever became an auror? What Malfoy ever did for that matter? He didn't want to be a ministry controlled auror on their prescribed leash. However, he thought that maybe he wouldn't mind being a private researcher and someone they could call upon for backup.
He made a list. The N.E.W.T.s he thought he could pass now included: History of Magic, Charms, Potions, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Transfiguration (maybe). He needed to brush up on Herbology if he hoped to pass the NEWT for that. Those were the core classes. He never took Runes or Divination, so he needn't worry about those. Arithmancy needed as much help as Herbology. Care of Magical Creatures needed even more help than Herbology. He groaned. He didn't like big animals. They scared the crap out of him. He wanted to add Muggle Studies on principle, also because considering everything, he was sure that the world would have increased relations with the muggle world and he had better be ready for that.
Dear Headmistress Minerva MacGonegall,
I have thought about some of the things I hope for my future studies and find myself pulled in many directions. I think with some refreshing that I could pass my NEWTS for most of my core courses, though not herbology. I have not paid enough attention in that class to feel confident about taking a NEWT exam in it. If I pass them all, then I wish to take no more astronomy, history or transfiguration courses. I would like to take anything advanced in the other core courses of potion, charms, and defence against the dark arts.
As for my additional studies started in second and third year, I wish to be able to pass the NEWTS in Care of Magical Creatures and Arithmancy. Although, if I can drop Care of Magical creatures, I would prefer that in favour of Muggle Studies. Is it possible to take pre-university courses? I am interested in some of the auror training as well as medicine. I also need some courses in magical law, business management, finance management, and estate management. I am not sure where to find these without making public request for private tutors. I am not sure who I can trust.
I also have some requests that might be better off as extra-curricular studies or clubs, like flying and quiddich. I was thinking of maybe classes in social etiquette (especially when we have other schools and cultures in attendance), dance (because it is horrifying trying to endure the poor skills and lack of confidence of other students), and lineage studies (to help everyone better understand their own family histories or the histories of others, especially the challenges between pure bloods and non- pure bloods). Maybe I am being too bold to ask. Sorry.
I am looking forward to returning to Hogwarts.
Draco Malfoy
Heir and Master of House Malfoy and Family
He was so focused that he never heard the floo noises of people arriving. Hermione and Harry greeted him and he nearly spilled the ink bottle in surprise. The three had supper together and helped be a good distraction for each other's distresses. This included Hermione also writing her own letter to Hogwarts and convincing Harry to do the same. He really wanted to be an auror after all, but would have to return to school and pass his NEWTS in order to be accepted into the Auror Academy.
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