Draco stepped in to his mother's room and immediately rushed to her side. She was convulsing, her eyes wide, and her skin was slicked with sweat.
"Help me hold her," Blaise said, half on the bed, half off with Narcissa's head in his lap. "She could hurt herself if she convulses and falls off the bed or hits something."
Draco jumped on to the bed and helped Blaise hold his mother. Hermione came through the floo a minute later, a small purple bag in one hand and a blue bottle in the other but the minute she saw Narcissa her face went from concerned to furious. She rushed to the bed and set the blue bottle on the bedside table. She set down her back as well and immediately began rummaging through it. Ten seconds later, she pulled out a cauldron and five seconds after that several other ingredients that Draco recognized as fire seeds, powdered graphorn, billywig stings, and chizpurfle carapaces.
"Granger," he exclaimed. "Now is not the time for you to play mad potion master."
"Shut up," she snapped and quickly dropped everything into the cauldron. The bottom of the cauldron turned red and she began to mix the potion slowly. Meanwhile, Draco and Blaise were trying to hold on to Narcissa whose seizing was rapidly becoming more violent.
"Granger, will you do something?" Draco shouted.
When Hermione ignored him Blaise said, "Mate, she knows what she's doing, just leave her alone."
Blaise had barely finished the sentence when Hermione, taking the entire cauldron, walked toward Narcissa.
"What the bloody hell are you going to do with that?" Draco cried.
Hermione muttered a spell and the cauldron transformed into a large glass.
"Sit her up," Hermione instructed and the men did as she said. Hermione climbed onto the bed, practically on top of Narcissa and began to pour the potion down her throat. It spilled on her face and slid down her neck.
"You're making a mess," Draco pointed out.
"Shut up!" Hermione and Blaise said simultaneously.
"She only has to drink half," Hermione said, still pouring. "That's why I made so much, it's difficult to get it all down when someone is having a seizure."
To everyone's relief, the seizing slowed and then after a few minutes, stopped all together. Hermione finished pouring the remainder of the potion down Narcissa's throat as the color began to return to her face. Hermione got off the bed and set the glass on the side table where it immediately returned to it's former form. With a quick Scourgify Hermione cleaned the potion from Narcissa and her bed.
"Tuck her in," she told Blaise and Draco. "She'll be just fine. I'm going to take this all back to my flat quickly but as soon as I come back I need to speak to both of you, somewhere that she can't hear us."
Hermione quickly gathered her things and flooed out of the room. Draco and Blaise carefully tucked the sleeping Narcissa into her bed and got off the bed.
"Thank you," Draco said, looking at his best friend. "I'm guessing it was you who set up the floo between my mother's room and Granger's flat?"
"No, actually," Blaise replied. "It was Hermione's idea in case Narcissa ever needed something. Your mother's room is the only place in the Manor she's willing to step foot in."
"I owe her more than I even realized," Draco murmured.
"Speaking of Hermione," Blaise said, a sly grin crossing his face. "What's going on there?"
"Honestly?" Draco answered. "I have no idea. I've been horrible to her most of our lives, fallen apart on her multiple times in the last few days and she seems hell bent on sticking by me while I figure this all out."
"It's extraordinary when they do that, you know?" Blaise said. "Gina does that and I can't figure out why. But what do you mean by figure this all out?"
"Oh, you haven't heard?" Draco said wryly. "I'm reformed."
"You've been 'reformed' for months," Blaise answered, in the same tone.
"No, I mean, actually," Draco told him, sincerity coming over his face. "I saw Goyle, then Granger told me about finding all of them here and that did it. That was my trigger."
"You didn't know?" Blaise asked surprised. "I always assumed you did."
"I had no idea," Draco confirmed. "I thought Crabbe and the others were all dead, killed by the Order. That's what the Dark- er, Voldemort told me. It was a hell of a motivator at the time."
"You said his name," Blaise observed.
"Granger says I should," Draco answered with a shrug. "Something about being afraid of the name makes him a big scary bloke."
Blaise laughed at his butchering of what he was sure Hermione had phrased much more eloquently. "So now what?"
"Now? I have absolutely no idea," Draco replied. "Everything I know was a lie, everything I was taught was wrong. Where do I go from here? What did you do?"
"I made my own life," Blaise said. "I decided being an advocate was how I wanted to pay back the wizarding community for giving me a second chance. I fell in love with and married a strong, beautiful and talented muggle born witch who stood by me every step of the way. I replaced all of the hate and supremacy bullshit with decency. Hell, I befriended Harry fucking Potter and that whole lot."
"I wouldn't count on me doing the last part," Draco told him. "They're still a bunch of wankers."
"They grow on you," was all Blaise had to say about that. "But seriously mate, you have to figure out what you want to do with your life. You still have three months left with Hermione at her lab, maybe you can use that time to figure out exactly what you want your life to be."
Before Draco could respond, Hermione came back through the floo. She walked passed them without a word and checked on Narcissa. She turned back to them and Draco noticed she was still furious.
"Where can we talk?" she snapped.
Draco and Blaise looked at each other then back at Hermione. "I set up an office in the room next door," Blaise said. "We can talk there."
"Let's go," Hermione said shortly.
Bewildered Blaise led the way, followed by Hermione, with Draco bringing up the rear. As soon as they were in the office Hermione cast a Muffulato to ensure Narcissa wouldn't hear the conversation.
"Hermione," Draco said cautiously, hoping his use of her first name would calm her. "What's wrong?"
"That wasn't just an episode," Hermione said, her anger bubbling over.
"What do you mean?" Blaise asked, suddenly alert.
Hermione turned to Draco. "You saw what I used," Hermione said. "What potion comes from those four ingredients?"
"Granger you mixed a lot of things into that cauldron," he argued. "And I was a bit preoccupied trying to keep my mother from hurting herself."
"Fire seeds, powdered graphorn, billywig stings, and chizpurfle carapaces," Hermione said listing them off. "Come on Draco, we learned this third year."
Hearing her list off the ingredients, Draco recognized it right away. "That's the ingredients for the Antidote for Uncommon Poisons," he realized then felt his anger rise up in his chest. "Why did you have to brew that potion?
"I recognized it the minute I walked into the room," Hermione told him. "Someone poisoned Narcissa. Whoever did it was clever, it was probably something simple, like Doxy venom, perhaps in her tea and because of her condition, the poisoning triggered an episode."
Draco looked stunned by what she had said but Hermione wasn't done.
"Someone just tried to kill your mother."
A/N: :O
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