The next morning Draco awoke to find the bed empty and loud singing coming from the kitchen. Groggily, he dragged himself from Hermione's bed and walked into the kitchen.
"Good morning!" She said brightly. "Breakfast?"
Draco wiped the sleep from his eyes and stared at the stove and counter in front of him. There were a stack of lie berry pancakes, a giant plate of bacon, a large plate of hashbrowns, around 20 chocolate chip muffins, and Hermione was finishing a pan of scrambled eggs.
"Are we having company?" He asked.
Hermione looked at everything and laughed. "I suppose I got a bit carried away," She said.
"A bit?" Draco replied, arching his eyebrow.
"Okay, a lot," Hermione replied. "I had something I wanted to ask you."
"So this is bribery?" Draco asked with a grin. "Why, Granger, I'm surprised at you!"
"Just eat," she told him, embarrassed. She turned her back to him and turned off the stove.
Draco came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her and gave her a kiss on the cheek. "Everything looks wonderful," he said. "I'm feeling very suceptible to bribery right now."
"Grab a plate," Hermione told him. "I'll explain to you what I want to do."
Draco filled his plate as Hermione filled hers then they sat down together at the table to eat.
"So what do you want to do?" Draco asked after biting into a phenomenal chocolate chip muffin.
"I was thinking we should practice the spell," Hermione said. "Before I ask someone to volunteer I want to make sure we're proficient at it so we reduce the risk of hurting whoever it is that we end up using the spell on."
"That's a great idea," Draco told her, thinking perhaps if they couldn't master the spell, she wouldn't want to test it. "But how can we practice it? I doubt you want to crucio someone into leaving a piece of it behind then trying to extract it."
"Never!" Hermione exclaimed vehemently. "I was thinking we could try with harmless potions. Then work our way up to poisons. Then try it on the "volunteer"."
"So who exactly are we going to shoot up with potions then extract potions from?" Draco asked. "I hate to point out the obvious but we need people for that."
"We have teaching cadavers," Hermione replied. "We use them to train the healers. They're charmed to function as a real human body."
"Where do you get the bodies?" Draco asked, setting down his fork. He didn't feel much like eating anymore.
"People donate their bodies," Hermione said, munching on a piece of bacon. "Some extraordinarily dedicated healers want to be able to help teach even after they're gone so they donate their bodies so they can be used for practice."
Draco shuddered. "That's a bit barbaric, don't you think?"
Hermione shrugged. "That's magical science," she replied. "We need to do this."
"You keep saying we," Draco pointed out. "Why do I have to do it too?"
"Because we're working together," she said with a smile. "And...in case there isn't a volunteer, you'll have to do it."
Draco scowled in response. They'd find a volunteer, he vowed. Even if he had to bribe one of her patients. He wouldn't risk her life, couldn't risk her life, no matter what she said. "Fine," he replied. "But you're forgetting one important thing, I don't have a wand."
"You don't have your wand," Hermione replied. "But working with me is a condition of your rehabilitation and you are required to learn this spell with me as part of it. I can't get you your wand but I can get you a wand to use just for this purpose."
"Leave it to you to find a loophole that benefits you," he grumbled. "Let me guess you want to start today?"
"As soon as we're done eating!" Hermione said excitedly, digging into her stack of pancakes as Draco reluctantly went back to his eggs. She'd convinced him, she thought excitedly. They'd do this together. She hadn't realized how important it was to her that they do this as a team. Not just for the completion of the final phase but so he could have something tangible to show the wizarding world that he'd changed. They would do it, she thought confidently. Together.
Three hours later they found themselves in the cadaver labs in the lowest level of St. Mungo's. They would have been there sooner but Draco had distracted Hermione in the shower, then Hermione had distracted Draco in the hallway, then they'd distracted each other in her room. They'd walked into St. Mungo's hand in hand, a content smile on Hermione's face and a less severe scowl on Draco's. Now they stood over the former Healer Chuckles Troll, Jr. debating over how exactly they should begin.
"We can't just shoot him up with whatever we can find," Hermione argued. "We need to choose specific potions and work our way towards the more deadly ones."
"He's a magically charmed corpse," Draco argued back. "What does it matter what we shoot him up with? He's already dead! It's not like we can kill him again!"
"What if it's more difficult to remove a poisonous spell than it is a harmless or helpful one?" she replied, raising her voice. "Don't you think we should start easy before we try to remove an unforgivable curse?"
"Why bother starting easy if we know you can already perform the spell?" he answered, raising his voice to match hers. "Let's just use a poison and then if we have trouble with it, try something easier."
"Why would we start in the middle and move backwards?" she demanded, raising her voice to the point that she was shouting. "That doesn't make any sense."
"Why do you insist on wasting time on easy bullshit when we could just cut straight to the case?" Draco shouted back. "THAT doesn't make any sense."
"You are IM-POSSIBLE!" Hermione shouted. "We're supposed to be working together, this isn't working together."
"Haven't you ever worked with anyone before?" He shouted in response. "You fight and then you figure shit out. That's working together."
Hermione released a strangled groan in response and Draco gave her a look. They stared at each other for a few minutes before Hermione relented.
"Fine," she said. "We'll try it your way."
When Draco looked smug that he'd won, she continued. "With the understand that when you see that you're wrong, you cannot say a word when I repeatedly tell you I was right."
"Done," Draco answered, confidently. "Let's shoot up Chuckles. What should we use?"
"There's spider venom in the cabinet," Hermione said, walking over to it. "We keep it down here along with the antidote to give trainees the practice to recognize a poisoning by a spider."
"Perfect," Draco answered.
Hermione held her hand up in front of the cabinet. After a moment, the door slid open and she removed the spider venom. She then did the same in front of the drawer beneath the cabinet and removed two needles from the drawer. With those in her hand, she then walked to a chest and, opening it in the same manner she'd opened the cabinet and the drawer, she removed two wands. She returned to Draco and carefully measured slightly less than a lethal dose of the poison.
"You go first," Hermione invited, handing him one of the wands.
"Why can't I use my own?" Draco wanted to know.
"When I cast the spell, the wand absorbs the poison, only to then have to be released into something else," Hermione informed him. "I don't want to risk something happening to your wand."
"So where do you get these?" Draco asked, inspecting the wand she'd handed him. Before she could answer, a thought crossed his mind and he dropped the wand. "Are these dead people's wands?"
"No," Hermione said, with a laugh, picking up the wand and handing it back to him. "Ollivander makes these for us. They're all the same, 9 inch, birch, with kelpie mane as the core. They're not great wands but they do for our purposes."
Draco looked at the wand again and shrugged. "I'm a great wizard," he told her. "I can use any wand."
Hermione rolled her eyes in response and set up a potion bottle next to the body. With a flick of her wand, the began the charm that made Chuckles seem like a live, real person.
"I'm going to inject it directly into his bloodstream," Hermione told him. "So you'll only have to wait a few minutes for it to work."
Hermione then injected the poison into Chuckles. They stood in silence as they watched as Chuckles began to sweat and shake.
"Wait until he begins to vomit," Hermione told him. "Then try to remove the poison."
"He's going to vomit?" Draco asked, moving backward.
"Not actual vomit," Hermione said annoyed. "He vomits soap suds. Get back here, it'll be just another minute."
Draco moved back next to Chuckles and Hermione. A minute later soap suds began to come out of Chuckles' mouth.
"Now," Hermione instructed.
"Exsugo venenum," Draco said, holding the tip of the wand directly over the spot where Hermione had injected the poison. They both watched as the poison oozed from Chuckles' body into the wand. Once it disappeared completely, Draco looked at Hermione.
"Expulso," she told him. "Hold the tip of the wand in the bottle."
Draco did as she said but the wand began to shake as the poison left it. The last drop fell into the bottle before the wand exploded in Draco's hand. He swore and jumped back, nearly knocking over the potion. Hermione managed to grab the potion without it spilling before putting a cork in it and dropping it down a chute. She then rushed to Draco who was still holding his hand.
"Let me see," she instructed and Draco held out his hand to her. There was a small gash on his palm but, aside from the little bit of blood, his hand seemed fine. She quickly healed the gash and placed a quick kiss where the gash had been. She then looked up at Draco who was scowling.
"What?" she asked, looking at him concerned. "Does it still hurt?"
"Just my pride," he grumbled, causing her to grin.
"I told you so?" she said, wrapping her arms around his waist, grinning up at him.
"Get off," he replied gruffly, trying to extricate himself from her arms.
Hermione let go with a laugh. "Come on," she said, standing up on her toes and giving his scowling mouth a kiss. "Let's get some pepper-up potion and try again."
"Why could you do it?" He wanted to know. "You'd never done it before, why could you do it on your first try?"
"I don't know," Hermione replied honestly. "I think because I knew I had to, all of the adrenaline made the spell easy to do."
"Bugger that," Draco said in response.
"Come on," Hermione said, dragging him by the hand. "Let's practice!"
Draco grumbled and followed her as she bounced off, happy she was right and eager to get to work.
A/N: Practice makes perfect? Review & favorite, only a few chapters left!