Snippets


Chapter Fifteen


Hermione knocks heavily on the door in front of her, and for a handful of excruciating moments, she thinks that her knock will go unanswered. That is, until the door swings open to reveal a rather irate-seeming blonde wizard.

"I'm sorry," Hermione states seriously, speaking quickly before Draco can shut the door in her face. "I'm scared, okay? It's not an excuse, but it is a reason– I'm sorry."

Hermione has spent the past seven hours following her appointment with Healer Greengrass and subsequent argument with Draco replaying both conversations in her head. She knows that she was wrong to assume Draco's motives– and that she was especially wrong to use his wife against him. She knew that she would have to apologize, so she decided to wait until she thought that he would be home from Mungo's and then apparated to the alley behind his townhouse.

Draco seems to pause and ponder Hermione's apology for a moment before he speaks.

"Scared of me?" Draco asks and Hermione can tell that he's forcing his voice to stay level.

It occurs to Hermione that her next statement would be quite jarring to someone who might only know Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy from their school years, but it is the truth.

"No," Hermione states firmly. "I'm not scared of you. I'm scared of what's happening to me. I'm scared of the experimental treatment that Healer Greengrass explained to me today. I'm scared of the fact that my friends all have their own lives and as understanding as they've been, there's nothing they can do to help– I'm scared that I'll get so lost in my own head that I'll lose them."

Hermione hadn't intended to say all of that, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't true, and it seems to have done its purpose because Draco's features have softened and he's looking at her like she is perhaps a lot less vexing now than she was a handful of minutes prior.

"Come in," Draco says after a moment, stepping to the side so that Hermione can enter into his townhome. "I have the books from the Manor that I mentioned before in the library."

Hermione nods and follows Draco inside, waiting in the foyer while he closes the front door behind her, recognizing that that statement from him is probably the closest that she is going to get to an acceptance of her apology.

Hermione trails behind Draco toward his library, decidedly ignoring the door to his kitchen which is open because she absolutely does not want to see flashbacks of her most recent vision in light of the current fragile state of her relationship to Draco.

Once inside the library, Draco directs Hermione over toward the coffee table in the center of the room, where now, a pile of positively ancient tomes sits. Draco– surprisingly– crosses his extremely long legs and takes a seat on the floor at one head of the coffee table. Hermione follows his lead and sits down beside him.

"Most of these are about Dark Magic," Draco starts, plucking two books from the middle of the pile. "These two are about ancient Healing. I don't know how helpful they'll be, but it probably can't hurt to read them."

Hermione nods, taking into her hands one of the ancient Healing books that Draco hands to her.

"Thank you," Hermione says quietly, briefly making eye contact with the blonde wizard. "Do you need to get these books back to the Manor within a certain timeframe? How long do we have to read them?"

It isn't lost on Hermione that Draco no longer lives at the Wiltshire Malfoy Manor, as has– to Hermione's knowledge– been tradition for centuries. She isn't sure of when Draco moved out of his family home, but given his current residence in Muggle London, she can't make assumptions as to his relationship to his parents and therefore doesn't want to get him into trouble for monopolizing their books.

"I have just as much of a right to the Malfoy library as any other Malfoy. Don't concern yourself with that."

Draco flicks open the book he has in front of him and wandlessly summons his reading glasses, signaling to Hermione that that was the end of the conversation. Hermione doesn't push and instead opens her own book to the first page.


Hermione blinks her eyes open and the first thing that she notices upon waking is that her neck hurts. It's bent at an odd angle and it cracks loudly when she attempts to sit up. That's the second thing that she notices– that she is sitting, rather than laying down, and the last time Hermione checked, she is not a cat or some other animal who can sleep sitting up.

Hermione– slowly, very slowly– raises her head and realization finally dawns on her. She is still in Draco's library. She had fallen asleep in Draco's library– as had Draco, it seems.

Draco is similarly draped over his coffee table, his left arm stretched out a hair's breadth away from Hermione's right shoulder and dangling from his fingers are his silver-framed reading glasses. His cheek is squished against the pages of the book he had been reading and his breathing is deep and steady.

Hermione debates with herself what to do. Should she leave and just let Draco sleep? Should she wake him so that he doesn't end up with a kink in his neck in the morning? He does look peaceful and he is clearly sleeping soundly, but even still, Hermione decides that she should probably wake him.

Upon deciding that, however, it occurs to Hermione that in order to do the aforementioned waking, she would probably have to touch Draco. It's not as if Hermione thinks that Draco would feel the need to boil his arm if she touched him like his younger self might've done, but it is still something which she would rather not do.

Hermione exhales heavily and decides to just bite the bullet, reaching out and placing her hand tentatively on Draco's bicep.

"Draco," Hermione whispers, hoping that she can wake him gently so as not to startle him. "Draco, wake up."

It takes a moment, but Draco's eyes eventually flutter open, seeming to slowly focus on Hermione in front of him. He doesn't jump or jolt like Hermione might've expected. He breathes in slightly sharply and blinks his eyes a couple of times. The corner of his mouth tilts up into something resembling a half-smile before he lifts his head.

"I guess we fell asleep," Hermione breathes, biting her bottom lip in embarrassment. She can't believe that she fell asleep while researching with Draco– and she definitely can't believe that he also fell asleep. She's not even sure what time it is or how long they've been out.

Draco tosses his reading glasses onto the table and rubs at his eyes as if to force himself to wake up before he looks back at Hermione.

"Logical deduction, Granger," Draco snarks, but his tone is playful. His voice is rough and scratchy, presumably from sleep.

Hermione rests back against the front of the sofa behind her and laughs lightly.

"Back to 'Granger' are we?" Hermione wonders aloud. She keeps her voice neutral, but a part of her worries that with their argument earlier in the day that Hermione has set back any progress they have made.

The corner of Draco's lips quirk up once again, this time in more of a smirk than his previous smile.

"My apologies, Hermione. Old habits die hard," he chuckles quietly. A moment later, he scrunches his eyebrows together as if a thought has occurred to him that confused him. "May I ask you something? Please don't feel obligated to answer."

Hermione raises an eyebrow and nods, unsure of what Draco could possibly be asking her in the middle of the night in his library.

"You mentioned earlier that Daphne told you about an experimental treatment today? Or yesterday, technically?"

Hermione is somewhat shocked by his question, but when she thinks about it logically, it makes sense that Draco would be interested, given the fact that he is also a neurological Healer.

"How much do you know about Muggle medicine?" Hermione asks, thinking that it would probably be easiest to explain Healer Greengrass' experimental spell by likening it to its Muggle counterpart.

"Some."

Hermione nods, squeezing the tip of her left ring finger to distract herself from her suddenly racing heart. Evidently the idea of Healer Greengrass' spell has more of an impact on Hermione's nervous system than she might've originally thought.

"Supposedly, it's a spell which works similarly to Muggle electroconvulsive therapy. It would essentially shock my brain and the hope would be that it would stop the visions."

A brief flicker of surprise crosses Draco's features before he schools his expression. Hermione actually thinks that his ability to neutralize his expression so quickly is quite impressive. She supposes that it is likely a necessary ability for someone who works in healthcare to possess.

"I see," Draco responds shortly– almost tersely.

Hermione looks at Draco pointedly.

"What?" Hermione asks, suddenly even more nervous. "Go ahead. I was going to discuss this with Padma anyway before I made a decision, but you're a Healer too. What do you think?"

Draco sighs, leaning his elbows on the coffee table and looking at Hermione with an expression which she cannot read.

"Let me be clear– I'm saying this as your friend, not as a Healer. I'm not your Healer, so this is not my professional opinion," Draco begins, stating his disclaimer. Hermione certainly doesn't miss the fact that Draco has just referred to himself as her 'friend', but she decides not to comment on that just yet. "However, speaking as your friend, the thought of electrocuting your brain, as in the case of electroconvulsive therapy, is jarring. I recognize that your visions are disruptive and upsetting, but my concern would be that this spellwork would do more harm than good. I would worry that it would force you to lose parts of yourself which thus far have remained intact."

Hermione nods, admittedly completely understanding where Draco is coming from in his assessment. She herself had had similar thoughts when she thought back on her conversation with Healer Greengrass.

"Don't misunderstand me, though. I trust Daphne. She's an excellent Healer– and she's also my sister-in-law. She would not suggest something to a patient which she believed might cause harm. You have no reason to doubt her."

Hermione appreciates hearing Draco's thoughts on her possible experimental treatment. She also appreciates his vehement confidence in Healer Greengrass. She knows that his opinion may be somewhat biased based on his familial relationship to the witch, but up to this point, Hermione has had nothing but good things to say about her Healer, so it stands to reason that Draco's assessment is also correct.

"If– I'm not sure if this is appropriate to ask, but– but if I do decide to go ahead with the treatment," Hermione begins, averting her eyes from Draco anxiously. "Could you be in the room with me? While Healer Greengrass performs the spell? I trust her too, but I just– I don't know. I think I would feel better if you were there– as my friend."

Hermione decides in this moment that she and Draco are, in fact, friends. They have now both referred to themselves as such, so she figures that it must be the truth. They have also been spending an increasing amount of time together researching her condition, so it seems a fair deduction to make.

"Yes," Draco responds, quickly and firmly. "If you do decide to go through with it, I'll be there."

Hermione smiles gratefully at Draco before she realizes that it's still the middle of the night and that she should probably leave so that both she and Draco can get some sleep for their respective jobs tomorrow (today?).

"I should probably go," Hermione says, somewhat awkwardly, bracing her hands on the coffee table and attempting to stand on her suddenly tingly legs.

Draco stands alongside her and nods, stuffing his hands into his pockets when he makes it upright.

"I'll walk you out."


Hi, friends! Happy Tuesday! (:

Y'all ever have a conversation with someone in the middle of the night that you otherwise probably would not have had? Like the filter you have when it's not two o'clock in the morning just took a hiatus for a while? That's how I envisioned this chapter, lol.

Anyway, I hope y'all enjoyed this chapter! As always, I look forward to reading your thoughts, theories and favorite parts of this chapter! Reading your reviews is one of my favorite parts of my days. :P

Thank you, as always, for spending a bit of your time here with me this week and I'll see you again on Tuesday! (: