Bad Medicine

Additional Disclaimer: This one took some digging, but the lyrics are from Paul Davis on Arista Records 1981 album Cool Night and the song of the same title.

Chapter Eleven

Hermione had always thought it would happen in a rush. Like a bolt of lightning or a crash of fireworks. She never expected it to be a gradual, insidious thing.

It happened on a mundane day in December. She tripped on the stairs and spilled several of her potion ingredients at the very moment when half of Slytherin House was on their way down. Most of the Slytherins paused to jeer at her or kick her items farther down the stairs.

"Scrabbling on the ground where you belong, eh mudblood?" Pansy Parkinson sneered as she walked by. Hermione must have sensed Draco because she looked up to find him beside her. He wasn't looking at her; instead he was glaring at Pansy's back with the same expression of hatred Hermione used to encounter on a daily basis. Hermione blinked in surprise.

Draco's eyes met hers then, and softened into quicksilver pools.

"Gryffindor scum," he said loudly, but she caught the barely audible teasing timbre of his voice.

"Slytherin pig," she returned without venom. He sneered and it was at that particular moment that she realized she loved him. No lightning, no thunder, no fireworks. Just simple knowledge that hit her like an anvil dropped in an old cartoon. He moved off with the others and left her sitting in stunned disbelief, unable to finish gathering her spilled articles. She sat on the dungeon steps for a long, long time with her head in her hands, wondering exactly when simple animal attraction had grown and deepened into something beyond her control. What had caused it? There was no single moment she could recall. It was more than lust, because that had always been there beneath the surface. She had stopped hating him. She had gotten used to him. She had begun to like him. And now this.

Hermione's new knowledge had her thoroughly depressed for the next few days. She barely ate. She couldn't sleep. Homework became a nightmare as she struggled to comprehend it through a fog of exhaustion. She often found herself staggering down to the common room past midnight, unable to sleep for tortured, ecstatic dreams of Malfoy, yet unable to concentrate on the books before her.

She became irritable and snappish and had a huge row with Ron over a broken quill that ended with her bursting into tears and fleeing to her room.

Harry tried to coax the problem out of her, but she couldn't possibly explain that she was in love with Malfoy--God, how could she have let that happen? Harry was left hurt and confused by her inability to confide in him. The Lemur Trio is falling apart, she thought bitterly.

She had put off Draco for nearly a week when he caught her alone and threatened to drag her to their secret room by her hair, so she finally agreed to meet him. She was fully prepared to tell him off and go back to their old relationship of mutual hatred.

She steeled herself and stepped purposefully into the room.

He was waiting for her in the darkness near the door and he snatched her up from behind and spun her in a circle before he released her and walked to the phonograph.

"You're late. I should be very angry with you for putting me off so long," Draco said. "People do not put off Malfoys by being too busy or too tired or too... whatever your last excuse was."

"Look, Malfoy," she began with determination, but he cranked the machine and dropped the needle. Her words were drowned by the strains of "Goody Two Shoes," her "theme song" Draco insisted. He grabbed her again and spun her into a swinging dance.

"Back to your demure ways again?" he asked as her robes spun out behind her. She had not even bothered to change from her school uniform.

She released him and ran to the machine. She snatched the needle, breathing hard.

"Malfoy, we have to stop doing this," she said without looking at him. "We don't need any more dance lessons from each other. You are already a far better dancer than most muggles who've practiced for years."

"I'm gifted that way," he admitted smugly.

She turned to look at him and clasped her hands together to keep from wringing them in nervousness.

"Seriously," she said. "There is no logical reason for us to continue this. It's only a matter of time before we're caught. I'm sure your Slytherin cronies are wondering where you disappear to. Harry and Ron--" she pressed on quickly, ignoring the sneer that always twisted his lips at the mention of the two--"have already noticed and I'm surprised they haven't followed me already."

Draco was silent. Hermione began to babble, as she usually did when she was upset.

"You do understand, don't you? I mean, it's not that I don't enjoy meeting you here, God knows it been... well, it's been a far cry from being here alone, I can tell you and for certain I've gotten more exercise than I ever would have done on my own and--"

She clamped her jaw shut with a snap. Draco walked forward, leaned close, and then reached behind her to drop the needle back onto Random Hits. It landed somewhere in the middle of "Cool Night."

"You really do talk too much," he said softly and pulled her into an embrace. He took her hand in one of his and danced her, part waltz and part swing, though the song was a slow one.

On a cool night

Just let me hold you

By the firelight

Hermione sighed and gave in. One last dance, one last fantasy for her to indulge. She looked up into his silver eyes and pretended, just for a moment, that he loved her. He smiled, giving reinforcement to her lie. She closed her eyes as her heart did a slow roll. It wouldn't do for him to see the truth she was afraid she could no longer hide.

He pulled her closer and slowed a bit.

"You know," he said casually, "Your first name is quite the mouthful. Could your parents have found a longer one?"

"Well, what kind of people name their child after a dragon? Besides, you don't call me by my name, anyway," she huffed, seizing on the topic like a lifeline. He ignored her.

"I've heard the Weasel call you 'Mione,' which doesn't surprise me as I'm sure it's difficult for his tiny brain to process such a staggering number of syllables."

"Only four!"

"That's a lot for Weasley. Anyway, I've decided you need a nickname."

"You already call me 'mudblood,' remember?" she said softly. He ignored that, also.

"I've decided to call you Mi," he said matter of factly. She nearly gasped as the word echoed in her head. Mi. My. Mine. She stopped dancing and backed away, but he wouldn't release her hand. She wanted to scream at him that she was not his possession.

But she was.

"Oh God," she said softly. He seemed not to notice her distress and snatched her back against his chest.

"Come here," he said. "You're making it damned difficult to finish a single dance today. What the hell is the matter with you?"

"I already told you!" she said sharply. "We--"

"Yes, yes, we're going to get caught, Harry and Ron, blah blah blah," he snapped.

"Don't you care?" she said, staring into his quicksilver eyes in confusion.

"Can't say that I do," he said casually.

She ripped away from him forcibly at that and stalked to the machine. She pulled the needle off with finality and spun back to him.

"That's bloody well not true and I know it. What would you do if your little Slytherin friends came in here right now? What if Pansy, your girlfriend, saw us together? Or Montague? Would you admit to what we've been doing?"

He was silent and she nodded.

"Exactly! You would rip me to shreds in front of them to save face. God forbid the mighty Malfoy be seen cavorting with a mudblood, touching an impure creature such as myself! Why, the filth might rub off, you know! You could be tainted for life by simply breathing the same air!"

She had finally reached him. His eyes were glacial and his jaw was set in a hard line. Hermione took a deep breath. It was time to do the hardest thing she had ever done in her life. It took every bit of courage she possessed and every ounce of strength to keep her voice steady.

"And, frankly, I wouldn't be able to explain you to my friends, either. I mean, me lowering myself to consort with Slytherin scum, and especially a bigoted, spoiled, self-centered, deluded bastard such as yourself..." she forced herself to laugh shortly though she nearly choked with the effort and she felt her heart crack straight down the middle at the look on his face. She had hurt him, and deeply. She pressed on, steeling herself against the pain. "I think I've carried on this farce long enough. Our truce is at an end and now I won't have to pretend any more that I don't loathe the very sight of you. Honestly, I don't know what I was thinking to even fake it this long!"

Draco's features seemed carved in ice. It had taken weeks to thaw the hard, cold shell he had encased himself in and it had taken her a single instant to erect those walls again. She loathed herself in that moment. She felt sick.

"I see," he said softly. "Well. Thank you for clarifying that. Your logic, as always, is impeccable."

"Just go, Draco," she begged. She trembled with the effort of holding back her tears. She could barely speak.

He spun on a heel and left. As the door slammed behind him, Hermione collapsed. She wept as if her soul had been ripped from her body. She pulled her knees up to her chin and rocked like a lost child.

God, how could she live with herself after that?