Stormy Weather

Hermione didn't pay any attention to the looks people were giving her as she ran into the hospital and skid to a stop in front of the nurse's station, panting. The nurse looked up calmly.

"Can I help you?" There was a professional sort of distance in her voice as she eyed the teenager.

"What room is Mrs. Emma Granger in?" Hermione did her best to relax, trying not to wrinkle her nose at the hospital smell all around her. This is nothing like the hospital wing. That was one reason she preferred the magical world overall. Madame Pomfrey didn't have to scrub everything with disinfectant. Her cleaning substances had a much more pleasant aroma.

The nurse didn't change her expression by so much as a hair. "And you are?"

"Hermione Granger. Her daughter." Hermione watched as the nurse looked through her notes, then pointed down one of the hallways.

"Room 412." Almost before the nurse had finished saying it, Hermione headed swiftly there. Her mom had the room to herself, though there was another bed there, and she looked relatively comfortable, all things considered.

"Mum?" Hermione's mother looked up at the soft word. She looked much paler than Hermione remembered her, with slightly straggly hair, and dark circles under her eyes. Hermione started over towards her. "How are you feeling?" She didn't look this bad before I left.

The older woman shrugged a little. "I've been better."

Hermione squeezed her hand lightly. "You're going to get better." She had learned that belief could do so much more than work magic, and she wasn't going to let any kind of doubt get to work here.

"I'm glad you believe in me," Emma murmured quietly. She glanced briefly towards the door. "How has school been?" They had told all their friends and family that Hermione had been accepted to a special boarding school, but they'd had to be vague about it. It had taken a while to get used to changing the subject whenever it came up, but after all this time, they'd become used to it.

Her daughter glanced away for a moment. "Things have been better." She hesitated. "Ron dumped me." Her fingers tightened just a little on the blanket as she remembered. "I've kind of started to date someone else, though."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Emma knew things could be different in the wizarding world, but a mother's instincts seemed universal. If Hermione was rebounding...

She shook her head, doing her best to dispel her mother's worry. "It's nothing serious, but I'm happy right now." Hermione decided now was a very good time to shift gears. "Madame Pomfrey sent you something." She pulled a small vial out of one pocket and showed it to her mother.

Emma glanced at it slightly. "What is that?"

"I thought you knew..." Hermione faltered a moment, then smiled as her mother's eyes lit up.

"You mean that's it?" Emma had almost forgotten about what the mediwitch had promised her. A cure was impossible, or so they'd told her, but something to make her stronger had been promised. "Thank her for me." Hermione nodded, then offered the vial.

"Drink up." She watched as her mother drained it to the last drop, then handed the empty container back to her. "I'm home for another couple of days, by the way."

Emma glanced curiously at her studious child. "Can you take that much time away?" Ever since Hermione had gotten the letter from Hogwarts, she'd been absolutely mad for the wizarding world.

"I've got permission." Hermione grinned at her mother, knowing just how well the older woman knew her.

"I didn't know you'd stop studying just for me." Emma laughed softly, and Hermione shook her head.

"I've still got to do my homework. Other than that, I'm all yours." She touched Emma's hand lightly, noting the signs of sickness and age there. "I've really missed you. I wish I could've come home for Christmas."

Emma glanced at her curiously. "You did get your gifts, didn't you?"

"Yes." Hermione nodded. Something was wrong, her mother didn't usually act like this. "Why didn't you let me come home?"

"What have you done to your hair?" Emma wondered, reaching up to carefully touch Hermione's straighter locks. It had been unusual enough when she'd come home after her fourth year with perfectly straight teeth, but this...

"Cut it." Hermione looked away, then looked back, meeting her mother's eyes. "Why couldn't I come home?" She wasn't going to let her mom squirm out of this if she could help it.

"Hermione." Her mother looked at her quietly, a plea for understanding in her eyes, and the young witch stood up quickly.

"Fine. I'm going home to get some rest." She hesitated for a heartbeat. "I just wish you trusted me more." Hermione headed out, not looking behind her. As the door closed, she leaned against the wall for a moment, tears slipping down her cheeks. She stood like that for a few moments, then looked up at the sound of familiar footsteps.

"Dad." Hermione sniffled lightly, brushing her tears away as her father came over to her. "I'm trying to understand. Why wouldn't you let me come home for Christmas?"

"Hermione, it was your mother's decision."

She shook her head quickly. "Oh, so I'm not allowed to know why I couldn't spend time with my mother just when we needed each other the most? I'm just supposed to accept it?"

Her father reached out to touch her cheeks gently, brushing away a stray tear she'd missed. "Hermione, she didn't want you to have to see her so sick around Christmas. She loves you."

"I love her too. I don't care how sick she is." Hermione told him sharply. "I wanted to be here!"

"I know." Her father told her. "I'm glad you're here now. Have you talked to her?"

"A little." Hermione sighed softly. She could tell when they weren't going to tell her anything more. She'd seen it quite a few times. "I'm going to go rest and do some homework. I'll be back in the morning."

She hugged her father quickly, then hurried out of there and caught a taxi back to their house. I've got to do that Verus Amo potion Professor Snape assigned us, then write that essay for Professor Vector. There were a few other things she had to do, but those two assignments would keep her busy for a while. As she gathered up the ingredients for Verus Amo, she rolled her eyes slightly. I think he just gave us this to test how well we can follow instructions. How can a potion do something as silly as find out who our True Love is? Some of the research she'd done indicated that the potion's real purpose was to define who one was most compatible with, but it didn't necessarily mean 'true love' or 'soulmate' or any of that rubbish.

As she finished making it, she peered inside with a slightly curious light in her eyes. Let's see who this is. A face slowly formed in it, and she stared, the curiosity fading into shock. "Him...why him?" She shuddered violently; he wasn't the worst person she could have imagined, but it was definitely one of the most unexpected. There were some good things, though. "At least it's not Ron."

She carefully poured it into a spare vial, sending a mental thanks to Harry for lending her Hedwig to send her assignments back with, then fastened it to the owl's leg along with a quick note detailing out all the usual circumstances of making this. "Take this to Professor Snape, Hedwig." She requested, watching the beautiful snowy owl as she spread her wings and soared away.

Things were unnaturally quiet as Hedwig vanished from sight. There was usually someone else there other than her, after all. She decided to do the essay the next day. The potion and the results had taken quite a lot out of her. She trembled violently, tears making a reappearance in her eyes, then jumped a little as Crookshanks jumped up onto her. Hermione wrapped her arms around her cat and sobbed softly into his fur, letting it all out as he purred at her comfortingly. She didn't even notice when she went from exhausted sobbing, into deep sleep.

Draco leisurely sipped at a cup of pumpkin juice, his mind wandering here and there quite aimlessly. It was one of those kinds of mornings where one just didn't seem inclined to do anything. Glad it's the weekend. Maybe I'll go to Hogsmeade.

No seventh year Slytherin could possibly be taken off guard by someone coming up behind them. If they could be, the odds were good they wouldn't have lived to be seventh year Slytherins in the first place. So he barely reacted when a pair of hands came firmly over his eyes.

"Hello." He bid the daring person, and was rewarded by a soft kiss on the cheek.

"Hello." Hermione dropped her hands from his eyes and stood to one side. She definitely looked happier than she had the last time he'd seen her. Something good must have happened.

"How are things?" He sipped a bit more at his juice, not letting anything past his usual reserved calm. This was nothing special, after all. Just his faux girlfriend.

She smiled brilliantly at him. "Mom's going to be all right!" When he just nodded, a tinge of annoyance shaded her voice. "You sound thrilled."

"I'm glad for you, but she's not my mother." Draco put his cup down and turned his intense gray gaze onto the plate of food, not looking at her any longer.

Hermione watched him for a moment, then headed over to the Gryffindor table, a thousand thoughts churning in her mind. She waved briefly at Ginny as she sat down beside the younger witch. "What did I miss?"

"Not much. Malfoy's being really moody. Even more than usual." The youngest Weasley told her. Hermione glanced back over at the Slytherin table, but Draco seemed to be far more interested in whatever was on his plate than her. She looked briefly at Ron and Harry, then got up without finishing.

"I've got to do some unpacking." She headed up quickly up to the tower, unable to stay there any longer. It's like everything's changed but I don't know why or how. She twitched a fold of her robes nervously. How can I ask Draco what he saw in the potion? I know he had to have seen something, but what? Who?

Ron watched her go, worry in his eyes. She hadn't even said hi to him or to Harry, and that was really not like her. "I'm going to go talk to her." He hurried on up to the tower, eager to let her know that she didn't have to hang around with Malfoy any longer. Oh, sure, she thought she liked him, but it wasn't real love. He was almost walking on air just from the thought of being with her again.

He knocked quickly on her room door, opening it when he heard her permission. "Hey, Hermione!" The young redhead bounced eagerly. Hermione didn't even look up at him; she simply kept on unpacking her things. "Did you do the potion that we were working on?" That was a good place to start things off, he thought.

"Yes." She glanced over at him curiously. "You want to know if I saw Draco in it, don't you?" Ron gaped at her for a moment, then shrugged and nodded.

"Well, did you?" It was a logical question, after all. Even if Harry had flat out refused to tell him who he had seen. Not that Ron could blame him, deep down. If someone else found out about whoever it was the Boy-Who-Lived had seen, that person would probably get beaten down by the rest of Harry's fan club. He gaped even more as Hermione nodded firmly. "Are you sure about that?"

She gave him a fairly nasty look. "Would I lie to you, Ron Weasley??" He looked a bit hesitant, and the look got even nastier. "Thanks for the great vote of confidence!"

This really wasn't going the way he thought it would. "Well, I saw you so I don't think that you could've seen him!"

"I know what I saw, Ron. Are you all that sure that you saw me?"

He nodded sharply. He'd known her for seven years, how could he not be sure? "How do you know that he saw you?" She just shook her head, and Ron grinned smugly. "So I could have seen you!"

Hermione sighed just a bit. "I have other things on my mind right now, Ron."

"Like him?"

"Like my mother, which, by the way, thanks for asking how she is." Hermione snapped sharply, her eyes sparking angrily. "I'm sure she appreciates your concern!"

Ron couldn't believe what he was hearing. What did that have to do with anything?? "I figured if you were here, then she was all right!" Any idiot would've figured that! Guess this means that she's not just any idiot.

"You still could have asked!"

He took a deep breath. Things weren't going the way they had in his fantasies. In them, she'd begged his forgiveness, told him she was never going to see Malfoy again, and after that things got a little naughty. That was so very not happening here. "I'm sorry. Hermione, do you think...well...do you think that we could try again? Try dating again?" This was it, she was going to take his hands and smile sweetly and tell him that she'd love to...

"Ron, you dumped me for another woman! How in blazes can I trust you not to do that to me again?" Okay, maybe she hadn't gotten the script...but he could fix that.

"The same way that I can trust you not to turn into a Slytherin just because Draco smiles nicely at you." The amount of venom he put in Malfoy's name had seven years of seasoning on it. It tasted pretty hideous coming out, too.

She just rolled her eyes. "How do you know that I won't turn him into a Gryffindor?"

Ron stared at her for a few moments in shock. "Excuse me. I have a friend to find. Her name is Hermione Granger. I don't see her anywhere around here."

"Can't you be happy for me?" Hermione's voice cut deep into Ron, somehow reminding him of all the things they'd done together over the years.

Then something else occurred to him. "Happy for you? For what? Suddenly being all over someone who has insulted you for seven years, done his best to get us all in trouble every chance he could, just because I dumped you? I didn't think you were that selfish, Hermione. I can't see why you weren't put in Slytherin in the first place. Any means to achieve the end. Sounds like the way you've been acting. And that's not the Hermione I like. But I guess that's okay with you. I'm too poor and not good looking enough for you now."

As he walked out, the door slamming firmly behind him, Hermione sighed. "He's not like what everyone sees." She curled up on the bed, her entire body shaking with the tears she couldn't yet bring herself to shed for what felt like an hour. I can't stay like this forever. I've got to do something.

She got to her feet and pulled her broom out of the trunk, then headed outside. Just a few inches from her door was a small pile of things that she recognized as having been given to Ron by her over the years. She glared at the stack for a few moments, then pulled out her wand. One quick banishing spell later, and it was at a landfill she knew of. Best place for it.

The Quidditch pitch was empty at the moment, causing her to be quite grateful for small mercies. The last thing she really wanted was to have to deal with one of the Quidditch teams trying to practice. She quickly got onto her broom and took off, aiming for the sky.

Her trip was rather rudely interrupted, however, as a dark figure loomed up in front of her, and a harsh voice snapped, "Watch where you're flying!" "Sorry." The word came to her lips without thought, then she saw who it was she'd had her near accident with: Draco. He hovered in front of her, his gray eyes calm and composed as always, just as she remembered him. "Who did you see in your potion?" She asked at last, scraping for something to say.

One eyebrow lifted slightly. "Why?" A faintly rippling shrug indicated her curiosity, and that seemed to be just enough. "Someone I didn't expect. You?"

"The same." Hermione fiddled with her broomstick a little absently. "I'm just glad it wasn't Ron."

Draco's other eyebrow lifted now. "I don't blame you. I wouldn't have wanted to see the Weasel either."

She grinned. "He says that he saw me, but how can that be if I didn't see him? Usually your true love will see you if you see them in the potion. There's only been one time when it hasn't been. Her true love was someone who had died three hundred years earlier." The thought of seeing something like that was horrible. There were reasons the potion wasn't one commonly done, after all, and one of them was that not everyone wanted to know what their future held for them. Hermione fiddled with the stick again, then looked at him. "Want to race?"

"Certainly." A gleam shone in his eyes that she had only caught occasional glimpses of during Quidditch matches.

She glanced about for a moment, checking for a really good length. "To the edge of the forest and back here at the Quidditch pitch?" He nodded his agreement and they lined up side by side. "On your mark...get set...HEY!!" She glared at his quickly moving ahead back, then shot off after him. A few moments later she had passed him and soared to the forest's edge, then pulled back around and was back on the Quidditch pitch in a few heartbeats, hopping gracefully off of her broom.

"You're getting better." He told her as he landed beside her, a faint smile on his thin lips. Hermione nodded lightly.

"I've got a good teacher." She leaned forward and brushed her lips across his for a few moments. He returned it firmly and thoroughly, and the two of them held each other for a moment. When she moved away, she found herself looking in his storm-like eyes. "You have a strange effect on me. I can't explain."

Draco smirked. "It's my amazing good looks. They affect everyone like that."

"Not your looks. It's that kiss of yours." She reached up and touched his lips briefly with one finger. "So soft." They stood there quietly for a few moments, her finger still on his. "Who did you see?"

"I'll tell you later." He promised. She could feel that he meant it, but she still wasn't satisfied.

"When?"

"When it's time to tell you."

She nodded in agreement, then kissed him again. "How has Slytherin taken to you dating your archenemy?"

His voice was as dry as the most barren of deserts. "I'm not dating Potter."

"Okay!" She laughed; that had been rather silly of her, after all. "How do they feel about you dating me? A 'Mudblood'?"

Draco shrugged. "I think the fact I told them if they disapproved of what I chose to do, I'd use them to practice Transfiguration on, and let Longbottom practice his Potions on anything that was left, kept anyone who wanted to disagree shut up."

Oh, she could just see him telling the Slytherin common room that! "You're having a better time than I am. Ron said that I should be worried about you turning me into a Slytherin, and that I'm only out for myself." She still felt like slapping the redhead. "The git."

He shrugged a little. "What did you expect?" It was fairly obvious that the rivalry between him and her two best friends wasn't going to change just because they were getting along a little better.

"True." She chuckled a little, and noticed him looking at her curiously. "I was still upset over what Ron was like before I left. So when I got home, I got everything he'd ever given me and burned it all. He returned the favor before I came out here, too." She shook her head slightly. "Why are some men such asses?"

Draco didn't seem offended by the question. "I could ask why some women are such bitches."

"We just are."

His eyes touched her for a heartbeat. "I wasn't necessarily referring to you."

"Oh, I can be one at times, though. It's called PMS." She picked up her broom and made a show of checking it for wear and tear. "What excuse do men have, though?"

Draco had an answer for her, of sorts. "When women are bitchy and it's not that time of the month, what's their excuse?"

That hadn't occurred to her very seriously. "Some women just are. Same reason for men?" Draco nodded slightly, and she smiled in relief. "You are so easy to talk to at times."

"Simple logic." The young Slytherin looked almost as if he would have expected her to know this in the first place. The more she thought about it, the more she knew he was right. Some people just were annoying. Ron was probably one of them.

"So, is that offer to teach me Quidditch still open?" Hermione asked, and got a nod back. "I think I'm going to take you up on it." She glanced over at the sun and frowned a little. I must have spent more time than I thought upset at Ron. It's getting late. "We should head in for dinner."

The crowd inside the Great Hall was just like it always was, hot, noisy, and not paying attention to anything that wasn't edible. Hermione watched Draco for a moment as he headed over to the Slytherin table, then found herself an empty space in between Harry and Ginny. Ron didn't seem to be there, but that was all to the good. She didn't want to see him right now.

"Hi, Ginny," she greeted the youngest Weasley with a friendly smile. They hadn't really talked much over the years, in comparison to how much she associated with Ron and Harry, but there was a kind of connection between them that made for friendly conversation when they did. "Anything interesting go on today?"

"Not really." Ginny shrugged as she poked at the food on her plate. "What about you?" From the way that her eyes flicked between Hermione and Draco, what she really wanted to know was obvious.

"Mom's coming home in a week," Hermione almost sparkled at the thought. "And Ron is royally ticked off at me."

Ron's sister didn't look all that impressed. "Ron can get ticked off at nothing. It's just him."

"I know." Hermione started to eat, her thoughts going here and there. I know Harry likes Ginny. I wonder if he's told her yet. There was a subtle way to find out. She glanced over at her dark haired friend casually. "Harry, how did you do with that potion while I was gone?" The light flush, and the way his eyes shot over to Ginny, told her everything she wanted to know. She dropped her voice down so Ginny couldn't hear her, though that was going to be a bit difficult since they were right next to each other. "Why don't you tell her?" He looked a little panicked just at the thought of it, and she took pity on him. "Tell me about it later?" That got her a nod, then Ginny tugged on her sleeve a little.

"Just what is going on between you and Ron? He hasn't been this stubborn in a couple of years." Ginny wanted to know. Hermione shook her head.

"He's being a pompous ass."

"Five points from Gryffindor, Miss Granger, for bad language," The rumbling voice of Professor Snape told her as he walked past them towards the Head Table. Hermione snickered softly; it would stand to reason the first time she got points taken off for a while would be because of something connected to Ron. That was just the kind of situation this was.

She steadied herself, then looked back at Ginny. "Did Ron tell you or your parents why we broke up?" Ginny shook her head, looking quite eager to find out herself. "He was seeing someone else while he was seeing me, and dumped me for her, right after that Christmas party." Her fists clenched on her cup for a moment. "He broke my heart."

Ginny patted her hand softly. "I'm sorry." Sincerity colored her every word, and Hermione could almost see the wheels of vengeance churning in her head. Not for nothing was Ginny a Weasley...with the blood of Fred and George running in her veins.

"Well, I'm starting to get over it. Thanks to Draco." Ginny didn't need to know it had started out just as a sham and revenge. Even if that's all it ever was, his attentions had helped her feel better. "He's different from what most people think he's like." Different didn't even begin to describe it.

"Hermione?" She looked up to see Ron standing there, somewhat nervously. "Let's talk."

She thought for a moment, then nodded and stood up. "Not here." Together they headed out of the Great Hall, to a conversation that needed to be had.