The Potions Mouse

Chapter 5

Draco paced the Hospital Wing hallway. The shock of Hermione's transformation had receded enough for more practical questions to come to the fore. Questions he kept turning over and over, like a Muggle engine failing to start. He started the litany again. Maybe the seventh repetition would bring understanding.

Hermione's existence as the Potions Mouse, his beloved Sylvie, was clear evidence that she had retained some measure of her personality and intelligence. And if she remembered the minutiae of brew reactions, then she must have remembered Draco, too. She had bitten him upon their first meeting; that felt like proof enough. And if this was the case, then why had she stayed with him?

Why had she stayed?

At first, she had needed healing. She'd been burned and concussed, and an injured mouse was easy prey for Hogwarts' many pet cats. But after she'd healed? She had navigated the castle and its dangers for over a decade. She was a survivor.

Perhaps survival held the answer. Draco provided her with safety, a consistent supply of food and water, and, he thought with heated cheeks, a warm place to sleep. In other words, he was convenient. But Luna had offered these things, too. Hermione had had the choice to go with her, to leave Hogwarts and live with someone who had a much better chance at reversing whatever curse she'd been under. Yet she'd chosen to stay with him.

Maybe she enjoyed the life she'd made. For years, Hermione had been assisting his students as the Potions Mouse. She probably sat in on other classes, too. And though the incident in his N.E.W.T. class couldn't be called fortuitous, it did legitimize her. She no longer had to dart from dark corners to help his students. She ran among the benches with impunity, climbing up herself or accepting the students' open palms. Maybe this work had given her a sense of purpose. Maybe it had made her happy.

And if this had been the end of it, Draco could have waited for news. If Hermione had stayed with him as a matter of requirement, convenience, happiness, or some mixture of the three. If she had slept in his workroom or on a bookshelf or on his couch. If he'd seen her only in class and during meals. If she had taken her berries and her greens and her seeds and left him alone.

If they hadn't spent almost every waking minute together over the past month, then maybe Draco would have been content with the story he'd told himself. But they had. She'd sat on his shoulder during lessons. She'd nestled in the crook of his neck as he read each night before bed. She'd spent Quidditch games in his pocket, munching on the seeds he'd stashed there as a snack. They'd played silly games. She'd run obstacle courses and mazes, dodged his clumsy attempts to catch her in a bastardized game of tag, and hid so effectively during hide-and-seek that he had started to worry, and they'd avoided the game ever since. Wherever he went, she accompanied him by choice. He offered his hand, and she took it.

Draco rubbed his chest and looked at the Hospital Wing entrance. That meant something. It had to.

As if on cue, Madame Pomfrey opened the door. She saw Draco and sighed.

"Will you be here all night, Professor Malfoy?"

Was it night already? The windowless corridor obscured all sense of time, though it didn't matter. He'd wait any amount of time to see her.

"How is she?"

"Injured. Traumatized. Minvera has been sitting with her. She's..." The Healer shook her head, unable to find the words.

"When can I see her?"

"You can't."

Draco stiffened.

"Pardon me?"

"She needs time to adjust. We need to handle her reintegration slowly."

"I'm the one who found her."