With you in my Arms

2. Something has happened

Draco Malfoy sat at the large table in the breakfast room of Malfoy Manor. He was alone in the huge house as his father was in Azkaban and his mother in St. Mungo's.

He had not been able to find out what exactly had happened to her. He had found her one day unconscious on the floor of the library. None of the healers could say why she wasn't waking up. Though one of them had voiced the concern that she might have ingested a potion called Living Death. As for the reasons, nobody dared to hazard a guess.

He sighed. He was thinking of the happiness he had felt only a fortnight ago. He had found something so wonderful that he still couldn't quite believe it. Something so divine that it had been way past his imagination. She had shown him the one thing he had never experienced before.

A house elf quietly refilled his cup with steaming tea. He thanked her and stirred it absentmindedly. What was he going to do now? What could he do? She had been gone when he woke up, leaving him with a feeling of utter emptiness. He dreamed of waking with her in his arms. Just once. He took his cup and saucer and left for the library.
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Hermione sat together with Ginny in the Weasley kitchen. She had been staying here as there was nowhere else she could go. The house she grew up was empty as her parents were still in Australia. Harry had offered for her to stay with him at Grimmauld Place. She was still thinking about it. There she would have her own space and she would be able to have time for herself as well. Though what Harry's offer had really going for it was the fact, that Ron wouldn't be there all the time.

She had been trying to behave just as usual, but she knew that she was loosing on that front. So far Ron hadn't said anything, but she knew that it would be only a matter of time. Before the graduation they had been thinking about persuading his parents to let them have to top two rooms at the Burrow. As their sort of engagement flat. It hadn't happened so far. She slept in Ginny's room not Ron's.

She was suddenly aware that Ginny was waving a hand in front of her face.

"What?"

"I have been trying to talk to you for the past ten minutes! What is it with you?"

"What do you mean?"

The younger witch got up and motioned the older one to follow. She did. They went into the orchard and sat underneath a tree.

"Hermione, I am not blind you know. I can see, that something is wrong."

"Everything is just..."

"Hermione! Don't even try."

She was silent for a long while. It took all her courage to finally confess to her friend that something had happened.

"You know, that you were complaining I had suddenly vanished from the party at Hogwarts?"

"The Graduation Party? Yes, why?"

Though it was written all over her face that she was suspecting what was going to come next.

"Well, I wanted a bit of fresh air. I needed to just get away from it all for a while. So I went to to one of the secluded courtyards at the back of the castle. It was really peaceful there and then I heard footsteps. I thought that it would be Ron looking for me. He would have come and embraced me like he normally does. This person just stood behind me. So I turned round."

"And?"

"It wasn't Ron."

"I guessed as much. Who was it?"

"I can't tell you."

"Why ever not?"

"You wouldn't believe me, if I did, Ginny."

"It was a guy though?"

"Yes."

"And you knew him?"

"Yes."

"Was he handsome?"

There was a pause.

"If I am honest, yes, he was very handsome."

"A Griffindor?"

Another long pause ensued.

"No..."

Ginny just stared at her. Not a Griffindor?

"Come on, tell me!"

"No, Ginny."

"Why not? I'm your best friend!"

"Because you are my best friend I can't tell you. You would know and then it would be awkward for you being around Ron and Harry."

There was some weird logic in there somewhere Ginny reckoned.

"Okay, don't tell me who he is, but do tell me what you have done with him."

"Why do you think we have done anything?"

"Are you kidding? I can see it when I just look at you. You have changed literally over night."

Hermione sighed. She found Ginny far too observant right now.

"He kissed me."

"Must have been one hell of a kiss."

A nod was the only answer.

"You are kidding, right?"

"No. That was the most wonderful kiss ever."

"Wow! I need to found that guy and try him."

"Don't you dare! What will Harry say?"

Ginny chuckled.

"Don't worry. Harry is the only guy I'll ever kiss from now on, I promise, but I don't think it was just one kiss, was it?"

"No. He kissed me... when I... when he..."

"Merlin's beard, Hermione! What did you to do?"

She suddenly gasped and held her hands over her mouth.

"You two...?"

Hermione nodded. Ginny just stared at her in shocked silence.

"You really...?"

Another nod.

"I spend the night with him."

No answer or remark was forthcoming after this statement for a long while.

"Does Ron know?"

"Merlin! No! I don't want him to know. We had planed to..."

"Just don't tell me! There are things I don't want to know about my brother."

Hermione sighed.

"Do you understand now, why I consider staying with Harry?"

"Of course, but you should really talk to Ron. He needs to know."

"It'll break his heart."

"If he has any sense he sees it for what it is, a one off."

Ginny had cut right to the heart of the problem, Hermione didn't want it to be a one off! Even so she knew that nothing as wonderful as what happened in that night would ever happen again. He wouldn't want it to happen again. She was sure about it.
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"Ron? I need to talk to you."

Ron was sitting on his bed.

"Sure."

She closed the door behind her. He smiled at her. Her last hopes disappeared that she could do this without breaking the heart of the man she was so close to. She sat next to him.

"I have done something I didn't intended to do and I know it will really hurt you, but I can't undo it."

He looked at her.

"What are you talking about?"

"You know our Graduation Party?"

"Sure. Were you disappeared halfway through the evening and I couldn't find you anywhere."

"That's the one."

She paused.

"The reason, that you couldn't find me was that I was..."

She paused again.

"I was in one of the courtyards and somebody found me there..."

He just looked at her. An unnervingly calm expression plastered over his face.

"Ron, I'm so sorry, but he kissed me."

There was no reply forthcoming. She looked at him. His face was surprisingly flushed. This was not a reaction she had anticipated. Why was he blushing.

"Ron?"

He took a deep breath.

"Hermione, I have kissed another girl in that night as well." He murmured.

Her jaw just dropped.

"You did what?"

"I had too much firewhiskey while waiting for you and then I went looking for you after all. Only I found Parvati. She was crying and I tried to comfort her. After a while she calmed down and she sort of kissed me."

"Sort of?"

"Well, it was a bit strange. As if she was kissing me, but not really me."

"You mean, she was thinking of Merlin-knows-whom while kissing you?"

"Yeah."

"Oh."

At least she knew that her man had only been thinking of her while they had been kissing.

"Seems we both had a rather heavy evening." He muttered.

"Seems so."

She was wondering.

"Do you spend the night with her? I mean did you do anything else than kissing?"

A very short nod was the only answer to that. For a moment this situation felt as surreal as the night with him had at first.

"So you have slept with Parvati?"

"Yeah."

"And are you two now considering yourself a couple or something?"

"More something than anything else really. She is still together with a Ravenclaw, but she's going to break that off so we can be together."

Hermione was not sure, if she should be relieved or not. She wouldn't break Ron's heart after all. They both had found other people to spend the night with. Though in his case nobody would be wondering why she was his girlfriend. It would be regarded as just one of those things. She on the other hand... Nobody would understand what she had done and especially not with whom she had done it.

It had felt like the right thing to do. Deep down she knew that she would do it again. It had just been too exhilarating. She had never felt so free or so loved in her entire life. With him she had been alive.

She sighed. Ginny had been talking of a one night stand. For her it had been so much more.
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It was two weeks later that Harry found Hermione with a rather sick expression on her face in his kitchen in Grimmauld Place. She had decided to stay with Harry while she was talking to the Head Healer in charge of training at St. Mungo's.

The young wizard was watching his friend for a while before he decided to say something.

"Hermione? What happened? You look sick."

She looked at him. There was sheer horror written all over her face. He stared at her.

"What happened? Have they rejected your application at St. Mungo's?"

She shook her head. He sat next to her on the bench. Gently rubbing her back he waited for her to speak. It took a while until she did.

"I don't know, what's happening, but I feel just so sick. My stomach seems not willing to keep anything down. I have been sick twice at St. Mungo's alone. The healer was rather concerned about it."

"I would be as well. Have you taken a potion for it?"

She shook her head.

"I was told that it would be better to just let it pass without taking anything."

"The healer said that?"

She nodded. That didn't make any sense.

"Why would he do that?"

"I have no..."

She suddenly looked at him with wide eyes before rushing from the room. Harry watched he run from the kitchen.

"Kreacher?"

The house elf appeared out off nowhere.

"Has Hermione been sick, while I was gone?"

"Yes, Master, Miss has been sick nearly every day since she came here."

Harry's brows narrowed.

"Thanks, Kreacher."

The elf bowed and disapparated.

'She has been sick every day? What's going on here?'

When his friend re-appeared ten minutes later she looked even worse than she had done when he first saw her.

"Hermione, Kreacher told me you have been sick every day. Have you been poisoned or something?"

She sat back on the bench and let her head sink on the tabletop.

"Harry, I really don't know what is happening. I feel just so horribly sick all the time. It doesn't seem to ever stop."

"And that healer didn't give you anything for it? What kind of healer was that? A Muggle one?"

She could hear how concerned her friend was for her.

"I don't know."

Harry sighed.

"Come on, you need to lay down. Kreacher can get you some tea and some of his fantastic water biscuits. That should settle your stomach down."

He waited for her to move. She didn't. He tried to see her face. Her eyes were closed. She seemed to have fallen asleep.

"Kreacher." Harry called softly.

"Yes, Master?"

"Please make some tea and bring it up with some water biscuits to Hermione's room."

"Yes, Master."

He bustled off.

'Mobilicorpus or not Mobilicorpus, that's the question.'

He decided against it and instead pick up the sleepy form of his friend and carried her upstairs.