A few minutes after Hermione finished her first cup of tea, she was fast asleep. "Did you slip something into her tea?" Harry asked his girlfriend. Ginny shrugged, looking a little guilty. "Just a calming draught, but I think I got the dosage wrong and it put her to sleep." At Harry's expression the redhead got a little defensive. "You saw how on edge she was! She hasn't been sleeping properly and she deserves some rest." "I think we should put her to bed," Ron said, finally lucid again. The other two glanced at each other, but they nodded in agreement. Despite the likelihood that Ron had ulterior motives, Hermione would be much more comfortable in her own bed. Ron ignored their obvious glances and smoothed her hair back fondly before picking up the sleeping figure of Hermione. She shifted restlessly in his arms, but stayed asleep. He was halfway up the stairs when his arms started to shake and he began to develop a cramp in his back. Malfoy may have been able to carry her around like she weighed nothing, but Hermione was heavy. She wasn't overweight or anything, but 100 plus pounds of dead weight wasn't easy to lug up a flight of stairs - particularly when she kept shifting around. "Harry!" Ron gasped in a strangled voice. "Come take her from me before I drop her." Alarmed, Harry rushed up the stairs and tried to take Hermione from the redhead. Somehow, in the process of handing her over, they lost their grip on her head and it fell backwards until her top half was close to upside down. "You're going to wake her up!" Harry hissed at Ron. They both glanced down at her when she made an irritated noise in her sleep and then blinked her eyes open. "Draco," she murmured happily, reaching her arms out towards the bottom of the stairs. She was obviously still mostly asleep, or she would have been yelling at all of them. Her friends for drugging her only to wake her up again and her Veela for needlessly endangering himself by making her worry herself to the point where her friends thought they needed to drug her. Harry and Ron paled before slowly turning their heads to look in the direction Hermione was still reaching. Standing at the bottom of the stairs with his arms crossed and a stormy expression on his face was Malfoy. "Explain to me why I shouldn't tear you two morons into tiny pieces," he growled, looking between the two Gryffindor boys as he ascended the steps. When he arrived at Hermione, he turned her right-side-up and brought her into his arms with an ease that had Ron looking annoyed. She immediately snuggled against him and went back to sleep. "I'm waiting," Draco hissed, making sure to keep his voice down so as not to wake Hermione again. His effort was in vain, the sleeping brunette jolted awake. When she realized who it was that she was snuggled against, she leaned away as if he burned her. Hermione wiggled until he let her down. Swatting his hands away as he reached her, she put space between them. 'Don't talk to me, you're an idiot," she snapped when he opened his mouth to say something. The angry brunette stormed up the rest of the stairs and slammed the door behind her. "She's right, you're an idiot," Ginny added from the bottom of the stairs. Draco sighed. So it had been a selfish decision, but he'd just needed some normalcy back in his life, just for a little while. He hadn't been thinking of what his selfish decision had been doing to Granger. He'd known she'd worry a little, but never had he thought his mate would need to be drugged by her friends so that she wouldn't worry herself sick.
He watched as Hermione caught sight of him and forced a smile. "Thanks for coming, Bill." "No problem. I'm sorry it took so long, but I went to see Mr. Malfoy's parents first. I had to get a better idea of the original curse before I could look at the mutated version." Two pairs of eyes widened in surprise; neither of them had expected him to actually go and visit the elder Malfoys. There was no love lost between the two families, and it probably hadn't been a pleasant visit. "What did they say?" Malfoy asked. He knew his parents would have been cooperative if it meant the curse would be broken, but that didn't mean they would be civil about it. That visit would have been something he would have wanted to see. "They explained their theories about the curse and the story of its origin," Bill said, pulling out his wand. "I just need to cast some spells to see what's going on." Hermione felt Malfoy shift closer to her, but she continued to ignore him. She was still mad at the git. Bill wasn't going to hurt either of them, so any concern the Veela was feeling at the moment was misplaced. He could just deal with it and keep his distance while Bill tried to fix them. She stood perfectly still as the cool touch of spell-work washed over her. Malfoy moved even closer; she could feel the brush of his shoulder with every breath that expanded his chest. He could obviously feel the wash of magic as well and was disconcerted by it. "Stop!" Malfoy suddenly snapped. "Something's wrong." Bill looked confused, but he heeded the order and lowered his wand, looking at the blonde questioningly. Malfoy ignored the older man and grabbed his mate by her shoulders. He ignored her resistance and protests, burying his nose in the mass of hair resting against her neck. The deep breath he took made goosebumps break out on Hermione's skin. She fought off a larger reaction with difficulty. It wouldn't do to have the Veela all smug while she was trying to be mad at him. As quickly as he'd grabbed her, he let her go again and rounded on Bill. "What have you done?" Malfoy's voice was a low, dangerous hiss. "What's wrong?" Bill asked, looking completely bewildered. He glanced at Hermione and saw that she was looking just as confused. "She doesn't smell right." The Veela's tone made it clear that he thought this was a completely repulsive concept to him. "She doesn't smell like Granger, like mine." Hermione crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him, but Bill interrupted before she could say something scathing to the prat. "Sorry about that; it's a side-effect of one of the spells I just cast." Making sure to keep his distance, the blonde leaned over and sniffed the top of his mate's head. "She smells like celery." It was an accusation. "Stop being a drama queen," Hermione admonished. She brought her arm up to her nose and sniffed. It really did smell like celery. "I don't like celery," Malfoy said petulantly. "It'll fade in a few hours, mate," Bill tried to placate. "A few hours?" "I'm not particularly fond of celery either, but if it means I'll still be alive in a few days, then I'll deal with it," Hermione snapped. She grabbed Malfoy by the hand and pulled him back beside her. A protest was half-formed on his lips, but she elbowed him in the side and turned back to Bill. "Ignore him. Please continue." Copper eyebrows rose in amusement, but Bill didn't comment. He raised his hand and continued the spells he'd been performing before Malfoy had interrupted. When he was finished, Bill asked them both to take a seat. "I'm going to go home and do some research, I'll be back tomorrow with some spells to try. While I'm gone, you two need to be extra careful, this is a really twisted curse on the pair of you." Draco scoffed bitterly. "If there's anything my family excels at, it's dark curses." "Er... right," said Bill, looking uncomfortable. "I'm going to go get started on that research." Hermione stood from the sofa to say her thanks and show him to the fireplace while the blonde glared to make sure the oldest Weasley son kept his hands to himself. As soon as the red headed man disappeared into a swirl of emerald flame, Hermione rounded on Malfoy. "Was it really necessary to make such a big deal because I smell wrong?"
