33Author's Note: Well, I've been going through a Draco/Hermione phase lately and I decided that I would finally try my hands at writing one. Okay, this takes place about 4 years after the end of the epic battle aka the ending of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Everything in this story follows the canon events, minus that epilogue. Let's just pretend that there wasn't even one. Okay? ;D
Oh, and if I screw up on making it sound British, don't be afraid to tell me, because I am American, so yeah…Please enjoy.
Disclaimer: I have never and will never own Harry Potter. Everything belongs to the brilliant JK Rowling.
Ruby Skies and Emerald Oceans
Chapter One: The Big Headed Ferret
From what little could be seen of the world outside of the hospital, it was raining and it was raining hard. Hermione Granger's medically trained dirt brown eyes peered out the small box of a window, watching as pelts of water came down from the gray sky. Of course, the magical piece of glass remained spot free, as it served more as a mirror of the current weather than what was actually going on outside.
Her mind drifted off, thinking of Harry and Ginny's upcoming wedding and of the fact that in a few weeks it would officially be four years since she and Ron started dating. Had it really been four years since Voldemort had been destroyed and the Wizarding World had been given the chance to be reborn? Impossible, yet it was true.
Tap, tap, tap.
A clipboard was flying around Hermione's head, the point of the attached quill lightly hitting the board and the parchment clipped on it flapping. This soft sound of quill against board was enough to yank the 21 year old brunette healer out of her musings and to focus her attention, instead, on the young man sitting on the white hospital bed flexing his newly healed arm.
"I'm terribly sorry Oliver, I guess I was daydreaming. What did you just say?" asked Hermione, grabbing the clipboard out of the air and handing it to the man to sign.
"Oh, I just said that I'm glad you were my healer, because that other woman…the one with the American accent and long black hair was scary," said Oliver Wood, laughing as he scribbled his name with practiced ease.
"Yeah, Kendra is certainly an individual. I do believe it is her life's mission to flirt with as many men as possible. But, in the future, if she's your nurse, just lie and say you're married or something. Because I doubt any other excuse would be valid with her."
"Well, I don't think I will have to lie to her," grinned the Quidditch player. At Hermione's questioning look, he continued, "Alicia and I have been married for a year now. Geez, Hermione, don't you ever read the Prophet?"
Before she could respond however, the door opened and a tall black haired woman, looking to be about Hermione's age, entered the room; her bright blue eyes were glinting with a mixture of happiness and mischief. "Hermione, I'm sorry to interrupt, but there's another patient awaiting your expertise. When you're done with this one; if y'know what I mean." She giggled and then winked one of her eyelids, the make up causing a bizarre glittering effect.
A look of utter repulsion crossed over Hermione's make up free face, "Kendra, do you really think that I have so little confidence in myself that I'll advance on any man that will stay still long enough? I value myself and my job too much to flirt with my patients—especially if they're married."
Hermione's annoyed mini-speech just caused Kendra to giggle even more and only one word seemed to stick with her when she had stopped her Valley Girl-esque laughter. "You're married?" she asked Oliver, her face falling noticeably and after he nodded, she continued talking, more to herself than anybody else. "All the good looking guys are either tied down or gay. It's always the case."
"Anyways, I'm done here…where's that next patient?" The annoyed former Gryffindor girl asked, after Oliver had left the ward.
"Ward 15, on this floor. It was an accident with a Dark Arts object," Kendra said, now waving her wand around in order to help Hermione tidy up the room.
After having completed this task, they walked out of the room and the door to Ward 7 closed with a snap behind them. "So, what can you tell me about this patient? I'm guessing the clipboard is in the room."
"You guessed correctly! Well, I can tell you this much. If his head could have fit through the supply closet door, I would be in there making out with him." Kendra, who had gone to a wizarding school in North America, still had not gotten the hang of using "Brit speak" or so she called it.
The brunette healer rolled her eyes, but nodded, knowing that it was fruitless to try and make her say "snogging," which sounded a bit more dignified in Hermione's opinion. "So, I guess you're trying to say that he's good looking and the problem is a gigantic head," she said, translating Kendra-speak to intelligent-speak.
"Oh, Hermione, you are right on the target. And he is such a hottie and I don't mean he has a fever." The two girls had come to a stop in front of a door where a small plaque relayed to them what room they were at. "Well, Ward 15. This is it." She opened the door and stepped in.
Hermione shot her fellow healer a weird look: They were after all going to tend to a patient, not meet their doom. Walking into the room, a clipboard flew towards her, the attached quill swinging dangerously. She was about to look at the piece of parchment when she noticed the patient.
A man was lying on the bed which had been, along with the room itself, magically enlarged in order to fit his very, very, very large head. Hermione gaped at the bizarre specimen of a patient she had been lucky enough to witness. "It's huge," she breathed finally after what seemed like hours of silence.
"I know, why do you think I'm here?" drawled a voice which Hermione deducted had come from the enlarged head. The man made an effort to sit up, which must have been hard seeing as his head now probably weighed more than his body.
Hermione grabbed the clipboard out of the air and studied it, her eyes widening when coming to the words after Patient's Name.
Draco Malfoy.
If the clipboard hadn't been enchanted to stay in the air no matter what, it surely would have clanged to the ground. Hermione had let go of it, as though the thing had burned her, surprise having taken over her very being at the sight of those two words: Draco Malfoy.
"Draco Malfoy," Hermione repeated for a third time, this time out loud.
At the mention of his name the patient tried and failed to raise his head up. "At your service, Mudblood." The insulting word that he had used on her so many times while they were in school had never hurt less. Malfoy was losing his touch.
"What did you call me, Ferret?" She smirked and he sneered, though even that seemed to have been done half-heartedly. "What's wrong? Gone soft after Voldemort's defeat?"
He looked back at her with a cold indifference, steel colored eyes meeting wood colored ones. Don't blink, don't blink, Hermione thought to herself, not sure why the sight of Malfoy brought up such competitiveness in her.
"Well, Hermione, looks like you have this covered," said Kendra, walking towards the door. Hermione and Malfoy blinked and looked up at her; they had both forgotten that she was still in the room.
"Er, right. See you later Kendra," said Hermione, grabbing the clipboard out of the air again.
"Oh, and Drakkie. When your head shrinks to its normal size…find me." Kendra winked back at them and then left.
"I most certainly will not," spat Draco's enlarged head in apparent displeasure. "Of all the annoying skanks to have been made a healer, they chose the one with no brains at all. It's like talking to a stupider version of Pansy."
"She can act like an airhead at times, but she's a healer. Kendra's actually a lot smarter than she lets off. If she wasn't, she wouldn't be working here. And, don't compare her to Parkinson." Hermione didn't have any explanation for why she defended Kendra, whom she had called "annoying skank" on numerous occasions, other than the fact that it was Draco Malfoy that had done the insulting.
"Well, let's get down to business Drakkie," started Hermione, smirking as his middle finger shot up in the air, his head still lying off the end of the bed like a white hot air balloon. "How have you been since I last saw you? What has it been…four years now? A very eventful night that was: what with Voldemort being defeated, Crabbe setting us on fire, and watching Death Eaters fall to the ground like flies. So how are Mommy and Daddy? And all the poor house elves that you unceremoniously kick around your stupid dark manor?"
"One, Granger, I'm good, thanks for asking since I know you were oh-so-concerned. Two, 'Mommy and Daddy' are just fine…though if I ever called them that they would not be. Three, I grew out of house elf kicking when I was 8. Four, I don't even live in the manor anymore, I'm a grown man. And five, why don't you shut the hell up and do your bloody job?" Draco was growing irritated and for some weird reason, this delighted Hermione. He was at her mercy; she could blow up his head with one flick of her wand. Though, that would probably land her job-less and in Azkaban.
"Oh fine. I'll do my job; you're no fun when your head is 100 times its normal size," Hermione sighed and picked up the clipboard, plopping down in a wooden chair next to the bed. "So, how did this obvious tragedy happen? I mean, I didn't think that after all that business with Voldemort, you would ever be an arrogant git again. But I was wrong, your ego really did get larger, and it inflated your head along with it."
If Hermione could see his face, which remained the same size even though his head did not, she would have seen that he was glaring daggers at the ceiling, the only place he could look.
"Shall I start at the beginning? Will that make you happy and finally allow you to do your damn job?" asked Draco dryly.
"Oh, please do. I've always loved a good story!" she smiled at him and waved a hand he could not see to tell him to proceed.
He narrowed his eyes, but then spoke in a flat, uninterested voice, as though he would want nothing more than to Avada Kedavra his healer right then and there. "Okay. Once upon a time, the Ministry was very stupid and decided that they would make you go through hell and back to become an Auror. At the same time in a dark manor, a 19 year old boy was deciding that he would try to be an Auror. He then passed the incredibly difficult Character and Aptitude Tests, which of course were no problem for him since he was blessed with amazing brains as well as good looks—"
"And incredible modesty as well," Hermione interrupted sarcastically.
"Shut your pie hole, Mudblood. Anyways, then he started his three years of difficult training. He successfully completed two years and was on his third. Then, a bloke by the name of Proudfoot led the small group of Aurors-in-training on a raid of the Nott family's house. One of the items found was a crown that inflated the wearer's head to the size of a hippopotamus. The End. Happy, Granger?"
Hermione clapped, a smirk making its way across her lips. "A sense of humor, who knew you had it in you? And a creative knack for story telling as well! I'm impressed."
"Don't go insulting me, Granger. I just spend way too much time with that dolt Potter and his faithful sidekick Weasel these days. The excruciatingly long hours with those of incredibly low intelligence makes me regret my career choice." Draco sighed so heavily it was as if every second he talked about this topic, the more pain it caused him.
"You're the most entertaining patient I've had all week Ferret! I'm going to regret shrinking your head. It'll probably pop the brain cells back into place and you'll turn into your regular ugly self again. Pity."
Hermione was incredibly cheerful now, the rain outside turning to a light drizzle. For some odd reason, Draco Malfoy's presence was more of a comfort than an annoyance, the opposite of what she thought it would be. She felt young, reckless, and free-spirited again, something she had not felt since her 6th year at Hogwarts.
"Well, what are you waiting for, Gryffindork? I didn't come to St. Mungo's to be annoyed to death," Draco drawled, his neck now feeling a lot of pressure from the large mass that was his head. Already he could tell that it was going to be a very long day.
"Ahhh! Damn it all!"
Hermione watched with unmasked interest as the enemy from her school days writhed around in obvious pain and discomfort, his head now considerably smaller than it was when he had first arrived.
She checked her wristwatch; it was midnight now and six hours had passed since he had taken the shrinking potion. Until an hour ago, Hermione had been in and out of the room to check up on his progress. However, she had been asked to stay with him until his head had shrunk to its normal size and being a person who took her work seriously, Hermione had agreed.
"Are you sure you made that potion correctly? This isn't at all the feeling that I got when I took a swig of the Deflating Draft when Goyle's potion exploded in second year," complained Draco, clutching at the bedpost in an effort to keep some grasp on reality.
"Of course I made it correctly! I'm a professionally trained healer," scoffed Hermione, folding to page 3 of the evening Daily Prophet, having entirely skipped an article about the Chudley Canons on page 2. "The reason why it takes so long is because your head was the size of a bloody elephant. As for the reason why it hurts so much, let's just say that if a Dark Object was involved, you're lucky it's working at all."
"But Granger, my eyes, they burn. I think I'm going blind!"
"You do complain a lot, especially since it was your own fault that you put the tiara on," Hermione pointed out, not looking up from an article that bore the headline: Percy Weasley Announced as Senior Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic.
"Don't say 'tiara,' it sounds disgusting. And I did not put that wretched thing on. You can blame your moronic boyfriend Weasel for that. Don't give me that look Granger. I have every right to be angry with him. He's asleep in his own bed at the moment, where as I'm in the hospital having my head shrunk to its normal size. And all because some half brained git decided that it would be funny if he placed the crown onto my head. What an effing—"
"Tsk, tsk, Malfoy. We really must work on that temper of—"
"Don't 'tsk' me woman!" interrupted Malfoy.
"Whatever. The point is, since this was all Ron's fault, I guess I will do my best to put up with you until your head is its normal size again."
"Thank you. Not like you have a choice, I'm paying for this after all…"
"But, it's kind of depressing," Hermione continued on, as though he hadn't spoken, "That you see more of Harry and Ron than I do myself. Well, Harry is one thing, but Ron and I have been together for years now...Oh, how did you know he was my boyfriend? Does he talk about me?" Her face lit up, swelling with pride.
"Not really. He's never really mentioned his girlfriend before. But, everybody knows, you two are bloody perfect for each other. The weasel and the beaver…"
Hermione bit her lip, feeling angry—not because of the insult, she overlooked that, but because Ron never seemed as happy to be with her as she was to be with him. And this was proof; she talked about him to her coworkers. Why didn't he explode with happiness like her? Well, of course he's happy, there's no reason I should doubt him. He loves me after all…Hermione thought, pushing all negative thoughts out of her brain. "Well, what about you Mr. Ferret? Have you settled down with a woman yet?"
"Hardly. I was engaged though, but that broke two years ago…about the time I started training."
"You were engaged? To whom?" Hermione could not keep the tone of surprise out of her voice, as it came to a shock to her that Draco Malfoy the Slytherin Prince would allow himself to be tied down at such a young age.
"You honestly don't know? Do you ever read Witch Weekly?" When Hermione shook her head "no," Draco's smirk grew. "Well, I guess it explains a lot." He waved a hand as if to say that her lack of fashion and feminism stemmed from not reading the magazine. "I pick it up every once in a while, to keep up on the gossip. They named me one of the top ten young wizard bachelors last year."
"Congratulations?"
"Whatever. I can practically hear your smirk. Anyways, they really kept the wizarding world informed on my arranged engagement to Astoria Greengrass." Draco sighed, playing with the sleeve of his hospital robes.
"Who?"
"You're lucky you didn't know her. Girl was dumber than a bag of rocks. She actually needed directions to navigate herself across a room. Nice to look at, but every second I was around her, I could feel one more brain cell dying."
Hermione laughed, ignoring the gnawing feeling at her gut that clearly told her, Run away and don't come back, this kid's trouble. He didn't seem that bad to her. Could it be true that he had changed? Maybe from being around Harry so much. She looked back at Draco, who was continuing on with his story.
"So, as you can see, I just had to end it. I had had enough of unintelligent people back in Hogwarts what with Crabbe and Goyle following me everywhere. Father was upset, since it was he who had been so strong about our marriage," Draco scoffed at the word, "working. Of course, the Greengrasses are an incredibly respected pureblood family. I'm sure our children would have been very…"
"Pure?" Hermione offered, turning the page.
"Yeah, pure idiots," he said.
She chuckled and looked up from the paper. His hair and skin looked shockingly white in the moonlight, like a piece of art or a corpse. She almost wanted to touch him to be sure he was real and not a ghost. He looked so peaceful, so…beautiful.
"Granger?"
Hermione blinked, just now realizing she had been staring at him. Of course, he didn't know, as his eyes were directed at the ceiling and nowhere else. But despite knowing this, she turned faintly pink and looked back to her paper. "What?"
"Are we bonding?" Draco asked, a small smirk making its way across his small face and inflated head.
Hermione allowed a smile to cross her face. Yes, in fact, one could consider them as bonding, but instead she said, "You should get to sleep. It won't hurt as much that way." She handed him a small vial that was labeled Sleeping Draft.
Draco's steady breathing and soft snores filled the ward, which left Hermione to flip through the rest of the Daily Prophet without any arrogant patient to keep her company. She cast another look at him, looking so peaceful with his abnormal sized head.
Hermione's eyes found what she was looking for: a skinny column on page 14 that was titled Dear Ginny: Advice from the Holyhead Harpies Chaser, Ginny Weasley. The brunette smiled to herself, thinking of her red-headed friend. After graduating from Hogwarts, she had been offered a spot on the all-witch team, the Holyhead Harpies. In the last year, Ginny had also expressed a desire to join the staff of the wizarding newspaper. She had slowly made her way up from printer to layout assistant to becoming "Dear Ginny."
Having never been interested in the woes of middle-aged witches, which usually had to do with incorrectly cast garden spells, Hermione skimmed through the questions and answers. She was about to turn the page, when she saw the last question and its answer:
Dear Ginny,
A new employee has recently been added to my department. At first glance, I thought he looked vaguely familiar, but upon hearing his name I realized that we had gone to Hogwarts together. He had been the bully who had constantly called me names and made fun of me. However, it's been 10 years and he seems different, more mature. Do you think I should give him a chance? Or treat him the same as 10 years ago?
-Skeptic Schoolgirl
Skeptic Schoolgirl,
Not knowing how much your childhood enemy changed, I can't promise that my advice will be the correct one for this situation. However, in situations like this, I always say that the best thing to do is give the other person a chance. People screw up everyday and people can learn from their screw-ups and become better individuals. I think it would be immature to not give him a second change, and even worse to treat him like he's an awful person. Maybe go out for lunch or tea, you never know, you might gain a friend. And if he's the same jerk as before, you didn't really lose anything.
-Ginny
Draco let out a snore like a foghorn and Hermione jumped, tearing the paper which she had been gripping tightly. Ginny's words echoed in Hermione's brain: People screw up everyday…go out for lunch or tea…you didn't really lose anything.
Author's Note, Again: Well, there was Chapter 1. It was kind of boring…more like setting the scene and stuff. Hope you enjoyed it though. And I'm sorry if it's not really, really, funny, despite the genre being Romance/Humor. Think of it more as a romantic comedy. Please review. :]