I woke up, sweating. It's too hot. Someone with an amazing amount of grudge settled for boiling me alive. Hot iron bands are wrapped around my torso, searing my skin. Bile is rising up my throat… I freed myself from whatever's gripping me and threw up on a pail, conveniently placed on the side of my bed.

Then something got me thinking. The iron bands were so easy to break… In fact, it's very soft. I whirl around as my mind finally cleared.

I'm at the infirmary. The 'iron bands' that is holding me prisoner in my bed were somebody's purple-spotted arms.

"Cedric?" I asked, perplexed. Don't tell me he felt bad about infecting me that he came in here to nurse me in return. Not when he's still sick. I might get double pixie flu. Ugh.

"Not on your life," said the arms as it reared the head attached to it and revealed a pixie-flu infested Malfoy.

Oh, my. We both have the pixie flu. I was about to laugh when another thought snaked it's way to my brain. No, no, no. We just agreed to start dating… I'm immediately transported to my memories of Cedric frothing in the mouth. Oh, no. I just retched in front of him! Wait- what disgusting things has he already seen?

"How long…?"

"Your friends found you lying on the floor of your bathroom yesterday. They carried you here immediately."

"I was unconscious for a day?!"

"Well, not really unconscious… Er- It was a busy morning for your friends…"

I gritted my teeth. "How busy?"

"Uh, I wasn't really there myself. I was sitting through Advanced Potions when I started sprouting purple spots and by the time someone yelled for help, I was too busy trying not to scream from an ear-splitting headache."

"I thought you already had the flu."

"Well, turns out I haven't ."

"If I knew that, I wouldn't have let you come near Cedric."

"And you wouldn't have succeeded."

"Aww."

"Don't mock me, Hermione. You should know by now that I like you too much to be beside another guy in a confined space."

"Aww."

"Shut up."

"Wait, how did you know my friends had trouble with me? Don't tell me you saw something?" What did I do? Oh, my gosh. Don't tell me he saw me frothing in the mouth, or worse…

"No, I didn't," he answered me. "My bed is beside yours but the curtains were drawn all around me. But I can tell, they were having really loud discussions about what to do with you."

"As long as you didn't see, I suppose it's alright."

"I still would've paid to see it. The way they were losing their minds…"

"Hey, I don't think it was that bad. A sick person can only do so much."

"From what I heard, you were a handful and a half. Then they traded care of you to Madam Pomfrey. She couldn't attend to us, you know, the first years were too sick. Good thing, half of her wards were healed the day before yesterday or we wouldn't have a spot here, just like Cedric."

"They traded care for me? What do you mean?" I asked.

"They told Madam Pomfrey to look after you and they volunteered to look after all the sick freshmen."

"That bad, huh?"

"That bad, yes."

"But why are you in my bed." Hugging me, no less. Teehee! I'm giggling inside like some over-infatuated teenager that I am.

"Past midnight, you were chattering with cold. Your friends retired for the night but Madam Pomfrey was occupied with another patient who started bleeding in the ears. So, I gave you an extra blanket and stoked the fire… but then I started feeling cold, too…" He said, not quite meeting my eyes, with embarrassment coloring his face.

"Hmmm," I thought slowly. "It wasn't an extra blanket, was it? It was your blanket."

Impossibly, he went even redder. "Stop thinking. It's bad for you," he mumbled gruffly.

"Aww."

"Shut up."

I took pity on him so I changed the subject. "Are you still cold?" I asked him.

"Actually, I'm feeling a bit too warm."

"Me, too." Oh, my, do I need a cold shower. Mmm, mmm, mmm!

"I'm taking my blanket back to my bed," he said, still not looking up.

"You do that."

"I'm taking you with me."

"You do that, too."

"Aww," he mimicked me.

"Shut up."

An hour or two later, I woke up with a grumbling belly. I didn't want to get up because it's so comfortable nestling inside Draco's arms. Though purple-spotted, he makes those steel buns still look amazing, especially wrapped around me. I resisted the urge to pinch them (or bite 'em delicious things) and sighed as my belly gave a thunderous complaint about being neglected. Carefully, I extracted myself from him and looked at his face and I sigh again. He makes pixie flu look cool even with a nose bleed. I wiped his nose clean and went to my sickbed and found a delicious porridge waiting for me. Of course my friends came with it.

Parvati grinned at me, "My, my. Caught in bed with another guy. I hope you don't make a habit of it."

I rolled my eyes. I'm famished enough to ignore it.

I wasn't finished eating three spoonfulls when Ron gave me a bunch of flowers.

I raised my eyebrow in confusion. I'm not yet dead, am I?

"Don't get sick again, Mione," he said in all sincerity. "If you do, please notify me so I could plan a vacation elsewhere- anywhere."

Harry came with a basket of sweets. "'Mione, don't leave your senses again. You're already a bad enough person without your questionable morals stopping you."

Well, I never!

Ginny nodded seriously. "You almost gave me a panic attack when I saw you on the floor with your mouth frothing like that!" And she gave me a repeat performance of what I supposedly looked, lying on our bathroom's floor. I definitely hoped I didn't look that bad- with the eye-rolling and spittle bubbling from my mouth… It is a ridiculous exaggeration, I assured myself.

When she started moving like a fish on land, with mouth going crazy wide, I felt like I had to defend myself. "Alright, alright. How bad could I have been? I'm sick, alright? Give me some slack."

"The thing is, you're not just sick. You have the pixie flu. And that's a world of difference," Parvati stated grimly.

"Uh, explain please?" So I have the pixie flu. Cedric wasn't all that hard to handle…

"Mione, when a person has pixie flu, magic doesn't work on them that's why we have to take care of you muggle-style. What we didn't know was, the person infected can still do magic," she explained condescendingly.

My spoon hovered in the air. That doesn't bode well.

"So, you finally understand the full extent of our misery."

"Lavender, shut up and tell me what the hell happened."

"Well, if you were just unconscious, we would be more than glad to keep you alive. But your body, without your bloody conscience interfering, suddenly formed different ideas on how to injure people who are just helping you drink your meds."

"You shouldn't have learned wandless magic. Before I gently pried your mouth open, your teeth suddenly elongated to sharp points and I was not prepared for that." Ginny held out her hand, it was bandaged.

"Hey, you could just have your hand fixed. Dittany alone could heal it faster than a bandage."

"Yeah, the thing is, magic can't work in it. Your bites don't allow magic to heal it."

"Then you had the bottle of Muggle medicine flying towards me," Harry excitedly butted in, reenacting the moment. "Good thing people can use magical shields. We learned that defensive magic works, but maybe that's because it is not used on you. Offensive magic is just absorbed by your skin. We tried stupefying you." He said all that so flippantly, like I was some sort of a video game monster they had to defeat! I am becoming indignant with all these fuss over my supposed behavior while practically unconscious…

"The others bounced of you. Just like the binding spell. Neville got the brunt of it. Then when your body felt that it was being 'assaulted' it fought like a savage, releasing spell after spell as well as alterations to your body. One of your hands transformed into a mace and nearly got me," he continued, waving his hand animatedly.

Oh, no… I nearly killed my bestfriend! "Merlin, I'm so sorry! I didn't know!" I gasped, appalled at my awesome defensive skills- and I wasn't even awake!

"That's the sad part. You don't know what your body is doing but you are just bloody good at fighting. The frightening thing is you're doing it while shaking and your eyes rolling over your head."

"Ew."

"Yes, ew," the girls echoed me.

"How did you get me to stop?"

"We had to do everything muggle style. We had to get honest-to-goodness ropes. The ropes conjured by magic just disappears when it makes contact on your skin. Then Ron put on the funny metal armor to restrain your foot. It was flailing like mad. We all had various armors as we restrained you long enough for Madam Pomfrey to inject a sedative."

"It was a good fight." Dean gave me a thumbs up. "The best thing was we all got to ditch classes!"

"What?! Then who's taking notes on our classes!?!"

"'Mione, you ungrateful hag. We risked limb and death for you! "

"And you have my thanks. Now go back to class and take notes! What if I fail this year? I don't wanna repeat 7th year again!"

"Hermione. Don't pretend that you haven't covered everything before the term started. We know you've already submitted a month's worth of homework in advance. Give us some slack."

I was about to protest when Ron said, " I will tie your mouth with my hanky if you mention one more word about classes."

I winced. His doesn't wash his handkerchief much. Who knows what he wipe on that thing?

"But Draco said you handed me to Madam Pomfrey."

"Yep. After she gave the sedative we begged for a tradeoff. I'm sorry to tell you this, but we just had to hand you over to the pros."

"It was a bit exhausting, though. The freshmen that remained after the massive goo-ingesting incident were too sick but it was too easy taking care of them after you," Lavender told me oh-so-helpfully.

"Then when I turn all crazy, shooting magic and all, who's helping her take care of me?" How could they just dump me on Madam Pomfrey! She must've been so tired!

"Er, three of the faculties were enlisted. Prof. Snape, Prof. McGonagall and the Headmaster.."

"Oh, no…" I covered my face with my hands. "How long do you think I need to apologize for this?"

"Don't apologize to them, Mione. I mean it. They were having fun," Harry told me, his face scrunching up with disgust. "You should've seen Snape and Dumbledore. The both of them actually volunteered to look after you after they overheard Madam Pomfrey's patronus shrieking for help inside Prof McGonagall's office."

"Hmmm. Isnt that nice of them…" I mumbled suspiciously.

"Yup, they were nice enough to hex you in every colorful way knowing that it wouldn't really harm you. I'm telling you, they got a kick out of it," Ron said, shaking his head, bewildered. "Dumbledore was cackling like the crazy old man that he is while dodging and rolling here and there like a wrinkled acrobat while shooting jinx after jinx your way. Snape just stood there all calm-like with insane eyes, hexing and defending himself with a stiff swish of his wand."

"They didn't even pretend to help hold you down for a shot of sedative till McGonagall got tired of their game and yelled their ears off," Giny added.

"Huh." It was all I could comment. I did give them trouble this year, it was only fair that they could get a shot at me while they could.

Harry raised an eyebrow.

"Spit it out Harry," I barked.

"Huh?! Huh!? What kind of response is that?"

I rolled my eyes at him. "Don't worry. If you think I'm gonna do something to them because of a simple thing like that- well, I still couldn't. I am still sick, you know."

"Uh-huh…" he waited, his eyes are still critical.

"Relax. I couldn't very well get back at them while frothing in the mouth. By the time I get well, I'd forget about it most likely. Something will happen that will occupy my precious time. I know it because it always happens to me."

Harry, Ron and Ginny still looks like they don't trust me not to go after my dear, dear maniacal professors while still dripping with phlegm as Lav and Parvati proceeded to tell me another story about some freshmen who tested the limits of their medical knowledge. As they argued about the benefits of consuming roasted goat poo as cure for constipation, I felt myself drifting to sleep. The last thing I heard were my friends shouting for Madam Pomfrey and requests for less violent professors to take care of me.

It was a long week. Draco and I never got see each other as much even when we were just next to each other. The drapes were always around mine and when I'm awake, he's asleep. More than once, though, I felt someone caressing my face. I even felt kisses on my forehead, but I guess that's just part of the dreams I was having. My friends never let Professor Snape and Professor Dumbledore near me again, which is a relief.

When I'm finally free of purple spots and free to go back to my dorms, Draco is still sleeping but his spots are already fading. I lingered on his bedside and looked at his peaceful, handsome face. Gently, I held his hand, as if driven by a natural impulse to get closer. His hand is warm on mine and I lavished the feel of his skin on mine.

My once enemy, my future husband. How did the universe get so warped? I'm looking at the face I once hate. I'm looking at a man I can't help admiring. These past weeks, he has been so good to me. The looks he gave me- they were undoubtedly sincere. He's trying so damn hard- and me? I'm on a warpath. Fighting with everyone about everything, seeking for ways to think of other things to occupy me that doesn't involve thinking about what to do about him. And because, contrary to popular opinion, I'm really stupid- I will put it off again and just take what I can get out of dating Draco Malfoy...Starting with stealing a peck on his forehead. My, my. I really do like kissing the guy. I would've kissed his lips but it looks like he just used the sick pail before passing out. And he might feel taken advantaged of again.

I felt his hand tighten on mine and I froze like a naughty kid caught stealing candies. I peeked slowly to see if I woke him up. His eyes were still tightly shut but his lips were suppressing a smile. I am horrified beyond belief! I picked up my stuff and ran like hell.

The next day, I can't help but smile wickedly at my luck. I learned that Professor Dumbledore contracted the pixie flu and I was the first one to volunteer to look after my dear, dear Headmaster.