A/N: This is a birthday story for Countess Black. Tonia, I hope you had a wonderful, wonderful day and I'm sorry this took so long to post for you. :P I own nothing, so I hope you guys enjoy!

There is nothing colder in this life than the feeling of an invisible rope being tightened around your neck. Every move you make causes the rope to tighten, each stray thought adds another strand and makes your binding more complete. No matter how you struggle, how you try to wriggle free, the noose grows stronger, tighter, and soon you cannot breathe, cannot think, cannot move.

She would never admit it to a single soul, dead or alive, but Hermione Granger just might have met her match in a pair of round-rimmed glasses. For three months, she had been trying to charm a replica of Harry's glasses to transport him to safety without forcing him to focus on apparation. No matter the spell, charm, incantation, or (on occasion) choice swear words she used on them, the glasses refused to cooperate the way she wanted. They had refused to work in the beginning, then had dumped her unceremoniously on her head, and had lastly transported her right into the Weasley Twins swamp. That had not been a good afternoon.

But now, as she walked down a hallway, talking softly to herself as she stared at the glasses in her hand, Hermione thought that she might have actually figured it out. Yes, with a little tweaking, it might actually work! She stopped midstep and pulled out her wand, whispering the words very softly, almost fearing what might happen once the spell was complete. She tapped the glasses once and watched a slight shimmer fall over them before they returned to their normal color. Well…nothing had exploded. This was progress.

She held her breath and lifted the glasses to her face. This was her least favorite part, testing her invention. She steeled herself for any of the horrid effects she had felt in the past, but just as she felt the magic start to take ahold of her body, she heard the crying….

It was always this way, the heart wrenching sobs that he couldn't control no matter how hard he tried, no matter how many times he told himself that he was weak. He knew that students at Hogwarts heard him in the night sometimes, when the sounds of his keening would strain through the halls in just the right way, but no one guessed the true owner of the cries. They thought they belonged to Moaning Myrtle.

Just what he wanted them to think.

The ghost girl was all aflutter over Harry Potter, but she settled for him when there was no one else around, and in between her blubbering advances, she left him alone to grieve. On occasion, she even joined in, crying over her own troubles, and perhaps even crying for him. It was rather nice to have someone cry for him, actually. No one else in this blasted world seemed to care.

The crying. The horrible, full out crying that people talked about every now and then. It was coming from Moaning Myrtle's bathroom….

"No!" Hermione screamed, because as soon as her attention shifted towards the crying and pinpointed its location, the glasses on her nose gave a lurch and then she was spinning, swirling, and…crashing.

She landed on her feet this time instead of her head, but the momentum of her sudden arrival threw Hermione forward so that she ended up summersaulting and sliding across the floor. Her head hit the tiles and she finally skidded to a stop, letting out a soft groan as pain shot straight through her skull to the backs of her eyes. "Ow," she grit out a split second before she realized that she wasn't alone.

She wasn't sure who was more stunned, her or Draco Malfoy, prep boy wonder, utterly disheveled and obviously upset. As soon as she saw his red-rimmed eyes, even from her upside down position, she knew that he was somehow responsible for the cries that haunted the castle. Before she could do a thing, his wand was out of his pocket and pointed straight at her head. "Graceful as ever, Granger," he muttered, but Hermione immediately noticed the way his voice wavered. He was actually trying to sound meaner than he felt.

"Are you alright?" she asked softly, completely ignoring the knee-jerk retort that flew to her lips, reverting instead to the question she had always wanted to ask him if she ever found a time where he wasn't about to curse her. Well…perhaps now was not the time, but she couldn't think of anything else!

If she was looking for a way to throw him off, Hermione had found one. Draco's face, always such a mask of indifference, showed utter surprise for a moment before he lowered his wand and turned away from her, running his fingers through his silky hair, messing it up almost as much as Harry's. "Just go away."

The finality in his voice, the weariness there, gave Hermione the courage to sit up and turn around to face him. "Is there something I can do for you?"

"What?" he asked, turning around and fixing her with an expression Hermione never thought she would see on his face: hope. But then, just as quickly as it had come, it was gone and he was shaking his head and attempting to glare at her. "Go away, Granger," he mumbled.

But now Hermione was determined. If she could fix these glasses for Harry like she had, she could solve almost anything! "No, I don't think I will, Malfoy." She picked herself up off the floor and smoothed her robes out, her chin tilting up determinedly. "There's no reason that you should be here alone."

"Maybe I prefer it to snoopy bookworms asking personal questions," Draco returned.

The fact that he had not once called her a mudblood further solidified Hermione's belief that there was either something very, very wrong, or that Draco Malfoy had finally grown up. Looking at his haggard face, it might actually be both. "You might," she momentarily agreed, "but snoopy bookworms are probably the only people that are going to ask if you're actually alright instead of trying to curse your nose off your face." If she hadn't been frustrated with him, Hermione might have smiled at the quick way Draco's eyes crossed to examine his nose momentarily before glaring once more at her.

"Leave, Granger," he growled, gripping his wand so hard that his knuckles turned white and Hermione thought his wand might break. "Please leave." His eyes found hers once more and he said softly, "There's nothing you can do to help me."

There was nothing more she could do, Hermione realized. He didn't want her there, so she would leave, this time by the door and not with the glasses, which she slipped into the folds of her robes. As she walked past him, she had the overwhelming urge to say…something. So, with one hand on the door, ready to pull it open, she turned back to him and said softly, "Draco? Please be careful."

And then she was gone.

That had been last year, before everything had blown up in his face, including her, after Dumbledore had died. However, now that the War was over and some of Harry Potter's followers had returned to school, Hermione had become a close friend. And really, as Draco sat in the Head dorm and thought about it, she was more than a friend. She was an ally, a great conversationalist, his equal in almost every subject, and…he had grown to love her. Against his will, of course, but no matter how many times he had tried to shove his feelings aside, to get rid of them completely, his mind would revert back to the night in the bathroom when she had tumbled in wearing those ridiculous glasses and had tried to help him.

He stared at the fire in the fireplace, wondering where she was right now. Probably poring over another book in the library. That girl was obsessed with her studies! But even Draco had noticed a change in Hermione since the War. She was still obsessed with school, but there was a listlessness there, almost like she now had to force herself in her obsession. She was run down with Head duties and Draco had a sneaking suspicion that she was coming down with a cold, but since he rarely saw her outside of class these days, he had no way to know for sure.

The door swung open and said Head Girl herself came through, her hands filled with books and her school bag. She gave a soft little grunt as she tried to close the door with her foot while keeping all of her books stable, and Draco's heart leapt at the sight of her, even as his eyes rolled at her muggle ways. With graceful strides, he was out of his seat, crossing the room and taking the books from her hands before she could get the door closed. "You're a witch, Granger," he teased.

She looked up at him with that expression of amusement and mock annoyance that he always looked forward to seeing when they were alone, but whatever she was going to say was cut off by several twitches of her eyelids and then she turned her head to the side and sneezed once, twice, three times. Draco's eyebrows knit together. So he had been right.

"Yeah, well I like my muggle ways as well," Hermione retorted, bringing Draco back from his thoughts. Her voice was hoarse and he could see that her lips were cracked and dry, which meant that she must have been coughing quite a bit.

She was really trying to pull that on him? "Right," he scoffed, setting the books down on the couch, well out of her reach for now. "You're just too sick to use magic."

Just like he knew it would, Hermione's chin came up. "No I'm not! I'm perfectly fine." However, she belied that statement by coughing several times.

Draco nodded sarcastically. "Perfectly fine, absolutely. Come on, you're going to bed." He took her elbow and began to pull her toward the stairs but Hermione dug her feet in and shook her head.

"Draco, I'm fine. It's just a little cold," she insisted. "I'll get over it, but I have to finish studying for my Ancient Runes exam." She tried to tug her arm free but he held her firmly. "Malfoy!"

"Yes?" Draco asked sweetly, ignoring Hermione's frustrated tone.

"Let go of me," she growled.

"No, I don't think so," he returned. "You're sick and you need your rest. Now, if you don't come with me willingly, I'm going to have to use force."

Hermione laughed, obviously not believing him, and attempted to cover up another cough as she tried to bargain, "Give me a few minutes of studying and I'll go to bed."

"Sorry, wrong answer," Draco told her, bending down and gently tossing her over his shoulder, ignoring her squeak of protest and the way she kicked her legs trying to get free. As he walked up the stairs, however, the kicks became more of a problem and he told her tersely, "Hermione, stop kicking or I'm going to drop you on your head."

The kicking stopped after that.

Draco made it to Hermione's room and opened the door, surprised that she hadn't warded it. Her room was almost identical to his, but it still took him a moment to adjust to the surroundings before he strode in and set her down on the floor. Standing so close, having her look up at him the way she was, was making Draco's resolve not to bend down and close the gap between their lips weaken very quickly, so he took a step away from her and cleared his throat. "You, uh, should probably get into your pajamas. I'll go get some medicine from my trunk."

"Slow down, Draco," he warned himself as he dug through his trunk in his room. "She's sick. Now's not a good time to be trying to tell her you have feelings for her." His fingers found what they were looking for and Draco clenched his hand around the small bottle of ointment his mother had sent him last year when he had come down with a very bad cold. He could do this. He could be strong for just a little while longer.

He made it back to Hermione's room and stepped inside to find her already in bed with her eyes closed. Her breathing was slightly labored and Draco heard her breath hitch as she tried to fight her cough. But she still looked beautiful, with her hair spread out against her pillow and her eyelashes fluttering softly against her cheeks, and Draco was once again forced to remind himself that she was sick. Just as he reached her side, Hermione opened her eyes and smiled. "See? I can actually put myself to bed," she teased.

Draco found himself relaxing once more. "Yes, but you won't do it unless someone practically sits on you."

Hermione sneezed and then coughed, trying to roll her eyes at the same time. "I have too much to do," she said in between coughs.

"Not right now." Draco dipped his fingers into the ointment and began rubbing it on her forehead before Hermione had the chance to protest. However, that didn't stop her from trying to squirm away.

"Ah! No, Draco!" she groaned, trying to push his hands away and not cough on him at the same time.

"Hold still and it won't be so bad!"

But Hermione continued to squirm, making faces and blindly trying to wriggle her way down the bed so that he couldn't reach her. Without thinking about what he was doing, Draco kicked off his shoes and climbed up on the bed, straddling her hips and pinning her in place. They both froze in shock, but Draco was the first one to recover and smeared another glob of ointment along her cheekbone. "Ew!" Hermione cried, and the spell was broken for the moment.

"It's not that bad," Draco told her, using one hand to keep her face from moving and the other to rub the ointment in.

"Yes it is!" she groaned and tried once more to twist her head away.

Draco pulled his fingers away just in time. "Stop moving or this is going to end up in your mouth." That quickly put a stop to the squirming. "If you would just take better care of yourself, we wouldn't have this problem in the first place."

"It's-it's, Draco, it's making my face tingle," Hermione bit out.

"It's supposed to," he assured her. "That means that the medicine's getting into your system and you'll start feeling better soon. You'll also probably fall asleep soon."

"But, but, I was going to study a little!"

Draco rolled his eyes and moved on to her other cheek. "Not today. You can study later, tomorrow at the earliest."

She opened her mouth once more to protest, to yell at him, to say something, but Draco couldn't stand it any longer. It didn't matter that she was sick, or that he would probably get sick after this, it only mattered that she was so close to him and she looked so adorable with her hair a mess and ointment covering her cheeks that he bent his head and pressed his lips to hers. Her breath caught, but this time it had nothing to do with her cough, and Draco sighed with relief when she actually pressed back against him.

His hands cupped her face, bringing her closer, kissing her deeper. It was too difficult to pull away from her now that he finally had her. His lips moved over hers, softly but eagerly, telling her without words exactly how he felt about her. And then she was lifting her arms to place around his neck, one of her hands diving into his hair while the other one rested on his neck, trying to pull him impossibly closer.

How long they stayed like that, Draco didn't know, nor did he care. He knew that there would be plenty to talk about later, plenty to explain and plenty of hurdles to be victorious over, but what mattered right now was that Hermione was there in his arms, obviously returning his affections. There would be time to deal with the rest once she was well.

She was there for him in his grief, and he would be there for her in her sickness, for however long she would allow him.

A/N: I hope you guys enjoyed it! I have to give quite a bit of credit to my awesome boyfriend who is pretty much my inspiration for Draco in this story. Thank you, thank you Gatito for all your help with the plot line and for being so wonderful! :D