Author's Note: Warning - there's a lot of swearing in this chapter. Just...beware.

Anyway, I'll probably be updating this fic a lot more sporadically as time passes. I hope this chapter meets all of your expectations! (although there might be a lot of typos) Sorry in advance.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Harry Potter series.

"Your injuries are to major for me to heal with my wand," Hermione told Draco. "I suppose you don't have yours?"

Draco grunted an anguished "no" and turned his head to the side.

Hermione groaned.

In a few minutes they arrived at the Leaky Cauldron. The bartender gaped at them, but otherwise the room was quite empty.

"Is that Draco Malfoy?" he exclaimed.

Hermione shot the man a warning glare. Mind your own business, her eyes seemed to bartender put his hands up and backed away slowly. Draco groaned again.

"We'll have to take a cab," Hermione said more to herself than to Draco. It wasn't a very long wait; fortunately, there was an empty taxi that came almost immediately. She had almost forgotten that Draco had no idea what a car was. After Hermione pulled his reluctant body into the backseat and slammed the car door behind him, he blinked.

"What the fuck am I in?"

"No swearing, please, sir," the cabbie said.

"But seriously, what the fuck? It's moving?"

"It's what Muggles call a 'car''", Hermione informed him. "In a nutshell, it runs on gasoline and has wheels."

"I wasn't talking to you, mudblood-" Draco clamped his mouth shut.

"Excuse me? What did you just call me?"

Draco didn't reply, but gave her a scowl. As more and more time passed in the car, Draco gradually became accustomed to the vehicles of the Muggles, and Hermione decided to let his slip past. He ran his hand over the leather seat, with Hermione thinking that it probably had something to do with him comparing the vehicle to the broomstick.

Suddenly, he turned his head towards Hermione. "Hey, isn't this like the flying monstrosity that Potter and Weasle crashed into the Whomping Willow during second year?" He snickered.

"Yes. And don't call the car a 'monstrosity.' It's much more useful than a broomstick, and you don't need any special talent to drive it. You probably couldn't drive it within an inch of your life-"

"Oh, really? Says the woman who can't even mount one." He winked at her.

Hermione smacked him on the chest, and then remembered that he had injuries that needed attending to.

"Sorry," she muttered. "You're always such a bloody perverted bastard, you know. Why am I apologizing? I shouldn't be apologizing. You know what? You can shove my 'sorry' up your asshole, since it means nothing now."

She looked at him again, and almost had a heart attack.

"Oh, my God. He's not breathing. It's probably because I hit him. Oh, my God, what am I going to do-"

"You're here," intoned the cabbie. "And by the way," he told them as Hermione rushed to drag an unconscious Draco out of the car, "you both have problems. Big problems." He revved the engine and drove off.

Hermione staggered up the front steps, half walking and half pulling Draco along. She had some difficulty taking her keys out of her purse, but she finally managed to pull it free after several tries.

Nobody was home. Thank the Lord.

She dumped Draco on the floor, ran to throw her belongings on the kitchen table, and then rushed back to him.

Oh, my God. Do I have to perform CPR? Deciding to take no risks, she pumped on his chest a few times and breathed into his mouth.

It was of no avail. Hermione panicked and slapped him on both cheeks, hard.

Draco sat up with a start, looking around wildly. "What the fuck, woman?! What fucking happened?!"

She let out a sigh of relief. "I hit you on the chest because you were being an asshole, and you fell unconscious. You're lucky that you regained consciousness so quickly-"

"Wait. What the fuck did you just say? You hit me and I almost died?"

Hermione ignored him, and then told him, "Lie down on the sofa."

Draco grunted and tried to stand up. He immediately winced in pain, clutching his side.

Hermione made a frustrated noise, picked him up by the arms, and dragged him across the living room floor. Eventually, she managed to get his whole body on top of the recliner, by pulling him up section by section.

Sweat rolled down from her forehead and into her eyes.

"You - lazy - prick -"

"What am I supposed to do?" he asked with a weak shrug. "I've just been pummeled by your arsehole of a boyfriend, and you're asking me why I'm being lazy?"

"First of all, Ronald is not my boyfriend. Second, you won't even bother to help me or even make things easier!"

Draco became silent, and Hermione sighed. "Forget about it. I'm not discussing this now. What we have to do right now is get you cleaned up. We've already wasted too much time arguing." With that note, she turned on her heel and marched into the bathroom, looking for supplies.

Hermione found a half-empty bottle of rubbing alcohol, some salve, and an unused roll of gauze in the small cabinet behind the mirror. She went back out to find Draco groaning in pain, and she wasted no more time. Hermione quickly but efficiently cleaned his small cuts on his face with the rubbing alcohol and then placed the bandages over it. After she stripped him of his shirt, trying to keep a straight face all the time, she started on the horrible greenish-purple bruise on his side. Draco croaked out, "Where did you learn to heal-"

"There was a required training course at university."

"What a joke. University? Muggle University?" He scoffed as loudly and seemingly as rudely as he could.

"It was a new program that required thousands of dollars! Of course you would be laughing, you have the money-"

"Granger, shut the fuck up. Please. My forehead hurts, and I've got another migraine coming from your damn voice alone." She could tell that it was hurting him to talk, but she didn't care anymore. Not after the way he spoke to her.

Hermione crudely slapped on the rest of his bandages, making sure to apply brutal force while she did so. After she was done, she retreated up to her room to study and grade the papers she had commissioned herself.

"Damien Vlasta," she half-muttered, half-spat to herself as she read his paper.

Mudblood, mudblood, his sneering voice whispered in her ear.

Hermione woke in a puddle of her own drool, cheek pressed against the smooth oak of her desk. It was now nine o'clock at night, and by the way her neck ached when she stretched, she realized that the nap she had taken had been far too long. Draco probably wanted to-

Draco.

Oh, Merlin, what if he stole all of her and the Potter family's possessions and then ran off? What if he wrecked the house while she was asleep? No, he was too weak to do any of those things.

Worser yet, what if he had rolled off the couch, hit his head, and died?

Hermione couldn't stand the thought. Nobody was dying on her hands and nobody was dying anytime soon.

Alert and refreshed, she hurried down the stairs to find Draco peacefully sleeping on the couch. Immediately relieved but yet somewhat still suspicious, she prodded him with her pencil.

He didn't move. She poked him in the ribs multiple times, and he finally stirred. Hermione could see his blonde eyelashes and the line of his straight, handsome nose. His high cheekbones were surprisingly defined, chiseled and well-shaped. Carefully, cautiously, her hand traveled down to Draco's chest and she felt the rise and fall of his chest as he slept.

Realizing that she was taking way too long to study his face, Hermione jerked her hand away from his heartbeat.

Thank God he isn't waking up anytime soon, she thought to herself, face burning a deep crimson.

But she was wrong.

A few minutes after Hermione went in the kitchen to heat up a tray of leftovers, she heard a large crash in the adjacent room.

"Ow! Fucking-"

Draco appeared in the doorframe, clutching one side of it to steady himself. "I'm hungry." His face had the expression of a petulant child, and it was even funnier than it was covered in haphazard strips of gauze.

"You're awake," Hermione said with a matching scowl, trying to stifle a smile.

"No shit."

"Go make your own food. I'm not your maid."

He gave her a sharp look and pointed to his body, trying to gesture to the multiple, severe-looking bruises that decorated it.

"You're not dead. You have an able body that can at least lift a pot of water from the sink and put it on top of the stove."

Scowling, Draco did just that. "You're not my mother."

It was Monday, and Hermione woke up groggily in a silent house, almost dizzy.

She swung her pajama-clad legs over the side of the bed and let her feet feel for her comfortable slippers. After combing her unruly mane of chestnut hair and brushing her teeth, Hermione threw on an old sweatshirt and headed downstairs.

Nobody was there except for a snoring body of Draco Malfoy lying on the couch, covered in an old blanket. Who had put that blanket there? Was he actually smart enough to do it himself?

It was approximately seven o'clock. She had an hour to get prepared and travel to Hogwarts, so she took good use of that time. Hermione poured herself a bowl of cereal and ate it, leaning against the kitchen counter. Ginny, Harry and the kids would probably arrive home at noon, considering that there were going to be no delays on the plane.

They had gone to the United States. The United States! Although she felt a little envious of the vacation, she couldn't help but be relieved. Hermione would miss London so much - books, food, and people included.

The Weetabix biscuits in her bowl turned soggy with milk and sank to the bottom in the form of mush. She quickly scooped it up and scraped the bowl clean, then put it in the sink.

Ten minutes wasted.

Hermione turned on her computer and checked her emails, going through each unread one carelessly. Of course, most of the mail she received usually arrived by owl, but who knew?

Finally, before she left the house, she decided to scribble a note to Draco on a sheet of scrap paper.

Malfoy,

Have some cereal in the cupboard. Don't drink all the milk. Don't break anything and don't take anything. I'll know right away.

H