Not that anyone would know. Hermione was the one in charge of regulating the potions. The Resistance was too overdrawn to afford the redundancy of having a supervisor over her. Even if they tried to, unless the person also had a Potion Mastery, there was little chance they could stop Hermione from slyly doing whatever she pleased.
But it was a slippery slope to abuse the rules. Nine times a month. It would be so easy to rationalise ten after that. Then eleven.
Until it stopped working.
Until she wanted something stronger.
Severus had warned her. The number of ways a Potion Master could abuse their skills were endless.
Maybe when she got home she'd go get high with Neville, or see if Charlie would share his firewhiskey supply.
But she didn't really want to get high. And she wasn't allowed to be, even if she did want to. She was always on call in case of a healing emergency.
She could get drunk. She always kept sobriety potion carefully stocked in her stores. But she hardly got along with Charlie when she was sober.
Hermione felt desperate for someone to talk to.
Almost every interaction with Malfoy felt like an emotional punch in the gut, and she had to walk away from them and pretend they'd never happened.
She lived in a house crammed with people and she felt utterly isolated.
There was faint crack of apparition. She looked up dully to find that Malfoy had arrived. Cold and indolent-looking as always.
She wanted to cry and bolt. Or to hex him nastily and just leave him there.
She swallowed it and stood up.
He unbuttoned his shirt and straddled a chair. She didn't say a word as she pulled the fabric off his shoulders and set to work.
“I'm going to use the cleansing charm now,” she said in a mechanical voice. She counted to three and then cast it.
Then she swiftly reapplied the salve. The dittany had made progress in neutralising the poison. The cuts appeared almost ready to begin healing. She would probably be able to start closing them within the next week. The process would take several hours to do properly and ensure the scar tissue wasn't taut and wouldn't pull when he moved his shoulders.
She didn't want to talk to him but she forced herself to open her mouth.
“If you have time in the next four to seven days, I can close the incisions. It will probably take three hours. After eight pm and before five am are the best times for me. I have hospital shifts and other duties during the day.”
He didn't say anything.
She recast the protective spells and dropped his shirt over his shoulders. Then she turned and walked out of the shack without a word.
The summer evening was cool. She shivered slightly and walked down the lane. She had decided. She was going to go get well and truly smashed.
She stopped outside a pub and hesitated. She was a talkative drunk. She couldn't go into a muggle pub and start crying about everyone who had died. Even if she managed to pass herself off as a doctor in a casualty ward, she was a terrible conversational liar.
She continued until she found a market and bought herself a bottle of port. Her parents had always liked to drink port in the evenings when on holiday.
She carried it to the creek where her prayer tower stood, and then stared in surprise. There were reeds growing along the banks that she didn't remember being there before, and the area felt slightly warmer. Magical. She cast several more muggle repelling spells and a privacy charm over the area and then opened the bottle and started drinking.
She remembered someone telling her that a person could get drunk faster using a straw. She didn't know if it was true, but she conjured a long one and started sipping. She calculated that she had several hours before anyone would think to look for her. More than enough time to get drunk, cry under a bridge, and then sober slightly before heading back.
She hadn't had any dinner; the alcohol hit her rapidly.
She was curled up in a ball among the reeds and was sobbing in short order.
She hated Malfoy. How dare he demand her, and isolate her, and talk about the Creevey family. She hoped she was the one who killed him.
She stood up and pulled the topmost stone off her tower, and tossed it back into the creek.
She did it too carelessly. The whole tower wobbled slightly and then fell crashing into the water. She gasped with horror and tried to rebuild it.
Rock stacking required more finesse and steadier hands than she currently possessed. After several tries she gave up, sat down in middle of the creek and cried and shivered.
She hadn't felt so pathetic in a long time and she didn't even care. She should have bought two bottles of port.
“The fuck are you doing, Granger?”
Flashback 11
July 2002
Hermione looked up sharply and found Malfoy staring down at her from the road. She was too tired and angry to even feel embarrassed about being found drunk and crying in a creek.
“Bugger off, Malfoy,” she said, smacking at the water with her hand so that it sprayed in his direction.
“Are you drunk?” he asked.
“No, you tosser, I am sitting in a creek entirely sober,” she said with an eye-roll. “Go away. I don't want to talk to you. I don't want to see your nasty face. If I could obliviate your existence from my mind without risking the Order, I'd do it in a heartbeat.”
She started crying again.
“Fucking hell,” he said, staring down at her with the same expression of irritation he'd had when he told her about the unwanted manticore he found himself in possession of.
“Granger, you cannot sit crying in a creek,” he finally said.
“I actually can,” she retorted. “Aside from you, there's no one to see. I already warded the area. None of the Muggles will come around or notice me. I have planned my emotional breakdown carefully and you are ruining it. So — bugger. Off.”
Her head felt very heavy, and she dropped it down onto her knees. It was growing very cold in the creek, but she was determined not to move until Malfoy went away.
There was a muffled thud, and then a hard grip suddenly closed around her arm, and she found herself being dragged up out of the water.
“Let go!”
She smacked Malfoy across the arm and kicked him in the shins as she attempted to wrench herself free.
“Leave me alone. You and Voldemort have ruined my life. Am I not even allowed to occasionally feel sad about it?”
“Granger, you idiot!”
Malfoy dragged her into his arms and apparated. They reappeared in the shack.
She stared around the room dazedly, clinging to him for balance.
“Why are we here?” she demanded, her voice wobbling as she stepped away and tried to draw herself up. “I hate this place. One of the richest wizarding families in all of Europe, and you make me come see you in this miserable house. As though I'm not already well-aware of the disdain you have for all of us Mudbloods. God, why didn't you just buy a whore house or a salt mine and make me visit you there?”
“I told you there was a taboo and you used the Dark Lord's name,” Malfoy snarled. “That is why you cannot get drunk in a fucking creek regardless of how many damn Muggle repelling charms you cast.”
Hermione blinked and stared at him.
“I hate you,” she finally said.
“The feeling is decidedly mutual,” he said, looking at her with an expression of disdain.
She dropped into a heap on the floor.
“I hate you so much,” she said. “I was already all alone — and then you demanded me and made it even worse. At least before — if anyone cared enough to ask me if I was alright I could tell the truth. But now — I can't even do that. And now — even if we win I won't have anything to look forward to. Everyone else will be free and I'll still be owned by you. I'm just going to be alone forever—”