Thank you to everyone that reviewed/faved/followed, glad you are liking the story and you will see the story becomes more serious and less humouress in this chapter...though there are still a few light comedy moments. Stay tuned and if you want more, make sure you review it helps motivate me! and sorry if this chapter sucks but it took me several hours so please be gentle :) thank you to my beta reader too and wishin them well at their hospital stay :(

3. Healing

~o~

Hermione waited patiently on the bed, her arms at her side as she tried not to wince too much at the pain. Though the fall from the tree had left her with deep, red welts down her backside, arms and her left hip—all of which were quickly bruising and had her in searing pain. She could barely move an inch without crying.

The brunette bit her lip and counted her breaths in and out to try to steady herself—in and out, in and out, she kept telling herself with each breath, this too shall pass—as she waited for Draco to return to the room. Not that she wanted Draco to see her so weak and injured; it actually embarrassed her a little to be this fragile, but she needed the medi-kit and pain potions he'd gone to fetch.

At last, Draco rushed back into the room, carrying the medi-kit under his elbow.

'Finally, you're back,' she gasped in relief.

Draco smirked and sauntered towards her. 'Did you think I would just leave you?' He set down the kit and sat beside her on the bed, observing her condition. 'It was damnably difficult to get the kit though without Quincy the house-elf thinking I was injured. He kept trying to heal me. The damnable thing.'

'I'm sure he was trying to help,' Hermione winced trying to sit up.

'Hermione,' Draco warned her. 'Don't exert yourself and, Merlin's sake, lay back down,' he said, looking tempted to push her down for her own sake.

'I hate being injured.'

'Well, we'll fix you quickly, if you just tell me where it hurts.'

'My ribs,' Hermione whispered, her eyes closing for a moment in relief. 'I think one might be broken, oh merlin, but I'll need a pain-potion first.'

'Right.' Draco handed her a bottle of pain-potion and she quickly downed it in one gulp, though it would take several minutes to feel the full effects.

'Better?'

Hermione nodded. 'A bit.'

Draco got out his wand and was about to apply the medi-kit to her bruised ribs when there was a knock at the door.

Hermione's ears twitched in panic.

'Quick, I don't have time to move you, change back into your animagus!' Draco ordered her, quickly getting up off the bed.

'I'm trying!' Hermione muttered but it wasn't easy when she was so injured to concentrate her magic enough to transform.

'Draco, who are you speaking to?' Lucius Malfoy's voice echoed authoritatively through the door. 'I hope not that cat again.'

'Father, hold on,' Draco muttered as he quickly put away the medi-kit and Hermione struggled up and tried to concentrate her magic.

'Do not take that insolent tone with me, Draco, I'm opening this door right now—'

Lucius was as good as his word and he swung open the large, wooden door just as Hermione managed to scramble back into her cat form. It was not without some cost of effort, though, the light brown and white cat was panting and in visible pain, as it sat on his bed where a moment ago Hermione was.

Lucius Malfoy sneered, with utter disgust as he spotted the familiar cat on his son's bed. His displeasure could not be more clear. 'You know I detest felines, get that furry abomination off your bed before I swat it off right now.' He raised his snake cane threateningly.

Hermione hissed. She was not about to let herself be beaten by Lucius Malfoy, even if she was just an injured cat (or muggleborn witch without a wand or place to go!).

But Draco was quick to rush over and stand in between her and his father. Draco was getting taller with every month and he was now nearly at the height of his father. Yet he couldn't quite disrespect his father either.

'Father, I would kindly ask you, to respect my choice of pet, please.'

Lucius rolled his eyes haughtily and stared around the room. but he put away his snake cane, lowering it to the floor.

Hermione breathed out a sigh of relief, though her little cat heart was still hammering.

'Oh yes, that damnable nuisance of a cat. I did find it surprising, Draco, when you decided to come back with a cat instead of an owl or frog from your last trip to Diagon Alley. Tell me,' Lucius sniffed with his nose raised in the air, 'where exactly you bought this specimen?'

Hermione could see Draco clenching his fist, his temper rising a little between his polite veneer. "At the Magical Menagerie."

Lucius sniffed. 'Yes, precisely. I would not have paid a sickle for such a scruffy creature with bushy, hideous fur. I think you got swindled, Draco. You should have taken my advice and returned her for at least an elegant, blue eyed white Persian.'

Hermione bristled: both with jealousy at the idea of Draco having another cat and his cruel father trying to send her back to a pet store, she'd never belonged to, to get a more aesthetically pleasing cat.

'Don't be ridiculous, father, she's the most intelligent cat there is, and I can practice my transfiguration lessons on her.'

His father sneered again and once more raised his eyes to Hermione, making her blood boil. 'Intelligent? A cat? Draco please,' he chuckled. 'Don't make anymore of a fool and disappointment of yourself than you already are.'

Hermione watched as Draco's cheeks grew pink; she knew he hated whenever his father took digs at him, which was often.

Oh damn, Lucius, why couldn't he be happy with his son for once, instead of forever putting him down and taking digs at him? Didn't Lucius realize how much Draco already suffered trying to be like him and a Death Eater, when he really wasn't?

'We've wasted enough time here on idle subjects.' Lucius swung his cape behind his shoulders. 'Your mother and I expect you to be downstairs in exactly 30 minutes, so that we can apparate to the next meeting at Lord Nott's.'

'Father, I don't want to go.'

'Did I say it was a choice?! Do as your told Draco, before I imperius you to be a proper son!'

'Yes, father,' Draco grit through his teeth.

Lucius finally left the room and Draco slammed the door behind him.

'I hate him,' Draco whispered under his breath.

'You don't mean that.' Hermione transformed back into her human form and huddled by the corner, in case Lucius came back, so he couldn't see her. She examined her elbow, which was covered in a darkening bruise from her fall.

'Don't tell me what I don't or do mean,' Draco snapped. But then he lay eyes on her in her green dress, with her injured bruised arms and legs and he fell silent.

He rushed over and took the medi-kit out again. 'I don't have time to heal you properly, so just tell me which rib is injured and I'll fix it with my wand.'

'Draco—'

'What?' he snapped, trying to get the dressings and salve ready.

Hermione coughed. 'I'm not comfortable with you seeing me undressed.'

Draco rolled his eyes. 'As if I haven't before.'

'Only as a cat.'

'Kitten you're mine, either as a cat or not.' Yet his face darkened a bit with a pink blush. 'Just lower the top of your dress a bit, I won't see anything.'

'Fine. Then turn around.'

Draco stamped his foot. 'We don't have time for this. My father could be back any second.'

Hermione raised a precocious brow. 'So you would rather your father come back here to find me naked?'

Draco turned redder. 'Don't be awful. Turn around and lower your dress.' He paused to gulp audibly. '...just to your waist I mean. Then,' Draco gulped again and his voice grew more confident, 'point out to me which rib it is and I'll heal it, very quickly,' he added.

Hermione almost laughed at how uncomfortable Draco was getting, but she was in too much pain and rather too embarrassed herself. The pain-potion had already had its effects, but the dosage had not been enough to erase the full extent of her bruises and broken bones. She'd need another pain-potion soon.

'Fine, I will. Now I want you to turn around first.'

'Don't give me orders.'

'Then I won't do it,' Hermione said as stubbornly, a frown fixed on her warm features.

Draco growled. 'Then do you want me to leave you here, unfixed?!'

Hermione gulped. She was very close to pushing his patience. Sympathy for her injury aside, Draco could be very forceful once his limit was passed. 'No,' she said quietly.

'Good, now turn around and do as your told, kitten,' he said her pet name sarcastically and waited for her with open arms.

Hermione, if she was in her cat-form, would have hissed at him. Instead, she followed his orders but it was with a very unhappy grimace on her face. Her fingers paused at the back zipper of her dress. 'I'm not actually your cat, I hope you realize that.' She lowered the zipper a bit, revealing her back and shoulders to him.

'Don't be ridiculous, you as much belong to me, and you like to play along with our cat and master game. No one forced you to be cute with me or do tricks for treats and actually try to be my pet.'

Hermione scoffed. 'That's because you're usually in such a depressive mood, I thought here's a boy who actually needs a cat, to cheer him up. And it's not like I have much else to do when I'm stuck in my animagus than play around with you. So, yes, I decided to be a bit kittenish for you.'

Draco chuckled and then stopped as she lowered the zipper even more. His large hand gripped at the chair beside him. 'More than a bit kittenish.'

'If only to stop your scowling. It's worked, hasn't it?'

'Just shut up, Granger. Before I permanently leave you as a cat, since you seem so bloody proud of it.'

'You wouldn't dare.'

Draco shook his head. 'Take any longer with that dress and I will consider it.'

Hermione just rolled her eyes. She knew Draco wouldn't do anything to hurt her. If not, he'd already have sent her to Voldemort, instead of constantly lying and covering up to keep her safe from his father and the others.

Hermione sighed and stared at the wall ahead of her as she lowered the last of her zipper, so that her dress hung from her waist, her entire upper body bare but hidden from sight by the angle.

She could feel his eyes on her back, however.

'There are bruises and a scrape on your back too.'

'Yes, I can feel it.'

Draco got out the salve for bruising and cuts. 'I'll apply this first.'

Hermione felt suddenly nervous as she realised Draco was going to touch her with his bare hands to apply the cream. He'd pet and stroked her back and head many times as a cat when she was toying around and pretending to be a kitten for his family. But this was completely different. She was in her human form and he'd never touched her before. Especially not her bare skin.

Hermione shuddered and involuntarily let out a deep breath as his warm hand finally touched her back.

'Relax, Hermione,' Draco chuckled as he rubbed circles of the salve onto her wounds. 'I'm just trying to heal you, kitten. I won't hurt you.'

Hermione closed her eyes. 'Yes.'

Yes, she wanted to believe that.

She shuddered again as his hand lowered to smooth more salve onto her wounds. It was the oddest, most exhilarating feeling to have Draco Malfoy's hands on her bare skin.

She inhaled deeply again and this time told herself to count her breaths and relax—in and out, in and out—because of nerves, not pain, though there was a slice of that too. She winced as his bare, surprisingly rough palm, traced over the red welt near her hip.

'Better?' Draco whispered.

~o~

a/n if you'd like to read more, please say so and what you think draco is thinking or feeling. Is he just being possesive over her or is something happening between them?

well hope you liked it ;)