||Black Scarves and Careless Hearts|| A Dramione Fanfic

29. Aspirin

----
"Wow, I wish I could speak whale."
~Dory
----

Waking up to the feeling of someone banging a hammer on your head isn't very pleasant. 

Draco groaned and pressed a palm into his forehead. He was sweaty and extremely disoriented. His eyelids were glued together.

Flashes of the previous night came to him. He remembered meeting Hermione at the park, then how he had gone to a lowly muggle pub and had his fill of muggle whiskey, the woman who had flirted with him….then he had been pulled outside and taken to a group of other women….and Hermione had come along. 

His head have a sudden strong pang of pain, and he groaned again. 

If his mind wasn't showing him a load of codswallop, then, he realised with another pang, he had held Hermione's hand and told her that she was his girlfriend in front of-

"Blaise?" Draco called loudly, and shot upright. Blood Rushed into his head, making it feel heavy and airy at the same time. The room swayed to the right. He realised then that he was on a couch, "Blaise, where the hell are you?"

As if on cue, a paper plane soared into the room from the bedroom. Draco caught it, and unfolded it, shaking his head to be able to read the words clearly.

You were drunk off your arse. Granger brought you here. Stay at home. There's pepper -up and aspirin (it's a muggle thing, it's fucking amazing) in the kitchen for your headache. 

Draco scrunched the note up and rested his throbbing forehead on his hands. He was never getting drunk again…

Had he really said all those things?...They may have been hallucinations….

Draco stood unsteadily and made his way to the kitchen. After trying repeatedly to summon himself the pepper-up potion, he realised that he was waving a pencil around instead of his wand. He tossed the pencil aside. 

Aspirin turned out to be a strip of little white tablets. He popped two of them out, and put them cautiously on his tongue. 

It tasted fucking terrible. 

He spat it out in the sink hastily, and frantically rinsed his mouth to get the taste out. 

Feeling more annoyed than ever, he found the pepper-up potion, downed it, and grabbed a coat that was kept folded messily over the arm of a chair. After looking carefully for his wand for five whole minutes, he realised it was in his trouser's pocket. 

He apparated to the Leaky Cauldron, landing unsteadily.

The coat he had nicked smelt strongly of cigarette smoke, and he wrinkled his nose. Ignoring Tom the Barman as always, Draco stalked down the cobbled street, tripping thrice on the way, but mercifully not falling over.

When he was a few shops away from the apothecary, he veered into a side path. After crossing the backs of the few buildings, he reached the apothecary garden and crossed the fence with a little struggle. 

Hermione was sitting at her usual spot and chopping something up. Her hair was done up in that way that showed the back of her neck and made Draco want to turn it invisible…

Draco plodded through the grass and plants to get to the window. 

She was cutting up Bubotuber pods. Her fingers, which had looked smooth and delicate only a few weeks ago, were now peppered with little cuts and grazes. She worked her blade with appreciable skill, and didn't look anywhere else while she worked. 

Draco shook his head to focus. 

"Granger," he whispered hoarsely, peeking around the window sill.