When Harry and Ron returned from the village, they decided it was too nice outside to stay in reading and insisted they should play a game of Quidditch. Hermione refused, so the boys, with Ginny in tow, disappeared off up the garden with their broomsticks over their shoulders. Hermione watched them go with a small tinge of regret. As much as she hated Quidditch, she despised being cut out as a bookworm who couldn’t do anything other than master difficult spells and organise illegal duelling clubs. Sighing, she made her way back up to Malfoy’s room. Mrs Weasley had finished up there and was now washing clothes downstairs. Malfoy was the same as ever, though he looked slightly better now that he was clean. Hermione dumped the stack of parchment on the ground and sat down in the vacated chair. She began to sort through the pile from the top. She sat for hours, reading and rereading, searching for anything that might be of some help to her. Finally, she found a sheet that looked promising. She glanced quickly through the names she had listed on the sheet and then went back and read it more thoroughly. She paused at one name.
“’Rudolf Brand; captain of the Heidelberg Harriers’,” she read aloud. “Got hit over the head with a broomstick after proposing to Gwendolyn Morgan.” Hermione snorted. “Must have permanently dislodged his brain. Merlin,” she sighed. “This is hopeless.” She glanced thoughtfully at Malfoy, a sudden idea occurring to her. “Maybe R.A.B was, or is, a Death Eater. The paper doesn’t give a date, though it says that the person will probably be dead by the time it was found so it must have been before the night Voldemort attacked Harry.” She paused. “It could be Regulus Black, Sirius’s brother. He was a Death Eater. Maybe he found out about the Horcuxes, stole one, destroyed it and then tried to get out but couldn’t and so he ran for it. And he died, of course, which means Voldemort wasn’t too happy with him.” She looked up suddenly, her face shining with excitement. “Maybe that’s it! Maybe he was the one! Oh, I wish someone was here who could tell us something, anything, about him. Where is Sirius when you need him? And you,” she said looking at his passive face. “Maybe you know. But then again he was long dead before you ever met Voldemort. On the other hand, your father might have known him if he was a Death Eater around the same time as Regulus-” she stopped suddenly as though she had just realised who was talking to. In a way she had. Malfoy was a Death Eater. You didn’t just chat to Death Eaters, especially unconscious ones. It was only then that Hermione realised that she hadn’t actually seen the Dark Mark on Malfoy’s arm, not that she had any desire to look. So maybe Harry was wrong. Maybe Malfoy was just a pawn, doing his father’s bidding like the good son he seemed to long to be. But all that was happening was that he was digging himself into a hole and he was reaching the point when no one could pull him out again.
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Granger was talking. About Quidditch, funnily enough. But Granger didn’t like Quidditch, did she? Who cared, she was just a stupid Mudblood. Okay, that insult was getting old. Time to think up a new one. Problem with Granger was she was too good. No faults, never got into trouble and she was smart. It was horrible having perfect enemies. Hang on- she wasn’t perfect! She was quite plain most of the time. She looked nice at the Yule Ball though. Ugh, he really was insane if he thought Hermione Granger was pretty. If anything, she was the exact opposite.
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Hermione did not speak again during the time she spent with Malfoy. Two owls arrived later that afternoon, one from Professor McGonagall and the other from Healer Manken. Professor McGonagall said that she could not visit them as she had urgent matters to discuss with the Order. Manken said he had finally decided that Malfoy was in a coma due to serious head injuries.
Well it was kind of obvious , Hermione thought as she read Manken’s note aloud to the silent room. He also said that it was impossible to say how long Malfoy would be in the coma although, he informed them, he had known comas to last up to fifty years. Hermione had a sudden vision of herself as an old woman spoon-feeding Malfoy, whose body hadn’t really changed all that much. She shook herself mentally.
“That is not going to happen,” Hermione said aloud. “I’ll become a Death Eater before I look after Malfoy for the rest of my life, coma or no coma.” She then went back to reading her books, feeling slightly disturbed.
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Granger was talking about becoming a Death Eater. How strange. He tried to imagine Granger as a Death Eater. He coudln't. That would be a laugh though. Granger was also reading what sounded like a letter, or a note, or something like that. Whatever it was, the person who wrote it obviously did not have a clue what they were talking about. ‘According to my calculations’ and ‘it seems that this may have been caused by’ were the kind of sentences you’d expect to hear from them. And who was in a coma? It didn’t really matter but he was curious all the same. Something to occupy his wandering mind. For the moment.
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The rest of the evening passed uneventfully. Mrs Weasley came up with a bowl of soup and asked Hermione would she mind feeding Malfoy then as she herself needed to make dinner.
“It’s not too hard, dear,” she said, demonstrating. “Just pour the spoonful into his mouth. Don’t worry about swallowing; Healer Manken fixed that up for us.”
Hermione did not ask what Manken had done, nor was she interested. She was trying hard not to think about the job at hand. It was too unpleasant for words.
Mrs Weasley departed quickly and Hermione was left to her own devices. She pulled her chair closer to the edge of Malfoy's bed and lifted the spoon from the bowl. Tentatively she brought her hand up to where it was directly above Malfoy’s open mouth and slowly poured it in. She half expected him to splutter into life, shouting and swearing at them. But, sadly, he didn’t. He remained motionless and tranquil, no sound escaping his parched lips. Hermione continued to feed him and gradually the amount of food in the bowl lessened. Just as she had fed him the last spoonful, her hand brushed against his cheek. A slight tremor ran through her, chilling her spine. His cheek was strangely cold and she checked anxiously that he was still breathing. Anxiously? Who ever thought she would be anxious about Draco Malfoy? Worried, maybe, about what he was up to, but never concerned for his well-being. No, she definitely had to spend more time outside.