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Hysteria	By : LadyofClunn Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Draco/Hermione Views: 42590 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 4
Disclaimer: I do not own anything associated with Harry Potter; I do not earn money by writing this story.

Chapter List
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A/N: A big, big thank you to everyone who reviewed, to Softobsidian74 for alpha reading and to apkblack for the fantastic beta!

Speculatio

“You might have to fight fire with fire.” Draco opened the door to his study, revealing tall towers of books grouped around a surprisingly full and used-looking desk. “If you want to challenge his book and the treatment you received at his hand before the Wizengamot, you need to be prepared.”

Shiny paperbacks sat atop expensive hardcovers clad in chalky pastel linen. A bright orange magazine stuck out of one leaning tower of books.

“You have been researching Muggle methods?”

“Augustus Pye, a former Healer at St. Mungo’s, has been helping me navigate Blackwell’s.”

“Former?”

“He was a bit too... enthusiastic about Muggle techniques. The hospital and he decided to agree to disagree and part ways.”

“Is he trustworthy?”

He shrugged.

“As far as the saying ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ applies.”

Hermione gaped.

“An unbreakable vow can do wonders,” he smirked.

She let her fingers trail over the spines of the stacked books. Several were simply titled “Hysteria,” although publishers and authors varied. Hermione cocked her head to better be able to read the titles:

Psychopathology.

Studies on.

Madness and.

Invention of.

Hysteria, Hysteria, Hysteria.

Covers in blue and green and even bright pink. Then a leather-bound and gilded spine: On The Pathology And Treatment Of Hysteria (1853). Hermione bristled slightly. How could that be in any way favourable to her case? Her fingers brushed sleek plastic, and the almost alien feel of it, here, in such a pure-blood setting, compelled her to extricate the curious object.

A DVD?

She couldn’t help but laugh.

“Stephen Fry? Really? How does that relate?”

Malfoy scratched the back of his neck.

“I don’t know. There is a shiny plate-like thing inside. It wouldn’t transform itself into any kind of written documentation. I assume we need a password?”

Hermione could hardly suppress the smile that was threatening to take over her face.

“Um, no. It’s a film, or in this case, a show rather than a film. Like a recorded play for a Pensieve? You need a Muggle device to view it.” She thought about the last time she had sat down at her cousin’s house to watch back-to-back episodes of Qi and felt a fierce longing to do something so carefree and non-magical. “I somehow doubt that it is relevant to the research. It could be very entertaining, though.”

A bit of good humour would be a wonderful thing to indulge in. Right after getting her hands on the strikingly purple ‘Contemporary Approaches to the Science of Hysteria’ and the more lacklustre grey ‘Stress: The Brain-Body Connection’.

***

Hermione collapsed into an exhausted heap on the brown Chesterfield sofa in Draco’s study.

“Is therapy supposed to be so draining? I always feel like I ran a marathon afterward.”

“A marathon? You mean to Marathon? That’s quite far from here,” Draco noted absently while filling a long parchment with notes from a slim volume that he held open with his left hand.

Hermione waved the comment off. “Muggle name of a very long race. Never mind.” She threw her arm over her eyes. “The Mind Healer said that we could simply remove the painful memories. It would be like it never happened.”

After a long, awkward silence, she lifted her arm and turned to look at Draco, perched stiffly on the edge of his desk.

“Is...” He cleared his throat. “Is she pushing you for that?” he asked, his voice straining to be light.

“No. I asked about the possibilities of Legilimency and memory removal for therapeutic purposes. I had been wondering why you never tried...” She trailed off, fidgeting with the hem of her robe sleeves.

“I would never dare to. Removing memories in the state you were in... it would have been like taking a battle axe to your mind where a precise scalpel was needed. And regarding Legilimency... I had already read what the bastard had done to you; I thought there was no need to rape your mind on top of all that.”

Hermione sighed and nodded. “She did say it might be an option for later, but I shouldn’t have anything like that done until after our hearing before the Wizengamot. It might make me seem too detached and indifferent.” She shuddered. “I am not sure I will ever consider it. Being indifferent toward what happened is a frightening thought, nearly as frightening as acquiring the memories in the first place.”

“It could leave your personality permanently altered. It is problematic to remove such a large amount of memories, especially such traumatic ones.”

Hermione thought of her parents in Australia and had to wince. Battle axe, indeed.

“Other than plans for personality-removal, how are those sessions going from your perspective? I read the Healer’s general reports, but that doesn’t say anything about your perspective.”

“Honestly? I don’t know.” She shrugged. “It’s emotionally painful and draining. Frustrating sometimes. But I think talking about what happened somehow numbs me to it a little bit.”

“Frustrating? Frustrating how?”

She gestured in a desperate way. “Why does that therapist never answer a question? Well, almost never. It’s so easy: I ask a question, she answers; but no. All I get is ‘What do you think it means?’ If I knew, I wouldn’t bloody ask!”

“I think it’s supposed to be draining on some level. Shows that it’s actually working.”

Hermione propped herself up on her elbows and cast a hopeful look at him.

“Do you really think so?”

The corners of his mouth twitched. “Do you think it’s working?”

She grabbed the first thing that her hand could reach and threw it in his general direction. Her supine position on the sofa made her movement awkward, and the small blue paperback landed a few feet from Draco in front of his desk.

Sitting up, Hermione frowned.

“What’s this?”

“Nothing!” His answer came a bit too fast and his ears were a bit too pink for her to let this go. They scrambled from opposite sides of the room, tripping over furniture, each trying to get to the little book first.

Hermione was closer and snatched the book from under his seeker’s hand that closed around thin air.

“Diagnosing the Debutante? Really?” she snorted and the pink of his ears deepened. “Medical Romance. Who would have ever thought?” Her eyes sparkled in amusement and he forgot his embarrassment.

“It came up in a list when Augustus searched the spider web.”

For a moment Hermione stared at him blankly before deciphering his meaning.

“You mean the internet? You found a trashy romance novel while researching for academic purposes and actually read it?”

Pink ears became magenta.

This was too good to be true!

“Give it here!” He lunged.

She danced around a low table and out of his reach. Quickly, she let the pages flip past her thumb until there was a break in the even rhythm.

“And it opens most easily at...” She quickly looked at the page in question and read two sentences. “The sex scene!” she crowed, and he charged.

With a delighted squeak she rounded the coffee table and tried to seek cover behind his desk. Draco leapt over it and tackled her to fall onto the sofa.

Nose to nose, they stared at each other with wide eyes.

“I nearly bought a small collection of these books when you started treating me.”

“You did?”

“I had a terrible crush on you.”

“You had?” he asked carefully.

“Uh huh.”

“And now?”

She swallowed. “I don’t think it could be called a crush anymore.”

“Oh.” Draco closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against hers. “I am afraid to break you.” The tip of his nose touched hers. “I am completely at sea. I feel like I will say or do something unforgivable and then you will never want to see me again.”

Hermione was very still and listened to his steady breathing. Threading her fingers through his hair, she pushed his head away from her and tilted his face up.

“I think we both might have been underestimating my utter recklessness.”

Before he could draw away from her in confusion, she pulled him down and pressed her lips to his mouth.

***

“They are looking down on it!” He stabbed an accusing finger in the direction of a particularly heavy medicinal text.

“Huh?” Hermione looked up from her own notes.

“The Muggle Healers of today. They are calling hysteria a fashion, yet they quote Hippocrates and Galen. How can something be a fashion if it has been around for two thousand years or longer?” Clasping his hands behind his back, he paced the length of the room.

“They amuse themselves with the cases they find, find it entertaining how the Muggle Healers helped those women!”

He narrowed his eyes and stabbed the air with his index finger. “I think they get off on it. ‘Haha! A Healer invented a vibrating device that later became a sex toy, hahaha!’

“We have been using the Vibratum charm for centuries, and although I cannot guarantee that nobody ever used it for more, ah, personal reasons, I cannot find anything funny in its medical application!” Suddenly he slowed his steps and slumped his shoulders. “For those Muggle women, it was not a fashion, at least not consciously; it was very real.

“Reading about some of the more recent, ‘genuine’ conditions, they strike me as quite ludicrous and seem just as fashionable, yet those conditions are taken seriously. It’s unnerving me to no end!” He breathed deeply and collected a stack of parchment from underneath the side table next to the armchair.

“Some case studies of Muggle hysteria give more background information than others. Society ladies – arranged marriages, widows, those Muggle priestesses that vowed celibacy, restricted social interaction, boredom, all that rings true for most of my patients. Very interesting. I do not like how hysteria is not acknowledged at least as a historical fact, not a mere manifestation of sexual frustration. It is true that treating hysteria is a very lucrative field, but to be truly successful, the Healer needs a lot of knowledge and skill, not like the clumsy beasts they let at you at St. Mungo’s.”

“But don’t you see that this is a socially constructed disease?” Hermione cried out to stop his rambling.

“Of course it is! But so is... let me look this up...” He leafed through his parchment of notes. “Burnout! What kind of name for a medical condition is that, anyhow? And... Psychosocial Stress Disorder. Cutting it up neatly into a fractured version of the same thing does not make it go away!”

“But at least nobody is getting hurt anymore in the Muggle world because of that!”

Draco looked at Hermione very seriously. “Don’t they?”

She faltered a bit. “Yes! I mean... What do you mean?”

“Have you read the material carefully? The Muggle doctors seem rather helpless against it all. Relapses are bountiful. More and more people are unable to live a normal life, might even get drugged to the gills to be able to function. There was also... Bloody hell, where did I put that? Ah! There!” He waved a bright leaflet. “Crystal therapy? Are they trying to resort to witchcraft?”

“We are researching to prove that de Belleme was wrong, not that he was right!”

Draco threw his hands in the air. “Yes! But that does not change the facts!”

“The fact is that they torture women in his ward!”

He slowed down and gently clasped her shoulders.

“Yes,” he said softly. “And that’s why we have to find a way to prove that there is a better way than how it’s always been done. I don’t want to see you married off to Trebetarry, to learn to accept him and bear a child per year for the rest of your fertile life.”

Hermione pushed her own stack of parchment toward him.

“The medication in the Muggle books is very interesting; I know of potions with similar ingredients. With a bit of research we might be able to replicate the effects. What do you think?”

He stared at her diagrams and notes. “Possibly. But it will take months, maybe years of research and experiments. We’d need a team of specialist brewers, premises and funding...” Draco rubbed his nose absently. “But I fear for my patients. Most of them are very, very lonely with no prospect of changing that. Giving them a potion instead of a weekly appointment could plunge them into even more loneliness and they might become dependent on the potions.”

“And they are not dependent on you?” The remark came out more aggressive than planned.

He nodded. “They might be, but the appointment gives them something to plan their week around, something to make sure they keep their robes in order and their hair coiffed. We talk a bit before the treatment; I am afraid that many might wither away without all that.”

Just as Hermione thought whether to shout at him or stomp out of the room, a Ministry owl started pecking insistently at the window. Draco let the bird inside and untied the scroll from its leg. With a flourish of important professionalism, the owl ignored the offered treat and swooped from the window sill.

Draco read in silence, staring much longer at the parchment than its length warranted.

“The Wizengamot has approved a hearing de Belleme has requested.”

Hermione felt very cold. Paralysed, she couldn’t even ask what that meant. Draco looked up with a determined set of his jaw.

“How quickly can you write? Or rather, how quickly can you formulate thoughts on research into publishable material?”

“I have been working in research for years; I’d say I have a certain amount of routine.” She folded her hands in her lap. “Why?”

“I think you should write your own book.”

***

What was he doing?

Draco was late.

He was never late.

Was he with a... a patient? What was he doing? What was he treating? Whom was he treating? Was she attractive?

Hermione pushed her research away from her. Restless, she walked the length of the room, stared out of the window and walked back to Draco’s desk. Under a stack of half-unrolled scrolls, a corner of a reddish brown, slim book peeked out.

Hermione didn’t remember seeing it before and pulled it out.

On the Curability of Certain Forms of Insanity, Epilepsy, Catalepsy and Hysteria in Females by Isaac Baker Brown.

Baker Brown, Baker Brown.

Something rang a bell but she could not place the name.

Opening the book at a random page, she started to read.

‘...I never operate or sanction an operation on any patient under ten years of age.’

Operate?

Ten years of age?

With dawning horror, she skimmed to the next page.

‘...the clitoris is freely excised either by scissors or knife – I always prefer the scissors.’

Scissors.

The maroon book fell from her shaking hands. No air was entering her lungs. Desperate for relief, she vainly gasped for breath. Her efforts were futile and she blindly grasped for the paper bin to painfully retch over.

“Oh, shit!”

Hands took the wild strands of her hair hanging down the sides of her head and drew them back.

When she had nothing more to expel, Draco gently helped her to her feet and guided her to the Chesterfield sofa she loved to lounge on while reading.

Having her securely settled, he quickly Scourgified the bin and picked up the book from the elaborate green Persian silk carpet.

“You were not supposed to find this.” He opened a drawer in his desk and placed the small tome inside it.

“Why do you have that?” she sobbed, feeling small and frightened.

“Because I can’t risk not knowing it. I can’t risk them knowing about it and me being unable to refute their claims.”

Hermione keened and closed her eyes.

Draco started stroking her hair and did not stop until her shoulders relaxed and her breathing became even. She must have appeared to be sleeping because his stroking hand jumped a bit when she spoke, eyes still closed.

“I think this is what they call a trigger. Damn.”

Hermione turned her head into his hand.

“Are you certain that you want to do this? We could find somebody else to help with research. Or we could postpone everything for an indefinite amount of time,” he said quietly.

Hermione sat up, suddenly very focused.

“And let somebody else in on all the gory details? Or letting the bastard go on? No. Absolutely no.”

He looked at her, searching her face, her eyes.

“Alright then.”

Hermione drew her wand from her sleeve, casting a categorising spell. Parchments and books lifted into the air and assembled in small clouds of knowledge on paper before settling in neat stacks on the floor, sofa, desk and any flat surface available. One little pile even perched atop the chessboard in the corner of the room, much to the annoyance of the pieces, now confined to the edges of the board.

De Belleme had no idea whom he had acquired as an enemy.

***

“Ha! Even the Muggles say we are right!”

“What?” Had he sounded triumphant??

“Here.” Draco handed her a thin, A4-sized binder. Somebody’s thesis or dissertation, Hermione assumed. He tapped a place somewhere near the middle of the opened page. “See? There are too many stress hormones, which represses the production of sexual hormones, resulting in an imbalance.”

Hermione read the indicated paragraph, then flipped to the page before and again back to the one Malfoy had shown to her. She looked up and glowered at him.

“It says exercise or sex. And the sex comment is more of a tongue-in-cheek afterthought.”

“And which do you think the Wizengamot, or anybody for that matter, will latch onto when they read this?”

Hermione threw the binder onto the littered desk and sat heavily on the worn leather armchair.

Why? Why??

The bitter taste of bile flooded her mouth.

“What now? Give up? You and de Belleme and history and bloody Galen were obviously right, and I should be grateful that there were so many people willing to spread my stress-hormone-ridden thighs?”

He sobered.

“No. There are alternatives, as we can see. I should have been aware of them.”

If he had told her to go run in the park three times a week instead of... instead of... just instead, things would have been different. Very different.

“It doesn’t change a thing. If we found this, anybody can. I will not be able to stop the book. Or stop de Belleme from torturing women. He will keep on teaching and his students will go out into the world and continue a two thousand year tradition. Name any famous name in wizarding medical history and you can be sure that they had something to say on hysteria! They have Hippocrates, Galen, Avicenna, Paracelsus, Paré, Kneipp! And who do I have? Nathaniel Highmore. A squib. That will go over well with the Wizengamot!”

She scrubbed her hands over her face. “Gods, I am so tired.”

He was next to her in a flash.

“Tired? Look at me.” He tilted her head back by her chin. “Have you been resting enough?” He frowned. “I really should be more attentive. I tend to get carried away by research just as much as you; that’s not a good thing for you right now.” He held up a hand when she tried to protest. “Wait here for a minute. I’ll be right back.”

***

“Come with me. I have a treat for you that I was saving for a rainy day, so to speak.”

He took her hand and pulled her along the corridor at a quick pace. His hand was strong and warm in hers and made her hope that wherever they were going, it would take a while to get there.

He pulled her into the library. A bit mournfully, she had to let his hand go as he strode to a cupboard on the far side of the room. Opening the carved doors, he hefted a heavy, grey object from its depths.

“A Pensieve?”

Draco set the wide stone bowl on top of a reading table. “I tried to make the Muggle Pensieve plate work but the machinery will simply not function in a heavily magical environment such as this.” He beamed at her. “So I found a way around it.”

Holding out his hand for her to take it, he stood at the Pensieve inviting her. Curious, she let him hold her when they bent over the swirling surface.

“Malfoy! This has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with our research!”

They had landed in the drawing room of a Muggle house. A brown-haired man in a lab coat, three stethoscopes slung around his neck, another peeking out of his pocket, was stood scowling at a memory-Draco.

“It is part of a greater context, so shush, Augustus.”

“This is decidedly odd!” the man who Hermione realised must be Healer Pye exclaimed, but moved to an uncomfortable looking chair situated directly behind a plush two-seater sofa.

He sat down, huffing heavily, and crossed his arms in front of his chest.

“Tell me that this is not some perverse joke, Malfoy. At least let me sit on the sofa!” He aimed the remote control at the television, which now showed the menu of a DVD that he navigated with a bit of difficulty.

“No can do. The sofa is reserved.” Memory-Draco looked around, finding nothing amiss. “Right, I’ll be off then, don’t want to spoil it for myself. Just owl me the memory tomorrow, will you?”

Pye kept scowling at the screen, making a shooing gesture, and memory-Draco Disapparated.

Real life Draco bowed invitingly in front of the green sofa. “Milady...”

Healer Pye shifted in his seat, grumbling something that sounded like ‘perverse’.

“You made your friend watch the DVD just to get the memory?” Hermione tried to sound accusing but failed because she could not help but beam at Draco.

Draco nodded. “I wish we could Disillusion him but this is the best I can do. At least he will be behind us and we won’t see him all the time. I hope he is not a commenter; I so hate people who constantly comment while I am trying to watch a play.”

Hermione let herself fall into the soft cushions and leaned against Draco, drawing her legs up. Stephen Fry appeared on the screen and she bounced a bit in anticipation.

Half an hour later saw her crying tears of mirth, burying her face in Draco’s shoulder, while he shook with laughter.

“This is wonderful! Gods, I love you!”

Realising what she had just said, she went very still as Draco’s attention was no longer on the screen. Afraid that she had crossed a line, she waited. He was so quiet!

The memory of Healer Pye was draped over the back of the sofa, gasping for breath, his laugh a strange, shrieking sound.

Draco enfolded her in a tight embrace. “It’s alright, Hermione, I know what you meant.” He rested his head on top of hers, again comfortably watching the memory of a 1980s Stephen Fry.

She couldn’t help but feel like a bird in the sky, sensing a storm coming on.

I wish I knew.

* Direct quote from pages 16 and 17, On the Curability of Certain Forms of Insanity, Epilepsy, Catalepsy and Hysteria in Females by Isaac Baker Brown, 1866

A/N: Isaac Baker Brown operated an unknown number of women until he was expelled from the Obstetrical Society of London in 1867 due to dishonourable conduct. Interestingly, it is hardly ever mentioned that his operating methods were never challenged or in doubt. His dishonourable conduct consisted mostly of his very aggressive advertising for his clinic and ‘cure’.

All book (and DVD) titles do exist and I do not own any of them. Well, actually I do own a real life hardcover copy with paper pages of one of these titles. J None of the intellectual content is mine. The Mills & Boon novel, however, is entirely made up. Should such a title exist, it is mere coincidence.

If you are interested in RL Hysteria reading, I recommend ‘Hysteria, The Biography’ by Andrew Scull. It is comprehensive, thorough and compassionate.
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Hysteria