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Returning to Sanity	By : AchillesTheGeek Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 31212 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter books or films, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 57
- 58
- 59
58 Hermione Returns to her Senses
The second of the dormitory towers of Dumbledore Tower held the female Eighth Year students from Hogwarts. As luck would have it, seven such students had returned for eighth year; and so, there being space for eight, one person had her own room. By a funny sort of unspoken agreement, the girls had more or less ignored the layout suggested by the notice pinned on the notice board on the first day, and organised themselves so that the single room was given to the one girl who was engaged: Hermione.
Not only was her room not shared, it was also the first room as you went up the tower; which made it ideal for those nights when Ron came visiting, stayed late, and couldn't be bothered to walk all the way back up to his room on the top floor of the tower given over to Gryffindor and Slytherin male students. And if those nights became more frequent as term went on, no-one appeared to notice.
After the first of these sleep-overs, they had been woken up by bizarre 'eep!' noise to find themselves being stared at by an even more wide-eyed than usual house elf. There was a crack of apparition, and Kreacher appeared beside the poor elf.
"Misty will return to kitchen duty and keep her mouth shut!" the old elf said to the first one. "Misty is not to disturb Master Ron and Mistress Hermione! Kreacher will be looking after their room!"
And so it was that Kreacher took over the duty of cleaning Hermione's room. The brunette was not particularly pleased by this: It went against the principles of her Society for the Protection of Elvish Welfare to treat Kreacher as a slave. But when she tackled Harry about this, she learnt that, in fact, the Headmistress had insisted that Kreacher be paid for his work at Hogwarts, as he was a Black house elf, not a Hogwarts one. Kreacher had, of course, wanted to give the money to Harry; but Harry insisted that he was giving Kreacher his choice to work here or stay at Grimmauld Place, any fiduciary arrangement was strictly between him and the school. Accordingly, Kreacher was being paid the princely sum of a galleon a week for his services, with Mondays off. Hermione privately thought that such a paltry payment was just as bad as slavery; but Kreacher would not accept more. And really, she mused, he probably didn't have anything to spend it on, anyway.
Ron privately found it hilarious that the ancient elf seemed to be so taken with the Muggle-born witch; he was sure that Walburga Black's portrait would have deeply disapproved. But he held his tongue. It was a delicate peace; but it worked. And it meant that his nocturnal activities went unremarked, uncensured, and most important of all, unstopped. Indeed, far from remark or censure, Kreacher seemed to positively revel in their clandestine meetings, and would leave little chocolates, or flowers, or even once, it appeared, a scented candle for them.
Now, scented candles were all very well; but they weren't Ron's thing at all, so Hermione, who found them quite soothing, only used them when her fiancé wasn't there. When she rushed out of the Ancient Runes class that Wednesday afternoon, her emotions in a huge turmoil, what could be more natural than to light the candle and lie on her bed meditating? But when Kreacher popped in to freshen the room, he sniffed the air suspiciously. He had been house-elf to a dark family for many decades, and he knew nasty charms when he felt them. He looked at Hermione's spaced-out expression and did not like what he saw one little bit. But such things were beyond house-elves' authority. He felt around the room with his house-elf magic and quickly determined that the charm was carried by scent, and the scent was coming from a lighted candle standing on the mantelpiece. Where, he wondered, had that come from? He extinguished the candle and went in search of a mistress or master who could help.
As Kreacher ran out of the tower, he found Neville Longbottom in the common room, evidently taking advantage of his free period to Floo-call a friend. Kreacher would have ignored him; but the friend, it seemed, had spotted him.
"Oi! Kreacher!" George Weasley's voice rang out. "Where's the fire?"
"Mistress Hermione Granger is not being well!" the elf replied miserably.
"Blimey," George said, struck by the despair he heard in Kreacher's voice and the fact that he had completely forgotten to be snarky. If the little runt was that upset, something was seriously wrong.
"Watch out, Nev," he said, "I'm coming through."
Neville stood away from the fireplace, and George appeared.
"Right," he said to Kreacher, "show me."

Bathsheda Babbling was visibly shaking. She had been teaching Ancient Runes for twenty years, and never in that time had she had so much as a cross word in her classroom. She had always taught her students that runes was very precise work and required them to concentrate; any form of anger would ruin the abstraction they needed to do well. So she was entirely unprepared for the scene that had happened that afternoon.
It had obviously affected her very badly, Minerva McGonagall thought. The Ancient Runes Professor had turned up on the Headmistress's doorstep in such a shape that Minerva was worried the woman would collapse in front of her and very nearly called Madam Pomfrey.
"No, I'm alright," the teacher gasped out, breathing heavily. "Just tea and a chat, please."
Minerva summoned a house-elf and Winky appeared.
"Tea for two, please, Winky," she said, and the elf, whose eyes were round as saucers at the sight of the normally cool, calm and collected Ancient Runes teacher in obvious distress, hurried away.
While she was gone, Bathsheda began to explain the commotion of the afternoon's class. By the time a tea-tray had appeared, she was already some way towards re-establishing her equanimity.
"Hermione Granger!" she said, as the Headmistress passed her a cup of tea. "Of all people! Normally the most diligent and careful of students! And she just flew off the handle!"
McGonagall pursed her lips. There was more here than an upset staff-member, that was clear. She quite agreed with Babbling's assessment; for Hermione Granger to run out of a class was not only almost unprecedented, but in her NEWTs year, practically unthinkable. There had been that incident with Divination, she supposed; but Divination hardly counted as a subject, and Trelawny was a fraud, in McGonagall's eyes. Ancient Runes was different. Ancient Runes was a subject Hermione had always seemed to enjoy and to excel at.
No, someone was getting at her. And not just with nasty words, either, the Headmistress was sure of it. It had to be part and parcel of the other attacks. Robin Banks was away this afternoon, having been given a half day off in lieu of his weekend work, but she decided that she would have to have a word with him in the morning.
These events had to stop. She understood that there were wider concerns; but they could not, would not, be allowed to interfere with the safety of her students and staff.

As soon as George entered Hermione's room, his hackles rose. As a prankster, he was well aware of the different compounds and potions that could be used to create compulsions; he and Fred were very careful to steer clear of anything that could potentially get out of control. People might think of the pair as happy-go-lucky and slapdash, but in truth they carried out extremely rigorous tests on their products. They knew perfectly well that a large part of their success was the trust that their customers put in them that everything they made would work perfectly, without unexpected side-effects.
So when he smelt the light hint of wood from an ash tree mixed with tincture of hyacinth and marigold, he knew that this was not good. He and Fred often used a touch of ash; it gave otherwise short-lived compounds a much better shelf-life. But the two flowers, especially mixed together, were a compound they would never go near. Especially if…
He looked around the room. Yep, there it was, a vase of roses. White and pink, though. He went over to investigate; as he suspected, they had been charmed with a simple colour-change charm. He cancelled the charm.
In front of him stood a vase of yellow roses.
"Has Hermione been having a problem with jealousy recently?" he asked.
"Um – you could say that," a breathless voice answered him, as Ron Weasley cannoned into the room, having run all the way from the Ancient Runes classroom when he had gone there to escort Hermione back to the tower and learnt that she had rushed out of class. "You know, just a little. Especially around Harry, it seems."
"Lovely to see you too, bro," George said with a mischievous little smirk. "Well, yellow roses and marigold and yellow hyacinth are the flowers of jealousy; and someone has charmed this candle to put out a mild compulsion charm, I'd say. Might be an idea to open a window and get the smell out – that ash will mean it will linger for a long time."
Ron did as he was bid, and for good measure cast Ventus and watched as the wind from his wand blew away the scented air. As the last of it left the room, Hermione stirred.
"Hermione?" Ron asked, the worry clear in his voice as he rushed to sit next to her. "What happened?"
"Runes – too much –" the witch replied, and sat up, rubbing her eyes. "Came back here –"
And then it seemed that the whole event had caught up with her, for she dissolved into tears and fell into Ron's arms.
"Ah," said George, his voice clearly showing how awkward he felt, "Neville and I will pop along to dinner, OK?"
The two of them left the room to give the lovers some privacy.

It was perhaps twenty minutes later when Ron entered the Great Hall to find his brother and Neville in the middle of the student group. George was showing off some of his prank items – they had made some special gum that changed the colour of your face when you chewed it, which seemed to be a big hit with the Beauxbatons girls if the sea of red, green and yellow faces was any indication.
"Impressive," Ron said. "Can you do stripes?"
"Ron!" George replied. "I like your thinking! We'll make a prankster of you yet!"
"So," Ron said as he took a seat next to his brother, "to what do we owe the – ahem - pleasure of your company?"
"I was missing my Nev," George replied with a salacious wink. "McGonagall said that as his husband I was welcome to come and visit for dinner, so I'm taking her up on it. How's Hermione? I heard she was under the weather today?"
"Something like that," Ron replied, impressed at how smoothly George had deflected any suspicion of his presence and Hermione's absence. "She's asleep at the moment."
"Is she all right?" one of the Beauxbatons girls – Thillin, Ron thought – said. "Shall we look in on 'er afterwards?"
"Oh I don't think that will be …" Ron said, but was interrupted.
"But of course we will. She needs a few girls to buck her up. Marie, will you come with me?" Eva replied crisply.
"Of course, Eva," the girl on her left replied. "Now, who shall we get to try the purple gum?"

At the end of the meal, as people were leaving, Ron signaled to Pansy and Blaise to stay for a second. Mystified, the two Slytherins, together with Theo Nott, who had been with them all day, sat down again.
"Hermione gave me a message for you," Ron said quietly to Pansy.
The brunette arched an eyebrow at him.
"She told me to say you were right."
"That's it?" Pansy asked.
"Yup," Ron replied.
"OK," Pansy said. "In that case, we have some work to do. Come on, boys," she said rising from the table. The three of them had gone about three steps when Pansy turned round to Ron, who was still sitting there.
"That includes you, Ronny-boy," she said archly.
"Oh," Ron said, "um, OK," and got up and went with them.

There was a small knock on the door.
"Come in," Hermione said, rousing herself up from the bed.
The door opened, and Marie Thibault entered, followed by Eva Thillin. Hermione smiled in greeting and the two French girls smiled back; but something seemed a little … strained. As though they had expected something to be there, that wasn't.
"So," Marie was saying, "we came to see 'ow you are and if there is anything we can do to 'elp?"
"Thank you, that's very kind," Hermione said, getting her feelings under control. She just hoped that any strange behaviour would be put down to her eruption in class, and not to its true cause.
Fear.
For Hermione was now quite convinced that one of the two girls in front of her had orchestrated the attack on Harry. And very probably was responsible for the charmed candle Ron had told her about.
The candle. That was it. One of them had looked at the candle, and been upset to see that it was not burning. But which one?
Hermione had to push the thought aside for the moment. It would not look good to be too out of things.
"Um, do you have any more notes from the Runes class?" she asked, to keep the conversation alive.
"Oh yes," Thibault replied. "'Ere, I have made a copy for you," she continued, passing Hermione a piece of parchment. We 'ave finished the new schema. Your friend 'arry, 'e is so knowledgeable, yes?"
"Ah," Hermione said, looking down to keep the two other girls from seeing the sadness in her eyes. "Yes, well." She looked up again.
"Harry's knowledge of Ancient Runes came as a surprise to all of us," Hermione continued with a small, sad smile. "I think that was what caused me to go overboard – just the shock of him being there, and knowing everything."
Hermione was sure she did not imagine it this time. There was, just for a second, a look of fierce hunger in one of the girls' eyes. But it was gone in a flash.
"Yes, well, you look much better now," Thillin said. "Can we maybe get you some food?"
"No thanks," Hermione said, "I don't quite feel up to eating just yet, and I'm sure that one of the house-elves will oblige when I'm ready."
"Very good," Thibault said. "Well, we should not keep you, you should rest some more."
And with that the two girls left the room.
As soon as the door shut, Ron removed the invisibility cloak.
"Did you see it?" Hermione asked him.
"Yes," he said. "I reckon Pansy got it spot on. But let's not talk about it just yet, hmm?"
And saying that, he walked over to the bed and clasped his fiancée in a tight hug, which was returned just as fiercely.

About half an hour later, another knock came on the door. But this was quite different to the first, when the two Beauxbatons students had visited; that had been timid and shy, this was brash and strident. Neither Ron nor Hermione had any doubt who was there.
"Come in, Pansy," Hermione said.
The door opened, and Pansy and Theo came in holding hands.
"Where's Blaise?" Ron answered.
"Studying in the library. As are two certain French ladies that I told him to keep a good eye on," Pansy replied, with not a hint of remorse that she had given her friend a boring job as a spy.
"You were right," Hermione said softly.
"Course I was," Pansy replied; but the four of them all knew it was a front, and that secretly she was very pleased to be told she was right by 'the brightest witch of her age'. "And you saw her?"
"Yes," Hermione said. "Like you said, no-one is going to suspect a twin, simply because you can't imagine one of them acting alone. So you look at both of them, or neither."
"Well, it did help that I knew that her mother is famous for her scented candles," Pansy replied. "It just looked so odd. And when you told me there was a scented candle in your room with the purple-and-gold seal on it, well, that clinched it."
"So, has anyone examined the candle?" Theo asked.
"Good point," Ron said. "Kreacher put it out, and George scented the ingredients in it, but no-one's touched it."
He took his wand out and cast an Aparecium charm to disclose any secret writing or marks. Instantly, spidery lines appeared, winding around the candle.
"Wow," Theo said, dropping Pansy's hand and coming forward to examine the candle closely. "That's incredibly fine work."
"What does it mean?" Ron asked.
"It's a transfiguration signature," Hermione replied.
"Yes," said Theo. "Someone has transfigured the original scented oils of the candle into the marigold and hyacinth that George detected. And done a brilliant job."
"Do you think it could have been done by …" Ron asked, waving his hand, not wanting to put in the name of the girl they all now suspected.
"I don't know," Theo replied. "It is a first class piece of work; but I do think it must have been done inside the castle. It would be too big a risk to be caught with it otherwise. Flitwick would have cast general detection charms on everything brought in to the castle, so unless it was well shielded, or hidden in some object, it must have been transfigured here.
"Anyway, I suggest we leave it alone for now. Unlit, it can't hurt anyone. We should just make sure that Hermione is completely free of any charms."
"I'll do that," Ron said, and the two Slytherins gestured to him to go ahead. They quite understood that the current friendly relations between them did not yet extend as far as casting spells on one another.
Ron stood in front of Hermione, wand drawn.
"All right?" he asked.
Hermione nodded her assent.
"Revelio incantatum!" Ron cast, and a soft violet light passed over Hermione. It showed two deep blue spots; as soon as he saw them, Ron cast a Finite Incantatum at each, and they disappeared completely.
"Thanks, Ron," Hermione said, as the light faded. "I feel much happier now."
"Excellent," Ron said. "Just to be sure, we should check the parchment they gave you too. Revelio incantatum!" Ron cast again, pointing his wand at the copy of the notes from Ancient Runes that Thibault had left behind. It glowed a deep, deep blue. Ron cast Finite Incantatum, but this time it seemed to resist him. Theo, realising that this was a very strong charm, cast a Finite Incantatum of his own, and slowly the light faded altogether.
"Thanks," Ron said, rather breathless.
"Pleasure," Theo said. And it was; the Slytherin was keenly aware that his standing in the Wizarding world was still pretty low, after the attack on Harry and Draco; even though he had been acquitted on a retrial, he still had a long way to go to rebuild people's confidence in him. Helping Hermione, however basically, would be a good step on that way.
"Good thinking, Ron," Pansy said, and the red-head looked shocked to be praised by his former adversary. "You should probably get some sleep," Pansy suggested to Hermione. "Or do you need to eat?"
"No," Hermione said, "I'm good. Ron, can you go and tell Harry I'm very sorry for the last few days? I bet he's stewing that he's done something wrong."

Harry was still feeling very upset after the evens of the Ancient Runes class, so he and Draco had kept a low profile. They'd had dinner in the Great Hall, mostly because their absence would have been remarked on. After dinner, they had hung out in the common room for a little while; but it was obvious that a good deal of the gossip was about what had happened in Ancient Runes, so they decided they were better off getting away from the place and letting people talk freely, rather than face the hushed whispers and embarrassed faces.
And Harry was glad to get away in private; it felt like the two of them had not spent time with just the two of them together all day, and Harry felt drained by it. They spent an hour doing homework in a companionable silence; then Draco asked about the Runes assignment and they worked through it together. It did not take the two of them long to finish; Draco was even more astonished than before, as they had now finished all the homework that was due in the next ten days.
"Right," said Harry, "that's enough study."
"What would you like to do now?" Draco asked.
Harry smiled.

In his room, Neville had come to the same conclusion: he had done enough study for the night. Especially as he had talked his husband into staying with him. George had Flooed home while Neville was studying to pick up some 'essential supplies'; but now he was sitting on Neville's bed, watching him study. Neville was finding this both somewhat upsetting and something of a turn-on; while he'd rather not be watched while working, there was something about it being his husband doing the watching that made it very different from anyone else.
"Right," he said as he put his quill down. "I'm done for the night."
"Excellent," said George, "now we can play with my supplies."
"What?" Neville asked in surprise. "I thought you'd be getting a toothbrush and pajamas, that sort of thing?"
"Oh, well, them too," George said dismissively. "But I got the essentials as well."
So saying, he opened his bag and pulled out a bottle of firewhisky and two tumblers.
"Here's to us!" he said, as he poured out a generous measure each.

Harry and Draco lay together on the bed, stripped to their boxers, hugging and kissing and enjoying one another's gentle touches.
"What did Bill want?" Draco asked eventually.
"Oh, you remember he told us about the map?" Harry replied.
Draco scrunched up his face in concentration as he cast his mind back to the conversation at the Burrow.
"Yes, I think so," he said. "We had butterbeers in Arthur Weasley's garage. The map was that thing he found in Egypt."
"That was it. Well, he's got permission from the goblins to show it to me. So he's invited me to Gringotts tomorrow afternoon. You can come too if you want, I squared it with Slughorn."
"Of course I want," Draco replied, and they fell silent for a moment or two.
"Why not tell Ron?" Draco said next, referring back to when Ron has asked about it at breakfast.
"Oh, I will," Harry replied. "It's just that Bill wanted it kept quiet, so I didn't think I should mention details at the breakfast table."
A little while later, there came a knock at a window. Harry sighed; but rather than get up, he opened the window with wordless wandless magic, which, as it did every time, caused a little frisson of excitement to pass through Draco. An owl flew in, dropped a letter on the bed right next to Harry, and flew straight out again.
"Well, I guess they don't want a reply," Harry said, retrieving the envelope. "It's from Gringotts," he said, as he saw the seal on it. He opened the letter and began to read; as he did so, he let out a low whistle.
"What is it?" Draco asked, his curiosity piqued.
"It's an invitation," Harry replied. "From Primak, the Chief Goblin. Seems the goblins want to give Ron, Hermione and me an award."
"Are you sure?" Draco asked. "Rumour has it that you broke out of Gringotts on a dragon. I can't imagine that they'd be pleased about that!"
"The rumour is true," Harry replied. "But by what he writes here, they're ecstatic. Using a dragon in a vault, and housing a dark object in it, are both now highly illegal, and have been since the First Wizarding War. Reading between the lines, I'd say that once we escaped, they told the Ministry that they couldn't remove the dragon or the cup because of the secrecy of client accounts; but now the cup was gone and the dragon was free, and they wouldn't let it back. And since the dragon was guarding the Lestrange vaults, they took the money for repairs out of it."
"Good," said Draco, who had plenty of reason to hate his aunt. "I hope they made them pay double."
"I think we can be sure of that!" Harry replied. "Anyway, I guess we'll need to tell Ron and Hermione about this. Do you think Hermione will be alright?"
Draco's answer was forestalled by a knock on the door. The two boys scrambled to put on some bathrobes over their boxers, and invited the visitor to come in. It was Ron.
"Hi guys," he began. "Sorry to disturb you, just wanted to give you some news about Hermione."
"Is she all right?" Harry asked. "I didn't upset her, did I?"
He looked from Draco to Ron; both of their faces had the same expression: a sort of exasperated incredulity.
"Harry," Ron said, "you really can be clueless sometimes. You're just being you, and we all love you for it. But she's been under a charm which has been making her feel extremely jealous of you. That's all sorted out now; but we still have to deal with the troublemaker."
Draco looked at him very seriously. "Do you think it's the same person who attacked Harry?"
"Has to be," Ron replied. "And the interesting thing is that we had two visitors tonight …"
And Ron went on to discuss the visit from Marie Thibault and Eva Thillin. It took a while, as he also told them about Kreacher and George and Neville's actions and explained exactly what everyone had seen and the conclusions that were being drawn from them.
"OK," Harry said, letting out a nervous breath. "If you're right, and I think you are, we know how to stay safe for the moment. I know Robin has set up some tracking charms, but he obviously missed the candle. But we can keep those two under close watch I guess. Also, we won't be here tomorrow afternoon."
And in turn Harry went on to explain the invitation from Gringotts, and gave Ron the letter to read.
"Tomorrow afternoon?" Ron said. "Not a lot of notice? And we'll miss Potions!"
"You remember Bill telling us about the map that he and Karkaroff made?"
Ron nodded.
"OK, well, he's got permission to show it to us. But it's all very secretive. That's why we arranged to go. I guess the goblins decided that, since we're going to Gringotts anyway, we can receive the award at the same time."
"Just like them, really," Draco added. "They just make the date, you turn up or you don't. But we're going to, right?"
"And we'd already squared Potions with Slughorn anyway," Harry replied. "He said that you two could go if you wanted to, considering that Bill is your brother; so that's no problem."
"Brilliant!" Ron said with a huge grin once he learnt that they would all be missing the Potions class. "This really will bend Hermione's wand all out of shape!"
And with that, he bid them good night and left.

Rookwood went over his plans one more time. Tomorrow was the new moon; unfortunately, the exact time was in the afternoon, and the ritual demanded deep darkness. So it would have to be performed after sunset; and given that it was July, he would wait till midnight. The witching hour was always a good time to perform a ritual, he decided.
He laid out all of the items he would need once more, checking each on a list he had compiled. Cauldron, three types of wood to burn under it, the sixteen different ingredients the potion would need; enough charcoal to keep the fire burning all night if necessary; stirring paddle; Circe's circlet, from which he and Barnes had managed to remove the disintegration curse, thanks to the books in Snape's library (and no thanks to Umbridge, who simply looked on and made the kind of helpful suggestions that he could happily have done without); and the full instructions and incantations, written out in a special luminous ink that he would be able to see even in the darkness of midnight with no moonlight.
There was just one more thing he needed: the specific word that would reverse the memory charm when required. But Rookwood had not lasted for years in the Dark Lord's employ without developing a keen sense of self-preservation. The word was a secret, and as long as only he knew what it was, he would be safe; Umbridge would need it to get her memories back, and so she would need him. It was his life insurance policy; as such, he had not even decided what the word was yet, so that even legilimency would not help her. Not that Umbridge was any sort of a legilimens, he knew; but beginners got lucky occasionally.
As he worked, he muttered to himself, and Barnes and Umbridge gave each other a look that conveyed how exasperated they were with the other wizard. They had had to put up with this muttering and getting ready for four hours now, and it seemed to both of them more like four weeks. When he had finally finished, shrunk all the elements down, and packed them all back in the cauldron, Umbridge decided that enough was enough.
"Right!" she said, imbuing the word with all the false, brittle brightness that the Hogwarts students had learnt to hate like poison. "I think that's enough preparation! I know you want everything to be perfect, but it won't be if we're all anxious and overtired. I think we all need an early night."
Rookwood all but exploded in indignation. "Madam!" he said, "I am not a child that needs to be told to go to bed!"
"Of course not," Umbridge said sweetly. "So as an adult, of course you agree with me that we need our sleep. Very good. Off to bed!"
And this time, Rookwood could see that there was no way out of it. Umbridge, he had learnt, never gave up when she had decided on something; he would just be steamrollered into whatever she wanted. Probably at the end of a Somnos charm; she had already used one against Barnes when he had been prating on a few days ago.
And looking at Barnes, he could see that the other wizard would be no help whatever; he was sitting there, grinning at Rookwood's evident discomfort.
"All right," Rookwood said, sighing as he accepted the inevitable. "Off to bed!"

While Ron went to see Harry and Draco, Hermione took advantage of the opportunity to get some food.
"Kreacher!" she called.
The house-elf popped into the room.
"How is Kreacher being able to help the Mud-ggleborn Mistress Granger?"
If Hermione heard the slip, she showed no sign of it. Kindness and compassion. That was the way.
"Kreacher, could you get me some dinner please?"
"Of course, Kreacher lives to serve," he said, the bad temper dripping from his words. But Hermione was becoming inured to it by now; she had seen him with Miriam and Teddy, whinging about being forced to be a nursemaid while very obviously enjoying himself very much. She now began to see that Kreacher, given the chance, was really a soft-hearted fraud who only pretended to be cranky as a defense mechanism.
As she was thinking these things, a rather delicious plate full of chicken and mushroom appeared in front of her, and she wolfed it down.
"Thank you, Kreacher," she said when she was finished; and even though the elf wasn't there, he must have been listening, for the dishes vanished, and an enormous slice of pear tart with clotted cream appeared instead. It was too much for her to eat, she thought, scandalised at the waste of food; but then she worked it out: too much for her, but not too much to share with Ron …
As if on cue, as she was thinking this, Ron entered the room, and his eyes lit up as he saw the dessert. She looked at him and smiled.
"Care to share this with me?" she asked.
She did not need to ask twice. When they had finished their dessert, they lay together on the bed in silence for a while.
"I'm sorry," Hermione said eventually. "I guess I've been a bit of an ass."
"Um, yeah, I guess you have," Ron agreed. Hermione smirked inwardly. Ron might be good at strategy, but he was never going to make a great diplomat, that was for sure. "But then, you were under stress, and under a compulsion charm."
"I know," she said. "I felt so jealous – Harry seemed to be getting special treatment all along the line, and then you seemed to take his side."
"How do you feel now?" Ron asked, his voice showing the concern she was longing to hear.
"Much better," she said. "Of course I know it's all rubbish. Harry is special, and he deserves to be treated well. I'm not jealous of Draco any more – he clearly gives Harry what he needs. Harry's got him, and that's good for him. And I've got you, and that's good enough for me."
"OK," Ron said. "Hang on, I thought I had you?"
"That too," Hermione answered, as she pulled Ron into a cuddle and deep kiss.
That night was one of the nights when Ron didn't get back to his room.

"Bend Hermione's wand out of shape?" Harry asked, bemused, as the door closed.
"Potter!" Draco said sharply. "Get your mind out of the gutter!"
"What?" Harry asked, oblivious to the double entendre that Draco had picked up on.
And then Draco explained it, by bending Harry's wand out of shape, eliciting the most delightful and sensuous moans from his fiancé.
And so, as Pepys put it, to bed.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I have set up a thread for replies at http://www2.adult-fanfiction.org/forum/index.php/topic/56042-review-replies-for-returning-to-sanity/ . Please indicate which chapter you are reading, as aff doesn't make that clear. I will generally try to reply to posts before posting a new chapter.
The story is betaed by the wonderful BickyMonster, http://members.adult-fanfiction.org/profile.php?no=1296919762, with assistance from ruth_lity. The remaining errors are all my own!
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Returning to Sanity