It was like waking up to the worst headache in the world.

No, it was worse than that. It was not so much the pain but rather the feeling of something missing, as though someone had reached in and taken a great big huge chunk of my brain out.

It was most unsettling to say the least.

"I think she's waking up, look!"

I stirred again, trying to open my eyes, but they felt so heavy and stuck together like glue.

"Hermione, it's me, Harry."

Why was Harry in my room? Mainly, how did he get into my room? Come to think of it, where even was I? I tried to search my brain, desperately attempting to remember.

But it was all too fuzzy and I struggled to locate any fresh memories.

I knew I was Hermione Granger, and that I attended Hogwarts with my two best friends Ron and Harry. But... I couldn't quite remember what year I was in.

Suddenly feeling frightened, my eyes flew open, and I gasped and gulped for air. The room I was in was white, and I immediately recognised it as the hospital wing, and there was Harry and Ron looking down at me, both with concerned expressions on their faces.

And weirdly, Ron was wearing a hospital gown. Was he hurt too? Had we found ourselves in another end of year show down?

I scratched my head, the last piece of drama I recalled was when we were in the Department of Mysteries, yet I remember waking up and recovering from that one. Poor Sirius.

And then we'd had the holidays, which I spent at the Burrow, and Harry had banged on all summer about his laughable theory of Draco Malfoy being recruited as one of Voldemort's minions.

But after that... nothing.

"Are you feeling okay, 'Mione?" Ron asked, frowning. "Seamus said he found you at the bottom of the dungeon stairs. You must have tripped or something. He brought you in half an hour ago."

"I- uh- I don't recall..."

What was I doing in the dungeons? And why couldn't my brain collect any recent memories?

"Why are you in a hospital gown?" I asked Ron, "are you hurt too?"

Ron and Harry exchanged bewildered glances.

"Uh- Ron was poisoned, Hermione," Harry said slowly, talking to me as though I were a five year old, "only just this morning, remember?"

"Poisoned?" I gasped, sitting up, my head spinning as I did so. "What happened? Are you okay?"

"Thanks to Harry," Ron laughed nervously, his eyes shifting from side to side. "Uh- it was in the mead I drank, someone must have poisoned it."

I was shocked. Ron drinking alcoholic beverages in the morning?! Did he not give a fig about his liver?

Harry narrowed his eyes at me. "We think it might be the same assailant who passed Katie that cursed necklace."

"What cursed necklace?" I asked, looking in horror from my two friends. They were talking as though I should know what they were on about.

Again, Ron and Harry exchanged a look.

"Uh- I think I might just get Pomfrey," Ron said, ambling away, clearly forgetting he was in just a hospital gown and nothing else.

"Nice arse," Harry chortled under his breath. "Remind me to grab him his pyjamas later."

But I was too fretful to laugh, too anxious even to appreciate Ron's deliciously toned butt cheeks.

"Harry, what's the date today?" I blurted out, my heart racing uneasily in my chest.

Again, he stared at me strangely. "That must have been quite a bang. It's March the first, Ron's birthday. His seventeenth."

Seventeenth? A cold feeling plunged deep into the pit of my stomach. I'd somehow lost six months of my life.

"Harry, I don't remember anything after the summer ensuing Sirius's death, there's like this blank space where my recent memories should be. I think- I think someone may have Obliviated them."

His eyes widened in shock, and he opened his mouth as though he were about to ask who, when something appeared to flash in his eyes, and he immediately shut it again.

"Harry? What is it?" I pressed, sensing he knew something and wasn't telling me.

"So, you don't know anything about what's been happening in sixth year?" He asked, leaning closer so he could lower his voice. I was getting the impression that he wanted this discussion before Ron returned.

"I don't think so," I frowned, reaching right into the corners of my mind.

Nothing. Empty. Gone.

"About Lavender?" Harry pressed.

"Lavender?" I asked, wondering what my dorm mate had to do with anything. "Oh dear, she hasn't been attacked too, has she?"

Harry's eyes widened. "No- uh, nothing... she's irrelevant really. What about the Slug Club? Do you recall becoming a member?"

I immediately wrinkled my nose. "Merlin, is that some sort of group Hagrid is running? I must say, it doesn't sound at all appealing."

Harry leaned in even further, licking his lips as though going in for the killer question.

"And what about Mal-"

"Please return to your bed at once, Mr Weasley! And don't get back out until somebody has fetched you a pair of underpants!"

Harry and I looked up as Madam Pomfrey's voice screeched loudly from the other side of the wing. Ron, red faced, flung himself into the nearest bed, looking horrified as he sank down beneath the covers.

Harry sat back in his chair, frowning thoughtfully as Madam Pomfrey bustled down past the beds towards us.

"Ah, Miss Granger, Mr Weasley tells me you're a bit confused? Well, that will happen when you fall down some stairs and take a little knock to the head. I wouldn't worry, nothing a bit of bed rest won't cure."

"But, Madam Pomfrey," I rushed out. "I think someone has Obliviated my mind."

She gave a loud bark of laughter as she clasped my shoulder and flung me forwards to plump up my pillow.

"Nonsense, dear. If you'd been Obliviated, you wouldn't even know your own name. It would take magic of great skill to be able to select and take your memories at random. And unless you're suggesting a teacher would do such a thing, then I'm afraid you're very wrong. No, no - it's just a touch of concussion. Your memories will come flooding back soon enough."

"But I'm telling you-"

She shoved a piece of chocolate in my mouth, shutting me up before bustling back away.

I sighed. What was the point? The adults in this school never listened.

"Harry," I said, once I'd swallowed the chocolate down. "I need you to tell me everything that has happened in the last six months. Everything."

Little did I know at the time, Harry's idea of everything was sketchy to say the least.

*****

He'd waited in the shadows until someone found her, and watched with an ache in his chest as Finnigan flung her over his shoulder and carried her away.

They would assume she'd fallen down the stairs and bumped her head, of course.

Maybe she would even assume that too, he thought with a heavy heart.

Thanks to his auntie Bellatrix's intensive Occlumency lessons over the summer, he'd become adept enough to not only block his mind, but understand it too, therefore giving him the skill to practice Memory Charms with surprising ease.

So he knew exactly how to Obliviate just enough off of Hermione's mind to take her back to the time when her heart still belonged solely to Weasley.

And, because they had kept their relationship under wraps, he didn't have to fear about anyone revealing the truth.

Apart from a certain infuriating Gryffindor.

But he had a feeling that Potter would be quite, if not more, keen than himself to keep it from her.

He was not wrong.

"It was you, wasn't it?" Potter snarled, cornering him in the Entrance Hall after dinner that very evening.

"Care to share what the fuck you are going on about?" Draco drawled derisively.

Like fuck was he going to give Potter the benefit of making it easy for him.

"Don't play dumb with me," Potter hissed, lowering his voice as he looked around for any potential eavesdroppers, "Hermione. I've just been up in the hospital wing trying to help her recall the last six months of her life. Funny that, isn't it?!"

"On the contrary," Draco shrugged in a bored fashion. "Memory loss is no laughing matter."

Potter's eyes flashed angrily behind his glasses.

"Why do it? Why take away her memories? What's in it for you? Unless... she discovered something about you that you didn't want her to know. But then why six months? A bit drastic, even for you. She has no clue that you and her were ever even... close."

Draco rolled his eyes. The idiocy of this moron never failed to surprise him.

"That's precisely the point," he muttered, curling his lip. "I simply grew tired of her - she was becoming increasingly needy and I'd had my use. It's better all around this way. No broken heart for her, and a peaceful life for me."

Potter scowled, his eyes narrowing, but he seemed to buy it.

"You're a piece of scum, Malfoy. She always deserved better than you."

"Someone like Weasley, you mean?" Draco couldn't help but scoff.

"Yeah," Potter keenly agreed, aggressively nodding his head. "Lavender was only ever an obstacle before you waded in. I don't like lying to her but the only reason I'm not going to say anything about you is because she's better off not knowing that you of all people could hurt and humiliate her so much."

Draco internally flinched, wishing he could just deck him one.

"And if-" Potter continued, stepping far too close into Draco's personal space for his comfort, "-I catch you even so much as looking in her direction again, then I'll fucking blab your little secret for all and sundry to hear. And somehow, I don't think your master would be particularly pleased to learn what sort of company you have been choosing to keep, do you?"

Jaw clenched tight, Draco's nostrils flared as he glared down at Potter. He had never wanted to kill a man more, which was unfortunate because of all the people in the world, Potter was off limits.

Knowing he'd achieved what he had set out to do, he chose to say nothing. Instead, with all his effort, he gave a stiff nod at his rival before pushing past him and strode off in the other direction.

It seemed his plan had worked.

Hermione Granger would never find out about how he, Draco Malfoy, had ever given his heart to a Mudblood.

*****