Hysteria

A/N: A huge thank you to Softobsidian74 for alpha reading and to robs55 for the great beta!

I would like to mention that the condition 'female hysteria' was a commonly accepted diagnosis for about 2000 years (in words: two thousand. Yes.) All treatments described were at some point used for hysteria treatment. Many quotes I use are 'wizardised' and reworded quotes from doctors, who have treated hysteria patients in Victorian times or earlier.


Story banner by the fabulous drconis23 here: http://i668.photobucket. com/albums/vv42/lady_of_clunn/hysteriafinal. png Just take out spaces :)


Hysteria

Chapter 1

Disquiet


The nurse bustled through the room, making her stand and sit, exposing her arm to draw a blood sample with her wand and sent her to the small adjoining cloak room to collect a urine sample.

Handing the small cup over to the lab witch, Hermione wondered for the fourth or fifth time today why the healer at her local surgery had looked at her the way she had, written a referral to a specialist without telling her what kind of specialist that was and sent her to floor three-and-a-half at St. Mungo’s. The diagnostic number on the referral had not told her anything.

Her usual healer had been unavailable. Maybe she should have just rescheduled.

Ward three-and-a-half.

Hermione had heard of that ward before. It was tucked in between floors because it did not house any dormitories for patients. Instead, it consisted of combined examination rooms/offices for external specialist healers coming in at certain days to see patients within St. Mungo’s. In turn, St. Mungo’s reserved a certain number of beds for their private patients and gave free access to their facilities.

Sitting with her legs crossed and one foot jumping impatiently, Hermione waited to be called into the doctor’s office. She had already missed two hours of work this morning for her appointment and she was eager to get back to her desk. Deadlines were approaching and although she was ahead of schedule, she liked to triple check everything before handing in her projects.

After a life altering event – Hermione refused to even think about the breakup with Ron in anything other than abstract terms – she found herself increasingly tired. At work; where the day was structured and she had to report to her superiors at specific intervals, she managed to function well enough. At home; she lacked the strength to do the regular household spells.

Plates, cutlery, utensils, glasses with or without varying amounts of curdled milk or mouldy pumpkin juice littered her sink and the worktop around it. The stove needed a degreasing spell and she very well knew that she had taken her wet laundry out of the washing machine and placed it in the wash basket.

Two days ago.

Now her clothes were a half-dried, creased mess that actually needed washing again as they had acquired a sour smell not unlike that of foxing.

It seemed too much of an effort to cast the drying and folding spells.

And even if she would have done so, where would she have put the folded clothes?

The last time, she had managed to dry and fold the laundry but had given up at the task of sorting the clothes into her wardrobe.

Her bed had not been made for several weeks now.

All of this might have been fairly normal for many people. For Hermione Granger it was a sign that she needed help or the depression she felt herself slipping into would consume her life fully.

She had consulted her healer in the hope of quickly obtaining a prescription for a mild anti-depressant potion and be on her way until she could work through this rough patch in her life.

Now she wondered whether it would have been not a better idea to go to her GP and get some Muggle pills. A friend of her mother’s used to eat them like Smarties when Hermione was a teenager. It could not be too difficult to get a prescription.

Hermione wiped her hands along the skirt of her suit. She was anxious and restless again. At the same time she felt worn out and tired although she had woken only three hours earlier. For a short moment, she leaned her head back against the magnolia-coloured wall and closed her eyes. Just for a few moments.

She jolted when her name was called, probably not for the first time and quickly scrambled to her feet. The healer had already retreated into his office, but the door was open and she quickly made her way inside and closed the white door behind her with a quiet thudding noise. The inside of the door was padded and reinforced with silencing charms. At least, this healer took patient confidentiality seriously.

She turned around and saw a head of platinum blond hair bent over a file-laden desk.

When the healer looked up, Hermione could not fully suppress the flinch of surprise and shock.

“Malfoy?”

“Granger,” he acknowledged.

“You are a healer?”

He leaned back, frowning slightly.

“It appears this way doesn’t it? “

“I am sorry, Malfoy, but I think it might be better if I see somebody else.”

His frown deepened.

“And why would that be?”

Hermione fidgeted.

“We have too much history, don’t you think?”

“You are a patient. I am a healer. End of story. Personal history is not a factor. Feel free to consult somebody else, but I don’t think you will be able to get an appointment any time soon. Wait lists are long. You were lucky that I could fit you in today due to a cancellation.”

Hermione looked at her watch. Half the workday was already lost; she should at the very least get something out of it in the end.

“Alright,” she said slowly.

His hand open, Draco Malfoy gestured toward the chair in front of his desk.

“Please. Do sit.”

Hermione sat down and smoothed her skirt again with sweaty palms.

Trying to avoid looking at Malfoy, she looked around his office in what she hoped assembled interest. White on white to the point of minimalism, the room looked strangely unused. The laden desk stood out as the only intensely used personal object. A golden snitch, desperately fluttering against the magical field that bound it to a foot-tall brass structure that resembled an abstract outstretched arm and hand, complete with a small plaque mounted at the foot of the trophy was the only decoration. Hermione could not help feeling pity for the winged ball, eternally bound to striving to escape its invisible prison.

“So,” he was studying her medical file. “You have been experiencing loss of energy, nervousness, insomnia, tiredness, anxiety at times, loss of appetite, difficulty to perform day-to-day tasks, shortness of breath, dizziness,” he paused and looked up at her. “Heaviness in the abdomen?”

“Yes.” Just give me a St. John’s Wort-based potion and be done with it!

Malfoy added something to her file and highlighted it with a touch of his wand.

“When have these symptoms first occurred?”

“About five months ago.”

“Around the time you and Weasley parted ways.”

She gritted her teeth.

“Yes,” she ground out. She did not need him to remind her of the fact.

“Granger, let me be blunt. Do you experience release?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Do you release your pent up sexual needs?”

She stared at him.

“Malfoy, I really think this is a very bad idea. I will reschedule with another healer.”

He leaned back in his high, leather covered armchair.

“Very well, Granger. But consider that you have been referred to me as one of the leading specialists. I am one of the few healers to take into account psychological and circumstantial factors.”

She swallowed and closed her eyes. Maybe she could make it to the lunch break and work through it, catch up on things.

“Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yes, I do ... release pent up sexual needs.”

His quill was back in his hand.

“And have you done so less frequently in the months since your breakup or has it been a decreasingly satisfactory experience since then?

How did he know? How did he know??

Recently she had been so disinterested and tired that she had fallen asleep with her hand between her thighs, indifferent to continue the listless exercise.

Malfoy put down his quill and stood.

“Granger, I need to examine you to confirm my diagnosis.” He nodded toward a white screen in the corner of the room. “Please divest yourself from the waist down.”

“No.”

He sighed.

“Granger, your condition is serious but very treatable. You suffer from Witches’ Hysteria.”

“What?”

“I understand that the condition must have been latent in you for quite some time, but had been held at bay while in the relationship with Weasley.”

“That is ridiculous, Malfoy! Nobody has been using the diagnosis hysteria for the last hundred years or so! I am simply a bit burnt out; stressed. A bit depressed if you will. Just give me a light mood lifting potion and I’ll be right as rain in no time.”

“So, you are the healer now? And here I thought you worked in the Ministry’s research department.”

He crossed his arms in front of his chest.

“There is no such thing as Hysteria, Malfoy!”

With growing annoyance, Hermione realised that her voice had taken on a decidedly, well, hysterical tone.

“You realise that fervent denial is part of the clinical picture?”

Hermione stood.

“I am leaving.”

She was at the door when he spoke again.

“Witches’ Hysteria can be a self destructive condition, if left untreated. I will be forced to report it to your employer, for your own safety.”

Hermione stood very still.

“Are you blackmailing me, Malfoy?”

“No. I am just informing you of the rules.”

“I want another healer.”

Malfoy nodded.

“Healer de Belleme will be back from the symposium in two weeks. I’ll be happy to refer you, but in that case, I still have to report to your employer and give you a sick leave until then.”

Hermione’s shoulders slumped. She had a project due next week, culminating in a presentation she had been preparing for months.

She straightened and looked into his eyes. As calm as she could possibly be, she wanted to make a point.

“I am not hysterical, Malfoy,” she said very slowly.

“Nevertheless you are not feeling well or you would not be here.”

She knew he had seen the glimmer of uncertainty and fear in her eyes and she hated it.

“Tell you what. I’ll start treating you right now. This way I don’t have to report you, because we are already tackling the problem. As soon as healer de Belleme is back, I’ll hand you over to him.”

“Okay.” Her voice sounded as hesitant as she felt.

“Now, please divest yourself from the waist down. You can leave your skirt on and just push it up.”

That did not sound too bad. He was very professional in his approach. She stepped behind the privacy screen, toed off her pumps and slid her tights and knickers down her legs.

When she stepped back around the partition wall into the room, Malfoy was already sitting on a chair next to an examination bed, covered with a white sheet.

He made her lie down and slide her red cardigan up so he could press his warm hands into her abdomen.

“Is this where you can sometimes feel the heaviness?”

“Yes.”

He nodded.

“Your cycle has been regular? Any lighter or heavier than usual?”

She nodded her answers, ignoring the heat that crept into her cheeks and he straightened.

With a wave of his wand, he conjured stirrups.

“Please rest your knees on these; it will make it easier for you to relax.”

As soon as she had placed her legs on the anatomically formed holders, the bed shortened to end just before her bottom.

Malfoy rolled his chair in between her legs and she stared up to the ceiling.

“Please push your skirt up to your hips, Granger.”

She lifted her hips and bared her lower body to him.

He is a healer. This is just like an examination with your ob-gyn.

She heard him cast a sterilising spell on his hands, before blowing into thin gloves to separate the material and snapping them on.

“Granger, this is a disposable wand,” he held the generic looking, smooth piece of wood into her line of vision. “It is absolutely sterile.”

She nodded. What did he need to do that required sterile equipment?

He waved it and she felt her legs locked into the stirrups with magic.

Startled, she tried to sit up.

“It’s okay Granger; this is just to prevent involuntary movement.”

Not appeased in the slightest, she leaned back.

“I need a clear field to work with. This might sting a little.”

“What ... ? Ow!”

Malfoy had removed all traces of pubic hair from her sex. A clear field? She had been far from overgrown!

He used the handle of the wand to draw along her folds and separate them.

Hermione placed her hands on her stomach and looked at the white ceiling. The situation made her feel a bit sick.

She could feel him examining her labia and drawing back the skin above her clit. He kept the skin drawn taut, the pressure of his fingers very evident when he spoke the next incantation.

There was a cool slickness covering the entire area between her thighs. Very quickly the coolness gave way to a warm, tingling feeling. His fingers slid along skin and probed carefully.

Hermione felt like crying.

The tight pressure he was asserting made her feel things she should not be feeling during a healer’s treatment.

“Vibratum.”

The wand made a buzzing sound.

And then he touched it to her skin.

The vibration was stronger than any Muggle toy could ever be. Blood rushed into her sex. The sensation travelled down into her thighs and spread upward into her cervix where it pooled and swirled, thickening quickly. She could already feel the contractions starting.

All the orgasms she had missed during the last months seemed to rush through her, eager to make it to the finish line all at once.

Too shocked and mortified to protest, Hermione lay paralysed, waiting for the climax to humiliate her in front of Draco Malfoy of all people.

And then he took the wand away.

Malfoy kept the touch of the wand feather light, teasing her mercilessly, keeping the tip of the wand at the sensible skin and flesh around her clit, lightening the vibrations and moving away from her most sensitive parts whenever she felt close to bursting.

“What the hell are you doing, Malfoy?”

“Pelvic massage. We have to reduce the residual hysteria by inducing controlled hysterical paroxysm.”

He moved the wand away from her and she could think more clearly.

“Pelvic massage? You are molesting me!”

“Hardly.” The wand’s buzzing became more intense. “This is strictly a medical procedure, practiced since Galen described it eighteen hundred years ago.”

Gloved fingers slid into her.

“Malfoy!”

Her muscles contracted in desperate reflex.

Full, the voice in her mind whimpered.

The tip of the wand was pressed hard into her clitoris, sending magic like electricity into her entire lower body.

The fingers curled.

She must have cried out as the pleasure seized her like she had never felt it before and left her boneless, drenched in sweat and with drooping eyes.

She was unable to move or react when she watched Malfoy remove his gloves in a way that they were inside out before he disposed of them, together with the wand he had used.

Suddenly she felt very cold.

He rolled his chair backward and came to stand next to the table. An arm was placed under her legs near to her knees and the leg rests vanished. Malfoy lowered her legs carefully onto the examination bed and angled them so it would be comfortable for her to curl up on her side.

The light dimmed and a warm blanket covered her shivering body.

“Rest. I will be back in fifteen minutes.”

Malfoy had touched her up.

She had orgasmed in front of him, under his hands.

And she would have to come back for more of the same.