"I'm sorry about your aunt."
Draco barely looked up from where he knelt – the words on the gravestone were magnetic to him, drawing him in ever closer, his knees almost touching the cold stone.
"I'm not," he mumbled. "I think." There was a sigh behind him, and Hermione Granger was by his side.
"I've lost my parents," she said. "I put a memory charm on them." Draco laughed bitterly.
"They can always come back."
"I didn't want them to." Granger sounded almost close to tears. "I found them in Australia. Mum's pregnant. I can't destroy a family like that."
A silence fell across the two of them. Draco felt her lean in closer, shoulder to shoulder.
"Why are you here?" he asked.
"I… I guess I need closure." Draco frowned.
"Closure for what?"
"She almost broke me. I need to know that's she's broken too." She rubbed her forearm where the words had been carved in to her. Mudblood. That was her brand to bear. That was what she was, and there was nothing she could do to change that.
"She broke a lot of people," Draco agreed. "So did I." His hand went to his arm, and for a moment the two were joined in ownership to greater powers. He to the defeated Dark Lord, she to her blood.
"You know, you don't have to be a Death Eater anymore," Granger said. "He's gone. Harry won."
"He's dead," Draco said, "but he's not gone. He's still here in my mind – I want to hurt you, I want to hate you. I want to do bad things."
"That's not him," Granger insisted. "You can't blame him for your vices, Malfoy."
"I have to," he retorted. "Otherwise, that means- that means I was wrong."
"And?" she asked. He finally looked at her and saw a calculating look on her face. "You were wrong."
"But… but why?"
He just couldn't understand. Where had he gone wrong?
"You backed the wrong horse, Malfoy," she said, standing up. "All you have to do is not do it again." She turned and walked away, back to where Weasley stood waiting for her.
"How?" he called after her. She stopped and looked back at him.
"How's Astoria?" Draco frowned at the non-sequitur.
"Uh, she's fine."
"Then love her. Love her and you'll know what to do."
With that she was gone, and he returned home a few hours later. His girlfriend smiled at him, and he took her in his arms.
"I love you, you know that right?" he asked her. She beamed at him and kissed him on the cheek.
"Of course I do."
"And, if I do anything bad, you'll tell me, won't you?" Her eyes were searching into his questioningly, but she nodded.
"Where's all this coming from?"
Draco smiled, and let a thought cross his mind.
I won't let him win again.
