A/N: Okay, so this is my very first fanfiction! I know I'm so very, very proud of myself too! ;D I seriously just started writing this one-shot about 3 hours ago and it's already finished, so... WOO HOO! Anyways, I wouldn't mind adding another chapter after this just to tie all the loose ends up (would that make it a two-shot?) but on one condition... and I think that you know what it is... REVIEWS! "Of course!" Your probably thinking. "Should've seen THAT coming!" But we authors do so love our reviews and so you know the drill... R&R

Tell me what you think please! You never know... YOUR review might be the one that inspires me to write another chapter *winks*

Lost Chances

"What that hell do you want this time, Malfoy?" I growled. Draco Malfoy leant against the door frame, effectively blocking any thoughts of an escape from my office in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

"Don't play dumb, Hermione." He said firmly. "You're the brightest witch of our age, so don't you dare pretend that what happened last week on that raid never happened."

And I did remember. Though I wished that I didn't.

I wished that I hadn't acted so impulsively.

"I don't want to talk about it," I stated politely and gave him a tight smile as I stood up from my desk. "Now, Mr Malfoy, if you do not leave my department and return to your Auror Department I'll have you written up by Undersecretary Bones-"

"Fuck the Undersecretary. I know that we haven't seen each other before last week since Hogwarts, but I'd be lying if I didn't say that I wanted to explore what happened during that raid."

"And I'd be lying if I said that I were interested," I sniffed, shuffling papers around on my desk in an effort to look busy.

"Damn it, Hermione! Why can't-"

"You have no right to use my first name!" I yelled at him. I no longer really cared if any of my employees heard me, I was so mad that if they confronted me I wouldn't hesitate to Bat Bogey Hex their arses. I gathered my reports and shoved past him, determined to take these to Harry who would then look into their being possible Death Eater activity. They were on the break in at the Oxford Ministry branch where nothing was stolen, just vandalised.

With the Dark Mark.

The same mark that would permanently be on Malfoy's forearm. The symbol for an evil that had caused me so much pain and loss, most notably, the loss of my parents whom I still hadn't been able to find even after it being three years after the war. Though in the back of my mind I knew it was impossible to get them back, my memory charm had been too powerful to be undone without serious brain damage, so even if I did find them, they would never ever remember having a daughter named Hermione. A daughter that had loved them so much that she had had to sacrifice her past just so that they could be assured a future.

I had to stop thinking about them, it just hurt too much.

I strode through my department making a beeline for elevators when someone grabbed my hand, and I knew who it was before I even turned around to face him.

Malfoy looked down at me, his blonde fringe falling into his suddenly miserable looking grey eyes. "Why, Hermione? Why don't you like me?"

I gaped. He had to be joking. As if he could not know why I hated him.

I looked around my department quickly, a lot of people were watching us from their desks but hastily put their heads down when I established eye contact but I knew that they'd be listening in to every word that was said.

But I refused to let them deter me.

"How about the fact that you made my years at Hogwarts horrible, continually teased my hair and teeth, discriminated against my blood status, which – might I add – is not something that I can control, sided against me in the War, were involved in the plot to kill Dumbledore and aided Voldemort in his fight against the Order – which he very nearly won – and nearly killed Harry, Ron and I in the Room of Requirement." I counted them off on my fingers. Seven. Seven strikes against him just like there were seven horcruxes. Not to mention the fact that Malfoy flinched when I'd said Voldemort's name.

Malfoy – and my whole department – went deathly quiet. I swear that you could've heard a pin drop from down the hall in the Department of Embroidery and Fashionable Designs.

It was after a few minutes of internal struggle that he hesitantly lifted his hand to cup my face gently, I slapped it away. His grey eyes were full of regret when he spoke. "I've changed Hermione. I don't care about those stupid "blood prejudices" anymore, their childish and I'm so sorry that I hurt you. But I was born into a Dark family where I had no choice-"

"Everyone has a choice, Malfoy. Don't say that you didn't, because there were plenty of opportunities for you to seek sanctuary from the Order, even after Dumbledore was dead," I snapped.

"And what about my parents?" He asked sullenly. "They would have killed them, and we both know that there was no way that the Order would have provided sanctuary to either of my parents. I truly had no choice."

We were silent for a few more minutes before he started again. "Do you know that I'd had a crush on you in our first year? On the train to Hogwarts we met briefly, remember? I had no idea of your blood status at the time, of course, but I was immediately taken with you. The way you flourished your wand, spoke the longest words to sound smart, the way magic came to you so easily like it was really just at the tip of your fingers. I thought immediately that you had to be a Pureblood, because I naively thought that only Purebloods could use magic so easily. I immediately wrote to my father," he suddenly chuckled darkly, "and told him that I'd marry you and make him proud. It's a feeling that I'm starting to recover again."

I stood stunned and stricken at his confession, but I refused to be swayed. "Until you remember that my blood is dirty again," I muttered.

"Never." He stated.

We stared at each other for a long time, and I forgot that we were in the middle of my department, with my employees and colleagues watching closely. All that I knew were those grey-blue eyes, fathomless yet displaying so much emotion for me that my heart squeezed. I wanted to stay there in that exact spot and moment forever with him. Never moving. Never changing. Forever... It sounded quite pleasant when put like that. But I knew that I couldn't just hand over my heart so easily and hope that he could fill the black hole that was left behind by my parents.

I still had one more strike against him.

"Then why?" I whispered.

Malfoy frowned. "Why what?" He asked softly, lifting his hand hesitantly up to my face again. I didn't slap it away this time.

"If you'd loved me," I began quietly, rolling up my sleeve and baring the word that had been carved into my skin three years ago by his aunt. "Then why didn't you save me?"

There was an audible gasp from some of the people at the desks closest to Malfoy and I who were able to see my scar, and there were many people in the room turning their heads in obviously painful directions to see why everyone had gasped. But I ignored them all. I wanted to know how someone who claimed to have fallen in love with me at the innocent age of eleven could watch her get tortured six years later and not lift a finger to help.

His expression was pained, and I could feel the tears starting to build up in my eyes. I turned away from him, sure at any moment my heart would break at passing up the chance to fill the void inside of me. Perhaps it already was?

"And now you're here to confess your undying love for me in a fit of sudden passion to try to get me to see reason. In front of all my colleagues too! As if that would change anything..." I started to stride away.

"But – Hermione, I do love you!" I stopped again, and I couldn't stop the tears in my eyes from brimming over and running down my face. There was a sharp pain in my heart and I inhaled sharply against the pain, but it ebbed away in numbness. Everything was numb now, as if all my feeling were being kept behind a foot thick glass wall, able to see them but not touch them. Malfoy had pushed me over the precipice that I had been balancing on since I'd cast that memory charm so many years ago, I would probably never be able to heal and allow myself to love now.

"Do not call me 'Hermione'," I said coldly, still facing away from him. "You can call me 'Granger' or 'Miss Granger' or even 'Mudblood', but you have never earned yourself the right to talk to me so intimately."

He was silent for a long while before I took a quick glance at him over my shoulder. He seemed to almost be in physical pain, he was panting so heavily, and he had a hand half outstretched towards me. But that wasn't what made my heart shrivel and begin to die. It was the tears running down his cheeks and the desperate look in his grey eyes that turned my soul cold.

I was the evil one in this scenario, there was no denying that. I bit my lip and turned away, ready to just curl up and die of my self inflicted injuries.

"Please – just give me a chance!" He cried out.

I started walking again.

"You had your chance when we were eleven."