Prologue

It hadn't been as hard to forgive him as she had once thought it would be. Once you got past the emotional baggage, what was really left to apologize for? A hurtful remark made when they were twelve years old, and then four more years of asinine comments, threats, and hatred.

So... perhaps it had been a little difficult, yes. And Hermione wasn't exactly aided in this quest for emotional cleansing, as Malfoy hadn't ever actually apologized.

Per se.

But he had switched sides, that much was true. And he had put as much passion and feeling into the last year of planning and executing the final battles as she had ever seen in their arguments. She believed him then, believed that he had changed, and that was still surprising to her. The fact that after all that time she believed him, before Harry or Ron, before perhaps even Professor Snape (though it was hard to see how he really felt behind his surly expression and dark eyes. But Hermione had thought his eyes narrowed suspiciously more often than not when they landed on the pale Slytherin.)

But Hermione had always secretly fancied that she understood him; that they were so alike even though they were complete opposites. Malfoy was born into a premium of wizarding life, son of a rich and powerful pureblood family. Hermione to Muggle parents, the daughter of dentists, and a Plain Jane from her knobby knees to her frizzy hair. Different people, and yet Hermione could still see the struggle they both shared, trying to know who they each were, while defining themselves by their society. As a youth, Malfoy reveled in the expectations, and took the image to a more arrogant, meaner, and (it has to be said) a more poncy level than could have been imagined. Hermione reacted in the opposite way, working hard and trying to know more than anyone else, to prove that she was worth the education, the life, to prove that she was meant to be there.

So, in the two years that had followed since the last battle, Hermione had come to terms with most of the anger and resentment she had stored up towards Malfoy. Harry and Malfoy were unexpected (though often feuding) allies. Friends. Drinking buddies. The metaphorical wounds were still raw, friends had been lost in the last battle, and family, too. The four still-teenagers were attempting to sort out their emotions, and trying to find their places in their new worlds. Ron and Draco had never become close, but respected each other's role in Harry's recovery. Each knew when and where truces were to be called, and how to forgive someone you hated to let someone you love be happy. Thus, Hermione found herself with her two best friends most of the time, and often accompanied by a man whose gray eyes had once burned with anger and resentment when they stopped on her.

(Though lately, she hesitated to admit, it was sometimes her face that burned now, when those same eyes rested on her. Most disconcerting.)

Draco and Hermione were friends of a sort, though no one would ever call them close. But there was a definite lack of animosity between them when they were together, which was not very uncommon.

But, this burgeoning friendship still did not explain why, at three in the morning on a Wednesday, Hermione found herself blearily unlocking the door to let Malfoy in, stinking of gin and singing loudly, and very off key.