A/N: Well I'm back and a little sooner than planned, which is always a good thing...I hope so. Anyway this for those who liked my other story 'One Hell of a Year' I think will really like this one although it isn't set in Hogwarts anymore. This isn't going to be a short story but I'm not how many chapters it will be yet. I hope you all enjoy the story and thanks for reading it. Updates should be weekly for quite a while as I have taken some time off.

Disclaimer: I Own Nothing.

Chapter 1.

Still deep within the night the screaming ceased. The dead lay still, enshrouded in blood, dirt and smoke. Death was still heavy in the air and people just sat and waited, waited for something, anything, or anyone to legitimise this terrible sacrifice.

Tears slid past the dirtied cheeks of Hermione Granger as she consumed the magnitude of loss before her. The fruits of victory seemed lost within the twisted cold bodies of her friends. Lost…to everyone now.

The putrid stench of death still clawed at the heals of Draco Malfoy as he fled towards the lake. Smears of blood, dirt and tears marred his face; his hands desperately clawed at the filth ripping through the skin.

The ghostly light of the moon framed his haunting reflection in the smooth surface of the water, eliciting a strangled cry from his cracked lips. The realisation that his beliefs and aims advocated this suffering and this terror uprooted his very existence.

His hands reached manically for the cool water below him, cleansing his skin in desperate, violent motions.

Abandoned by everything that is good in this world Draco Malfoy sought salvation for his wrong doings.

No one would have recognised him if they saw him now; once a cocky, arrogant and cruel boy had been brought to his knees by the demise of his enemies.

"Hello? Is anyone down here?"

A gentle but concerned voice broke the constant silence, alerting him from his dormancy.

He dragged the dirty cuff of his shirt across his blood shot eyes to hide his distress from the fast approaching figure.

"Hello?"

A small light began to tiptoe its way through the tree branches soon revealing the infuriating but welcome face of Granger. Her battered face illuminated by the small sphere of light emanating from the tip of her wand.

"Oh…sorry."

Her face instantly contorted into an awkward grimace as she saw Malfoy standing in front of her.

He had been brought up to hate her and all her sort but now more than ever he hated her. She represented everything that he was not, good, kind, compassionate. How he hated her for reminding him of his low life existence in this world.

But yet he did not feel he could dismiss her with one of his cold hearted snaps. She was there and he didn't want to be left alone again that night. His father and mother had both fled the grounds long before now, leaving the guilt of his actions to fester and thrive in his solitude.

She turned away almost at once upon seeing his face. No doubt she'd been searching for Weasley or Potter. How unfortunate she should come across him he thought.

"Wait"

The laboured steps of her bruised body ceased momentarily.

He watched as her tiny fists clenched at her sides channelling all that she felt into her cut palms.

"If you're going to insult me Malfoy go ahead. My friends have died tonight so if you think you vocalising your petty prejudices is going to have the slightest effect on me…"

Her voice remained in the same hateful monotone. Steady and unforced.

"That's not why I asked you to stop."

He cut across her hate filled words almost having to stop himself from reaching out to her to prevent her from leaving. He couldn't be alone anymore; his guilt was ripping him apart. It could be her or anyone right now…he just needed someone

"Well then what is it?"

Anyone but Hermione Granger would have said this with an air of impatience and frustration but beneath her hard exterior he could sense a hidden glimpse of concern. That was the difference between him and her. She was good and he was bad.

"I know we're not exactly friends Granger…just don't"

He noticed her loose curls sway ever so slightly in the breeze and the way her skin, covered in blood and dirt, still bore its almost translucent glow.

"Don't what Malfoy? If you're coming then I'm leaving now but if you're not then stay here but stop wasting my time."

His hands ran frantically back and forth through his dusty blonde hair. Could he really bring himself to ask a favour of her?

"Please I am asking you to stay."

Hermione didn't know quite what was intriguing her so much about this scenario. Malfoy was actually speaking to her like she was another human being. He had never asked her to do anything for him before and she couldn't help but be fascinated by it. She had never sought his approval but now that there were some glimpses of acceptance she couldn't bring herself to leave them behind.

Draco couldn't help but feel the power of self loathing that he had been trying to suppress. He needed someone and she was there and so right now Draco Malfoy needed none other than Hermione Granger.

An internal sigh of relief relaxed his tensed muscles as she slowly stepped closer to him. He sat down quietly in his previous place by the water's edge and waited for her to accompany him.

Hermione couldn't help but feel somewhat flattered by Malfoy's request. People had always needed her for homework, her intellect and knowledge. No one had ever just needed her for her before…even if it was Malfoy.

As she drew her knees up close against her chest, still feeling wary about being in such close proximity with her enemy of nearly seven years. When she looked at him, waiting for him to say something, she noticed slim passages of clean skin amongst the dirt on his face. She couldn't be sure but it looked as though he had been crying.

Draco Malfoy and crying were never two words she would have put together before now. She was genuinely surprised. He had always seemed so cold an unemotional; she didn't think he had it in him show any emotion besides hatred.

She hated the fact that in the very depths of her mind she couldn't help the feelings of sympathy that slipped through the hatred. But Hermione was good and Draco was bad.

The empty shell that occupied the space next to Hermione remained silent, still revelling in the fact that he was not alone with his guilt anymore. He expected her to ask questions but she just sat there with him in silence and in that moment that was what he needed, a silent friend that would not judge him or berate him but just be with him.

"Where are your parents?"

The tranquillity swiftly ended in her clipped sentence. He was back in reality again now. Somehow sitting next to the lake with Granger had seemed so far from reality he hoped that this whole thing had been a dream.

"Gone."

The word was said with a force of such resentment it unnerved Hermione as to what she had unearthed. Was this boy actually safe? Am I being dreadfully naïve by staying here with him alone? Were the questions that began to jerk back and forth through her mind questioning her usually well grounded logic, which she prided herself on so greatly.

Even though her logic was screaming out to her it couldn't get passed the wall of curiosity that urged her to want to know more.

"Why did they leave you here?"

The words had slipped from her mouth before she even had time to think.

He sighed deeply; inhaling the thick summer air. The stench was still there though, it seemed even down here he was not free from it.

"Because they don't care…never did"

The words were only just audible under his breath but she still heard them. She was beginning to wonder if she was actually talking to Draco Malfoy or whether this was some imposter with blond hair and she was still very very concussed, for all she knew she could be giving a counselling session to a lost death eater.

"I sometimes wonder what kind of person I would have been if they weren't my parents. Do you think I would still be a bad person or would I have been different …maybe even good…like you?"

The vulnerability in his voice and the sense of loss and pain almost made her want to feel sorry for him. But deep down she knew she already felt sorry for him. She had always been a compassionate and forgiving person, attributes that she didn't know Malfoy had picked up on during their brief encounters in the past. He was exposing himself to her completely and she couldn't just ignore it and move on as though nothing had happened because that wasn't who she was.

"I don't think you're a bad person Malfoy. I think you've had a bad start."

She couldn't know how her words only made him hate her more. How could she be such a good person? How did she find it within herself to always do the right thing? Her beauty only made him feel more ugly.

"How do you find it within yourself to sit here with me?"

He could barely bear his own presence but now he was forcing someone else to withstand it as well. How could she even look at him? He was a weak and pathetic piece of nothing. All this blood purity bullshit didn't seem to make any sense when she had the purest heart he'd ever come across.

"Because you're upset and alone… I wouldn't want to be left on my own if I felt like that."

And then he lost the self control that he had been clinging onto so desperately.

"How are you so fucking good?"

She flinched at his sudden outburst, edging further away from him on the bank.

She was scared of him. The pathetic piece of lowlife that he was and she was scared of him. How he loathed himself.

She stayed quiet, obviously awaiting the second instalment of his outburst but it didn't come.

He felt something stuck in his throat that he desperately wanted to alleviate but didn't quite know how to. Even his breath was laboured in trying to reach his lungs.

"I'm sorry."

And then he said it. Words that his father had taught him never to say but had really wanted to say to her that day at Malfoy Manor. Her screams still haunted his dreams sometimes.

"It's ok"

Her voice was feeble and scared.

"Not for that…for everything."

Hermione was stunned. He was apologising for everything he had so adamantly believed in his whole life. It felt to her as though she was saying that she hated Hogwarts a History. She didn't want his apology to to define her acceptance as a person in this world but it meant more to her than she cared to admit. It was as though an uncomfortably heavy weight had been lifted from her overburdened shoulders. For the first time in her life she was beginning to see Draco Malfoy as a human being and not just a vessel for his father's hatred and prejudices.

"Thank you"

She felt so relieved now that this weight had been lifted and an overwhelming gratitude for him being able to find it within himself to apologise.

"I never wanted this you know? Not really."

The thought that Draco Malfoy had been a victim in all of this had not been allowed to be entertained within her head for more than five minutes before. Perhaps he was just as lost and confused as everyone else only he had the wrong people to guide him. Hermione knew that Draco had lost friends that night too and no matter what side you were on friends were still friends. No one could ever want this could they? Children left without mothers and fathers and they without children, friends without their friends and wives without their husbands. It made her believe that deep down under all the darkness there was actually a good person within him.

"I don't think anyone did."

He continued to stare at the lake as the moonlight lay sleepily on the rippling waters. Could he change now after all this time? Could he be a better person?

"I don't deserve to be here right now."

His self hatred was becoming more apparent to Hermione and in all honesty she wanted him to feel it because if he didn't accept that he had done things wrong then he couldn't change but she did not believe that he deserved to be dead. Others more deserving were dead but he no he did not deserve to die.

"You shouldn't say that. Just because you think you're not worth anything it doesn't make you worthless."

He didn't feel quite so alone anymore. Even though she was the last person he had expected to be here with he wouldn't change it. He'd always noticed Hermione's beauty, most people had, but he had never truly appreciated the beauty she had as a person.

He had never truly known love or friendship, trust or loyalty but sitting here with her made him believe that he might…one day.

"I have to go but you should come back up to the castle with me."

She gracefully unfolded her knees and relit the tip of her wand with that familiar ethereal glow.

"No. I think I'll go back to London for the summer. No one up there will want to see me now."

"You shouldn't be so hard on yourself...If you do ever need to…talk again…I don't mind listening."

Draco stood as she reached the borders of the forest and what he did next he couldn't explain but he just had to do it.

As she turned her back to him he caught her arm in motion and pulled her small frame gently towards him. He saw the alarm in her eyes for only a moment before he pressed his lips gently against hers.

Her lips were soft and warm against his and in that moment he felt some of the ice melt within his heart. He had never felt the way he did now when kissing one of his late night hook ups.

She couldn't understand why she hadn't already pulled away from his tight embrace but something within her was moulding her lips to his. Hermione seemed to be defying everything that she thought she knew about herself and for none other than Draco Malfoy.

She had never been kissed like this before, never felt the intimacy that so many of her friends bragged about but she could feel it now. She could feel everything now.

Even though he could have stayed like this for the whole night he gently removed his lips from hers; his grip on her arms still tight.

"Thank you."

Their eyes were connected for a brief moment and both their hearts beating wildly out of their chest, though neither of them cared to admit it. And then he was gone as he went back into the forest leaving Hermione completely overwhelmed by the side of the lake.

The loud chug of wheels and whistling of smoke pulled Hermione from her dream about the last time she had seen Draco.

She hadn't told anyone about that night but had thought of it often during the lonely but welcome summer months. She just couldn't shake the feeling of him off her skin. She never thought she would be one of Draco Malfoy's girls. But somehow it didn't feel like that to her...it felt genuine, raw and vulnerable.

She couldn't work out whether she wanted to see him or not, which was exactly how she felt when she found out that he would be returning to repeat his last year at Hogwarts. She wasn't used to not knowing how to feel and she found it unnerved her slightly.

"Just seen Malfoy on the carriage down the aisle. I still can't believe he had the gall to actually show up after everything he did."

Ron bumbled out in a way that Hermione now found to be grossly uninformed. She couldn't help but feel those familiar nerves that had taunted over the summer ebbing slowly back in.

"Oh really?"

She made an attempt to sound disinterested and unaffected by Ron's entrance but there was something within her voice and the way she had been acting recently that made Harry question the truth of that throwaway comment.

"Yeah, looking as smug as ever. You'd think he'd at least stay in his compartment so the rest of us didn't have to look at his face."

The malice was obvious in Ron's words but Hermione wasn't really listening. She'd never been kissed like that before and she couldn't help but wonder if she ever would be again. Would it be awkward when they saw each other? Would he come and talk to her about it? Would he even acknowledge that it happened? Were all questions diverting her from Ron's repetitive rant about his grievances against Malfoy.

She was so deeply involved in her own thoughts that she didn't notice when someone else appeared in the doorway. She continued to debate within her head whether or not she was making too big of a deal out of this or not.

"Hermione…Hermione!"

She was ever so rudely pulled from her contemplative gaze and awoke to the face of Malfoy standing in the compartment doorway.

"He wants to talk to you."

Harry said whilst shaking her shoulders gently and gesturing carelessly towards the figure in the doorway.

Her heart suddenly leaped into her mouth as her eyes ran over the same lips that had been so tightly pressed against her own that night. The sincerity in his eyes that moment he had kissed he was still somewhere in the depths of those silvery orbs.

Hermione struggled to find her footing as she slowly made her way over to the compartment exit and its current occupant. An unnerving shiver rippled down her spine as his hand rested on the small of her back as they both left.

Hermione was nervous but in a way she had never felt before; they were filling her with anticipation and wonder as she made her way to Draco's dorm. He had never asked her there before.

Draco was one of the few Slytherins that had returned to repeat his final year and so going through the Slytherin common rooms wasn't really an issue anymore. But they had always met in secret before, mainly for her sake as she didn't want Harry and Ron to find out that she had started seeing Malfoy…especially Ron.

Draco knew she was nervous about going any further with him. She had no experience whatsoever apart from a few quick kisses with Victor Krum in fourth year. She knew that Ron had wanted to go there with her but she just didn't feel that way for him anymore; over the summer they had grown apart and she didn't want to go back to that part of her life again. As for Draco she knew about his previous extensive 'experience' in that area but then again who didn't?

But when it came to Draco, he made her feel like no one else had ever done before; when she was with him she felt…she couldn't put into words how she felt it was just different.

The Slytherin portrait hole finally came into view but now those nerves began to morph into apprehension and fear. But before she could give the password to the rather threatening looking hooded figure that occupied the portrait hole it swung open.

Draco stood before her looking effortlessly gorgeous as ever but since they had spent time together it was as though he didn't know it anymore. That night last year he had lost a part of him; a part of his soul. The more time they had spent together this year the more good was drawn from him. She would never forget the first time he had kissed her, it was the first time in her life she had been properly kissed.

"Hermione are you ok?"

She was suddenly alerted to how long she had been standing in front of the portrait hole daydreaming.

"Oh yeah…I'm fine."

A confused smirk tugged at the sides of his mouth before he put an arm around her and took her up to his room.

Hermione pondered over her surroundings for a moment. Had this been what she'd expected his bedroom to look like? There were shelves heavily adorned with books and papers. She even found herself distracted by a few of the titles that lined the walls.

She had somewhat expected it to be lavished in green and silver but there were only a few modest touches here and there, dark green sheets and two small serpents carved into the wood at the foot of his bed.

His desk was littered with books, papers and ink with little balls of scrunched up paper slowly building a fortress around it and there was a single picture on his dresser of his mother and him sitting next to each other on a garden bench.

As Hermione continued to drink in the small details of her surroundings she quite forgot that she was not the only one here until…

His lips were soft against her neck. Warm but chilling at the same time.

"What are you thinking about?"

She smiled at how observant he had become over the months they had spent with one another.

"You…and what I thought your room would look like."

He carefully placed a few disobedient curls out of his way as his kisses continued to elicit small shivers from the girl in his arms.

"I see. And what do you make of it?"

Hermione sighed softly as his strong hands encircled her small waist.

"More than I expected it to be."

"And what were you thinking about me?"

She turned slowly in his arms and placed her cool feminine hands on either side of his chiselled face.

"The same thing."

His eyes flashed momentarily with something Hermione couldn't quite place but before she knew it his mouth was firmly pressed against hers in a searing kiss.

Their lips moulded seamlessly to one another's as they quenched the same fire that had been raging between them both.

Those strong and forceful hands picked the girl up before them and encircled her legs around his waist before carrying her slowly over to the bed; their lips never breaking.

She sighed desperately as he broke their kiss when she lay firmly beneath him on the centre of the bed. The nerves were still there because she knew exactly where this was going but the desire he had ignited within her belittled her nerves too greatly for them to be heard.

He watched the frightened girl beneath him that meant so much breath heavily in and out anticipating what he would do next. He couldn't help feel guilty for what was happening. He, the dark and tainted one was defiling something so pure and innocent for his own gratification. Only it wasn't like that; they both wanted this not just him she had told him that herself. Hermione Granger had told him a lot of things that had made him a better person but he still never quite believed it. But not tonight, tonight he would give her this the way she deserved it.

The moment he had taken her had been gentle loving and concerned but not without pain. He kissed the few tears away as her pain subsided before he was lost in her utterly and completely.

She had taught him how to love and in the process he'd fallen for her.

Golden brown eyes snapped open in a state of panic as Hermione awoke from her dream. The sound of her erratic breathing broke the silence of the darkened bedroom.

"Are you alright love you're shaking?"

Hermione then realised that there was actually a hand on the small of her back but it did not belong to Draco but to her fiancé, James. She quickly repressed the slight disappointment she felt at this.

"Yeah I'm fine, just a dream."

He ran soothing circles across her back before sleepily pulling her still slightly disgruntled form close against his chest. Hermione could feel the warmth of his body radiating through the cold sweat she had worked herself up into. The soft exhalation of his breath against her exposed neck calmed her somewhat as she fell back into reality.

Minutes passed and then hours but she could still not bring herself to go to sleep. Tomorrow she would come face to face with Draco Malfoy for the first time in five years at James' business event and James, had no idea that the two of them had ever met.

A/N: Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed it. Reviews are always highly appreciated so feel free to leave me your thoughts :)