"I'm scared," she said, just above a whisper. A breeze whipped at her in retaliation.

"Don't be. Just do it."

"What do you mean, 'Just do it'? How can I 'Just do it'? What if I fall, what if I fail…"

"What if you don't?" he interrupted. There was a steady patience in his voice and she wondered where it was coming from. Hearing it from such an unlikely source was surreal. He had always been volatile; he had always been sharp and whipping like the wind that lashed again and again. She remembered it like a dream, so long ago.

"It's been so long. I don't even know if I want to."

"Granger," he began; steady, even. "It's a part of you."

Hermione took a deep breath. Her cheeks were rosy from the cold and she could feel her fingers aching as they grasped the smooth cherry wood broomstick. Her knuckles were white with the tightness of her grip.

A warm August sun sat low in the sky, spilling colors like heaven across the open fields. Sheep were prattling in the distance, gathering together for warmth as the chill of night approached. Hermione looked up from her hands and she could see for miles- rolling green hills flanked by dense evergreen forests. The sunset peeked over the furthest hill, like a light at the end of a tunnel. A destination at the end of a long, arduous journey.

"Why did you come?" he asked her, breaking her reverie. Hermione turned to him, a tall blond man with pointed features defining an otherwise smooth, rounded face. He looked so different and so much the same, it was a fascination of its own accord. "Why did you come back?" he followed when she did not answer. His voice was so steady. Her eyes searched his face, but she wasn't seeing him. She was searching her own mind.

"I don't know, Malfoy." A strong gust whipped her auburn hair into a wild frenzy and she braced herself against it as it passed. She thought for a moment and realized. "It called to me. A week ago I was contented, a week ago I was happy, I was full, I wasn't… without."

"And now?"

"And now…" Her voice trailed off and Hermione turned back to the sunset. The light from the sun was clinging desperately to the clouds, fighting the night. The colors reached out, richer and bolder, refusing to succumb to the darkness.

She had had a life, a good life. Time had changed her as it is wont to do, and slowly the magic fell away. After Hogwarts, Hermione had spent a great deal of time trying to learn who she was. She had traveled, gone to college, found a career. She had married a muggle, and she had never regretted it. Her husband was the most genuine and sincere man she had ever met, one who loved her thoroughly without hesitation. He was everything she needed.

Without magical children she could not tell him. A part of her life that had once been so important, so unabashedly vital that she would never expect to lose it was now stifled within her. Years of study and countless friendships forged in the fires of magic were now whispers on the biting wind that ruffled the skirt of her black dress. Now everything she had been seemed startlingly lost and at the thought she felt a sudden desperation to get it back.

She had lost her husband slowly. It was the kind of disease that latches on and drags you for miles before it permits you to rest. For years she had watched him fade, sometimes improving only to fade again. Eventually there was no more improvement. There were no forward steps, only back and Hermione felt as if they would fall at any moment. Inevitably, they did, and he was gone.

There are some people that come into your life like planets, pulling you into their orbit and spinning you until you forget where you were going in the first place. He had been one of those people for Hermione. He had grabbed her whole being when he happened and had spun her into a romance that left her senseless. When the disease had grabbed him the same way, they spun together, spiraling out of control. She had lost him slowly and she had lost herself as well.

He had died in a facility for the old and the sick, cared for by nurses in a way that was for his comfort and not his health. He was so thin and frail that he was already like a ghost. They came to take him away and the room was so very empty. Hermione had left in a daze, in a total numbness like she had never felt. She walked down the sterile hall she had walked down hundreds of times, felt the bite of the ammonia in her nose that she always felt, heard the same sounds of beeping machines and coughing inhabitants that she had always heard. She walked through the glass doors to a beautiful summer day, onto streets filled will people rushing and people taking their time. People who had things to do and places to go and lives to live.

And she stood there. A summer breeze kissed her cheeks where tears should have been, but there was only numbness. She felt something like envy as she stood, watching time pass in the speeding of cars and the sound of footsteps. He was gone and his orbit had released her into space, throwing her with force into the unknown. Where was she going? Where could she go?

A week later Hermione left the cemetery wearing a black dress and looked up at the beautiful blue sky in wonder. It felt wrong that it wasn't raining. It felt wrong that she wasn't crying. It felt wrong.

She tried to return to the little flat they had made a home of together but it felt like a place with memories but no purpose. It felt like walking into an old classroom as an adult and trying to remember how it had felt as a child. As much as it had meant, as much as had happened there, it had no purpose now but to remind you that everything had changed. Hermione left the flat behind and started walking in the only direction she could; into the unknown.

It was that afternoon that she found herself in Diagon Alley. It looked the same, though decades had passed. Hermione was standing outside Flourish and Blotts, frozen and staring through the glass of the storefront. Inside children were chittering and bustleing about excitedly, scurrying to collect school supplies and catching up with friends they had not seen all summer. Hermione could not believe how small they were. They were so much younger than she could ever remember being.

It was then that a blond man stood from his seat on a bench and picked up his satchel of shopping treasures. His brow was furrowed as he took a few steps toward Hermione.

"Granger?" he had said, unsure, and Hermione turned to him slowly. "Why are you crying?"

It was the most surreal moment of her life.

Hermione touched her face and was surprised not only by the moisture but how much there was. She blinked several times to clear her vision and wiped her eyes on her mourning handkerchief, which had been warm and dry.

"Malfoy," she acknowledged, smiling as it rolled comfortably off her tongue. "God, it's been a long time."

They talked like old friends, exchanging pleasantries and catching up. The fact that they were not old friends did not factor into the conversation. As they spoke it became clear to each of them that time had changed them both. Draco did not ask about her tears again, even as they seated themselves at the leaky cauldron and gulps of cold butterbeer chilled the warmth of afternoon. Hermione told him how long it had been since she'd sipped the crisp beverage or felt the buzz of magic in the air and Draco was fascinated. He listened in awe as she told him that she had put all of this behind her. So long had she been without cauldrons and curses and broomsticks.

Sometime later they found themselves in the pasture behind Draco's home. The flue that took them there left Hermione rattled but she didn't falter, and after a moment she followed him outside and climbed atop his broomstick.

The sun was setting and the cold of night was coming fast.

"And now I don't know what I am," she said, finishing her thought. Draco smirked and suddenly his face was young again.

"You're a witch, Granger. You've always been a witch."

Hermione closed her eyes and felt the sparks of magic flowing into the broomstick as it lifted her into the air. She smiled at the familiar, comfortable warmth of it.

"The brightest witch of our age," she recalled, her voice soft and steady. Suddenly she looked determined and in an instant she was gone, shooting like a star into the night sky that rose above the very last of the sunset.

"The brightest witch of our age," he echoed.

A/N: I would like to apologize for basically all of my author's notes in the past. As I read through some of my old stories it becomes startlingly obvious how young I was, something I sometimes forget while reading the content.

This is my first taste of fanfic in approximately 8 years. I can't say if this is going to work out to be a short lived dabble for nostalgia's sake or if I might do something more substantial- it's too soon to tell.

If you are a reader from the early days, or someone who has read my work recently, please review even if it's just to say Hi. I would love to hear from you.

EDIT: I have opened up a new forum for general Author's Notes, Q&A, and anything else anyone might want to talk about. (Links don't really work here so you can copy/paste it from my profile page).

I really want to build a relationship with you guys again.

~Priah