A/N: Since I have only written poetry, I wanted to try my hand at a full-fledged fic. Many thanks to Culumacilinte's nudging and encouragement as well as the ship choice.

Summary: Against all of her preconceived notions of love and relationships, Hermione experiences the double-edged sword of fate with the last person she expects.

Disclaimer: Since I am not married, do not have children, and am less than average height, I do not believe myself to be JK Rowling; therefore, I shall give up my imagined rights to all of the characters in this fic to the aforementioned.

Fortuna Quod Mos

Prologue

He's really not a beast, just misunderstood.

How cliché, to say that every evil or seemingly maligned person that ever walked on this Earth is only misunderstood. Not like I care; it's true. He loves me, and I reciprocate his feelings. That's all that matters. Who gives a damn who he is or what he's done in the past? Again, not me.

There was a time when it would have made a difference in my life choices, but that period has been swept into memories. There's a new me now, one that nobody would ever recognize as the bookish prude I once was. The strange thing is that I seem to be repeating his every action, mimicking his path through life. I am not just in his shadow, but I am becoming his shadow itself, an essential part of him. Love can do strange things to a person, even to me.

I never wanted to love. I saw the aches and pains it caused my parents and my friends. It seemed too much for a person to bear. I did try it once. I hated it. To give oneself totally to another person with complete trust seemed foolish to me. There were other things that I could devote myself to. I almost prided myself in the fact that, I, Hermione Granger, was able to get through school without a proper relationship.

Sure, there was Krum. We had our time, but after a while, he became more of a friend. He was older, and I was still at school. We both realized that our minds, although similar, that didn't blend completely with the one of the other. After that, I gave up on love. To me, it was worthless.

Then I opened my eyes and saw him, the one for whom I would desire, crave almost. I could practically see the melding of our brains into one, a being of their own. For the first time, I realized who he was and what we could become together. My feelings on love were reversed.

How I came to be like this, I don't know. I never planned on it, but planning provides no guarantee. It seemed to be willed by forces beyond either of our control. It took us a long time to discover that we can never alter destiny, no matter how many times we try to buck it off of our backs. The best we can do is live with it, perhaps even enjoy it. My fate went against every grain of sense that was in my brain, every inhibition that I had fabricated during my lifetime.

How was I to know my future? Divination is a wooly subject that I refused to study. Knowledge or no, I had to learn to accept what life dealt me, even though I sometimes had to bluff my way through a hand. Now, that façade of pretending is gone, leaving only my true feelings. Like I said before, I love him. But that wasn't always the case.