"You melded my mind into what seemed to fit. Now here alone I sit. I stare at the flames simmering down, as though my own life. You're dead. You're not here anymore to hold my hand and force me to drink down your thoughts of pure blood and proper wizards." His voice shook as he held the portrait of his father in white knuckles. The eyes of Lucius were shadowed by the flames, "Goodbye father….to you and your memories." With that he threw the portrait into the flames. A burst of light covered the room as the tendrils hungrily lapped at the canvas.

Silently Draco's hands covered his face as silent tears fell down his cheek. His life was in shambles. He had rebuked his father's ideology in the last year of Voldemort's attempt to rule. He betrayed Lucius by joining Dumbledore's side to become a spy. He fell in love with a person who hated him, and he could not blame her. His father committed suicide the moment Potter laid the final blow on the great evil Lord three days ago. Too many were dead. Too many at his own wand were killed. Draco leaned back in the arm chair watching the final hues of oil paint blaze changing the flames from orange to black.

"Draco?" a soft voice filled the empty manor sending a pang of guilt over Draco's heart. Her brown eyes softened as she quietly moved over to the chair touching this broken man's shoulder. She knew she had to find him…and she knew in her heart this is where he would go. She was right.

"Please….go..." his voice was broken and hard. He could not let the women he loved see him in this state. He cleared his throat and managed to glance at her. Those eyes captured him. The light softly shimmered off the brown hair pulled back in a twist. The lips of a goddess, he thought forcing himself to unlock his eyes from her face.

"I will not…" she folded her arms and looked at him. Yet it was not pity or anger. It was not shame or duty to come to him. She loved him. Hermione Granger loved Draco Malfoy. Whether she completely admitted it to herself or not, love was what caused her to wake in the middle of the night and yearn to see his face; to feel his presence.

"You do not belong here. Should you not be celebrating with Weasel and Potter…Ron will be looking for you no doubt." He moved his eyes up to glimpse at her for a moment as she settled on the rug pulling her legs up to her chin. She had come out of pity, he thought, pity for the man who had nothing to loose, but lost it all.

"No…" her voice was quiet, "I came because I had a feeling you would need someone…we all do sometimes." She brushed back a lock of the unruly hair she had tried years to train, "and besides Ron is with Luna. They are engaged you know. Announced it this morning at the department's brunch. If you had showed up you would have seen how happy they are…." She looked down sighing at her bumbling. Draco had the urge to smile, the way she talked; he would have listened for an eternity.

"Happy," He seemed to breathe the words out as he leaned back in the chair. He would have done anything to have that kind of love. To show her how much he loved her. To pull her onto his lap and smell the sweet scent of her skin against his. His fingers almost reached out to touch the fallen tendrils from her eyes, but he held back brushing back the blonde hair from his own face.

"Happy? Yes…happy Draco Malfoy…something you will be again someday." She stared up at him. He was so stubborn. "You will find love again…" she looked away from him for a moment, "Pansy would have wanted…"

"Pansy?" he stopped her mid-sentence, "She was a friend, nothing more. I could never have loved her when my heart belongs…" his blue eyes looked at her hard, "to someone else." His heart stopped. Could he have been more obvious as to share his feelings? Did she think he had been in love with Pansy Parkinson? The woman had been a friend of his whom he had grown close to because of his father. She was no more. Her death was of course a tragedy, but did Hermione think that he had loved her?

"Someone else?" she whispered as Hermione's fingers rushed once more to pull back the fallen tendril of hair from her face, but his hand caught her own.

"Don't" His voice soft as he leaned down into her face. Draco's heart pounding in his ears as he rubbed her fingers gently within his. He had never been this close to her alone.

Hermione's heart seemed ready to fly away as her eyes locked within his startling blue orbs, "Draco?" she asked softly. Questions flooded her mind. His eyes seemed to search her face as though asking the same as her own.

Slowly he reached over and caressed her cheek, pulling her face slowly towards his own until his lips gently caressed hers. The moment seemed to last a century.

"I love you." Draco pulled away and gently lowered himself on the floor next to her. It was as if a new light emerged in his eyes. His heart was in her hands. He knew she could rip the life from him or mend what was broken. Draco took her hands in his pulling her closer.

"Draco I thought you would never say those words." Hermione let her arms fly around his neck kissing him once more. The passion surprised and pleased him at the same time. Her tongue slowly danced along his own as she let her fingers get tangled in his hair.

Slowly she pulled back, her eyes dancing, "I have waited so long for you to say that to me." She whispered as he looked up at her. She leaned over, "I have loved you for so long Draco." With that he pulled her back down to him. The love they made that night healed their hearts as well as bound them forever to the other.

A smile spread over his lips as he looked down at the woman sleeping by his side. The first real smile he had in ages. She broke the spell of deep depression that had welded his heart closed. The girl whom he had tortured for years had forgiven him. The woman whom he had held his broken spirit out to had accepted it. The woman he loved loved him.