Thanks to Readerjk for catching that I'd left this up as complete XD Whoops...

And thank you so much to Aenaris who looked this over and tore this little puppy apart to make sure Hermione and Draco stayed in-character. I love you :)

Edit: I had a sentence and a half sentence where Draco squished all his thoughts together without spaces. FF deleted it. I put it back in italics. Just run it all together in your head.

Draco, as the last of the firewhiskey wore off, nearly screamed. His buzz of liquid courage had faded and he was now riding a blind dragon that had been stolen from Gringotts and holding onto a dented cup while Hermione tossed her head back in a whoop.

If she wasn't a Gryffindor, he would have wondered if she'd been drinking too.

He looked down. They passed beautiful scenery, forest and mountains and fields, all those blending shades of green and brown, and it was wonderful-

But it was still far too high up on something Draco couldn't control. One arm clung tighter around Hermione, knuckles a pale white as they gripped the burning cup harder, the other flat against the dragon's cold skin. Hermione tossed her head back and yelled in his ear, "What's wrong? Scared?"

He nodded as quickly as he dared, staring straight ahead. His pride was in hiding, there was nothing to keep it here since somewhere in the years since first-year, Hermione had apparently stopped being scared of flying. Or heights, or whatever it was that had made her look green at the sight of a broom.

A strand of straight brown hair blew into his eyes. Right. That. To break into Gringotts, Draco had his hair dyed, worn some of Potter's old clothes and pretended to be-Good grief, the entire thing had been ridiculous! He wasn't sure who he pretended to be, just someone unimportant, and Hermione had followed with the cloak and then they'd imperio'd the goblin to get him to take them to the required vault and had to redo it when they passed through that stupid thieves trap, and he remembered being vaguely grateful it had been dye not polyjuice so he'd be less recognizable...

And what the hell, they'd broken into his aunt's vault.

Though, it had been right next to his family's and since they hadn't readjusted those spells yet, (He'd triple-checked in the time they had) he'd raided it, so they now had money. Maybe they might even come up with a use for it.

They had broken into his aunt's vault! What the hell! And they were alive!

"Sober now?" she shouted.

"No thanks to you!" He closed his eyes. Several weeks spent in her fair company and planning to get this mysterious horcrux in Bellatrix's vault had culminated with her getting him buzzed so he'd do more than cling to the bunk and yell his denial to be a part of the ordeal. But, since of the two he had the only information on the bank, he'd had to. She hadn't looked pleased when he'd yelled it would take nothing less than Ogden's Finest to get him anywhere near that vault, but somehow, she had found it.

He wanted that bottle back.

She was grinning at him. Grinning was okay. Grinning wasn't sobbing, which she'd probably been doing earlier. She pried the cup from his fingers, (She took the little magic money-pouch off his wrist too) somehow not terrified she would fall off without three limbs on the beast and put it in her purse.

Both hands now empty, he put it flat down on a jagged scale and screamed. He would have lied to himself and said it wasn't a little-girl scream, (Or that it wasn't a scream at all. Malfoys didn't scream in terror, it was beneath them) but he was too busy inhaling for another go, possibly with some blubbering for his mother. Because this thing could turn over at any moment and there was nothing to hold onto and oh Merlin when was the last time it ate.

He didn't look edible, did he? Oh, he really hoped not, he was scrawny and cowardly hadn't had a bath three weeks. He didn't want to be named after something who thought that sounded good.

Then he clung closer to its skin, and therefore to Hermione. Eyes closed, he could smell again those faint shreds of her perfume before the breeze whisked it away and the heat from the burns on their skin. It was almost calming, almost peaceful, almost beautiful. His mind wandered. Little threads of memories and quickly self-filed questions, things he wondered vaguely about at the moment but wasn't going to get an answer to.

How was Mother?

Was the Manor intact?

When would he get to eat something other than Muggle instant noodles again?

Where had Hermione bought so many of them anyway?

Why did he stop calling her Granger?

That question was about six weeks too late. He knew when-the night they escaped. But why...

He pressed a little closer to her back.

She made a sound of some sort, whisked away by the wind. He realized just how close they were, especially painful with their burns, inching back the little he dared.

Oh. Look, they were descending.

Oh fuck they were descending it was going to eat them!

Unless they drowned first. Staring down at the mountain lake to which they were spiraling, he whimpered. The wind ripped the sound from his throat. Okay. Think rationally. He boxed as much of his fear and cowardice away as he could managed. Think. Rationally. He could swim. If it dove, he could swim away and maybe there would be fish in the lake to distract it. If it didn't dive-no, he was too terrified to jump. If it didn't dive he'd hold on until it landed and ate him.

It was so low they could see the reflection of the dragon's yellowish belly covering the water. And it's talons and if Draco looked far enough ahead a glimpse of teeth...

"Now!"

Hermione dragged them both overboard. He almost screamed. They hit the water, hard, sinking into cold and green and reeds. He swam, taking a deep breath when he hit the surface and looking around. Hermione, Hermione, there she was! They kicked and paddled their way to the shore. He sat down in the shallows, taking Hermione's handbag and digging his wand out of the depths.

Ow, fucking third-degree burn on his hand!

But he ducked his head in the water, scrubbing his hair and applying magic. A layer of brown dye floated away on the water like dirt. Draco made a face, quickly splashing the water to send it farther away before feeling Hermione's gaze. He knew what it would be. That raised eyebrow and mouth set in a firm line, an 'ahem' waiting in the back of her throat. He vanished the dye, rather than face the wrath of the environmentalist onshore. Squinting at his reflection in the icy water, he noticed that it had grown several inches in the time since he'd been out here.

Apparently the key to hair-length was forced camping. He smoothed his hair back like he had done when he was younger.

It made him look like his father in just the wrong ways. He shook his head wildly, displacing the style. That was exactly why he had cut it.

"Feeling vain, Draco?"

"Not in the slightest, Greasy." He twisted at the waist, grabbed her arms and pulled her into the water, taking her purse. "Let's see... Accio shampoo." A bottle flew into his hand. "Well, well, well, Granger! What do you know?" Please, please use it. Bed-placement meant he had to stare at the top of that head every night...

She sighed. "Draco! That won't be good for the lake-"

"Are you the brightest witch of the age or the environmentalist muggle? Vanishing spells." He ducked her head in the water when she looked about to reply. When she came up for air, he handed her the bottle. "Just because we're in the woods doesn't mean we have to collect dirt. I never have and never will make a hobby of uncleanliness."

She shooed him back. "Alright, I'll wash my hair! Calm down, you vain prick!"

A gentler insult, she had never directed his way. She'd taken up commenting on his vanity recently, despite the fact that he had mostly left that behind in sixth-year. There had been no point.

"It's basic hygiene, Granger, not vanity. Or-" He clamped down on the comment before it escaped, something about muggles not teaching their children to take regular baths and stench. After these sorts of tense situations, when they started to relax, he did that. A sort of reversion to what had been normal to cut the fear in the air, and it just didn't work. He didn't want another day where she didn't speak to him or glared for hours because of a racist slip of the tongue.

He lay down on the shore, ears sharp and listening while he watched the darkness overtake the sky. The last tint of sun faded from the clouds, leaving them as grey floating in midnight black and stars. He outlined constellations in his mind, the tales that went with them.

"You started calling me Granger again." Her face loomed over his, hair clean and dry. It was nowhere near as bushy as it had once been, now curls, frizzy. He wondered what had happened. He missed that, as much as he had once thought her hair could attack things of its own free will and be used as a hiding space for spare quills.

"Well it's your name too, isn't it?" He started to sit up, realized he could very well end up colliding with her face and lay back with a strange warmth in the pit of his stomach.

"I liked when you called me Hermione."

He blinked. He couldn't quite get what the difference was. Alright, so Granger wasn't quite as close as Hermione, and spoke of only acquaintance, but her voice had those soft tones of sadness, like it really hurt her. Draco often switched around with names of people he knew well. Sometimes it was an insult, usually it was just something he did.

"I-" She blushed, splotches of dark on her cheeks and forehead, and her face moved elsewhere, the sound of her moving a little farther down the bank. His expression fell of its own accord. "I like how you say it."

His mouth opened, vocal cords already working, and then he realized he didn't have a response. Not witty or mean or kind or anything, he was blank. Not even sounds of question.

The silence was filled by the far-off dragon for several minutes.

"We should go back to the tent."

"Y-yeah," Draco said, only just noticing the moon was out.

"Figure out how to destroy this thing without the sword."

"Yeah."

They stood up, stared at each other, the thought of touching her to side-along feeling tabooed. They lingered and she grabbed his arm quickly, immediately pulling them into an apparation. His body was squeezed and they were standing just outside the barriers for the tent. There was some automatic checking, eyes searching the dark for blurry shapes of others and ears straining, then Hermione moved her hands in a few complicated motions, allowing them through the wards.

Draco would have felt proud she was getting so good at wandless magic, but the air was still filled with a strange tenseness, one he couldn't quite figure out, and words were clambering to be said and destroy it. He didn't trust those words.

She closed the wards and they stepped into the tent, individually realizing burns, but neither asking the other for help. Draco healed himself and sat on his bunk, studying the pink skin.

His first night in the tent, he had rearranged the beds. They were placed in a corner, the head of one pressing against the side of another. It meant they couldn't be individually surrounded, and (As later became its use) to have no distance to cross when Hermione woke at three every morning with a nightmare. He slept in the second bunk and got a view of the top of her head every night and canvas wall the other.

And the rise of her breasts, but on a girl as small as Hermione, that wasn't very interesting when she was lying down. They flattened.

Hey, he was stuck out in the woods without even a Playwizard magazine for female company. It wasn't his fault if Hermione showed a bit of appeal after a while.

Draco shook his head as uncomfortable thoughts slid from their allocated spots, thickening the air in the room. Staring down at his damp clothes, he sorted through the pile of things that had belonged to Potter. He and Potter, as it turned out, were right about the same size in clothes, when the trousers and jeans were adjusted for Draco's longer legs. It felt odd to be using a dead man's belongings, (He had specifically switched the mattress that had been in the bunk for the unused one for that purpose) especially those of his school enemy, but it wasn't worth the time, effort, or money to buy Draco any of his own.

He started peeling off his shirt, got it most of the way off, and looked up.

Hermione was sitting on her bunk, eyes wide, irises only a thin ring of color in her eyes. She was extremely focused on him, and the way about it...

The tent felt much smaller than usual. As blood obediently moved south, he managed to note that yes, he was feeling aroused over Hermione-bloody-Granger and file it away to think over at a time when the movement of her chest wasn't much more interesting.

She was wearing a wet shirt. He could see her bra, or at least the outline of it and a hint of grey coloring. It had her disappointingly well-covered, but was strangely fascinating.

He swallowed, licked his lips, swallowed again as saliva flooded his mouth. This time his mouth stayed dry.

"Draco," she said, eyes drifting down, lashes fluttering. Her voice was almost a moan.

He finished peeling off his shirt, painstakingly slowly.

"I... Say no... Tell me no... Now is not..."

He had to spend several seconds getting together the intelligence to nod, watching her hands. One was slightly clenched right in between her breasts like she didn't know what to do with it and dammit he just wanted it to move, see it slide or grab or something. He took a deep breath. "No," he said in a husky whisper. The word affected him too, tugging him a little closer to reality. "Not now... Finish the mission first..."

They came down to sexless reality. Hermione turned pink and put her face in her hands.

"Perhaps... You should go outside for a few minutes," Draco suggested, studying his feet.

A quiet sound from her mattress as she stood. His eyes traced her steps, her calves, to the entrance.

"But Hermione," he called, pausing her. "We will finish this."

She flushed all the way down to the neckline of her shirt.

Draco snickered and quickly changed, switching spots with her so she could get into something clean as well. He couldn't help but brush against her as she came in. Again that flush. He liked that flush. It was uneven and the color started out blotchy but it was very Hermione and it was a good shade.

Sadly, they settled back to awkward once she had finished, the adrenaline rush of realizing attraction gone. They couldn't even stand next to each other long enough to fix those instant noodles and add whatever odd thing got dug up to eat.

Not that Draco was hungry anyway. He switched on the radio, whispering "Xenophillius" as he slowly tuned the knobs, looking for today's channel. For once, it wasn't a dead person's name.

"-and welcome to Potterwatch!"

River was upbeat today, much cheerier than he'd sounded since Draco first started listening. River's voice reminded him of Quidditch, so he had long figured River had been an announcer during a school game, but he hadn't tried to figure out who. He listened to the names of the dead, bowed his head for the moment of silence, and then grinned fiercely.

"Hermione and Malfoy have been seen, riding a dragon out of Gringotts!"

The report carried on, and just the sound of the wizards on the other side, voices lined with their fragile hope, was enough to brighten the air itself.

And make it smell of tea as Hermione spat a mouthful across the table at the obligatory Draco/dragon/riding joke. Draco restrained his eyebrows from wiggling. But apparently she knew he wanted to and glared at him like he told River to make that joke.

"And we have a guest tonight, a relation-and that's all we're saying, since he's got so many-of Draco. Let's welcome Starwise. How are you?"

"As well as I can be." The woman's voice was firm, clear, strong, beautiful, lightly aged. And vaguely familiar. It reminded Draco of his mother.

"You are one of the few who stands firmly by the statement that Draco has switched sides, care to explain why?"

"People like to say, that because of his family, his background, he would never switch sides, that he could never be good. They're wrong. I know that because of those things, making this decision would have been hard for him, if not because of a complete uprooting of his beliefs, then because he would have to leave his family behind. Draco is not a spy, he's too all-or-nothing, too devoted to his parents to risk them like that. And I believe in him."

"In school, he was well-known for expounding on the Death Eaters, and he seemed very taken with them."

"Listening to how he behaved after he came one leads me to believe he became disillusioned with the lifestyle very quickly. But could you blame him? His entire purpose in being one was to make up for his father's mistake, and it's a wonder You-Know-Who didn't kill him."

"If he was listening right now, what would you say?"

"I wouldn't say be courageous, he's still a Slytherin. I'd say find strength in cunning, hope in ambition and grip light firmly with both hands, because he's made the right choice no matter how difficult it may seem in the coming months."

"Words for all of us, Starwise. Thank you."

"Thank you too, River."

Draco let Hermione listen to the rest of the program, marking down Starwise's words.

He signed them Andromeda Tonks. He had only met his aunt once, when he was really young, and he'd been as rude to her as he was to all blood traitors, but she had seemed the mark of a perfect Slytherin. Starwise was a good name to hide her behind while still telling a bit about her. It made her sound like a centaur or astronomer or seer. But really, it had to be split into two words. Star, wise. A person who is a star but is wise, therefore older. Star meant she was a Black, since she was a relation of Draco.

And anyone who was "star-wise" knew that Andromeda...

Was a galaxy.

He wasn't the only Slytherin on this side of the war. A loneliness Draco hadn't noticed vanished. He sat down on his bunk, smiling slightly, and lay back, arms behind his head.

He went through his process of winding down for the night, thinking of the day's events, filing the moments away. Draco was a naturally organized person. That was not to say his room had been clean, it just had been organized in a way that made sense to his mind. He sorted things and labeled things and this helped him control emotions and understand things and draw connections. Little mental filing cabinets and chalkboards.

He came to that name-problem. Focusing on it, it came to him very quickly. Of course she didn't want to be called Granger. Hermione and Granger were two completely different people. Granger was the Gryffindor muggleborn girl with the hair bushy enough to deny gravity that knew all the bloody answers all the time and practically kept her hand in the air the entire class and was so Merlin-damned annoying he couldn't stand it. Hermione was the young witch almost too brave for her own good who woke up every night over his aunt and yet trusted him enough to let him touch her, hold her and admitted there was and would always be things she would never understand and who was gaining enough of a snake influence to make her more than tolerable and yet also left her ancient runes translations right where Draco didn't want them to be.

He liked Hermione much more than Granger.

She was a much more pleasant thought to fall asleep to.

Yaaay, Andromeda. I like her. She always got such a bad lot in the books, losing her husband, daughter and son-in-law when she didn't have any other family to turn to...

Reviews, be welcome. Now I have to go figure out just how long this damn thing is trying to be...