AN: Last chapter, finally. Apologies for the profanity - I don't usually use it but I needed some here. It just fitted.
Despite everything he'd said about meeting up again when I got to London, I was convinced I'd seen the last of Draco Malfoy. When I saw an article about him in the Daily Prophet, I was even more certain. Especially as the witch he was parading around with had an enormous diamond ring on a particular finger.
I can't say I hadn't expected this, but I still spent a week holed up in my bedroom, refusing to speak to anyone. I didn't even answer any owls, which worried Ginny Weasley enough to make her turn up on my doorstep one day. My mum let her in, but told her that I wasn't exactly in a talkative mood.
"That's ok, Mrs Granger."
I could hear her coming up the stairs, but she managed to enter my room before I could find my wand and lock the door.
"Hermione, what's wrong?"
She sat next to me on my bed, and passed me a box of tissues.
"It's nothing, Ginny."
"If it was nothing, you wouldn't be hiding in here, crying like this. So what, or who, caused it?"
"Someone."
"I'm going to get it out of you if it takes all day, Hermione Granger. You're not the sort of person to cry unless it's really important."
She would, too. Ginny could be really persistent at times. I sensed that this was going to be one of those times. I was right.
"So, you going to tell me?"
"You're not going to shut up unless I do, are you?"
"No."
"Somehow, I knew that." Before I lost my nerve, I blurted it out. "It's to do with Draco Malfoy."
"Malfoy? But we haven't seen him since Hogwarts finished. What's he done?"
I couldn't get the words out, I was too upset.
"He didn't… Oh, I don't know, Hermione. You'll have to tell me. And then I'll go hex him if you want me to, ok?"
I scrabbled on the floor for the paper, then handed it to her. While she read it, I tried to compose myself.
"So Malfoy's found himself a future brood mare, what's the big deal? Unless, no, that can't be."
"Unless what, Ginny?"
"You and him were somehow… involved, back at Hogwarts." She couldn't stop the disgusted look creeping onto her face. Knowing that she was going to take this badly, I nodded, slowly.
"You… and Malfoy?" She laughed. "Sorry, Hermione, I just don't see that happening. You're, well, you, and he's Malfoy."
"Meaning he's pureblood and I'm not?"
"Meaning he's an arrogant git who's so far up his own arse he wouldn't even know the meaning of the word emotion if it jumped up and down in front of him, and you're possibly the person he hates most after Harry."
"And this is why I never said anything – because I knew no-one would understand."
"I'm sorry, Hermione." She paused, trying to get used to the idea of Draco and me. "So, what happened?"
I told her, briefly and leaving out all of the intimate details, which she really didn't need to know.
"Malfoy needs some sense knocked into him," she declared.
"No, Ginny. If his family find out about me, they'd probably kill him."
"Don't worry, they won't find out. But I do need to have a word with him."
"Ginny? Exactly what are you plotting?"
"Plotting? Hermione, my dear, I don't plot." Her smirk told me otherwise. "Now, don't you start at St Mungo's on Monday?" I nodded, realising my summer holiday had some to an end. "Well then, you'd better get yourself down to London, hadn't you?"
Ginny was acting suspiciously, but there was nothing I could do about it.
…………………
A week later, I was beginning to settle into my Healer training, and had been spending hours on the wards in St Mungo's. I was just about to have my lunch break when I was called to the ward specialising in damage from curses.
"Sorry, Miss Granger, but he's insisting on seeing only you."
If it hadn't been for the shock of platinum blond hair, still somehow intact, I wouldn't even have recognised Draco Malfoy. Whatever Ginny had cast on him, she'd done a very thorough job.
"If I say I'm sorry, Hermione, will you ask the female Weasel to reverse all of this?" He sounded squeaky and high pitched, nothing like what I remembered.
"I might. That depends if you mean it or not."
"Malfoys don't beg, Granger, but I'm damn well begging you now."
"Why's that? So your precious fucking fiancée won't have to see you like this? Embarrassed, are we, Malfoy?"
Even as I spat out the words, I was regretting them. I really had to learn how to keep my mouth shut. The rest of the staff were quietly assembling in the doorway, expecting to witness a blazing row. Ginny must have sneaked in somehow, because Draco soon returned to normal. This only meant we could scream at each other more loudly.
I don't remember everything we said to each other that day, but I know I made a lot of sarcastic comments about the woman he'd been seen out with, and I'm pretty sure he said something about me being married to my career and books. I do remember how it ended though – his fiancée appeared just as he said something she shouldn't have heard. She flung her engagement ring back in his face and stormed out. Malfoy barely even noticed her; we were too busy shouting at each other to pay attention to anyone else.
"I fucking love you, Hermione, but you're too blind to damn well see it!"
I opened my mouth to shout yet another retort back at him, when I actually realised what he'd said. A few moments later, loud cheers and clapping came from behind me, and I nervously turned around. Anyone in the hospital who was capable of walking had managed to find their way to the room, and had been listening to us.
I felt Draco's arms wrap around me as they'd done so many times before, and I leaned back against him. I felt like I belonged there, with Draco. And if his family didn't like it, then they'd just have to lump it. I wasn't giving him up again. Not for anything.
"Ok, people, show's over. Nothing to see here. Off you go." Ginny pushed her way through the crowd and began herding them out of the door. Then, she turned to us, clinging to each other as though our lives depended on it.
"Well, Hermione, I have to admit I was sceptical about you two, but in the end you were right. And as for you, Malfoy, you hurt her like that again and you'll have the entire Weasley family after you, understand?"
He just smirked, and apparated us away.
AN: So, we reach the end. Read and review for the last time, people.
