A/N:

I have decided to no longer do daily updates. I'm concentrating on writing longer chapters, and the story is starting to become so emotional that it's taking a lot out of me. I need time to mull over everything. I go through about ten different drafts before I settle on the right one. I want to give you quality rather than quantity.

Thank you to all those that have been following my journey. To the guest comments that I can't respond to, I am so grateful and humbled by your words. Keep reviewing, keep sharing your thoughts, and keep making my day :)

Thanks again!

-Nora

She had thought about jumping.

It was the dead place again, the house that wasn't a home, the out of place bookend that ended exactly where it began, the thing that was everything terrible, like a drug that was both a delicious high and an overdose. It was a cliff, a jagged rock in her throat, a piercing sharpness in her lungs, and she had thought about jumping, had thought about giving up, of falling into the waters until she was all liquid and living in endlessness before dying in it, becoming it, the void, the dead place.

He talked her off the ledge.

With kisses. Sweet kisses, warm ones with intoxicating moans, the ones that made her weak and dizzy and divine. She didn't like the way his hands spanned her small waist, didn't like the taste of his hot lips, didn't like his disgustingly beautiful smile, a secret he reserved for only her through his tired eyes and serious, expressionless face. No, she didn't like any of it at all.

She loved it.

She fucking lived for it, fucking consumed it like a strong drink, downing it until she was a drunken, senseless mess. She traced the dark circles beneath his eyes, purplish against his pale skin, like a bruise of his soul, stark against all the white. He was all trouble, a bad and tragic person that could destroy her completely, and it didn't scare her. It was worth jumping over. She'd run to jump a thousand times, and a thousand times he would talk her off the ledge again and again until she was slack in his strong arms again, a gleeful, silly little girl who craved the attention of a Death Eater all while playing pretend that she was all good inside, all purity and light and bullshit.

Her demons and his demons had playdates. It made her believe that dreams were really prophecies and that hope was a sacred and divine human right. She was the bad girl, the tragic girl, the any-day-of-the-week girl. She gave herself to him, shamelessly, happily, immeasurably. Her mind, her body, her sanity, her dead place and recently, her alive place. It was a new place, too. Exclusive.

He stole things from her, moments of a day, full nights, empty classrooms, warm beds, kisses and sex and bad, beautiful thoughts of a future, bleak and dim, but a fucking future. Who would have thought?

"Visit me," he said, his lips on her neck. "For Christmas."

It was two in the morning and they were in her bed. It was their favorite place for basically everything. Sleeping, studying, talking and… dot, dot, dot.

"No thanks." She had her hands in his hair, her breaths airy and light.

"Not the bloody manor," he said, reading her easily. "I have a flat in London."

She pulled back, her bloodflow slowing at the sight of his lips, flush with color. "Since when?"

"Since the end of the war."

It made sense. A lot had taken place in that manor. She closed off the old memory, the cold floor, the curse. It was getting easier day by day.

"I don't know," she said warily. It'd be like playing house, just the two of them, and the thought was a bit daunting. She had never been so close to a person in her life, but this was a closeness that defined exactly what they had conveniently chosen to leave undefined. This was nothing, and it was everything.

"C'mon," he murmured, pressing his lips to her forehead. "We won't have to hide. I could take you out to dinner."

Hermione couldn't help but laugh. "Like at a Muggle restaurant?"

"Like exactly that," he said with a wolfish grin.

Draco Malfoy at a Nando's with a plate of Peri-Peri wings. Draco Malfoy at a McDonald's with a Big Mac. Draco Malfoy at a Muggle pub, drinking a Muggle beer. Draco Malfoy in a Muggle anything.

"That's just weird."

"So you'll forgo holiday because it's weird?"

"I didn't say that."

"Fine, stay here and enjoy Christmas in the kitchens with your beloved House Elves."

She punched his arm. "I didn't say I wouldn't go!"

"Then say you will."

"I will."

"You live here?"

Draco paused, his gray eyes sweeping over the old brownstone building in front of them. "Be grateful it isn't the Knight Bus," he said cheekily.

"Draco, this is a Muggle building."

"I am aware, seeing as how I live here, Granger."

Hermione blushed. "Just you… and Muggles."

"They're alright," he said nervously, clearly embarrassed by his new stance.

She gaped at him. "Who are you?"

"A Muggle sympathizer, it would seem," he said ruefully. "My father'll disown me any day now."

"I think I need to lay down," Hermione said, taking his arm to balance herself. "Draco!"

He lifted her off her feet, carrying her like a bloody bride up the steps and through the dark hallways of the building. Her heart hammered in her chest, dreadfully and wonderfully. She was a girl after all, and in the aftermath of a war all a girl could really do sometimes was dream. Nineteen years old and wanting exactly all the things she had left Ron for just months ago. It was terrible, but she didn't feel so bad about it anymore. She wasn't that person anymore. This Hermione didn't deserve a successful Auror, a fully functioning member of society and above all, a Weasley. This Hermione was a thrill-seeker, a disaster, and naturally that meant that she fit just perfectly with a Malfoy.

So she wrapped her arms around his neck, her legs swinging, and laughed softly when he kissed her neck. He unlocked his door with a clever bit of wand-less magic and carried her over the threshold. It was the most frightening thing he could have done, and she loved it. More, she wanted to say. Give me more.

When he took her straight to bed, his hands gentle and then rough, he did exactly that.

"You have to stop carrying me everywhere. I'm not a bloody damsel in distress."

"Not my fault you can barely walk half the time," Draco said drily.

She didn't want to give him the wrong idea. He had to understand that she was an independent woman, capable of taking care of herself. He did too much for her, carrying her books between classes, taking over to brush her tangled hair when her arms grew tired, carrying food everywhere in his bag, offering her apples and biscuits and cheese throughout the day like she was some child. It was no matter that some color had returned to her face, that her hair was just a tad shinier than before. The changes were subtle, but Draco caught them all and continued his infuriating behavior in babying her.

"Well, you have to stop," she persisted.

"Fine, fall over and die for all I care."

Hermione laughed. "You're incorrigible."

"Likewise," he said without a beat. "Pass the crisps you cow."

They were settled on his couch, books and snacks around them, enjoying a quiet evening by the fire. Hermione had her feet propped up on his lap and was surprised that he didn't seemed to mind at all. She read him some of her favorites, enjoying especially his interest in Hamlet.

"Doubt thou that the stars are fire;
Doubt thou that the sun doth move;
Doubt the truth to be a liar;
But never doubt that I love."

Draco didn't say anything, just leaned his head back to rest against the couch and closed his eyes as he listened. There were no comments, no interruptions or questions. He was intelligent, understanding without the need for any explanation. Quiet, calm, comforting. That's what Draco Malfoy was. He had made his home inside her heart, and she was not sure if she would ever let him leave. She would sooner break every bone in her body. She would sooner jump off a cliff. She would sooner die.

That's how bad she had it.

"Muggle food is delicious. Fuck."

Draco Malfoy ate everything within a five mile radius. Everything.

"What the hell is this?"

Draco Malfoy touched and observed every kitchen appliance at the department store.

"This is the most boring postcard I've ever seen in my life. Your Muggle pictures don't move."

"Oh, we've got moving pictures."

"What are you talking about? This isn't moving."

"Draco, have you ever heard of a movie?"

"A what?"

Draco Malfoy watched You've Got Mail starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan at the local movie theater.

They snogged everywhere. The park, the sidewalk, the tube, the restaurants. He was always the one to initiate, pulling her close in crowded places, his hand on the small of her back when they walked, his arm around her shoulders wherever they were seated. He didn't seem to care that Muggles stared, that he was drawing too much attention to them, that she blushed and tried to pull away half the time.

"C'mere you," he would say, tugging her into his arms and giving her such a good fucking kiss that she'd forget the earth itself turned.

It was all too perfect.

She should have known it wouldn't last.

Draco was seated at the kitchen table, doubled over with his face in his hands.

"This — surely this isn't —" she couldn't finish. The Daily Prophet was on the table in front of her, the front page a picture of them locking lips outside of a Wendy's of all places. There was a to-go bag of burgers in Draco Malfoy's fucking hands.

'War Heroine Hermione Granger Involved With Known Death Eater' the front page read. Fucking Rita Skeeter.

Draco hadn't spoken in ages, likely still frozen in shock.

It was all over.

She wanted to drown, to die just to be rid of this plague, this festering wound in her heart. It didn't matter to her that everyone knew, it didn't matter that she wouldn't be able to look her friends in the eye — it didn't even fucking matter that he was a Death Eater. All that mattered was that their secret was out, their intimacy discovered, and it mattered most of all that he was disappointed. Ashamed of her most likely, ashamed of the Muggle-born, the Mudblood. While he filled her heart to the brim, she filled something else — an empty bed, a fling, a shag. That was all she was. Nothing more.

"I'll go," she said softly. She went to the door and slipped on her shoes, her heart cracking open so loudly that she was sure she could hear it. It was as if Death himself had come for her, looming over her now, ready to destroy her the moment she walked out that door.

Her hand had just touched the doorknob when she felt arms encircle her, pulling her back against a stiff body.

Her hands shook, her eyes watered.

"I should hex you right now," Draco said, his voice seething with such anger that it frightened her. "The gall."

She was trembling, tears flowing, hovering somewhere between heaven and hell. This. She hadn't expected this.

"Don't walk out on me." His voice was thick, as if he felt it, too. That wild terror, that insurmountable wave of grief, that harrowing void that pulled them right into the darkness again.

"I'm not worth it," she said through her tears. She was defective, hardly human at all, mostly made up of bones and baggage. He had a family, a future. She would not be his ruin, not when she had nothing to offer him. Nothing but grief.

"I hate you." He turned her around aggressively, his hands gripping her shoulders painfully, and slammed her back hard against the door. She let out a startled gasp, grabbing his forearms to steady herself. He kissed her, impassioned, enraged, heated. "I fucking hate you," he rasped, pulling back.

His eyes were bloodshot red.

She sobbed, hurting everywhere. In her dead place, in her alive place. All in tatters, breaking her down second by second.

"You'd just leave me? Just like that?" He gripped her shirt, lifting her until her feet dangled. He was wild, deranged like an animal.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she cried, her chest aching so badly that she feared he had broken her bones.

He picked her up and she wrapped her legs around him, both of them shaking, both of them overcome with emotion. They shuddered together, little earthquakes, little natural disasters. Her arms clutched him, finding his neck to hold onto for some support — something, anything to ground her.

He looked close to tears. "Am I not good enough for you, Granger?"

"I'm not good enough." The words came out with an ugly cry, a hideous, disgusting cry that was humiliating and disgraceful.

"You daft, stupid woman," he said, blinking back tears.

"I know," she said between gasps, her lungs rejecting air, her heart rejecting blood, her mind rejecting him for his own good.

And yet she clung to him. He was her air; he was her blood. He was the strength of her arms, the light of her eyes, the keeper of her secrets, her soul, her heart. She hugged him, grinding her teeth to keep from falling apart, but she was already unraveling right into his arms. A part of her wanted to be destroyed, wanted to jump, if only to see if he would talk her off the ledge one more time.

"I'm so sorry," she whimpered. He tightened his hold on her, his muscles flexing. His Dark Mark was hot on her skin, mocking her, daring her to be burned again. She didn't even care.

"I hate that I love you," he told her acidly, his eyes darkening.

She cried and she ached — Oh, how she ached.

That was all he had to say.

That was all she needed to hear.

That was all she wanted.

"I love you," she sobbed.

He pressed her against the door and made love to her right there — angrily, rough, raw — but it was love.

It always had been.