So here's the result of the cliffhanger. Thank you so much, last chapter had such a wonderful response! I was feeling a bit down after chapter 8, but you guys have restored my faith in the FFN community :) I'm sorry this is so short, but I've been crazy busy and haven't had time to write my usual. But I thought you would rather have this now (a little early, what a treat!) than have to wait another two weekends, because I'm going away so you may not get any more until early July. But don't lose heart! It'll get there eventually.

DISCLAIMER: Still not mine. I'm getting tired of waiting, really.

'You're going to have to elaborate, I think,' Draco managed to say after a long silence.

'Could you get me some more tea first?' Hermione offered her cup to him.

'Sure.' Taking the mug, Draco left the room, shutting the door behind him. Letting out a breath he had not realised he was holding, he leaned back against the closed door and sunk to the ground. He was usually able to keep control over his thoughts, but now they were assaulting his mind rapidly, all jumbled together at once, with the knowledge that there had to be some rational explanation for this eclipsed by his conflicting emotions of pity and horror.

She killed her baby. There are all sorts of explanations for that, he reasoned. It doesn't mean she gave birth to a living human being and then slaughtered it in cold blood. He knew that was not – could not – be true, Hermione Granger was characteristically incapable of harming others. It had to be some unavoidable failing on the part of her body which she blamed herself for – a miscarriage, or something. Draco did not know how the female body worked – at least, not when it came to pregnancy – but he was pretty sure that stuff like that was not unusual, and never the fault of the mother. He sighed and let his head drop to his chest, whereupon he caught sight of the forgotten mug. He rose slowly and wandered down to the kitchen to refill her tea, thanking every belief system he knew of that it was empty. He could barely deal with himself right now, other people would be completely beyond his spectrum of manageability.

He returned to the dining room, not bothering to knock. Hermione was in the same position he had left her in, the same position she was in at his kitchen table, that fateful day all those weeks ago. He placed her tea in front of her. 'Talk?'

'I wrote it down for you, while you were out,' she replied tonelessly. 'Take it and read it somewhere else. I don't want to be around while you do.'

Draco noticed a sheet of paper, covered on both sides with tight writing, resting by her elbow. 'I was only gone for fifteen minutes.'

She gave a non-committal shrug. Draco thought it was better to say nothing, so he picked up the sheet. The writing was messier than he would have expected from one such as herself, but he supposed she was writing very quickly, if she had managed this much so quickly. 'I'll read it in the kitchen.'

'I'll be in my room,' she replied, not looking at him.

He took the sheet of paper and left her as he had before, to go to the kitchen and read.

It was still blessedly empty when he got there. He thought about making himself a cup of coffee, but only briefly. He knew he was just trying to postpone the inevitable. So he sat down at the table and read.

I met Malcolm in the Muggle bookstore where I worked. I was already living in Muggle London then, but I didn't detach completely from the Wizarding world until a year later, when I moved in with him. He never knew I was a witch. Everything was blissful for almost two years, but then I fell pregnant. I thought he would be happy. I told him we were going to have a baby, but he was angry. Really angry. He said that if I wanted to stay with him, I had to have an abortion. I refused – I asked him how he expected me to kill our child – but it made no difference to him. He threw me out, and I had nowhere to go, I hadn't been in touch with anyone for two years. So I lied, I went back to him saying I had had an abortion, but he was with another woman. I was disgusted that his spawn was festering inside of me. I hated it. So I did it. I had an abortion for real. And afterwards the only place I could think of to go to was Madam Moreau's. Malcolm liked fucking me, I thought it was the only thing I could do right. Besides, when they found out the truth, all my friends and my family would have hated me. I hated me. I killed a human being. And that's that. If you know you can deal with this, talk to me. If you think you can't, leave, so I never have to face you again.

Draco read it three times over, and then leaned back in his chair. The letter – for want of a better word – was brief, and although it answered all his previous questions, it raised a lot more. He knew he had to speak to Hermione straight away. On his way to the stairs he passed the open door to the living room. He did not look in, but a voice called him back.

'Malfoy, where are you going?'

He turned round to see Potter in the doorframe. 'To see Hermione,' he replied.

'Have you finished? Is something wrong?' Harry was concerned. Draco was wearing an expression he had never seen before – his eyes were fixed on a point somewhere over Harry's left shoulder, and his eyes were turbulent. A small frown was embedded in his forehead, and he was gripping a crumpled piece of paper so tightly that his knuckles shone white.

'I'm going to see Hermione,' Draco repeated, turning away from Harry and heading up the stairs.

'Wait-' Harry started, but Draco ignored him and continued up the stairs. Harry, worried, followed after.

Draco halted at the sound of his footsteps on the bottom stair and without turning round, addressed his old rival coldly. 'Take one more step, Potter, and I will make sure that you will never take another.'

Harry froze, taken aback, before retreating slowly into the living room once more.

Draco continued unimpeded up the staircase, one hand trailing absently on the stair rail, the other still tightly clutching the letter.

Questions were pounding through his head, but one above all others. If you know you can deal with this, talk to me. If you think you can't, leave, so I never have to face you again. How could he not deal with this? How could he give up the wonder of seeing her? The answer to that was simple at least. Since those brief days that they had been together, he had realised that he liked having her around. He liked watching her read, the way her toes curled together whenever she got to an exciting part, the way she sometimes mouthed bits silently, the way her neck curved as she leant her head against the back of the sofa. In those few short days he had noticed a myriad of new little things that he had swiftly grown to love – her humming in the shower, making coffee for two, how adorable she looked, half asleep in an old shirt of his, her little frown when she was confused, the way she bit her lip when she was concentrating. He had never noticed these things in anyone else before, and the sudden intensity of this feeling was bewildering at first. It had taken him a while to figure out what it meant, and then a little while more to build up the courage to act on it. And only a couple of minutes to ruin it all.

Her departure provided him with all the answers he needed. He probably could accept the prospect of never seeing her again. He was not that far gone yet. He hardly knew Hermione, not properly. A day had not passed since she left that he had not thought of her. But he was pretty sure that would fade in time, if he were patient. However, the overriding truth was this: he did not want to give up on her. What Draco Malfoy wanted right that moment, more than anything, was to be with Hermione Granger. To see her every day, to make her coffee, or pasta, or anything else she wanted, to buy her clothes that matched her eyes, to hear her hum in the shower, to see her toothbrush next to his…

He was not sure if this was love. Even if it were, he would not admit to it. Not yet. But still that one truth remained: he wanted her. And what a Malfoy wants, a Malfoy gets.