Answers are coming! And to quote the great Forrest Gump, that's all I have to say about that. Also, did anyone catch the Super Bowl halftime show last night and have flashbacks to high school? It felt so good until I logged into Facebook and got a message about my 10 year reunion.

Chapter 10
When the cleanup was done, the kids were in bed, and his parents were gone, Hermione retired to her bedroom. She found Draco seated on the floor at the foot of the bed, knees to his chest and staring blankly at the wall. Quietly, she sat down beside him, copying his position. "So," she said softly.

"I'm sorry," Draco whispered. "I shouldn't have stormed out like that. It just felt like they were attacking me."

"Your mother wasn't," Hermione replied.

He nodded. "I know she wasn't," he stated. "I just remember my childhood much differently from the wonderful picture she tries to paint. The loving family who anxiously awaited the doting father's return from a business trip. It wasn't business he was doing. It was Voldemort's work. Him trying to find a way to bring the madman back. I remember one time when I was maybe a bit older than Ayla, he came home and I was so excited to see him. I had a glass of pumpkin juice in hand and it spilled. He grabbed the glass from my hand, threw it at a wall, and told me to clean it all up. Those are the kinds of memories I have."

She placed her hand on his knee and laid her head on his shoulder. "Your relationship with him hasn't improved much since then," she said sadly.

"And you wonder why I drank so much," he muttered. "All I ever heard from him was that I wasn't good enough, that I wasn't smart enough, that I would run his business into the ground. Getting drunk was the only thing I was good at."

"You were good at other things too," she murmured.

Draco scoffed and shook his head. "No, I wasn't," he muttered. "I hated my life. I hated that my parents conditioned me to hate. I hated that they never figured out a way to show me that they cared about me. Neither one of them ever said they love me. Did you know that?"

Hermione shook her head. "So, what? You drank because you thought it was all you had?" she wondered.

He shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe," he mumbled. "I just...why did I do it after I married you? Or after the kids were born? This seems like the perfect life."

"Maybe it's not," she suggested. "Not for you. You worked a lot. Sometimes I thought that you saw your job as more important than we were. And I think maybe you were unhappy there."

Draco nodded. "My father was always hard on me," he told her. "On Blaise too. We both started working there right after the war, and for some reason we discovered that drinking made it a bit easier. Do you ever close your eyes and still see it? The bodies and the destruction and the chaos. I started drinking to escape that, and then to escape my father. Maybe I didn't know how to stop."

"You've stopped recently," she said. "And you're here now, and so attentive. The kids are so happy to have you home. I am too."

He offered her a gentle smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "I've never felt like I had a family until now," he admitted. "I'm scared of losing it. I don't want to lose you and our children. It scares me to think that I could wake up tomorrow morning, and it'll all be gone."

She pressed a kiss to his cheek. "We're not going anywhere," Hermione promised. "This is your family, sweetheart. We're here, and that's not going to change."

Sighing, he let his head fall back against the bed. "But what if it did?" he wondered. "Whatever happened that day, I woke up seven years in the future. If that's even what happened. Maybe it's just a dream. What if none of this is real? Maybe that wouldn't be so terrible, if it weren't real. Means I didn't grow up this way."

They sat in silence as Hermione's heart broke for her husband. Whatever he thought had happened to him seemed to upset him more and more as the days went on. There had to be a solution, something they hadn't thought of yet. Talking to Blaise had been a bust, and there was no one else to turn to. No one else, she realized, but Draco.

"Could I see your memory of that day?" she asked.

Draco's spine straightened as he lifted his head. "What?"

"The day you were drinking in your office with Blaise. The day you say is the last thing you remember," she replied. "Can I see that memory?"

He wasn't entirely sure it was possible, but it was worth a try. Holding out his hand, he silently asked for her wand. Soon, a wisp of memory was extracted from his mind and placed in the nearest container. Hermione got to her feet and left the bedroom for the study. Carefully, she placed the memory down on the desk before retrieving the pensieve from the top of the bookshelf. She set it down and emptied the memory into the basin.

"Do you think we could go in together?" Draco asked. "Maybe I could help somehow."

Smiling, Hermione held out her hand to him. He quickly accepted it and stepped up to the pensieve with her. Taking a deep breath, he leaned down until the memory enveloped them. Their feet touched down on the carpeted floor, and Hermione let go of Draco's hand. "Your office is disgusting," she said, nose wrinkling at the putrid smell of alcohol.

"I remember this," he murmured, walking closer to the desk. The Daily Prophet stared up at him, along with a moving photo of Hermione being harassed as she made her way to her Ministry office. Hermione moved to his side and frowned at the photo. "Do you ever regret it?" he asked.

"Breaking up with Ron?" she clarified. Draco nodded. "Not once."

"Plus, she's not my type," the memory Draco said.

Hermione turned to the man beside her and smirked. "Not your type?" she asked.

Draco shrugged. "Like I was really going to tell him," he replied. "He had a nasty habit of stealing my girlfriends."

"Does it make you feel better to know he never hit on me?" she asked.

He leaned down to kiss her cheek. "It does. Thanks," he replied. He opened his mouth to speak just as Blaise rose on wobbly legs from his chair. Neither spoke as they watched him move from Draco's desk to the bar cart.

"What's that in his hand?" Hermione whispered as Blaise removed a small vial of brown liquid from his blazer pocket. She inched closer for a better look and noticed that the contents of the vial were now in a glass of firewhiskey. One Blaise next deposited back in front of Draco.

Blaise took his seat once more. "We should toast," he suggested.

"To what?" Draco wondered.

Blaise held up his glass. "To...living the lives we want to lead," he stated.

Hermione turned to Draco with wide eyes. "I think I know what happened."