Having said their goodbyes to McGonagall after breakfast they walked down to the gates. Draco wanted to know where they were going but Hermione just took his arm and said 'You'll see.'

She apparated them to a small churchyard deep in the Gloucestershire countryside.

'I got Kingsley to find out where your parents are buried'. She nodded towards the graves and opened the gates.

Draco followed her silently. He thought he recognised the surroundings, and decided they weren't too far from Malfoy Manor. The graveyard was old and overgrown. It had an air of desolation and abandonment about it. Hermione led him to a far corner, where weeds and nettles grew high. It was a place where nobody would ever come, unless they had to.

So this was it, this was where his parents had finished their days. There was no great mausoleum, not even a headstone. Just a small concrete slab bearing a brass plaque with their names on.

Draco stared at it. 'It seems so…inadequate.'

'I can do something different if you want' she said gently, and he nodded.

'I don't want to…glorify them' he struggled to express his feelings, 'but…they were two…people.'

Hermione nodded and took out her wand to transfigure the slab into a plain granite headstone. Then she carved the words:

Here lay

LUCIUS MALFOY

And his wife

NARCISSA

Parents of Draco.

May they rest now at peace.

Draco spent a long time just looking. 'They were all I had' he said eventually. 'Nothing more, but they left me, didn't they? They didn't even ask if I wanted to go with them.'

'Would you have done?'

He shook his head. 'I don't know. I don't know anything anymore. It's all such a mess; such a waste. All of it, everything they wanted and did. It was all wrong. I HATE THEM!'

He fell to his knees, pounding at the icy ground with his fists until they bled.

'WHY? Why did you do it? Why were you so stupid? WHY?'

Hermione knelt beside him, putting her arm around his shoulder and pulling him into a hug. She felt him resist, trying to pull away, but she gripped him tighter.

'It's OK to cry, Draco. You're allowed to cry, now.'

And he did. For the first time in his life he cried. Great racking sobs tore at this body as she rocked him gently and stroked his hair.

He thought he would never stop crying, he didn't want to. He poured twenty years of waste into his tears. He cried for his parents, for their victims and for himself.

He cried for the wreck he had become, for the suffering he had caused. But mostly, he cried for his cowardice.

He had not accepted Voldemort, but had done nothing to stop him. He had not had the chance to fight and die for his beliefs, because he had none. He had spent the battle trying to stay alive, not fighting.

'I'm nothing. I've never done anything of value. My past, my life, it's nothing but a worthless mistake.'

'Shh, shh, Draco. The past is over. The rest of your life is a blank page. It's what you do from now on that counts.'

'I have nobody, I have nothing.'

'You have me.'

She continued to rock him in her arms, crooning calming noises and pressing her cheek to his hair.

Slowly his crying stopped as he exhausted himself and his emotions. He held on to her as a drowning man clutches at a piece of wood; she was all that was keeping him alive.

'I have you?'

'You have me.'

-o0o-

When Draco was composed enough, they travelled back to London, planning on getting to the centre in time to help serve the meal. There were no great cheers, or standing ovations, but as people took their trays they gave a small smile or a murmured greeting. A small group did come up to them, and with much nudging and muttering of 'No, you' and 'You say it' and 'Go on!' one of the men eventually said 'We're glad to see you back. Thank you for helping us'. Hermione smiled and said 'It's what we're here for' and the men went away, the speaker still blushing.

It did feel good to be back doing something, little though it was. The queues didn't seem to be any shorter, or the clients any fitter, but there were a couple of new jobs on the Vacancies board, so that was something.

They stayed on for another couple of hours, dealing with a few important things and generally being updated on what had happened in their absence. There had been no major incidents over the original article; the Magic Law Enforcement Officers had seen to that, but there was a rumour going round that a couple of journalists had been "encouraged" to the leave the area later on in the day. One had been encouraged so enthusiastically he'd ended up in St Mungo's, but wasn't seriously hurt.

Quite a few Howlers had arrived, of course, but the staff had dealt with them.

Since the retraction had been published the messages had changed, with people writing in to say they'd never believed it anyway, and it was typical of the sort of rubbish The Prophet always published. Some had even sent small donations. Guilty consciences could be useful on occasions.

-o0o-

They headed back to their lodging to be greeted by Renee, who made them a cup of tea. It felt good to be back.

'Thank you for the note' she said. 'Somebody must have dropped it through the letter box. So, how was your training course?'

'Oh, you know…fine!' said Hermione, hoping Renee didn't want any more details. 'By the way, we'll be leaving on Saturday, I hope you don't mind.'

'Of course not! Have you got things sorted out with your parents?' Renee asked kindly.

'Not as such, no. We needed to find somewhere more permanent.'

'I understand, love. Don't give up on them though, will you?' Hermione said she wouldn't, and invited Renee to have dinner with them on Friday.

'I'd love to, but Friday's my Bingo night and I go with a group. You save your money; you'll need it.'

-o0o-

Draco and Hermione found themselves strangely tongue-tied when they got back to their room. During the day they had been able to put what had happened in the graveyard to one side, but now…

Hermione bustled around, sorting out clothes and generally tidying up things that didn't need tidying, all the while keeping up a febrile chatter. Draco sat on the bed, not really looking at her, and agreeing with everything.

There is only so much time you can spend pretending to be busy in one room, so eventually they had to face each other.

They did so in silence. It was the sort of silence that involves sitting on your hands and staring anywhere where the other person isn't. That silence where you have an overwhelming desire just to give a little cough, but daren't in case the other person thinks you want to say something. A silence that desperately needed noise.

It should have been a great flowing speech, a pinnacle of oratory. Instead, Draco said 'So.'

Hermione replied 'Well.'

'Umm'

'Yeah'

Both of them realised that the silence was probably better than this, so they stopped for a while.

Draco tried again. 'Things have changed, a bit. Haven't they?'

'I suppose. Maybe.'

'So, what happens next?'

'I'm not sure. You?'

'Why…did you do that?'

They finally made eye contact. 'You told me once that you didn't know what had happened to your parents. I thought it might …I wanted to do something for you, after you'd looked after me.' A horrible thought crossed her mind. 'Was I wrong? Oh, Draco…I'm so sorry, I thought it would help you, to give you some …I'm sor…'

He crossed to her bed and sat beside her, putting his arm around her shoulder. 'No, I'm not upset at what you did. I wanted to know where they were, what had happened. I'm just not used to people doing things for me, not like that…caring about me.'

'You don't hate them, do you?'

He took his hand from her shoulder and leaned forward, elbows on his knees and resting his head in his hands.

'It's hard. They are my parents, but they did so much that was wrong.'

She put her arm around him. 'They made choices. They did what they - I don't know - thought was right, what they should do, what they'd been brought up to believe.'

'Are you…you're not trying to justify what they did, are you?'

'Of course not. How can something like that ever be right? Oppressing others, thinking that you have the right to rule because of whom you are or what you are – it can never be right. But it's always happened and every time it does we say "Never again". Maybe one day we'll listen to ourselves.'

'And us? You said that I had you. What did…I mean, does…are we…what?'

'I care about you, Draco. I've seen how damaged you've been, and I've seen that wasn't the real you. You're kind and considerate, and you care about people. You care about me, and look out for me.'

'I've caused you all sorts of problems though.'

'No. You haven't. It's the others, the ones who can't see beyond the past.'

'So, I care about you, and you care about me.'

'Yes.'

'That's good, isn't it?'

'Yes.'

The silence pressed down on them again and they knew the moment was lost.

'I suppose we'd better get some sleep.'

'Yes.'

They didn't. Both lay there all night, trying not to disturb the other. Neither dared to say what they really wanted to say, and both knew it and hated themselves for it.

-o0o-

They spent Thursday and Friday being very polite to each other, and discussing topics in a very formal way. Draco even reverted to calling her Granger. That time was probably worse for him than her, as he felt that he should be instigating any conversation about their future.

But, he was still racked by doubts. What did he want her to be? In the graveyard, he knew they'd crossed some kind of invisible line. They were certainly far more than colleagues now, but were they "just" friends?

His problem was that he didn't know. How did friends act? Did they hug each other and cry a lot? He thought perhaps not. Friends, from what he had seen, tended to have a rather better time together. They talked and joked and didn't sit together in silence. Friends went out and had fun. Then they went back to separate rooms, if they were male and female.

Couples went to the same room. So, were they a couple? He thought probably not. There was a lot more groping and fumbling amongst couples. He and Parkinson had done quite a lot of that at various stages, but it wasn't the same with Hermione.

Could it, possibly, be…love? The one thing he'd tried to avoid, the very thing he knew must not happen between them. Now he was in a quandary, because he simply didn't know what "love" was. It was an emotion he'd never encountered before, not being a part of his environment.

Had his parents loved each other? They were married, but he thought that wasn't any indication. His mother had been a Black; one of the most important Wizarding families in the country, and impeccably pureblood. She was a suitable match for a Malfoy.

They'd had him, so there must have been – at some stage – a…not something he wanted to consider in relation to his parents. They'd had a child, leave it at that.

How, he wondered, do you know if you are in love with somebody? He realised he didn't have a clue. It had to be more than a physical thing, he supposed. He knew there were woman who would be physical with anybody who had the money, but that wasn't love.

So what was it?

The answer caught him like a slap round the face. Love was when you cared for somebody so much that you would do anything for them. Being in love meant that you wanted to be with that person more than anything else.

You would do things for them that you thought would help them, like bringing closure to their parent's death.

You would comfort them when they were unhappy.

You would watch over them when they were hurting.

You would miss them when they weren't there.

He was in love with Hermione Granger, and she was perhaps in love with him. And on Saturday – tomorrow – they were moving into a flat together.

'Oh Merlin!'