a/n: PLEASE BE SENSITIVE TO OTHER READERS AND TRY TO EXCLUDE SPOILERS FROM YOUR REVIEWS.

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Chapter 37: The Beginning

Three years later and they still lived there, still together, still clinging to each other. It was perhaps because of the dreams that she and Ron couldn't last. He wanted her to need him, he wanted to hold her when she shook in the night; but his arms only made it worse, and so she'd eventually moved down the hall.

Hermione woke before the sun, as she had grown accustomed to doing over the last month or so. She padded quietly to the kitchen of Grimmauld Place, trying desperately not to disturb Kreacher in her wake, hoping fervently that nobody else would be around.

No such luck.

"The dream again?" Harry murmured, leaning against the counter and sipping a cup of coffee.

She jumped at the sound of his voice, her hand pressed protectively against her clavicle.

"Harry," she stammered. "I - "

"Sorry," he said quickly, taking a mug from the cupboard and pouring her a steaming cup. "Too early to startle you, I suppose."

"A bit," she agreed weakly, though she slid in easily beside him, letting the warmth of the beverage radiate against her hands as it passed from his fingers to hers.

"The dream again?" he prodded.

"Yes," she said, closing her eyes and taking in the scent of it. Another day. "It's been . . . rather insistent, lately."

He sipped his coffee quietly. "Insistent?"

"It's more than just the voice now," she clarified, biting her lip and working out the kinks in her neck from her scattered hours of restless sleep.

"Have you told Ron?"

He wasn't looking at her. He knew the answer.

"He knows I've been having dreams," she said slowly. "But he thinks they're nightmares. From the war," she explained.

Harry nodded.

"How long?" he posed, taking another sip.

"Since I agreed to take the job at the Ministry," she said, sighing. "I suppose it's just stress."

"But you've been having the dream since before that," Harry pointed out carefully. "Haven't you?"

She closed her eyes, feeling the caress of the words as they flitted through her mind.

This life or any other -

It had never been a nightmare. That's what Ron had never understood. He wanted simple, cut and dry, but she could never explain it.

"Yes," she said weakly, finally raising her own cup to her lips.

They sat together in silence. She knew why Harry was awake; he never slept much, really. There had always been something in both of them, some itching, nagging thought that they had somehow outlasted their own purpose. It was better for him when Ginny was here, when he had something to care for; something to protect. But Ginny was with the Harpies at the moment and the odd feeling of displacement had never really eased for Hermione, so it was times like these, both of them in a dull state of wakefulness - or a wakened state of dullness - that kept the two of them helplessly bound to each other.

"It could be stress," Harry said finally, harkening back to her initial point. Neither of them really believed it.

They only knew how to bear the gravity in silence.

"Probably," she agreed, letting her lips linger on the edges of the cup.

"You start today, don't you?" Harry asked, though he knew the answer.

They'd be working in the same building now that she'd ended her purview at Hogwarts - first as a student, finishing her final year and taking her N.E.W.T.s, and then as a research assistant, an aid to Professor Binns - which was to say she had been teaching History of Magic in his stead. McGonagall - "Call me Minerva, dear," "Oh no, Professor, I couldn't possibly" - had encouraged her over time to step away from academia, as Hermione didn't care for the lifestyle. She had little patience for those students who had lacked her own relentless drive, and McGonagall had suggested "a calling elsewhere, perhaps - something more fulfilling?"

And so when Kingsley had come calling - "Please, Hermione, just consider the offer; you'd be an asset to the Ministry, and surely a credit to the department" - she decided she'd been hemming and hawing for long enough.

She'd had fewer misgivings than she thought she would about accepting the position, especially considering how resolutely she'd once rebuked Scrimgeour; but after quietly observing the proceedings following the post-Voldemort war trials that were, in truth, little more than bloated auror tribunals, her conscience had roared for justice. When the legal department offered her a job, she found she couldn't refuse, and her mind had tingled, both sharp and unfocused in a flurry of anticipation.

"You'll be fighting again," Harry had said that day, clapping her proudly on the back.

"Don't get carried away," she'd replied brusquely. "It'll be paperwork, mostly."

"Still," he'd said, shrugging. "You'll be fighting for someone."

She had wondered if the dreams would fade. There was a piece of her that clung to the idea that if she could settle on the right circumstance, if she could somehow pull herself in alignment with where the universe wanted her to go, she might finally rid herself of the strange, mismatched feeling she'd been living with since the war; the lingering sensation that she'd gone off course. Traveled too long down the wrong track, to continue the railway metaphor.

But it had only gotten worse, and the effect of the dreams more visceral. She could almost see it now, the form around the voice, but the more she strained to reach it, to make sense of it, the more isolated she felt.

"The sun'll be up soon," Harry commented, though she had no idea how he could tell. There were no windows in the kitchen.

"How do you know?" she murmured, taking another sip.

He shrugged. "I just have a feeling," he said, leaning his head against her shoulder.

Draco Malfoy had once been unaccustomed to toil, a stranger to what he later learned was deemed a hustle - until three years ago, of course, when everything had come to a head. At first he'd just been floating around the Manor, feeling himself a ghost adrift in a sea of memories he wasn't able to shed, resigning himself to a life of bitter solitary confinement. His father, similarly, had resigned himself to death shortly after the war, which Draco had found none too surprising. Lucius had nothing left. Neither did Draco, and he likely would have continued that way, if it weren't for his mother and the goddamn shoes.

"Come with me," she'd coaxed him gently, trying to get him outside.

"No," he'd grunted back, but she'd given him a look - that look - and he'd conceded, dragging himself to Diagon Alley so that she could buy some shoes. An excuse, of course.

Clever Narcissa.

It was the first time he'd seen how the world had changed, how hate still existed; how it was only that the tide had turned and not that it had ebbed.

"We don't serve your kind here," the store associate had said, voice clipped.

"My kind?" Narcissa had asked, an eyebrow raised coolly. "The paying kind?"

"You know," the associate said back, eyes flicking to Draco. "His kind."

Narcissa had straightened angrily, her voice low and dangerous. "If you so much as look at my son that way again - "

"You'll what?" the associate interrupted pointedly, crossing his arms. "Torture me? Kill me?" His sour expression was rigid and cold. "Try, Mrs. Malfoy," he said testily. "Just try."

Draco hadn't needed to try another store to know that this was the way of the world now, that the avenues that had always been his without question were now hopelessly blocked. He'd seen the tiniest light in his mother's eyes flicker and extinguish, he'd caught the smallest percentage of bowing in her shoulders, and it had been enough to determine his path.

Though he could find little comfort now he was on it.

In the end, he'd chosen magical law to defend his mother - to defend himself, really, though it no longer affected him how he was treated. No, it was Narcissa he had in mind, the image of himself armed with the legal tools for righteousness, sharpening them against the store associate that day instead of feeling paralyzed, stunned silent at her side. He'd written McGonagall and demanded to sit for his N.E.W.T.s, insisted upon his good standing at the school, submitted scroll after scroll of requests until it was finally granted. McGonagall had been blocked by the school board at every turn, he knew, but it was his first lesson in the new era that was to become his life: fight hard enough and they cannot ignore you.

Second lesson, which he learned as McGonagall patted his shoulder upon leaving his exams: be grateful for those who forgive.

That was just the beginning, of course. If they hadn't wanted a former Death Eater sitting for exams, they had wanted even less to have the same former Death Eater walking the halls of their Ministry. It was a year of visits and owls, countless appeals that fell on deaf ears - disinterested ears, he should say, for he knew they could hear well enough - for even a glimmer of a chance.

It was only when the Ministry clearly became desperate for bodies that he was given even half a chance; he walked into the interview room to see nothing but glazed over eyes, dispassionate faces. There was to be a red stamp across his name before he even left the building, but something had murmured in his ear to stay.

It halted him in his tracks and he felt for the first time in years - that strange pull, that yank that told him unequivocally that if he left the Ministry now, he would live to regret it.

And so he'd hung around the Floo, pacing until he knew someone would have to walk by. Someone of importance would have to.

It turned out to be the Minister himself.

"Minister," Draco said quickly, sidling up to him on his way out of the building. "If you could just give me a chance - "

"I'm sorry, Mr. Malfoy," he rumbled in his deep voice, barely sparing a second glance. "You'll have to go through Wizard Resources - "

"Are you going to lunch, Minister?" Draco asked desperately, lingering before the Floo entrance.

"Yes," he acknowledged, polite even as he remained unflinching. "Which is why you must - "

"Are you confident they'll serve you, Minister?" Draco interjected loudly, and at his heightened volume, people began to stare.

He looked taken aback. "Of course, Mr. Malfoy," he said, brows knitted in confusion.

"How fortunate you are, then," Draco mused pointedly, "because they would slam the door in my face, sir, just like you're doing now." At that, Shacklebolt halted abruptly in his path, and Draco took advantage of his pause.

"You want people to believe that the Ministry is strong, that it is functional, that the war that was waged for hate is over," Draco intoned evenly. "And yet you champion a Ministry that perpetuates - no," he interrupted himself, "that provides ample means for the same unambiguous divide!"

Shacklebolt's shoulders went rigid, his grim expression slowly revealing itself as he turned. "What is it that you want, Mr. Malfoy?" he asked carefully, every inch of him ablaze with nerves for the benefit of the audience Draco had garnered.

Third lesson: no ego is safe from judgment, no conscience impervious to doubt.

"It's not what I want, Minister, it's what I deserve," Draco said plainly, gesturing to the propaganda that lined the walls.

JOIN THE MINISTRY - HELP US REBUILD!

"You need candidates for the Ministry," Draco said stiffly. "I completed my N.E.W.T.s with unanimous Outstandings and I outqualify nearly all those you've tried and failed to recruit. This isn't a favor," he added, narrowing his eyes. "I am owed a chance because that's the Ministry you said you'd build."

The papers were signed within hours.

"I'm proud of you," Astoria said, standing on tiptoe to brush her lips against his cheek. They'd cooled somewhat, focused as he'd been in his tireless attempt to earn a position his father would have only scoffed at.

She should have been enough. She could have been enough, in another time, perhaps, if he'd remained unswayed in his own nobility, unsullied by the lessons that he'd learned. He could have lived a life like his father, a king in his castle, if his mother had not needed shoes.

But it had never been quite right, had it?

"Astoria," he'd said, taking her hands. "We need to talk."

"This way, Miss Granger," Mafalda said cheerfully, leading her past a series of desks, all covered in mountains of paperwork. "You won't be out here in the bullpen, dear."

"Oh," Hermione said, feigning brightness as she tucked an errant curl behind her ear. "Do I actually get an office?"

"Of course!" Mafalda exclaimed, though her eagerness noticeably deflated. "Though, I hope you're not too offput - you'll have to share," she said apologetically. "Only for the time being - "

"Why only the time being?" Hermione interrupted, frowning. "Renovations or something?"

It seemed laughable that wizards might require such things, but no other explanation came to mind.

"Oh no," Mafalda said quickly, a slight scowl crossing her face. "It's just - we don't really expect him to last."

Hermione felt a rush of something that nearly swept her off her feet and she paused, gripping the corner of a nearby desk.

"Sorry," she managed, blinking through the haze. "Got a bit off-kilter for a moment - "

"Oh, it's fine, dear," Mafalda assured her, doubling back to join her. "Are you quite alright?"

"Um - " There was a vacant ringing in her ears. "Nothing serious, just - "

The sound began to sharpen.

This life or any other -

"Miss Granger?" Mafalda said nervously. "Are you perhaps - ill?"

"No, no - "

They had a love that was stronger than death -

"Just - just keep walking," Hermione managed, slowly releasing her grip on the desk and wobbling forward. "I'll - just have a seat, you know - when we get there - "

"Well, he's already made it in this morning," Mafalda said regretfully, wrinkling her nose slightly as she turned to continue her path. "Not the most pleasant of company, or so I've heard - "

Give them a happy ending -

"Who is he?" Hermione gulped, reaching for the handle of the open door to steady her.

She surely needn't have asked.

This life or any other -

"Granger," he said stiffly.

You won't be alone.

Draco had gotten there early, knowing if he were even a moment late it would surely be grounds for dismissal. Perhaps not immediately, but he'd learned not to trust in the goodwill of others.

Fourth lesson: goodwill only lasted so long.

He was jittery, anyway, unusually afflicted with nerves; it was only once he was inside the building that his head started to clear, his thoughts pulsing with the same calming cadence that had once been his pacifying guide, like revisiting a dream.

Vanilla. Gardenia. Rose.

That same pull, only not a pull. This time it rooted him to the spot as he walked in the room, facing the empty desks and shelves.

"Where should I - "

But the Ministry aid was gone before he looked over his shoulder. He sighed, beginning to carefully lay out the few things he'd cared to bring with him.

He'd never been the type to decorate, per se, and he had always been exceptionally neat. But there were some things he hated to be without, and he was a man who liked things a certain way. For practical purposes, of course, there were the law books - mountains of them, and scrolls. He arranged them sparsely on the shelves, alphabetized and coded, marred only by his meticulous annotations. Each scribbled marking was a reminder of a hard night, spent alone with his head bowed over it.

Room for one more thing. He slipped his leather-bound copy of King Arthur on the middle shelf, right at his eye level from where he sank into his chair.

It was comforting, somehow.

He heard voices approaching and felt a leap in his chest, wondering how she'd react. Oh, he had some guesses as to who she was, of course. Nobody would tell him - nobody had time for him - but he could certainly guess from the amount of whispers, and the obvious reverence by the staff. It was the same awestruck reaction that had once been the result of hearing the Malfoy name, but now could only be tied to one thing - to the war that had changed everything. And if it was a she, there was only one she it could be.

Hermione Granger.

He felt a stirring in his chest. Nerves? Perhaps.

And yet he was strangely consoled by the sound of her voice as she approached, his breath unexpectedly caught in his throat.

She appeared unsteadily in the doorway, partially reliant on the frame for support.

"Granger," he said, and the golden brown flash of her eyes was achingly familiar.

Vanilla. Gardenia. Rose.

"Malfoy," she replied tightly, though she seemed to be having trouble speaking.

Mafalda looked nervously at Granger, disregarding Draco's presence to the same extent he had come to expect.

"Do you need a chair, Miss Granger?" she squeaked, and in another time, Draco might have thought to mimic her. Do you need a chair, Miss Granger? A foot rub? A fucking endowment of sainthood?

To Granger's credit, she didn't seem to appreciate the fuss.

"I've got it," she muttered, waving the older witch away. "I'm fine."

Mafalda glanced nervously to Draco. "But - "

"He won't bite," Granger said irritably, her eyes flicking to him. "Will you?"

"Certainly not in the first week," he offered, and she glared at him.

"I'm fine," she informed Mafalda, thrusting her shoulders back and putting on a rather good show for his benefit. "Thank you."

Mafalda turned to leave, but Granger stopped her, calling over her shoulder. "You know," Granger said testily, "he should be treated the same as me. It's what we're here for, isn't it?" she added, and Draco was temporarily in awe of her as her expression carefully darkened. "To do some good in the world?"

Mafalda nodded feverishly but backed away without a word.

"I'm not your pity project, Granger," Draco said briskly, careful to handle her with skepticism the moment Mafalda had gone. "I don't need you to come to my defense."

"Oh shove it, Malfoy," she replied, crossing the room to lean shakily against the vacant desk. "It's not about you, anyway."

"Oh it's not?" he asked mockingly. "Some other coworker you have to share an office with, then?"

She rolled her eyes. "I didn't agree to work here just so that I could deal with the same blind prejudice we almost had to die for," she said angrily, and he felt a tiny leap at her use of the word we.

"That hero complex, then," he grunted. "Haven't changed at all."

She regarded him carefully for a moment, her delicate lips pursed in thought.

"You've changed quite a bit," she commented, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Able to tell that from the five minutes you've been in the same room with me?" he asked snidely, leaning back in his chair and resting his head against his hands. "Your magic truly knows no bounds."

She was focused intently on him, biting her lip in thought.

"I know what you had to do to get this job," she said seriously, and he stiffened.

"Don't believe everything you hear," he murmured, but she shook her head.

"Arthur was there," she informed him. "Saw you stick it to Kingsley."

She was grinning a little now, and he found it difficult to look away.

"You sound impressed," he commented drily.

"I am," she agreed, shrugging loftily. "Though I'm surprised you could tell," she added, "as I expect you've never heard that inflection before."

He felt it again.

The pull.

The achingly familiar.

"Hilarious," he wanted to say firmly, but it barely emerged as a whisper.

She seemed a certain degree of wobbly herself.

"Arthur, was it?" he asked loudly, shoving aside the dull thudding in his chest and straightening. "I would have expected you to be calling him Father by now."

Color rose in her cheeks and he found he reveled in it. "You know perfectly well that Ron and I aren't together anymore," she said tightly.

She was right; not that he'd give her the satisfaction. Somehow he knew he'd enjoy playing such a game.

He made a careless gesture. "Why would I concern myself with such things?" he asked, knowing full well the exact degree of the smirk that had traipsed across his lips.

"Don't play this game with me, Malfoy," she warned, though she seemed relieved at the break in tension. "You won't like it."

"What game?" he said innocently, leaning forward to rest his chin in his hands.

A sly smile spread across her face and tugged at something in his chest.

"This, of course, coming from the man who's so conveniently dating his best friend's sister-in-law," she told him pertly. "Give Nott my best, by the way," she added, somehow injecting snark into what would otherwise be little more than propriety. "I do so love an elopement scandal."

"Miss Granger, you gossip," Draco said airily. "I've no idea why you think such things would concern me. Except," he said, snapping his fingers as though he'd just remembered, "to distract me from the point."

"Which is?" she asked primly, perching atop the desk.

The pull again.

The achingly familiar.

"To draw me away from discussing you and Weasley," he drawled, shoving the feeling aside. "A valiant effort, Granger, but I'm rather persistent when I need to be."

"Now who's a gossip," she said crossly, making a face. "What are you, my gal pal?"

The phrase poked delicately at his brain.

"Not true love, then?" he asked, feigning solemnity. "A pity."

The look she gave him was positively withering.

"And you and little Astoria Greengrass are what, then?" she asked pointedly. "Soulmates?"

The word on her lips lingered in the air between them, everything suddenly coming to a halt. She appeared to have stopped breathing, and something in his chest throbbed too.

The words were out of his mouth before he even fully understood what they were.

"I don't particularly like to think of myself as half of a whole," he said, and the pull he'd always felt evolved to a collision.

He didn't know why he said that, as he'd never said it before. He didn't know where it came from, or how she knew to respond.

"You think this is just one of our lives?" she whispered, and by then everything had changed.

He only realized he was out of his chair when he felt himself catch her in his arms.

Vanilla. Gardenia. Rose.

He'd never known.

Until that moment.

The steady rush that had sighed away contentedly at the sound of his voice had violently returned, thudding in her ears as soon as she'd said the word.

Soulmates.

"I don't particularly like to think of myself as half of a whole."

The dream.

The flashes of silvery pale, the stormy grey -

Maybe it's not about whether your soul is complete on its own or not.

Maybe it just matters that a soulmate is someone who follows you in all your lives.

She recognized the words the moment she spoke them, though she was nearly positive she'd never heard them before.

"You think this is just one of our lives?"

This life or any other -

"Granger," he said, and the deafening roar was silenced as soon as he spoke in her ear, replaced instead by a singular, unified hum, like a violin that had finally managed to tune itself. His grip on her was gentle and demanding all at once, an impact that shook her to her core; it was the rejoicing of a lifetime's worth of stories, embedded in the places where they touched, more permanent than if they'd been branded.

They would look back on it later, even after all the years that passed, and still feel that odd shiver, that tingle of something they couldn't explain. But he always felt it in her arms, and she could always taste it on his lips, that hazy bit of nothing that had never made sense.

They never would learn to explain it, how what appeared to be little more than a few minutes and an innocuous jab changed everything and nothing at the same time, and how it led to what they built.

Happiness. Fulfillment.

Love.

They fell in love because they were always in love, of course. Something cyclical like that, which they would never learn to explain.

"It's magic," she would decide one day, because she could decide things that way, and he would let her. He would nod, his fingers laced tightly in hers.

"Mine," he'd say.

"Yours," she'd agree.

There could be no other explanation than that. No other way to express what she knew must have always been true. For a person who cherished logic, who found satisfaction in explanations, she was surprised to find that after a time it no longer bothered her what she would never be able to formulate in words.

She didn't need them. She had him.

After that day, she no longer had the dreams, either; she never had them again, though somehow, the pieces of her life assembled a waking dream. She would hear his voice, throaty from sleep, fitted perfectly next to her ear like the bow of his lips had been molded to rest there, and he would say the words like he'd said them a thousand times before - until, after a time, he had, and thousands more after that.

"This life or any other - "

"You won't be alone," she would tell him, always, arching her back against him and humming in consummate satisfaction.

They fell in love because they were always in love.

But they would never learn to explain it, and in the moment, when it happened - you think this is just one of our lives? - they could only manage to stare at each other.

Did you feel that? she imagined asking him, and for a moment she wondered if she had. Did you feel the earth shift?

His eyes gave her the answer. She heard his voice in her soul.

Yes.

FIN

a/n: dedicated, with all the love that I possess, to my best friend who shall remain nameless. And to Kyonomiko, who is quite literally having a baby right now! The best of fortunes to you and your little one.

[Edited on July 16th, 2016 to add: you can now find an epilogue to this story in my drabble series, Amortentia, as Chapter 10: Epilogue, and edited again on August 12th, 2016 to note that it is now available here as Chapter 38.]

I have a lot of gratitude to share but first, an introduction to my new WIP: Youth.

"Whatever this life brings us, my youth will have always been yours." Amidst the rise of an imminent threat, some people fall together as others fall apart. Love, power, Marauders, and everything in between. Year 7 with opening Snily and eventual Jily; one slow burn, one gutted flame, and one hell of a political upheaval. Prequel to "Clean" and "Marked."

It is now published, along with a preview available to you here as Chapter 39. It will be written in the same style as a Hogwarts Dramione and will feel very similar to Clean; it's a Head Boy/Head Girl shared common room trope + love triangle + Marauders shenanigans + background Voldemort comes to power. It will not have the same intensity of Marked and predates any manipulation of time, so if you enjoyed Clean, hopefully you will also enjoy Youth. It will feature a very Draco-esque James and a Theo-esque Sirius, while Severus and Remus will remain in character from this storyverse.

If you enjoyed Theo and Hermione as Masters of Death, stick with me, because I'll be working on some original stuff that you might like. Follow me on tumblr for more of that ilk and other original work - olivieblake dot tumblr dot com.

I only ask, as always, that if you enjoyed this fic, please consider recommending it to any blogs, groups, etc. that you follow. I have never been particularly good at self promotion, but it is always comforting to know my work is appreciated.

On to the gratitude -

Thank you to the four who reviewed every chapter: bentnotbroken1, Sora Loves Rain, Estrunk, and turbulenthandholding;

To the remaining most regular reviewers: UnicornShenanigans, cosmoswithchaos, elleaeterna, jperks, brigittar, susiequeen300, and ErisAceso;

And to my muses: MahoganyJinx, oblivionbaby, and DrSallySparrow.

Thank you to every single person who read this, and to all the friends I made along the way; my heart is so staggeringly full and I'm actually crying as I write this because I can't believe this journey is over. This was a very demanding story to tell, and I sincerely hope you are not disappointed.

Feel free to reach out to me if you have thoughts or questions; if you want to talk about Dramione or anything else, I am always here.

It has been an honor to put these words down for you, and I hope you have enjoyed the story.

Olivie Blake