Happy Birthday, Golfbabe87

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Draco gave her the necklace in sixth year, when he knew everything was going to go to hell but it hadn't yet. The tiny stone hung from a silver chain and, as he fussed with the clutch to get it hooked around her neck, he said, "The ruby's for your house colours, I figured you'd like that, but I couldn't resist a silver chain for mine."

She didn't take it off. He saw the red glinting from the neckline of her jumper when his aunt tortured her. He saw it resting at the base of her throat as she testified on his behalf at his hearing.

"Draco's not evil," Hermione said. "He was just trapped. If he hadn't refused to identify us we would have died. He did what he could."

"He could have done a lot more," one member of the Wizengamot opined.

Hermione shook her head. "Not everyone is brave the way Neville Longbottom is," she said. "That doesn't make him evil. That doesn't mean he should be locked away."

Draco watched her from where he sat, chained in a chair, feeling something whither in his chest. Neville Longbottom. He'd have expected it to be Weasley but he supposed Longbottom made sense. He was good, the kind of unalloyed good he himself would never be.

He thanked the Wizengamot, his tone dull, as the bonds released themselves from his wrists and he was told he was free to go.

Go where, he wondered. To sit at the Manor and stare at the spot where his aunt had tortured Granger? Or maybe he could examine where that damn snake had eaten his teacher. So many little nooks and crannies of horror he could contemplate.

Instead he found himself outside Hermione Granger's flat, his fingers splayed against the door. "Just to say goodbye," he told himself. "Just to thank her."

When she opened the door his eyes went automatically to her neck, to the thin silver chain he saw there. "I'm surprised Longbottom doesn't object to you wearing that." He heard the words come out of his mouth, heard how they were laced with spite and anger and a desire to lash out.

She took a step back. "Longbottom?" she asked, confusion evident. "Why would Neville care?"

"Isn't he the one who's so brave I just can't measure up?" Draco threw at her even as a voice in his head told him to stop. You haven't talked to her in over a year, that voice pleaded and scolded, and this is what you do?

"Neville's good," Hermione agreed, turning away from him to walk across her room and look out the window. Draco took that as permission to step inside and he let the door close behind him, let his vile, Death Eater self sully her flat.

"And I'm not," Draco said. "Not good enough."

She didn't respond to that, just leaned her head against the side of the window as though she were too tired to stand anymore. "You were never good, Draco," she said. "You were just mine."

"I was," he said.

"Neville's engaged to Hannah Abbott," Hermione said.

"Breaking your heart?" Draco asked in his cold drawl.

"No," she said softly. "Neville's so good, so uncomplicated in his bravery. He does the right thing, always. He has since we were eleven, never veering. Hannah's like that, like that simple purity. They're both like sunshine and flowers and… and I'm not."

Draco took a step toward her. "You've always been good," he said.

She shook her head. "Not really, not like them. I'll lie and I'll cheat and I'll steal. I'd kill. You know that about me. Harry… Harry managed to bring down a Dark wizard without ever getting blood on his hands. Ron is brave and clever and true and I… I'm just… I'm the one who does what has to be done."

"But I love that about you," Draco said. He was whispering now, reaching a hand out to the sagging body of the woman in front of him, her shape thrown into a silhouette by the brightness of the window she stood against. "You're so brave you don't… don't even shy away from… from anything."

"I can't bear their virtue," she said, her own voice so quiet he could barely hear her. "I can't bear their forgiveness for not being good enough. For not being pure enough. Not every day. Never every day." Her head sagged even further. "It's why we worked. You… you don't… you aren't good. Not so good you'd let yourself be the sacrifice. Not so good you'd –"

"Am I good enough for you?"

The words hung between them.

"Hermione," Draco said, "I've done, I've seen, things… I can't… I'll never be –"

"But I won't either," she choked out.

And then he closed the distance between them and she turned and he could see the water streaming down her face for a moment before she pressed her cheeks against his shirt, his dirty shirt. He hadn't even changed and was still wearing the shirt he'd had on in prison for weeks.

"You smell terrible," she said at last.

"You made me think you'd left me for Neville Longbottom," he replied, not letting her go.

"I still have the necklace on," she said, sniffling now. "You're an idiot."

"I want a shower," he said. Then, "I love you."

"They wouldn't let me visit you," she said. "Or send an owl, or anything. Said if I was going to testify I had to seem objective, that if people knew about us they wouldn't… my testimony would be discounted. I... I knew it would hurt you for me to seem so cold. I hoped you'd see the necklace, hoped you'd understand."

He just held on to her more tightly as she added one more sentence.

"I love you, too."