Chapter 1-Too Late.

Draco Malfoy was an embittered old man. He sat alone at his breakfast table, just as he had done every day for the past 70 years, and picked up 'The Daily Prophet'. He sipped his tea as was his habit as he browsed the pages but this morning something changed in his monotonous routine, this morning the Earth shifted on its axis. This morning 'The Prophet' announced the news that, had he been a younger man, would have seen him smash up the room in anger and distress. Draco did not have the strength for that now but he still hurled the paper across the room and screamed in anguish. She was dead!

With her death any lingering hope, no matter how small it might have been, of reconciliation was gone. He had waited too long. He was always too proud, too much of a coward he knew he should have acted sooner; he should have acted a long time ago. He should have taken the chance when he had it now it was too late.

Hindsight, how cruel it was to know that had you acted otherwise your life might have been very different. He wanted to go back; he wanted to take his chance, be less of a coward. Tell her he loved her. He wanted to change it all.

"Pinkie," he screamed in a ragged voice.

"Yes Sir," his loyal house elf answered as soon as he appeared.

Without preamble, life was too short for preamble at Draco's age, he demanded:

"The black dragon box"

The elf didn't move for a moment, a look of concern appearing on her wizened old face.

"Are you sure that is wise sir?" The elf enquired.

"What is this? Challenged by my own house elf?" Draco demanded a terrifying hint of steel still apparent in his voice. The house elf flinched.

"Yes Master," the house elf bowed.

"And don't call me Master," Draco growled.

"Yes Mr. Draco," the elf corrected herself before disappearing with a pop.

Draco knew deep down that he had become a miserable old git but he treated his house elves well because he knew without them he would be utterly, entirely alone.

The elf reappeared with the box a look of great anxiety on her face.

"The box sir."

The tiny elf placed the box on the crisp white linen of the breakfast table, its dark wood contrasting menacingly with the clean linen. He had resisted the temptation to open it many times; when Astoria died he almost broke he was so lonely. He had so wanted to see her again but he was fearful of the consequences. When Weasley died he almost opened it but by then he realised it was too late for them and whatever was contained within that box it could no longer matter. Broken hearted he had put it away once again.

Draco didn't believe you could die of grief or a broken heart but he wished he could; if it were possible, he thought wryly, he would have died young; the shards of his heart had long since been ground to dust. He should have simply faded away but he hadn't Draco clung stubbornly to life in the hope of another chance. It never came.

His only solace now were his grandchildren. The irony of course was that they had been her solace too, they were her grandchildren also yet they had not been enough to keep her from passing beyond the veil.

He looked at the box again what did he have to lose? He asked himself, "the greater good?" He scoffed out loud. That is what she would have said. She was always unfailingly good but what did he care for the greater good? He didn't care now who it hurt, besides who was left?

"I don't care," he told her spirit "I don't care, haven't I suffered enough for you? Don't I deserve some solace, some measure of your love?" He knew she couldn't hear him, he knew she had never known how he had suffered or that still, after all these years, he yearned to hear her voice, to see her again as she had once been before war and age had scarred her. Had he been a good man he might have had reasonable hope of seeing her again in the next life, but Draco was not a good man, he knew that when he was ferried across the river Stix it would be to spend eternity without her.

Draco would have given anything to go back and put it right. He wanted more than the moments they had had. He wanted it all, he wanted a lifetimes worth of her love. Sometimes he tried to console himself that they had loved more in a few moments than many had done in a lifetime, sometimes he almost convinced himself it was enough.

"I cannot move on without seeing you again," he spoke his thought aloud as if someone was listening, as if anyone cared but no one had cared for him in years. "I can't move on without you." He called out to her even though she was beyond hearing.

'How had it come to this?' He wondered. He didn't know but he knew she had taken their secret to the grave and he would honour her by doing the same. But he knew he should have been braver, they could have been together or died trying. He would have loved her more than that feckless husband of hers. She deserved better than that man had given her.

Draco sat staring at the box until he was stiff after hours, as the darkening shadows crept across the drawing floor, Draco made a decision. It was too late; whatever she had thought to tell him it couldn't matter now. The eleventh hour had passed nothing he could do now would change that. Leaving the box unopened its contents undisturbed Draco retired to his bed hoping that at last death would take him too.

He lay in his bed; Morpheus had deserted him all he could do was remember her. He recalled how many years earlier…

Many years early Draco Malfoy had fallen in love. He hadn't meant to, he didn't do it consciously. It sneaked up on him when he was unawares but from the start he had known it was a 'mistake'. Draco did not recall ever consciously acknowledging how beautiful she was, but he knew that she was beautiful and subconsciously he knew he desired her.

If he had been asked to pinpoint a time and a place when it had all begun he thought now that he could. His younger self, well he might not have noticed, but now after all these years Draco knew exactly the time and place. It had begun one spring day, the early spring sunlight slanting low through the windows, casting a glow upon Granger's face. He sat behind her in class and noticed, as the sun warmed her cheeks how beautifully clear and smooth her skin was. He had idly wondered if it was soft. It looked soft and he remembered a feeling of regret that he would never be allowed to touch her. She may look perfect, he had reminded himself sternly, but she was a 'mud-blood' and beneath his notice.

Yet as the term had gone on, he recalled, he couldn't help but notice her. He couldn't really pinpoint the moment he realised he loved her but other things lingered in his memory. He could still smell the scent of jasmine in her hair. He recollected clearly the day he had been pushed into her and how he couldn't help but breathe her in. 'How could she smell so delicious?' He had wondered, she was a 'mud-blood' she should smell fowl and dirty. It was that thought that had begun to slowly eroded everything that he thought he knew about the world and though he told himself 'no', though he told himself he would disgrace his family name he had not been able to stay away from her.

Draco turned on his side, his old and fragile bones protesting at his sudden movement. He had given up on sleep. He had once heard the Weaslette tell her idle brother; 'you can sleep when you're dead'. At this moment he felt she might have a point. Painfully he dragged himself up. Reaching for a walking stick, not unlike that once owned by his father, He laboured down the stairs.

Draco settled himself in a large wingback chair by the fire, caressing the dragon box as if it held the mystery of the world. With a fortifying swig of fire whiskey Draco's, knarled and age marked hands slid the lock free.

There was a single piece of parchment. It had been yellowed by age the seal still intact, he still recognised her elegant hand, he had always known who it was from even though at the time he had not acknowledged it. He broke the seal;

Dear Draco,

I know I shouldn't be writing this and I know that there is a strong possibility you will never read it. A large part of me thinks I am a fool to hope but I couldn't go through with this without offering you another chance; offering us both a final chance to be together.

I want you to know that I love you and that even now, at the thirteenth hour, when it seems beyond too late, if you were to stand up and claim me I would go with you. Even though I know my husband to be is a good man and he will always be good to me. I do not love him as I should. He is not the man I truly want. That will always, has always been you.

If you read this, if you want me still, if you find the courage come back for me before it is too late?

All my love, always,

Hermione.

Before he reached the last line his vision was blurred with tears. He had always assumed that she had written on her wedding day to tell him to forget her. That it was over, he couldn't bear that so he hadn't opened it. He had been so wrong; he could never have imagined this, that even at the final moment, at the 13th hour as she had called it, she had been prepared to throw it all away for him. He could imagine the scandal they would have caused; it almost brought a smirk to his lips. She would have stuck a finger up at the world to be with him but of course, he thought soberly, that was why he had left her. It wasn't cowardice, it wasn't her heritage, it was simple that he had wanted to protect her from the prejudice and denunciation of the world.

Author's note

Just in case you were wondering in the title-the thirteenth hour relates to the idea of time that shouldn't exist. That is impossible (obviously on a standard clock face!)

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