Draco had to hand it to Hermione. She knew how to slap a bloke in to next week when she needed to. That didn't mean he was going to lie down and take it though.

When she pulled her arm back for another slap, he grabbed her hand and used her shock to pull her into an alcove at Hogwarts, pinning both of her hands above her head.

"My clothes have enough dirt on them with out your filthy -" she swung a leg at him in an attempt to get him off of her, but it hardly did any damage as it had not occurred to her that she should arm for his shins instead. "Hands on me!"

"Cute insult. Wonder who you got that one from."

"Let go!" When he didn't, she took a large gulp of air in, ready to scream her throat raw for help, but he quickly pinned her small wrists in one hand and put his other hand over her mouth.

"Not until you listen to what I have to say! I'm trying to apologize, dammit." She stopped trying to yell for help then. She was staring at him now in a similar manner that they had all of sixth year in secret: with passion.

Except it was a different type of passion. People had the habit of forgetting that passion was like a coin; one side held the deep, carnal, pleasures that everyone sought out, while the other held loathing, vehemence, and things that fueled wars.

Their sixth year was filled with love, but their eighth year was currently filled with hate. Draco sought to fix that.

Draco was caught in her scent and he hoped that she was caught in his, too. This was the closest they had been in so long. He thought that being back at Hogwarts with her would quell his longing for her, but it only intensified it. Seeing her everyday eased his nerves in knowing she was safe, but the fact that she wanted nothing more to do with him, drove him barmy.

They had been in love, hadn't they?

"Hermione," He was pleading now, and had to close his eyes to keep the last bit of emotional strength he had gathered. "You need to know that everything I did, I did for you."

She roared against his hand at that and he closed his eyes. Shadows of nightmares lived behind his eyelids though and he quickly reopened them. She started to shake her head back and forth as she kicked a leg and he was reminded of her on the floor of the manor at Easter. Panic felt like a cold flash on his hot skin and he jumped back, but not before disarming her.

"Give me back my wand!"

"Not until you hear what I have to say!" A distant voice in Draco's head hissed at the fact he let his voice sound like that in front of anyone, but he didn't care. He felt he had waited and put up with her distancing herself from him long enough. He knew how he looked playing as Voldemort's pawn and keeping it from her their entire relationship, but he wanted to fight for her – for them. "Can we please just talk about what had happened? Just once and I'll - I'll return your wand." But I won't stop chasing you if you refuse to believe me.

Draco knew Hermione well enough he was making some headway into opening up a dialogue between them. She crossed her arms and slid her weight on to one leg. It was a step down from her attacking him. "What is there to talk about? You lied to me the entire time I -" Hermione stopped, her mouth still open as she took in a haggard breath. "I forgave you and you just used me while you worked on that bloody cabinet to let Death Eaters into Hogwarts! You watched me get tortured by your aunt -"

"She would have murdered you if I said I knew you! Just like she would have if I tried to intervene. Am I supposed to just let everyone I love die? Because she wouldn't have stopped with you."

Hermione blinked several times. He never said he loved her before. They stared at each other in silence, their heartbeats being the only thing filling their ears, until she shook her head. "You're just trying to get in my head again, give me my wand." She was no longer yelling at him now as she held her hand out for her wand. "You're full of shit then and you're full of shit now, Draco. I thought you changed."

Draco. He was worried he would never hear his given name come from her lips again. She made it a point to call him Malfoy all year, throwing the surname in his face like it was a wicked malediction. "No." He took a step back and put both his new wand and her wand behind him. He was still getting used to the new wand, but he easily felt it become a part of him like his last wand – with good reason to if the core was any indication. "I'm not full of shit. I did what I needed to make sure my family and you survive. I didn't want anyone to – to die," he forced himself to say the word as he thought of Dumbledore, even though it made him wince. "And that is my fault. I would never try to get out of taking responsibility for that, but you have to believe me when I said I did everything I could." Draco swallowed. "I kept you in the dark sixth year because the Dark – Voldemort – was a gifted legilimens. If he saw I divulged any of his plans to you, he would have made you a priority." Draco's pale eyes fell on her and he could see her turning the information over in her head. "I did what I could during the summer and winter to hold off the Death Eaters. There were so many times we had to hunt you – and with Greyblack, we were so close to discovering your campsites – but I always lead them on another trail. Then you ended up at the manor -"

"And you lied to everyone." Hermione's eyes fell on to the ground. He wanted nothing more to pull her in, to comfort her and let them both cry over the war, but he was more than aware of how fragile her willingness to listen to him was right now. "Is that all? You just wanted to keep me alive so I could help Harry defeat him?"

His eyebrows came together, unsure of what she was asking until it clicked. "Everything between us was real. It's you - it's always been you." Draco watched as she ran a shaky hand over her hair, a habit she started in second year when is bullying had been the worst. "Do you remember finding the information on the Basilisk? Second Year?"

"Yes?" Her voice was hesitant, but much less hostile than it had been over ten minutes ago when they were having a screaming match in the deserted corridor.

"It was in a book you had fell asleep on, one about Sphinxes. It was obviously torn out of another book and -"

"And slipped into the pages." Hermione pressed a hand to her face, putting together what Draco was saying. He was the one who gave the information on the Basilisk. She would have never found it otherwise.

"Maybe sometimes people don't actually change. Maybe you just never knew who they really were. There was a lot of things I could never tell you, but that didn't mean that I didn't want to." Draco stepped forward and pressed her wand into her free hand, but didn't let go as her fingers curled around it. He held her fist over his heart. "And I could tell you now, if you'd let me." Her eyes were watering and a tear slipped out, he dared to wipe it away. "Please let me, Hermione. I love you."

In that moment, Hermione abandoned all inhibitions and pulled Draco down by the back of his neck, pulling him into a kiss she had ached for since she made the decision to hunt for fragmented souls of a mad man, while trying to forget Draco ever had one. When she let him go so they could breathe, she gave him her answer: "I love you, too."