Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter

"You're wrong on both counts."

At first, Draco wasn't sure he had heard her right.

The Occlumency walls he had forced up in advance of this conversation started to crack. They were up to protect what shell of a heart he had left now that Hermione was here to end things. He could already hear the reasons.

"It's too complicated…"``

"With Seamus…"

"After everything, I can't trust you…"

All completely valid. But not the reason his walls were acting as a fortress against her words. Against reality.

"I'm not in love with you."

He knew it would destroy him. Whether or not it was the circumstances, the Other bond, or the mere fact that against every expectation, every roadblock, and almost the universe itself, he had fallen in love with her.

And to have her shatter any illusion of reciprocity…

Draco Malfoy was not a man who cared about much. He was not a man who had known much love in his life. And never love like this. Love that is all encompassing, that reframes the centre of your being, that builds and destroys cities in one go.

He would set the entire world on fire if this woman needed light.

And here she was, leaving him in the ashes.

He could handle it, he would survive, he whispered to himself, bracing for the impact; the moment he would shatter.

"Came to break a man's heart, Granger?"

And then her words echoed in his brain once more.

"You're wrong on both counts."

Yes, her name was no longer Granger. It was Le Fay, or Nott, or who even gave a flying fuck anymore…

Count one.

"Came to break a man's heart…"

Count two.

And suddenly he was standing, firewhiskey spilling across the table as his glass went flying across the table.

"Hermione," he whispered, her name on his lips like a prayer.

"Wait," she said, raising a hand to stop him. He didn't know if it was magic, or just her, but he sat back down.

Your wish is my command.

"I think… I think we should talk about this," she whispered. She sat in a chair directly across from him and glanced up. Her green eyes danced across his face. He saw so many emotions in them. Hesitation, concern, desire, and something deeper, something burning.

He could read her like an open book.

His little bookworm.

"We can do whatever you want," he responded instantly, desperation saturating his voice.

Merlin, when had he started sounding like such a pansy?

The answer was obvious to him, sitting across the table, and at one point in his life he would have been ashamed of such blatant displays of emotion.

But not anymore. Not today.

Not in front of her.

"I think…" she started before hesitating. She glanced down at her lap. "Gods, this is difficult."

"It doesn't have to be," Draco prompted.

"But it is, and that's the problem," she said, looking back up at him, her eyes open and vulnerable. "It's always going to be difficult with us. It's never simple. There's never an easy answer."

"Hermione," he said, trying to hold his body in the chair, resisting the urge to run over to her. "Life… life isn't supposed to have an easy answer. That's not the point."

"Then what is the point, Draco?" she asked, her mouth around his name sending shockwaves through his body. "Is the point to suffer? Is the point to be stuck in these never-ending cycles of pain? To never know where anyone stands? To wonder if we could lose the next person tomorrow?"

"Of course not," he said, ignoring the fear permeating her voice. Keeping his voice as steady as possible, he took a deep breath. "Life is not pain, or suffering. It's not supposed to be at least."

"Then what is life supposed to be," she whispered. "Because this life we are living can't be described any other way."

"But it could be," Draco said. "Hermione… gods, fuck…" he started stammering, his mind losing control of his mouth. What could he even say in this moment? What was he trying to convince her of? A future happiness? He couldn't promise that. He couldn't even promise tomorrow.

"I'm not saying our lives are going to be simple from here on out," he said, looking down at the wood of the table. He couldn't meet her eyes right now. They saw right through him.

They had since he had arrived at Grimmauld Place, what felt like years ago.

"I'm saying," he hesitated, his eyes tracing a cut in the wood. "I'm saying that it could be. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But down the line. In whatever comes after. It could be simple there."

"Down the line?" she asked, skepticism permeating her features. "Draco, I don't even know if we'll last a month."

"This war will end," Draco said, a certainty he didn't know he had erupting from his chest. "And we're going to win."

"We?" she asked, cocking an eyebrow. "You're including yourself as a part of the Order, now?"

Draco shook his head. "As if they would take me."

"Then what do you mean?"

"I'm including myself with you."

He couldn't quite recognize the emotion that flashed across her face, but it looked to him like gratitude.

"I don't know how to do this," she whispered. Her voice was small, miniscule, imperceptible. But of course, he heard her. He would always hear her.

"That's the thing, Hermione," he said, leaning forward, trying to close the gap between them by even a millimetre. "You don't need to know. You don't need to have all the answers."

"But it's so complicated," she replied, fear stark on her face now.

"Of course, it is," Draco said, trying to ignore his pounding heart. He clasped his hands together. "We have somehow inherited the burden of two millennium. If you thought this was going to be simple right now, then I want whatever you're drinking."

He saw the ghost of a smile play at her lips. "I've inherited this burden from two thousand years ago. Not you."

"I'm your Other," he said without hesitation. Somehow, he expected the declaration to cause a lightning bolt, or an earthquake, or some other massive disruption. As if recognizing the inevitable would do such a thing.

But Hermione only blinked at him.

"How are you so sure?" she asked, her voice steady, her eyes trained on him. Whatever hesitation she had before seemed to be gone. His weak attempt at Occlumency had shattered.

"I'm sure because the way I feel when I look at you goes beyond mortal comprehension," he said, meeting her gaze dead on. "It's as if the world has stopped spinning and I was fucking thrown to the ground at your feet. This could only be an ancient magic."

"Do you think that's all this is?" Hermione asked, a slight crease appearing between her eyebrows. "The Other bond?"

"Not even a bloody bit," he replied, ferocity permeating his voice. She flinched. "I think that the Other bond is real, at this point I'd be fascinated by another explanation. But magic can only explain so much."

He felt the freefall now, past the point of no return. The adrenaline of the fall, the ecstasy of possibility. The fear of what lay beyond.

But he had been long gone for a while now.

"Magic can't explain how you're so bloody moral it's infuriating," Draco breathed. "Magic can't explain how somehow you're so brave that it makes me want to lock you up so you won't hurt yourself. Magic can't explain the little moments, when you smile and it's like being blinded by the sun. How you make a joke and it's somehow the stupidest and funniest thing I've ever heard."

There was no chance to turn back now.

Not that he ever would.

Not when he was looking at her.

"Magic can't explain how far I've fallen in love with you," he said, resolute. Determined. Certain beyond any measure of a doubt. "Only you can explain that, by being everything that you are."

His admission hit the air at lightspeed, shattering his vision into a thousand pieces at the mere relief of telling her.

He watched her hear him in real time. Her jaw slackened, her pink lips popped opened, and her green eyes widened, shining at him with an openness he had never seen before.

"You… you love me?" she asked.

He didn't know if she screamed or whispered. He didn't know if the sky had fallen, or the floor had broken open and swallowed them up whole.

He only knew that she was still here.

"I do," he confirmed, nodding, his Apple's Adam bobbing. "Gods, Hermione. After everything, how could I not?"

"I…" she started before her voice fell away. Her eyes were trained on him.

"You don't need to say anything right now," he said, swallowing any fear, or reservation. He was acting on instinct alone.

That's what Hermione had become to him. Instinct.

"No, no, no," she answered, shaking her head vociferously. "It's not that. I'm… I'm trying to find the words."

Draco didn't know what that meant, but every second that passed, he felt like his heart would give out before he got the chance to learn.

"Draco," she murmured, leaning forward towards him. Another millimetre. "When I said that this was complicated, I didn't mean that I didn't want it."

If the Dark Lord himself had appeared in the kitchen of number 12 Grimmauld Place at that exact moment, Draco knew he wouldn't have noticed.

The only thing he noticed was Hermione's lips, as they curved around the most beautiful words he had ever heard.

"Draco, of course, I love you."

It was as if a symphony had started playing, in a darkened amphitheater. He couldn't notice anything else besides the music.

The music she was playing just for him.

Hermione chuckled, and Draco watched a few stray tears run down her cheek. "Of course, I fought it. I fought it more than I've fought anything in my life. I tried to convince myself that it was just the Bond, just the mark, and that I was wrong for loving you, the traitor. The Death Eater. The Murderer."

"Hermione," Draco whispered, a pang in his chest. "You aren't wrong."

"No, I'm not," she answered. Her eyes met his once again. "And that's the thing. Neither are you."

"You are complicated, Draco Malfoy. You were a boy with no choices, and then a man who made all the wrong ones. Then, when it came down to it, you chose me. Over your family, your upbringing, your entire ideology. Over this system of standards and ideals…"

"An ideology is nothing more than what you believe in," Draco said, his grey eyes burning into hers.

She pursed her lips. "A simple definition, I grant you."

Draco smiled.

"And the only thing I believe in now is you."

He watched her gasp at his words.

Draco leaned back in the chair. "I've never thought that the world was black and white. I think it's because I lived in the grey for so long, knowing I didn't belong in the dark, and not deserving of the light."

"I'm the exact opposite," she said, smiling. "I always thought that the world was black and white. That there was evil and there was good, and there was a sharp line between them. But I know that's not true anymore. There's so much more going on beneath the surface."

Her eyes met his, and the words that followed reached out to his soul, wherever it lay.

"I guess that's what happens when you fall in love with the grey."

Draco didn't know when his feet moved, or for that matter, when hers did. They met each other in the middle then.

The middle of what? Of the Grimmauld Place kitchen, of sides of a war, of ideologies, of perceptions of morality.

But they were together there.

He reached up and held her cheek in the palm of his hand, stroking her face lightly with his thumb. She closed her eyes and leaned in.

"Hermione Le Fay," he whispered. "Who would have thought?"

She opened her eyes to look at him, staring down at her with an intensity she had never seen. Not in their nights together, not in the almost decade she had known this man.

Only now, when she knew he loved her.

The feeling she had felt when he had told her could not be summarized easily. Was it relief? Was it happiness?

Something more complicated. As they would always be.

She reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling his body flush against hers.

"I love you," she whispered, her breath dancing across his skin.

"Say it again," he muttered, taking her body in his hands.

"I love you," she whispered, eyes darting up to meet his.

But he was looking at her lips.

"Again," he murmured.

She didn't even have the chance to get the phrase out before he was kissing her.

What was it like to hold the universe in your hands? Hermione didn't know. But at this exact moment, with Draco, her Other, her lover, the two of them wrapped around each other, she felt like she might have a clue.

Their lips moved slowly, tantalizing slowly, as if every second was precious. As if every second was one they would never have again.

His hands were tracing patterns into her back. He was etched into her now.

Though she had already known that.

Pulling back for a moment, she looked up at his hooded eyes. "I… I don't know what comes next."

He smirked that trademark smirk that had infuriated her in a past timeline. In a past life.

"I can think of at least one thing."

Smiling against her lips, he pulled her up to meet him again.

However, before she could fall forward into him, a crash from above broke them apart.

Pulling back, she looked up frantically. She could hear banging, running boots, shouting. Nothing was decipherable.

Draco looked down at her, confusion evident on his face. "What on earth…"

Suddenly, the kitchen door slammed open.

Not letting go of her, Draco turned to their visitor.

"Blaise, what the fuck is going on?"

The other Slytherin was panting, holding the doorframe for support. If he was surprised to see the two of them entangled in each other's arms, he didn't show it.

"There's been an attack," Blaise spluttered out. "We… we're mobilizing for a retrieval."

Hermione felt her heart drop out of her chest.

"Where was the attack?" Draco demanded, clutching at her tighter, as if she let go, she would fade from view.

"Scotland," Blaise replied, his eyes on Draco's.

Hermione's eyebrows reached her hairline. "Scotland? We don't have any Order bases in Scotland… just safe houses. Did they hit a safe house?"

Blaise shook his head.

Her heart dropped further. "Hogwarts?"

The other Slytherin shook his head again.

"Then what did they hit?" Hermione demanded, looking between the two men. The childhood friends were staring directly at each other, as if she weren't even there. She watched understanding pass between them.

"Draco? Blaise?" she asked, desperation in her voice.

Blaise pursed his lips, and Draco sighed.

And in tandem, they answered.

"Theo."

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