CHAPTER 34

October 15th 2001

Draco Malfoy landed in the ministry office of Harry Potter with a resounding crack. His knees buckled underneath him as he stumbled to catch himself on the desk of his former arch nemesis.

Potter caught the blond by the arm just before he fell too harshly. His chest tightened with every breath he took, suppressing the overwhelming ache that burned at his insides.

Embarrassed by the state of himself, Draco shrugged Potter off with a grunt. Ashamed that he had torn his own heart apart for the sake of someone he loved, in front of the two people he loathed most in this world. Yet, Potter understood his lack of need for help, choosing to walk away with honour to his overly stacked work table.

Upon the over cluttered desk, one particular photograph of Hermione stood out amongst the others. It was the night of her and Weasley's engagement party, in which someone captured a photo of the golden trio smiling with one another. She looked so perfectly happy in that white gown, untainted from the wand of a man out to kill her. So tragically beautiful.

"You know Hermione isn't going to just sit in that cottage until this is all over, right?" Potter crossed his arms, attempting to warn him of the inevitable explosion coming his way.

"If Weasley knows what's good for him. He'll make her stay." Draco drew his eyes away from the photo of the witch, missing the way she felt against his chest last night.

"Look, Malfoy, if I know-"

"I do not want to hear it, Potter." He growled through clenched teeth, slumping into the chair across from the desk.

"If you something happened between-"

"I said, I don't want to hear it!" Draco slammed his fist on the table, forcing the picture frames to fall on their faces. Glass shattering from the impact.

The auror furrowed his brow in concern but respected the request to drop the subject. He pressed his glasses closer to the bridge of nose, and cleared his throat before lifting each photo back to their original position.

Draco ran his hand through his hair while bouncing his knee up and down, trying to find anything in the room to distract his mind from seeing the image of Hermione's heartbroken face over and over again.

He had broken her trust. Leaving her there in the mess of their affair.

But Draco knew that he would never be able to give her what she needed. His family would never be able to accept her. The best he could do was offer her a world where one less pureblood leader slandered her name for what she rightfully deserved.

Draco had gotten almost everything he had ever wanted in his life. Hermione did not deserve to be led into misery just for him to be selfish one more time.

Potter leant across his desk, hands clasped together as he watched Draco fidget. "Why don't you tell me what you found with Crawford before he and Lucius escaped."

"There wasn't much in-tell to walk away with before he started throwing curses. All we know is that Lucius has been paying him for a fair amount of time, most likely to send men in order to harm either Hermione or myself."

"And your father? He was with Crawford in Rochester?"

"Yes." Draco seethed, "With no wand."

Potter leant back against his chair as he analysed all the gathered know-how in his mind. Draco hoped that the scar head would be able to figure out how to find his father a lot quicker than the times it took him to defeat Voldemort. Hermione didn't have a whole fucking school year.

"The Auror teams did a search of the Malfoy Manor last week." Potter informed him with a hesitant tone. "Your mother now knows your father is still alive."

Draco's eyes widened, despising the idea of how his mother would have reacted to the news. He settled on not asking to avoid the knowledge.

"Does she know where I was?" He diverted the topic.

"No." Potter sighed. "Narcissa is aware that you are trying to find your father, but are staying low in order to do so. She believes that Lucius was attacked and forced into hiding. No information about Hermione has been released to her either."

Relief washed over him like a flood. The less his mother knew about the muggle-born witch that had consumed him, the better. Her withered old heart would not be able to handle so much betrayal in one day.

"What did you find within the Manor?"

"Not much different from what you described earlier. Just a bunch of hidden passages leading to chambers. It seems like Lucius has been planning this whole thing for a while, and learnt to cover up his tracks."

"So you've heard nothing? Nothing on Crawford? Or Lucius? From anyone?" Draco's patience was starting to wear thin, and Potter could sense it.

"Not anything solid, Malfoy. We're doing the best we can."

"You're not doing enough!"

Draco launched himself out of his chair and found himself pacing the room back and forth. His breath was hitched in his throat, as a wave of panic started to drown him. The image of Hermione's broken face started replaying in his mind once more.

In order to erase those chocolate truffle eyes from his memory, he threw his fist at the dark office wall. Tile splitting at his knuckle, piercing the skin between each finger.

He slowly retreated his hand from the wall, watching the blood trickle down his hand and seeping into the material of the sweater he wore. Red blending in at the collar of green. A horrifyingly accurate picture of how the warm Gyffindor witch had infected his cold Slytherin heart.

"I'm sorry…" Draco exhaled, keeping his face turned from the man behind him.

"Malfoy." Potter sighed, "We'll figure this out. You and Hermione will be fine."

"You can't fucking promise that."

"I'm not promising anything, I'm just telling you what you need to hear. You can't let your Dad win this time."

Draco bent his head back to look at his reflection on the tiled ceiling. He looked so much like his father, engrossed with rage like this. It was everything he had worked so hard to avoid, and yet here he was, stepping into his heritage like it was destined.

"Stay here." Potter said, standing from his seat to walk to the door. "I'm gonna go get someone who might make you feel better."

Draco frowned as he watched him exit, unsure of anyone that could take the edge of this day.

A few moments passed after he had cleaned his hand of blood, leaning against a filing cabinet, Potter walked in with a red lipped witch not too far behind his entrance.

"Astoria…" Draco half gasped, pushing his shoulder off the cabinet.

"Hello, Mr Malfoy." The younger Greengrass gave a shy smile, uncertain of how she was supposed to behave in front of the auror.

Potter noticed the tension within the room, and excused himself in order to let them catch up. Most likely chuffed with himself for thinking this was the woman that Draco pinned for.

"How are you?" He asked with his hands in his pockets.

"I think the better question is, how are you?" She smirked, crossing her arms and sauntering over to meet him by the desk.

Draco rolled his eyes, "Never better."

"Where is Miss Granger?"

"She is laying low for the time being."

"And your father?"

"He is… yet to be found."

Astoria took a deep breath through her nose, giving the impression she was pissed with his lack of communication. "I could help you, you know? I am more than just a receptionist that you sleep with to forget about the girl you really love."

"And how would you do that? I doubt the whispers between department heads have anything to do with my father."

"You clearly underestimate the power that Lucius still has within the wizarding world."

Draco lifted his chin, "How so?"

"Word has gotten out about the investigation trying to find Lucius. A lot of people are scared now that he's not under ministry control. There have been rumours of him galavanting all through Europe, especially in Italy."

"Italy? How would he reach Italy without every ministry official on his tail."

"Funny what one can do with thousands of galleons."

The wizard crossed his arms against his chest and began to think of what his father would want within Italy. They owned housing all across the country, but Rome seemed like too easy of an answer for him to hide in. Aurors would be scattered in every house under the Malfoy name, so it had to be Crawford.

"None of this makes sense." He shook his head, completely frustrated with how easily his father could disappear. "If he could slip out of the country without anyone noticing, why didn't he do it when he was on house arrest for all these years?"

"Whose to say he didn't?"

Draco snapped his eyes to meet Astoria's. They spoke something that he couldn't quite understand. A secret hidden behind darkness.

"Tell me," He tilted his head, "How is the state of your career since our last date? Any promotions in sight?"

"I have yet to hear of anything, but Kingsley has officially invited me to sit in on the department head meetings." She curled her long nails around his cheek. "It has been awfully lonesome without you here. Perhaps, we could arrange something to help us both out."

"And what would I need help for?"

Astoria traced her thumb over Draco's lip. Exactly how Hermione did last night. "Something tells me that being on the run with Miss Granger has shattered your soul. I believe I can assist in mending it back together."

Draco hated her touch on his mouth. It felt forgeign, and wrong for all the reasons it should have felt right.

"Let's just find my father first." He drew her hand away from his face by the wrist. "And then we can talk about filling voids."

Just as Astoria opened her mouth to reply, a knock on the office door interrupted her proposal.

"You should get back to work." Draco cleared his throat, watching as a sheepish Potter entered the room once more.

Astoria gave a sweet smile to both wizards before standing on her tiptoes to leave a faint kiss on his cheek, matched with a reassuring squeeze of his hand.

With the click of a closing door, Potter pushed his glasses up to the bridge of his nose once.

"So, where do you want to start?"

"Italy."

Hermione Granger sat on the front step of her grandmother's cottage with her knees tucked into her chest. She hadn't been able to compel herself to go back inside to face her fiancé. Instead her eyes remained staring at the gravel marks left from where Draco had abandoned her.

As the sun began falling across the field where the farm animals privately chewed on their dinner, the all too familiar heavy footsteps of the red-headed wizard approached the lonesome witch from behind. He took a seat next to her on the step, spreading his long legs out with a slight fumble.

Minutes were filled with silence before one broke the tension first.

"Why didn't you tell me you were hit?" Ron hissed with a tinge of aggression on his tongue.

Hermione broke her focus on the ground, and turned to look at him with a frown. "Why didn't you write to me? Harry did."

"What did you expect me to say? You were in hiding with another man. Do you know how embarrassing that was for me?"

"Do you know how embarrassing it was for me that someone is trying to kill me and you didn't even care to see if I was still alive? That for the past year my coworker has been there for me more than my own fiance?"

"Malfoy's family are the ones that's tryna bloody kill you!" His voice was harsh, slapping her across the cheek with the truth of what he spoke. "Is he really that worth it that you'll just die to be his friend?"

"This isn't about me!" She tried to hold herself back from screaming. "This about the snarky boy who was brainwashed by his parents, finally getting to stand on his own two feet. Can't you see that? He should get a chance at living a life outside of his pureblood slavery. That is what I am willing to die for."

Ron stared at her like she was an open book and he struggled to read the words. "You don't have to save everyone, you know. Sometimes people don't deserve it."

"How can you say that? After everything that we fought for, how can you say that?"

He pinched the bridge of his nose and clenched his eyes shut letting out a frustrated groan.

"I dunno, 'Mione. I guess it's just because it's bloody Malfoy innit? This bloke has done nothing but annoy me my entire life."

"Annoyance is not an excuse for letting someone suffer."

"He has feelings for you, you know that right?"

As much as Hermione loved to hear those words, she knew it wasn't right to do so. "How do you know that?"

"I see the way he looks at you. He would'na left you here with me if he didn't."

She hated that everything he spoke was true. That Draco had left her here because he needed to find his father on his own, without the risk of seeing her hurt again. But if she had feelings for him, did that mean she had to stay?

Hermione leant her head against her fiance's shoulder, and looked past the stolen car that drove her here and out onto the farms ahead. Everything was so much simpler the night her and Draco ran away. They were running for their lives, and yet it was so much easier than the heartbreak she was sitting in now.

With her fiance's arm wrapped around her waist, images of the last night came flashbacking back to the witch.

His tongue, on her neck.

Her hands, in his hair.

Their tongues, meeting in the middle.

His saddened eyes, in the dark.

Her heart, broken in the bedsheets.

It was just as the sun was meeting the horizon that Ron revealed an affair.

"I slept with someone."

Hermione slowly pulled her head up off his shoulder, turning to face the apologetic face across from her. Words ringing in her ears.

'What?" She gasped, unsure if she heard him properly.

Ron audibly gulped. Scared to have to say it again. "I slept with someone."

"When?" She whispered, clinging onto the hope that he would say something to soften the blow.

"The-uh-the night you ran away."

It didn't.

Her stomach twisted at the image of Ron making love to someone who wasn't her. That she had sabotaged their relationship so much, she drove the only man to ever love her to become something he wasn't.

"I was just so humiliated 'Mione. We had been fighting for so long, and the whole bloody kids thing. I just felt like everything I'd dreamt of when we were fighting in the war was slipping outta my hands. There I was drinkin' in a pub while my fiancé was running off with Draco Malfoy for fucks sake."

"So you chose to sleep with a stranger in order to feel better?"

"We'll, it-it wasn' really a stranger." He cleared his throat, almost hesitant to reveal what he was about to say. Hermione looked over at the sun setting over the English hillside, wishing she could turn back time.

"It was one of the girls from my team. I guess we'd grown closer at practice, and she was there when all this was blowing to shit. I'm sorry, I really am 'Mione."

His words felt like a sharply edged sword, impaling her chest.

Ron turned in his seat, using his hand to gently encourage her jaw to look back in his direction. Hermione swallowed the lump in her throat, afraid to look him in the eye.

He dropped his hand from her face to gather her hands together, "I saw the bed inside the cottage, you know? Only one of them wasn't made. Di-did something happen between you and Malfoy?"

Hermione snapped her gaze up to meet his. She could see the flashes of jealousy and relief swimming within him. They were both so hurt by one another but afraid of pulling the plug for good.

"We haven't slept together."

"But you wanted to?"

Flicking between the features of his face, Hermione tried to find the answer he wanted her to say. It was like he was begging her to tear them apart.

"Yes."

Ron sucked in a quick breath, but kept his lips tight. There was something hidden behind his mouth that he refused to say out loud. Sick of pretending this wasn't the end, the witch was kind enough to be cruel.

Her lips quivered at the words escaping. "We're not in love anymore, are we?"

He let out a singular sob, hanging his head low with shame in the reality that she had finally painted for them.

"Where did we go so wrong?" Ron cried, pulling his legs to his chest and crouching his head into his arms.

Slowly, Hermione laid her cheek against the flat of his back. "I think we fell in love when our life was built on winning a war."

"Is that all we are? A trophy for a bloody war?"

"No, Ronald." She rubbed small circles on his back, a calming motion for them both. "We loved another when everything felt like it was meant to be. Like it was all sewn together, and just worked because it was supposed to. And I think somewhere between then and now, we grew up… and grew apart."

Ron pulled himself up, and wiped his face clean of tears. "'Mione, I love you."

"And I love you. I'll always love you."

"But... we're not getting married are we?"

With soft tears running down her cheeks and lip between her teeth, Hermione shook her head.

"I really wanted it to be you." He wiped a tear from her cheek. "So badly. Until I knew you didn't want it to be me."

Wrapping her arms around his neck, Hermione nuzzled her face into the familiar nook of Ron's neck for what felt like the last time. He echoed her gesture, pulling her to his chest as close as he could.

The two cried into each other's arms until the sun became a moon and until the lovers became friends.