The seaside village tucked near the shore was quite adorable. Everytime Hermione walked the streets, she vowed she'd come back more often. Between the pastel-coloured awnings and brick buildings, was a winding cobblestone street lined with potted flowering plants. Muggles strolled down the center, wrapped in each other's arms and sat at the patio tables over cups of gelato and tea. It was large enough that it boasted a few cozy restaurants, but still small enough that tourists were rare and excitement even rarer.

On good days, before Draco's arrival, when anxiety and guilt didn't weigh down every step, she'd wander the streets quietly until the sun went down. But for all her visits, she'd never come with anyone else.

In a shared, but slightly uncomfortable, silence, the pair strolled towards the heart of town, their knuckles bumping each other every few steps.

"Mind if we eat now? Those two didn't seem much up to sharing a meal anyway and I'm starving."

"Oh!" Hermione paused a moment before resuming her step, blinking away her shock at the simple question. "Well, I— I don't see why not." She shrugged. "There's a pub just around the corner or the pizza place…"

"Pizza!" Draco rushed and she chuckled as he slid his hands into hers. The gesture was intimate and unfamiliar and she felt similar to the first time Viktor had slipped his arm around as they danced together at the Yule Ball. Funny how something so simple could remind her just how very young they both were.

Stepping into the pizza place, Hermione instructed him to grab a booth while she ordered and paid for a large cheese pizza and a couple of drinks before joining him under the stained glass light hovering over their table.

Hermione couldn't stop fidgeting in her seat, tucking stray curls just to pull them loose again, and using her straw to stir ice again and again… and again.

"Are you nervous?" he asked incredulously, leaning across the table.

Hermione jumped in her seat, her jaw falling open as she prepared to lie through her teeth. She quickly thought better of it and buried her face in her hands. "It is that obvious?" she groaned from behind her palms.

After a long moment, she finally emerged from her shame cocoon and managed a peek back at him. Despite the bruise still shadowing his cheekbone and the few scrapes… he was still the smug, smirking boy from the last few weeks. "It's just… this kind of feels like a date."

Draco considered her a moment, shrugging. "I guess it's a date. Do you have a problem with going on a date with me?"

A flaming blush spread over her cheeks. Truthfully, she'd never been on an honest to goodness date. There had been the dance with Viktor and then there had been an almost moment at Bill and Fleur's wedding when Hermione thought maybe it could, in some twisted version of reality, be seen as a date with Ron. But no, no real dates. "Well—" Hermione started, clearing her throat and sitting up tall. "It's just that I've never really been on a proper date."

"I shagged you senseless in the shower not two hours ago!" he laughed.

Surprisingly, her cheeks burned even hotter than they already been moments before. "Malfoy!"

Draco snorted, sitting back in his seat as the pizza was delivered. "Granger, we've had dinner every night for a month."

"Just— forget it. Okay? Just dinner… I can handle dinner with Malfoy." She reassured herself while chewing on her cheek.

"Draco," he corrected, pointing at his own chest.

"Right, well, Draco, why do you have a black eye?" she asked too brightly, plucking a piece of pizza from the pan and dropping it unceremoniously onto her own plate.

Draco finished chewing the bite he had rolling around in his mouth and wiped his lips with a napkin. "I wish I could say it was something heroic and all, but unfortunately, your spurned lover decked me immediately after Apparating me."

Hermione unattractively choked, banging her fist on her chest as she tried to regain composure. "Ron punched you?" she shrieked.

"Yes, the dolt. And might I add, he sucker punched me and then stalked off in quite the hissy fit so I didn't get the opportunity to repay the favor. "

Hermione was mortified. And how had no one thought to mention this little altercation between the pair of them? She knew Ron wasn't pleased with how he found out, but she wasn't sure that in all his wild temper tantrums he'd every actually punched someone.

"Does it hurt?"

Draco snorted indelicately, rolling his eyes as he took another large bite. "It was Weasley. It probably would have hurt more if his baby sister punched me. Trust me, I'm fine."

There were still more questions that Hermione had regarding that night. About the mission… About his mum. But she wasn't sure she was ready to shift the mood of the evening so quickly.

On the few occasions that Ron and Harry returned, they would spend a few minutes just being themselves again, but then, inevitably, the war would loom over them again.

Not here. Not tonight.

Instead, they ate and talked easily, as they had for the last several weeks. Mostly they talked about potions and she complained about her garden looking out of sorts. Much like her life these days, it had turned unruly and messy and in desperate need of some attention.

"I'll help you tomorrow," he offered easily and she smiled to herself. He must have noticed because his features pinched as he nodded at her waning grin. "What?"

"It's nothing. You're just… you're much different than you were in school."

Tension settled between them, a tension Hermione didn't pretend to understand. "Is that so?" There was an unexpected edge to his voice as he huffed out a breath and tossed his napkin on the table. "Did you know me very well in school?"

Certainly, she hadn't said anything that surprising. He was a downright bully in their younger years and he, despite all of his cynical grumblings, was nothing like he was in his youth.

"It's not meant to be insulting, Draco… I just meant you're kinder than you were then."

Draco responded with a withering glare as he ran his tongue along his teeth. "Granger, you didn't know me back then, so how could you possibly know if I am kinder now than I was then?" he arched an eyebrow at her.

At that, she laughed. "Draco Malfoy, are you actually trying to say you weren't a rotten little tyrant at Hogwarts?"

"Bollocks, I've apologised for that and you know it—"

"Yes, but that doesn't change the fact that it happened! And it surely doesn't mean you get to be a prat to me now for acknowledging out loud that you're not the same kid you used to be. I don't know how on earth this entire conversation has gotten so twisted that I'm now being scolded for saying something nice about you!" Hermione shot from her seat and stomped out of the restaurant without another glance behind her.

Once on the street, she didn't slow her enraged pace as she marched towards the little tree outside of town that she Apparated from, groceries be damned. His arm found the crook of her elbow and he turned her back towards him.

"I'm sorry I was a prick in school. I said that and I meant it— still do. But please don't make assumptions about who I was back then. I'm not an idiot, Granger. I know you think I was just a punk ass kid who liked to rile up the Golden Boy and his little sidekicks, but there was more to it than that. Reasons that have followed me since I was a kid."

"And what reasons are those?" Hermione asked with a steeled jaw, crossing her arms tersely in front of her.

"I'm a Malfoy, Hermione. Malfoy's have reputations that need to be protected." Although his words were quite snobbish, his voice was desperately trying to convey something else entirely.

"A reputation as a prat?" she asked haughtily, on the verge of abandoning this conversation, and possibly him, by heading straight back to the cottage.

"I wish things were as simple for me as they were for you. I can't tell you how much I wish I had parents that steered me away from the bullshite that I found myself drowning in by sixteen years old. I kept up appearances in order to save my own hide, and I'm not saying that's the fucking honorable thing to do or the courageous thing to do. But hell, if I've never fancied myself as either one of those things. I did what I had to in order to survive my childhood and when I knew better? When I saw your face... when I watched Lavender's body be mutilated by Rookwood?"

Draco dragged in a broken breath, his shoulders shaking slightly from the intensity of his confession. Hermione wanted to say something, wanted to wrap him in her arms and bury her face in his chest for a moment. But she didn't. Some hurts couldn't be hugged away. Some deserved their time to bleed so they could heal.

"I changed. I got out. And I'm fucking sorry that I didn't do it the way you would have. I have to live with my decisions for the rest of my life and I've spent every moment since then trying to move forward. But no matter what I do, I get dragged back. If I could I would change it all, I would. So yeah, I'm sorry I called you nasty names in school but please stop judging what you can't understand."

Hermione chewed on the thought for a long moment and staring up into his cloudy greys, she realised what she already knew.

"You're right," she acquiesced, and Draco's stunned features were enough to make her chuckle. "Don't make that face! Sometimes, I apologise… sometimes." She turned on her heel and began a slower walk through town, this time towards the grocer.

This was a risky move after such an impassioned speech, but Hermione was starting to think she might know Draco. Might now that he would want nothing more than to leave the words there on that street corner and never go back. Behind her, he released a relieved sigh and jogged to align their steps.

"Is that what you call an apology? I'm pretty sure you have to say the words 'I'm sorry' for it to count."

"Well, you can bloody believe that's not happening. And to be fair, I called you some rather nasty names as well," she poked, lightening the mood.

Draco scoffed, resting his arm over her shoulder so that she would be tucked into his side. "You lot were never very creative. I could hardly be bothered to care."

"Whatever you say, Ferret." She bit down on her lip to hide her smile, but her hand slid around his lower back as well.

"Like I said, no creativity whatsoever."

After unloading the groceries, Draco slipped upstairs to rest and Hermione perched herself on the counter, staring at a bottle of wine that seemed to be screaming at her. Her head canted back and forth a few times and she inwardly cursed, snagging it from it's home and opening it quickly.

The taste of the light red washing over her tongue made her moan and she felt her shoulders relax (although she hadn't realised they'd been tensed in the first place). Beautiful, sought after, silence filled the air and she released a tired breath.

"THE FUCK, POTTER! OUT!"

She winced, her lovely moment shattered by the sound of two obstinate wizards coming to head upstairs. Clenching her eyes shut and trying to swallow as much of the wine as she could, she ignored the centaur-esque stomping down the stairs.

The boys shouted her name in unison and her face screwed up as she took the final gulp of wine from her glass.

"What?" She groaned, her eyes peeking open only enough to pour herself another glass.

"Potter was sleeping in my bed!" Draco said petulantly and her eyes narrowed over her wine glass at him.

"Who says it's your bed?" Harry snorted, leaning arrogantly against the fridge and rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

Draco turned to him, his jaw hanging open and his hands gesticulating wildly as he tried to form words in his anger. "Potter, I've been sleeping in the fucking bed for six weeks."

"Actually," Harry eased, his chin tilting condescendingly. "You technically spent the first few weeks down here… so…"

The disgusted noise that left Draco made Hermione giggle as she tried to edge her way out of the kitchen, clutching to both her glass and the bottle of wine like a buoy.

"You can't claim someone's property because I wasn't here, Potter. What kind of fucking barbaric society did you grow up in?"

"Hermione! Did you hear that?" Harry's voice was near tattling and she glowered at him. "He said Muggles were barbaric—"

Draco cut him off, again throwing his hands in the air and taking an angry step towards Harry. "No I fucking didn't! Get your shit out of my room, I'm tired."

"Where exactly am I supposed to sleep then, Hermione? Has your house grown an extra wing I'm unaware of."

Hermione's shoulders slumped. She wasn't getting out of mediating this argument it seemed. "Harry, can't you sleep on the couch? It was his bedroom, we can't kick him out just because you've arrived."

It was Harry's turn to scoff as he left Draco's side and took a few determined steps towards Hermione. "You're telling me he's going to be sleeping in that bed?" His emerald eyes were near frenzied as he tilted his ear towards her, waiting for a response.

She shrugged, taking a small sip of her wine. "Where else would he sleep?"

"Hmm, I have the strange inkling he'll be in your bed." Hermione flushed and her eyes narrowed at her so-called best friend. "Why should I have to sleep on the couch when he's going to be spending all night in your sheets anyway?" Harry asked it so casually that it disarmed her; he might as well have been asking why he couldn't have his pudding after eating only half his dinner.

"Oi!" Ron shouted from the bedroom adjacent to the kitchen. "Could you fucking quiet? Remember me in here? Gravely injured and forever uncaring about where the fuck Malfoy sleeps? Shut it!"

Hermione's eyes flickered closed and she gritted her teeth together. "Fine. Fine. Draco, there are two empty drawers at the bottom of my dresser and I sleep on the right-hand side. Happy, Harry?" she growled, turning for the back porch and letting the door slam loudly behind her.

The quiet found her for only a few more minutes before she heard the telltale creak of the door behind her.

"Ugh, what?" she snapped, immediately regretting her tone as she spotted Harry's remorseful eyes. "Sorry. It's… it's been a day."

A day it surely had been. Shower sex and near counter sex, followed by angry best friends. Fighting with her new lover on a sidewalk and then mediating between her other best friend and said new lover. Enough… enough for one day.

Harry's shoulders pulled up towards his ears and he tugged his lips into a flat line as he fell into the chair next to her. "He's moving his stuff… I couldn't just stand there and watch, could I?"

"Fine," she breathed. "Just… let me enjoy this wine and quiet for a few moments. Okay?"

"'Kay."

Tucking her legs under her, she curled into her chair like Crooks used to do, letting her head lull back as the sound of crashing waves sounded around her.

It was painfully short-lived.

"I can't believe you and Malfoy…" Harry clucked, possibly to himself.

"Yes, I know. Quite the star-crossed lovers. Now, shhh."

There was another beat of silence, but it seemed Harry was unable to help himself.

"It's just… and I mean, I know he's changed, Hermione, but there's so much history there. How do you look past it?"

Hermione didn't answer for a moment. She remembered their row outside of the pizza place, remembered the hurt painted on his features as he tried to convey what his experience had been like.

But, she'd had experiences too, hadn't she? Surely memories that mattered and formed who she was today. Bullies had a way of shaping you like a rough stone, even if you never gave them permission. Regardless of his intent, his words had hurt her more times than not and there still was so much between them that needed to heal.

Gods, she was tired of healing.

This war was a bleeding wound that no amount of bandages, or potions, or salves, or magic could heal. Left unattended, wounds like this had two options: bleed out or fester.

"I don't look past anything, Harry. Forgiving doesn't mean forgetting and at the end of this, we will all have sins to atone for. I know that you've seen how much he's changed but he still carries everything that happened before. We all do." Those final words caused a shiver to run its course up her spine. The baggage she hauled was something she didn't she'd ever be able to rid herself of and when she blinked, a flash of Lavender's lifeless eyes came to her. She flinched away from the memory and shifted in her chair.

Harry stared at her before plucking her wine bottle from the table and pulling it directly to his lips.

She was surrounded by heathens.

His chin jerked toward the door and his voice fell a little quieter. "Did he tell you what happened with his mum and Ron?"

Her heart clattered in her chest and she shifted in her seat so that she could look into Harry's eyes. She shook her head. "I didn't want to ask…"

"Do you want to know?" Harry's thick brows lifted over the rim of his glasses and she nodded eagerly. "Well, I only heard Ron's briefing so, you know, take this for what it is." Harry took another long pull and rested back in the wicker chair. "They stormed the room and Draco was the target. HE was there. The whole bloody thing was a trap. Draco was bound to a pillar before he'd crossed the threshold and Narcissa was brought before him. Crucio'd again and again." He shook his messy hair and huffed a disbelieving breath. "Can you fucking imagine?" he scoffed. "Anyway, that's when Ron was hurt. He was trying to get to her and took down Nott. You-Know-Who killed her while Draco watched. The fucking monster didn't even Avada her." Harry's face contorted in a pained grimace. "He sliced her open and made Draco watch as she bled out."

Hermione's was planted firmly over her gaping mouth; she was horrified. In her wildest, darkest imaginings...she would not—could not— have imagined this.

Flashes of the last twenty-four hours burned behind her lids. Showers and pizza and fighting, as if he hadn't just gone through the most traumatizing experience a human could endure. Her fingers trembled against her lips as she attempted to steady her breathing; her belly flopping dangerously in her stomach and threatening to send back the wine she'd hastily guzzled.

"My God."

"You-Know-Who left after that, commanded everyone retreat and just… left. Sadistic fuck. I don't know we beat this kind of monster, Hermione. I don't know anything anymore and every day I get closer to pointing my wand at his face."

A new kind of pain settled in her chest, a pain she'd been ignoring for longer than she could remember. Across from her sat her messy haired, emerald eyed friend. The boy, that despite all her efforts, she couldn't keep from harm's way... The boy who traveled through time and space at her side… The boy who rode dragons with her.

At the very end of all this, either Voldemort or Harry would be dead— if Sybil Trewlaney were to be trusted (which Hermione would never attest to.)

These were the realities that had been safely kept from her while she hid in the safe house. But with Harry here and real and tangible… she was reminded of his immortality more than ever.

"You'll win, Harry," Hermione said, even as the words clung to her throat. She desperately clung to that hope.

His eyes flashed with something that looked too much like fear and she felt a familiar prickle at her sinuses. The boy who lived, scared to die.

Fuck all of it.

Hermione wasn't a witch who cursed but fuck all of it. Voldemort who longed for genocide and his Death Eaters who made parents bury their children. Fuck Rookwood and fuck this war. Fuck all the death and her garden and her potions. Fuck everything that was waging and warring inside her that was trying to claw its way out of her.

Fuck the younger Hermione who believed that she was going to end up happy at the end of this. She had filled herself full of false hope and now present Hermione was going to have to reap the sorrows.

Her lips folded in on themselves as she tried to fight the tears slipping down her cheeks. Anger and hurt swelled inside her and she reached out to crush her friend to her chest as she let herself sob.

"You'll win," she repeated, more for herself than him.

A/N: Biggest hugs to MCal for your love and attentions as you alpha/beta my garbage into something close to readable. I love you.