A/N: I do not own Harry Potter or any characters/locations related to the franchise. That all belongs to J.K. Rowling. I hope you enjoy the only thing I do own...the plot. Also M rating for language and possible sexually explicit scenes (really just wanted to be safe with the rating).

Mature Content Ahead: This fanfic was rated M for a reason. Ahead are some sexually explicit scenes. Please read at your own risk.

TRIGGER WARNING: Mentions of parental death, and loss etc.

The soft wind blew a few dead leaves across the front of the cool granite headstone, and they crinkled as they made contact with the immovable surface. Draco stared at the names in confusion. He racked his brain for any witches and wizards he knew with the last name Wilkins, but came up empty as a few fresh whispers of mist clung to his skin. He wiped the water off, absorbing the sting of the wind and feeling like his cheeks were going to be chapped from the cold.

A sniffle to his right brought Draco back to the present. He looked at the witch next to him, who quickly wiped her eyes, before taking a shaky breath. "Seamus made a good point. Secrets never help anyone. I have been keeping things from you Malfoy. Things I thought would protect you if I didnt...if…"She took a deep breath and shook her head, before nibbling on her lip. " I dont want to keep this from you anymore, no matter what your mother thinks.``She bit her lip, looking like she had said too much, "I probably shouldn't have said that, Nevermind...I-" Draco waited patiently for her to speak, storing away the thoughts of his mother for took a few seconds, gathering her thoughts and organizing them.

She knelt down briefly, wiping away a few stray leaves, before swiping her fingers along the varied letters, "They were going to Australia." She started, her voice wavering slightly on the edge. "Had just finished packing, in fact. They were heading to the airport, but the taxi service had given the driver the wrong address. He was three streets over. They told the service they would meet the driver there." She stood then, her hands clenched tightly in fists. Hermione gave a slight smile, but the tears began to pour even faster. Draco reached for her, his hand rubbing her arm in a soothing pattern. For some reason his heart had begun to pound, and he couldn't figure out why. His stomach began to twist in uncomfortable knots as he listened to her take another shaky breath.

Hermione's eyes glazed over, looking as though she was remembering something from a long time ago, "They were good people in that way. Always trying to be less of an inconvenience to others." She shook her head, her curls catching on the wind and whipping against her skin and sticking to her tear streaked cheeks. She didn't adjust the hair out of her face, her arms seeming too heavy to move...so Draco did it for her. He reached up and tucked the soft curls behind her neck, and still his heart beat louder in his ears.

"The-They made it two streets over, when a group of men they didn't know stopped them. They told Monica and Wendell that they weren't allowed to leave the country. That they had to pay for what their daughter was. Who their daughter was." Her voice became hard, her eyes became steel, her lips stopped trembling. "A freak of nature. Born to a magical world with no magical blood. Monica and Wendell tried to beg for their lives, even telling the strange men that they didn't have a daughter. Because for all they knew...they didn't.

"Their daughter-a witch-had cast a memory charm on them not an hour before. They had forgotten she existed. She did it to protect them. But it didn't. The men didn't even hesitate." She took another sharp breath, tears still falling from her cheeks and mixing with the cold mist that surrounded them, soaking their clothes. "The authorities found them later that night, on the curb. Left there like rubbish for the binman to collect. " Hermione looked up at him then, her eyes shining bright in the last rays of daylight. Draco felt like he had been sucker punched. These were her parents. They-they had been-

"Death Eaters." Draco choked out, and watched in horror as she nodded. "Who?" He demanded, but even as he did he knew who it was.

"Harry was able to help me interview the Death Eaters who survived the battle. After I tracked Monica and Wendell here...to this cemetery. Everyone we interviewed listed five names." His heart began to beat heavier with each name she said, and still he prayed he would not hear the one that he knew without a shadow of a doubt was at the end. "Axley, Crabbe, Goyle, Dolohov," Dolohov was hissed out with particular venom, but after that she hesitated. The words caught deep in her throat.

"Say it." Draco's words were clipped, through clenched teeth.

"Malfoy." She whispered. But Draco knew she wasn't calling him. She wasn't trying to get the man standing along with her in the cemetery's attention. Draco felt an anger that he had never felt before brew inside of him. It mixed with self disgust that he had housed for seven years, until finally it boiled over him. Like a potion he forgot about the anger spilled over and melted everything in its path.

"How can you stand to look at me?" He hissed incredulously before picking up a stone and hurling it at the water. Not holding back his strength he wasn't surprised when it flew nearly to the halfway mark of the lake, "How can you stand there and stare at me, and just be ok with being around me. With everything I am...everything I've done! Everything I've helped my father and those monsters do?"

"Because I-"

"I wish you had gone to Beauxbatons." He huffed so seriously she took a step back, "If you had, none of this would have ever happened. You never would have met me, never would have met Potter. You would be so successful now, I know you would be. You could have hid there during the war, then you wouldn't have been...then your parents would have been…" His heart was cracking in his voice. His vision blurred, and his legs nearly gave out, emotional exhaustion pouring over him. He whispered the next words, let them flow and dance on the wind, "I wish you had never met me."

"I don't." She cut in, her voice firm and sure. "I'm I-'' She stuttered before steeling herself and taking a step towards him, and standing on her tiptoes so that she was closer to being face to face with him, "Draco, I have never regretted the decisions I've made about you. Not once. Not when I met you in Hogwarts, and not when I kissed you on the side of the road. " The shock of hearing his first name fall from her lips stopped him clean in his place. His heart stopped before pumping away even faster. His breath came in shallow pants. Has she ever said it before? He couldn't be sure, but he knew he wanted to hear it again. But she pushed on.

"Every decision I have ever made since I was eleven years old has been logically thought out and analyzed to the point of overthinking. I'm analytical, it's how I work, and it's what makes me Hermione Granger. But, it's so exhausting to always think things through a thousand times." She nibbled her lip then, her eyes searching him for something, what he couldn't be sure of.

"But with you?" She laughed gently, "With you, it's just easy. It's always been easy. It was easy to hate you second year, and to punch you third. It was easy to defend you, and to be scared for you, and to argue with Harry over you sixth.`` She rambled, before letting out a soft huff of breath.

She paused then, looking up at him, "This is easy," He was going to ask her what she was talking about, but then she put both of her hands on his face. He had a second to think that they were cold from the air as her fingers spread out across his cheeks, before her lips met his. He had another second to think that her kiss was warm and soft. Then, one of his arms wrapped around her, and the other knotted itself in her windswept hair.

And he sighed.

He released the tension that had been building and for the first time in weeks he felt complete. And he took from her. He took the comfort, and the peace she was giving and told himself that he would deal with the repercussions later. He cushioned his lips against hers, and when her tongue softly touched him he pulled her tighter and whimpered as their kiss deepened. The noise was echoed with her soft moans and breathy pants. He was so distracted, that he didn't notice her reaching for her wand, but he felt her slightly turn on her heel quickly apparating them mid snog.

The feeling of their bodies coming together through the pull of apparition added to the heat of their kiss when they finally landed on hardwood. Draco did not look around, instead he nibbled the flesh of her bottom lip, so abused by her own teeth. Instead he spread his hand along her lower back, lifting her thin shirt, giving into the feel of her skin. Instead, he moaned as he involuntarily moved his hips forward, seeking a release from the arousal currently pulsing through his veins.

She moved her hands from his face, her wand was tossed somewhere in the room, and he distantly heard it clatter against the ground just before he separated their faces long enough to tear her shirt off of her. Banishing the offending fabric to the cold floor beneath their feet. Hermione pulled his shirt over his head too, and they came back together in what felt like the crash of thunder. The emotion that had built up in Draco over the years released itself in a powerful wave of passion.

His hands were insatiable.

His kisses were unquenchable.

He tasted every inch of her skin that he could. Licked her neck, and nibbled her collar bone, reverently his hands moved over the exposed flesh until finding the clasps of her bra. Her pleas of yes and please adding fuel to his already untamable lust. In one swift movement he unhooked the garment, flinging it behind him, his mouth never leaving her body.

And she met him. Kiss for passionate kiss. Touch for adoring touch. She kissed his neck, licking up the side and sucking on his pulse. He made a choking gasp, a sound he wasn't aware he could make when she began to suck below his ear. An arousing spot even he didn't know he had. He leaned into her more, her hands gripping his shoulders, nails digging gently into his flesh. Clinging to him as if she knew that when she let go, he was going to leave. And maybe she was right.

But, the opportunity never came.

Draco began walking her back, until she came to a wall. Pushing her up against it, he pressed his knee between her legs, begging her to use him for what she needed. And as she began to move against his legs, he nearly came undone. He was so distracted by her tiny movements, he didn't realize her hands had undid the button of his trousers until he felt her tiny hand. Touching him in a place he had not let any woman touch him in years. "Fucking hell," The first thing either of them said since they had apparated, and Draco could barely recognize his own voice. It was thick and gravely, filled with desire.

He felt her smile into the spot she had marked on his neck, and as quick as a woman who spent years on the run, she pushed him back. He tumbled onto a bed, and before he could get his bearings she was on top of him. Kissing him yet again. At some point during their intense kissing and groping, she had removed her jeans. Now, she sat atop him, with only his briefs and her knickers separating their most intimate places. But, with a whispered spell, those too were gone.

Draco hesitated, his hands on her hips, not brave enough to close that final gap. She looked at him, a small sweet smile dancing across her lips, her brown eyes shining. She sat up, and slid down him, until he was fully seated inside her. The heat of her body clinging too him, made his eyes roll back in his head, and when she moved just a little to test the waters of their union it was like a switch flipped.

With a roar, the wolf who had been so blessedly silent until that moment came to the forefront of his mind.

"Mine," The wolf took control of Draco's body for a moment, and Hermione, who was currently still seated perfectly on top, hesitated at the sound of their combined voice.

The wolf, taking the opportunity that was born from her hesitation, flipped them over until she was beneath him, and they were seated above her, looking down at her hair spread out across the pillow like veins creeping across the lapis linen. The wolf grabbed her leg tightly, pulling it until it was hitched over his hip, and moving down towards her, its eyes never leaving her body. With a mental strength Draco didn't know he possessed he forced the creature back into its cage.

No, if we are going to do this...it will be with me in control. I will not have you take this away from me. He waited for the wolf to argue, but the beast seemed satisfied enough with Draco's current position that it didn't speak. Instead, it stood, and watched. Radiating in the feeling of it's mate wrapped around him like a comforting blanket.

"Draco," Hermione's soft hand touched his cheek. He opened his eyes to see her cinnamon gaze locked on his. He searched her face as she searched his. "Are you alright?" She sounded so concerned. "I-" Her voice dropped into a low moan as he rocked into her. Feeling everything that she had, and taking it.

"Is this alright?" Draco asked, his breath sounding labored.

"Yes, please Draco." She rocked into him, and from there he was gone. Everything about her, down to the way her eyes fluttered closed, and the way their scents mingled together. He knew at that moment, there was no more lying to himself. No more lying to her. She had him, complete and utter control of his heart. He loved her.

He rocked slowly into her, feeling each pant of her breath on his cheek. Her breath was sticky and sweet as it clung to his skin. He relished each grasp of her tiny fingers seizing his biceps and holding tightly, as if clinging on to him was the only way she could stay gravitated in this moment. He rocked into her slowly, enjoying the way her feet ran down the length of his calves, before wrapping securely around his legs.

She sighed.

She moaned.

"You're mine," he heard himself say. The wolf preened, when she wove her fingers through his hair, but they both almost howled when she answered.

"Yours." And he kissed her again. Tasting love on her lips with each plunge into her. It felt like he was being taken out to see, and that the only thing in the vast emptiness in the ocean allowing him to breathe was the sight of her hair against the blue pillowcase, and the sound of her breath hitching in pleasure each time he moved.

And when they released together, he knew he wanted to draw the sounds from her sweet lips again. And as she curled into them, and they drifted off to sleep due emotional exhaustion, waves of pure contentment washed over him. For the first time in years, he hoped that this feeling would last. That he could have her. That he could keep her.

Forever.

A/N 2: I hope everyone enjoyed this chapters, though I know it might have been difficult for some. Please leave a comment below if you enjoyed, or just to say hi! I read every single one of them and they bring so much light to my life during this difficult time.