A/N: This chapter gets a scooch spicy, opening us up for some spicier, smuttier scenes later in the story. Enjoy!

The silence in the room is deafening. We've all gathered in a living room, different from the one at the very front of the house. There are more chairs and sofas in this room, and tall bookshelves line the back wall. A long table, covered with dusty books and parchment, sits by the bookshelves. The chairs and sofas cluster around a grand fireplace, which has been lit to cut the gloom. There is a distinct lack of windows in this house.

Granger and I stand across the room from Lovegood and Weaselette. Near the two girls, Potter and Weasley stand on guard, unsure of what is about to happen. Weaselette looks like she's ready to hex me into a grave, but Lovegood stares at me, scrutinizing. I don't know what she's looking for. Her gaze pierces through me. In school, I always wrote her off as a doe-eyed flake, always with her head in the clouds and acting like she was from a different realm. Here, though, in this small room where it's only us, I can see that our perceptions of her were wrong. There is a sharpness in her gaze, analytical and exacting.

Everyone is tense, waiting for someone to make the first move. I feel like a cat trapped and every part of me is screaming to turn and run. Seconds stretch into minutes. My eyes dart back and forth between Lovegood and Weaselette, the latter growing more and more irritated. Granger nudges me in the back, pushing me forward just enough that it breaks the tension.

"I'm sorry!" The words come out loud and forcefully, and I swallow. "I mean, I'm sorry," I say in a softer tone. "For the prison, and the treatment, and holding you all in that cell. I'm sorry for the way the Death Eaters treated you, and I'm sorry that I didn't stand up against them." The apology burns in my throat, acidic and foreign to me. Lovegood beams at me.

"I knew there was good in you," she says in that dreamy voice of hers. "There are less wrackspurts hanging around you now, too. You're doing some growing, Draco Malfoy."

Weasley snickers behind his hand. Potter elbows him but cannot stop a small laugh from bubbling up. I would, too, if it weren't crucial to the survival of everyone here that I not be on the receiving end of Ginny Weasley's wand. Like her brother, she's a quick temper and good with retribution spells. If she weren't a Weasley, she'd make a good Slytherin.

"So that's it?" Weaselette finally manages. "You come in here to apologize and expect everything is okay?"

"No, I-,"

"You imprisoned my friends for months, Malfoy. Made my family sacrifice what little we have to take care of the injured and sick. You let your family and friends torture my family and friends. You spent seven years bullying, mocking, abusing us all. I don't care if you're growing, Malfoy, you're a coward and a bully and it's going to take more than an apology to set things right!" She is shouting by the end. My blood rushes to my head.

"Don't you think I know that, Weaslette?" I shout back. "Don't you think I'm reminded of the fact that I'm a garbage human every single day? Everywhere I turn, there's reminders. Granger's arm, this pit of a house, this festering dark mark-it's always there!"

"It wouldn't be if you hadn't taken it!" she retorts.

"I wouldn't have taken it if your boyfriend hadn't gotten my father arrested!"

"He wouldn't have gotten your father arrested if he hadn't tried to kill them!"

"Enough!" Granger shouts, stamping her foot against the hardwood floor. She storms between me and the rest of the room. "This is getting us nowhere. Yes, Malfoy has been an incredible ass over the years, and yes, he has made some terrible decisions, but he's also the reason we are alive and standing here-all of us. We cannot be demanding change of people if we won't allow them the space to change, Ginny."

Lovegood softly takes hold of Weaselette's arm and gives it a little tug. Weaslette tries to shake it off, but it does not work. She glares at me, which I return.

"I'll believe it when I see it," she spits. "I'm out of here." She finally rips herself free from Lovegood and leaves. There is a staircase at the back of the house as well as the front. I hear her stomp up each step purposefully before a door slams in the distance.

"So that went well, then," Potter says, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I'll go talk to her."

"Let me, Harry," Lovegood offers. "She and I have gotten closer since my release from Draco's home. She might be more willing to hear it from me, as one of his most recent prisoners." She says it so matter-of-factly. Bile rises in my throat. Potter's face drops at her words, I assume from disappointment at not being able to get through to his girlfriend. I narrow my eyes, watching Lovegood. I know guilt well, and it's all over Lovegood's face, even if no one else recognizes it. She locks eyes with me for the briefest of moments before following the path the redhead took just moments before.

"No one ended up being cursed with the Bat-Bogey hex, so I'm going to take it as a win," Granger says tiredly. She coughs and massages her chest for a moment. Lingering effects of the Cruciatus curse-I can spot them a mile away. A pang of guilt washes over me. "Luna is amenable, though, so that's a good starting point. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that there is plenty more where that came from."

She takes a seat at the dusty table. With a wave of her wand, the dust blows away and uncovers the satin mahogany stain of the table. She sets her beaded bag on the table and begins to pull items out of it. I think nothing of it until it goes from parchment and ink to a stack of books, a dagger, some type of fabric, and a bag of produce. She pushes the food, dagger, and cloth aside in favor of books and parchment. The other two boys join her at the table. My face must scream confusion, because Potter looks up at me and says,

"Undetectable extension charm." He shrugs, and then bends back over the books that Granger has spread out. I walk over to see what they're working on. The titles raise suspicion immediately.

"Gringotts and the History of Goblins. Greatest Heists, Break-Ins, and Thefts of the Last Century. Glamour Charms: More Than Just Makeup. Fuck me, are you planning a break-in at Gringotts?"


As it turns out, they are planning on breaking into Gringotts. Specifically, they're planning on breaking into Bellatrix's vault. When I press them for details, they block me out completely. Apologetically, Granger tells me that there is too much at stake to bring additional people into what they're doing. She promises to come find me later before I am ushered out of the room. The door shuts behind me, and all sounds from inside are cut off. They've cast a Muffliato spell.

With nothing else to do, I make my way up the stairs to my room. When I reach the second floor, I pause. Is it worth it to try to talk to Weaselette, or Lovegood? Will it fall on deaf ears? It's not as if I can blame either of them-I have caused a lot of harm and devastation over the years. Blind loyalty to my parents, who in turn are blindly loyal to the Dark Lord, has set me on a near-irrevocable path. If I were either of them, I wouldn't forgive me. Darkness and destruction follow me.

I don't let myself be talked out of it. I walk down the hallway, searching for either of their rooms. Only one door is shut, and I have to assume that it is where Lovegood and Weaselette are chatting. I stop in front of the door. I hear soft murmurs behind it; it sounds as if Lovegood has managed to soothe Weaselette. Now might actually be a good time, then. I raise my fist to knock on the door and then freeze. The murmurs have turned into soft, breathy sounds. My mouth drops open as Weaselette moans out Lovegood's name. I cast a silencing spell hastily and rush away. No wonder Lovegood looked so guilty-she and Potter's girlfriend have been going around together behind his back.

In the past, I would leverage this. I wouldn't keep the secret to myself, wouldn't let them have their moments together. In a war, you take all the happy moments you can get. It's a hard lesson I've had to learn in some very bleak times. Few opportunities for happiness showed their face at the manor.

I turn the gramophone on. It's become a new habit of mine whenever I'm in my room, unwilling to sit in the silence. I wish that there was some way to make it portable so that I could have the music with me everywhere I go, but we only have the wireless, and I doubt that everyone around me wants to listen to the same classical music on repeat. I lay on my bed, hands behind my head, and close my eyes. I have spelled the gramophone to repeat when it has hit the last note so that I do not have to continue to flip the record over.

When I hear a soft knock on my door, the one I've come to know as Granger's, I open the door with my wand, never opening my eyes.

"Oh, I love Chopin," she breathes. The door shuts quietly behind her. I crack one eye open to peek at her. She leans against the door with her eyes closed. "Opus 28, number 4."

We listen together silently until the song ends and the record flips itself over. Granger hasn't moved from the door.

"What can I do for you, Granger?" I ask. She startles and opens her eyes again. A flush colors across her cheeks and nose. She comes further into my room, waiting to be invited to sit. I motion at the foot of the bed. The frame is tall and awkward-even I have to take a bit of a jump to sit on it. She struggles to get a proper leg up onto the mattress. With a roll of my eyes, I lean forward and grab hold of her. She wraps one hand around mine and one hand around my forearm, and I pull. She flies toward me and steadies herself by placing her palms high on both of my thighs. I swallow hard, willing myself not to focus on just how high up my legs her hands are. She sits back quickly; her face is a deeper shade of red than I have ever seen on her.

Granger busies herself with rifling through that black beaded bag. She makes it a point not to look at me, which is just as well because my heart is thrumming uncomfortably fast and I know my face is also red. I wipe my sweaty hands on the comforter.

"I told you I'd look into a way to help you with your arm," Granger says. Her voice is shaky and she clears her throat. "I talked to Bill Weasley. He's a curse breaker for Gringotts, but he really knows his business. He's…he's agreed to meet with you, if you'd like."

"Why would he agree to meet with me?" I ask.

"Because I asked him," Granger says with a shrug. "Bill isn't as black-and-white as some of his siblings. He understands human complexity."

"Yeah, but I've done nothing but damage to that family," I argue.

"People are capable of growth and understanding, Malfoy," Granger responds. She is still rooting through her back, and the distinct sound of glass clinking together rises out of it. What does she have in there?

"I nearly got him killed by Greyback!" I keep pushing. Why am I pushing this? I can tell that this emotion is misplaced, but I'm powerless against it, which only irritates me more.

"And he's alive, healed, and happy!" she pushes back. She's still looking through that damn bag, and all I want her to do is look at me.

"I'm nothing to him!" My voice rises. Finally, she snaps and rips her hand out of the purse.

"You're not nothing to me!" she shouts. Her eyes are bright, her face pink. The freckles on her cheeks and nose stand out against the flush. My heartbeat roars in my eyes, threatens to beat out of my chest. Before I can stop myself, I sit forward, grab her hand, and pull her into me.

Our teeth hit as we meet, but neither of us cares. I hold her face in my hands, our lips moving together in a desperate rhythm. She presses closer to me, her hands finding my thighs again. A sound somewhere between a groan and a whimper rises out of me, reverberates in the tiny echo chamber that's been created between our bodies. She presses in on me, pushing me backward until I'm flat against the mattress and she's on top of me. Then, as quickly as it started, it ends. She sits up, panting. She is straddling me, a tense leg on either side of my hips. I pray that she does not move: her ass sits perfectly against my uncomfortably hard erection. It would be so easy to remove the thin layers of clothing between us.

"I'm-," she starts.

"I'm-," I start at the same time. We both laugh nervously. She brings a shaking hand up to her swollen lips. I mirror the action, feeling my own swollen lips.

"That was-I mean, I sho-um," she stutters. Neither of us knows what to say. "Sorry?" she finally manages.

"Are you?" I ask, raising an eyebrow. She shifts uncomfortably, and I let out a proper groan this time. "Granger," I say in a strained voice, "you either need to make good on your position, or get off of me."

She rolls off of me with an embarrassed sound. I miss her warmth immediately. She scrambles back to the foot of the bed and tucks her legs up under her. There is too much space now. Did I know that I wanted that? Did she want that? My mind is racing.

"Um," she says. She clears her throat again. "Um, so anyway, I told Bill we would visit soon. As soon as tomorrow, if you'd like." She rolls onto her stomach and shimmies down, off of the bed. "Here," she says, handing me another silver bottle of numbing potion. "This is the last of my stock, but I have more brewing. Let me know what you want to do about Bill."

I let my fingers swipe against the sensitive skin of Granger's exposed wrist as I take the bottle from her. She does a poor job suppressing a shiver, and her eyes darken for just a moment.

"Tomorrow, Granger," I say. She chews on her lip, and for a moment, I fantasize about leaning over and biting it. She nods.

"Good night, Malfoy," she whispers. I do not miss the way her eyes flit to my mouth.

"Good night, Granger," I reply, not bothering to keep the want out of my voice. She blushes and leaves abruptly.

It's the first night I allow my hand to snake below the waist of my pants.