Hermione blinked awake the next morning with a pounding headache and a vague sense of foreboding. She shaded her eyes against the weak sunlight that was struggling in through her window and groaned.

"I must be the only person who can wake up feeling like she has a hangover without actually drinking—"

She paused. "Wait a minute." Her mind, which was never at its best early in the morning, was just recalling the shots of firewhisky she had downed before heading to bed. She shuddered. "Hermione, you are an idiot."

At that moment her stomach caught up with her headache, and she rushed for the bathroom, barely making it in time to vomit into the toilet bowl. Brushing her teeth afterwards, she glared at her reflection in the cracked mirror. She looked like death.

She swished and spat, gave her mirror-self one final look of disapproval, and headed back to her bedroom to perform an Anti-Hangover Charm, a nifty little trick borrowed from Ginny Weasley.

"That explains the headache, at least," she muttered, sinking onto the edge of her bed. "But why do I feel like there's something hanging over me? Ha ha, hanging over," she laughed mirthlessly, "I am so stupid when I wake up. Come on, idiot girl, think. What did you do last night?" She remembered falling fuzzily into bed, the effects of the whiskey finally getting to her. Wait a minute. She had been crying, hadn't she? She had sobbed most of the night until the combination of alcohol and tiredness had caught up to her somewhere around 4 in the morning. And had she gotten up at intervals for a few more mouthfuls of Ogden's?

Dammit. This was why she hardly ever drank. She couldn't imagine what had gotten into her last night.

Oh. Oh wait a minute.

This was more than just her job, wasn't it? Work hadn't been half as bad as usual yesterday, had it?

Oh, shit.

I really would rather not.

Draco.

Oh dammit.

I am such a bitch.

- - -

Hermione sat at her kitchen table, dunking a tea bag up and down in her cup and staring off into space. This is why I hardly ever drink, she reminded herself again. My reasoning goes right out the window and I do things without thinking about them. What am I supposed to do now?

She glanced down at her very black tea, sighed in disgust, and waved her wand to clear it away. She listlessly dressed, yanked out most of her hair while attempting to brush it, gave up on trying to look even halfway decent, and Flooed off to work.

Hermione made her way slowly down the hallway in a swarm of people, not really seeing anything, not really thinking. She sat down in her cubicle and cast a silencing charm over it, blocking off the chattering of her alien coworkers and giving herself an opportunity to try to think.

"Okay, this is just logic," she told herself firmly. "I made a mistake, and now I have to rectify the mistake. All I have to do is decide how to do that." She magicked a sheet of parchment onto her desk, dipped her quill in her inkpot, and put the end of the feather to her lips, thinking. At the top of the page, she wrote,

'Pros and Cons of Apologizing to He-Who-I-Cannot-Name'

"Pro number one," she muttered to herself, scribbling, "I like him a lot. A lot a lot." She thought for a moment. "Con number one: I'm not very good at apologizing." She continued in this vein for some time, accumulating a massive list, and then, ink-splattered, put down her quill and sighed.

"All I've succeeded in doing is making myself even more confused." She shook her head in frustration. "Why am I so self-destructive to my own social life?"

At that moment, a folded note appeared on her desk with a puff of blue smoke. Hermione unfolded it and read aloud, "Dear Hermione, I'm sorry, I have no work for you today. You may go home if you like."

She let her head fall forward onto her desk with a loud clunk. "Why do I even bother?" she asked herself. "If I didn't like to quit things, I would go right back to London. But no, I just can't give up, can I? Stupid, stupid, stupid." She was planning to merely sit in her cubicle and stew all day, but her eye fell on her list of pros and cons.

Going home would merely make the bad memories fresher. But—if she swallowed her pride—she could go to England and try to remedy things. She took a nervous deep breath. Cross-ocean Apparation was very risky, and there were only a very few wizards who, at their apparation tests, were allowed to attempt it. Draco, apparently, had no problem with it. Hermione hadn't done it for years.

"Hopefully it's one of those things you never forget how to do," she whispered, and with a loud CRACK!, she disappeared.

- - -

She reappeared in the lobby of his apartment building. As she stood in the magical lift, she wasn't particularly worried about anything except what she would say to him, and how he would respond. She knew he would be home—he never worked on Mondays, and at ten in the morning, where else would he be? She walked trembling down the hallway to his flat and took out her wand—he had given her his password a while ago. She let herself into the front hallway.

"Draco?" she called nervously, hating the sound of her voice, high and thin, echoing through the rooms. "Draco, are you here?" She walked through the kitchen, into the living room, and stopped dead. Her heart sank down and crashed through the floor.

He was there, all right, sitting in his living room. And there, sitting primly on the white leather across from him as if she owned it, was Pansy Parkinson. They were both staring up at Hermione with horror written plainly across their faces.

"Oh," she forced out, willing the tears not to fall, "I'm so sorry. Is this a bad time? I think I'll leave, then." Her voice cracked, and she turned away quickly, not wanting Draco to see her tears. She stormed back down the hallway, out the door, and to the lifts, where she jammed the button repeatedly, smearing at her cheeks with the other hand. How could he have forgotten about her that quickly? She had only sent the note last night. It hadn't even been twenty four hours, and he had already moved on.

She pummeled the button, glancing over her shoulder frantically to make sure that he wasn't coming, but at the same time, hoping that he would.

He didn't.

- - -

"Pansy, let go of my hand, dammit!" Draco shook her off angrily and tried to rush after Hermione, but Pansy hit him with an Impediment Jinx.

"Draco, Hermione Granger?" she said faintly, sinking back onto the sofa. "When you asked me for advice, I had no idea you were talking about her."

"Well, I was," Draco forced out through immobile lips, "and you had better take this curse off so I can go find her and explain. C'mon, Pansy, you're supposed to be my friend. I thought you were happy that I've found someone, I thought you wanted to help get me back together with her—"

"But I didn't know it was her," said Pansy vehemently. "Draco, what were you thinking? If your parents knew—"

"My parents are in Azkaban," ground out Draco, "and even if they did know, I wouldn't care. You want to know something? I love her. I. Love. Her. I've been an idiot, and you need to let me go so I can go tell her, because she obviously thinks that I'm seeing you now—"

"Look, Draco, I'm sorry," said Pansy, looking frightened at his anger, "but this goes against everything that I believe in. How you can go gallivanting around with a Mud—"

"Don't you dare call her that," he said between clenched teeth. "Look, Pansy, are you my friend or not? Let me go!"

He didn't know if she had finally relented or if the curse had just worn off, but next thing he knew, he was sprinting after Hermione. He flung himself out into the hallway just in time to see the lift begin descending. He hurled himself at the button and began hitting it frantically. Would she Apparate back to New York straight from the lobby, or try to go somewhere else first? Knowing Hermione, she would probably head straight to one of her favorite London haunts.

"Damn laws," he grunted furiously, jabbing at the button, "I shouldn't have to go all the way down to the lobby just to Apparate, dammit!" He heard a muffled squeak and turned to see one of the neighbors' kids staring at him open-mouthed.

"You said the d-word," the little boy said in a hushed voice, "twice!"

"Ah, damn," Draco said without thinking, "I mean—no, go away—don't tell your mother I—"

The lift arrived and he hurtled into it, jamming the button for the lobby. He felt the elevator descending and let out a long string of curses at its slowness. When it finally arrived, he looked around wildly, didn't see Hermione, and ran over to an old wizard sitting in an armchair.

"Excuse me," he panted, "did you see a woman leave? Short, with curly brown hair, very pretty?"

"Crying?" the old man asked, nodding. "Yup, I seen her. She went running out thataway—" he gestured left "—sobbing something terrible. Here now," he said, looking suspicious, "what did you do to her?"

"Nothing," Draco lied hastily, already running off. "Thank you, sir!" He shouldered his way through a crowd outside the steps and took off down the street, looking out for a glimpse of unruly curls.

If she was going this way, she was probably heading either for the park or for their favorite Muggle coffee shop. Probably the park, he decided, she doesn't like being out in public when she doesn't look perfect and presentable. Mask-like, even. But then he looked dubiously up at the stormy sky. It was spitting raindrops at random intervals, and probably would let loose a deluge any minute now. Nevertheless, he decided to try the park.

He was almost there when he thought he saw a glimpse of her, between a crowd of people, but she was swallowed up among a sea of faces immediately. He shoved through the knot of people at the entrance to the park, apologizing as he did so, and finally emerged into Hermione's haven.

He didn't know why she loved it so much: it was just a standard old park, all grass and trees and flowers with a pond in the middle. But he supposed the seclusion was nice—hardly anyone ever entered it, except for her. He began jogging around the perimeter of the pond, peering around for any sign of her. And then he heard her sobs.

She was sitting on a bench underneath a tree, half-hidden behind an overgrown bush. Her face was hidden in her hands, her shoulders were shaking, and she was completely unaware that he was there.

He cleared his throat. "Mya?"

She started horribly and looked up at him, betrayal written all over her puffy, tear-stained face.

"Go away!" she shrieked hysterically. "If you can forget about me that quickly, then I don't want you here. I hate you!" She buried her face in her hands.

"No, Mya, you don't understand," Draco said, trying to sound gentle. He sat down next to her, and she shrank away from him. "Can I please explain?"

"I don't think you need to," she said shakily, gulping. "I mean, it's pretty obvious what's going on, isn't it? You got sick of me and moved on to—to her."

"Maybe that's what it looked like," he said earnestly, "but I swear that isn't what happened, Mya."

She looked at him hard, tears still streaming from her reddened eyes. "Okay," she said finally, "tell me."

He began to explain: how after he had said that they needed a break, he had regretted it terribly; how when they were both in bad moods, they were careless about rubbing the other the wrong way; how hurt he had been at her last note—Hermione began crying again at that—and how he had turned to his childhood friend, Pansy, for love advice.

"And I swear to you by everything I believe in, Mya," he finished, "I wouldn't do that to you. I still want to be with you."

"Oh, Draco," she wailed, but there was a different tone in her voice now. He tentatively wrapped his arms around her as she cried into his shoulder. "I'm so sorry," she sobbed. "You're right, you've always been right, I'm too judgmental, and I don't think before I say things that might hurt people, and—"

He placed his hand gently over her mouth. "And you slight yourself all the time." He gave her a gentle shake. "Quit it."

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm sorry about everything."

"Me too."

They sat in silence, steadily growing wetter as the sky opened up and, in Draco's case, as Hermione's tears subsided into his shirt.

"Here, we're both going to get pneumonia," Draco said as her tears gradually became gentle hiccups. "Do you want to come back to my flat? I'm not letting you Apparate like this."

"Will—she be gone?"

"If she isn't, I'll kick her out," Draco promised.

Hermione managed a small smile. "Thank you."

"No problem," Draco replied, meaning it. He stood up and helped her to her feet, feeling the familiar fizzle running through him as their hands met. Amazing how, after knowing her for so long, it still felt the same as the first time their hands had clasped.

"C'mon," he said and, still holding hands, they walked back through the rain.