Disclaimer: All recognizable characters belong to J.K. Rowling.

I rarely know what I'm doing. It's because I've stopped thinking about things overly much. That's torture. Listing the 'what might have beens' in your head, knowing that what might have been will never be.

So why bother?

The past has passed. There is nothing left but to look forward. But even then, I never think pass tomorrows. For who knows what tomorrow will bring?

Or today?

~~

"Hermione?"

She looked at him oddly. It was as if he were out-of-place, a weed among flowers or if her were lucky—the other way around.

He watched her hand slowly make its way to her mouth. "Oh… Merlin…" Her voice was a slight whisper and her eyes conveyed paramount disbelief and shock.

Draco smiled. "Hello, Hermione," he told her in an even and unassuming tone. "I suppose I'll introduce myself—Or reintroduce myself as the case may be…"

She shook her head. "No," she replied hastily, putting both hands in the air as if to ward off some sort of evil spirit. Or some sort of Malfoy as the case may be. "I know who you are. Believe me, I do."

"And I do believe you. You were delightfully emphatic."

Hermione raised an eyebrow at him. Draco Malfoy. She truly couldn't get over that particular fact. Draco Malfoy. It was odd. Draco Malfoy. She should really leave before Liam woke up. Draco Malfoy! "So what's for breakfast?"

Beginnings are odd things. They happen without warning sometimes. Like rain…

Draco shrugged. "Let's see, shall we?" He opened the refrigerator door wider for her to see. "We have orange juice, a personal favourite. A jar of pistachios. A jar of green olives… Cheese. Oh wait, make that moldy cheese. And… I think that may very well be some sort of meat, although we should have it tested just to be sure."

"No, wait," she said tentatively and Draco could see her hesitation coming in at abrupt moments. "When I asked what's for breakfast, what I really meant to ask was, 'Why are you being so civil? Because it's bloody odd the way you're acting, you know, compared to our years in Hogwarts where you were anything but civil."

Draco regarded her for a moment in silence. And then for much longer. He was silent until she began fidgeting under his expressionless gaze and still silent when she was glaring at him harshly.

"That was ten years ago," he stated simply. He finally found not one but two unused glasses and proceeded to pour out orange juice for both of them.

How domestic.

"Nine and a half years, actually," she murmured silently, as if hypnotized with how the orange substance could make its way from carton to glass. "But who's counting?"

Draco handed her one of glasses, a very familiar (though not nostalgia-inducing) smirk on his face. "So, you and Liam, huh?" He waggled his eyebrows at her in mock suggestion.

Hermione sighed and sat down on one of vacant kitchen chairs. "Would you take offense if I said that he and I… that it was a serious lapse in judgment?" She took a sip of her juice, but her eyes twinkled as she looked over the rim and Draco was at a lost.

For a bare moment.

"Why would I take offense in that?" he asked, before suddenly remembering his current state of dress. Or undress. As it didn't seem to bother the female inhabitant of the room, he didn't deem it cause to back out of a perfectly amicable conversation.

"You are friends, are you not?"

"Well, sure… if you use the term loosely."

"But you are roommates."

Draco shrugged and ran his hand through his short hair. "That doesn't mean anything," he drawled, settling his glass down on the dark marble counter. "People don't have to be friends in order to live with each other. I doubt that the inhabitants of hell are on friendly terms with Satan."

"Point taken."

"Indeed."

Hermione studied Draco in the ensuing silence. He knew that the pause was prelude to her own 'big' question. He had seen that look before. In fact, many times before. It was that look that informed you that Hermione Granger was just warming up to a topic and soon a multitude of questions would be fired.

"If you don't mind me asking… But, what happened after Hogwarts?"

"You want to catch some breakfast somewhere?"

"Sure."

~~

There was a time when things used to make sense. There was a time when any question that I might have—had a corresponding answer.

Then my father died.

I no longer had the answers. In their place, stood tens of thousands of questions, glaring at me like a bad dream. They haunted me. A past that lingers like the scent of roses in Spring…

~~

"The war has changed you greatly," Hermione mused almost to herself, her buttered toast forgotten in her head. She smiled softly before continuing, "But I suppose, we've all changed because of it."

Draco stared down at his plate of eggs, the yolk running wildly in every direction, meeting in pools of yellow. Suddenly, it no longer seemed as appetizing as it previously had. "And you? How have you changed?"

"I have nightmares."

He raised an eyebrow in interest. He made a pretense of stirring his black coffee (which really did require any stirring of the sort) and let his eyes wander some.

"It's all right," she told him with a slight smile. "I know you want to ask. So ask away. It's only fair. I get to nose in on your past, though, right?"

Draco inclined his head, considering this for a moment, before nodding slowly. He wasn't sure what her was agreeing to, though, or if he was agreeing at all.

"What do you dream about?"

Hermione put down her toast and fork on the plate before her and took a deep breath. "They began before the war even ended. Do you remember those days?"

It wasn't really a question, but more of an idle statement of fact. For really, who could forget those days? Those terrible days that began and ended in fear. Fear etched itself more deeply in the mind than any other emotion.

Draco inclined his head in agreement, though his eyes were cast away.

"Sometimes, I dream about my own funeral." Hermione laughed an empty little laugh. "Isn't that just terribly morbid? All of a sudden, I'm looking at myself and I'm dead. Dead. I'm inside a coffin in this room that I can't recognise. There are only a few people there—people I don't know… And I'm waiting and I'm waiting…" She paused and after taking a shuddering breath and fixing her stare on her coffee cup she continued. "I'm waiting for a familiar face but no one comes."

"Why is that?"

There's comfort in noise. The clanking of forks and knives against plates being stack one upon the other, the din of loud conversation and laughter… Sounds drown thoughts.

Somewhat.

"The first few times that I dreamed about it, I asked myself that exact same question. Then it came to me." A sad look came over her and Draco was almost sorry for having asked. "They were all gone."

"Gone?" he repeated, and the question hung in the air like a stale smell before it was answered.

"Dead. Deceased. Departed. Ceased to Breathe." It was obvious that Hermione was trying to make light of the topic, but the amusement fell rather short and neither one laughed.

Draco found out something new, though. The impenetrable Hermione Granger's greatest fear was being alone. That's where they differed, he supposed. Well, one of the many aspects wherein they were different. He chose reclusion while she was terrified of the prospect.

"It's a very boring dream," she said with a sigh, "I would have fallen asleep had I already not been sleeping."

He cracked a smile and with his fork, nudged her plate closer to her. "You have an appetite of a mouse." He laughed loudly when he once again became the recipient of that all too familiar glare.

"I do, however, know how to not have these dreams. I merely tire myself out, you know, so that once I fall asleep… I'll just sleep. A relatively painless, dreamless sleep."

"Sounds… good."

"It is. Ingenious even."

"So… what about Potter and Weasley? How have they been holding up?"

Hermione shrugged as she held up her toast once again, inwardly grimacing at its cold state. "Well, Harry is… He's all right. He's been working for the Ministry of Magic for some time now and that's been working out great for him."

"I know that part. I know that Potter is now an influential political dunderhead. I read the papers—including yours, I might add." He ran his hand through his hair and smirked. "What I meant was, how has the war changed him?"

"Oh…" The toast was laid down on the plate again and Hermione unconsciously gripped the edge of the table with both her hands. "Harry… He's still Harry. What can I say? I can't say that he rarely shows his emotions, or tells me how he feels." She lowered her gaze on her lap. "The war has broken him. Sometimes, it's as if I'm only talking to a shell. Like he isn't there. It's been a while now, they said—Dumbledore and some others—that it was only a matter of time before he came back to us. The old Harry. But it's already been so long and he's still… empty. There isn't a day that goes by that I wonder if I have Harry Potter back—not the Harry Potter the rest of the world knows, but that Harry Potter that I know."

For a moment it felt like nothing could ever be said again between them. That sitting together, having breakfast in a Muggle café was a large mistake… each of them drawing the other deeper into a past best forgotten.

Draco stared at his coffee mug before breaking the uneasy silence. "I know what people think of my father. Or me. The bad guys—that's who we were." There was an obvious bitterness in his voice and no matter how much Hermione wanted to deny his statement, they both knew that anything contrary would be a lie.

"And then Voldemort killed my father. That was odd. Growing up, I was taught that black is black and white is white. But at that moment, when I saw my father, eyes wide open without a sign of life… things were no longer black and white. Things were just entirely confusing."

"And so you ran away. After Hogwarts your mother…" Hermione bit her lip. "You went missing for years and next we hear you're some hotshot—"

"So the story goes."

And so it did.

~~

Friendships are odd things. They happen without warning sometimes. Like rain…

And for all of my hidden fears and inhibitions—

I like walking in the rain.

Author's Notes:

Thanks to everyone who took the time to read this story and most especially to those who left a review. I truly appreciated the feedback. ^__^ Thank you so much.

My apologies to those who were confused with the prologue. I was supposed to upload the first chapter along with it, however, I wasn't satisfied with it and so I decided to upload the prologue alone. To rule out any more confusion, all first-person POV is Draco.

This chapter: It's always been my "theory" that had Draco and Hermione met under different circumstances, they would have gotten along quite well. In canon, they're merely reacting according to norm. Yes, D/Hr shippers, you know you agree with this! So this is the premise of my fic. Meeting under different circumstances where the things that used to matter just don't.

In this chapter, we've established a few things. The war has ended (and seeing as how Harry is still alive, it is only right to assume Voldemort dead). Lucius is dead. Malfoy is somewhat estranged from Wizarding society and has acquainted himself with the Muggle world in the years that he went missing.

I'm establishing a past and I know that there are many more questions that I'll have to answer because of this chapter, but all in good time ^__^

Next chapter: What happened to Ron. Draco and Hermione's chosen professions. And just a whole lot more Draco, okay? Because this is my story and if I say that I get to shag Draco… Okay, that's not happening. ^__^ Nothing hot and steamy in next chapter. That's for the third chapter. ^__~

PLEASE REVIEW!