A/N: Last Chapter. This is it. No more. Ever. Not again. Forever. Yeah. Finished. Finis. Fin.

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IX. In The Rain

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Draco walked away from the door in the pouring rain. It had started raining as soon as Hermione had shut the door. He knew that he couldn't go back to her now, even though he really wanted to. There was no way that she was going the let him back into her life—if he even really was in the first place.

He pulled the hood of his robes up over his head to block him from the rain and walked away from the only happiness that he had ever had in his life—his son, the only woman he had ever loved.

He wished that it would end like romance novels and such. That she would realize that she needed him and ran out the door and came after him. He hoped with the small optimistic part of him that that would still happen, but by the time he was more than a block from her flat and she still hadn't ran after him, he knew that she wasn't going to want him ever again.

He pulled out his wand and held it out to apparate.

"Papa!" came a scream along with tiny footfalls on the wet concrete path.

Draco turned sharply to see his brown-haired son running towards him. The boy ran smack into him, wrapped his arms around his legs and started crying into his stomach. He was saying something in French, but it was too fast for Draco to understand.

Draco detached the boy and kneeled down. "English?" he asked softly.

The boy nodded. "Mommy," he said. "She needs you."

Draco laughed tersely. "No she doesn't."

Ophi started crying again. "She needs you, Daddy, she loves you."

"No she doesn't," Draco said again. If she loved him then she wouldn't have kicked him out and told him that she was fine by herself. If she loved him then she would have wanted him to stay.

"Daddy, I need you. Don't go!" Ophi started crying again, rubbing his fists on his eyes so that he wouldn't seem like the child that he was. He was trying to be strong and Draco gave him credit for that.

"Your mommy doesn't want me around. Believe me, I would stay if I could, if she would let me."

"Forever?" Ophi asked.

Draco smiled and kissed the boy on the forehead. "Yes, Ophi, forever." Draco picked him up and set him on his hip. "Now we need to get you out of the rain before you get pneumonia."

He turned around with the boy in his arms and his eyes came upon the very wet figure of Hermione. Draco didn't want to upset her anymore so he immediately handed over Ophi. He lowered his eyes and then brought them back up to see her retreating form. "I really do love you, you know!" he yelled out to her.

She turned around and smiled sadly. "I know," she said.

"Then why can't you let me stay. I've been searching for you for three years, it hurts so much to just give up."

She looked down at the ground and took a deep breath. "I can't let you hurt me again." Then she turned back around and started walking away.

Draco ran up to her, his heels splashing in the puddles that were forming. "I didn't want to hurt you," he said. He stood in front of her to halt her progress towards her flat.

She looked up at him. "Then why did you do it?" she asked, her eyes showing the hurt she felt.

"You hurt me," he said. "You said those things about the night we were together. You ignored me!" He took a deep breath. "But I was childish and I wanted revenge." He ran a hand through his thoroughly soaked hair. "Please, Hermione. I'm sorry for everything I said, I didn't mean it. I was just—I was trying to hurt you."

Hermione stared at him for a long time with an unreadable expression in her eyes. When she didn't move or talk or anything Draco knew that she didn't accept his apology and made to walk away.

"Papa!" Ophi cried from her arms. "Don't go!"

"She doesn't want me, son, I have to go."

"Draco," Hermione said softly.

"What?" he asked, looking hopefully at her.

"I—I want to let you get to know Ophi," she said. "I want to forgive you, but it hurt too much. I need more time."

"I'm sorry, Hermione, but I just—I don't have anymore time to give to you unless I know that—that we'll spend the rest of our lives together." He sighed heavily. "For Ophi, I can stay around here, maybe get a flat, get to know my only child."

Hermione was glad that it was raining just then, because Draco couldn't see the tears of hurt that were falling down her cheeks. Draco turned to walk away. "I love you, you know!" she said.

Draco turned around sharply and looked into her eyes. "What?"

"Raising Ophi, seeing how he takes after you, I realised that I was never in love with Ron." She said his name with a exhale of breath. "I was in love with you, but because Ron was my friend and the more suitable boyfriend, I took the easy way out." She sighed. "He has your eyes," she said, looking at their son.

"I noticed," Draco said, confused at her change of subject.

They stood in silence for a long while. "If you can forgive me, Draco, I can forgive you," Hermione said finally. It hurt to say this. She knew that she was the cause of it and that if she had stayed with him then he never would have called her those names in the street. He had been searching for her for three years and that alone showed how much he loved her.

She hadn't had a man in her life in a long time and she wanted it to be the man she loved.

Draco's arms were around her in a second and he moved in to kiss her but stopped millimetres short of her lips. "I understand why you did it," he said. "I can forgive you. Please, please forgive me. Let me stay with you. Let us be a family." His lips closed the last tiny space and their lips crashed together.

Ophi was still on his mother's hip, wrapped in the hug of his father and finally, finally he felt like how his friends felt. Like he was part of a family, with two parents who loved each other and him.

"I forgive you, Draco," Hermione cried into Draco's lips. "Please stay."

"I will," he said, dragging his family towards Hermione's flat to get them out of the rain. "I'll stay forever."

Perhaps, Draco thought with a smile, perhaps once in a while, real life could end like the romance novels.

A/N: The last chapter wasn't really the last chapter. This is not an epilogue, but it is the last chapter. This is for all the people that need happy endings, like me!

Today is our one-year anniversary. Luck of the Irish was written on St. Patrick's Day one year ago. So if you want to go back and read that to see how much our writing has evolved, please do, and review.

Travelling Back will be posted in the next week or so. So look out for that. It has been almost a year since we came up with the idea for that story. It is both of our favourites and at the moment is currently 145 written pages.

Oh yeah, and happy St. Patrick's Day, if you didn't wear green, pinch yourself, NOW! If you did wear green…

Lemons and Love and Chocolate Spoons!

Brittany and Amber