AN: I rather like this chapter. But we are only one chapter from the end.. and its a shorter chapter... oooooooo... I have to say I'm not happy with the ending of this fic. I may edit it somewhat before I post it... Err oh and in compliance with our lords and masters rules I will be going with this private messagaging response to reviews... (if i can figure out how it works...!). And one final thing, if I can beg your time for a little longer, I don't think it is likely I will be writing fanfiction again. So from this author, I've had a great time writing and thank you all for being so supportive (1 more chapter to go!)...

Chapter Eighteen

Answers but yet more Questions

If Draco Malfoy had ever faced a dilemma it was this. This was the decision which could effect his life so much that he had taken over a week to contemplate it. And still no sort or form of decision had manifested itself in his mind.

Draco Malfoy was some kind of supernatural being that even wizards had yet to comprehend. Since the horrible nature of his death he had lain underground for some time until one night he had woken.

Wet. Rain had been his first sensation upon waking from the dead. He had not felt cold nor warmth since waking nor had he felt sadness. His actions, the brutality of the murders he had committed told him that he had no guilt nor fear of punishment, for surely he had already endured the worst punishment anyone could give? This new Draco Malfoy though held many of the same characteristics of the old. The sense of humour, the knowledge and even his self-awareness told him that his personality and essence were unaltered from their one year or so gap. He was in soul the same Draco Malfoy.

But then again he was no longer a wizard. He felt a strange affinity with the darkness which as a teenager had scared him, for he had well seen what lurked in it. He found it easier to move about, being able to shift his body through objects, places, a little like apparating only with much more grace and less effort. He had discovered this after waking and wishing to be in his bedroom once more at home. Once the shock had worn off he had begun to see other things to. Magical traces, he could smell and see magic at work. Walking round in the Muggle World he could see people with magical abilities, colours trailing after trains off wedding gowns.

And he began to be able to move this magic himself. It was only a short step from seeing the magic to feeling it and manipulating it to ignore or serve him. It had surprised him that a house elf held a higher magical train than a Wizard, though it was often of a duller colour.

And then he no longer slept. He would spend hours walking through the Muggle world, escaping the constant hum of the magic, to find that the Muggle world was not as he always thought it was. It was inferior, it was crude and rough but there were elements to it that Draco felt missing in the Wizarding world. The size was phenomenal to him. Sixty million muggles in the country whereas there were barely 20,000 registered Wizards and Witches. And theatre.

Draco had stumbled in upon a Muggle theatre on a night less than three days from his awakening. And he had adored the idea, the words, the songs. He needed no money for he could influence the minds of Muggles easily to forget him or ignore him. He just took a spare seat and watched. Musicals were crap, Opera was a earmuff essential, but theatre was humorous, powerful and elegant.

But his new found radiant life took a somewhat grimmer tone. In his fifth night of wanderings he arrived at an old school. It still had chalkboards upon the walls though it was desolate and barren. And Draco found the need to write on that board. He found his hands writing upon the board in white chalk which stood out on the black of the board. He wrote the numbers one to nine. And then began writing names. Names Draco Malfoy knew. Snape, Wormtail, Crabbe, Goyle, Hepene, Lestrange. Nine names.

Nine people who had betrayed him. Who had caused his death. Eight were still alive. Snape had died, as his Unbreakable vow had shortened his lifespan to fit Draco's.

The first one, that damned Ministry worker who had told Voldemort of Draco's talks with Dumbledore, pre death. Wormtail who had told Voldemort that Draco was untrustworthy and unfaithful to the cause. Wormtail who had told Voldemort that Draco had met Hermione earlier that day, on the 20th October. Hepene who had set the wolves on him. Goyle and Crabbe who had chosen to fight with their fathers over Draco. Leaving him alone with people who wanted him dead. Bellatrix who had tortured him. McGonagall who had refused his pleas for protection saying he was another spy like Snape. Snape who had chosen Voldemort over Dumbledore. And the last name on the list. The worst of all the offenders.

The man who had sworn to protect him. And the man who had agreed to let him die.

But. Oh buts and buts. Draco wanted him dead. He wanted to put him through the pain Draco had endured before death had blissfully taken in into her cold arms. But... there was a chance.

Draco could not decide. He doubted he would ever make a decision. It was all so complicated. So problematic. Buts, ifs... So what to do?

Ah! Let Hermione decide

--

Theodore Nott was looking out onto the cliffs enthralled by the thousands of voices screaming at him. His sense of mind was still present enough to stop his feet moving, but his mind was already flying well above the cliffs. His revelry stopped as he heard someone enter the kitchen. "Theodore." Hermione's voice reached him from the doorway. She had been sleeping much more in the last two days and her voice was drowsy with the excess.

"Hermione." He answered. He noted her prettiness in the midday morning light, bright from the white thick clouds which obscured the sky. She was wearing a mid length skirt and a light top with a jacket slung over her shoulders, and although Nott knew nor cared anything about clothes they seemed to make her more approachable, more desirable, more lovely. She was lovely. "What is it?"

"I..." She took a few steps towards him. She looked very innocent and naive, approachable. And this taking of the lion from her made her seem loveable, Nott thought contemplating her with a critical eye. She currently did not look like she could skin a man by just thinking about it, a rumour held among the Slytherin boys in the first and second years. "I don't know. I just feel like company." A small shiver was noticeable under her clothes and Nott instinctively held out an arm for her to half embrace him. She complied, and they stood under the bright light shining in through the windows, for both of them the voices silent.

Whether it was the venerability of Hermione then and there. Or whether it was Nott coming to an understanding with himself. Or just the time, place and setting being perfect but the tension came into Nott's arms. He turned his body to her, and her to him. And they kissed. They kissed with need, with joy and with friendship. Was it more?

He pulled back from her, and though neither regretted their actions, they spoke not of it and vowed to themselves not to do it again except if that happened again... They stood as they had before, holding each other, neither friends nor lovers, once enemies now somewhere in the barren lands betwixt hate and love.

And they never saw the grey stormy eyes watching them from inside the living room.

--

What was it to love? What is the nature of love? Is it the stormy passionate kiss of the newly found? Is it the sweet passionate embrace of something more than a friend. Is it joy at the sight of someone or is it the internal happiness that can never be dimmed?

Hermione contemplated all of this as she walked along the beach, holding hands with Theodore. He was behaving more like the perfect gentleman every second. Around their feet a child and a dog ran. Hermione could not get out of her mind the sensation that this experience was an illusion. That the happy little family they were pretending to be was incorrect, null and void. And that she did not love Nott. But then did she love a dead man? Who betrayed her?

But could she love someone she did not understand. She understood Draco much more than she understood Nott. Nott was an enigma wrapped in the skin of a problem. He was much less attractive than Malfoy but when one took the time to study him he was unusual looking with two very fine features. His body, although wiry, was strong and athletic. And his eyes were of the richest chocolate. But Draco looked like a God. But he was dead.

But is love unconditional? If it were she could very well still be completely Malfoy's and be letting out her feelings on Nott. Then again was it possible to love two people equally? If it were how was she to decide? Well, then it would be Nott. He wasn't dead. But then again if she didn't love them equally would she regret the decision for the rest of her life? But was it possible to have a relationship with Draco at all?

"You think too much." Theodore told her coldly. Fucking men.

--

Nott flew twenty feet back in the air and landed with a crash onto a rock. He lay still. Hermione turned to run to him, but her limbs froze in place. A great panic rose up inside her as she turned to face the Death Eater... Malfoy. "What's did you do to him?" She yelled her voice cracking with the roar panic she was feeling through her veins.

Malfoy jumped back at her anger. He had his daughter at his feet grinning up at him with the pleasure of a child who has done well. "You know I don't appreciate this. You running off with him. It's not very nice. You may be upset but there's no call for cheating on me, now is there?"

Hermione yelled various obscenities at him which he accepted with a non-plused facial expression. "Yes, well, that's as maybe. I never tried to hide my nature from you, I am a murderer, now I'm dead and you have known that. But that's not what I'm hear to talk to you about." He sat down on a rock and made Hermione join him. Mercury came and leant against his leg grinning up at Hermione.

"You think that you can kill my mentor, a friend, the woman who has done so much to stand up to Voldemort, and come back here expecting everything to be the same?" Hermione shouted, crying now. She felt every emotion bringing her to run to Nott but her muscles held her in place.

"No, actually I expected five minutes of shouting, ten minute apologies, fifteen minute shag, and then to business." He told her bluntly.

"Fuck off." She told him bluntly.

"Mercury I don't think you need to see this. Go and pour sand into Nott's shoes. There's a good girl." Hermione's eyes followed Mercury until she left her field of vision. "Now obviously my timings were a bit wrong, I wasn't factoring in Nott. So let's skip straight to the business. Hermione I want your help-"

"Fuck off Malfoy. I will not help you kill any more people, Death Eaters or not." Hermione glared at him with the spite and defiance of eight years.

"Why you've done it before."

Hermione bit back her anger, and shame flooded her emotions seconds later. McGonagall's face was imprinted on the back of her eyelids and she thanked Merlin they weren't close to the cliffs. And it was as if the spirit of the fight was a physical being which left her at that point. She sank, although her muscles were bound, becoming smaller. Malfoy sensed it and released his hold on her out of surprise. His touch was cold and once it was what she had craved. Was it any more?

"Hermione, Hermione?" He sounded so worried. And that touched Hermione. And she was as torn as Draco had been earlier. She looked up and nodded to him, to weak to carry on their banter just wanting to let him talk so she could regain the strength she once possessed. "I've got to make a choice. As you know," he was still regarding her with worried eyes, "I was sent here to take my revenge on nine people. One of whom was already dead by my dead hand, one of whom was not a Death Eater, one of whom is still alive." She looked up at him. He sounded... unsure. "And I know, I feel that this is my mission. And when I complete it I will rest... again. But... if I don't complete it.. At least for a while. I will remain here. And I was just wandering... if... er..."

He trailed off unable to look her in the eye. OH goddess, why can you hate someone so much? Why do we have to think and love? "If Draco?"

"If, Hermione... you would want to live... with me and Mercury. As a family. For a while. After the war and stuff. We'd be together. And I would live, well exist, until number nine dies, which unless I do something won't be for another, at least five, most likely more years. So we could see Mercury grow up. And be... err... normal."

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