A/N: Thank you all for the lovely feedback! I take all the reviews to heart. Enjoy today's update. We're about 1/3 of the way through!

The rest of our week was stressful to say the least. There was much work to be done with the trial coming up as well as introducing the additional charges of murdering his wife. But Draco and I worked well together and we got it all done. When we left at seven that Friday evening, we were confident that all the charges would stick and the trial next week would go smoothly.

We were both famished when Draco reminded me of my promise to have dinner with him. Not that I had forgotten, it was all I had thought about in my spare time since we had discussed it. He had made plans at a newer restaurant in Diagon Alley and was able to secure us a table in a private area of the restaurant.

The wait staff was pleasant and took our orders almost immediately allowing us to get down to business.

Beneath the table, I could see Draco rub his hands on his knees nervously. "Thanks for having dinner with me this evening."

"Technically, didn't I ask you?"

He laughed and relaxed a little bit. "I suppose you did, but I made the reservations so that must count for something."

I chuckled and took a sip of the delicious elf made wine he had selected. "I'll give you that."

"So, now that we are alone and in a relatively private setting, away from work, do you think you could give me a few details of the revelations you had after your evening with the lovely Mrs. Potter?"

"Wow. Right into it then. Ok." I took another sip of the wine for courage. Best to just get it all out. "As Ginny pointed out, I tend to over analyze things, and I'm working on that. I realize when it comes to relationships they need to happen naturally and can't be planned out to know the outcome. You really just need to give them a try. And I'm willing to do that. Try I mean. With you. Merlin, I'm horrible at this."

He reached onto the table and placed one of his large hands over my own. "You're not horrible at this. It's just hard to communicate feelings sometimes. Trust me, I get it. I'm glad you're willing to try, because I really believe there is something here. Why don't you tell me what's making you apprehensive and we can go from there?"

That sounded reasonable. I thought on it for a minute as I enjoyed the warmth from his hand. "Part of it stems from my past with Ron. I really hate to bring him into the conversation, but I need you to understand that relationship to fully get where I am coming from. There were expectations with our relationship. Post war everyone just assumed we would be together and we kind of fell into it because it seemed right. But it was never right. We fought and disagreed on just about everything. Rarely did we have a positive conversation. I simply assumed at the time that this is what life was destined to be like and made the best of it. We did have some good times too, but they were few and far between. Working together complicated things further though, admittedly, I think that was less to do with us being in a relationship and more to do with his overall personality and work ethic. But even with all of that, Ron and I had known each other for so long and I still cared for him as a person. When I walked in on him in the middle of shagging another woman, something broke in me."

Draco gave my hand a squeeze. "I think we may have more in common in this area than you may think. Besides the working together piece, your story sounds very similar to me and Astoria. I understand your hesitation and I hope I can earn your trust and prove to you that I would never treat you that way."

My heart fluttered at his words, but I was still hesitant. "That's where I'm worried though. If someone I have been close friends with since age eleven could hurt me so thoroughly, what could my childhood bully do?" I saw the hurt cross his face and I regretted my honesty. "I'm sorry Draco. It's not something I wanted to say, but you need to know where I am at. Obviously, I understand now why you did what you did and our time together as partners has shown me how different you are as a person. As much as I know you've changed though, there is still that concern in the back of my mind that I'm fighting with."

He thought over my words and nodded. "It's fair. I wasn't kind to you in our youth and it was unacceptable even if the intentions were good behind the façade. I can't expect you to just suddenly be over it. There is something I want you to consider. We both faced something similar of having our significant other basically chosen for us. Me a bit more so than you, but it's close. I had a signed contract to follow, you had the entire wizarding world hoping for you to end up with Ron. There is still the pressure to follow through. That put us in a position where we didn't actually choose the person we were with because of our own feelings. This is different. We have grown so much over the years and this is our chance to be with someone who truly makes us happy, other people's opinions be damned."

I let out a shaky breath. "That does sound quite nice, but it brings up another point. Other people are bound to have an opinion on our relationship and it won't all be positive. How are we going to navigate that?"

"Tell them all to sod off." I let out a light chuckle. "If we decide to start a romantic relationship, the details of it matter to no one but us." He gazed deep in my eyes and I felt that heard of hippogriffs trying to fly out of my stomach. "Hermione, it's just us. We get to decide our lives from here on out. I can tell you how much I want this to work, but if you don't feel the same, I will respect that. But please don't let your fear of other people's judgement get in the way."

I smiled. "Ginny said something similar."

He leaned back in his chair smugly. "I'm liking her more by the minute."

"So, I guess we're doing this?"

A smile spread across his face like I had never seen before. "I would like that very much. And we can take it as slow as you like. The quaffle is in your hand. You call the shots."

I found myself momentarily distracted by his dazzling smile. The nerves were still present, but I felt better after our conversation. We finished up our meal and I found I really enjoyed myself.

When the night came to an end, Draco escorted me to the door, then left with a bow and a promise to meet me for a run in the morning.

It was impossible to stop the smile that took over my face as I readied for bed. There was little doubt that my dreams would be filled with a certain blonde Slytherin.