Chapter Six

With each push she gave against the sand, Hermione ran further down the beach and as far away from the specter of war as she could get. For the most part, the horrifying nightmares that were the memories of her year on the run had dissipated over time as she reacclimated to everyday life and settled into a new routine that helped her to cope and heal. The days leading into the memorial and those directly following it though, always brought her rested trauma back to the surface. The night before however had been an exceptionally bad night for her. Especially since more than a week had passed since the memorial.

In the small hours of the morning, her quiet, restful night had been stolen from her with a visceral remembrance of her time under Bellatrix Lestrange. She had woken up screaming in Luna's arms with Theo - half dressed and still covered in soot from the floo - climbing into bed behind her, while Viktor helplessly paced as though he could find the source of her pain and chase it from her room and life. As she had at Shell Cottage in the immediate aftermath of her torture, Luna softly sung to her and held her while she wept like a small babe. For his part, Theo used the knowledge he had gained through trial by fire to massage the spasms from her limbs and guide her back to the present with his voice. It was a skill he had learned long before becoming a healer and had quickly mastered from the countless nights he had spent putting Draco back together during those dark days.

Despite her protests when she had finally returned to herself and felt like she could breathe easier, her friends had remained with Viktor joining the dog pile to seal off the protective cocoon. Slowly they had each begun to fall asleep with Theo holding her hand through the night as he continued to talk to her about whatever easy nonsense entered his mind. Even his pestering about who had sent the fresh floral arrangement that sat on the table beside her armchair had been soothing - if a little annoying as he suggestively ticked off the meaning of each flower and what the overall message was that the sender was conveying to her. He was like Buckbeak with a ferret when he nosed out potential gossip and she regrettably knew that he would not forget about his curiosity in the morning. After all, it was a rare occurrence that she got flowers from anyone besides Narcissa and Pansy, each of whom routinely sent her arrangements claiming a witch's space was not complete without an element of nature to remind her of the beauty in everyday life. But she had to agree, the flowers that Marcus had waiting at Viktor's home for her after one of their sessions were striking and made her smile every time she looked at them.

Then finally even Theo's curiosity was unable to keep him awake and he too had fallen asleep. It had taken her a bit longer but she had eventually entered a light slumber drawing comfort from his presence at her back, Luna to her front, and Viktor reaching over his girlfriend to her to keep them both bracketed within his bear-like embrace. When dawn began painting the sky though, she had awoken and slipped from the room with her clothes tucked under her arm and her shoes dangling from her fingers.

Refusing to stop until her thoughts were no longer lingering on the war and the things she still clung to from the time before, she continued to push herself as the morning sun grew warm burning off the cool, briny mist that rolled in with the waves. Peeling the long sleeved shirt from her body, she tucked it into the waistband of her shorts without missing a step, hoping to catch enough of the early summer rays to start bringing back the kiss of color that London's dreary winter had leached from her skin. Making it to the point of her usual turn around - about two and a half miles from Viktor's house - she checked her watch and decided to go even further given the faster pace she had been utilizing in hopes of outrunning her problems. However she only made it another few minutes before a massive black dog was bounding out of the ocean and across the sand headed directly for her.

Stopping her forward momentum, Hermione looked up and down the beach for the dog's owner as she ran in place, slowing herself down to a jog before stopping completely. Seeing no one around her, nor anyone sitting out back of one of the houses that lined the beach, she squatted down to welcome the dripping wet dog towards her. That was all the invitation the enormous creature needed before doubling its own pace for her. As it got closer her eyes grew wide from the sheer size of the dog. It was easily the biggest one she had ever seen, including Sirius's animagus form.

Dropping the red ball it held in its mouth, the dog knocked her to the ground in a fit of giggles as it tried to climb into her lap, unconscious of its size. "You're just a lovable, gentle giant aren't you, sweet baby?" She cooed, scratching the back of its head while searching out a collar through the abundance of long, coarse fur.

A sharp whistle caught the dog's attention followed by a shouted, "Darya," in a deep voice she had spent more time than was appropriate thinking about. "Get off of them, girl! You're easily eight stones, you'll crush them before you can draft them into friendship!" He made another sharp click of his tongue that had Darya huffing against Hermione while Marcus scolded from much closer, "Don't you sass me, dog. I haven't prepared your breakfast yet. It'll be dry kibble for the next three days if you don't remember your manners."

Laughing even more at their antics, Hermione picked up the ball she now recognized as a quaffle and said, "It's okay Marcus, she's just a big ole sweetheart."

"Bloody menace is what she is," he muttered, dragging the dog off of her by her collar. "I'm just happy you weren't Mrs. Popple. Darya here probably would've broken the poor, old woman's bad hip. She thinks that because I've been using magic to launch her quaffles into the water and haven't been taking her swimming each morning that I'm some sort of lame Pygmy Puff that she can walk all over."

Batting his hand away as he reached down to help her up, Hermione rocked up to sitting and canted the bill of her hat so she could look up at him without the sun blinding her. She routinely saw him without a shirt during the recovery portion their sessions and often had a hard time composing herself. Outside in the morning light and without the pretense of doing her job however, the sight of tightly defined muscles made her mouth go dry. Not trusting her voice, she lifted the quaffle in a silent question, trying and failing to not stare at him. She didn't know what it was about him that made her act like a fourteen year old girl who had never seen a man before but the way he made her lose control of her facilities was becoming problematic.

With his consent, she wandlessly levitated it and threw it back towards the water for Darya to chase. His giant dog tore through them in her haste to catch it, splashing through the waves with the simple enthusiasm only dogs could exude. Taking the space she had vacated, Marcus sat in the sand beside her and sharply flicked his wand down the right of the beach just before she could snag the ball.

Resting his forearms on his bent knees he turned to look at her as Darya started harassing the seagulls and asked, "Is this your normal path?"

Realizing he had spoken to her, she snapped her parted mouth shut and looked up from studying the patterned ink of the muggle tattoo that stretched over his pectoral and down his arm, dumbly saying, "I'm sorry, what?"

Chuckling, he extended his right arm across her body and nodded towards it saying, "Go ahead. Most people are confused when they see I not only have ink but muggle ink."

"You're a pureblood from an old, more traditional family, I can only imagine," she absently commented, resisting the urge to trace the lines with her fingers.

"Been checking up on me, have you?"

"Mmm," she sounded, trying to think of a tactful reply. "Well you weren't exactly the nicest of people while we were in school but knowing Pansy, Draco, and Theo, I'm willing to chalk that up to their explanation of your house having had eyes everywhere once you all reached a certain age. More like I had a run in or two with-"

"Ah, you had the displeasure of meeting my deceased father and or one of my half-brothers, long may their souls burn in the pits of Tartarus."

Hermione was taken aback by his response about his family. Yes she had run into his father during the battle but she knew more about his family leanings from the spread that Witch Weekly had done several months after the war about the remaining pureblood families and The New Era of The Sacred Twenty-Eight, as they had called it. It was the article that had gotten the exclusive on announcing not only Pansy and Harry's post-battle whirlwind of relationship but their engagement as well - thankfully without catching on to just how soon after the battle had ended they had begun. It had also been the culprit in naming Theo as Wizarding Britain's Most Eligible Bachelor, much to his embarrassment and Draco's disgruntlement once witches and wizards everywhere began throwing themselves at his boyfriend. A month hadn't even gone by after the article and subsequent fanfare before Draco had given up on his stance that it was, "No one's bloody business what my sexual orientation is and if I'm in a relationship or not," and thoroughly kissed him in the middle of a Friday night packed Diagon Alley, to stake his claim. Even the Weasley children had been featured to the delight of Ron. Between him constantly showing it off and her and Pansy ruthlessly terrorizing Theo over the glowing story the witch had written about him, she had come to read up on everyone. Including what little there was on the sole Flint heir who had declined the interview and photoshoot leaving them to write whatever they could dig up on him and his family which hadn't been much. Thus they left a lingering question on if his reluctance to participate was due to not agreeing with the emerging new ways.

Despite the exhaustive media and public image training Narcissa had given her and Harry, Hermione was at a loss for words when it came to how she should respond. Thankfully though, Marcus defused the situation by saying, "Don't worry on my account. After news of my father having killed my mother reached me, I prayed day and night that someone would wipe him off the map. If her kind soul hadn't been allowed to live I didn't want his black one gracing this earth either. As for my brothers, they were all nasty replicas of him, so good riddance.

"After Hogwarts, I received several offers for starting positions in the British and Irish League but my mum begged me not to take them. She wanted me as far away from England as I could get, fearing that my father would force me into You-Know-Who's service since she had seen him pulling out his robes and mask that summer. She even hired a headhunter to help find a team willing to take me. Even though it wasn't a starting position, you can't get much further than the opposite side of the world. So I went one way and she went the other, rightfully guessing that he would use their marriage bond to track her thinking I wouldn't leave her. He was right too because she had to force the portkey on me to get me to leave without her.

"I had been in New Zealand for eighteen months when her solicitor was finally able to locate me and tell me she had been killed only three months after we had made a run for it."

Wiping an escaped tear from her face, Hermione gently rested her head against his shoulder and took his hand between hers. She rubbed the calluses on his palm and the rough backs of his knuckles in comfort as he turned forward to watch his dog frolic in the water, hiding the glassy quality that had taken over his eyes.

"Anyways, the tattoo represents life's journey. It's my path unfolding and the shifting and remaking of myself in the image of who my mum had hoped I would be. A promise to live my life the way she wanted me to in honor of her sacrifice for me. Auntie Mahuika - she's Tayn's mum, the muggleborn beater I played and lived with and who recognized that I might have dyslexia - designed the piece for me and brought me to their tā moko artist to ink it in."

Tracing the edge of the design on his bicep, she softly complimented, "It's beautiful."

"Thank you. One day I want to go back and have it continue down from my elbow to my wrist."

"Why haven't you?"

"Because the story I choose to connect to my mother's has to be one worthy of her love and sacrifice. I want it to be an extension of the life I try to live for her, so I keep it open in hopes of getting to fill it with the journey of whoever I decide to permanently intertwine my life with."

Merlin, he's a soft hearted romantic. A gentle giant just like his dog.

Looking at his profile, she fleetingly wondered if this was how he would always be or if it would fade with time before swiftly dismissing it. A man, wizard, who permanently inked the sacrifice of his mother into his skin as a reminder to be who she wanted him to be, wasn't someone who took any relationship in their life lightly. He wouldn't be the type to run when things got tough or didn't go his way. He would stay and fight to keep the things he had and for what he wanted. More than ever, as they sat in the sand in easy silence, he gave her things to think about and for the first time she didn't feel overwhelmed by the introspection she needed to do. She finally felt ready to examine the last remnants of her past and accept the changes that would come from the conclusions she would draw.

Turning to look down at her, he whispered "What are you thinking about?" as if he was afraid that speaking too loudly would break whatever was happening between them.

Tilting her head back, she realized how close they had gotten, his lips only inches from hers. Unable to look away from their full shape, she answered, "That I might finally be ready to lay my past to rest."

"I may not have been here for it or have seen the things you saw or been forced to do what you had to, but I do know that by not living your life for the things that bring you joy, that you're doing a disservice to those who no longer have that chance."

She wasn't sure who had begun to close what little remained of the gap between them, but at an achingly slow and tentative pace they were drawing closer to one another. The part of her mind that overrode her reason - the part that had her making impulsive, life altering decisions like what her career and specialty would be - had her eyes closing and her lips parting as she waited for him to receive her message of acceptance. And just as she felt his breath grace her skin, the moment was ruined by the spray of seawater that came off of a shaking Darya.

They both jerked back from each other and threw their hands up in protection against her assault. While Hermione laughed and held the dog's face between her hands twisting her dopey face into a figure eight pattern, cooing at her, Marcus fell back on the sand with a grunt and a groan, muttering again about her being a menace.

Taking it as her cue that she wasn't exactly ready for that much change, she jumped up and dusted the sand from her body. Turning her back to the water, she looked down at a squinting Marcus, and said, "Pansy's baby shower is in a few hours so I better head back so I can get ready. It would be unseemly if the baby's godmother were to be late and I would rather not be on the receiving end of Narcissa's disapproval, again."

Laughing, he questioned, "It's that eyebrow of hers right?"

"Yes!"

"It always had me fixing my tie and standing up a little straighter when it was directed towards me."

"I aspire to one day be able to intimidate that effortlessly."

"Hermione, you're the most famous witch in our world and an Order of Merlin First Class recipient. You are plenty intimidating."

Giving him a coy smile, she surprised herself by flirting, "Hopefully not too intimidating."

"Not for me, no," he replied with that smile that made her more than a little loopy.

Checking that her shirt was still securely hanging from her shorts, she reminded, "Ten o'clock tomorrow."

"Wouldn't miss it for the World Cup, Doc."

Giving Darya an affectionate pet goodbye, Hermione took off back down the beach. Smiling like the giddy fool she was for him, she felt lighter and farther removed from the war and her crippling desire to have just one thing from her childhood remain untarnished, than she had in the previous three years. She knew without a doubt that she was in fact growing as a person and not being swayed by a neglected heart. And as the distance between her and Marcus grew, she became even more certain that she was finally ready to finish discovering who she was now, without the fear of how relationships she had made before she evolved would change.