And if you have a minute, why don't we go / Talk about it somewhere only we know? / This could be the end of everything / So why don't we go / Somewhere only we know?

- Somewhere Only We Know, Keane

It was one of the warmest evenings of the year so far when Hermione went to meet Malfoy in the Astronomy Tower. Spring was finally emerging – she caught the sweet scent of wild flowers on the mild breeze that blew in from the grounds as she crossed the Entrance Hall on her way to the Tower.

Hermione had always loved the beginning of spring – the sense that the earth was awakening and thawing after a long winter – and she experienced a jolt of joy as she passed an open window and felt the warmth of the setting sun on her face. She slowed down at that point, closing her eyes, and just focused on the feel of the sun's rays. Joy. Something she'd worried that she might never feel again. The feeling was already dissipating, but she allowed herself a smile as she started climbing the stairs to the battlements above.

Malfoy was already there when she emerged onto the roof, his back to her, leaning against one of the stone pillars that stood by the roof's edge. A light, energising feeling surged through her at the sight of his frame: joy. Again. She'd felt it again – at the sight of Malfoy, of all things.

"Oh. You're here already," Hermione blurted out. She'd purposely gotten there early, for what reason she wasn't sure. Possibly to prepare herself in some way.

He turned to face her. His expression was that guarded, assessing one she'd become so familiar with, but there was a hint of something soft about his face. It was new, that softness; she still wasn't used to it. The newness unnerved her somewhat, but she liked it all the same.

"So are you," he stated, his voice surprisingly gentle. Then he inhaled sharply, and turned back to the view of the mountains that could be seen from Tower's roof. "I've been coming here a lot this year. It -" He broke off. Hermione could sense his awkwardness in how he shuffled from one foot to the other, how his hand reached up to rub the back of his neck. "It's been part of my therapy…to expose myself to this place."

Exposure. Hermione was instantly reminded of her conversations with Alethea. And an image flashed into her mind; an image from her imagination rather than her memory, because she hadn't been there: of Malfoy standing on this very roof, his arm outstretched, his wand pointing at Dumbledore, and his face contorted in the anguish of indecision.

Then, another image, this time rich and vivid because it was from her actual memory: Malfoy bent double, caressing his groin, sweat beading his forehead and his breath coming in quick gasps. Bent double after Hermione had violently forced her knee between his legs. Exposure...the images collided in her mind, and she suddenly conceived of a very different explanation of Malfoy's reaction that evening than the one she'd had at the time.

"You were panicking!" she exclaimed instinctively, taking a step towards him. "That time when you pushed me back from the edge and held me down, when I left you – you were panicking." Her voice had turned into one of dismay and regret. Because she hadn't realised. The trauma the war had left her with had been so enveloping at that time, she hadn't been able to see through it to grasp that this place would have held memories of fear and suffering for Malfoy. Then, probably as a way of quelling her rising guilt, she said almost accusingly. "You said you'd come here to think."

"Yeah. Well. My own fault really. I was being my normal stubborn, stupid self. Came up here on my own, in the dark, after one too many firewhiskeys. That was definitely not what Alethea had advised."

Then, with another surge of dismay, Hermione remembered something else. "You said Astronomy was your favourite subject. Is that why – is that why you're not studying it this term? It isn't because you don't think it would be a good career choice at all, is it?" The war had taken so much from them, Hermione realised now, but it was these seemingly little things that felt like a particularly spiteful punch in the gut.

She didn't miss the sadness that flicked across his eyes, even with the speed in which he hid it with nonchalant indifference. "Well. McGonagall and Sinistra have said that I'm welcome to take an intensive course in the summer, now that I'm able to stay up here without shitting myself."

"Oh." Vicarious hope sprung in her heart. "That's good, isn't it?"

He smiled then, a genuine smile. "Yeah. Yeah, it is good."

She took some more steps towards him, so she was standing by his side, and looked out at the low clouds that hung between a darkening sky and the mountains' slopes. "I should have realised, though, what was happening," she said remorsefully. She didn't just mean the time Malfoy had panicked on the place they now stood, she meant all of it – she should have seen all the damage and the broken pieces that Voldemort and the war had scattered about them and left others to pick up.

"No, you shouldn't have," Malfoy said softly, as he turned to gaze at the horizon too. "I never gave you any reason to think of me sympathetically."

"But I shouldn't have been so self-absorbed. I should have realised that other people were struggling too."

He turned to look at her, his penetrating eyes calming and stilling the tumult of emotions in her in that uncanny way they so often did.

"So many 'shoulds' Granger," he finally said, his voice solemn and regretful. He reached out to cup her chin in his hand and tenderly stroke a thumb down her cheek. "We could fucking drown in them."

She smiled back at him then, at this gesture of forgiveness and understanding, and there was a silence as his words settled in the dust around them.

"I – I read your letter." she said eventually. He just nodded, his eyes flitting away from and towards a point over her right shoulder. "Thank you. Thank you for being so honest. I – it helped me understand so much."

"I wanted to try and explain things. But I don't even know if that letter does it justice." He looked back at her then, almost defiant and a little weary, as if waging an old, familiar internal battle with himself. Then he bit his next words out: "I am sorry. For how I treated you at school – before." He took a deep breath in and turned away from her to look back at the mountains. "I really believed it, you know. It was everything that my father taught me: that purebloods were inherently superiour, that there was something intrinsically wrong with Muggle-borns. But that's not the reason why you, in particular, always got under my skin. Why I teased and taunted you much more than all the other Muggle-borns in this school. My mind couldn't handle it, you see. It couldn't handle how you went against everything I'd been taught. How could I keep believing Muggle-borns were stupid and inferiour and dirty, when you kept walking around the school – bright, and – and brilliant and –" Malfoy shook his head, as if he were struggling to find the right words. "Beautiful. It didn't make sense – you contradicted it all. And it made me angry. Angry at you for being there, causing this massive crack in the logic of the ideology that defined my very existence. And, like the idiot I was, I took that anger out on you."

Hermione listened silently, watching Malfoy's profile as he spoke into the fading twilight. There was a lot to take in in what he said, but inexplicably, possibly vainly, the sentiments that were dancing about her mind the most were that he thought of her as 'beautiful' and 'brilliant'. And that he'd thought of her that way even before the war had waged its destruction.

"When I was younger, much younger, I suppose I was intrigued by the Dark Arts," Malfoy continued. "I'm not going to lie, the less gracious traits of Slytheirn in me dominated and I got a bit seduced by it all, by the potential power... But the reality – the reality was so fucking different." Malfoy's face contorted bitterly. "It quickly turned terrifying, and I saw it for what it was – evil, corrupted. But I had no choice but to go along with it all – my parents – fuck knows what he would have done to them if I hadn't. I was in far too deep...and fucking drowning."

"And then – at the beginning of this year – there you were again, and you reminded me of how wrong I'd gotten it all. And, to twist the knife, you were walking around like your soul had been sucked out of you. Like I wrote in my letter, that pissed me off...but I didn't know what to do with that anger."

He looked at her with something like pleading in his eyes. And she thought she understood what he was pleading for, what he was needing. She understood how much humility it took to admit your own faults, especially when it felt like those faults – those beliefs – had been the bedrock of who you were.

"I forgive you," The words that had seemed so hard to voice in Alethea's office came to her easily now. "I forgive you for all the times you called me 'mudblood'. For all the times you mocked me. We make mistakes when we're young, the important thing is learning from them. And I can see that you're truly sorry." She noticed something new come to his expression then: hope. Hope and relief. Then she carried on, her voice firmer. "But I don't forgive you for what happened at Malfoy Manor." His eye flickered. She saw uncertainty in them, saw the lines of his face return to a familiar guardedness, so she quickly continued, reaching up to caress his jaw with her hand, wanting to smooth the uncertainty away with her touch. "Because there's nothing to forgive. You had no choice in that room but to do what you did. I would have done the same to protect my parents. Anyone would."

His face softened slightly, his feature relaxing. "I don't know if I'll ever completely agree with you on that. But thank you anyway… I don't believe it any more of course. You know that, right? But now, I don't know what the fuck I believe. It's like I'm unanchored. Adrift, I suppose...And I don't even know if I can be any different. It's something Alethea and I have talked about a lot." He started picking at the stone pillar next to him, jabbing at where the masonry was crumbling away, frowning at it as if it had done him some wrong. "Whether I can be more than just...evil, sullied, power-hungry."

She reached her hand around the nape of his neck, stroking the ends of his hair with her thumb. As he turned to look at her once more, she reached up and kissed him tenderly on the lips. "I know you can be much more than that, Malfoy," she said, her voice quiet but firm. "I know you can be more than your father's son."

His frown returned. "You really think so?" There was something in his voice she'd rarely heard before. It was a kind of desperateness. And it seemed as if her answer to his question was like a lifeline for him; she felt the weight of responsibility that encased her answer. Sensed that the wrong answer would mean he'd fall over a precipice, but the right one would be throwing him a life line.

"I know so," she replied with conviction. "You already are. The very fact you don't want to be already means that you're not. That you're better than him. I can see it in your face when you look at me sometimes. Hear it in your words." She stroked her hand down his chest, and wrapped it around his back, drawing him closer to her. "Feel it in your touch," she said, speaking into the curve of his neck, before craning up to kiss him again. It was a deep and intense kiss, her blood flared with heat at it, nerves tingling right down her spine to her toes. Would her body never tire of kissing him?

When their lips parted, he smiled down at her. It was a rueful smile but a smile nonetheless.

"Well," he said dryly. "We've done half the task already at least."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean we've established what I managed to get from you. What you and only you could have given me. For it to feel as if it actually meant something real."

Hermione continued to frown up at him. She really didn't understand what he meant.

"You've given me your forgiveness, Hermione." Her whole body flinched with a delightful kind of shock at the sound of her name on his lips. "And your belief that I can be more than – how did you put it? 'More than my father's son'. That if someone – someone like you – can see through all the rottenness of me to something worth wanting underneath it all, then maybe there's hope for me."

It was her turn to frown up at him, saddened that underneath his nonchalant, arrogant exterior he'd harboured so much dislike for himself. "Of course there is," she stated conclusively, and realised her voice had it's old determined firmness to it.

He smiled, a smile that reached his eyes, before it quickly faded again. "I have no fucking clue what you were able to gain from me though," he said bitterly.

Her heart stilled at the acidity of his tone. "You really have no idea?"

He shook his head sadly. She pulled away from him, unbuttoned her left shirt cuff and rolled up her sleeve, holding out her arm so he could see the inside of her forearm. He looked at her bare, non-bandaged skin. The letters carved into her arm were a harmless looking inky-white now. The wounds had finally, properly healed.

His lips turned up in disdain. "So, because I asked you not to pick at your scar, I've helped those God-awful cuts to heal?" he asked skeptically. "Or I helped fill you in on that fucking nightmare of an evening when you ended up under my aunt's blade in the first place?"

She smiled at his derision, and lowered her arm. "No. Well, partly. But not just that. Not just that at all. It's like you said in your letter: you made me feel again. Firstly, because you were so bloody annoying. Well, worse than annoying really, you were awful. And that made me angry, and feeling anger was better than feeling absolutely nothing at all," She looked up, searching his eyes, hoping that something in her expression would help him believe the sincerity of her words. "You brought me back to life again… Like you said, it's as if someone had nox'ed my soul."

HIs lips twitched at one corner – the beginnings of another smile. "I have noticed. Just in the last few weeks. I've noticed – it's like your eyes have light in them again...I – I really helped you to come back to life like that?"

Hermione grinned up at him. "Yes," she stated definitively. "I was so numb before...Alethea said it was all a combination of a trauma reaction and compassion fatigue. It's funny...the Sorting Hat saw that it might happen. Warned me about it that very first day of school. It quoted Dostoyevsky at me, of all people: 'pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart'."

"Hmm...well, you do have both of those." Malfoy looked at her thoughtfully before turning away from her once more to lean against the pillar to his left, gazing out at the mountain tops. "Sounds a bit more profound than what it said to me. Although it did question whether my Slytherin-related beliefs were actually mine or my fathers. Asked whether I wanted to go into Ravenclaw. But I was a stubborn little prick back then. Insisted on Slytherin."

"Oh! The Hat suggested Ravenclaw for me too!" Hermione exclaimed. "But I said I valued bravery over books so…" She turned to follow his gaze. The sun had almost disappeared now, causing slivers of red and gold to bleed out across the horizon. "I wonder what would have happened if we'd both ended up there…"

"Hmm...I'm not sure...maybe this is how things were meant to go…"

She took a tentative step towards him and without looking at her, he held out his arm, welcoming her into an embrace. She wrapped both her own arms around his waist, snuggling her head under his chin, and tried not to think about how odd it was that this felt so natural.

"Did it help?" Malfoy asked quietly. "That last session with Alethea? With the both of us there?"

It would have been hard to talk about before. But she realised that she could speak about these things now without it feeling as if something were crushing down on her heart. "Yes. Yes, it did," she leant up to peck a kiss on his cheek. "Thank you for doing it."

"It was nothing. It's not something I deserve a thank you for." His voice was tinged with bitterness. She wondered if that would ever go away when he talked about the war.

"Oh, I think it is." She tightened her hold around his waist, momentarily squeezing him to her, but didn't push the point. "There was something else, though. There was something else that Alethea and I thought would be good for me to do, but I'd need your help with it."

"What?" He craned his neck, looking down at her quizzically.

"Exposure," she replied, looking back at him. "Exposure to the place it happened. For me to go into the drawing room at Malfoy Manor, and to manage being there. Not to say that I would be over it, but I would definitely feel – as if I were in control of it."

He frowned, looking disconcerted. "Are you sure that's something you want to do? It's not like you need to go there at all – not in the way that I needed to come up here for Astronomy lessons."

"I know but – yes. Yes, I'm sure."

He stroked a hand up and down her back and gave her a look of resignation. "Well, if you and Alethea really think it's a good idea, then of course. Of course I'll help."

Alethea requested permission from McGonagall for Hermione and Malfoy to go to Malfoy Manor the next weekend – the second weekend of March. Alethea suggested she go with them, but Hermione declined the offer. She wanted to do this alone. Well, alone but for Malfoy, of course. Alethea did insist, though, that she talk through the visit in detail with both Hermione and Malfoy, a session in which they identified Hermione's potential triggers and reiterated her strategies for managing them.

At midday on Saturday, she and Malfoy apparated to just outside the wrought iron gates of Malfoy Manor. Malfoy had explained that, when accompanied by a non-family member, he could not apparte directly inside the boundaries of the estate.

Hermione looked up at the house. Now, in the light of a warm spring day, with Malfoy's hand clutched firmly onto hers, it didn't look anything like what it had almost a year before. Then, it had been formidable and foreboding, and had instilled in her a tumult of anxiety which she'd unsuccessfully tried to quell as she'd been marched down the gravel drive. She'd anticipated that that feeling might return now, but she felt strangely calm.

"Mother told me she'd be out," Malfoy said as he charmed the gates open and they started walking towards the house. "She's allowed one visit out of her house every two months. And I've told the house elves not to bother us."

He had explained this to her already, and Hermione just nodded her head in acknowledgment. She was remembering the feel of a snatcher's wand prodding viciously into the small of her back. The punishing grip of his fingers around her arm –

But then she felt Malfoy's hand squeeze hers, and was distracted by a white peacock strolling onto the path in front of them.

"Okay?" Malfoy asked once they reached the stone steps that led up to the entrance of the house. He was frowning down at her in concern, so she forced a smile of reassurance back at him and nodded.

He led her through the large oak doors to an airy entrance hall. Hermione's heart immediately sped up. It was the smell. A specific smell of wood polish mixed with a floral smell – geraniums, Hermione thought – which filled a vase that stood on a side table. She wondered if those same flowers had been in this hallway last year. Her hand tightened involuntarily around Malfoy's as they came to a stop outside what she presumed was the door to the drawing room.

Malfoy looked down at her with the same frown on his face – concerned and clearly disgruntled with the situation. She understood that it pained him for her to do this, that he did not want to see her dissolve into a mess of panic and anxiety.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

She took a deep breath in and out, and reminded herself that her memories of what had happened here were just that – memories. That a year ago, she had come out of this house alive, hurt but alive, and that she was safe now. Her heart rate slowed with every such thought she reeled off in her head.

"Yes," she stated, and was surprised by the determination and steadiness of her voice.

Malfoy gave a short nod and opened the door. She stood for a moment, before taking a few tentative steps over the threshold. She looked around – at the wood panelled walls, the grand piano in the corner, the Chesterfield sofa and chair by the large fireplace. The room seemed bigger than she remembered, but then it had been filled with rather a lot of people last time she was here. She walked into the centre of the room, feeling surprising calm, and started to wonder what all her apprehension had been about. It seemed like a different room entirely. Pleasant, even, with the sun streaming in through the large sash windows, one of which was open, the spring breeze causing the thin silk curtains to ripple and shimmer.

"Where was it?" she asked, turning to Malfoy who was still standing in the doorway. Her voice sounded louder than she expected. "Where was the place where she – where I was tortured?" It felt good to say those words out loud – I was tortured – in the place where it had happened. Like she was claiming something back that had been taken from her.

Malfoy stepped forward, his features twisted as if in torment. His eyes shifted about the room, assessing and appraising. "You were moved around quite a bit."

She stepped towards him, remembering that the memories of what happened in this room were painful for him too. She took his hand and asked more gently, "Where was it that she cut my arm? Specifically?"

His frown deepened as he led her to a spot a little further towards the grand piano, his footsteps heavy and reluctant, as if he were leading her to the gallows.

"About here," he said, stopping. "No. Exactly here." Then, with bitterness: "I'll never forget it."

Hermione looked down at the floorboards. They looked rather innocuous, the grain knotted and polished, like those of the rest of the room. There were no bloodstains, like he'd said, nothing to indicate what had happened on this spot a year ago. And Hermione realised that she continued to feel...fine. Calm. Contained. And, in recognising that, she felt a surge of something like power at the realisation that this room was not beating her. She looked across at Malfoy, smiling, wanting him to share in her triumph, but he was just scowling down at the floor, his hands balled into fists at his sides.

She stepped towards him and reached out to stroke a hand down his back. "What's it like for you to be here? Did you spend much time in here, over last summer and the Christmas holidays?"

He shrugged. "I don't love it. Too much has happened here. In fact, every room in this house is tainted now. But I can put up with it. At least whilst mum is under house arrest here, I'll put up with it. We're trying to make new memories, but I don't think I'll live here again – not properly."

"That's sad. I'm sorry. It's like you've lost your home."

Malfoy grimaced, shaking his head. "No. A home is what you make it. It's more than four walls and masonry."

Just then, the breeze that was coming in through the window picked up, causing the curtains to billow into the room, and the sun to cast a different light up to the ceiling. It gleamed off the huge crystal chandelier that hung down into the center of the room - and suddenly it was falling, falling down towards her – it would crushed her – she would be covered in countless sharp, stinging cuts -

But no. She pulled a cloth pouch from her pocket and brought it to her nose, breathing in the scent of the mint that emitted from it. She was engulfed with memories of her the kitchen of her childhood home, as her mum chopped up mint leaves that they'd just picked from the garden. Her heart slowed as she breathed in the scent of safety, and she looked back up at the chandelier, which was hanging, robust and steady, with no sign of falling.

It was March 1999. And, although she was in the drawing room of Malfoy Manor, she was entirely safe.

"I think we should go." Malfoy looked even more disgruntled, no doubt at her display of near-panic.

"I'm fine," she insisted. Because, really – she was. "I lost it there for a tiny second – but I'm fine now… Can I – can I just walk around for a bit?"

Malfoy shrugged. "Of course."

She wandered slowly over to the fireplace, noticed the coal scuttle was only half full...but then it was coming towards the midst of spring now. She looked up at the mirror above the mantelpiece, at the ornate, gilded frame that surrounded it...moved on to gaze up at the portrait of a woman wearing a vibrant green cloak – some Malfoy ancestor, no doubt...and then to the corner of the room where a card table was set against the wall, with a stack of well used playing cards sitting on top of it.

All the while, Malfoy stood on the same spot, his expression unreadable except for his eyes, which watched her – sharp, attentive, alert.

By the time she'd done a circuit of the room, she felt a new kind of stillness settle over her. A restfulness. She could be okay in this room, she had taken charge here, it did not control her in any way.

She turned and once more gave Malfoy a jubilant smile. He opened his mouth to speak but before he did, she heard the sound of footsteps clipping on the flagstones of the hallway outside, and a voice saying. "Not sure why the door's open...how very odd..."

Hermione stilled and saw Draco's eyes widened in surprise as two women appeared in the doorway of the drawing room. She immediately recognised one as Narcissa Malfoy, but all the muscles in Hermione's body tensed as she took in the wild black curls and heavy brows of her companion. Her hand reached instinctively for her wand, but no – it was okay - this woman had a warmth to her eyes that Bellatrix Lestrange had never had. And now she was looking closer, Hermione saw her features were actually quite different. But what's more, this woman held an infant in her arms, a grinning, babbling infant whose hair was turning from an electric blue to fuchsia pink.

Both women had come to an abrupt halt on the threshold of the room.

"Draco!" Narcissa exclaimed, her eyes flitting alarmingly between her son and Hermione. "Oh! I wasn't expecting you to be home." Then she made a rather expert effort at covering her startled expression with calmness and composure. "And you've brought a guest?"

"Yes," Draco replied, his voice tight. "I thought you were spending the afternoon at Andromeda's, and didn't think we'd be long, so didn't think to let you know…" It didn't sound a particularly convincing excuse, but Narcissa didn't challenge it.

"Well, we had planned to, but then Andromeda wanted to see the new rose garden, so I thought we'd come back here and I could show her..." Both women stepped further into the room. Narcissa smiled at her and Hermione was surprised to find that the smile seemed warm, genuine and not forced at all. "Welcome, Miss Granger. Has Draco offered you tea? I baked some scones earlier, you must stay for some."

"Oh I'm not sure - thanks but -" Hermione's gabbling was interrupted by the infant in Andromeda's arms - Teddy Lupin, Hermione surmised - crying out in joy as he seemed to recognise Malfoy. He reached his chubby arms out towards him, stretching his body to get out of Andromeda's arms and into that of his cousin's.

"Oh, you're still his favourite, it seems," Andromeda said affectionately as she passed Teddy to Malfoy's ready arms, before turning to Hermione. "Andromeda Tonks," she introduced herself, stretching out a hand for Hermione to shake. "I think we met briefly last summer. At a funeral or two, sadly."

"Yes. Hello." Hermione replied, shaking Andromeda's hand. Then Narcissa was saying something about having tea and scones in the 'Blue Room', but Hermione was too distracted with Malfoy and Teddy to listen properly. Because something strange had come over Malfoy - it seemed as if he were possessed by someone else.

"Hey, little fella, how're you?" Malfoy was saying to Teddy. He jiggled the infant up and down in his arms, grinning broadly in a way Hermione had never seen before. He seemed entirely at ease and relaxed, his usual guardedness totally abandoned.

"He's missed you, it seems. But then Christmas probably seems like a long time ago for him," Andromeda was saying, as Narcissa gave instructions to a house elf who seemed to have appeared from nowhere.

"Right. Well, we'll see you in the Blue Room in a few minutes. There's something we need to do first," Malfoy said after a few minutes, handing Teddy back to Andromeda.

Hermione didn't miss the curiosity that flickered over Narcissa's face, but the woman was, again, a master of subtlety as she smiled graciously and swept herself, Andromeda and Teddy from the room.

Malfoy turned to her. "I – I have something for you. Come this way – I asked the house elf to keep it in the kitchen."

"Something for me?" Hermione enquired as he took her hand and led her through several wood-paneled hallways to a large, empty kitchen.

"Hmm-mmm," was all Malfoy replied. He reached up to a high shelf above the sink, took down a rectangular package wrapped in midnight blue tissue paper and held it out to her.

"Oh!" Hermione exclaimed, taking the box. "A present! Why are you giving me a present? It's not my birthday."

Malfoy shrugged. "I don't need an occasion to give people presents."

Hermione smiled at his churlishness and started to unwrap the gift. "Well. Thank you." Underneath the tissue paper was a box, in the same shade of midnight blue.

"Careful. It's quite fragile," Malfoy warned.

Heeding his words, she placed the box on the kitchen table in order to undo it and pull out its contents.

She gasped as she found a vase in her hands, in a stunning vibrant blue glaze. But it wasn't an ordinary vase, for criss-crossing the ceramic in beautiful, irregular patterns were lines of gold.

Malfoy looked at her uncertainly. "It's a Japanese art form, Kint -"

"Kintsugi," Hermione finished for him.

Malfoy's lips twitched. "Yes. They repair broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. It's as much a philosophy as a technique, though. They treat breakage and repair as part of an object's history – as if the repair – the flaws – are to be celebrated, and not hidden." He reached out, cupping her jaw with his hand. "I always kind of liked that idea – finding beauty in something's imperfections. That the trials an object goes through can actually add to it's value, and not take away from it."

Hermione carefully turned the vase around in her hands. "It is beautiful." It was such a lovely gift, so thoughtful, she didn't quite know what to say. She smiled up at Malfoy. "Thank you. It's so lovely. I – I'm quite overwhelmed!"

He shuffled his feet in the way that she now knew meant he was feeling apprehensive about something. His gaze darted away some unknown spot beyond her before returning to her again. He took a deep breath, his brows knitting together, and his eyes burrowing into hers, intent and earnest, before he said, his voice tight, as if he were reluctantly declaring a truth that could no longer be denied: "Well...I'm in love."

A/N:

Huge thanks to Frumpologist and scullymurphy for being amazingly encouraging alphabetas.

Your thoughts and feedback are cherished and treasured! Thank you to all who have reviewed and commented already.

I'm afraid I've had some problems with my eye health and migraines lately. The opticians and doctor say it's due to too much screen-time. (My screen time has increased a lot since lock-down and working remotely). This, along with Life Stuff getting in the way, has meant that I've had to reduce the amount of time staring at my laptop, and therefore writing. Hence, I'm afraid there's going to be a delay posting the next chapter - I'm hoping only by a week or so, but it might be a couple. Sorry. But there's not long to go with this story now, and I repeat - it will be finished!