Ron was stirring simmering spaghetti sauce in a pan on the stove in Hermione's apartment when he heard a pop and then silence from the bathroom.

"Hermione? Are you okay in there?" He asked.

No reply.

He knocked on the door and pressed his ear to the wood.

After not receiving a response or hearing a sound from within the room, he apparated into the room and found that it was empty.

He knew that she locked the door with a silent incantation spell of her own creation to keep him out, but he couldn't for the life of himself fathom why.

He was a good wizard, a good man to her, and yet, every time he got close to her and tried to be there for her, she shut him out.

He just wanted to be close to her.

Now Hermione had disapperated to Merlin knows where…

Didn't she have any clue who had returned and was working in the same building as her now?

It wasn't safe for her out there with Draco Malfoy wandering around.

Ron swore under his breath and left the bathroom, turning off the stovetop and placing a stasis charm over the food so it wouldn't go bad, before grabbing his coat and apparating to Harry and Ginny's house.

Ron rapped on the door and was greeted by the sound of small children running and laughing, calling out that there was someone at the door.

Harry came to the door and greeted Ron with a friendly hug.

"Well, this is a surprise, what brings you here?" Harry asked, ushering his brother in law into the house and closing the door behind him.

Before Ron could answer, there was a cheer of "Uncle Ron!" and he was rushed at by three children, six-year old James, four-year old Albus (or Al, for short), and then the youngest of the Potter clan followed them, baby Lily toddling around the corner, holding onto her mother's hands to steady herself.

Ginny was beaming at the sight of her older brother and Harry scooped Lily up as she embraced him.

"Ron! What a pleasant surprise. Are you here to tell us that Penelope's gone into labor?" Ginny asked.

Ron shook his head.

"Nah, mum swears she's going to have the baby before the week's out, though. No, I'm looking for Hermione, is she here?" Ron asked.

Harry shook his head.

"Sorry, mate. Haven't seen her, but she's probably working late again… you know Hermione…"

"She came back to her flat because I was making her dinner. She must've apparated from her bathroom. Haven't the foggiest why, but she's been distant lately, to say the least." Ron replied.

Ginny rolled her eyes.

"Ron, she's a massively successful orthopedic specialist, when she's not at her practice, she's in surgery, and when she isn't in surgery, she's sleeping. You and I both know that she accepted the chief position in the orthopedics department at St. Mungo's, so she probably got a good idea and decided to go back to St. Mungo's to tell her assistant or something, that way the night shift can implement it."

Ron sighed and cast a look in Harry's direction that told Harry that something wasn't right.

"Uh, Ginny, could you take the kids upstairs, it's almost their bedtime… I'll be up in a few minutes."

Ginny saw the look between her brother and her husband and nodded, rounding up the children and ushering them up the stairs with promises of bedtime stories if they cooperated with bath time.

When Ron and Harry were alone, Harry led Ron into the kitchen and slid the doors closed behind him.

"What's going on?" Harry asked, his tone switching to the one he used when he was on a job and doing Auror work.

"I dunno, mate. It's like she doesn't want to be around me anymore…" Ron sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face, "It's positively maddening."

"Forgive me for asking, but what's been going on between the two of you?"

"Nothing! That's the problem. I go around to her flat and she wants nothing to do with me. The other night, I dropped in on her after she got out of the bath and tried to make a romantic gesture. Hermione told me that she needed to rest up because she had surgery the next day. I didn't see her again until earlier this evening when I thought I would surprise her with dinner. She locked herself in the bathroom and apparated somewhere."

Ron began pacing the floor and Harry leaned up against a countertop and watched his friend pace.

"Do you think it's because she's just feeling stressed out and needs her space?" He asked.

"I don't know why I'd stress her out… I'm a good guy, I just like spending time with her. Is that too much to ask of her? I mean we are dating…" Ron replied, shrugging.

Harry shook his head.

"With all due respect, Ron, and I say this not only as your friend but as Hermione's friend as well, you've been dating for ages now… do you think she's tired of the uncertainty of it all?"

"What's there to be uncertain about? I've never even looked at another woman… She knows I love her…"

"Then what's keeping you from proposing to her?" Harry asked.

Ron opened his mouth to reply and closed it again, realization dawning on his features.

"Do you think she wants me to propose to her?" He asked.

"Well, I don't know for sure, but Molly has been dropping hints about you two getting married for ages, she's always talking about it with Ginny, how all your brothers are married, save for Charlie, but that's because he's asexual and aromantic, so it's not it for him, you know?"

"Yeah, I know, I'm the only one in my family with an interest in being in a relationship, who is in a relationship, but isn't married. Mum's probably going crazy."

"Maybe she's not the only one going crazy about that fact. Did you ever think that maybe Hermione is trying to get away because the more she distances herself from you, the easier it will be on her to keep her from getting her hopes up about the two of you getting married? I know that we have longer lifespans than muggles do, but even I hear it from the single women around our age in my department that their biological clocks are ticking, so to speak." Harry stated, "Hermione is probably waiting on the off chance that you'll wise up and come around, but she's also bracing for the likelihood that you might never come around… you see what I'm saying?"

Ron pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Merlin, I'm an idiot… of course she's doing that."

Harry nodded.

"Now you're getting it. Don't get me wrong, Hermione is bright and a real credit to witches everywhere, but she's still a woman, and if there's one thing I've learned from being married to your sister, it's that women tend to drop hints and it's up to you to figure out what's going on."

Ron nodded and straightened up.

"Thanks mate, I'm off… I have to go and transfigure a ring…" Ron said with a smile, clapping Harry on the back, "Thanks for helping me to see sense, just, ah, keep it under your hat, don't tell anyone I'm planning on popping the question."

"I'm as silent as the grave." Harry said, crossing his heart.

They left the kitchen as Ginny came down the stairs and into the foyer.

"Well, I'm off. I'll see you around, Ginny. Good luck with training." Ron said, hugging his sister.

Ron left the house and apparated into the dark.


"Alright you lot, listen up! I've got a juicy story, one which the likes of you would die to publish…", Rita Skeeter announced with a grin, her acid green high heels clicking on the floor as she entered the bullpen at The Daily Prophet the next morning, a cup of espresso in one hand, her bag clutched tightly in the other, her violent fuchsia nails practically puncturing the paper cup.

A skinny wizard with green eyes and brown hair made eye contact with her and strode to meet her, kissing her as they met halfway.

"Ah, Rita, a pleasure as always. What bit of delicious gossip have you come across now?" He asked, looping her arm through his.

"Well, Robert, darling, something that will put your failed story about that Malfoy boy to shame."

"My wife, you tease me so…", Robert Mason replied, opening the door to his office and ushering her across the threshold.

"There is a problem though, you remember the last time I wrote anything about Granger, she kidnapped me and put me in a jar?"

"How can I forget… Thelma and I were distraught… we thought you had been killed by someone…" Robert replied, sinking into his desk chair as Rita sat down across from him.

Rita's stomach turned at the memory of the way their daughter had tearfully embraced her after she had been released from her captivity.

"Mummy, I thought you were never coming back!"

Even though she had been threatened to never write about Granger again and had told Thelma and Robert most of her story, including her promise to not write about Granger, she had filled up notepads with her story of months long captivity.

Thelma Bisset (nee Skeeter-Mason) had only been eight at the time. She and Robert had worked hard to provide for her while also keeping her out of the way of what they did.

Very few people knew that she and Robert had been married for so long, and even less people knew about Thelma.

When she turned ten, Thelma had been sent abroad to live with Robert's mother in the south of France and she studied at Beauxbatons because of how dangerous it had become to be in England during the War.

Robert and Rita had always known that they were unscrupulous journalists, and Thelma knew it too, and she seemed to have the same knack for it that her parents did. She had married a young French wizard that had also studied at Beauxbatons, Victor Bisset, and they worked together on new stories. He was her photographer, she his journalist.

Quite the impressive duo, both tough as nails.

"Where is Thelma, anyway?", Rita asked, crossing her legs.

"She and Victor are out interviewing some useless idiot from St. Mungo's, Norrington or something like that…"

"So, they're covering the reform?"

"Yes. Apparently, things are going quite well… she also managed to interview some put off little junior Healer, Swan, his name was, said that Doctor Malfoy had torn him a new arsehole and demoted him to doing grunt work without the use of magic."

"Who does he think he is?" Rita asked, throwing up her hands, "Doesn't he remember how close he was to being sent to Azkaban along with his conniving Death Eater father?"

"I think a better question to ask is if he realizes how many people were pissed off and still are that he didn't go to prison?" Robert muttered, tapping the side of his teacup with his wand, instantly reheating the contents.

"True enough, but that's what makes my news so enthralling." Rita lowered her voice.

Robert arched his eyebrow and sipped his tea.

"I was working on a follow-up of your story on Draco Malfoy today, decided to follow him around. I managed to hitch a ride on his briefcase into the hospital, was dropped unceremoniously onto the floor when a badly injured man was brought in, watched the treatment from afar, when I notice who else is there… my old friend, Hermione Granger…"

"What's she doing there?" Robert asked.

"She's the head of orthopedics at Mungo's now…"

"And Draco is the new head of critical care…"

"They've already butted heads… I feared being discovered after that, so I made myself scarce and decided to go write down my findings in this nice little café named Savoy's… I must've been at it for a few hours, because a lot of people in scrubs began coming in, no doubt for lunch. Then I spot Draco Malfoy entering the café. Then Hermione Granger comes in a moment later. I wrap up what I was doing and go to the loo, shift into the beetle, and spy on them…"

"What did they say?" Robert asked, clearly intrigued, "You wouldn't think that such rivals would share a meal together?"

"Of course not, that's why I was so inclined to spy on them. They talked rather amicably for the duration of their lunch hour, chatted about this and that, and then Draco apologized to her for being a bully to her while they were in school. Draco isn't living at the manor either, he's living in Holland Park. Apparently, he's been in Baltimore, over in the United States, for the past twelve years…"

"Sounds like you don't have much of a story here, love…"

Rita tutted at her husband.

"My dear, I am just getting to the good part…" she said, "I waited in the lobby for Draco to show up and leave for the day, and I managed to land on his coattail and hang on as he apparated to his flat. Hid in a corner as he showered and changed, respected his privacy on that front… and when he began making dinner, he realized he forgot to get something, diced canned tomatoes, I think, so I hung onto the roof of his car as he went to the store and stayed there as he drove back to his home, now, at this point in time, I'm planning on flying off and calling it a waste of time, but then, who do we see walking along, looking rather distraught, with a bottle of wine in her hand? It's Hermione Granger."

"What was she doing in Holland Park? She doesn't live anywhere near there…" Robert asked.

"I'm getting to that! If you would just let me finish!"

Robert put up his hands in surrender.

"Anyway, he pulled over and asked her if she was okay, she dodged the question, said something about toasting to day one, and he asked her to get in, which she did. I managed to crawl in the door before she closed it. She's having trouble with Ron Weasley."

"Ugh, the biggest bloody will-they-won't-they of the decade…"

"Right, well, apparently there's trouble in paradise and the relationship is on the rocks for real this time. According to Granger, Weasley is not physically hurting her, which, much as I dislike her, makes me feel relieved, but he's apparently clingy as all hell and she needed to escape him and didn't know who to turn to, so she turns to Draco Malfoy under the guise of a professional meeting."

"Now we're getting somewhere… but it really could have been strictly professional… Right?"

Rita laughed.

"Robert, you didn't see the look on her face, or the one on his… there's something there that isn't quite as purely professional as it all seems, but Merlin, what a blow to Ron Weasley… He was one of the main people who wanted Draco to go to prison and he was the most upset when he was released… His girlfriend is running from his arms and right into the arms of his enemy…"

"Oh, now I see…"

"We've got the chance to deliver a crushing blow to Granger, Weasley, and Malfoy, all at the same time… screw two birds with one stone, we're going for three here!"

Robert nodded.

"Please tell me you followed them into the flat?" He asked.

"I went to fly away, but I reversed course and crawled under a crack in the front door…"

"What did they talk about?"

Rita's lips pulled up into a wicked grin.

"Just you wait…"


Hours Earlier…

"Thank you again for the dinner… it was delicious…", Hermione said as she helped Draco clear the table, taking a sip from her wine glass, feeling the gentle tingle of a red wine buzz beginning to nip at her heels.

"Again, it's no problem at all." Draco replied, "So, what did you want to talk about, anyway?"

Hermione opened her purse and reached around until her hand closed around the files she was looking for, lifting them out and placing them on the table.

"Personnel files?" He asked and Hermione nodded.

"Got them from Wanda, my assistant… apparently all heads of department got them… I'm trying to figure out schedules and placements…"

"Yeah, me too…" He replied, pulling his own personnel files from his briefcase, tapping them with his wand to put a pink CC for Critical Care on every folder and document in the stack. He didn't want his personnel getting mixed up with Hermione's.

"In all honesty, you do have more experience forming teams, after all, you were at Hopkins and Shock-Trauma. I was planning on giving this to you on Friday so that I could get a second set of eyes on it, see if you see anything that I might have overlooked…"

Draco sipped his wine and sat diagonally from her at the square table as she tapped her files with her wand and put a sea foam green O on her folders and documents.

"Well, I appreciate the acquiescence."

"Acquiescence?"

"That I have more experience than you do…" Draco said, smirking as Hermione rolled her eyes and laughed quietly.

"I'm not as prideful as I was back in school… nor are you…" She said.

"I pride myself on that." Draco said, unable to keep the smirk off his face.

"Shut it… let's focus on this…"

They worked seamlessly together on the placements.

"I think you got the better deal here…" Hermione muttered, "This Gina Wick has herself together…"

"Couldn't have asked for a better assistant… I plan on training her as a surgical nurse. She's a regular nurse right now, but I need someone who is always thinking several steps ahead of everyone if I want this to go smoothly." Draco replied.

"I still need to address my radiology techs."

"We have some overlap there… lets focus on them for a bit. I technically have my own radiology techs, but I'm fairly certain they rotate in and out with your department, so that everyone gets a chance to work in a critical care environment, and if they aren't being rotated in and out, then that should start happening…"

Hermione nodded.

"Right, just in case we have an influx. I'll put my nurses on a rotating schedule as well. If something happens, God forbid, we'll need as many personnel as possible in the ER who know what they're meant to do."

"Hmm. I'm going to make rotations mandatory in my department for any personnel who didn't go to medical or nursing school, just so they can better determine the areas they're good at."

"That's a good idea, I think I'll join you on that one… lets see if we can try and sway the other departments…"

"We should rotate them per pay period, every two weeks… that's enough to teach a general overview of nursing duties for each specialty, right?" Draco asked, "I think it sounds reasonable…"

"Unless, of course, there aren't enough professionals to a department that have been to medical school… for example, I think I heard that Hematology and Anticoagulation don't have a lot of people there that actually went to med school or nursing school… Perhaps organize the departments into groups, with the top tier having the least personnel with actual degrees and then working our way down from there to the largest departments."

"Have the largest departments tag their professionals with experience in the top tier departments and have them rotate to the top tier while the top tier rotates down to a lower tier for training… does that make sense, or has my jet lag caught up with me and is making me say nonsense?" Draco asked.

Hermione downed the rest of her wine.

"Nope. Makes sense to me… we're just going to have to work out a way to explain it in simpler terms for the ones who aren't on our level of intellect…"

"True…" Hermione agreed.

She tapped her wand to the stack of files and they all went into their proper places, her files separating themselves from his.

"That's all I can manage to do for now, I'm afraid, my brain is frazzled…" She said and Draco agreed, rising from the table and sitting down on the sofa before gesturing to the loveseat across the coffee table from him.

"Thanks."

"My pleasure."

They sat in silence before Draco cleared his throat.

"So, I feel like we've made strides as professionals, but I-I would like to be friends as well… if that's okay…" He said.

"I'm fine with that… you see, as much as I love my friends and their children, there aren't too many single people in the magical community right now that I can be friends with. People our age are still a bit, well, starstruck, when they meet me… It feels like I'm trapped, almost…" Hermione explained.

"Believe it or not, I understand that feeling…"

"You do?"

Draco nodded and finished his wine.

"Yeah. All my friends from school are either married, living abroad, dead, or in Azkaban. Or they want to have nothing to do with me because I testified against one of their family members for something they did in the War."

"So, Draco Malfoy has become a blood traitor?"

He rolled his silver-grey eyes and let out a short huff.

"Yeah, you could say that… what can I say, muggles have some pretty good ideas… I'll admit to being as scared as Swan when I was told that I couldn't use magic in the muggle world… I learned how to survive without it. Turns out, you get a better, deeper feeling of satisfaction when you do things yourself as opposed to relying on magic for everything…"

Hermione nodded.

"It's funny because when I came to Hogwarts and learned I was a witch when I was ten from the ministry official, I felt such a deep-rooted satisfaction in being able to do things with magic… I didn't see it as the easy way out of hard work, rather a way to harness your own power and use it for yourself… you are working, just a bit more passively…"

"So, your experience was the exact opposite… huh… that's interesting…" he replied, "But back to the feeling of isolation, I feel trapped by being a blood traitor while also being a former Death Eater, not that I had any choice in the matter, really… and, let me guess, you feel isolated because everyone has such high hopes for the golden girl, the brightest witch of our age, that those terms and such place you up on a pedestal so high that you can't possibly come down and relate to anyone else…"

"Close, but I also don't have any muggle friends either, to my neighbors, I'm just Dr. Granger, and if someone knew me during my pre-Hogwarts years, then they would know me as 'That freak Hermione who dropped out when she was 11 to go to some private boarding school in Scotland and never spoke to any of us ever again'. My parents are dead and I have no siblings or other relatives that I'm close to, so there is that as well. But, yes, that whole golden trio thing does have an impact on who I meet. Makes it hard to have real friends."

"Ah, I see… fake friends are really something else, aren't they?"

"No kidding."

"I also feel like there's expectations now… and I don't mean professionally. I was doing my rounds earlier and I had so many patients and colleagues side-eyeing me, almost like they were just waiting for the second I'd turn on them and hex them into oblivion or something like that… like they know what I come from, they know I escaped a life in Azkaban, and most aren't too pleased about this, even if it has been twelve years."

"Ooh, don't get me started on expectations!" Hermione exclaimed, the red wine really starting to kick in, and she covered her mouth, surprised at her own outburst.

"Well, go on then, you clearly know what I'm on about here…" Draco said, unbothered by her exclamation.

"Everyone expects me to marry Ron Weasley… I mean, we've been on and off for the past twelve years and it's really exhausting to try and date anyone else when he has almost a claim over me… Like everyone else is afraid to come near me because I belong to Ron… but I don't belong to anyone but myself… I had to move the last time I broke up with him because the hate mail was so overwhelming…" Hermione replied, rising and refilling her wine glass before pouring the last of it into Draco's glass, which he raised to her in thanks before taking a sip of it.

"So, you don't like being in a relationship with Ron?"

Hermione sat back down and shook her head, sipping her wine.

"Ten points to Slytherin there. We're friends, and we're better off as friends, not as lovers… For fuck's sake, I am not sixteen anymore, I've grown up and I need someone who can match my ambition and drive and that isn't Ron Weasley."

"How so, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Well, Ron is invested in the joke shop, but the last time he and George really had a lot of motivation was after George and Angelina got married and decided to move to Hogsmeade village and open a new location where Zonko's used to be. Since he owns the one in Diagon Alley now, he's been busy with that… George is in charge of new products, but he's been busy with little Fred, so things have taken a backseat to parenthood. Ron hasn't had an idea for a new product in ages…" Hermione took another sip of wine and continued.

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot, his mother, Molly Weasley… nice woman, but she's a pain in my arse. Always dropping hints to Ron about wanting more grandchildren and all but telling him that he should hurry up and propose to me or something… I don't want to marry him… but I also don't want to alienate myself from the Weasley family in the process. They're good people, they helped me out during the War, especially after I had to obliviate my parents so that the Death Eaters wouldn't be able to torture them for information…"

Draco cast his eyes downward. He already knew what had happened to her parents.

"Augustus Rookwood got to them anyway and tortured them to death, even though they didn't know anything…" She said, taking a swig from her glass.

"That's a lot to take in… I remember the hate mail you got in fourth year because Rita Skeeter wrote something about you two-timing between Viktor Krum and Harry Potter… everyone knew it was bullshit…" Draco replied.

"Yeah, didn't stop Molly Weasley from sending me a harshly worded letter about it… Apparently, Ron got a letter from her in which I was referred to as a 'scarlet woman'… every time I've broken it off with Ron, she's become passive aggressive about me…"

"Scarlet woman?" Draco said, laughing at the phrase, "That's a Biblical phrase, apparently, its original usage was about the alleged whore of Babylon… trust me, you're nowhere relatively close to that…"

"I know that… but I'm not out here cheating on him, I just wish that we would break up and stay friends."

"So, let me see if I have this right. You don't want to be in a relationship with Ron. You don't want to marry him or have his children…"

"I never mentioned children, but no, I wouldn't."

"Apologies, I only assumed that you didn't want to because of Molly hinting at wanting more grandchildren… and then there's Molly Weasley, decent woman, but you feel like she's pressuring you into being with Ron now?"

Hermione nodded.

"And Ron hasn't hurt you physically, correct… this is a safe space and I'm not going to say a word of this to anyone unless he has, in fact, hurt you. Even then, it would only be so that I could alert the proper authorities. He has never coerced you into performing any sexual acts… I'm only asking because when I was just an emergency nurse, I would help forensic nurses and professionals during rape kits and domestic abuse cases, so I have a bit of experience with asking these questions."

"I mean, he's always been one to be suggestive, but if I would tell him no, he would stop immediately."

"Alright then, has he ever been emotionally, verbally, or mentally abusive?"

"Well, he does have a penchant for turning up at my flat uninvited, like tonight, he tried to surprise me by making dinner, Monday night, he scared me by showing up uninvited as well… one time after I broke up with him, he came into my flat and damn near kicked my bedroom door down, demanding an explanation from me… I actually had to create a complicated locking and securing charm that was nonverbal, just so he couldn't figure out a reversal charm. I made it to keep him out specifically…"

"That's screwed up… at the very least, it's breaking and entering."

"He also gives me these kicked puppy dog eyes whenever I tell him to give me some space. That's just him being annoying and clingy, nothing illegal there. I mean, I'm working all the time just so that I can use 'I'm busy' or 'I'm tired' as excuses to avoid him… It isn't the best option, but it works… I'm just glad that he's a bit daft and hasn't picked up on his mother's hints yet…"

"Jesus, Granger, sounds like you should just drop him like a bad habit before the stress of dealing with him drops you."

"I'm trying to, but I don't want to hurt anyone in the process…" Hermione sighed, nursing her wine.

She laughed a bit then, short and in disbelief.

"What?" Draco asked, cocking his head to the side, observing the witch sitting across the table from him.

"If someone would have told me back when I was fourteen that I would be friends with Draco Malfoy now, then I would have called them a liar."

"If someone would have told me at age fourteen that I would be friends with Hermione Granger, I would have told my father about it and then their entire family would have received death threats…"

"Christ, that's morbid…"

"I hate my father…" Draco muttered after a long pause.

"I hate what he did to me and my mum… I hate that he raised me with such flawed world views… I hate that he put me in such a position for me to be used by Voldemort… I was still fifteen, a child, when I got the Mark…"

"I'm sorry."

"It isn't your fault, I blame him. I don't blame my mum, she tried her best to keep me out of all that, but when Voldemort commanded you to do something, you either did it or you died. It was much worse for the women who disobeyed… they were raped and then killed or sold into sex trafficking rings by the Snatchers… I was able to sit down with a counselor from MACUSA and speak to them on this, but the trauma is still with me, and it always will be…"

Hermione just sat in silence, unsure of what to say.

"Sometimes I think I deserve to be in Azkaban because I was complicit when it came to most of the things that the Death Eaters did or made me do… Merlin, I stood there and watched and didn't do a damn thing when Bellatrix carved up your arm…"

Hermione finished her wine and set the glass on the coffee table, crossing the room to sit next to Draco, professionalism be damned, he had seen some shit and hadn't been able to tell anyone about it because there hadn't been anyone to tell.

Draco looked at her and downed his wine.

Hermione placed her hand on his arm in what she hoped was a comforting gesture.

"Draco, what were you going to do? Kill someone on Voldemort's side? Tell the ministry? You aren't a murderer, and we didn't have a ministry at that time…If you had done either of those things, can you imagine what they would have done to you? You proved yourself during the final battle. If it hadn't been for you, Harry would have really died and Voldemort would have won. You turned the tides, so did your mother. She lied about Harry being dead just so she could get to you, and it paid off in the end."

Draco nodded.

"Besides, if you had acted on Voldemort's orders and killed Dumbledore, you would have been killed by Voldemort, just so he could be the master of the Elder Wand. If you had acted out and tried to be a hero when Voldemort and the Death Eaters were living in the manor, you would have died. But you lived and did something with the rest of your life… you've saved more lives as a doctor than you've taken or been held accountable for ruining as a Death Eater, remember that."

"I will… thank you… Just make sure that you remember that you are your own person and you define your future. Being selfish is okay when it comes to living by your own terms… I mean, would you rather do something that makes you permanently miserable while everyone else is satisfied for a brief time, or would you rather be a happier person for as long as you live, even if it meant disappointing some people for a little while? Disappointment isn't an eternal feeling."

"I think I'd rather be selfish."

"Glad to hear it."

Hermione and Draco sat in silence for a while until Hermione looked at her watch and groaned.

"What's the matter?"

"I have surgery tomorrow and I need to sleep this buzz off, but I don't want to go back to my apartment and risk running into Ron…"

"Just take the guest bedroom… or, if you need anything from your place, we could apparate there together and I could stand guard while you grab your stuff."

"I need to feed Crookshanks, grab my briefcase with the lineup for tomorrow's procedures, and grab my surgical scrubs."

"Apparating it is, then…" Draco said and stood up, holding out his arm to Hermione, "Lead on, Macduff."

"You've never read Pride and Prejudice but you can misquote Macbeth?" Hermione muttered as she stood up.

"I have some talents, you know…" Draco said, making Hermione roll her eyes at him.

They apparated into Hermione's bedroom with a pop and Hermione immediately began summoning things to her nonverbally, holding open her purse as they flew into the enchanted bag with surprising speed.

"Hermione? Is that you?" Came the voice of Ron Weasley, followed by heavy footsteps down the hall towards her bedroom.

"Hide in the closet! Now!" Hermione mouthed to Draco, and he obeyed, slipping into the curtained-off closet, peering out through a tiny hole in the material as Hermione snapped her purse shut and Ron entered the room.

"There you are! I was worried sick! Where did you go?" He asked, embracing her, catching the smell of men's cologne on her skin and alcohol on her breath before stepping back and narrowing his eyes at her.

"You smell like cologne and red wine…" he murmured, his tone darkening, "Where have you been?"

"Ron, I can explain. I went to a pub… the ladies' toilet was out of order, so I asked the bartender if I could use the staff bathroom instead, and he let me, but the last person that used it probably sprayed some cologne in there…" Hermione lied flawlessly.

"You aren't lying to me, are you?"

"Why would I lie?"

"You seemed in an awful rush to be gone from here, so much so that you locked the door and apparated off to a pub? I fixed dinner for you… why would you run out like that?"

"I needed some space…"

"So, you went to a crowded pub to find that space? I find that hard to believe. However, I do believe you. It's okay to go out every now and then, just give me a bit of a warning before you take off, it isn't safe out there… are you even aware of who just came back to England?" Ron asked.

"No? Who came back?"

"Draco bloody Malfoy… apparently you both work at St. Mungo's too, he was spotted by a reporter from The Daily Prophet yesterday while buying some robes and such in Diagon Alley, and to think, he must've passed the shop while I was there! I wish I would've seen him, given him a solid punch in the nose to rival that one you gave him back in third year!"

Draco held his breath and went to shift from one foot to another, the floorboard creaking below his feet as he did.

Ron's head whipped towards the closet and Draco covered his mouth to stifle his breathing, praying that he didn't smell of cologne or red wine as well.

"What was that?"

"What was what? The floorboard? Ron, it's cold outside, the wood expands and contracts with the temperature… that's probably all you heard."

Ron turned back to face Hermione and then squinted at something on her jumper.

"What is this?" He asked, pulling a long, silver-blonde hair off of her sleeve.

"A gray hair? I probably picked it up at the bar… either that or it could be mine, I am turning thirty soon… maybe I'm starting to turn grey…"

"Hmph." Ron grunted.

"Why are you still here?" Hermione asked, "I would have thought you'd be gone now. Besides, it's late and I have surgery tomorrow. I need my rest."

"You went out for a drink, Hermione, you're clearly not exhausted enough for that, so why are you so tired whenever I come around?"

Hermione opened her mouth to reply, but Ron kept talking.

"Is it because we've been together for so long and I've not made any promises to you about settling down? Is that it?"

"Ron, no…"

Draco tensed behind the curtain as he watched the scene unfold.

"Oh fuck, he's really going there…" Draco thought, shaking his head minutely, "Poor bastard's about to shoot himself in the foot…"

"Well, I'm sorry that I've been so blind to your needs, but I promise you that all that will change. Starting now."

The redhead reached into his pocket and pulled out a box and began to get down onto one knee.

"I had meant to do this over wine and roses and a nice dinner, but I suppose this is good enough, yeah?"

Hermione went red in the face and tried to pull the surly redhead up by his shoulders while muttering under her breath.

"No. No, no, no…" Hermione began to say as he went onto one knee, "Ron, stop, I need to tell you something…"

"Hermione Jean Granger, will you marry me?" Ron interrupted, popping the ring box open.

"Ron…you blithering idiot… I'm trying to break up with you!" Hermione yelled over his proposal.

Draco inhaled sharply and got a mouthful of dust from the curtain and had to swallow thickly a few times to keep himself from coughing.

Ron's face went slack.

"Wait… What did you say?" He asked.

Hermione slumped down on the edge of her window seat and scrubbed a hand over her eyes.

"I said, I'm trying to break up with you."

"You're kidding."

"I'm not."

"No, you're having me on, aren't you?"

Hermione shook her head.

"No, Ron. We're over. If you thought that I was happy enough in this relationship for you to propose to me, then we clearly have communication issues." Hermione replied.

"But, I-I'm sure we can see someone, a therapist or counselor, about that, right? Before we get married, we'll sort that out?" Ron asked, dumbfounded.

"No, Ron… we're not seeing a therapist, and we're not getting married. Now could you please leave?"

"Hang on, hang on, you can't just do that… dump me, break my heart, and throw me out into the street… I thought we were friends?"

"That's debatable. Right now, I want you out of my home, I have surgery tomorrow and I need to sleep. Please leave." Hermione stated, tears welling up in her eyes and threatening to fall.

"Hermione… don't do this to me… please, think of all we've been through… I love you… don't you love me too?"

The tears fell then as Ron got to his feet.

Hermione shook her head and Draco's arms ached to hold her, to let her know that she wasn't facing this alone.

The thought that it was wrong to have those feelings about your colleague flitted through his head. Perhaps it was right, but she was hurting and he was a healer, through and through.

"You don't love me?" Ron asked, his voice catching, "Did you ever?"

"Once, thirteen years ago… we're too different now… we grew up, things changed, we changed." Hermione replied, wiping the tears away, "Now I won't ask you again. Please. Leave."

Ron walked out of the room without a word and slammed the door to her flat behind him, rattling the walls.

Hermione started crying harder then, great sobs wracking her petite form as she slid down the wall and onto the floor.

Draco slowly moved from his hiding spot, crossing the room tentatively and taking a seat on the floor beside her.

He was unsure of what to do, so he just sat there in silence as Hermione cried.

"I-I'm sorry…" He spoke slowly, carefully measuring his words and the tone of his voice.

Hermione didn't speak, she threw her arms around his chest and cried into him.

He was taken aback by her sudden actions and then slowly brought his arms around her in an embrace.

"Do you want me to leave?"

Her fingers curled into his shirt and she shook her head.

"No. Stay." Came her muffled response.

So, stay he did.

He stayed with her all night long, holding her for hours until her crying turned to steady breathing as she fell asleep.

Draco shifted slowly and levitated her onto her bed, pulling back her covers and situating her under them, removing her shoes as he went.

He left her bedroom and summoned the cat food to him, feeding Crookshanks and giving the ginger cat a scratch behind the ears before making his way back to the bedroom and settling into the window seat to keep watch over her.

He didn't sleep at all.

When the first tendrils of sunlight began to turn the sky hues of violet and pink, he acknowledged them and admired their beauty.

He was drawn back to the present when Hermione stirred and sat up in bed.

"You're still here."

"You asked me to stay."

Hermione bit her lip before sighing and getting up.

She crossed the room in a few strides and evaluated his posture and the dark circles beneath his eyes.

He hadn't slept.

She reached out and brushed a tendril of his white-blonde hair back from his face and he leaned into her gentle touch, letting his eyes close in a feeling of peace.

Hermione sat down facing him in the window seat and leaned in to press a kiss to his cheek.

He felt her lips on the side of his face and opened his eyes to find her deep brown eyes staring back at him.

His eyes fell to her lips and back to her eyes.

Neither of them will recall who made the first move that ended in them kissing each other, but it was bliss, and they both found themselves holding on a little too tightly and breaking apart breathless.

"I'm not sorry I did that…" Draco began, his whisper caressing her lips in a soft exhalation.

"Neither am I…" Hermione murmured, "Thank you for staying with me."

Draco held her closer.

"This is going to look bad…" Draco sighed.

"Most likely."

"Well, at least nobody knows."

Hermione chuckled a bit.

"This is true."


"…They had no idea that I was there and saw the whole thing!" Rita exclaimed, "And the truly creepy and devastating thing was that when I crawled out of the window and flew away, Ron Weasley was standing in the street, looking up at her window, and watching her snog Malfoy. Oh, the look on that dumb sod's face was worth it!"

"Good Lord, Rita, you're like a bulldog…" Robert replied, grinning and laughing as he kissed his wife on the lips, "If we hurry, we'll be able to make the front page of tomorrow's morning edition!"

"I'm going to send Victor and Thelma over to St. Mungo's to get some shots of Granger and Malfoy to go with the story, and we'll be golden!" Rita said, "It'll be a collaborative exclusive, guaranteed to get everyone talking!"

"My dear, this could be the prelude to disaster if Hermione finds out it was you…"

"And risk losing her practice, license, the entire medical reform, and the respect of the entire wizarding community? I think not." Rita said with a smirk, "Oh, and make sure that a few copies of tomorrow's morning edition makes it into the reading basket in the day room at Azkaban… I'm sure Lucius Malfoy will be overjoyed by his prodigal, pureblooded son's return…"


Dun, Dun, Dun!

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