Author's Note:

Line from "Pretty Woman":

Stay. Stay with me. Not because you have to, but because you want to.

Chapter 6

Hermione had no business receiving guests. She had been in Bergen for just over three months, living a quiet life in a small house at the town's edge, where the paved road narrowed and the country grew wild. Her nearest neighbor lived half a mile away, and the elderly wizard looked nothing like the middle-aged man currently occupying her front porch.

She watched through the peephole as he shifted his weight, impatient, cold, or, Hermione thought, a mix of both. Despite the gently falling snow, he wore no hat, and his thinning, sandy blond hair wafted in the breeze. He wore no overcloak, either. Just a standard, casual affair more appropriate for the office than a foray into a German winter. His ice-blue eyes squinted against the sudden gust of snow, and he knocked again, his bare knuckles bright red.

"Hallo? Fräulein Ward? My name is Ivo Kühn. Perhaps you could open your door? It is very cold."

His name wasn't familiar, though that wasn't surprising; she could hardly be expected to know everyone in Bergen. That he knew her wasn't exactly a shock, either. Her alias was on file as a resident. A local official could look her up in a matter of minutes.

"Fräulein Ward?"

"What do you want?"

Ivo's shoulders sagged in relief.

"Just to talk."

She drew her wand, aiming it low through the wood of the door, and cracked it a few inches.

"Who are you?"

"Ivo," he repeated with a taut smile. "Ivo Kühn. I work for the German Ministry."

She readjusted the grip on her wand. Draco had promised that her papers would be flawless, as legal as forgeries could get. That the German Ministry had found her after such a short time could only mean that he had been wrong. She had not planned on running again. She wasn't ready. She needed Kühn to leave.

"How may I help you?"

He sent a longing look over her shoulder, at the fire burning in her hearth and the large pot of stew simmering on her range.

"Perhaps I may come in?"

"No."

His face fell.

"Very well. We have a mutual friend who requires your help."

"I'm new to Germany. I don't have any friends here."

"Our friend happens to be new to Germany, as well. Draco Malfoy."

A cold rope of dread slithered into her gut.

"No," she said around a bolus of bile and apprehension. "I don't recognize that name."

Ivo's expression turned sad, almost pitying. The hairs on her arms stood on edge.

"I'm afraid we do not have time for falsehoods. Draco needs your help, Fräulein Granger, and he needs it now."

Her Stunner was fast, but Ivo's shield was faster. Her spell rebounded onto the eave, scattering wood and snow down onto them both. She stumbled backwards into her house, casting another Stunner over her shoulder.

"Fräulein, please!" Ivo flicked her spell away, punching a hole through the side window. "I am not here to hurt you!"

"Stay away from me!" she snarled, settling into a defensive pose with her wand raised high.

He held his hands palm up, wand pointed toward the ceiling.

"I will stay right here. Please, I need five minutes to explain."

"You have three."

"Voldemort is dead."

She blinked, certain she had misheard.

"I don't understand."

"He's dead. Draco killed him. He is at our Berlin office now, but we must move quickly. Government abhors a vacuum as much as nature, if not more."

He held a hand out to her. She let it hang.

"Why should I believe you?"

"Do I look like the sort of man who would lie about such a thing?"

He did not. But that wasn't an answer.

"Regime change is difficult under the best of circumstances. If we have any hope of salvaging Britain, we must act now. Draco cannot assume power alone."

"What?"

"My ministry knew that Voldemort's rule could not last. We did not see it crumbling so soon but discussed at length what your country's next leader should look like. A citizen, naturally. A resistance leader, if possible; a sympathetic insider, if not. Draco is not what one would call sympathetic, but you, a resurrected leader in the fight against tyranny and oppression? You will have the support of the people. The optics are equally favorable: a pureblood and a Muggle-born working together to right a great wrong. The United Kingdom has a chance to regain her lost soul, but it needs to be now, before another member of Voldemort's regime learns of his death and asserts control."

Her head spun. It was too much to take in, too complicated to work out all the angles and weigh the costs before deciding. As a member of the German Ministry, Ivo was clearly working an angle. How could she trust him?

"Why did Draco come to you?"

"Because I signed your paperwork."

Hermione was once again rendered speechless.

"I have been processing refugee paperwork for Draco for over a decade. I was ignorant of it at first, but eventually noticed a pattern to the ancestries of the individuals and families seeking asylum and citizenship in Germany. I traced the trail back to him and discovered a man with a conscience in an unconscionable world. Three months ago, I offered him a way out. He refused. Two weeks later, he contacted me. We have been working together ever since. This, however…" Ivo frowned. "This was not part of our plan."

Hermione lowered her wand.

"I want to see him."

"You will come? You will work with us?"

"Not until I speak with him."

"Yes, yes, that is acceptable." He withdrew a dented aluminum can from the inner pocket of his cloak, tapped it with his wand, and held it out to her. "Hold tight."

She jerked forward, spinning through space before landing in a nondescript room. Ivo tossed the can into a bin and marched toward the door.

"Follow me, please."

He cut a quick path through a twisting series of hallways and stopped at a large, one-way mirror that looked in on a small room set with a table and two chairs. Draco sat in one, unharmed. Or so she thought until she looked closer. A low-intensity shiver wracked his body, punctuated by shuddering waves so strong she could hear his teeth clack together. The blanket across his shoulders failed to provide any comfort, and the steaming mug sent before him looked untouched.

She rounded on Ivo with an accusing glare.

"You didn't say he was injured."

"This is a stress response. Our Healers have examined him and assure me that it will pass." Ivo waved his hand at the mirror. A door appeared to its right. "You may see him now."

She caught a reflection of herself in the glass as she approached. She was still Vivian Ward, the stranger she knew so well. Her fear made manifest by necessity.

Never again.

Draco stilled when he saw her, watching with uncertain grey eyes as she crossed the room and dragged the unoccupied chair around the table.

"You came."

"You doubted?"

A tremorous shrug.

"I wasn't sure. Ivo has explained things?"

"As much as he was able. Are you okay?"

Draco's hands were cold and clammy, and his fingers vibrated against her palms like trapped insects. His eyes shone as he shook his head.

"I've never killed anyone before."

She squeezed his hands.

"I'm sorry it was you."

There was a cost to taking a life, even a cursed one.

"It had to be. You told me that."

That didn't make the price any lower or the consequences any easier to bear.

"Why now?"

"Blaise came to see me right after you left. He heard what had happened in Italy and swore to find you. I knew he wouldn't, but there are other things he would find… I didn't want to die. This was how I survived."

There was a note of restraint to his voice. He was holding something back.

"Survival?" she pressed. She squeezed his hand. His tremors had subsided to infrequent, shivering pulses, like he was simply chilled instead of submerged in a glacial pool. "Is that the only reason?"

He stared at the table, at war with himself. When he finally looked up at her, his eyes were as hard as steel.

"I think I love you."

His declaration sucked the air from the room. Hermione sat still and silent as he continued.

"I didn't think it was possible. We only had a week. But you saw something in me, and you believed in it. And then I saw it, too, and the fairy tale you envisioned suddenly seemed possible. When the opportunity arose, it was worth the risk to try. If I could change things, if I could see you again…" He shifted his hands so that they covered hers. "You were worth the risk."

"What do you expect from me?" she asked quietly.

He sat up and leaned toward her.

"Nothing," he answered, his eyes urgent and earnest. "Ever since the Dark… Ever since Voldemort came to power, you've been at the mercy of powerful, ignorant men. You, and people like you, have lived and died by their laws. You deserve a life outside of their control. That includes mine."

"So what will you do?"

His shoulders fell, and Hermione's heart ached as she witnessed the death of hope within him. She saw the sting of implicit rejection quickly submerged by the grief of being denied the love he craved. But neither did the grief linger. Draco had controlled his emotions for two decades, concealing every expression that might be taken for weakness. She recognized the blank look that crossed his eyes as active compartmentalization. Later, in private, he would mourn. Right now, in public, he would carry on. He would be strong so that she could live a life she chose.

He had claimed to love her; now, she knew that he did.

"Ivo has some ideas, as do I."

"He said that you needed me. For aesthetics."

Draco turned to the mirror with a scowl.

"He's a real arsehole."

The mirror shuddered, and Hermione heard a faint bark of laughter.

"Do you need me, Draco?"

He shook his head.

"I won't obligate you to this place any more than you already are."

"Ask me."

He looked at her, eyebrows pulled together in a frown.

"What?"

"Ask me. Give me the choice and let me make it."

Another private war. Draco's potential for good had only recently started to outweigh his cowardice. She should have realized it was asking too much for him to risk so much again, and so soon.

"I can't."

It was okay; he still had time to perfect the craft.

"You can." She leaned toward him, tilted his chin up with her fingers, and pressed a soft, lingering kiss to his lips. "Trust me."

When she pulled away, his eyes were bright.

"Stay," he breathed, squeezing her fingers in his. "Stay with me. Not because you have to, but because you want to."

And so she did.

The End