A/N: Thank you all so much for your reviews, favorites and follows! It's so hard to start saying goodbye as we get to the end. Just one more chapter after this guy. You can follow me on tumblr (nauticalparamour) where I post sneak peeks, story updates and answer questions!

Please let me know what you thought of chapter twenty-one and be on the lookout for chapter twenty-two soon!

Max had been successful in returning to his proper time. At least, they thought he was. The Monday morning after he left, Hermione and Adrian did not see him in the Great Hall for breakfast. Approaching Headmistress McGonagall together, they asked where Max was. Their professor just gave them a knowing smile and said that he was on his way home.

Hermione hoped that he had actually gotten home and wasn't in some time limbo caused by a miscalculation on her part. She would just have to live with the fact that she wouldn't find out for sure for a long time.

With Max out of their lives as quickly as he'd entered, Hermione was surprised at the speed with which the rest of the school year sped by. When she'd entered Hogwarts that year, she'd quickly been disillusioned with being back, bored and feeling out of place. Once she and Adrian started dating, though, she was annoyed with how quickly their remaining weeks living under the same castle went.

Adrian was busy working on finishing up his apprenticeship, repairing the Hogwarts library. It did absorb a lot of his time, but Hermione wasn't too annoyed. She still spent the majority of her time in the library as well, buckling down in her revisions for the NEWTs.

After all of the kerfuffle with Max, Adrian had gently suggested that she might pursue becoming an Unspeakable if she enjoyed time magic so much. Obviously, she had already devoted a lot of time to it's study and she had the rough shapes of a thesis on forward time travel if it was something that she wanted to do. Hermione was surprised that she'd never even considered that before. But once he'd said it, she knew that it was what she wanted to do, even if it meant working for the Ministry of Magic.

Hermione had decided to apply to a couple of mastery programs, but was hoping to be accepted to a Charms mastery. That meant that she would need to get the best scores possible on her NEWTs. Adrian still liked to tell her that she'd get Outstandings in all of her selected courses even if she hadn't come back for her eighth year, but Hermione knew it was too important to leave to chance. After that, she would just have to hope that an invitation was offered for her to join the Unspeakables.

That wasn't to suggest that Hermione and Adrian spent all their time together in the library studying, though Hermione certainly didn't disabuse Ginny of the idea. They definitely found time in their busy schedules for each other, spending many nights snogging and more in Adrian's private apartments. By the end of the year, Hermione thought she had spent more time there than in her own dorm room. She really hoped that Adrian hadn't minded too much.

Adrian had also gotten over his resentment of the special treatment she received if it meant that they could spend many evenings together at the Three Broomsticks for a change of pace. Hermione loved snuggling up in one of the many hidden corners of the little pub, especially when it wasn't overrun with other Hogwarts students.

It was getting hard to imagine what it would be like when they both left Hogwarts and no longer were no longer in such close contact with one another. Would their passionate relationship fizzle out with the distance? Would her friends put unnecessary strain on the relationship? The unknown was enough to make her never want to leave.

She was glad that their unexpected relationship had lasted for as long as it had, but she was under no illusions that it would be easy out in the real world. There were no guarantees that they were meant to last. (If you didn't count Max, that is. And Hermione didn't count on Max because she didn't want to be boxed in by a destiny that might never come to pass.)

One day, in early June, when they were both sitting out under the shade of a large oak tree on the grounds, Hermione brought up her fears to her boyfriend. "I don't know how I'm going to stand not being able to see you whenever I'd like once we leave Hogwarts," she said, shocked by how forlorn she sounded.

"I don't think you'll be able to get rid of me if you wanted," Adrian teased, lifting up his head from her lap. His hair was just a little bit too long and she could see the tiniest hint of waves at the ends.

Hermione scoffed. "You'll be busy with your apprenticeship, learning to be a solicitor," she explained, feeling a lump begin to form in her throat. "I think they'll make you do all the hard work, hours of reading and annotating case law."

"That is true," Adrian said. Then his face suddenly went a bit serious. "It would be nice to know that I always had you waiting for me to come home to."

She smiled at the thought. It would be nice to share a bed with him every evening and snuggle up on Sunday mornings. They could get ready together every morning, maybe even sharing a shower now and again if they weren't too busy. Neither one of them was very good at cooking, but they liked to work together. Hermione pictured them living just down the street from a little pub that they could go get dinner from on occasions. "Wouldn't it be nice?" she asked with a sigh.

"It would be," he said with a nod. "But, I don't really see why it has to remain hypothetical?"

Hermione felt a little bit confused. "What do you mean?" she asked. "You'll be going back to your flat and I'll be going to Grimmauld Place." The prospect of moving in with Harry and Ron suddenly felt so rotten, imaging picking up after two exhausted aurors - them waking her up when they came home drunk on the weekends.

"Hermione," Adrian said with a shake of his head. "Salazar, I love you, but you can be so obtuse sometimes."

She was stunned by his casual declaration of love. Her heart stuttered in her chest when she looked at the wizard who was smirking at her, perhaps amused that he'd stunned her speachless for once in his life. "You love me?" she asked, hoping beyond hope that he would confirm it.

Pushing her back against the lush grass, Adrian loomed over her, his head blocking out the rays of the sun. Leaning down, he kissed her forehead, nose and both cheeks, before finally pressing his lips against hers. "Yes, witch, I love you," he repeated, softly.

Hermione wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders, sighing in joy. "I love you, too," she revealed, unsure of how long she'd been holding that in, not wanting to share it with Adrian in case it scared him off of her. She kissed him again, immediately deepening it, wanting to feel the full weight of his body on top of hers.

Adrian groaned into her, enjoying the kiss for a few moments before he pulled back. "You didn't let me finish," he whispered.

She frowned, eyebrows furrowed. "Well, you better hurry up and finish, because I'm growing impatient," she told him, wanting to get back to their lovely snog.

"I was trying to ask you to move in with me after graduation," he said, looking into her eyes. "How would you like that? Live in my flat with me?"

The Gryffindor witch didn't think that it was possible for her to be anymore stunned than she already was. Adrian actually wanted to cohabitate with her? That lovely future that she'd just imagined could actually come true. Sitting up suddenly, she blurted out the first thing that came to mind. "Of course I'd love to move in with you," she said. "But are you sure you want to live with me? What if my bad habits annoy you?"

Adrian laughed, a lovely sound. "Hermione, we've practically been living together the last couple of months anyway," he explained. "I think I've learned all of your annoying habits by now, and I promise that it won't run me off."

"Yes, but..." she trailed off, before furiously nibbling on her lower lip. She didn't want to talk him out of it, but she always didn't want him to get sick of her and kick her out at some future date. "But I could always go back to Gryffindor Tower if I was annoying you. A flat is much smaller than the castle and there will be no getting away from me."

He leaned in and pressed featherlight kisses on her bare neck. Godric, he knew how much she loved when he did that, her nipples tightening under the soft cotton of her shirt. "It's a two bedroom flat, so we can designate the second bedroom as your hideaway that you can retreat to if you get too annoyed with me," he said.

"You don't annoy me-"

"It's okay, I know I've got annoying habits, too," he said. "In any case, I don't think we will ever stop arguing. It would be nice to have a little part of it be your own."

"An office I can work in," Hermione whispered, her mind quickly turning to mush as Adrian wound his fingers in her hair, positioning her just how he wanted her. If he was trying to seduce her into agreeing, it was certainly working.

"Say you'll move in with me, Hermione?" he nearly begged. "Otherwise, you might as well tell Weasley and Potter that I'll be over at yours every night."

The idea of that made her giggle. "Of course I'll move in with you," Hermione agreed, her body arching to be closer to his. Merlin, if he didn't just touch her, she thought she might go mad with lust.

"I'm so glad you saw things my way," Adrian said with a smirk, his large hand coming up to cup her breast. He kissed her deeply then, as if he couldn't get enough of her. Each touch of his tongue sent a zing of pleasure running down her spine to her center. Her body felt like it was filled with molten lava and she squeezed her legs tightly together, hoping for some friction to ease the ache.

But then, he was stopping, pulling back from her. Hermione whined low in her throat. "Why are you stopping, Adrian?" she asked, never wanting him to stop. Eventually, she opened her eyes, her blown pupils quickly adjusting to the bright sunlight.

"You know, I was thinking there was one place in the castle that I'd really like to have you in before we leave," he said, his voice thick with lust. His long fingers trailed up and down the bare skin of her inner thigh. "And now that NEWTs and exams are over, I think it just might be empty enough for us to go unnoticed."

Hermione narrowed her eyes, wondering if he was really talking about the library. "Really, Adrian?" she asked with a snort, though she couldn't deny that the idea appealed to her. The library had been such a big part of her time at school.

"Well, believe it or not, I actually have several fantasies inspired by arguments with you in the library," he revealed, his cheeks just going a little bit pink. "Even from before we were dating, if I'm honest."

She was thrilled to learn that little tidbit. "That sounds very intriguing Pucey," she told him, standing up from her spot on the grass. "I expect that you tell me about all of them - in detail - at some point in the future if I agree to this."

He stood up as well. "I'd be happy to share," he said, grabbing her hand tightly in her's.

"Well, what are you waiting for then?" she questioned, putting on her best bossy disposition for him.
"Are you going to take me to the library or not?"Eager to close that chapter of their lives together and start a new one after school, Adrian and Hermione spent the rest of the afternoon hidden away in the stacks of the Hogwarts' library.