A/N: Thank you so much for your reviews, favorites and follows! I know that you guys were not too happy with Draco after the last chapter, but he is going to figure everything out shortly. The angst is nearly over. 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 nineteen and be on the lookout for chapter twenty soon!

1998

Draco wished that he could stop visiting his father in Azkaban now that he was of age, but he'd made a promise to his grandfather Abraxas to continue to visit the man before he'd died. Now, he cursed the old man for manipulating him into doing something that he longed to stop, but didn't have the strength to.

So, once a year, he would make his way to the dreary, cold island in the middle of the North Sea, like some sort of morbid pilgrimage to visit a man who was his father in name only. He always went to visit Lucius on his birthday, not to bring his father any joy, but rather to remind the typically vain man that he was another year older. Azkaban had no way to make the gaunt, haunted looking man into the strutting peacock that Draco saw in family photos.

Lucius was already waiting for him when he arrived, sitting across the table with a grim smile on his face. "Draco, how much you've grown," he said with a smile, showing off rotting teeth. "You grow to look more and more like me with each passing year."

"Really?" Draco drawled, looking down at his unblemished left forearm, loving to rub in the fact that he didn't share the hideous dark mark with his father. "People mostly say how much I take after my mother and my grandfather Cygnus." While he loved Abraxas, Draco sometimes wished that he could erase the Malfoy side of him entirely.

His father sneered at him, but didn't rise to the bait. "Speaking of your mother," he said, knowing that it would get Draco's hackles up. "She told me that you are no longer courting the Parkinson girl."

Draco wished he knew why his mother continued to visit his father when she had been even more hurt by him than Draco had been. She had been in love with him at one point, only to have her heart broken so that Lucius could follow the Dark Lord. He didn't know why she wouldn't just divorce him and be done with it.

"Pansy and I were never courting," Draco answered, crossing his arms over his chest, protectively. "We were barely even dating. And I say, good riddance to her." Pansy had become a toxic presence in his life, driving a wedge between himself and everyone else in his life. Hermione refused to come around if Pansy was going to be there and after her outburst when they'd been playing drinking games, Draco realized he'd pick his friends over Pansy one thousand times over.

"She would make a suitable wife for you," Lucius countered, as though he had any right to be giving him relationship advice from his prison cell.

He rolled his eyes. "I doubt she will make a suitable wife for anyone," he answered. "But in any case, she is dating Warrington now, and as far as I am concerned, he's welcome to her."

"You really ought to think about the future of the Malfoy family, Draco," Lucius said disapprovingly. "If I was out of this place, you'd already be married to a suitable witch. And you absolutely wouldn't be hanging around with your little mudblood friend," he sneered.

"Don't you dare talk about Hermione that way!" he shouted, standing up from his seat. Draco had already been feeling insecure enough about Hermione after he'd yelled at her for kissing Alphard. He'd apologized to her for losing his cool, and they had made up, but his stomach still seemed to twist in some kind of odd jealousy when he thought of Hermione kissing the newest beater for the Wimbourne Wasps.

Lucius was laughing at him. "It's not as if you can marry the little slut," he said with glee, enjoying the way that he was upsetting Draco.

"I would be lucky to have her!" Draco countered, knowing in his heart that it was true. "She's a better witch than I deserve." He couldn't stay in that little room for another moment and quickly grabbed his cloak, eager to put his father behind him for another year.

"Don't be a fool, Draco. You are a Malfoy! No one is better than us," his father called desperately at his retreating back, not making a dent. Draco didn't share his father's ego.

But his father's words had certainly painted a picture in his mind. One where Hermione was not only his best friend, but his lover as well. One where she stood by his side as his wife, as the mother of his children. He felt as if he'd been knocked in the stomach with a bludger by the sudden realization of it all. Everything was slipping into place, including his jealousy over Alphard kissing her. It was quite simple really.

Draco loved Hermione. But more than that, he was in love with Hermione.

It seemed so obvious now that he could put the right words to it. He had not been blind to the fact that he had grown attracted to her over the years, and of course he'd always loved enjoyed being with her. He longed for the days when he had her all to himself, wandering around Malfoy Manor playing wizards and dragons, taking her flying on the back of his broomstick. He imagined taking her for a ride now, and how wonderful it would feel to have her hands tight around his middle, his heart doing flip flops.

Merlin's beard, how on Earth had he been blind to this for so long when it had been simmering under the surface for years? And what kind of cruel trick it was to have Lucius make him realize the truth of his feelings.

Part of him wanted to rush out to find her and tell her, but he knew that he had done a lot of damage, making Hermione think that he could only ever see her as a friend. If he tried to tell her the truth now, it would only make her think he was lying. No, getting Hermione to see the truth of his feelings would take a little Slytherin cunning and a lot of patience.