A/N: Chapter Fifty-One!

The moment he mentioned New York, an irreversible knot twisted around my chest and tightened. In an instant, my thoughts drifted to Atticus Grant. Now, I wasn't sure where Grant was based, but I did know enough to gather the fact that my former roommate had sought him out. From there, I noticed several things laying around the flat. Rare ingredients. Random names and instructions scribbled down on scraps of parchment. Potions books that were banned in most of Europe, as well as the US. I wasn't quite clear on the Canadian Potion Making laws, but I did know Canada had always been a little more liberal than its counterparts. In terms of research and other things.

Around one minute into our conversation, Nott left the room to grab some more beer for us, during which time I had a gander at the books and the scraps of parchment pasted to the walls.

"Find anything interesting?"

I turned, cheeks enflamed as he hovered under the doorway that connected the main room from the small kitchen; beers in hand. "Erm — no. Just — Just noticed some of your books and —"

"Atticus lent them to me," he explained, cracking open one of the beers and taking a swig. "Atticus Grant, I mean."

The knot tightened, leaving me breathless and a little dazed, to the point that I couldn't stop myself from asking. "Have you been researching a cure?" I blurted, staring between his hooded blue eyes, watching as he made his way from the table to me, contemplating his response.

"No," he answered, carefully.

I closed my eyes, blocking the emotion that flooded in and around them.

Nott came to me then, taking me by the hand and guiding me from the bookshelf to the trunk near his bed. I thought nothing of it, wondering what he could possibly be doing, until he released me and knelt down, struggling to control his balance without his walking stick, and proceeding to unlatch the lid on the trunk.

"I haven't been researching a cure," he reiterated, lifting a rectangular wooden box from within the trunk, and in the moment that followed, opening it to reveal a thin vial of murky liquid. "I've been developing one."

Later That Night

It was around midnight, when I left the apothecary and stumbled into the pub, from which I had entered the village. I noticed several eyes on me, following my movement, but I paid them no mind. There was too much to think about, too much I wanted to forget. That in mind, I slipped into one of the bar stools and ordered firewhiskey on the rocks, lusting for something stronger than beer and harder than wine. In that exact moment, someone slipped into the stool beside me and I turned to find Miguel.

"How'd it go?" he asked, in that gruff, masculine voice, nursing what looked like regular Irish whiskey.

I chose not to respond, and instead nodded thanks to the bartender as he slid me a fine glass of Ogden's Old.

Miguel arched his eyebrow, watching as I downed it in one go and proceeded to order another. "Granger, as sexy as it is to watch you pound whiskey like it's water, I'm going to need some sort of indication that I didn't make a mistake, by leaving you with that guy."

"His name is Theodore Nott," I vocalized, neither aggressive nor saddened — but distant.

"All right, well, what happened?"

I breathed in, levelling my thoughts and the freight train of emotion that charged through my bloodstream. "Do you remember Atticus Grant?"

Miguel paused a moment, before nodding. "The old man with the chirpy girlfriend. Go on."

In response to this, I told him everything, swirling my drink and watching as the liquid splashed over the ice cubes, like waves crashing over the edge of a cliff. It started when Nott left for New York and found Atticus Grant, despite his sharp distaste for experimental Healers and especially those with miracle cures. From there, the pair of them teamed up. Grant extended his earlier research and resources, leaving Nott to do the impossible and develop said cure, using the notes and materials provided. As I had discovered that very morning, Nott had been successful in brewing a cure, utilizing illegal, black market ingredients and cutting off contact with each and every person he had ever held dear to him, out of fear that the authorities would link his loved ones to his crimes, should they discover his illegal practices. It so happened that I, the woman with whom he had been involved, happened to be an accomplished, highly publicized Auror and for that reason, as well as many others, he had kept me out of the loop. Suddenly, the distance and lack of contact made sense.

I realized quickly, that he had been protecting me…the entire time.

It wasn't an easy position to be in, and as an Auror, I knew the consequences for illegal potion making. A fifteen year sentence, as well as loss of certification for Nott, as both a Healer and practitioner of potion making.

In finding him, I had unwittingly walked both myself and Miguel into an intense conflict of interest.

"If you're worried I'll report him — don't be," Miguel said to me. "Even if I wanted to report him, which I don't, his crimes are not within my jurisdiction. I was stationed in the Northwest Territories to bring down a sociopathic wand-maker — not your boyfriend."

"Draco is my boyfriend," I stated, explicit, though mostly for me, to hear those words out loud. " — not Theo."

Miguel flashed me a knowing look. "Semantics," he reasoned. "Point is, you have nothing to worry about. I'm no snitch."

I absorbed his words and the obvious frustration that tugged at my face muscles, wanting nothing more than to drown in my drink and wake up in a different reality. But that wasn't going to happen.

"What's really bothering you?" he asked, seeing through my defences as though they were made of glass.

"Am I that transparent?" I furthered.

He didn't respond. He merely waited for me to continue, to provide him with the one crucial piece of information I had withheld.

I waited until the last second, closing my eyes and doing what I could to remain calm, as the words found me, one after the other. "The cure only works on patients in the first and second stages," I explained. "Nott surpassed those stages months ago…meaning…"

"Dios…" Miguel vocalized, concern in his deep, dark brown eyes. "I'm so sorry, Hermione."

"Don't be," I told him, knocking back another drink. "Yes, he left home and spent two years developing a cure that is now useless to him, but it's not useless to others. In — In doing this, he's saving lives. Young, innocent lives. It's nothing to be upset about. It's — It's a good thing."

Another few seconds passed, before Miguel placed an empathetic hand on my shoulder. "You should be over there in that apothecary, with him right now."

In that moment, I glanced down. "It's too risky."

"Risky?" Miguel repeated. "How?"

"Being near him feels too much like home," I confessed, thinking back to what happened between us and how wrong it was, but how right it felt. "We kissed…twice."

The man nodded, as though he had suspected something like this had happened. But the look that found his facial features was not one of disappointment or disgust, in knowing I had cheated on my boyfriend. It was more understanding than anything else, as though the situation hit closer to home than I thought it would.

"Don't worry about it," he said to me. "Losing someone you love is never easy."

I turned to him then, hearing those words reverberate in the back of my mind, prompting me to ask the question that lingered between us since we met back in New York. "Tell me, Hernandez. What's your story?"

He waited a moment and then smiled to me, lazily, focusing on his drink and then the music. That night, Fleetwood Mac was on repeat, and I had a feeling my partner in crime had certain memories attached to these songs.

"Her name was Carmen," he started to say. "We were from the same neighbourhood in East Harlem. I always had a thing for Carmen. She had this smile…" he then said, unknowingly raising a hand to his lips. "The kind of smile people write songs about, you know?"

I knew. I knew too well.

"Anyway, about two months after we graduated from school, I convinced Carmen to go out with me," he furthered, speaking distantly but fondly. "It's been years since then and I still don't know what she saw in me, but it was enough to move in with me and eventually tie the knot."

"You were married?" I asked, taken aback.

Miguel tucked a couple fingers inside his collar and pulled out a chain with a ring looped around it. "Still am," he whispered, pressing the ring to his lips, wearing a matching ring on his left hand. "She was, uh, diagnosed with cancer a couple weeks after we took down Jonathan Young at the Met Gala. Later that year, she passed."

I blinked, heartbroken. "So recent…" I came to realize. "If you don't mind me asking, is that why you left the MCUSA?"

He nodded.

"I'm so sorry…"

"Don't be," he voiced, mirroring our earlier discussion. "If that hadn't happened to me, I wouldn't have cared enough to help you."

It was a rather abrupt response, but honest. I appreciated that about Miguel. He wasn't one to sugarcoat things. He was real. Kind of like Astoria, but without the camera and the sharp tongue.

"Besides that…" he furthered, brushing his hair back and then the corners of his eyes, when he thought I wasn't looking. "What are you gonna do about Draco?"

I exhaled, doing what I could to ignore the heaviness in my chest. "No idea. Tell him, I suppose. That's the right thing to do."

"Whatever you decide, make sure you do it for yourself and no one else," he advised, in a way that confirmed to me where he stood on the spectrum. "As a man, I can tell you we're pretty much one hundred percent full of shit and that we'll say or do anything to get what we want."

"That's reassuring," I smiled, laughter on my lips.

Miguel returned my smile. "You know me. Just keepin' it real with you."

"Cheers to that."

From there, we finished our drinks and headed back to the Inn, where we bid one another good night in the corridor and slipped into our separate rooms. I made motion for the loo, turning the tap on and using cold water to sober me up, shivering a little as the first splash went down my shirt and acted as adhesive between my skin and the cotton fabric. I hurriedly yanked the shirt off and moved to the bed, on top of which I had another change of clothes laid out for me. It was a simple t-shirt and jeans combo, and as I reached to slip on the shirt, there was a knock on my door.

I turned to the barrier and arched an eyebrow. "Who is it?"

"It's me," someone answered, from the other side. "Theo."

Something tugged at my chest muscles, before I rushed to the door and opened it to reveal the man of the hour, dressed in the same clothes but with his hair a mess, as though he'd rushed to the Inn as fast as he physically could. "Come — Come in," I urged, ushering him inside and closing the door. "Are you okay? Did something happen?"

"I'm fine," he made sure to state, following me to the foot of the bed and leaning his walking stick against the wall, before we sat down, across from one another. "I — erm — I know it's late and I'm sorry to bother you at such an hour, but I came here to tell you that I — I've decided to take you up on that offer."

A rush of emotion pooled over my heart.

"I think it's time for me to go home," he furthered, drawing me so deep into his eyes, that it was a damned miracle I didn't drown. " — to England."

"Really?" I asked, hanging on the edge.

Theo nodded, glancing down a moment. "It's the only way I can try to legalize the cure. I need to be there and prove to the Ministry that this cure is no joke," he explained, shifting his gaze to me as more seconds passed. " — and I've wasted too much time avoiding the people I love."

I couldn't help but smile, fighting the trembling sensation that moved through my lips. "We need you. All of us. Draco, especially."

In the next few moments, something changed in Nott's expression, as though a lingering back thought had surfaced in the space of four seconds. I could see it in his eyes and the way he looked at me.

"Do you love him?" he asked.

I swallowed hard, doing what I could to ignore the knot in my chest. "He's my boyfriend," I then said, in a way that deepened those lingering questions and caused that same knot to tighten, forcing me to shift my gaze in another direction, above water level, where I could breathe and collect my thoughts. "I shouldn't have kissed you. It shouldn't have happened the way that it did. I — I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

Theo said nothing for a long time, collecting his own thoughts, allowing the atmosphere between us to deepen, before speaking. "I'm not."

A/N: Thoughts?

Cheers

xo.