"But that's the whole point," she insisted with a laugh, "To make sure that the results don't balance themselves out. The mixture will turn out absolutely terrible if you were to go about it like that."

"I used to do that all the time." He smirked. "And it always worked. Sometimes following the directions isn't the best way to go about something."

She was silent for a moment, chewing on her lip. But the lull naturally didn't last long. "And how has not following the directions gone for you? Rather brilliantly, if I might say so."

That was enough justification for another laugh. He restrained himself, however. At the rate he was laughing, she was likely to think him a blithe idiot, but it was her fault that it was so easy to laugh around her.

"Oh, I followed directions just fine." He replied sarcastically.

"The wrong directions." She said, nearly slipping into that bossy tone of hers.

He pretended to sniff haughtily. "It's not my fault that you've never had the problem of choosing between which directions to listen to. But what about your blokes? You break the rules with them all the time."

"Well—" she said, sounding slightly taken aback, "You make it sound so awful. We only break rules when we have to, when something bad might happen if we don't."

"You broke the rules," he corrected her choice of tense regarding her friends, eliciting a relatively good-natured scowl from her, "But correct me if I'm wrong, I didn't think that was how it worked. So you get to choose which rules you can break?"

"I—no." Hermione frowned. "That's not—"

"Of course not." He wasn't really in a bad mood. So it was a little odd that this little tirade should come out now. He'd been rehearsing it rather heatedly in his head for years now. "But that's how it is. It happens nearly every single year. Wouldn't be the same at all if it didn't happen. You and the delectable Duo go off, break every rule you can set your hands on, and then proceed to save the day. All to the applause of the old man and the entire school. All nice and tidy and perfectly nauseous. It's all just one grand adventure for all of you. And everyone loves it. Sure, I suppose there might be a few fleeting moments of dilemma, but it all works out in the end. Everything fits so neatly into place, and you all come back together. Every single time. Don't you?"

"I hope so," she said softly, looking down at her feet again. "And I think you do too."

"Either way …" he trailed off, not really wanting to go there.

"If I'd known you had felt so strongly about it, I would've invited you."

And she looked so serious about it too.

This was the kind of laugh he couldn't dream of holding back. "I guess it's true that humor is best when it's unintentional."

"I suppose it would've been kind of funny," she admitted, "Think of what they would've said …" and she broke off in a giggle.

They was a pretty broad term, but he didn't have any trouble laughing along with her.

She stopped after a minute, drawing a breath and regaining a somber tone. "But it's not like that at all, you know. Not when it's happening. Some of the things were just—and it's not as if you know what it is when it's happening. It's hardly as if you have time to stop and say this is all one grand adventure, is it?"

"I wouldn't know anything about it."

She looked at him almost sadly. "Who knows, maybe this is one of those times."

That was enough to make him want to look anywhere else, to pretend he hadn't heard her.

It was strange how he thought, in that second, that it would be a perfect distraction if he were to see someone walking towards them on the path. Because of this, he thought at first that he was imagining things.

She had started talking again at some point, and he had to gesture with his hand to get her attention.

"There's someone coming." He murmured, almost as much to confirm it to himself as to warn her. He missed whatever her reaction looked like as he strained to discern the lone figure coming towards them, though from this distance he couldn't make much out anyways.

"Should we run?" She whispered it in a way that made him smile.

"No. Just act normal."

"But what if he's—"

"Just act normal."

She of course didn't exactly act normal, but he supposed it didn't really matter. As the man came closer, Draco slowly worked out that it was an older man from the style of the cloak. That didn't mean much. He could still be dangerous. They could be walking into a Death Eater trap for all they knew.

But he couldn't work any other emotion above the melancholy that had suddenly overcome him. The cause of it could've been any number of things. Maybe it was the thought of the adventures that they'd been talking about a moment ago, or how she didn't think of them as he thought she might. Or maybe it was because this was the first time he really had any genuine doubt that she would eventually be forgiven by her friends. After all, that's what they were supposed to do; he'd certainly watched it happen enough times before. But suddenly he wasn't so certain.

Or maybe it was because the sight of the first person they'd seen in nearly a week, an older man strolling almost casually towards them, made him realize that they were still just two kids traveling together. No matter what he wanted or liked to think most of the time, that's what it came down to. The childish bickering, the childish thoughts—the childish indecision. Melancholy was the only word for what he felt in that moment.

The man smiled when they had gotten close enough for that. He had a crinkly, weathered sort of face and a grandfather sort of smile.

When he came to a stop, they cautiously did the same.

"Beautiful day," the man's eyes rose to the sky, "Don't get many of those anymore."

"No, I suppose not." Malfoy said as friendly as he could. He guessed the other man wasn't big on traditional greetings.

"I don't normally see people here." The man's eyes moved over to Hermione.

Resisting the temptation to do the same, to see what she was doing, Draco let the older man continue.

"Actually, I didn't think many people knew about this Path. It's old, you know." He gave a soft laugh. "Matter of fact, I thought I was one of the few still around who knew about it at all."

"I think my father thought the same thing." When Draco laughed the older man smiled wider and followed along with him, "I was curious myself if he was right about it."

The man nodded understandingly. "Going anywhere special?"

It was a simple question. The possible connotations weren't.

He smiled the best he could. "Not really. As a matter of fact—"

"Oh," the man broke in almost politely with a strange nod, "Best be careful then, lad. Nothing's been normal lately, and the Path is liable to pull someone who doesn't have a particular destination somewhere they don't want to go. That is if you get my drift."

"That's not to say that we don't know where we're going," Malfoy changed his voice and air of assurance slightly as he surmised that his initial reading of the man had been slightly off, "In fact, my lovely wife and I are off to a special … err, destination. The family has been rather stuffy as of late, especially with everything else going on, and we thought it might be good to get away for a bit to somewhere … special …" He let the suggestion trail off with his voice. Given any other situation he might've been having fun with this, and he longed to see what kind of reaction she was wearing.

The old man, however, didn't look like he was particularly buying it. "That may be a good idea you have there. I probably could stand to get away for a while myself. By the way, what did you say your names were?"

"Oh, I'm sorry," Draco frowned, as though he was annoyed that that topic hadn't come up, "I'm Neville Long—knot," he said as he firmly shook the man's outstretched handshake, giving only the barest pause at making up the name. "And my wife—Agatha."

"Charmed," the man nodded and grinned at Hermione but made no move to shake her hand, which was probably for the best.

"Well," Draco said briskly, "I think we'd best be continuing. It was a pleasure to meet you."

"Likewise," the man nodded and then mutually continued on past them.

"Crazy old wanker," Draco muttered under his breath when they were far enough away. "So nice of him to volunteer his name."

"Do you think something is going on?" Hermione asked warily as she scanned both sides of the path, one hand no doubt on her wand.

If something had been going on, Draco would have been of little help as distracted as he was. Still, he had a calm enough feeling in his gut that he couldn't kick himself too hard for not keeping a closer eye out.

"If there was, I think it would've happened by—" he broke off as they heard the man's voice hail them from a distance.

"Still, if I were you I'd be careful about where the Path is pulling you—" the man was shouting with his hands cupped around his mouth. "If you were heading in a specific direction, you'd be going this way."

Before the full weight of that could hit Draco, the man had turned and continued, not stopping again until he was out of sight. And even long after they'd continued on, it was some time before Draco began to wonder just how little he understood of the Path's complexities.

----------------------------------------

Everything else had a fine time ignoring the ominous feeling that had settled itself in his gut. It really was a beautiful day, but Hermione didn't seem to be any more at ease than he was. The most striking evidence for this was that she wasn't any more willing to bring up the encounter with the old man than he was. They only indirectly stumbled upon it much later, half by accident and half because it was growing darker by that time and they were looking for a good campsite. It amused him that she carefully avoided any mentioned of him posing her as his "lovely wife."

"But still," she shook her head, "Agatha Longknot? What possessed you to think of a name like that?"

He smiled but continued to carefully watch the sides of the Path. "Rule number one in making up a name is getting it out as quickly as possible. Most of the time they're not paying close attention anyway."

"I'll have to remember that." She said wryly, but a long silence followed. "Do you think … he was right?"

He sighed an honest sigh. "I don't know. Maybe—about some things."

"Do you think it would help if we changed where we're going?"

Sighing again would've been overkill, if only for redundancy's sake. "I've been trying to lead us back to one of the buildings near the manor. I … can't tell if it's working."

"Well," she said, with a stubborn sprinkling of optimism, "That's that then. There's nothing else that can be done. I doubt it would matter if I tried. Besides, it will turn out."

He stopped and nodded. "This will be as good a place as any to stop tonight."

"Okay, I'll go collect some firewood." She volunteered, but she remained motionless.

He had been about to say something to cover his own lack of movement.

"Draco …"

He stiffly turned his head to find her regarding him with a slight frown. Before he could really tell what was happening, she was walking towards him.

"Thank you," she stood on her tiptoes and quickly kissed his ear, "You don't know how much you've helped me."

Almost as though to beat anything else possible from happening, she turned and hurried into the woods.

His heart had caught up with the proceedings, and he was left with a somewhat dizzy feeling. There probably wasn't any school of thought, philosophical or otherwise, that could've helped him to make sense of … well, anything at that moment.

His hand rose uncertainly halfway to his ear before he stopped it. He could feel the evidence of what had just happened, which he quite frankly needed to ascertain that it had indeed happened, resting at the center of his ear.

Evidence? He frowned, and amidst worries that his ears might presently not be all that hygienic, he had a minor revelation that there was no nice word for spit. At least none that he could think of.

As he decided upon moisture as being the most amiable term, he decided he didn't dare touch it, no matter how much it tickled.

--------------------------------------------

They had fallen into a comfortable silence, but they'd been talking about something nearly the entire morning. He could remember only a few of the specific topics as most of them had been throwaway subjects, but he realized that it didn't necessarily matter what they talked about. Even now he had no idea how they had come to this. Being able to comfortably talk about nothing to the Gryfinndor bookworm would've been something he would've laughed at before this week, or even during most of it for that matter. Truth be told, he was nearly terrified that something might come and ruin it, so fragile did it seem.

It was a different kind of day from yesterday. Normally he enjoyed cloudy days, but lately those had been a little too frequent for his tastes, even though today wasn't exactly a brooding type of day.

"So what are you going to do—after all this, I mean?" Hermione asked suddenly.

"After all what?" Draco asked cautiously.

"Well," she hesitated for a moment, "After the war has been resolved."

"I don't know," he kicked at the dirt, "Depends what's still left. If I'm still left."

She abruptly stopped. Before he could be afraid that he'd said something wrong, he followed her gaze up ahead and discovered the reason.

Over the past few days they'd become accustomed enough to marching towards infinity that it took a minute to get over the shock of abruptly being able to see a definite end to the Path. Once that fact registered, it took substantially shorter for him to become excited at the sight of buildings. Multiple buildings, arranged in what civilization sometimes termed a town.

He was laughing and running towards it before he knew what he was doing. Hermione followed, with only a little less enthusiasm due to her insatiable cautiousness.

"It's a town!" he shouted back at her, as though that would make her as happy as he felt.

"I can see that!" she shouted back crossly, but she was still smiling as she ran to keep up. "But don't you think we'd rather take it a bit slower?"

"What for, we're not expected!"

"But it might be dangerous!" But she wasn't slowing down any herself.

"Oh, yes. Civilization is always so dangerous," he laughed but obliged and slowed to a jog as she caught up, "All the edible food you can buy or eat, all prepared by someone else; soft beds complete with pillows—"

"—Warm baths that last as long as you want," Hermione joined in, affecting a playfully dreamy tone.

They slowed even more as they neared the outskirts of what was turning out to be a very tiny and dreary looking town. That, however, didn't seem to be bothering her any more than it was him.

"I'll tell you one thing," Draco forced himself into a walk and ran a quick hand through his hair, "This roughing it business definitely isn't all that it's cracked up—"

It had been intended as an innocent glance behind them to see what had become of the Path, now that they were effectively off of it. Quite unsurprisingly, no trace of it remained, as it had been swallowed by the field that now stood in its place. Somewhere in the middle of his glance, however, reality caught up with him. The dirty looking man standing maybe a hundred paces behind them was enough to bring the old man's words back to him.

He was already beginning to feel incredibly stupid about running gaily into a muggle town when he saw that the man was regarding them suspiciously and pulling out something that couldn't possibly have been anything but a wand.

If he'd been wrong about that, there would've been plenty of time later to feel even stupider, but he'd already grabbed a fistful of her cloak and had pulled out his own wand by the time the man broke into stride with a harsh word. His stunning spell flew past them.

"Run!" Draco shouted as her predictable questions came, not being able to see what was happening for herself. Pushing her forward, he half followed as he turned and shot off his own hastily aimed stunning spell.