A/N: Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own anything of the Harry Potter brand.


"What do you want to talk about?" The pencil in my hand was itching to be chewed on in my nervous state. Still, I wanted to look confident and collected in front of him. "How Ron didn't beat you up when you came into the building?" I joked.

"I used a charm to disguise my appearance. I figured the Weasel wouldn't be too happy to see me." he explained. I nodded, impressed.

"You were always really good at those."

"Remember I disguised us to get into that opera on your birthday? The photographers didn't have a clue." He liked the memory and so did I, it was one of the best birthday persents ever. At the same time it was bittersweet because he was bringing up the past. The past terrified me because the past was just that, the past. But more so because with Draco, I wanted to talk about the past. I wanted it to be the past.

"What do you really want to talk about?"

"The past three years would be a good start, I suppose. How have you been?" he said after a pause, trying a smile. "From the papers you've looked well." I had to chuckle about the papers. They loved to track mine, Draco's, Ron's, and Harry's movements in school with special editions on speculations of what we were doing but they were in for a surprise once graduation came around. My job in magical law eventually became boring to them and with my long stable relationship to Draco at the time, I wasn't newsworthy anymore. Harry, on purpose, avoided the spotlight and chose a job where he was constantly on the move. Predictable Ron went into the family business and Draco went into the brand business where he worked a typical coporate job. When none of us went for the fame route, the papers started to publish less stories about us but when they were there, they were, for the first time in our lives, true. Carefully I watched for any sign that Draco would speak first. I hadn't planned on being the first one to speak in the conversation but I accepted the role anyway after a few moments.

"Yeah, after you kicked me out I cried my eyes out for the longest time." he winced when I stated that and I knew he hated to see me cry. When I did he would hold me and tell the funniest jokes so I would stop. No one had been able to be that good at getting me to stop crying since our break up. "Then I pulled myself together and remembered I was Hermione Granger, top student of Hogwarts, a smart woman. I had survived so much as it was, I could pull through this blow. So then I poured the part of my heart I had given to you into every court case I had. I won every single one of them so I was promoted to partner after two years. About a year ago I started to date Ron seriously. Harry and Ginny got married a year and a half ago at the Burrow. Harry travels around the country doing goodness knows what. " I laughed. "Ginny is a partner here but I've got a bit more power than her. She's lost a couple important cases but she's smart, she'll make it up." A silence fell over us as I finished my abridged verison of the past three years. I wanted to tell him how I had cried my eyes out to Ginny for a month straight. I wanted to tell him how I was surprised by that night when earlier that day I had found a ring box in the bedside table. I wanted to tell him how Ron wasn't him and I wanted to tell him that I was only acting like I was perfectly fine when I wanted to run away with him.

"You've written a couple books." he noted and I was taken aback. "Silver Jane" had written several novels concerning a young adult witch and her adventures solving mysteries at a magical school. My publisher didn't even know my real name, just an owl to communicate from. The only problem was I had started the novels when I was still living with Draco and I thought we would still be when the novels were published so I thought the name would be a cute surprise. It was his favorite color and my middle name together, but we broke up before the books' success. Each day every one of the books had come out they hit number one on the best seller lists. "Think about your pen name. I would know it a mile away."

"We broke up before I could tell you." I explained. "I do the books in my spare time or between cases. I'm on contract to do another series after I finish the final book of the Tower Mystery series and that's due out next month. I submit the final approval of the manuscript in a couple weeks." I paused, feeling like he had already done his research on me. At the same time I hate he had done that because it made me think he could still have real feelings for me since he had put forth the effort. I was much more interested in what he had done though. "What have you done?" He seemed to collect his thoughts together and then began to speak.

"After we broke up I continued to work on the Brand, we bought up a couple more stores which did well. I kept convincing myself that what I had done was right and drank myself for a year and a half, while throwing myself back into my work like you did. I still to this day don't know how I didn't go bankrupt with that habit. Cleaned myself up and I had a couple girlfriends," I knew at least that part all too well because I had stooped to new lows of scanning gossip magazines for any trace of him when I was desperate. For the most part he had dated Pansy which didn't surprise me. There were even pictures of him looking at rings with her but apparently nothing had come to pass. "but they didn't work out. Spent the rest of the time pulling myself back together and informed the Brand I would be leaving. I had made more than enough money to live on. Then I decided to try and gather the courage to get you back." He said the last part quietly. He wanted me back. Did he really? Or because I wasn't available anymore? He always had courage. When no one believed in Draco's business savvy, he had the courage to keep on going and he proved everyone wrong. We sat there staring at each other when we had finished because there were so many things we wanted to say but at the same time I wanted to yell at him, to hit him, to make him feel what I had gone through. My eyes traced his arms which had held me so safely and had jokingly used me as an armrest. He still wore the watch I gave him for a birthday. Our eyes met when he caught me staring at the watch.

"I gave you that clip." his voice snapped me back to reality.

"Pardon me?" I said, reaching up to touch the clip fixed in my hair. I removed the clip and I felt my lungs hold my breath when it finally reached my desk. Upon closer inspection, it was a crystal butterfly which I had often put in my hair. It had slipped from the back of my head during my planning of the upcoming Roy case during the day. I had no idea how Draco could've seen it. Somehow it had slipped my mind that Draco had gotten me the clip on our first date.

"I gave you that clip on our first date." he repeated as if reading my mind. I nodded. "Picking it out, I was dead terrified. You knew me as an arrogant ass who was more interested in being a jerk to people, and playing girls. I was afraid you would think my gift stupid." I smiled a little, remembering how I was surprised that night. It was the last thing I had expected getting because I was still trying to think at the time if the date was a joke. Harry had told me that if it turned out to be a joke then dish it right back to him. But no, Draco I knew was serious about the date the minute I met him outside the Gryffindor painting. When I had opened the box, there in the resturant, I was very taken aback. "The look on your face was worth it." he reached around in his pocket. "I think this will go nicely with it." He extended his arm to me with a smal box in it. I cautiously picked up the box and opened it. Inside was a silver band with a nice sized ruby as the center stone, honey colored topaz stones beside it. It was an engagement ring that was just our style, combining our traits into one.

"You have to be kidding me. Draco, you can't just do this after three years." I wanted to ask him if that ring was that box I had found in the bedside table but I held my tongue.

"I'm not asking you to marry me. I'm asking you that after tonight you look at that ring and think about whether you would like to see that or his on your finger." He took my fingers and wrapped it around the box till it closed. He directed my hand to the far corner of my desk and placed the box there. "Tell me about Weasel."

"What do you mean?"

"Tell me about this courtship of yours." he said in a voice that hinted with disdain.

"Don't say it like that." I started. "It was about two years after we broke up and he invited me to lunch. I figured it would be a casual lunch but he told me he was interested in me. Always had been apparently and I hadn't seen it. So we started dating and here we are a year later with a proposal." He took this information in and processed it all.

"Do you love him?"

"Excuse me?"

"Do you love him?" he repeated. I looked at him and I knew that I did love Ron only in a friendly way. Draco was the person I had given my entire heart to and I hadn't recovered any part of it. Even after three years. There was just this bond that Ron would never be able to reach with me. It couldn't be achieved with time or long conversations. Draco and I both knew the answer but I didn't want to admit it as truth. Then I would be acknowledging that I was leading Ron on and that I was settling. I would be letting Draco have the chance to hurt me all over again by tonight.

"Don't make me answer that." I pleaded.

"Say it." he said. "You don't really love him."

"He's one of my best friends, of course I love him. I could never love him the way I loved you." He groaned in frustration.

"Why can't you just admit the truth?"

"Because you dumped me in the rain on a random night after four years. The night after I find a ring box in your bedside table. I can't just let Ron go when I don't know if you're even worth the gamble." I paused and dared to ask, "Is that ring what was in the box I found?" He nodded.

"Yes, I planned on asking you to marry me."

"Then why didn't you? I never got an explaination of why you broke up with me, just a shattered heart. You get a ring for me and yet you turn and do the opposite. What the hell were you thinking?" I asked while a few tears escaped my eyes. Draco got up to try to comfort me but I stood up and stopped him. "No, don't. Start talking. I want to know why." Draco turned so that I couldn't see his face. After a while he turned around and pulled out his wand. He made the two chairs in front of my desk a couch and locked the office door.

"What are you doing Draco?" I asked him as he sat down on the couch. He motioned me over.

"If I explain this, I can't look at you. Just pretend that I'm reading to you from a book like we used to do."

"That's too dangerous." I said, knowing that sitting on the couch with him could turn into a disaster.

"Then you can just lay on the opposite side of me. You don't have to touch me at all. Just be near me. Just don't look at me." I looked at him and I knew he was being honest.

"Okay." I walked over to the couch. Draco chose his side, the far left. I went over to the far right side and laid down. My feet ended up on his knees but I bent them once I realized this. I curled up and hugged the pillow against my head.

"Okay. Tell me the story."