Edit: I reuploaded an edited longer version because the original one was a disaster.

I wholeheartedly apologize for the delay but in my defense I will say this: screwdriver, candlestick, fish. Thank you. Please do leave a review and tell me what you think, I love how some of you got confused by the last chapter and I do promise things will become much clearer soon. Stay safe and talk to you next time!

Draco immediately knew something was terribly wrong, right from the moment he felt his apparition was somehow being tugged to one side, to when his spell, meant to erase that horrid night out of Hermione's mind, hit a Protego and bounced off uselessly. But maybe the most telltale sign that he was standing on extraordinarily thin ice was the witch before him, a wall of fury and disbelief, meddled with the prickling sensation of her magic radiating in waves, a sight he was sure no man lived to tell the tale of.

"You nasty, loathsome, evil little snake!" She spat in his face, her voice resembling the growl of a rabid animal.

Right then and there he realized he was going to die and he knew he had dug his own grave. But Draco didn't have time to review his life choices right now because the monstrous woman in front of him raised the wand she was still clutching in her hand since back from the tavern and pointed it at his chest. Hermione wasted no time and bombarded him with an arsenal of nonverbal spells, some of which he had to explore his acrobatic skills in order to dodge. He couldn't even counter-cast, let alone manage a defense. She moved with the grace of an assassin, not a step too much or less, her mane had taken the form of a stormy cloud, electricity sparkling at the ends of it. He was certain that if any of her spells hit him, he'd be sent straight beyond the vail. A particularly well aimed one crashed in a wall behind him, blowing a hole right through it with a deafening rumble.

He froze. His gaze slowly moved from the gaping hole to a breathless (and non lethal for now) Hermione, his eyes unbelieving and offended.

"That would have blown me up!"

"That was the plan!"

He was clearly underestimating his situation here.

"Look, Granger," he tried with a different approach.

She took a step backwords.

"Do not come any closer or Merlin help me, I will not miss again."

Draco needn't be told twice.

"Alright, alright," he changed quietly. If he were to be honest with himself and if it weren't for the unfortunate circumstances, he would have told her she looked beautiful. She really did, reminding him of those ancient creatures that folktales describe to be as deadly as they were alluring. He admired the flush on her skin and the rise of her chest, lips parted to ease her breathing. It would have been a delightful image if he didn't fear for his life.

But then he noticed something far more terrifying than her magic and wrath, he saw tears begging to gloss her fiery eyes, still piercing through him like daggers. No curse could have stunned him as much as this did. He had never seen or heard of her crying.

Draco hated it. Hated it to the point he had to look elsewhere, as if that would make the tears disappear. Shame exploded within his mind, heated his face and neck. His chest tightened painfully because she didn't deserve this, and he sure as hell didn't have the right to inflict her any more pain and sorrow. This is how this loophole started out in the first place and now he found himself stuck right at the end of it. Draco stepped towards her. He would fix this. Tell her. Endure her punishment and return to his pitiful excuse of a life with a slightly clearer conscience.

Hermione's mind was fogged with emotions she thought she could withhold but the knot in her throat proved that wrong. Where they came from she did not know. She wanted to pulverize Malfoy to pieces but not nearly as much as she wanted to repeatedly slam her own head in the wall for being so obnoxiously stupid as to let her guard down in front of a completely unpredictable lunatic. What was she thinking, offering an ex-Death eater to have a chit-chat over dinner? Merlin knows what could have happened if she had been a moment slower with her shield, but the choice of his spell had frightened her more. Hermione had managed to redirect his apparation to the first place that popped in her mind in the midst of the initial shock, that being her parents' street, specifically a tight, closed alley, mere feet away from their house but that wouldn't have helped her if he had managed to wipe her memory clean. And yet, his behaviour up until now had been more than puzzling, dodging all of her offenses and then looking at her like a lost puppy. Confusion was not a feeling Hermione was comfortable with.

She knew something was not right, she quite literally felt her brain ticking and tacking, trying to make sense of the situation but a missing screw was disrupting the process. Confusion was not something she tolerated. Her anger was fueled by an unexplainable sense of betrayal, a feeling Malfoy shouldn't be able to provoke in her. Her mind itched like a mosquito bite and she knew that getting it out on him wouldn't bring anything more than a temporary satisfaction, followed by a million unanswerable questions.

And now he apparently had a death wish, crossing the distance between them like that. She angrily swiped her eyes clear and aimed her wand with the intention to stun him and get the hell out of there. A bright red light shot the staggered wizard in the stomach.

But instead of immobilizing him immediately as it should have, he was thrown a couple of feet backwards and on his back with a force brutal enough to make him bounce off the ground and slam back down. His body froze in an awkwardly bent position, legs spread in a failed attempt to keep his balance and hands clutching his stomach where the Stupefy had struck.

A few moments passed before Hermione could comprehend what had just happened, for the second time today. That was until she noticed a streak of dark blood spilling from the edge of his mouth and down his cheek. She cursed.

"Hermione Jean Granger, when I said you should find yourself a partner I did not mean that!"

"Dad!"

"I'm just saying. Midnight passed, my daughter dubiously knocking on her old folks' door, carrying a bleeding pretty boy over her shoulders! If your mother wakes up we will all be dead and gone."

"Father, I swear to God," she really needed to examine him now instead of giving explanations to her dad.

"Place him on the sofa. Once pretty boy isn't bleeding out we need to talk."

"Roger that."

Hermione laid him carefully on the cushions and cast monitoring charms on his vital organs. The force of her spell must have struck and pierced an organ which was now filling his stomach with blood and fluids at a rapid speed. She needed to work from the outside because they couldn't afford to lose more blood with incisions and she had no tools to safely work with. It wasn't unheard of to cause internal body damage with simple charms like that, a caster's emotional state gravely affects the result of their spells after all. What made her hot with guilt was that she had lost so much control, enough to cause such damage on a person, a certain dangerous criminal or not.

Hermione worked carefully throughout the next half an hour, pumping the blood out of the cavities and simultaneously stitching up the intestines that had suffered from the blow. The damage was minor but if they had lost a bit more time in walking and talking, he would have been in vital danger. The stunning spell had long expired but he was still blissfully unconscious, unlike Hermione who was dealing with an enourmous amount of dilemmas - kill him on the spot or not, cry from shame or not, ask dad for a hug or for an advice, fall in the corner of the couch and sleep through the next few days until this night was just a long dream or stay up to monitor his state until her woke up and then she'd have to talk and explain and apologize.

Her dad was sitting quietly on one of the armchairs, carefully observing his daughter's pained expression and body language.

"Angel, you did what was right. No matter who he is or what happened between you. The only thing I personally regret is not locking your mother in the bedroom, because she will give us hell —"

"Goodness gracious, what in the world is going on —" Before they knew it, Monica Granger was descending from the stairs in her modest night gown, first thing noticing everybody in the room, next thing she was screaming with a high girly voice.

"Is that Draco Malfoy!?"

And just on time, hearing his name, Draco opened his eyes to see an angel and her parents. Kill me now, they both thought.