Hello again everybody :) I'm sorry to say that I will be taking a break for two weeks due to exams coming up (big ones...) so I'll be concentrating on other things. Sorry about that! But I hope you enjoy this all the same.

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Hermione woke early. She was suddenly more awake than she ever had been in her life, and she couldn't stay in bed any longer. Looking around to see if anything had woken her, she saw only Matilda sleeping soundly. She padded out of the room softly.

The curtains were open and the moon shone into the living room, almost as bright as day. Hermione went to the window and stood there looking over London. Thousands of lights twinkled in the darkness, reflected in the winding Thames. Somewhere out there, she knew, girls who she had almost come to count as friends were being forced to give themselves up to strangers, for a few measly Sickles and a roof over their heads. Hermione sighed and collapsed to the floor. She lay there as she had fallen, silent tears falling from her eyes as everything she had experienced in the past ten months flooded her memory; the sleepless nights, the fear of being thrown out, the hunger, the loneliness… and the constant revulsion she felt towards her own body and everybody who made her feel that way.

Draco found her there, hours later when a washed-out sun was beginning to climb up over the river. Its rays fell on her curled-up body, making her hair sparkle with shots of gold. She looked so peaceful. He touched her shoulder gently. She buried her face in the carpet. 'Hermione?' Her eyes blinked sleepily.

'Hmm? Why am I on the floor?' She propped herself up on her elbows and looked into Draco's eyes. 'What time is it?'

Draco swallowed. Her eyes were flecked with gold, mirroring her hair, and a bit of sleep-dust was clinging to the outside of her eyelid. He reached over and brushed it away gently with his thumb. 'It's 6:43,' he replied, 'and you were just lying here, I assume you wanted to look at the view.'

Hermione's head fell as she remembered last night. 'No, I… I couldn't sleep, and I came out here, and then everything just sort of caught up with me…'

'What do you mean?'

'This life, the past few days, it's all been so fast. You appeared in my room and you were the last person I expected and in under half an hour I was here, suddenly, and… it's a lot to handle.' Her elbows were wobbling with the effort of keeping her up. Draco put an arm around her to steady her.

'Hermione…' She let her head fall on his shoulder, and he wrapped his other arm around her slight frame. 'You need to eat more,' he whispered, but she ignored him.

'Do you know how long it's been since I had a friend?' she asked.

'I don't want to know. You have a friend now, that's what matters, right?' Hermione nodded. Draco pulled her closer, stroking her back. 'I'm so glad I found you, before it was too late.' He looked down. Tears were spilling out of Hermione's eyes, spreading across his shirt. 'Why are you crying?'

'It's you,' she whispered. 'You're…'

Draco tipped her chin up. A chill ran down Hermione's spine at the look in his eyes. She blinked, and in the moment her eyes were shut she felt his lips at the corner of hers, the gentlest and sweetest kiss she had ever had. She opened her eyes as Draco moved his head away. She brought her palm up to trace the outline of his jaw.

'Are you ready?' he asked breathlessly.

Hermione's palm dropped abruptly to her lap. Draco's hand was on the nape of her neck, his thumb tracing circles beneath her ear. She couldn't think properly. 'No,' she replied, so quietly that Draco almost didn't hear. He drew his hand away from her neck to take hers, and standing up, he led her over to the couch.

Hermione's eyes followed him as he sat down on an armchair opposite. 'I'm sorry,' she said.

'I wasn't expecting you to be ready, not yet,' he said. He paused, wringing his hands, and Hermione could see the effort it was taking him to say this. 'But I would hope that… when you are ready…'

'Draco.' His hands froze. 'It's been so long since I've been able to trust anyone. And I'm here, now, with you… I'm trying to forget everything about school and the past few years, but it's hard. I'm sorry.'

'Is that a no?'

'No. I can't give you an answer to anything yet.'

Draco breathed out, and then stood up abruptly. 'We have work to do. I'll get us some coffee.'

He walked into the kitchen. Hermione looked down at her lap, wondering if she had done the right thing. She had had no idea that Draco felt anything towards her. If she was honest with herself, what she wanted more than anything was someone to feel close to, to feel more than the numbness she had felt from every man she had slept with while at the brothel. For years, her life had had no meaning. After defeating Voldemort there seemed nothing left to do. And now she was back in exactly the same place she had spent the last six years running away from, helping to track down newly surfacing Death Eaters. But now there was Draco. What have I done? she asked herself. She had said no, now nothing would ever happen, and that thought was only now beginning to wriggle its way through her gut, making her feel almost nauseous.

'Hermione.'

'Yes?' She looked up at Draco from her cup of coffee. They were alone in the kitchen.

'Something doesn't add up,' Draco replied, not meeting her eyes. 'Ginny said she hasn't seen you in two years, but November 17th was only about ten months ago.'

'Oh.' Hermione breathed out slowly. 'Well… some things happened in between our last meeting and my going to the brothel. And that's the deepest secret nobody knows, and it's going to stay that way.' She reached out and touched his hand, lying next to his mug. 'I just told you, I'm trying really hard to trust people again. But this is the hardest thing I've ever had to deal with.' Draco nodded. 'But,' Hermione continued, 'I hope we can be friends anyway, even if I am hiding things from you.' There. She had said it. Now they would be friends, which would be all right, because Hermione needed a friend. Even though what she really wanted was something more.

'Of course. You have a right to hide things from me. Whatever drove you to that brothel is too big for me to understand, I realise that. But I hope someday, if you ever need someone to talk to about it, you'll come to me?' Draco smiled.

'Absolutely,' Hermione smiled back.

Hermione was making breakfast when Ginny knocked on the apartment door two hours later.

'Mmmm, bacon! Can someone help me with these?'

Draco jumped up from the couch. 'Where've you been? We haven't heard anything since Tuesday. And what's all this about?' They dropped the pile of folders and envelopes on the kitchen table.

'I asked Harry and Ron about those names we found, and it's taken a couple of days but they came up with this. The stuff on Titus Gormen is especially interesting, I think we have a definite lead there,' Ginny panted.

'Ok, let's see then.'

They both sat down, and Hermione came and joined them with three plates of bacon and eggs.

'Right,' Ginny started. 'Titus Gormen kept a low profile at school. No records of him in any clubs or teams, no noticeable detentions, just the usual late homework stuff. No record of him in the final battle either. The only thing out of place is the fact that he didn't return to school after the summer. He should have gone back to Seventh Year in October when Hogwarts opened again. But he wasn't there, and there was no explanation.'

'That's not particularly suspicious, I mean, lots of students didn't return,' Draco pointed out.

'Yes, but not without explanation. Hogwarts tried to contact his parents, who were both Purebloods, but there was no reply. Their bodies were found in stage five of Limpitas. It was just by chance, we almost missed them. Killing Curse, and their wands were gone,' replied Ginny.

Both Draco and Hermione appreciated the severity of this. Limpitas was the official name of the massive clean-up operation instigated by the Ministry after the final battle. If the bodies of Titus' parents had only been found by chance during the last stage of the clean-up, then they must have been very well hidden, by powers of magic to be reckoned with.

'Any news of Gormen since then?' asked Hermione.

'His Wand Tax hasn't been paid since the Trace was removed on him, but even MRS couldn't track him down. This is someone who doesn't want to be found.'

'And yet, he frequents Madame Moreau's under his own name,' Draco mused.

'Well yeah, Madame Moreau's is probably one of the safest places for fugitives,' countered Hermione. 'None of the girls will speak up or they'll get thrown out, and they rarely know the names of their clients anyway. Madame herself doesn't take sides, she's just after money. And no one pays attention in that area – it's best not to look to closely at anyone, in case you're noticed. So it's easy to go incognito.'

'Hermione, did you ever…' Ginny trailed off.

'Sleep with him?' Hermione cut in. 'Once. At the beginning. He didn't recognise me, or he probably would have avoided me. He didn't say anything until he was leaving the room. Then he spoke just two words, 'Tempus Fugit', and laughed.'

'Tempus Fugit? What's that?' asked Draco.

'Huh? It means 'time flies'. People use it all the time,' said Hermione, bewildered.

'No they don't…' Draco replied, but he was interrupted by a gasp from Ginny. 'What?'

'Tempus Fugit!' The others looked blankly at Ginny. 'We found Gormen's house, but it was empty. Harry put Aurors on at full strength to search the place, but they found very little of use. Just this-' Ginny took an envelope from the pile of documents and emptied it onto the table. Two scraps of burnt paper fell out. Hermione picked up the largest one, on which were written two words.

'Tempus Fugit.'

'Wow. A connection,' Draco deadpanned.

'Oh come on,' Hermione groaned exasperatedly. 'This is more meaningful than anything else we've found so far. Clearly that means something. So…' Hermione grabbed a pencil and started scribbling ideas on the envelope. 'You hadn't heard the saying, Draco. Had you heard it before, Ginny?'

'No, none of the Aurors knew what it meant.'

'Who's on the Auror team?'

'Me, Ron, Harry, Luna… no one else you know, I think.'

'But are the others all Purebloods?' asked Hermione fervently.

'Yes, but why?'

'If none of you have heard it, it must be a Muggle thing. And if it's a Muggle thing, then Gormen has to have some connection with Muggles, or he wants us to think that.'

'I don't know, Hermione…' Ginny was uncertain. 'I mean, his parents were both Purebloods. So that kind of eliminates an obvious connection—'

Hermione interrupted her. 'He could have some other—'

'No, that's not all, sorry,' Ginny continued. 'His parents were both killed, even though they're both Purebloods. Even Voldemort didn't want to spill more magical blood than was necessary. I don't think this has anything to do with blood purity.'

'Maybe their deaths were necessary,' suggested Draco.

'Murder is never necessary!' Hermione cried.

Draco just scoffed. 'It is, and you know it. You know the way they think. You were in the final battle, weren't you? Don't tell me either of you have never killed anyone.'

Hermione looked down at her hands. 'Neither of us have ever cast the Killing Curse, I know that for a fact. But… there are other ways to kill people,' she said, quietly.

It was suddenly rather awkward. But the tension was soon broken at the sound of a voice from the bedroom.

'Hello?' Matilda's voice was faint.

Hermione ran into the bedroom. 'Tilly? Are you all right?'

'I'm fine, thank you,' she smiled.

Hermione let out a long breath. 'Thank goodness! I thought something was wrong.' She took out her wand and transfigured a glass on the nightstand into a bell. 'Here. Ring this bell if you need one of us, we can't have you shouting every time you want to see us,' she said gently.

'Thanks,' Tilly smiled again. 'I was wondering, would I be able to talk to Draco?'

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Also, one last note, you naughty readers! 3423 hits and 30 reviews? That's quite pathetic, really. Sorry. :) I love hearing what you all think, and every single review is read and smiled over and filed away in my special folder called 'Fanfic', so it really means a lot to get reviews. This is the first time I've mentioned it, I think. I don't usually beg. But I would really like to hear what more of you think about this.