Draco did a double take. He was walking between the shops looking for the perfect Christmas gift for Astoria. They had been married for two years now, and he wanted to get her something special. Just as he was peering into a shop window, his attention was caught by a face in the glass reflection. He blinked, but when he opened his eyes, the figure had gone. Draco spun around and his eyes quickly scanned the crowded street. He spotted her again. Turning the street at the end of the block, was a beautiful woman with long brown curls bouncing around her shoulders as she hurried away. Draco's heart stopped. He took a clumsy step forward, hesitated, and then rushed after her without a second thought.

Draco hurried around the corner of the block, just in time to see her duck through a pub door, glancing quickly over her shoulder. Draco's feet came to a halt. He'd only caught a glimpse of her face, but he was sure it was her. The last time he had seen that face, it had been smiling up at him from a wedding announcement in the third page of the Daily Prophet. Draco didn't know what he was doing. His body moved after her without his permission, almost like it was a habit. He cautiously pushed open the pub door and looked around the room. It was empty, apart from an old wizard sitting at the bar, and a small group of goblins speaking indistinctly to each other at one of the tables.

"Good Evenin' Sir!" Came a voice from the bar.

Draco looked up at the old bar tender, who he hadn't noticed at first. He was a small old man, who seemed to blend in with the bar around him.

"Can I get somethin' for ya sir?" the old man asked.

"Oh, uhm…" Draco looked around again. "I thought I saw someone come in here…someone I used to know."

The bar tender shook his head. "No one's come in here sir. Perhaps just a trick of the eye."

"Yeah..." Draco said looking at the floor. "Yeah, maybe."

He turned, and wandered out of the pub. He made his way back to the main road, and tried to continue his Christmas shopping, but he couldn't take his mind off those long brown curls. He was sure he had seen her. Abandoning his shopping, Draco returned home with nothing to show for his day.

"You're home early." Astoria smiled at him as he entered the parlor.

"I just…got a little cold." Draco said, instantly regretting such a lame excuse.

Astoria however, simply let out a little laugh and gestured him towards her. "Come warm up by the fire." She said.

Draco sat down next to her and she curled up in his arms. This was his life, he thought to himself, as he held her closely, and he was happy with this life. Over the past two years, Draco and Astoria had created a wonderful friendship. Draco could honestly say that his friendship with her was even closer now than his friendship with Hermione ever was. And Draco loved Astoria. He truly did. Not in the desperate, and juvenile way that he had loved Hermione. But in a mature, and comfortable way. Astoria was his whole world. So why was he so fixated on the fact that he thought he had seen Hermione in the village?

Draco went to sleep that evening, with Astoria in his arms, and Hermione on his mind.

The following day, Draco returned to the village, determined to find Astoria the perfect Christmas gift. He had convinced himself that he had imagined Hermione's presence the previous day. "Just a trick of the eye," as the old bar tender had stated.

Draco's morning was pleasant, and uneventful. He found a beautiful gift for his mother, and was just about to move on to the next shop when he saw something through the window that made him pause. This time he was sure of it. It was Hermione. She walked right past the shop window. Draco waited just a moment longer, and then headed out of the shop. He walked slowly, making sure to keep a few pedestrians between the two of them. Why was she here? She didn't live near this village, and he wasn't aware of any of her friends who did either. Draco didn't know why he was putting so much distance between the two of them, but now that he was sure it was her, he wasn't sure he wanted her to see him. He felt nervous, his heart beating faster and faster as he followed her. He watched as Hermione stopped into a small café. He stood across the street, and receded into the shadows of another shop door as she exited the café with a cup of steaming coffee, and a pastry in her gloved hands. As she walked down the street, Draco watched the way her hair moved in the soft breeze, the way her hips swayed gently with each step she took.

They turned the corner, and Draco recognized the pub from the day before. He hurried forward as Hermione entered. As he pushed through the door himself, Draco heard her footsteps to his right. Whipping around, he saw a set of stairs that he hadn't noticed the day before. When the pub door was opened, it blocked the staircase from view. He caught a glimpse of her feet at the top of the stairs as she disappeared through a door at the top. Draco took a few steps up the staircase, before he felt the floor give out beneath him, as the rough wood of the steps melded together into a smooth slide. Draco's stomach lurched unpleasantly as he fell forward, sliding back into the main room of the pub.

Irritated, Draco got clumsily to his feet, trying to ignore the quiet snickers of the patrons in the bar.

"Sorry sir!" came the gruff voice of the bar tender. "Renters only beyond that point."

Draco brushed the dirt from his overcoat, and shook his head as the slide returned to individual steps. Draco recognized that Hogwarts used a similar spell to keep students from entering where they weren't allowed.

"Come, have a drink sir." The bar tender called to him again.

Draco sat down at the bar, as the bar tender poured him a tall glass of Firewhisky.

"You told me yesterday that no one came through here." Draco said angrily.

"Sorry sir." The old man shook his head. "She asked me not to tell anyone she was here."

"Why?" Draco snapped, but the man merely shrugged his shoulders, and wandered off to tend to a witch who had just sat down at the other end of the bar.

Draco tried to make sense of things as he took a gulp of the Firewhisky, feeling it burning as the liquid slid down his throat. Why was she here? Draco didn't allow himself to even hope that it had anything to do with him. It was a coincidence. Nothing more.

"Another one sir?" questioned the bar tender about half an hour later, as Draco set down his now empty glass.

Draco nodded, and a new glass was placed in front of him.

"She a friend of yours?" the bar tender said, as he leaned his elbows on the grimy bar in front of Draco.

"Yeah," Draco responded. "Well…she used to be. I haven't seen her in years." Draco thought for a moment. "How long has she been staying here?"

The old man gave a small sigh as he counted the days in his head. "'Bout a week." He said finally. "No checkout date though." He added thoughtfully. "She wasn't sure when she was leavin'."

Draco looked up puzzled. "Do you know why she's in town?" he asked.

"Fightin' with the mister I believe." Said the bar tender as he stood up straight. "Said she wanted to be close to the only true comfort she's known. I figured she must have grown up around here. No true comfort like your childhood home." He topped off Draco's glass before turning away once more.

Draco rolled his eyes a little. His childhood home brought him anything but comfort. "We grew up miles from here." He said to himself quietly. There were at least three towns between here and the park that they once called theirs.

Over the next few days, Draco couldn't keep his mind on anything without Hermione drifting into his thoughts. "Fightin' with the mister…" the old bar tender had said. She was fighting with Ron. Enough that she had left their home, and was living in a room over a grubby bar for weeks at a time. Draco considered going to her. Surely she needed someone to comfort her in a time like this. But if she had wanted to see him, surely she would have by now. She knew he lived here. Draco fought with himself, over and over again. He couldn't sit still.

"I'm going to the village." He said one evening to Astoria. "Just for a drink. I won't be long."

He gave her a kiss goodbye, and ventured out into the dark of the winter night.

Draco walked the snowy streets, having not quite convinced himself to go to the pub. He found himself facing the door, but did not push it open. Instead he turned, walked halfway back down the street, stopped, turned again, took two steps towards the pub, and paused. Draco looked at the ground. He ran his hands through his hair, and sighed. He was being stupid. Turning his back on the pub once more, he wandered from the street, back to the main road. It was almost deserted, and quite peaceful in the moonlight. Slowly he made his way in the direction of his home, which sat at the edge of the village.

Suddenly, Draco heard footsteps behind him, and his own name being called through the gently falling snow.

"Draco!"

He turned to see Hermione running towards him through the snow, her beautiful hair flowing freely in the wind.