Disclaimer: I do not own any characters associated with the Harry Potter books, which are written by JK Rowling.

IMPORTANT Author's Note: If you have been reading this fic since its inception, please note that I made several assumptions about the ages of the characters. Since the beginning of the fic begins in late summer, Hermione will have turned twenty in September, leaving Malfoy at age 19. This would mean this fic is set one year after Book 7. Also, in the scene with the girls in the bathroom in the second chapter, I have edited the paragraph in which Hermione mentions Draco called her mudblood from second through seventh year at Hogwarts. It now reads that he tortured her from second through sixth year. You'll see why….

Chapter 7

Hermione received a message the following morning via a beautiful eagle owl. It tapped on the window of their dorm room around 9 a.m., and Hermione was glad that Selena had already risen and left for breakfast.

Hermione,

Watch your back around campus. Lucius paid me a visit this morning (woke me up out of a dead sleep with a torrent of water) to "discuss" my new friends. I forgot to put the wards back up on my flat after I returned last night. He didn't seem too pleased about my choice of company. I don't want to put too much more in a letter. Meet me at the muggle café on fourth street at nnon. We'll do lunch.

Draco

P.S. Thanks for yesterday. Do you think we could try that "starting" thing again? Maybe without the "stopping"?

Hermione let out an indignant squeak. The little worm! To even bring up "starting" and "stopping". Why, he ought to….! She shook her head to reassemble her thoughts. That part of the note wasn't important. It was the fact that Lucius was now aware that she and Draco were dating. Wait, were they dating? She wasn't sure.

She fell back on the covers of her newly made bed, wrinkling the comforter. Blowing a stray curl out of her eyes, she scanned the note again.

She was distracted by another tap, tap, tap at her window. She glanced up and realized that another snow-white owl was waiting patiently for its delivery. Hermione popped up and headed over to the window.

"Hedwig!" she cried, stroking Harry's owl. "You've got a letter for me?" She plied the note away from her leg. Pulling an owl treat from a drawer in her desk, she fed Hedwig before letting her back out the window.

Curiously, she opened up the second letter.

Hermione,

Are you crazy? Don't you know what Malfoy can do to you? Both father and son? I really think you ought to consider your choices. Med school seems to have addled your brains. Ginny seems to think that I'm completely off on this one, but I am staunchly refusing to believe that Malfoy has changed so much that you are actually remaining in his company for as long as you seem to be. I think you are under the Imperius curse! I mean, really, Hermione…….

Harry

Hermione chuckled at her friend's letter. Sometimes she felt as if she were under the Imperius curse. Three months ago, if someone had said to her that she would be acting even remotely congenial with Draco Malfoy, she would have laughed in their faces. Right now, she couldn't stop thinking about him. It had to do with the way he kissed her. She knew it!

Without any warning, another owl appeared at her window. Puzzled, Hermione let it in. The tawny owl hopped onto her desk and held out its leg. Hermione unwrapped the letter from its leg and gave it an owl treat before it flew off once again.

Unraveling the letter, she read:

Hermione!

I am so sorry that Harry is being such a jerk! Please tell my condescending boyfriend where to shove it, if you feel that it is necessary.

It was so good to see you yesterday. We need to do a girls' night and chat.

Miss you much and love you lots,

Gin

Hermione found her way to the café just before noon. Deciding to hold off on ordering lunch, she weaved her way between the tables to find a seat by the window. She had removed her coat and settled down in a chair when she heard a familiar voice.

"Hermione!"

She looked up to find Harry heading towards her. She enveloped him in a hug. "This is a surprise, Harry. What are you doing on this side of town?" She released him, shoved a strand of hair behind her ear, and placed her hands on her hips. She grinned madly. "Seeing you twice in one weekend is a treat."

Harry seemed confused. "What do you mean?" he asked, straightening his glasses. "You sent me a letter, telling me to meet you here for lunch."

Hermione's expression matched Harry's. "I didn't send you a letter. I got a letter from …"

"I sent you the letter, Potter." A third person joined the duo. Harry whirled around.

"Malfoy? What do you mean?" Harry looked ready to hex Malfoy, but he knew that he was in a public place.

Draco ignored Harry's agitation. He pulled off his own jacket and threw it casually onto the back of a chair. "Care to sit?" he asked congenially, gesturing towards the third chair.

Harry remained standing, his features screwed up in a loathsome expression, his arms crossed. "I'll stand. What is the meaning of this?"

Hermione was annoyed. Why had Malfoy brought Harry here?

Draco dropped his casual air. "Look, Potter. I knew that you wouldn't meet me here, but I knew there was a fair chance you'd meet your best friend here. So I sent the letter addressed from Hermione."

"Draco!" Hermione admonished. She rolled her eyes and sat down. She had a feeling that she knew where this was going. "Come on, Harry. Sit down. You might as well enjoy lunch. Malfoy is buying, you know." She glared meaningfully at her date.

Disgruntled, Harry took the only remaining chair. "Fine."

The table was pushed up against a window, and Hermione sat between the boys. She had a sudden realization that she was about to play mediator between them. She was going to kill Draco when she got a chance. This wasn't exactly how she had planned to spend her Sunday lunch.

A waitress interrupted them briefly to take their order. Hermione, having not eaten a thing all day, ordered a sandwich and a cola. Draco ordered soup and Harry ordered water. It didn't look good.

"Look, I wanted to warn you," Draco began. "Lucius showed up this morning. Early this morning. Around six, and woke me up quite unpleasantly."

"How?" asked Hermione.

"The bastard threw a glass of cold water on me," he muttered, watching his fingers fiddle with the salt shaker on the table.

Hermione snorted and Harry tried to suppress his own grin.

"Laugh if you want about that, because the rest isn't pretty," said Draco, glancing up at the both of them. He sighed. "He threatened to harm Hermione and then went into detail about what he would like to do with me. He was well into his tirade when he got to Potter and Weasley."

He set the salt shaker down and picked up the pepper shaker, trying to act casual. "He knows that I've been studying with Hermoine. He's not stupid. He's warped, twisted and evil, but he's not stupid. He brought it up, several times in fact. I tried to convince him that it was necessary to study together, that several teachers had assigned us as partners, but he didn't seem to buy it." Draco leaned both his elbows on the table and continued in a hushed voice. "I don't know what he is going to do, if anything. His powers are limited, especially since he doesn't have access to his 'personal friend'. It was broken in half when he received his sentence after the war."

Harry looked so angry, Hermione expected to see steam coming out of his ears.

"You know, Malfoy, if you had just stayed away from Hermione, none of this would be happening," Harry growled lowly. "Everything was over, and now you're stirring things up again. Like father, like son."

Draco's face reddened and he rose halfway out of his chair. "Don't you ever compare me to my father, Potter. Don't you dare." He leaned towards Harry's face.

Harry met Draco's stance equally. "Once a Malfoy, always a Malfoy, I say. After what I saw on the tower, the night Dumbledore died, I'll always believe it. Where did you run to after that night, Draco?"

"None of your damned business, Potter," Malfoy said levelly.

"Harry! Draco! Stop! You're causing a scene," hissed Hermione, pulled on both of their arms. Reluctantly, they both sat down again.

Harry turned to his friend. "Don't you want to know, Hermione? Where he's been the past few years? Or has he already told you and that's why you are taking this so well."

"That is my business and Draco's business, not yours," replied Hermione quietly.

Harry shot her a sour look, but didn't bring up the subject again. The waitress arrived with their food, and left the check on the table.

"Can we eat lunch in peace, please?" Hermione asked, glaring at her two companions.

Harry eyed Malfoy as he began to eat his soup. "Why did you warn me? Why not Ginny?" Harry asked suspiciously.

"I knew that you'd impress upon Weasley the importance of this. I wasn't sure if you would put any stock in what Weasley had to say." Draco paused. "You don't understand. My father is capable of more things than the Ministry realizes. His knowledge of the Dark Arts is extensive and he has the ability to perform certain tasks without any help."

"And I'm sure that he passed all of his knowledge onto you, didn't he, Malfoy? Didn't you have private lessons during the summer with your Auntie Bella? Does that tattoo of yours still sting?" Harry drawled, giving Malfoy's left arm a significant look.

Before Draco could react, Hermione slammed her palm down on the table. "Harry James Potter! Stop it! You're my best friend, and I love you, but you are stepping over the line." Several heads turned to see what was creating the disruption of their lunch. Hermione lowered her voice. "Draco never killed Dumbledore. You know that and I know that. As far as I'm aware, you've killed more people than Malfoy has. You've committed crimes just as heinous as I am sure he has.

"He did you the courtesy of letting you know what Lucius has been saying and what he may or may not be planning. He warned you. Now, I want to eat my sandwich without any more disruptions, do you understand?" Her brown eyes glittered as she dared her best friend to open his mouth.

Harry just shook his head. "Really, Hermione, I thought you'd pick better friends in university. I'm disappointed." Abruptly, without a backward glance, he stood and stormed out of the restaurant.

Hermione's eyes glittered with tears of frustration. "Stupid, stupid," she muttered to herself. She buried her face in her hands. "Well, that didn't go very well."

"I don't know," pondered Draco. Hermione's head rose and their eyes met. "I thought it went better than I expected." He pushed his soup away and gestured towards Hermione's forgotten sandwich. "Are you going to finish that?"

Hermione shook her head, forlornly. "I'm not hungry anymore."

"Then let's get out of here," Draco stated. They stood up. Draco pulled a few notes out of his pocket and paid the bill. After pulling on their coats, Draco took her hand firmly in his and led her out of the restaurant.

Later that night, they were sitting in Draco's flat, studying. Draco had been quiet all day, brooding over something. After the conversation, er… yelling match, with Harry, Hermione didn't blame him. Harry had made some pretty nasty insinuations, and Hermione wasn't sure what to believe about Draco.

When they began studying at three o'clock, he had merely been moody. By five o'clock, his mind seemed on another planet and any comment outside the ordinary had been icily blasted within a few short seconds. Their light banter was no more, at least for that night. By seven, Hermione was ready to leave. And never come back.

"Well, aren't you going to ask?" Draco finally said, throwing his Anatomy book on the floor.

Hermione rolled her eyes heavenward before setting her own textbook in her lap. "Ask what exactly?"

"If what Potter said was true. If I know everything my father knew. If I have the Dark Mark. Where I was for the past two years." His eyes dared her to voice the thoughts which had weighed on her own mind all day.

She treaded lightly. She shrugged, half-heartedly. "I figured you'd tell me, if you wanted to, when you wanted to." She pretended to start reading again.

Her book was swept out of her lap and into Malfoy's hands. He threw her book onto the floor on top of his. He glared at her.

Hermione narrowed her eyes. "Don't you dare take your anger for Harry out on me." She unfolded her legs, spreading them along the couch and crossed her arms over her chest.

"Don't even pretend that you were reading that," he said disgusted. He curled his own legs up to his chest and leaned an elbow on the arm of the sofa. He gnawed on his index finger, staring unseeing at the blank TV screen.

Hermione waited.

"I guess you want to know where I've been. What happened. You know, with Dumbledore and everything." He refused to look at her. He seemed to have entered his own world.

Hermione stayed silent and still.

Draco sighed. "I guess it all started back in sixth year. My father had been arrested and thrown into Azkaban. I was pulled into the circle by Aunt Bella. My mother was a wreck. She could barely deal with my father as the Dark Lord's servant. She was in hysterics about me entering the circle, taking the mark.

"I was given a mission, and only with the completion of that mission would I be worthy enough to join Voldemort's ranks." Draco turned to look at Hermione. "Despite what Potter believes, I never received the Dark Mark. I was very close, but it never happened."

He ran a hand through his hair and plunged on. "I entered Sixth Year eagerly anticipating my goal, so smug, so sure of my triumph. I was going to get one over on Potter, and get rid of Dumbledore, who favored Potter above everyone else." He stood and began to pace back and forth, continuing.

"Hermione, you never understood what the rest of us felt like. You were in too deep with Potter. The rest of us, all of us students, felt as if every teacher in that school, minus Snape of course, believed Potter was the one and the only, the greatest wizard of all time. I could have surpassed his grades in every single class and no one ever would have cared or commented. We all lived in his shadow, whether he was breaking rules or competing in tournaments that he shouldn't have been competing in, the rest of us were always secondary. Weasley felt it; maybe you didn't as much. You bested all of us at grades; you had your own status amongst your peers. Potter was everyone's favorite and it wasn't fun for the rest of us.

"So, what did I do? Well, if he was the most popular wizard and had already chosen his friends, then I was going to be his enemy. I was determined to be noticed, by our peers, by our teachers, by the people that mattered. And, I wanted my father's attention. So I emulated my father, just like any boy would."

He stopped pacing and sat down on the coffee table, perched on the edge. His elbows rested on his knees, one arm relaxing down, the other hand holding his chin up. He couldn't meet her eyes. "When the Dark Lord gave me my mission, I was ecstatic. Here was my chance to prove to my father, the Dark Lord, and all of my teachers that I was just as brilliant as Harry Potter. I concocted several plans, but none of them really worked. When I figured out that the Vanishing Cabinets at Hogwarts and at Borgin and Burkes were linked, I did everything possible to repair the one at Hogwarts. By November, I started to realize the gravity of the situation. The cabinets were proving harder to fix than I thought, and I had an inkling that Dumbledore knew of my mission. How, I do not know.

"Every week, I would receive a reminder from my master telling me of my duty to him, to his cause. He began to hint that this mission would be my last if I did not succeed. And that the Malfoys would no longer be welcome in his fold. That there would be no more Malfoys left to be in his fold. The mission became the focus of my life. I didn't care about besting Potter at Quidditch; I didn't care about eating or drinking. I was petrified that the Dark Lord would show up at the school at any moment and kill me on sight. I was petrified that he would kill my mother because of his frustration towards me. I never knew that Snape had performed an Unbreakable Vow with her. I had no idea that in the end, Snape would be able to perform the curse that I, in the end, could not perform." His voice broke.

He swallowed and resolutely continued his tale. "After what happened in the tower, I ran. I ran so hard and so fast, past all of the commotion, to the gates. Just outside the gates, I apparated. I apparated to a manor house that my parents own. My mother was there, waiting for me. She was crying, sobbing, hugging me tightly. She asked me if I had completed my mission. I… I couldn't tell her that I had failed. But, she knew. Oh, she knew. And, I think a small part of her was relieved. I wasn't a killer. Her son wasn't a killer. I wasn't like Lucius. I had a little more of her in me than she had realized." He smiled slightly.

"She told me to leave, to hide, to disappear. And not to come back until I knew that the Dark Lord was gone. I… I think that she knew. She knew in the end, Harry would succeed in his own mission. All the while, all of his other followers believed the Dark Lord was gathering his strength. But, she knew. I don't know how." He was silent for a moment, then shook his head, as if to clear his thoughts.

"She gave me a pouch of galleons and a set of muggle clothing. She changed my hair for me and my eye color and sent me off. She told me to go to the ends of the earth, if necessary. She told me not to get caught. I traveled to France, then worked my way across Europe and the Middle East. I spent some time in Japan and the Philippines and then in the Americas. I kept on the move, never using magic, acting like a muggle.

"I worked as a deckhand on an Alaskan fishing boat. I bartered in the stalls in India. I saw a lot and learned a lot. And, I spent a lot of time thinking. Thinking about what I wanted from my life, and if I had the ability to do it over again, would I? Would I have killed Dumbledore? Could I have killed him after experiencing so many things? Did I want to? I even wondered what Potter thought of me, isn't that bizarre?" He paused and said wryly, "I spent a handful of days wondering what my life would have been like if I had actually been friends with Harry Potter. If he knew that, in the end, I hadn't had the guts to finish what I had set out to do. I even prayed that Harry would be able to kill the Dark Lord, to accomplish something that I had been too cowardly to do. To stand up to the Dark Lord and destroy him. And, I admitted, to myself at least, that Harry was much more worthy of everyone's praise than I would ever be." He seemed to have folded into himself. Hermione didn't even think he was seeing her, or the flat, or the window to the outside. He was re-examining his own soul all over again.

"After sixteen months, I got word through a wizarding source that the Dark Lord was gone. Was dead. The impossible had been possible. A crazy story of horcruxes and time travel had circled the globe and found me. I was in Chicago, Illinois at the time, in a sleezy club in the Gold Coast. I was stunned. I could go home. I waited a few more months before deciding to return to England.

"My mother greeted me with open arms. I hadn't seen or heard from her in over a year and a half. I had become a man, with my own thoughts and my own morals and values. I was no longer my father's son, nor would I ever be again.

"I had to confess my actions to the ministry. My sentence was so much lighter than I deserved. In the end, Snape was a blessing. I had never actually murdered anyone, and so I only got probation. I petitioned Hogwarts to allow me to take my NEWTS with the current class of Hogwarts and applied to the Healer's Institute. My acceptance was pending my NEWT results. I made it in, and moved out of Malfoy Manor to here. I had money in my own right, money that wasn't in my father's control. And… that's how I ended up here."

A silence fell over them. Hermione had not interrupted. It seemed like he had to let go of the poison that had filled him for so long. During his confession, his story, she had watched him with wide eyes and listened intently. She had not touched him or tried to comfort him. She had simply just been there.

Her stomach began to flutter. Her heart did a little flip, and a ball of emotion that had been born several months ago grew. And grew. Until her skin was on fire and her eyes filled with tears and a dull roaring filled her ears. Realization dawned on her. For months she had pondered and wondered and tried to define how she felt about their new relationship. And she had finely figured it out.

She had fallen head over heels in love with Draco Malfoy. And she didn't think she was going to be able to let go of him.

A/N: Okay, so it got a bit intense. The next couple of chapters will lighten up. I promise! Also, shout outs to my reviewers! You guys are great. I reached the "100" mark and wanted to do a little dance. I think I DID a little dance.