Years later, she sat at an upscale pub with Harry Potter, his face unshaven and a rum stain on his only white shirt. He hadn't seen the light of day for many months – the final battle with Voldemort had tired him out. He had lost everyone to the war, to the Death Eaters' stupid bigotry. He wondered what it was all really worth, in the end.

She grabbed his face with both hands, looking straight into his eyes – they were no longer sunken because she'd been forcing him to eat. "Go home, Harry." She said, not unkindly.

"I can't do this, Hermione." He sighed, tired.

"Oh, but you can. You're the-boy-who-lived. You can survive anything." She smiled back sadly. She kissed his cheek, and watched him stumble out. She knew he'd reach home safely; he had promised her he wouldn't die. He didn't live far – he had an apartment in the city, too.

All the girls that had been eyeing him now turned away, she noticed. This was a bad idea. We're not ready. We'll never be ready.

She hadn't started drinking yet, she had just wanted Harry to step out of his house and see the world again. She was just so tired of fixing him, and fixing herself. The bartender was a skinny blond boy – eighteen, maybe nineteen. Hermione laughed out loud. When had eighteen become so young? That was her, not so long ago. She didn't feel twenty-five, though.

He came up to her, pouring her a dram of Elijah Craig. She was a regular – she found that men found their inner Oscar Wilde when whiskey was involved, and she'd been looking for a challenging conversation. She felt the vanilla and black pepper go down her throat easily, giving her a faded flashback of a rush only he'd been able to give her. His words, his subtly good deeds, his fears, his regrets, his simple joys, his tastes…Hermione Granger could not forget the complex mix of everything that Draco Malfoy was. His smirk, the last lingering image she had of him, stayed like the spearmint finish of her whiskey.

"Another?" She asked the bartender. He reached for a glass.

"Surprise me." She smiled at him. He had sharp features.

She was going to get drunk, she realized. In drunkenness, maybe she'd let out some of these clawing emotions. She could only hope.

A smoky Laphroaig this time. She appreciated his taste, the boy knew her well. A warm, sweet McClellan next. The sweet smoke reminded her of Draco. Hermione lost track after the fruit-and-smoke Lagavulin, and just kept drinking.

It had been maybe three hours since she had started drinking, when she decided this was as drunk as she was going to get. She fell into a tilt-shifted, mindless vortex of bright colors and singular sounds. The boy across the bar, he seemed to morph. His hair was platinum blond, and his smile was a curious mix of mocking and indulgent. She looked up at his eyes, though, and they were blue. A dark, beautiful blue. Nothing like the grey she sought.

He was saying something to her. She saw his mouth move, but she couldn't bother to listen to him speak.

"Shut up!" She screamed, throwing her rich gold drink straight into his face. "Shut up, shut up, shut up! Your eyes are all wrong!" She sobbed. She emptied the contents of her purse onto the counter and ran to the bathrooms. Thankfully they were empty, she apparated safely back home. Hermione Granger may be drunk out of her mind, but she was still the brightest witch of her age.


It was the war that had rendered her incapable of having children. She hated the universe for taking away the one thing that could have been her refuge - she needed a part of Draco today, more than usual.

Her head was spinning, but she still staggered to her whiskey shelf and pulled out a brown bottle. She didn't even bother - she just sat down there in an inelegant, messy pile of emotions, and drank straight from the bottle. The taste never registered.

Even liquid whiskey didn't help anymore - Hermione needed the real thing.


It had been a week since her twenty-eighth birthday when she went back to that pub.

The boy across the bar smiled tentatively at her; he didn't say a word. She smiled back apologetically when he handed her a dram of what smelled like their finest.

"Boy!" She called once he was done with his other customers. He didn't turn. There was something familiar about him.

"Barkeep!" She said, a little louder. He smiled back this time, walking towards her slowly. His gaze dropped towards her drink, making sure it was empty before he approached her any further. She had to have known him from Hogwarts.

"Tell me your name, barkeep." Hermione Granger commanded softly.

"Mal."

Her breath caught. "Mal. Hello." She said, a little stiff.

He waited.

"Do you know of a place called Hogwarts, Mal?" She asked him. A raging impulse had caught a hold of Hermione's soul, and she couldn't stop.

"Er...no. Ahem. Uh...why?" He asked.

Liar.

"Hermione. Granger." She enunciated slowly. Understanding dawned on the barkeeper's face as he brushed a lock of black hair from his eyes. That hair. That face.

"So, Mal." She said, forcing herself to spit out the single syllable. "Tell me. What family do you come from? Are you muggleborn, by any chance? Half blooded?" His eyes were grey today. That grey.

"Not here." He begged. "My shift gets over in forty minutes. I'll talk to you then." He said. She waited forty minutes, and lost count of the number of glasses she'd been through. She was stumbling by the time he helped her into a quiet booth in the back.

"I won't tell you my name." He said firmly.

"It's okay. I was in love with a death eater." She mumbled. "You could be Voldemort's love child for all I care."

"I go by Mal - I'm a squib. Well...a metamorphmagus who can't do much else." He laughed without humor. "A distant cousin of a noble house. They never let anything less than perfect last very long at the Manor." She couldn't breathe. This was it.

"I need some way to remember him, Mal. Bring me something, I'm begging. A blanket, a picture, a memory. Give me something." She sobbed, her tears falling into her drink. She slurred, forgetting herself. Why couldn't she stop speaking?

"Maybe you need a change of drink?" He suggested awkwardly, rising.

"Sit!" She snarled. "I only drink rum and whiskey." She smiled dryly. "And today isn't a rum day."

"Oh...kay?" He said, clearly confused.

"Mal. I was in love with Draco Malfoy, and I killed him. I need you to help here."

He looked taken aback. "I need two minutes, Ms. Granger. Please." He said, whipping out a mobile phone. She wasn't fond of those.

"Mate, hi. I...need you to come in. No, no I don't care if you haven't shaved in a fortnight, this is more important than your prepubescent stubble! Ah...just, wear something clean." Mal left, then. Hermione followed him with her eyes as he went to the back door to open it for a handsome stranger.

Platinum blond hair and eyes downcast. He went straight to the bar and picked up a Lagavulin. Whiskey.

Hermione Granger set her glass down, allowing the condensation to dribble onto the wood. A perfect circle. Her hope.

As Mal brought the stranger closer, her heart beat faster. She thought she heard the word 'catatonic'.

"Not catatonic." A soft voice said. "Drunk. She's drunk on misery."

She looked up to stare straight into a pair of soft grey eyes. The hair was right. The eyes were right. The face was right.

She couldn't believe it. She choked on a sob and threw her drink into his face, for the second time in about eight months.

"You're a lie! I killed you." She cried.