Author's Note: "I hear that Nancy is very pretty" Random sentence prompt.

"I hear that Nancy is very pretty."

The words flow out of my mouth before I can stop them. He stills. His mouth stopping at the base of my neck. His hand clenches into a fist in my hair, forcing my head up a little further at the sting.

"Don't do that," he said.

"Do what?"

"You know what," he says angry, letting go of me and stepping away. "You know what we agreed. We both agreed."

"I know."

"So don't do this."

"What am I supposed to do then?" I'm staring at his rigid back and I see my hands running over it but this time I refrain. It's not the same anymore, it can't be. "Tolerate it?"

"We agreed."

"I don't care anymore what we agreed," I spit at him. "Listen to what I'm saying now."

"What are you saying now?" He turns to me and his face is unforgiving, as usual. Not leaning. Not bending. Unfeeling. "It's a bit late to get into the romantic aspects of our relationship don't you think?"

"You know that's not—"

"But still you want me to leave her, isn't that what this is about?"

"Well…" I tug my sweater back over my exposed chest, leaning into the wall behind me.

"We've had this conversation before."

"Well you weren't getting married then!" I say defensively.

He shakes his head. "You didn't seem very banged up about it then, or when your boyfriend proposed."

I shift on my feet, the cold sting of my hardwood floors seeping in through the soles of my thin white socks. "That was different."

"How?"

"I wasn't the one to propose, for one." He looks away from me, coward. "And for another I didn't say yes."

"And we both know it wasn't because of me."

"Draco please—"

"No, Hermione, this is bullshit. It always has been but we're both too fucked up to stop or to see reason."

"Maybe we could give it a try, I mean it's been what, almost fifteen years?"

Again he shakes his head, accompanied by a mirthless chuckle. Not sparing my feelings. Never sparing them.

"Yeah, it's been fifteen years since the battle but nothing has changed since then. No matter what you have done, no matter what laws they passed I'm still who I am and you are still who you are. In their eyes and everyone else's. We both know the repercussions of this, both if we decide to pursue it or if anyone finds out."

"It doesn't have to be an affair!" I practically yell at him, so tired of this dance.

"But it can't be anything else, Hermione!" He slices his arm through the air, as if this ends the conversation. "You know why, I know why, and everyone else does too. Why are you trying to delude yourself? It won't happen."

"Because you don't want it to?"

"Unbelievable," he says under his breath. "You are so stubborn. Brightest witch my arse."

"Stop it."

"It's not about what I want, or what you want. It's the fact that being with me will drag you through the mud. Your reputation and all your relationships would be ruined. Your job would be questioned. Do you want me to continue? Not to mention how dear old Weasley and Potter will react to the oh-so-great news that you've been shagging the Death Eater since before you got with Weasley in the first place."

"I said stop it!" I yell and accidental magic hurls him back into my sofa. "Why do you always…" Annoyed I wipe away my tears. "You don't have to be such a dick, Malfoy." Vindictive and bitter is the taste of his last name on my tongue. Something foreign that shouldn't be there.

"We both knew this would end someday," he continues, getting up this time and righting his jacket. Unfeeling, uncaring. "It couldn't go on forever."

I want to say the words: why not? But I know he'll tear me to pieces like he always does. Except it's lost its grandeur now, the excitement gone, the thrill of the forbidden. All lost with time, with bitterness growing inside us both. Resentment. The thoughts and hopes of what could be. Or now, what could have been.

"We were never meant-to-be," he says, twisting the knife with one last parting word and nod of his head. "Granger."

The familiar pop and he's gone.

It is hell. It is torture. Sweet sweet torture, except not the usual kind. The malicious destroyer of hearts that always leaves that devastating light of hope in the darkest recesses of lover's hearts. But the candle has been snuffed, the light has gone out and the love long gone. It doesn't stop the hurt, the tears, the ache and longing. A constant jab in the stomach. The hard scrape of the unforgiving floor when I fall. The emptiness that tries to swallow me whole and I am still falling. I can't see, can't open my eyes but I can smell metal and taste iron but I don't care. There's nothing to care about as everything fades, feeling, warmth and thought. Nothing is left once I have left.

Gone… gone… gone…gone…. Goodb—