AN: Quite a long chapter from me for a change, longest one I've written in a long time. Hope you all enjoy, not beta'd yet so please ignore the typos.

Disclaimer: All recognized characters and situations belong to J. K. Rowling. I make no money from this and own nothing.

The next morning Draco groaned at the pounding in his head and rolled over to snuggle up to Hermione, only to find his face pressed against the floor.

Through the pounding he surveyed the room and realised he had slept on the couch in Hermione's common room and had fallen off said couch.

He practically crawled to the staircase and climbed the stairs up to Hermione's room. He quietly opened the door and his heart sank as he saw her asleep on top of the covers with her clothes from the day before still on and tissues all around her.

She had quite clearly cried herself to sleep.

The problem was Draco couldn't remember what he had done. He closed the door and leant against it, desperately trying to rack his brain for some memory of the day before.

Going to Hogsmede with the Weaslette, trying to be civil to scarhead. Turning to see Weaselbee in the room and arguing with him.

Snapping at Hermione for being with Longbottom and then smashing up a classroom while his best friend watched on helpless.

The series of events made a bubble of fury rise from within him but the worst part was that he couldn't remember getting back to Hermione's rooms or how he ended up on the couch.

The fury continued to intensify, he wanted to kill that red headed pratt for the accusations he had made. He would never ever do something so horrendous to a woman.

He still had nightmares about the things he witnessed as a death eater, nightmares that had lessened substantially since he began dating Hermione.

She was his strength, the reason he could face each day. He never understood why she was so kind to him when he came back to Hogwarts, but onc ehe got to know her, he saw the unwavering kindness that radiated from her.

Even when she was bossing him around, it was usually for his own good.

Throughout his musings he leant against the door, continually trying to remember what had happened after Blaise brought out the whiskey. He didn't feel when she opened the door, causing him to fall backwards and land at her feet with a thud and a groan.

"Morning" he grunted as he pulled himself up into a sitting position.

Hermione nodded and stepped around him to go down to the common room. He sighed and got up to go after her.

He found her packing her school bag with some books and parchment.

"Where are you going?" he asked, rubbing his temples to make the pounding stop.

"The library" she replied quickly, not looking at him.

"Hermione, what happened? I don't even remember getting here last night" Draco grabbed her arm gently to pull her away from her bag.

"I don't want to talk about it Draco" she quietly sighed.

She pulled her arm from his grip, lifted her bag onto her shoulder, "I'll see you later"

She left Draco standing in the middle of the common room and went to the library with her head down.

Draco felt terribly guilty but Hermione obviously didn't want to talk and he felt rougher than he had in many years of drinking and decided to go and sort himself out before trying again.

He made his way down to the Slytherin common room and entered it as quickly as his queasy stomach could handle.

"How you feeling mate?" Blaise asked slapping him on the back as Draco dropped down on the couch.

Draco groaned in response.

"Oh, yeah I figured as much. Didn't Granger have any hangover potion?" Blaise asked.

"She's barely talking to me" Draco groaned from under the arm that was slapped over his eyes to block the candlelight in the damp dungeon.

"What happened?" Blaise asked, as he summoned a vial of hangover potion from his trunk in the boys' dorm.

I honestly have no idea" Draco answered, grateful for the potion that he swallowed in one.

"I'm going to take a shower and let this potion work, then I'll go to the library and sort it out" Draco told his best friend, hauling himself off the couch and heading down to the boys bathroom.

…..

Sitting in the library and staring at her Herbology homework was not helping Hermione. She had had a fitful nights sleep and her eyes were still red from crying so much the night before.

"Granger, can we talk?"

Hermione looked up to see Blaise standing by her table. She nodded and gestured to the seat opposite her.

"Look, whatever happened between you and Draco last night is none of my business and I'm not even going to ask, but you have to understand that he isn't as tough as he acts. He went to hell while He Who Must Not Be Named was back" Blaise tried to explain.

Hermione put her hand up. "Blaise I know. And I know what Ron did yesterday was completely ridiculous, he is a complete shit. And I'm not ignoring Draco or not talking to him. I just needed time to gather my thoughts"

"Oh. Well okay" Blaise had expected to have to argue his friends case a lot more, he had expected Hermione to be On Weasley's side after Draco had come back to the common room that morning.

"But one thing I will not accept, is his behaviour last night. That will not be happening again" Hermione made her feelings clear by stabbing her quill into the inkpot.

"Yeah we were kind of hammered, my idea, sorry about that. I'm sure whatever he said or did he didn't mean it" Blaise conceded.

Hermione sighed, "I just don't want him to go back to how he was in September. Not eating, not sleeping, not shaving even. Since when did he ever leave the privacy of his dorm without looking his best? That concerns me more than him getting drunk and being stupid"

"The one difference between then and now Granger…." Blaise got up and patted Hermione's shoulder, "you"

Blaise walked away and left Hermione to her thoughts.

…

Two hours later Hermione entered her common room with a completed Herbology essay and a much calmer outlook on the previous days events.

She put her bag in her room, put on her cloak and left to make her way out to the grounds. She was almost certain she knew where Draco would be.

Of course she was right, he was saying in their spot in the tree line by the lake, leaning against a tree with his eyes closed.

She sat quietly next to him and leaned forward to peck his lips. Draco jumped and she barely suppressed a giggle.

"Hey" she smiled and took his hand.

"What did I do Hermione? Please….I didn't you know, hurt you or anything?" Draco's voice was sad and pleading.

"No Draco. You didn't hurt me" she gave him the relief he was obviously desperately in need of, "but we do need to talk about last night"

Draco nodded and intertwined his fingers with Hermione's, he would happily discuss anything she liked for as long as she liked now that he knew that he hadn't hurt her. Now that he knew he wasn't just like his death eater father.

"Draco, I've never seen you like that before. To be very honest I don't ever want to see you like that again. You have been nothing short of amazing to me since we got back to Hogwarts and I will not watch you punish yourself anymore" Hermione was firm in her statement.

"You know I love you don't you?" Draco was desperate for reassurance.

"I know and I love you Draco Malfoy. I love you very much" she leant forward and kissed him gently on the lips.

"Now let's go to the Great Hall because I'm sure you won't have eaten today, and then we're going back to my rooms and I'll prove to you just how much I want and need you and how wrong you were last night" she got up and firmly held his hand going back to the castle.

….

The following weeks were difficult for Draco. Even with all of Hermione's reassurances he couldn't help but slump slightly into the depression he had felt when he first came back to school.

He knew he was never a proper death eater, and he knew that he hadn't committed the crimes that Ron had accused him off, but he couldn't help but feel like he would never be seen as anything other than a Malfoy and everything that came with it.

"Draco" Hermione called him out of his reverie one evening as they curled up in her bed, "I've heard from my parents, they are happy for you to come with me and stay during Easter"

"Happy?" Draco asked unconvinced.

"Oh Draco. Please don't worry about my dad. He'll learn to understand" Hermione soothed him.

"Okay, three days from now and we're going to go to my parents, get away from Hogwarts, have a break and when we get back everything is going to be better. Deal?" Hermione proposed.

"Okay. Deal" Draco conceded. He kissed her and felt a little contentment as she lay her head on his bare chest and went to sleep.

.…

The journey home was strange for Hermione.

She found herself in one of the longer carriages on the train with none other than the Slytherins, after Blaise found them sitting alone earlier in the journey and insisted that they join him.

She sat in the corner of the booth close to one of the doors and stared out of the window as Blaise and Draco talked.

Draco, of course insisted she come with him when Blaise refused to take no for an answer even though she had said she would be fine with him going, and now sat with a tight grip on her hand.

He could feel the waves of discomfort rolling off of her and continually tried to include her in the conversation, but the dirty looks and whispering made Hermione wish a hole would open in the ground and swallow her.

Pansy Parkinson spent a lot of time with Theodore Nott, talking very loudly about unwelcome guests and even having the nerve to mention events during the final battle that would hit Hermione's buttons. The worst being a mention of Fred.

At that point Hermione had to battle with herself so that she did not pull her wand from her pocket and rearrange Pansy's face with an everlasting stinging hex, but a very swift and nasty look from Draco and Blaise made Pansy stop that particular line of conversation before Hermione gave into her instincts.

"Draco, would you be offended if I went to see Ginny for a while, I won't be going to the Burrow this holiday" Hermione asked when being in present company became too much for her.

Draco wanted to stop her, as he hated being away from her. He actually felt like the constant cloud over his head only went away when she was by his side, but he could see she was at the end of her rope and nodded, making a big show of kissing her before moving to let her out of the carriage.

She found Ginny quickly and breathed a sigh of relief as she sat next to her.

"I love Draco, but there is only so much of that rubbish that I can take" she grumbled as a hello to Ginny, immediately gaining the attention of Neville, Luna and Dean Thomas.

"What's going on 'Mione?" Neville prompted.

"Somehow Draco, with the help of Blaise Zabini, managed to talk me into sitting with the Slytherins. I've spent the last hour doing everything I could not to rip Pansy Parkinson's hair out" Hermione growled.

"An Hour! I wouldn't have lasted ten minutes. Why didn't you come to us earlier?" Ginny asked, laughing at Hermione as she scowled.

"Draco wanted me with him. I don't think he's very comfortable with them anymore. He's been practically attached to me since the whole episode with your idiot brother" Hermione responded.

"Speaking of which, the same idiot brother is going to be away for the next month with the Auror's, and mum says if you don't come and see her she'll never let him backing the house again" Ginny informed Hermione. "So can I tell her you'll come round?"

"Of course. I'll owl her when I've worked out what to do with Draco for a day. I doubt leaving him alone with my father for any period of time will go down well, he still hasn't forgiven dad for his behaviour in Australia" Hermione explained.

"What happened in Australia?" Dean perked up. Hermione hadn't really spoken to her friends very much about it as talking about it normally upset her and she was just glad that her parents were home and safe.

"Well, I sent them there when Harry, Ron and I went on the run. I obliviated them and sent them away so that the Death Eaters wouldn't find them. Minister Shacklebolt helped me find them and over the Christmas holidays Draco and I went there to bring them back" Hermione took a breath.

"You could say my father reacted unfavourably. Draco being a little overprotective pulled his wand on him and I had to get involved and hex my father myself to stop Draco doing something worse"

"You hexed your father?" Neville exclaimed.

"Not a bad hex, I used impedimenta on him so that he would stop from getting worked up" Hermione explained.

Everyone was looking her like she had gone insane, except for Luna who was reading the Quibbler upside down.

"Anyway, my parents are allowing Draco to stay, but leaving him alone will be a bad move" she finished.

"Okay, well you know what mum's like, so I would come if I were you" Ginny stated.

After they finished talking, Dean challenged Ginny to a game of Wizard's Chess and Hermione enjoyed watching Ginny beat him spectacularly.

An hour before they reached London, Draco entered the compartment and found Ginny and Hermione laughing with Luna and Dean pouring over his Chess board with Neville, trying get some of his pride back.

"Sweetheart. I thought I should come and find you since we'll be in London soon" Draco said and cringed when Hermione turned around and saw him.

"What the in Merlin's name happened to your eye?" she screeched, jumping out of her seat.

"Nothing of importance" Draco replied stiffly. He still didn't feel particularly comfortable in a room full of Gryffindor's, and he refused to show weakness in front of them, which meant not allowing Hermione to mother his current black eye.

"Draco. What happened after I left the carriage?" Hermione demanded.

"We will discuss it later" he hissed.

"We will discuss it right now!" Hermione just barely resisted stamping her foot.

"FINE" Draco yelled. "Pansy was far too pleased with herself after you left, Blaise told her to shut up, Theo swung for him, missed, caught me and is now unconscious in the carriage"

"Oh Draco. Why did you fight him? I thought we were passed all this" Hermione groaned.

"He had it coming. Pansy is lucky she's a girl or she would be in the same position" Draco growled.

"Whoa whoa whoa, wait, are you saying that you knocked Nott out and left him with pug face?" Ginny asked, barely containing her glee.

Draco nodded.

"Well pull up a seat and help Dean before he loses spectacularly twice in one day" Ginny laughed, completely accepting Draco as one of the group with immediate effect.

"Ginny! I can't condone this. I'm head girl. They've been fighting. Neville we have to do something" Hermione's voice was almost high-pitched enough that only dogs would be able to hear her soon.

"Not if no one informed us" Neville replied, feigning obliviousness.

"Neville!"

"Oh Hermione, chill out. If you do anything, everyone will believe that you are giving Draco special treatment for taking his side in something that you haven't witnessed and the actual witnesses would never come to you about" Ginny reasoned.

Hermione sat down in a huff and crossed her arms, "Ugh fine. But if this happens again I'm going to McGonagall and getting them into serious trouble" Hermione grumbled.

"Since when do you become a snitch" Draco asked, not looking up from the game.

"I guess we've swapped roles" Hermione sniped. Immediately regretting it. She waited for the explosion from Draco but instead watched as every other person in the carriage fell apart with laughter, including Draco.

"What on earth has gotten into you lot?" Hermione asked in complete wonder.

Luna, who was laughing just as much as everyone else responded, "Well if anyone said to you a year ago that you would be dating Draco Malfoy, worrying over his black eye while he sat playing Chess with Neville and Dean, while Ginny defended him for fighting, what would you do"

Hermione digested it and finally gave in and laughed with her friends.

…..

The train pulled into King's Cross-, Hermione and Draco said goodbye to Hermione's friends, Dean and Neville both shook Draco's hand, and the girls waved them off.

"That was weird" Draco stated as they walked out of the station and into the alley they had used at Christmas to apparate back to Hermione's house.

"Not really. My friends are accepting you, finally. I knew they would eventually" Hermione sighed.

"Shall we go then?" Draco asked, pulling the bag that they had packed over his shoulder. It had seemed simpler to Hermione to just shrink two weeks worth of clothes and essentials for both of them and put them in a backpack than to take two large trunks.

Travelling light had become essential during the war.

"Not yet" Hermione said, pointing her wand at Draco's face and casting a healing charm at the bruise, "there is no way you could have faced my father with that on your face"

Draco leaned forward and pecked her lips, "am I forgiven?"

"For?" Hermione enquired.

"Fighting with Theo" Draco quipped.

"Yes, I am going to pass you knocking him out off as self defence. But Draco you don't have to fight them. I know and you know that you are not like them, and I'm used to their crap" Hermione curled her arms around his waist and gave him another kiss.

"I don't want you to be used to it. I won't have it" Draco stubbornly responded.

"Don't be silly. I used to get a lot worse. Now let's go. I want to see my parents"

"I am sorry you know, for all the shit I used to give you" Draco quietly told her.

"Draco, don't bring it up again. It's all water under the bridge" Hermione insisted.

"Okay" he gave her one final kiss and slipped his tongue into her mouth, making her moan and pull her body tighter to his.

"GET A ROOM"

Hermione whipped her head around and saw Blaise walking up the alley.

"Jealous much?" Draco teased him, placing a quick kiss on Hermione's neck.

"Of you having this beautiful Gryffindor, absolutely" Blaise laughed and put his arm around Hermione, teasing Draco right back.

"But I'll have you know that you're not the only ones who use this alley to apparate, so get a move on" he joked.

"Wait" Hermione said quickly before Blaise could turn on the spot, "Blaise what are you doing over the holidays?"

"Nothing, mother will be off in some country finding her next husband I'm sure, I'll pretty much be alone" Blaise answered.

"Then I insist you join us at some point, maybe even Easter lunch" Hermione invited him.

"That is very kind of you, but will your parents be happy to have another Slytherin in the house?" Blaise enquired.

"Absolutely, I won't accept no for an answer" Hermione insisted.

"Then I'll see you on Easter Sunday" Blaise said, theatrically bowing and turning on the spot.

"You didn't have to do that sweetheart" Blaise told her as he took hold of her hand.

"Blaise has been very nice to me since we started dating, more accepting that any of your other friends and I it will be nice if you can spend some more time with him" Hermione replied nonchalantly.

"Still, thanks" Draco placed one final kiss and gripped her hand tightly, turning on the spot.

AN: I really love this chapter. I know a lot of you probably think Draco wouldn't be so soft, but I really think that being forced to be a Death Eater would have a pretty big effect on someone, and I really love this chapter. I've been working on it for days. So reviews would be lovely...