Chapter 20
For three days, the rain had been relentless. Draco stared out his front window, wondering when it would stop. More importantly, he wondered when Hermione would return. It had been a week and a half since the engagement party, and he had yet to hear from her. Had they broken up? Were they really over? She hadn't said they were, and he certainly didn't want them to be.

He'd tried calling her over the floo, even attempted once to visit, but she had blocked him. His owls always returned unopened. After a failed visit to the Ministry to talk to her, he had given up. Perhaps she would seek him out, Draco told himself. But she hadn't. Marcus had mentioned that they had lunch together only days earlier, and the jealousy he had once felt toward the man returned.

Deciding he could no longer sit still, Draco got to his feet. Grabbing a coat, he ventured out into the rain, hoping it would help clear his mind. He would walk, letting his feet take him wherever they may. By the time he rounded the corner, he was soaked through. But he pushed on, walking a few more blocks before his teeth began to chatter from the bone numbing cold. What he hadn't realized until he stopped was that his feet had led him to Hermione. She was seated on the front steps, drenched from the wicked weather and shivering.

"What the hell are you doing out here?" he demanded, racing up the steps to pull her out of the rain.

His voice snapped her out of her thoughts, and she stared at him with wide eyes. "I forgot my keys," she mumbled through chattering teeth.

"And your wand?" he added. She nodded. Looking around to make sure no one saw him, he pulled his wand from his sleeve and unlocked the front door. She clung to his side, soaking his cloak, as he led her to her flat. He started a fire in the hearth and magicked her clothes dry.

"Why did you come here?" she asked as he draped a blanket around her.

"I don't know," was his honest reply. "I just started walking."

Hermione nodded, running a hand over her wet hair. "I needed out too," she murmured, staring at the fire. She opened the blanket; a silent invitation to join her.

They sat in silence, both relishing the feeling of the other beside them once more. Slipping her arm through his, Hermione placed her head on his shoulder and sighed. "Are we over?" she asked, her voice small.

Draco maneuvered his arm out of her hold and shifted away from her in the confines of the blanket around them. "Do you want us to be?" he wondered.

"No," she replied.

The pained look in her eyes was pure and sincere, but he tried to ignore it. "Then why haven't I spoken to you in over a week?" he asked. "Why was I cut off from your floo? Why were my letters ignored? Why is this the first time I'm seeing you if we weren't over?"

Hermione held her corner of the blanket closer as she fought off another chill. "I thought we broke up when I said I couldn't live with you," she told him. "And then Marcus said-"

"Oh, Marcus said," he interrupted, his ire getting the better of him. "Tried going back to him? What did he have to say on the matter?"

With a deep inhale, she continued, "He said you did it on purpose," she replied. "That asking me to move in with you was your way of breaking up with me."

Tossing the blanket aside, Draco got to his feet. "That's ridiculous," he muttered as he walked out of the living room. When she finally dared to follow him, she found him in the kitchen waiting for the tea kettle to boil. Spotting her by the door, his anger renewed. "I asked you to live with me because I wanted to be with you. I get it that you wanted some kind of grander commitment, but that's all I can offer you right now. Maybe one day I'll propose, but I can't just yet. I thought you understood that. I thought you wanted to be with me too, but one little word from Marcus and that's done. It just hurts that you trust him more than me."

She moved closer, but still kept a bit of distance between them. "I did...do understand," she told him. "It took a lot of guts to ask me what you did."

"And yet you still broke things off," he grumbled, shutting off the stove when the teapot whistled.

Again, she chanced moving closer until only inches separated them. "I didn't mean to," she said. "And I'm sorry for listening to Marcus. You're all I've thought about this past week. I don't want it to be over, Draco. Really, I don't."

Tea water forgotten, he closed the space between them. A smile crested on his lips when she shivered lightly, and rubbed her arms for warmth. "I shouldn't have asked you to move in," he admitted. "I told you I wasn't good at relationships. Living together seemed like a natural next step though. Maybe it would have been better if I waited. Give you more time to see that I'm not who I used to be."

Her small hands cupped his face and she smiled. "I already knew that," she told him. "I've known for awhile that you're not that boy anymore. Why do you think I stayed as long as I did?"

Draco sighed, and allowed her to kiss him. "So, what do we do now?" he wondered.

Hermione considered this. "There are two options I can think of," she stated, moving her hands from his cheeks to his neck. "One - we break up for good. It seems we want different things, things neither of us wants to give the other."

"I don't like that option," he groused, recalling a similar conversation they had had months earlier.

She smiled. "Two - we stay together and work it out," she continued. "We don't have to move in together right away. We can take our time. We can still have our sleepovers. When the time is right for the both of us, we'll take the next step. Together."

Smiling, he kissed her for the first time in a week and a half. "I'm a fan of option two," he told her.