Please note that if you read this story prior to 28/10/2017 I did edit and move things around with some scenes added and removed, I would highly recommend re-reading the story from the beginning, particularly chapter 5 and 6 as they have the most changes.

8.

Hermione reorganized her stack of paperwork with a stifled yawn. She set it down on the side-table next to the fireplace and, tugging his shirt she had stolen but left mostly-unbuttoned, she padded back into Draco's room.

With the distraction of their rendezvous at yet another pure-blood establishment, the witch had forgotten about the pile of reports she still had to settle before the next day's trial. Her boss wouldn't be too happy to find that her usually punctual right-hand had slipped up – likely due to her new boy-toy. Whilst Hermione had considered the pros and cons of it happening for the sake of the bigger scheme, she couldn't let any suggestion that Draco was a bad influence tarnish his suitability for her. According to her quick debrief with Parvati via owl, Hermione knew the papers had predictably settled into the "He's a Death Eater, he must be blackmailing her somehow" angle.

Closing the door as quietly as she did when she left a few hours ago, Hermione crept back towards the bed. It was pure relief to be welcomed by the warm duvets and the inviting body within.

The pale moonlight rested on the marble pallor of his back and she paused at the sight of the white rips against his skin which she knew mirrored the scars that lay across his abdomen and chest. Nuzzling against him, arms circling his waist from behind, she moaned – a little for the comfort that his familiar scent brought her and a little for what the war had done to him.

In some cruel way, she was grateful for those blights on his sinfully perfect form. She could even go so far as to admit she was jealous; at least he had physical proof, people would think twice before bringing up "the glory days" with scars ravaging his body so mercilessly. Still, she held him tightly until she felt him rouse from sleep, murmuring distractedly in the early winks of dawn, "Granger?"

Pressing a kiss against his shoulder, Hermione mumbled back, "I'm here."

She felt Draco's hand squeeze hers against his abdomen as he exhaled, "I know."

"Sorry," she mumbled.

"What's wrong?"

Shaking her head, she said, "Nothing, I'm just…thinking."

"I know that, I can hear you from here."

"Well that's not terribly difficult, we're next to one another," Hermione pointed out. Draco turned on his side to get a better look at her, his fingers branding themselves against her hips as he pulled her close.

The grey in his eyes looked silver in the sparse light; his pale skin luminous – like he was something she imagined and, come morning, he'd be gone. She cupped his cheek. "You were up early," she murmured quietly.

"Says the one that got out of bed to work."

"You were supposed to be asleep."

"So were you, or was the sex last night so terrible you couldn't even go to sleep?" he quipped, brows raised in curiosity, and the thought was so absurd she almost started laughing.

"I forgot to do some paperwork before I went out with you," she admitted, "and it's due tomorrow."

"Hermione Granger forgetting to do homework because of me? I'm honoured."

She smacked his chest as he chuckled. "For your information, I had every intention of doing them after our date."

"And who said anything about our date ending at a reasonable hour?"

"Definitely not the same people who turn their noses up at sex in fancy restaurants," she recalled smartly.

"If I remember correctly, you were the one who got under the table -"

"Because I dropped my serviette," she interjected, even as her eyes flashed in mischief.

"I didn't realize it fell on my lap. I certainly didn't think it landed in my pants," he remarked, brows raised in something that would be displeasure had it not been for that roguish smirk pulling at his lip. "If I had known that having such a terrible waiter meant I got blowjobs in public, I'd be more than happy to take you to all the pure-blood eateries I can find."

"I couldn't exactly show my displeasure, could I? Besides, I doubt the company would be at all pleased to find that I defiled their establishment in more ways than just with my presence," Hermione declared, her expression smug.

"At least one of us was pleased," he mused, his smirk dissolving into a cheeky grin, and her façade dropping as she laughed once more.

He leaned over and kissed her forehead again, tugging her to rest beneath his chin as he rubbed her back. His voice reverberated through her in a comforting growl as he enquired, "Did you get all your work done?"

"I did," she said, nuzzling his chest. "I spoke to Parvati as well."

"The Daily Prophet reporter?"

"And school friend slash roommate," Hermione added. "She's still trying to get her big break, in fact she got a tip about some racketeering last night but she wanted to give me a heads-up first that she was pulled into a meeting with Rita Skeeter."

She could practically see his nose crinkle in distaste. "What did Skeeter want?"

"A comment about how you and I got on at school. Apparently they're using that in an article to be released tomorrow."

For a few minutes he said nothing, before, "I bet five gallons we'll be front page."

"Only five?"

"I already provide you with sexual favors, and you still want my money?"

Hermione snickered and smacked his chest again before they lapsed once more into silence. After a while, she whispered, "It doesn't look good though; the article."

"I warned you it wouldn't be," he said, his tone just as quiet as he repeated the sentiment. "This isn't going to be easy."

She tightened her arms around him. "They say such cruel things about you."

"They're not entirely undeserved." He had chosen to be a soldier, chosen to be an instrument in Voldemort's schemes, chosen to kill –

"Draco, you didn't have a choice."

"Everyone does," he disagreed. "The easier choice was to go along with it; it would protect me and my family for a time and damn everyone else. The harder choice was to go against it and give everyone else a chance."

Her voice was small; even as her hold remained steadfastly strong around him. "You would have died."

"I did," he amended, "a few times."

She held on as he recalled, "I met you in some city, do you remember? I told you that you had to leave, that they were coming."

At her nod, he reminded her, "And you said no. You said no, and you almost-"

Hermione could still feel the crucio charging through her body, burning her alive from the inside as it set cell after cell on fire. She remembered screaming. Sometimes she dreamed about it and she'd still be screaming. "But I didn't."

"But it was enough for me to think that the harder decision would have been better," he sighed. "With all the close calls we've both been through, that was the closest I ever got to deflecting."

She peered up at him. "Only that time?"

"You weren't the only one thinking that you wouldn't make it out alive. I…I was waiting for the day that someone would kill me because I was-" He shook his head, chuckling bitterly. "I was too tired to keep doing it myself. I kept telling myself I deserved to die in the most horrible way possible; that there'd be no peace for me, even in the next life, and I'd be fine with that because it would be what I deserved. I let them turn me into a monster and that's who I am now. It's how I deserve to be treated."

"Draco-"

"I know you did some terrible things – despite what the media told people; it was kill or be killed for both sides. But you deserved to walk out of it alive, if not my mother or Nymphadora, at least you."

"What…what did they do to you?" she asked and, although she had hesitated in the asking, Draco had a feeling she had been holding in that question for too long. It was what her eyes read that day when the news broke that he had killed Dumbledore. It was her eyes that asked the question whenever they were on the battlefield with wands aimed at one another; it was in her eyes whenever he took to the stand during his trial and stared blankly at the bereaved that cursed him.

The amount of compassion and hope she had for him, sometimes it was almost too much for him to bear. What did they do to you? Merlin, she was so pure.

"Enough," he decided on.

"You've already seen what's happened to me, more than once," she said sharply. "And I...I have no idea what they did to you and I don't know what's worse, Draco, not knowing but imagining it or knowing it all."

"You do have a wild imagination," he allowed.

"Draco-"

"You won't like it," he warned.

"Was there ever going to be an answer I would like?" she retorted.

"That I didn't. That I was safe in Malfoy Manor."

That would never wash. Every room was a dungeon; every door led to torture; through every wall, someone could be heard howling. He shook his head.

Hermione knew it too; not with the ghosts on his shoulders nor the demons in his eyes. "That's not realistic."

"No," he recalled, "it's not a realistic thought at all."

"Then…?"

"Fenrir Greyback."

His name came from her lips in a harsh whisper, "Are you-"

"No." He paused. "At least I wasn't for long; Nymphadora, her husband, and Snape started brewing potions and sneaking them to me to ward it off before I could experience my first full moon. The effects of Fenrir's delightful company were minimized to emotional and mental trauma but, as for any signs of lycanthropy, all abated except for some unease during the full moon which I treat with potions."

"Draco-"

"And my father," he added, almost as an afterthought.

"Your father?"

"It had to be him, or Voldemort would have picked someone else. Someone who wouldn't care about my punishment; someone who would make sure the message got across that Voldemort did not accept failure, with zero thought to the consequences I would bare," Draco continued. "Father did his best to spare me, at least. He avoided all major organs and arteries; nothing permanent, nothing too damaging, debilitating...or awful." He swallowed. "My mother couldn't forgive him for it, though. I think for her that was the time to make the hard choice."

"She was right."

He smiled slightly. "She always is."

.

With a flourish, he presented her with the pile of newspapers that had accumulated just this morning from all over Britain. Everything from The Daily Prophet and Witch Weekly to smaller publications, basically local papers, were now talking about one thing and one thing only: "They're calling it The Scandal of the Century."

"They're dramatic and stupid."

"And you're no fun."

A grin tickled the corner of her lips, even as Hermione rolled her eyes. "Neville, you're not really buying into this gossip, are you?"

"They're titillating," he defended, dumping the load he had brought in on her desk and sliding into the seat across from her, until he suddenly paused – hovering over the cushion while balancing his weight on his hands on the armrests. "Wait, you didn't…on this…did you?"

She rolled her eyes again and waved at him dismissively. "The desk and the chair are safe."

Plopping down with a grin, the man remarked, "And here I was ready to be thoroughly disturbed, disgusted–"

"And titillated?"

"Hermione, I'd never," he said with a small gasp of surprise. "You're like a sister to me – Draco on the hand–"

"Remind me again why I'm friends with you, Longbottom?" she interjected once more, a single brow raised in an expression of distaste which only seemed to amuse her companion further.

"Because, besides your boyfriend and me not having that in common, we're also rather fond of you." At her snort, the man continued to grin. "Besides, who else can truly marvel at the genius and cunning wit embodied by one Hermione Granger? I mean, I can't exactly please you in other ways so I might as well grovel before the leader of the New World Order while I still have the chance to secure a private audience with her, no?"

With an exhale that sounded more like a huff, she shuffled the pile of glorified kindling aside. "You're getting ahead of yourself," Hermione dismissed once more. "They're divided on Draco and I; that's hardly progress."

"Rome wasn't built in a day," he said with a shrug.

"And a legacy can't be traded as quickly either, though, they'll try." The Daily Prophet that morning featured a separate yet another set of moving photographs of Hermione and Draco – both going on about their business – while another featured a smaller raunchier image of the two embracing after a quiet evening in yet another exclusive pure-blood establishment where they had thought no one would see them. The headline was bursting with accusations of Hermione succumbing to her hormones and falling under the spell of the most notorious Death Eater still walking free amongst the masses.

"It's a travesty," Hermione had recalled reading aloud that morning as Draco rested his chin atop her crown, warm, restless hands tracing runes along her thighs. "A war heroine so easily swayed by this innate – naïve – desire to give this man a second chance simply because he knows how to wear his robes? Or perhaps, it's what going on under those robes that has Ms. Granger so insistent that there's a good person in there."

"Skeeter really has been waiting to go after you again, hasn't she?" Neville observed in the present, a strange echo of Draco's own remark from earlier that morning.

"To be fair," she said dryly, "I did keep her trapped in a jar."

"Should have just let me step on her while you had the chance," the man across from her vented, "it would've been entirely an accident and neither of us would feel particularly guilty about it anyway."

"Be that as it may, she's still around to sling mud at me. Which I was hoping for, really."

"What do you mean?"

"A legacy – an idea – doesn't just change at will, it needs to be warped and molded into something else otherwise it's inorganic, unbelievable." It gets worse before it gets better. "So they'll have to question me; my ethics; my mind; my abilities. They'll rip apart every inch of me that I've let the media see. They'll find people to say things about me, true or otherwise, to support their theories that I could never possibly feel genuinely for Draco; that he was planning something all along and is just using me – reducing me to someone emotionally needy and weak; something that makes sense to them as to why I'd risk everything I am in their eyes for a man who has seemingly nothing."

"And then the truth will come out," Neville completed.

"Well, the truth we want them to know – anyway," she agreed with a slight smile. It wouldn't be easy for her despite the effortlessness with which she recited the process. Hermione had carefully crafted her public persona and to put that, and the legacy she had built from age eleven onwards, on the line for a hope – a chance at something more – was a lot riskier in practice.

"And Draco knows, then?"

"He knows," she admitted, looking away from Neville's disapproving stare. "Neither of us is new to this; we know what needs to be done."

He certainly hadn't been happy with it but their routines of dancing with devils hardly ever needed practice. Hermione knew he was displeased with the thought of putting her in the line of fire, though he hadn't been foolish enough to think it could be avoided. He did, however, make her promise that what happened to the Daily Prophet, and to one Rita Skeeter, would be entirely up to him once they got what they wanted from them.

"I can handle it, Neville, I've had worse."

Despite the self-deprecating smile, her friend remained concerned. "What if they dig?"

"They will; it's what we want," she said, impressing upon her companion a severe expression of resolution just as a knock came at her door.

"Ms. Granger," her secretary, Arielle, stuck her head in. "I'm sorry. I know you only planned to check in today but Miss Craft would like a word with you."

Hermione cleared her throat and pushed aside her forgotten paperwork. "Of course; Neville?"

"I'll reschedule tea then, shall I?" Nodding at Bertina as she framed the doorway, the wiry man slipped out of the office just in time before she shut the door in his wake.

Putting on her well-practiced professional smile Hermione chirped, "The Werewolf Registration is going well, the very idea of it should be shut down entirely by the end of the week. I'm working on a referendum, though, to make sure we won't have to tackle this problem again – no doubt they'll want to find a way to reword it in order for it to fit some other discriminatory creature act. I'd like to dismiss the possibility of it before it can even make its way to ink."

"Efficient as always, Miss Granger," she was rewarded with - although nothing in the lady's posture suggested she was at all pleased.

Hermione bowed her head nonetheless. "Of course." She waited exactly two beats of awkward silence before she cleared her throat and asked, with some timidity, "Is there something wrong?"

"I'm afraid we have a problem."

"Ma'am?"

Stepping closer to Hermione's desk, Bertina swept aside the proposals and research material to reveal the pile of tabloid trash Neville had brought in with him; headlines and moving pictures aplenty. Fortunately the one of their intimate embrace, however difficult to make out, was front and center and that alone was enough to make Hermione blush.

"Is there something you'd like to tell me?"

She cleared her throat. "I doubt you're at all interested in my personal life."

"I'm not," her boss said, though leaning on her hands against Hermione's desk, she clarified, "but when it affects this office, I care plenty."

Any protests about how her dating life could possibly affect a government office died on silent lips.

Hermione rarely worked angles beyond her emotional tirades – they were her signature, after all – so even her fearless leader could easily fall into the ploy of her naiveté, though just enough that Bertina could see the light come on for herself.

"Draco's changed," was the key two-word phrase that Hermione had decided on - simple, to the point and easy to remember - soon enough it would be a mantra, and eventually it would be like a game of word-association for everyone else. "I know Draco has an unfavorable reputation but it's been almost five years since the war ended – he's been practically invisible and unheard of ever since."

"But what could you possibly gain from being with him? Hermione – this could ruin you!"

Something no one has ever said to a man about the woman he chooses to play house with, Hermione thought in a huff. "He's changed," she repeated instead, and to demonstrate, she added, "He's been attending court over the Werewolf Registration Act for his orphaned nephew who just so happens to show signs of lycanthropy. How does that not make him look good?"

"Exactly, look – seeming to – oh, Hermione, he has so much more to gain from a union with you. The positive press he's getting as opposed to yours, it's just not right," Bertina lamented, shaking her head. "I can't have one of my solicitor's integrity put into question – not when we're so close to putting something as dangerous as the Registration to bed."

She bit her tongue against the accusation that Bertina had never suggested anything about Ron – running around chasing every skirt that walked his way – making her look like the fool even though he had been the one making an idiot of himself.

"What do you want me to do," Hermione asked, "hold a press conference to show I'm not, in fact, some hormonal teenage girl?"

"Of course not," Bertina dismissed, almost scandalized.

"Well I'm not going to stop seeing Draco simply because of it."

She could practically read the pity in her boss' eyes – oh, she really was a fool, wasn't she, like always? Brightest-Witch-of-her-Age, Hermione Granger, still being strung around by the men she finds attractive.

"Well then, you need to be more subtle than-than this," Bertina said, gesturing to the articles before them. "You're clever; you know how to spin this – surely? So you look less like a red woman?"

"He's single and so am I!"

"That's not what I mean, and you know it. Malfoy has a reputation! At least bring him out of the damned shadows and the elitist eateries; the opposition is already claiming you've been seduced by the romantics of pure-blood breeding – that you've grown out of touch."

"And you think the public will just welcome him with open arms?" Hermione asked with no small amount of mockery.

"Of course it won't be easy," Bertina soothed. "But he's a controversial figure and you're my right hand. I have no jurisdiction over who you date but, as your friend, I'm helping you how I can. You don't need to keep hiding him; the press already know about you both so you might as well use it!"

Swallowing her smile, Hermione shook her head. "I don't know; I'll need to think about it."

.

"I don't think she knows what she's doing, I mean –"

"Harry," Luna interjected, pushing her pink spectacles up the bridge of her nose. "Is there something wrong?"

"Luna," he emphasized, running a hand through his hair in irritation and regretting entirely his decision to visit the witch, no matter how often in the past she had been good at settling his conscious. "That's the whole reason I'm – that's why I came to see you! I – Ginny thinks I'm mental!"

"Are you?"

"No – I just, I'm worried about Hermione," he repeated for what felt like the billionth time as he began to pace restlessly. "The press are losing their minds over this and all because it's Malfoy! They didn't talk as much shit about this when she was spotted with Cormac of all people!"

"She wasn't seen with Cormac for more than two weeks." Luna hummed. "Besides, he's hardly controversial."

Harry pointed at her, as if that was the point he was trying to make since he arrived at the Quibbler's headquarters. "Exactly! Why the hell did she have to go and be interested in Malfoy?"

The pale woman made a noncommittal shrug. "Probably because she's in love with him."

"What?"

Again, the woman shrugged and, though she parted her lips to speak, she seemed to think better of it and muttered instead that the Nargles seemed especially lively today.

"Luna, what do you mean? Hermione...and Malfoy? She can't be! Things with Ron just ended – she's not the type to-"

"Do you really know your friend as much as you think?"

Flabbergasted, he repeated "What?"

How could he not? Hermione was the closest thing to family besides Ron; she was practically a sister to him! They'd been friends since they were eleven!

"How could I not know her?"

Luna peered at him thoughtfully for a moment before thinking aloud to herself, "I forget that people can stop noticing."

"Noticing," he parroted, "noticing what?"

"Noticing that people change – it's one of the few constants in the human condition." She forgot that people like Harry tended to stop caring once he got too comfortable – how accepting and compliant he could be when put into a situation long enough. Luna mused that that was probably why he was so easily manipulated; why pushing him from soldier to figure head had sent him scrambling for what he thought was freedom but was some washed out version of the Horcrux Hunt – just without the danger and a lot more sex.

Well, we had to find our ways to heal, didn't we?

"Hermione learns; it's who she is and what she does. After Ron, do you really think she'd settle for someone mediocre?"

"So she's just doing this to get back at Ron?"

Having adapted to suppress most outward expressions of displeasure, Luna didn't even have to restrain the urge to roll her eyes, though she thought she would have to. So simple, Harry was; always ready to accept a black and white world – a wizard as powerful as him that so easily took to orders without question was the perfect weapon but so shoddy as anything more than that; he was too volatile, too unyielding to the shades of grey.

No wonder Dumbledore had stuck him with Ron – a moral compass that suited his temperament – and Hermione – a bridge to get him from Point A to B with little to no prompting except to suit the ends articulated to her.

Luna had to give her old headmaster credit, he knew what combinations worked.

"Hermione isn't that petty – she can't afford to be – not when everyone's constantly watching and judging her," she said. "She's been betrayed and humiliated, and she tried to move on from it within the parameters given to her. Cormac would have been an acceptable partner after Ron but that didn't work because Ron still thought he had a claim on her."

She waited a beat for Harry to interject but he only chewed at his lip so she continued patiently, "And how did she meet Draco again? In a courtroom, wanting to know about a Registration that has only a latent effect on him because it could affect his nephew."

"He seemed like her type," he mumbled.

"Exactly – neither Ron nor Cormac would ever try and involve themselves in things she's passionate about – and Draco did."

"But he could just be doing it to make himself look good!"

"Why would he risk it with Hermione of all people? She has arguably the best reason to hate him." She could see the conflict take over his face, adding, "She forgives him, but she's a practical person and doesn't expect everyone to do so as well; she doesn't expect you to accept him which is probably why she's been trying to hide it the way she has."

"The media doesn't help -"

"No, I'm sure you know how that works."

He nodded begrudgingly, finally seating himself across from her, bracing his elbows against his knees and cradling his head in his hands. "Hermione told me – I just – I've just been having a hard time with it. So much has changed and I feel like she's hiding things from me and that's never happened before."

"Perhaps it's because you've stopped asking to know her secrets."

He haunted Grimmauld Place, alternating his existence from a mourning ghost to a smiling war hero turned Auror that the media loved to pieces. Luna wondered if she was one of the few that got to see who he actually was as even Ginny had taken to playing pretend with him. And Hermione, well, after keeping him alive for so many years, she was rightfully focused on her own recovery.

"Would she tell me, if I asked?" he asked in a rasp.

"She might – just don't expect her to tell you right away. Whether you knew it or not, you asked her to pick between you and Ron, and Draco. She may trust you with her life but she doesn't trust you with this."

Harry slumped in his chair. "I guess I'm going to have to apologize."

"That would help."

"Thanks Luna."

She nodded; an airy smile dismissing him as she took to her work once more. The Quibblers' competition were all singing the same song about Hermione's budding relationship so, summoning a quill, she took to correcting that notion with next week's article.

Harry would, no doubt, make an appearance again although Luna wasn't surprised that he had come so soon in the first place. Draco owed her a quid.

Tilting her head this way and that, Luna reread the bold headline and decided Hermione would be pleased.