Disclaimer: Nothing is mine, all is J.K Rowlings

A/N: And now, it is time for me to beg. I know there are quite a few of you who have added me to favorite stories/author and story alert list, but it still remains that I only have 21 reviews. And while I am VERY grateful for all that has been given to me, it is common knowledge that a story won't be read unless there are a decent amount of reviews. So please, take five seconds to review this.

Also, thank you my lovely reviewers of Chapter 5. I love you all so much and I hope to give you what you're looking for in this chapter. Sorry it isn't that long.

May(still)

Draco:

"When…do you think you could…"

"I hate it when you do that. Spit it out, Granger."

"I just wanted to ask you…what you want to do. Or are doing. Or even if it's what you want to do. You know?"

He laughed and was surprised at how good it felt. He noticed she had a terrible habit of wanting to have tact but approaching it the wrong way. It had grown on him, but he wasn't sure when that moment had come around. The same moment, he guessed, that he had started to appreciate the flick of her eyes when he stood to leave before she had finished smoking. He had also picked up the way she moved her fingers across her cheek as soon as a hair brushed into her eyes and how she bit her thumbnail when she didn't want to speak anymore.

There were moments-few, but still there- when he wondered if she picking up things about him as well. There were sparse words between them when he wasn't initiating conversation, and often the only sounds were cloth rustling as hands moved to lips, arms to knees and heads turning to watch the silent smoking partner.

"So." He sighed.

"You don't have to answer. I-"

"Well, give me an official question first."

She picked at that nail again and he wondered if it was a nervous habit as well. He thought, for a second, about if he made her uncomfortable. If that was the reason why she talked to him in the first place. But her presence, to him, had become soothing like a balm. She still irritated him, but in the back of his head, he wanted to know all of her thoughts…the way she worked, if only so he could say he did.

He had never understood someone before, and that bothered him. He didn't like admitting that, but the truth was his life had become very centered around himself. He liked that she was in his circle now. It was different…unfamiliar.

"Do you like your job?"

"No." He said it without thinking. He wanted to be honest with her. As far as he could tell, she had been honest with him.

"Oh." She drew in a breath, unbelieving.

"Well then, what…why are you there?"

He didn't know how to answer this but he opened his mouth and words began to emerge.

"It's something to do, it's people to see. It's a party on a Sunday night with people all more important than me, and yet I am the most powerful when I step in the room. It's an event on a Friday night, because I hate Friday's, I really do. I hate public restrooms, and taking a shit on seats that a thousand butts have already touched. And I hate restaurants. I bring my own silver ware and people think I'm rude, but the truth is I can't force myself to put a fork or a spoon in my mouth that so many people before me have used. And, well, it makes me. I don't like that, but it is what it is, all the same."

"You-"

"And another thing." He stood, flicked his cigarette with his index finger and sucked in. "I hate my office." He breathed out and let himself be completely surrounded before continuing. "Even when I have the biggest office, it's still just that! It's always only a little square room that I'm required to do business in. I thought, growing up, that cubicles and rooms and swivel chairs were all things Muggles had in store for them, but it's us too. We're not so different. Hardly different at all. We're all these…hamsters, turning on our wheels every day but not going anywhere and it's disgusting to me. We live and breathe in our own shit all the time."

He looked down and she was there, staring back up at him, her eyes wide and lips thin.

"The world, Granger," he breathed. "Is so fucking big and yet we still…every day, we still try and put ourselves into little boxes."

Hermione:

The water was only lukewarm, now, but she emerged her head and listened. Thump-thump. Thump-thump-thump.

She held herself down for as long as she could, just listening to herself be here…now.

See? You are alive!

Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.

Her lungs were going to burst but she needed to hear it for just one more second.

Thump..thump…thump.

It was getting slower, her brain trying to find oxygen, and she almost took a breath right then, still in the water. She wondered how it would feel to die. To let yourself just go and float off, uncaring of anything but the journey from your body.

Her head broke the surface and then she was sitting, water rolling off her back like beads-like pearls. Her heart was racing, but she was still here.

And she didn't know if that was such a good thing, anymore.

Draco:

"You forgot."

"N-no." she fumbled in her windbreaker pocket, searching for the fifth time and coming up with nothing.

"Just forget it."

"I'm…I'm sorry." She pulled on the ends of her hair and swallowed. "I just…I wanted…I don't know what's going on right now…"

Her lip started to tremble and he should have known what that meant but until she was crying, he hadn't known it would lead to this.

Her whole body seemed broken. She cried, heaving with pains he couldn't see, until she was doubled over and he just stood, watching her. And then she took a step towards him, as if she were going to lean on him. But he didn't do that, he didn't comfort people and so he stepped back quickly. She stopped crying for a second and looked at him. Wiping her eyes, she asked, "Why?"

He blinked and searched around him for the person the question was intended for.

"Why, Malfoy?" She was shaking uncontrollably, as if crying had made her cold. "Why won't you be here for me?"

She took another step towards him. He stiffened and crossed his arms like a barrier.

"Please." She begged. A tear leaked out of the corner of her eye and she took another step, putting herself right in front of him.

She was so little. Even with all of that hair, she was only up to his chest, and that was with shoes on. She made herself look up at him and he felt like he was looking down at a broken toy he no longer wanted but had to deal with anyway. It was him who approached her that day in the market. Him who had sat down and talked to her about the price of making soda and him who gave her that first smoke. And now, it was him, who had to do this as well, and thinking about it like a sequence didn't make it so hard. He didn't even know why she was sad, and it didn't matter. His arms unfolded and then curled around her. Her body molded into his and it was so awkward he wanted immediately to pull away, but he let her cry. And after his legs began to get stiff and his long arms felt locked with fatigue, he wondered, when exactly, he had picked up on this new thing about Granger-that her hair smelled like spun sugar and her tears were cold as ice.

Hermione:

Harry,

And then her quill was scratching out his name, as if he might simply know, just from the way she wrote her name, that everything was wrong. What to say? How to apologize for things she knew deserved no forgiveness. To simply go to Ireland and not tell her friends…to leave wards in the apartment so no one could invade…to quit her job…it was all so sudden and wrong. She knew that now, she could see it. But how could something that let her breathe for the first time in months be all that bad? She started again.

Harry,

I am here, in this beautiful place, with flowers and food and blankets that feel like the underside of Buckbeak. In the mornings, I see the sun rise into the sky and it makes me wonder why I got a flat with a window facing the wall of another building. It makes me wonder what I was doing with my life in general, and I hope that you can forgive me for leaving it all behind.

I miss you like I've never missed anyone before. I think about you, all the time.

Remember that time the three of us went to the fair with the Dursley's? Horrible day. And we met up with Dudley afterwards and he was sticky from candy, but we all talked and you told us later that you thought of him like a brother. You said you could forgive him for seventeen years, because that's what family does?

You're my family, Harry. And I hope that these past two months haven't made this not possible anymore. I hope that you can forgive me, eventually, and let me back in.

Don't look for me. I'll come home soon enough.

Don't tell Ron,

Hermione

Draco:

In his nightmare, he saw the old woman again. She was dirtier, and he was repulsed. Fighting the urge to hold his nose, he opened his mouth. He could taste her, but he had to get the words out.

"Take it back. Please, I can't do this anymore."

She was silent, watching him through black beaded eyes. She motioned for him and he came quickly. Her hot breath filled his ears and as his stomach rolled he heard four words.

"You are not finished."

He pulled back and shook his head.

"You are wrong. People do love me. My mother loves me."

Her laughter was cruel, loud and unforgiving.

"And who are you to say that what you're mother has for you is love? It is obligation, at best. Do you even know what love is, Draco Malfoy?"

Spit flew from between her broken teeth. Her hair fell in her face like an old, moth eaten curtain.

"Do you know what it means, to be half of a whole? How could you? You have never given, so why should you receive?"

He was at a loss for words. He had never thought of love as something he had to reciprocate. Love was affection, was it not? Affection meant someone adoring the other, not a two way street.

"It will be as though the sky aligns with the earth. Then you will receive your magic. Only then."

Hermione:

The Church had a high ceiling, and the sides sloped inwards to cradle four beautiful stained glass windows. The pews, though few, were long and already held several people.

She felt like she was invading something very person, and wasn't sure she belonged. The feeling grew as a young woman and her family walked by and knelt to pray.

She hadn't prayed in years; she couldn't remember the last time she had even simply believed in whatever was up there. She had just woken this morning feeling like this was where she had to be.

The first time she had seen the Church was when she apparated outside in the graveyard, by accident. It was still cold, then, and she had gone inside to figure out where she was and warm up. Even after she left, the beauty and simplicity of the building had stuck with her through all of her other travels the past two months.

But before, the Church had been isolated and quiet. Now, it was as though each person had opened themselves up to each other and for whatever reason, this compelled her to sit in the corner of a pew and close her eyes. She didn't open them all mass. When communion came, she remained still, letting people step over her on the way out. Then mass was over and she opened her eyes. It was bright and beautiful and she felt like she was seeing clearly for the first time. She took a step outside, letting the cool air rush over her. She didn't realize how warm it was inside.

"Hey."

And then the sharpness was gone. In its place was a blonde head and those flat eyes.

"Malfoy, what-"

He took her arm and pulled her, around the graveyard and to…a wall. It was their wall; the wall of the back of a Church. She gasped.

"The entire time we've been smoking at a Church? We…this whole time?"

He nodded. She shook her head, disbelieving.

"Granger, don't do that. Don't think of it as a bad thing. You always do that."

She hummed and brought her thumb up to her lips. Under her nails smelled like smoke, no matter how many showers she took or how many times she washed her hands. When she would bring her hands up to her face when she slept, she would smell it and immediately be brought back to them that day. She would rewind and let herself play back their conversations until she was sleeping.

"I sleep…now." He cocked his head and looked down at her. "Since we started…whatever…I can sleep. I used to wake up but now, I sleep."

Draco:

The noise was deafening. A crack split into the air and then there was heaviness on him. He couldn't breathe and the weight shifted. Through the darkness he made out shapes; the curve of a lip, the point of a chin. He brought his hand up to where he thought the head would be and felt…curls. Soft, thin curls but lots of them.

"Granger?"

"Do you ever…feel like there is a hole in your chest?"

"What?" His eyes were adjusting, her face becoming clearer each time she shifted. Her legs were crossed and she sat to the side of him. He was half sitting, half lying, looking at her and wondering what had brought her to him.

"Sometimes I feel like everything that's happened to me…good, bad, ugly and kind all happen because I am lacking. Like these events come to me because they're each trying to fill a hole. But…I'm…"

I'm…I'm…empty.

His hand felt the back of her neck first, smooth and soft with tiny hairs. He pulled her face closer to his and he let his mouth connect upon hers. It was a sharp kiss and equally bruising. It was demanding and rough-neither felt the need to be gentle with the other.

He knew she felt empty, and he knew he couldn't fill her. That wasn't the point; it wasn't the reason either. He kissed her hard, his mouth moving in different shapes around hers and he thought in his head that he didn't want love, just this. Only this.

She left without stopping, his mouth forming around the ghost of her lips. The heat of her body left his and he couldn't fall back asleep.