Chapter 19 - A Change of Heart

Authors note: Various sad and disruptive events happened in my life which took me away from writing for a good few weeks. This had to coincide with a massive struggle to get this chapter right! This is probably the 3rd total re-write... I really hope it's all right! Nearly back on track, but I can't promise a regular schedule yet.

To the reviewer, Guest47: Thank you so so much for your kind review. Receiving that, so out of the blue, gave me a massive boost! Things will all start to become clear soon... I promise!

To avoid confusion - This chapter begins a few hours back in time, and then we pick up from where the last chapter ended.

Hermione Granger is before him on the lawn, her back is to him, her neck bent, the sunlight glints in her hair. He reaches her, panicking, comes out with some pointless remark. She turns and her eyes are as glossy and round as pebbles in a stream bed. Her smile is precarious yet holds, but her voice isn't a match for whatever she's feeling. The photograph has done this. To her, and to him.

Draco eased the pestle into the mortar, gently splitting open the skins of the deadly nightshade berries that sat in the base. The dark juice that oozed out stained the sides of the bowl a vivid crimson. In the three days since Draco first saw the article about Hermione in the Daily Post, his initial confusion and panic had long since been replaced by other, far more nourishing things.

Blaize Zabini is held down, the nightshade juice is pouring down his forehead, seeping into the creases of skin caused by his screwed up eyes and into the corners of his mouth. His jaw and eyelids are forced open by Draco's wand. His pupils are dilating as his Sclera begin to burn red and the poison is oozing through his teeth, across his tongue and sliding down his throat, leaving a trail of raw, blistered skin.

He crushed the berries harder, grinding the skins against the ceramic, feeling them disintegrating against the force. The glutinous mixture of raw flesh and juice gave off a sharp, tangy scent.

"He did. And while I thank you for your invitation, I'm afraid my attendance won't be possible." In his periphery is Hermione's face, which he is both desperate to look at and completely afraid of seeing. Potter rises to the bait, which of course he would, giving Draco the perfect out. But he can't take it, he is painfully aware of Hermione's eyes on him, as revealing and as direct as a Lumos. He breaks, he looks at her.

Regret, frustration and longing coursed through Draco, as sharply as he experienced them when standing in Harry's garden. He ground the pestle into the berries harder, pulverising the remaining skin until the bowl held a smooth, viscous liquid.

Zabini begins to choke on the poison, his gasps for air are punctuated and stuttered out by wet, violent coughs. His skin turns swarthy, sweat is beading across his brow. He reaches out a hand but it's too late, and although it's hard to tell as it resembles the juice of the nightshade berry, but the liquid bubbling up from his throat is clotted blood, hot, thick and muddied with mucous and tissue hacked up from his dissolving lungs.

Draco tilted the bowl over the cauldron that held the progressing Baraniuk Potion. The liquid left a trail on the white ceramic like a body dragged across snow.

"Dad, why are you smiling like that?" Scorpius's voice was strangely nasal.

Draco glanced up from the potion and relaxed the muscles in his cheeks. His son was recumbent on the sofa, his trainer clad feet on the wall, his flushed face hung over the side so that he watched Draco work upside down.

"Scorpius, shoes off the wall. You'll give yourself a headache if you lie like that for too long. And you should never ask someone why they're smiling."

Scorpius gave a huff, but instead of sitting up he stretched his arms back over his head and lay his hands palm down on to the floor.

"Scorpius -" Draco warned, but the boy ignored him and with a big grunt of exertion, pushed his feet off the back of the sofa with enough momentum to propel his weight on to his hands. The handstand held for a moment, wavered, and then his feet crashed to the floor with an impact that shook the flat.

With a prickle of stress, Draco pursed his lips against an automatic reprimand and looked back down to the potion. Denying his son a reaction was far greater punishment, albeit perhaps too subtle for a child to grasp.

He began to count in his head in time with the motion of his hand, fruitlessly trying to lose himself once more in the brewing, but had only reached the number three before, predictably, "I'm so bored," cried in the most dramatic tone possible reached his ears from the floor. His hand clenched into a fist around the stirring rod. "Dad!"

Draco sucked air deep into his lungs, relaxed his hand and looked back up. Scorpius was watching him with eyes that were stretched beseechingly wide and with lips held in a little pout.

"What?"

"Please can we go out?"

"Scorp, I've told you-"

"Harry doesn't brew horrible potions."

"This is the last day Scorp, I promise. Tomorrow you'll have me all to yourself." Despite the near hourly frequency with which Draco was subjected to this cycle of childish behaviour, and despite the focus the brewing required, his son's words still managed to arouse a horrible amount of guilt within him. "You do want to go to Diagon Alley tomorrow, yes?" he asked, exasperated and desperate for some reprieve.

"You know I do!"

"Then you know I need to finish this first. Please Scorp, please let me get on. I need to concentrate. Go and read, or do some drawing?" Scorpius scowled and finally arrived at the question Draco was dreading.

"Can I go round Al's?"

"May I, and no." Draco had to raise his voice against the instant sounds of complaint, "I've told you time and time again, you'll see him tomorrow night. Please get off the floor and stop making that noise."

"Fine, please father, may I go to Jakes?"

Draco glanced at the pile of mint that lay on the table to his side. The leaves had to be precisely sliced along their veins to release their magical property. A couple of millimetres out and they would be worse than useless. He shut his eyes momentarily and gave in. At least Scorp wasn't asking if he could go down and play with his other friends on the square. Draco had spotted them earlier through the window, throwing cans at cars as they drove by.

"Yes. But Scorp, be safe?"

The boy caught his tone and paused on his mad scramble to the front door. He looked round and nodded, his expression solemn. "We won't leave the flat, I promise." Draco gave him a strained smile in reply his son was gone.

The resulting silence however, did little to comfort Draco and as he fell into the repetitive actions of slicing and stirring, his attention returned once again to swing between Hermione and Zabini with the regularity of a metronome. Although now there was no small boy to distract him. He shouldn't have snapped at him, he shouldn't have been so terse... He shouldn't have let him back out into the muggle world. He should have just let him go to Harry's...

No, Draco wasn't to blame, it was all Zabini's fault, the whole lot of it. No, he shouldn't have taken the order, he knew that, but if Zabini had never decided to give into whatever sick little thrill he gained by tricking him, then Draco wouldn't here, sequestered in this shitty flat, and instead could be out enjoying the penultimate day of the summer holidays, in the same way, Scorp was repeatedly reminding him, Harry Potter and his sons were. Why couldn't Zabini just have left them alone? Why the fuck did he have to disrupt their lives?

An image of Zabini, giving him that disgusting wink came to mind. "Might be something of interest in there about your little muggle-born..." His crooning, sing-song voice crawled within Draco's brain; an echo of his camaraderie that had been as both revolting and pointless as being forced to drink an enemy's luke warm saliva. At least there hadn't been an audience to witness his emasculation.

Might be something of interest for you in this glass, Blaise, if you'd care to take a toast. Oh yes, drink up, something very special in there to celebrate to our new partnership, whatever the fuck that meant! Bottoms up!

Draco took a deep breath and picked up the knife. As fun as it was to fantasise about murdering the man, he knew his actual revenge would have to be far more subtle than straight up poisoning. He took an individual mint leaf from the pile and placing it on the wooden board before him, brought the blade down to rest at the base of its main vein. He slid the knife along, splitting the leaf perfectly in two. He then systematically ran it over each smaller vein in turn until it was cut into tiny strips.

The fresh scent of mint rose and enveloped him. It was instantly transforming, stimulating the purest form of nostalgia and calming Draco in such a way that planning murder, with its tendency to quicken the blood, could not. At once he was not in the flat, but was sitting in the balmy conservatory at Malfoy Manor in the summer holidays, long before the Dark Lord had returned. He could feel the sunlight through the glass and a breeze on his skin that carried with it the fragrance of cut grass and mint tea from his mother's cup. Tea that sloshed over the sides of the china as Narcissa shook with laughter at whatever story Draco had been entertaining her with. The pride he felt at that small achievement. Memories like that were as precious a commodity as Galleons these days.

Draco thought again of Granger on the lawn and how he spoke to her and Harry and felt the same, sharp prickle of regret. But it had been the right thing to do in light of the photograph of her in The Daily Post. Through all of that initial panic, he had kept a level head enough to have got out of there in the least painful and fastest way he knew how. He could be proud of that, at least.

He could recall the photo exactly, the image exposed into his mind as if that afternoon at Harry's his very retinas had been coated in photographic emulsion. Draco imagined himself standing just out of the frame, Scorp no doubt clutched behind his back. How close had the editor at the paper been to publishing the whole image? Who else knew about it, bar the photographer themselves? What was the paper doing?

Draco fought a sudden urge to stab the table with the knife. He felt so fucking helpless. There had been an infinite number times over his adult life when Draco had yearned for what he had physically lost. For the comfort and beauty of the manor, for the vaults in Gringotts and the freedom that wealth gave, for everything the Ministry and then Azkaban took away. But rarely had he felt so frustrated and cheated as he did now that he hadn't been able to grow into the type of man, that as a Pure-blood and a Malfoy, should have been his right. His father, his grandfather, their ancestors, all had been able to protect those who they wished, had been able to wield influence and power in a way that could only be realised by Draco in his dreams.

His father would never have been so utterly helpless in the face of such a small time tabloid. He would have known the right people to ask, or persuade into talking. He would have taken things into his own hands easily, with brutal efficiency. He would have known who was behind the newspaper smear campaign against Hermione, or perhaps even orchestrated it himself. But the only luxury available to Draco was his over-active imagination.

Someone in the press knew she'd been out socialising with a Death Eater. The Daily Post were clearly waiting for something. More of a story? More evidence that Granger's moral standards were slipping? He could imagine the type of things they'd write, what the public would read into the full photograph: At the start of August she's fucking muggles, then by the end, consorting with Death Eaters. Disgraceful.

But he didn't know who that someone was and he couldn't find out, it was hopeless. It was over. He'd made sure of that in the garden. It had been the only thing he could do, the only power he had: to walk away. The papers wouldn't get any more photographs or story to work with, as he wouldn't be seen with Hermione Granger ever again.

The scent of mint fluttered about Draco's nostrils and pulled at his memories, but he was beginning to experience immunity to it. A heaviness clouded the edges of his thoughts, dulling the residual anger. His arm worked the knife in relentless, precise strokes; a wafer of leaf occasionally spiralled to the floor as it got picked up by a breeze from the window. Hermione reverberated through his mind, the one vibrant aspect of his thoughts, refusing to leave him alone. He needed to let go of whatever it was keeping her there. For his own sanity.

But Draco couldn't, and though it was painful to admit to, as it showed exactly how weak and selfish he was, he knew exactly why. It was the tiny, pathetic, fragment of hope he harboured, that imbued all of his thoughts about the witch with the stubbornness that made them cling to him like a cursed bludger.

He just hadn't been that rude to her in Harry's garden. It was weak and selfish because he'd still been thinking more about himself than her. How could he bring himself to cause more hurt, when she'd been on the very edge of breaking down? And more shamefully and even harder to admit: what she would have thought of him, if he had?

Draco thought he saw more than just shock in her eyes when he finally met them; concern maybe? There still might be a chance for them yet -

Them. As friends?

As anything - more? Draco would have laughed out loud if the action wouldn't have seemed so mad, standing alone, laughing to himself, mood swinging violently from one humiliating thought to another. But he needed to physically express how idiotic he was being. How completely pointless and destructive those kinds of thoughts were. Granger had tolerated his presence because of Harry, because of Scorp. He doubted that she'd even noticed anything was wrong with him at all, when he left the Potter's on Saturday. If anything, just that he was back to normal.

Thank Merlin Scorp isn't here. If he thought my smile was alarming, what would he think of me now? he thought, easing his face out of its twisted grimace.

So, when Draco answered the persistent knocking of his front door, and found Hermione Granger standing there in the flesh, giving him that ludicrously wide smile, it was so incongruent with his expectation of what his afternoon would contain, momentarily it felt like he'd subconsciously conjured her there himself, simply by the tenacity of his thoughts. It threw Draco completely, and it was because of this, he told himself minutes later when his brain had adjusted to the new situation, why he didn't in that moment tell her he was too busy and she couldn't come in.

He should have done; there was no point drawing out the inevitable conflict and accusation. He stood at the cauldron adding the beetle shells, collecting himself, delaying and dreading her confrontation over his conspicuous absence in the photograph. She had worked it out, recognised her outfit from that day, recognised the shops, what she was mouthing. Of course she had, this was Granger. At least now it would be out in the open, and perhaps he could give an excuse for how he'd behaved at Harry's.

But amazingly, she didn't bring it up. It was inconceivable that she wouldn't if she had known, so what the hell was she doing here? He tried to relax, to enjoy her company but the question gnawed at his mind, and his previous promise to himself to retain distance from her was ever constant in his head. He felt uneasy that he knew about the photograph and she didn't, and therefore began to experience an unpleasant guilt at his involuntary complicity with the photographer.

Finally, after the conversation had made its lurching course between their transparent attempts at distraction, evasion of real issues, feigned reactions, and eventually to something slightly more sincere, she asked about his son.

Draco had enough of the games so with that opening, he just went for it. He was enjoying their conversation, but he couldn't continue on in ignorance of her motives indefinitely. Slytherins could be blunt too, particularly if the situation called for it. The trick was making the delivery seem as unplanned as possible.

"Is that why you're here? Is it about Scorpius?" A loud clink as her cup found its way abruptly to its saucer almost brought a smirk to his lips. Success at last.

"No, actually, I just wanted to see you."

Draco gazed at Hermione in surprised silence, and she looked back at him for a few moments before dropping her eyes to her cup. Draco searched her face for some sign that she was lying, or acting coy as an attempt at manipulation, but he found nothing. She was frowning gently, lips delicately working as if she was struggling to find words. She's here, just to see me?

A blush was rising quite violently up her neck and spreading across her cheeks and the sight of it brought a smile to his lips. For her words and her own reaction to them were so clearly unfeigned, and so sweet and delightful because of that, he couldn't help himself.

She glanced back up, eyes widening slightly at his expression, her shoulders relaxed from where she'd been holding them tensely to her neck, and she smiled tentatively back.

In that moment, it was as if they had been drenched by the Thief's Waterfall that lay in the heart of Gringott's, and the contamination that their previous masquerades and manipulations had placed on his mind and vision were stripped away, leaving nothing but this illuminating nugget of honesty she had offered him. The constant agitation in Draco's mind that had been building since he set eyes on that photograph was blissfully silenced. He saw Hermione clearly and fully for the first time that evening.

Sitting there in a cream silk blouse, her dark blue pencil skirt ridden ever so slightly up over her knees without her noticing, that delicious flush on her cheeks and a smile that seemed to be growing more bold by the second, he let go the last dregs of suspicion and appreciated her beauty for the first time since she'd healed his throat. It took his breath away.

She was from another world, as separate from his as the divide between shadow and light. Her skin and hair was washed a gentle gold by the rain filtered glow of the setting sun and she outshone everything around her. In contrast, the threadbare armchair she was sat on looked even more old and decrepit than usual, he could see scuffs and marks on the floor that he hadn't noticed before and a stain on the wall behind her head. But still she sat there, oblivious to it all, smiling at him, telling him she was there, just to see him. And strangely, absurdly, despite it making no logical sense whatsoever, he believed her.

"I mean, I wanted to check you were okay, after Saturday. You left so suddenly-" she bit her lip and the smile was shuttered out. She ran her eyes up and down him as if she was scared he would throw her concern back in her face.

Draco experienced a swell of strong shame at her assumption and his recent decision to drive her away from him clashed with that distant and nearly forgotten one he had made an age before, to fulfil the positive expectations she had of him. And his more recent oath to return the kindness she'd been showing him and his son.

He replayed his awful performance of explaining the Baraniuk potion. In the moment, it had seemed like a chance to alienate her further, to right the wrong that he had done in leading her on to think he was still approachable, but it hadn't worked. He had assumed it meant she really wanted something from him, and was willing to overlook his supposed immorality. But in light of this revelation...

The silence ticked by, seconds passing with the significance of seasons, forcing Draco onwards to a decision. She had just given him another chance to say some cutting remark, something that would sting even more than usual, by attacking the vulnerability she exposed by being so honest. She would be gone for good, and he could continue living on in the knowledge that his presence wasn't going to fuck up any more lives by association.

But if he was being truly noble, truly selfless, shouldn't he just be honest about the photograph? Rather than his half hearted attempts at acting like his old self, which had proven to be completely ineffectual due to him simply not being able to help but counteract them. He'd offered her tea, laughed at her jokes, been on the cusp of allowing her to steer him into some ineffective apology. (And thank Merlin he hadn't.) By being honest, by telling her that things were about to get a whole lot worse for her professionally if she continued to draw him into her life like this would be the most effective way of ensuring her leave and future absence.

She would never look at him like this again, never smile at him without her own suspicions lurking in the back of her mind that he had been part of some bigger plot to destabilise her. He should have told her by now, should have told her the very moment he realised it himself at the Potters. It was too late, he'd done the damage.

So he smiled weakly, his heart racing and said, "I'm sorry about that. I suddenly realised I needed to get back, to this-" he gestured at the potion. She nodded slowly, and hopefully it was only due to the time it had taken for him to answer, but she looked unconvinced so he found himself speaking again; it was as if he couldn't bear any longer to be the cause of her confusion. "You see, the time just ran away while I was at Potter's, and completing certain steps as the moon wanes is essential for the success of this potion-"

"I get it, you wouldn't want the thoughts of the victim to be undecipherable." Her voice was bitter and Draco winced.

"You know that it isn't for my use," he said quietly, unable to hold her eyes, alarmed by how easily her words had cut into him. He knew he had been right to doubt the sincerity of her initial, cool reaction to the potion. However, the knowledge didn't bring him any satisfaction now.

"I know, I'm sorry. I didn't mean-" she sighed and he glanced up to see her watching him. She looked incredibly lost so he tried to smile.

"It's fine. I know what I've got myself into."

Draco took a sip from his cooling tea. The taste was calming and evoked that familiar bitter-sweet nostalgia. He blinked and focussed on the witch before him. She was here, now, and he was still so easily dragged into past. He needed to focus on the present.

Hermione's eyes were bright, searching. What did she want from him? Nothing he could easily name. What did she expect he could give her? Her face was so open to him, so trusting, he found all he wanted to do was to give her the truth. But he couldn't tell her the real reason he'd left so suddenly, not yet. But the lies were leaving a bitter taste in his mouth even the tea couldn't eradicate.

So he opened his mouth and started to talk, settling instead to offer her other truths, rather than elaborating on the fiction he'd just begun.

"I couldn't turn down the job. I didn't have a choice. My mother -" he hesitated before swallowing his nerves and carrying on, "I told you my mother has some problems. Well, what I meant was that when I got out of Azkaban I found she'd become mostly a recluse. She drinks, she's depressed, and she'd sold a lot of our remaining possessions." Draco took a pause to breathe, incredibly relieved that Hermione didn't seem the type to indulge in false noises of sympathy, remaining silent instead as he spoke.

He went on, encouraged. "You probably know the ministry took our fortune, the Manor. Scorp and I, we just scrape by. Between trying to bring him up, and caring for my mother - and I really have no idea what I'm doing with either, when the order arrived I just had to take it. The money was too good to refuse." He stopped talking to take another sip of tea, his throat was oddly dry.

Hermione had remained as still as could be throughout his admission, as if he was a wild animal she didn't want to startle. He smiled gently at her, to try and get her to relax, to let her know he wasn't about to bolt again. Rather than frightening him, it was proving to be unexpectedly cathartic to talk like this.

"I've been applying for jobs nearly constantly since Azkaban, always without exception being rejected, and so this job was a godsend. Scorp and I were just on the brink. Do you understand now how I can so easily overlook the nature of the potions? I have to provide for him as his father. I can't fail him."

She nodded. "I do, I shouldn't have jumped to conclusions, that was wrong of me." Relief warmed him. "This order, did you advertise?"

Draco smirked bitterly. "Well this is the strange part. I did, but months ago." And this was the hard part, how much dare he tell her? Acting like an idiotic Gryffindor had got him in this mess with Zabini in the first place, rushing headlong into a apparently fortuitous situation without giving it due thought or preparation. But here was Hermione, who had been displaying all the attributes of a Slytherin right up until the point she'd told him, I'm just here to see you, and had completely disarmed him with her honesty. Inspired, he took a deep breath, ignoring the screaming voices of caution against exposing such a weakness and dove off the edge, his heart pounding.

"The order, however, was placed by Blaise Zabini, something I wasn't aware of until I dropped off the first batch." He let out a long, shaky breath and Hermione frowned.

"Blaise Zabini. Your brother in law, right?" Draco nearly laughed, feeling light headed. He couldn't believe he was doing this. What was happening to him? The urge to tell her and to share his problems was far greater than the one to keep them secret.

"Yes. Scorpius' uncle by his marriage to Astoria's sister, Daphne Greengrass. Her parents were offering me financial aid to help with Scorpius up until recently, which stopped when I decided to cut ties with them once their insistence that I send him to Hogwarts turned into the threat of blackmail if I didn't comply." He placed his hand on the sofa arm and spread his fingers out, frowning as he replayed the conversation they'd had earlier in the summer that terrible last visit.

"Zabini is extremely financially successful, I believe he took the opportunity of so many of the Pure-blood families destruction or disgrace in the last war to get ahead in the vacuum they left in society. Anyway, he's been rubbing that fact in my face ever since I got out, and positively relishes the fact the Malfoys are so destitute of anything we once held so dear. You probably didn't realise, since Slytherins never conduct themselves with anything less than complete equanimity with each other in public, but Zabini and I had a sort of, rivalry, at Hogwarts." It had hardly the type he'd had with Harry, but more one of popularity and a competition of who could get furthest with the most girls. One Draco had always been winning, right up until certain events of fifth year took place and the rivalry turned sour as Zabini refusedto openly join the Dark Lord, despite his personal views. It had been something Draco had taken very personally.

"So why would he want to help you?"

"Well that's just it. I don't believe he is. It could merely be that he's tricked me into this merely to give his ego an even bigger boost - see how low I can go, how much risk I can put myself in just for what he considers pocket change."

"You don't think he wants to get you in trouble? Put you back in Azkaban?" she said with such overt concern Draco wanted to reach out to console her.

But instead he shook his head, held his fingers tightly into the synthetic upholstery of the sofa and said, "Perhaps, but I don't think so. I'm delivering the Baranuik potion to him tomorrow evening, so I'm hoping to find out more then. I didn't conduct myself with proper, dignity, during our last meeting, which I'm going to correct this time."

She glanced over to the potion, looking incredibly nervous. "I don't like it. You're putting yourself in great risk..." she said, trailing off when she looked back at him and caught his expression. She frowned. "It's not funny, this is serious-"

He held up a hand, his palm open to face her. "Of course it is. But, I've faced far worse than Zabini in the past."

Hermione's expression cleared and she dropped her gaze and ran the tip of her index finger round in gentle circles over the back of her other hand. Draco's own hand tingled as he imagined what that felt like. "I know you have, of course," she said, glancing back up to look at him. "I'm still worried though. Are you sure he's not just doing it to help you out? He might feel a responsibility to Scorpius, and this was the only way he thinks he can get through."

"I can't rule that out, of course," he said, deeply affected by her words. She was worried about him? But he marched on with the conversation before he could give in to analysing what that meant. "But when dealing with people like him it's incredibly unwise to expect the best from them. You're just asking for trouble. I'm probably reading too much into all of this, but I just feel there's something else going on."

Hermione grimaced. "So you're certain he wants something else from you other than just the potions?"

"Do I sound paranoid? He gave me this whole spiel about getting me back into society, setting me up connections. It was repulsively transparent. I mean -" he laughed mirthlessly before continuing, "what could I offer him? He wants for nothing. But he's got to get something out of it, and our family honour is nothing to do with it. If you knew Zabini you'd know that, he is the least altruistic person alive. There was more though, it was just the way he was acting. He was taking great pleasure in boasting about how he's doing business with muggle-borns, I mean, I think it was the first time I'd ever even heard him say the words muggle-born in my life. I just can't accept that this is just simple case of him exhibiting his money and power." He paused, and then said quietly, "It was almost like he was testing me."

Hermione had gone incredibly still as she looked at him and he froze, waiting for her reaction. Had he gone too far? Over stepped their boundaries? It just felt so brilliant to get this off his chest. When she spoke it was slowly but with enough care to let Draco know that the silence had only been due to her really choosing her words.

"I don't think you're being paranoid. Sometimes the most unlikely, ridiculous seeming explanations are turn out to be the correct ones. If you suspect something, there's no harm in listening to your instincts, caution never hurts. In the recent past, he's been openly prejudiced?"

"Yes, utterly."

"Well, that certainly is suspicious. Perhaps he is testing you to see where your loyalties lie. I think your decision to send Scorp to my school will have confused him a great deal." Hermione bit her lip and flicked her gaze up and down him, as she had done earlier when nervous about his reaction. Her voice was cautious when she asked: "and you said you're going to be acting with more dignity this time? What do you mean?"

Draco shifted in his seat. Act a bit more like my old self? he thought, but couldn't bring himself to say. Instead he smiled, to let her know her question hadn't gone too far, and said,"I flew off the handle somewhat in our last meeting. Once I calmed down I made a snap decision to encourage his perception of me that his deceit had provoked, so I exaggerated the show of my outrage some what." He shrugged at her raised eyebrows. "It wasn't hard. It was very accurate to my genuine feelings."

"But that didn't get you what you wanted?" Hermione had leant forward to the edge of her chair, each hand grasping a knee.

Draco shook his head, momentarily amused by how intensely she was questioning him, by how interested she seemed by it all. "No. He didn't tell me the real reason why he's going to so much trouble. I don't think he will, not until I make him believe he's able to."

Hermione sat back, nodding slowly, speaking so quietly, it was almost to herself. "So you'll try and lull him into a false sense of security, by letting him know that you never really changed at all, which hopefully will result in him letting you into his confidences." Draco winced and remained silent. The plan sounded clumsy when described in blunt terms like that, and he knew it didn't paint him in a very flattering light. "I see. Maybe it's not my place to say this but, can't you just walk away?"

Draco shook his head slowly. "It's- it's not just about working out what he really wants, or even getting all the money. It's more than that." He sighed, unable to find the words the express how deeply and gravely insulting Zabini's deceit was. How his actions would have been utterly unspeakable if Draco still held his place in society. "If anyone dared to do such a thing to my father-" his voice faltered as Hermione's face became cold, but he pushed on with a low voice, "then there wouldn't have been much left of their life after he had been finished them."

"But Lucius Malfoy was-"

"I know," he interrupted her, "an evil, twisted man, buthe was right about this. No one should get away with doing something like this to-" he wanted to say, a Malfoy, but instead said, "to me and Scorp."

"And you don't think Zabini knows this? How badly you'd take the deception? He must believe he has something over you, some kind of leverage to stop you from taking... any revenge."

Draco frowned. "I'd thought he'd assumed I'd let go of all the old ways, just like I appeared to have done with everything else. And to most, what he's done won't even seem that bad. Perhaps even reasonable. I certainly wasn't going to accept his charity willingly. I did manage to appear to get my behaviour under control by the end of the last meeting, I hope he thinks I've got over it. I mean, he knows I'm desperate for money. He must think I'm willing to swallow that pride to get it."

"But isn't that a bit of a risky assumption? Are you sure? What about the potions? Aren't they quite incriminating?"

Draco dropped her gaze under the guise of having to think about it. The potions weren't technically illegal to brew. He'd checked, despite what he told her earlier...

"Malfoy," Hermione interrupted his thoughts and he focussed on her pinched smile, "If you're going to go down this route, make him underestimate you."

"A Gryffindor giving a Slytherin tips on how to manipulate?" he teased, feeling irrationally light hearted after talking about such a heavy subject. Hermione snorted, shaking her head.

"Sorry, I know. I can tell you know what you're doing. It's just it's something that works for me. People have underestimated me my entire life, for the obvious reasons. A man with an inflated ego like Zabini is much more likely to expose himself to danger by giving you information that he thinks will go over your head."

"Noted. Thank you," he said, offering a smile. She returned it and held his eyes for a moment before glancing to the side and then down to her watch. She shifted in her seat, as if gathering herself to rise, but before she could, Draco found himself talking again, suddenly desperate to keep her presence before him. "I think that's enough about me." Hermione glanced back up, frowning. "You said you wanted to check if I was all right on Saturday, but what about you?" He spoke slowly, hoping she saw enough sincerity within him to share as he had with her. "You were upset about something. It wasn't just that article, was it?"

Hermione's eyes widened and Draco saw her hands clench around her cup. Her mouth opened and then she bit her lip and began to examine the remnants of her tea, as if the leaves would hold the answer.

"Well the article was a part of that. I can't believe you saw it..." She muttered, her voice trailing away. There was a moment of silence before she glanced back up and continued talking in a stronger voice, as if she needed convincing as much as him over what she was saying. "I mean, of course I know what the papers write is all rubbish. So, no you're right. It wasn't just about that." But she didn't go on to say anything else.

"Come on, Granger. I didn't just bear my heart to you just for you to remain tight lipped. Slytherin, remember? It's got to be a fair exchange." He quipped. She smiled weakly and looked away. Draco scowled to himself while she fiddled with the seam on her skirt. Would she do it? Did she trust him as much as he found he trusted her?

"Okay..." She took a deep breath and said, "I spoke to my parents on the phone." Her jaw was set slightly defiantly and Draco frowned in incomprehension.

"I don't understand. Both your parents? Did something happen to them?"

Hermione let out her held breath and shook her head with a smile that was more a grimace. She finally looked up at him. "No, absolutely nothing. They're both in great health, now. The thing is, I don't have the best relationship with them." As she spoke she rubbed a hand roughly across her cheeks and under her eye. "It's utterly ridiculous. Especially with what you were saying about your mum... I mean, I'm incredibly lucky, my parents are both alive and undamaged..."

Draco kept quiet, deciding to employ the same tactics she had used when he was on the cusp of telling her his secrets. It seemed to work. After a few moments of silence where Hermione stared past his head and into the now deepening twilight out the window, she finally spoke. And her voice was troubled and quiet.

"I - I Obliviated them during the war. Gave them false memories, new lives, eradicated any hint of my existence from their minds, in order to protect them. And it worked; the Death Eaters never found them." She met his eyes and he nodded. He'd heard the results of those failed missions to locate the Grangers from his bedroom. The screams wrenched from lips twisted from the Cruciatus carried further and lasted much longer than any other screams of pain.

She continued, thankfully unaware of his thoughts. "After the war I tracked them down, returned their memories to them, but - but things have never been the same. Well, in fact things hadn't been great since the very moment I got my Hogwarts letter all those years ago." Her voice strengthened, gaining in confidence as she spoke. "I was so grateful to find out I was a witch, so desperate to be in the wizarding world, as the years went by I spent less and less time in the muggle one, with them. Holidays passed by without seeing them or my grandparents, my aunts, uncles or cousins. Without giving it conscious thought I dismissed my muggle family in the very same way that wizards like you looked down on me. What a joke." The confidence in her voice had by now given way to dripping revulsion. Draco released a long held breath, his fingers twitching uselessly, arms held rigid to his side.

"In the end I don't think they ever forgave me for what I did to them, both abandoning them, and the Obliviation. I was their only child. They loved me." Her voice broke on the word, but she pushed on, as brave and as committed to seeing her admission through to the end as only Hermione Granger could be.

"I didn't ask their permission, I knew they wouldn't agree. So I went behind their backs." Her mouth twisted into a sneer and the expression was frighteningly out of place on her face. "I was a complete coward." She spat out the word. "Better to creep up behind them than to see their eyes as I betray them and disappoint them once again." Her hands were screwed up, clasping the cup so hard Draco thought it might crack. She was looking at him, but with such a frightening intensity he hoped it wasn't him she was seeing at all.

"I know my mum hasn't forgiven me." And then she blinked, focussed her attention back on him and was vulnerable once again, untwisting before his eyes from the grip of that long festering bitterness and anger. "And the worst thing is, there are people like you, people like Harry, like Ginny, like so many who lost family in the war, yet here I am, who lost no one, yet I'm unable to take the steps to rebuild those bridges."

She paused and continued even more quietly, "I disgust myself, I really do. But I just can't move on. And the more years go past, the worse it gets. Working at Burbage helps, ensuring parents are more involved with their kids... That making the choice to embrace magic doesn't mean abandoning your family or the muggle world. But I still feel so guilty, whenever I think about how long its been since I saw them, or how I can count our phone calls this year on my hands, or- I'm sorry. I'm really sorry, I can't believe I'm going on about this." She screwed up her face and stared into her lap and it was all Draco could do not to cross the room and sweep her into his arms. To absorb her pain. Or take her by the shoulders and shake sense into her.

He chose his words incredibly carefully, having long realised that never before had anyone opened up so much of themselves so willingly to him. He was on new ground here, and had to tread softly, lest he upset her further.

"Granger, it's never too late," She shook her head slightly and continued to stare at her cold cup of tea in her lap. But he wasn't deterred. "And you're not a joke. The biggest joke was people like me, nearly following a raving lunatic to the grave," She did look up at him then, wincing slightly and he gave her a wry smile. Oh yes, he remembered the exact words she'd thrown at him, nearly a whole month ago, and evidently she did too. But that was just another instance of bad judgement she had to own up to, and he hoped she understood that, and didn't think he was rubbing it in her face. "I can't give you any words that tell you how you behaved, or what you did was okay, was justified, as it wasn't." Her eyebrows shot up, but he pressed on, fervently hoping he wasn't demolishing her self esteem even further.

"But, you need to stop punishing yourself. Otherwise you'll never get anywhere. How do you think I've survived? I bet you've never done anything like that, didn't imagine that there was a side of you that was capable. But we're all capable of doing morally reprehensible things to protect the ones we love. And we're all capable of getting swept up in ideas that make us feel better about ourselves without realising what's going on until it's too late."

He pointed to himself with raised eyebrows and she sat up a little straighter. "But I'm moving on, finally. I hope. It's not easy, but until you accept that not everything you've done in life was noble or good, and that's fine as long as you recognise it and make steps to change, you're never going to be able to get over it. It's incredibly painful, when you realise you're not who you thought you were, but you need to do it none the less. It doesn't mean you're any less of yourself than you were before, but just you recognise your flaws and can then make moves to overcome them.

"This probably may not help, but as a parent, I can say with complete confidence that nothing Scorpius could do would make me stop loving him. Your mother may still resent what you did, but I bet she still wants you back in her life more than anything."

She nodded and gave him the smallest of smiles. Draco relaxed slightly, relieved he hadn't appeared to have made her feel any worse. Hopefully at least, he'd made her feel a little better, or at least tipped her in the direction of being able to make herself feel better in time. They sat in silence, but it wasn't awkward. It stretched before them as peacefully as a winter's beach at low tide.

"Well, I better be going, it's getting late. I've got lots of work to do tonight," Hermione finally said, breaking the spell. Draco blinked, suddenly realising they were sat in near darkness, the sun having long since set. The only light filtering through was from the streetlight outside and the flickering of the flame beneath the potion.

"Right, of course. Me too." They both stood, and the awkwardness Draco had felt when she first arrived returned to him in full force. He felt suddenly as if his limbs were constructed from flobber worms spellotaped together and as he walked her to the door he felt certain he was about to trip over his feet. He reached past her to undo the latch, his nerves on fire, and her shoulder brushed against his chest. Even through the fabric the contact sent a jolt straight to his heart and he felt it give an uncomfortably strong beat, as if palpitating.

The electric light in the hallway was garish after the darkness of the flat, but did nothing to dim Hermione's beauty as she stood looking up at him. She shifted on her feet, brought up a hand to tuck a smooth lock of hair behind an ear in what he was fast recognising as a sign of nerves, and smiled sheepishly. She took a deep breath and he was reminded again of Scorpius, but this time when the boy was about to tell him something he wouldn't like, and so Draco steeled himself as she said in a rush, "Harry would be really happy if you came to his party tomorrow." She paused, that hand darted to her hair once again, before saying quietly and more slowly, "I mean to say - I would really like to see you again too."

Draco leant against the doorframe and folded his rubbery arms against his chest, lest they take on a mind of their own and do something ridiculous, like touch her. He let out a deep breath. The party he'd decided not to go to. To risk being seen and photographed by the same person who leaked the photo of her and the muggle earlier in the summer...

She was watching him closely, delicately biting into her pink bottom lip. Almost imperceptibly, the tip of her tongue darted out and swept along her lips before Draco realised she was still waiting for his answer. He dragged his eyes from her mouth and cleared his throat. "Well my meeting with Zabini is at seven..."

She nodded and looked down, leaving Draco feeling inexplicably crushed, as if she had turned him down. But then she glanced quickly back up and raised her eyebrows. "You can still come after. It's because of the other guests, isn't it?"

Draco grimaced. She must know the risks. She knew what she was doing. It had happened to her before, after all. "Well, I'd be lying if I said I would ever willingly offer myself up to a Gryffindor love in of the type Potter no doubt throws." He gave her a half hearted attempt at his old sneer and Hermione burst out in a surprised sort of laughter. After the gravity of the conversation that had just taken place, despite how unexpectedly natural it had been, it was a relief to hear and lightened the mood between them considerably. Draco felt slightly less encumbered by his ungainly body parts.

"It won't be that bad. I'll be your body-guard. They'll have to get through me." she said with a smirk, bringing her wand up to tap against her left hand. "Only insults and mockery allowed. No making up, apologies, or soppy Gryffindor stuff of any kind." She raised an eyebrow and twirled the wand between her fingers. Draco grinned, enjoying the sight. It was almost - sexy. "What do you say?"

How can I resist you? "Gods forbid it ever coming to that. But -" he paused and then his tongue was forming words and letting them fall from his mouth before he could stop or even think about them, " in that case, I'll willingly reconsider my position based on your generous offer." Her face broke into a big guileless smile, despite his garbled nonsense, and Draco returned it feeling lightheaded once more. She then began to slowly walk backwards away from him down the hall, still smiling.

"Night, Granger, get home safely," he called out.

"See you tomorrow, Malfoy. Good luck with the meeting. I really hope you manage to get somewhere and get some answers. He's made a big mistake. And thanks for tonight. I - It was great." And with that she backed into shadow, span on the spot and Disapperated with a tiny crack. Draco blinked and shut the door, only realising he was still smiling to himself several whole minutes later.

He should be worried, stressed, planning how he was going to handle Zabini. He should be cursing himself for so easily he gave up his plan, after just a bit of positive attention. Debating when would be the best time to tell her about the full photograph. Berating himself for sharing with her as much as he had done. But none of it seemed to matter as much as it should. All he could think about was Hermione's words, her smile, her eyes and her body telling him that she wanted him.