CHAPTER NINETEEN

Draco looked at her earnestly as he repeated his question. 'Do you love me, Hermione?'

'I… We've gotten close since…'

He took her hands in his, the letters crumpling between them. 'I like you. Don't get me wrong, Hermione, I do like you, but…'

'But not like that, right?' He nodded and she breathed a sigh of relief. 'You're like a brother to me, Draco. I really feel like I can tell you anything…well, almost anything. A girl is entitled to her secrets, right?'

'So you're not disappointed?'

'No!' she exclaimed a little too enthusiastically. 'Sorry. It's like I said, I like you, but not like that. I mean, you're still a right foul git when you want to be,' she joked.

'Well, you're still a swotty little know it all!' The two laughed together, then took their respective letters and began a slow walk back into the castle.

'Why did you do it then?'

'Do what?'

'Talk to the Minister about my father? If not for me, then why? It's not as if he's ever been anything but completely dreadful toward you…'

'Everyone deserves a second chance at happiness, yes? Even Lucius Malfoy?'

The subject was dropped and the two went about their regular day, Hermione contemplative and Draco so happy that he was scaring the first year Hufflepuffs. The next morning at breakfast, the Daily Prophets came in sporting a headline that "Notorious Death Eater Lucius Malfoy" had been released from Ministry custody. The article didn't give specifics of why he was held so long without a trial, save from him being a Death Eater, but someone got correct that Hermione had been to see the Minister "mere hours" before the "right hand of evil" was miraculously let off scot free. Speculation ran wild in the magical paper as to what Hermione must have done in order to have the man freed, and also wondering why she'd wanted him freed in the first place. It was a joke of an article.

While she was reading, two things happened seemingly simultaneously: an owl swooped in and dropped a letter right on top of the paper Hermione was reading, and Ron Weasley came barreling into the Great Hall. The ginger wizard began screaming her name as she picked up the letter. Opening it, she read its brief contents:

'We should talk.

Love, Andy

'Hermione!' Yelled Ron, now standing practically on top of her as she sat. 'Are you deaf? Why aren't you answering me?'

Hermione looked up at him, looked around the Great Hall, and noticed that he was making a huge scene. 'Let's take this somewhere else.'

'No! We'll talk here! One Malfoy not good enough for you? Need to bust out another so you can have your own Death Eater collection? Honestly, Mione! Thank Merlin I didn't marry you!'

'You're being absurd! Just calm down and let's go somewhere else to talk rationally. You'll see –'

'I'll tell you what I'll see: I'll see a girl who would barely kiss me spreading her legs for every Slytherin she can find!'

Draco spoke up. 'That's enough, Weasel. Why don't you calm down and –'

'Stay out of this, Malfoy.'

'Ron,' Hermione said in the calmest voice she could muster, 'Let's take a walk.'

'Why? So you can try and seduce me like you have the others? No way! What would I want with a whore anyway?'

No sooner had the words left his mouth than a jet of red light rent the air and Ron fell into a heap on the floor. Professor McGonagall walked up beside Hermione, wand held loosely in her hand, and tutted. 'Sorry, my dear. I would have silenced him earlier, but there was no clear shot. My apologies for allowing him to continue on as long as he did.'

McGonagall levitated Ron's stunned body and began to lead him out of the Great Hall. When she reached the door, Harry Potter appeared. He was breathless, like he'd run a marathon to get there. His eyes went from McGonagall to Ron to Hermione and back a few times before shaking his head in disbelief.

'Sorry, Hermione. I went to the Burrow first to try and head him off after reading the article. I'd no idea he'd be up this early and I came here as soon I realized.'

'It's alright. We all know how hot headed and quick to temper he is.' Then she joked, 'At least he didn't throw any hexes!'

Harry laughed with her before taking control of Ron from the Headmistress. He promised to take him somewhere to cool down, and then quietly promised Hermione that he would slap the snot out of him when he finally woke up. His parting shot to Hermione was that they really did need to talk and that he would be owling her to work something out. She hugged him and watched as he left, the unconscious body of their friend floating behind him.

'Who's Andy?' Draco asked behind her, making her jump.

'Someone I haven't spoken to in a very long time…'

~*~*~*LMHG*~*~*~

Being Hermione Granger did have its perks. A few days after the incident with Ron in the Great Hall, she found herself at a corner booth inside of The Three Broomsticks, waiting for a woman she hadn't seen in…quite a while. When Andromeda Tonks walked in a few minutes after she had, Hermione had to stop herself from screaming. The older witch was almost a spitting image of the crazy woman who'd cut up her arm and almost killed her. Then she took a breath and smiled, welcoming her old friend as if no time had passed.

'Hermione!' the older witch breathed as the two women embraced. 'You look exactly the same as I remember you from our youth!'

'Your youth.'

'Will you tell me?'

The two women ordered drinks, and eventually food, as Hermione told her tale. She spoke of the Battle at the Department of Mysteries, flying back into the case of Time Turners, and ending up in 1971. Her story included waking up and basically being told to shut up until Dumbledore got there, and then creating a backstory for her to be able to continue her education while the Unspeakables worked out a way to send her forward in time without killing her. It wasn't her idea, nor her choice, to be sorted into Slytherin, a fact they both chuckled over now, knowing that she was a Gryffindor. She'd said that she wanted to go unnoticed, to simply fade into the background and exist without having any effect on events.

'Well, that didn't work out too well for you, did it? First off, all the boys recognized your beauty. All the girls were jealous of the exotic new witch from France. Hell, even Rabastan took to teasing you and he only did that with the girls he respected!'

'What? What do you mean?'

'If you weren't something special, he would have simply come on to you and gotten you into bed. The fact that he would joke around with you meant that he really wanted to be friends and not just a one night thing. And the only reason the other girls didn't curse you in your sleep was because they all had marriage contracts to men you showed absolutely no interest in.'

'…except for your sister,' Hermione finished lamely. 'God I thought Narcissa was going to murder me toward the end of my time with you! The things she would say to me!'

'Yeah. You wouldn't know it from looking at her, but Narcissa is actually rather insecure.'

'No!' came Hermione's astonished reply.

'Oh yes! She was almost always being told that the only thing she was good for was linking the Black and Malfoy families. She wasn't as strong as Bellatrix, she wasn't as physically beautiful as me,' Hermione scoffed and facetiously accused Andromeda of vanity, 'at least according to our father. You know, I was beautiful once!'

'Were you really?' Hermione joked.

'Oh yes! When I was a baby, I was quite the stunner! Seriously, though, Narcissa was never good enough, so when she got to Hogwarts and saw how wealthy and handsome Lucius was, she knew that she'd have to dig in in order to keep her hold. And then you showed up and she got nervous.'

The witches fell quiet for a few moments as the conversation threatened to turn to the one topic Hermione wanted to avoid for now. She took a sip of her butterbeer and tried to think of something else to talk about. Stalling was her number one goal.

'What happened to the others? I mean, I know what happened to the boys, but what about the girls? Margie? Serendipity? Liz?

'Liz moved to South Africa not long after finishing Hogwarts. We used to owl often, but when she discovered I'd married Ted, that ended. Something about being a blood traitor. Margie and Serendipity were killed in the first war.'

Another silence fell over the girls as the dishes were cleared and pudding was served. They ate quietly for a few minutes before Andromeda addressed the giant elephant in the room.

'Have you seen him?'

'I'm a mudblood.'

'He was distraught when he'd discovered you were gone. He ran to Dumbledore and demanded to know where you'd gone. When that didn't work, he'd tried to owl you, but all of the owls came back undelivered. So many times he said that he wished he could hate you, but he loved you too much. In front of the entirety of Slytherin house, Lucius Malfoy proclaimed his love for you in the hopes that someone, anyone, knew how to reach you. My heart broke for him that day. Unfortunately, that was also the reason he threw himself into his service for You Know Who. Said he needed to feel again.'

Hermione was in tears. Instead of staying to the shadows and not making an impact, she turned a loving and kind man into the heartless Death Eater he'd become. She agreed to meet with Andromeda again, perhaps to talk about old times, but mostly to rekindle their friendship, and then parted ways. The entire slow walk back to Hogwarts was fraught with sobs and second guesses. Sure, she was happy that he wasn't wasting away in the bowels of the Ministry, but at the same time, if he hated her what could she possibly gain from it? Her hopes in the past were to simply get by unnoticed. Then she'd had to go and fall in love with Lucius fracking Malfoy.

Draco was happy that his father was home. That should be enough of a reason for Hermione to justify setting the man free. But what about when Lucius saw the article? Would he call her on it? Would he owl and ask why she did it? Did he even realize that she was the same Hermione Granger he'd come to know all those years ago? Did he care?

When she walked back across the flagstones of the castle, she used her sleeve to dry her tears and cast a charm to get rid of the puffiness and bloodshot state of her eyes. She took two steps toward Gryffindor tower before she heard the familiar laugh of Draco Malfoy. Smiling to herself, she promised to have a go at him later for his boisterous attitude, but then she heard a deeper laugh. A laugh that went right to her core.

'Hermione!' Draco called out to her. 'Come meet my father!'