"There is nothing more dreadful than the habit of doubt. Doubt separates people. It is a poison that disintegrates friendships and breaks up pleasant relations. It is a thorn that irritates and hurts; it is a sword that kills." ~ Buddha

Chapter Thirty-nine: Edge of Heaven

"Dammit, Draco."

He shook his head. "I know."

Hermione cuddled further into his chest, wishing that his hands weren't bound in shackles so he could hold her. "This is a mess."

He nodded mutely.

"What could we have done differently to make this work?"

"I don't want to think about it."

Of course he doesn't. "Okay," Hermione sighed, trying to keep from slipping off of his lap as the shackles dug into her side. "You're right."

"I can't do this, I'm sick of this, I want to be gone already."

She shook her head at him, her once again bushy hair catching on his stubble. Gone? She couldn't let that happen. She hadn't put in those hours for nothing. Their journey had to mean something, had to factor in somehow. It wasn't fair that she would realize too late what they could have had.

There was a knock at the door, and Nora stepped in, tucking a bit of hair behind her ear with one hand and opening the door wider with the other. She was followed by Harry, who had started speaking but stopped when he saw Hermione's position on Draco's lap.

Harry and Draco locked eyes, and there was a flash of darkness there, like Harry had just seen Draco's death at his hand flash before him. Draco's eyes were pleading, begging him to understand.

Harry scoffed in irritation. "Weird," he muttered, looking away.

Hermione launched off of Draco's lap, her cheeks pink, and plopped down in the seat next to his.

"Hermione, are you ready for your preparations?"

She nodded, trying to straighten her pants and regain an air of professionality. "Yes. I have some notes for you, Nora. Where is Gerard?"

"He'll be along."

"I need to discuss a new approach with him."

Nora fixed Hermione with her most disapproving look. "No. I already said that's not going to work."

"I've already gotten Kingsley's backing on it!"

"We are going to do this properly! If he gets off based on his innocence alone, life will be so much easier for him!"

"But he's not getting off! You know that!"

"What's going on?" Harry asked, turning to Draco. Draco shook his head.

"Hermione wants the Order of the Phoenix to come forward to say that Draco was under their wing the entire time."

It was Harry's turn to shake his head. "No."

"Why not?"

"Besides that being so unlikely given Malfoy's past," Harry started, his gaze leveled with Draco's, "the Order does not have enough Ministry backing in order for it to get him off."

"The Order was almost completely disbanded not a year ago. Don't you remember what it was like?"

Hermione's jaw set. "The Minister himself was in the first Order. Surely he would - "

"The Minister grows tired of me knocking on his office door to get more favors. I'm not going to bug him further with this!"

Draco stared at the girl next to him, his heart warm. She was trying to take control of the situation, as was her nature. Lying was not her style, but sincerity usually wasn't his. They were all doing something new here. "I agree with Potter."

Hermione whipped around to face him, her eyes dangerous. Draco chose his next words carefully. "No one will buy it anyway. Considering that the Ministry was searching for us, the Order of the Phoenix would have put a stop to that by at least letting Nora know."

Nora nodded.

"Fuck it," Hermione muttered darkly, shaking her head. "It's only the best way."

"We know," Harry said, "But it's not the right way."

There it was again; Nora and Harry were trying to do the right thing instead of the easy thing. Draco was starting to get the hang of it; unfortunately, he didn't know how much use that was going to be to him if he got sent to Azkaban.

"They…" Hermione stopped and swallowed, trying to keep her voice under control, "they'll kill him if he goes to Azkaban."

Nora nodded solemnly. Strange things happened to traitors in Azkaban, and though usually no one stepped forward to claim responsibility for their deaths or dismemberment, there was no question as to why it happened. As long as there were Death Eaters in Azkaban, Draco would not be safe there.

"We know, Hermione," Nora said softly, trying to calm the other woman's growing concern, "and we are looking into it."

There was a law that had to be changed somewhere, or some kind of addendum that needed to come to light in order to fix this. While Hermione was researching all she could, and had learned more about wizard law in the past few weeks than she had ever hoped to know, there was still something missing.

"Maybe the Minister - "

"What have I said about bothering the Minister?"

Hermione flinched at the flare of anger; an angry Nora was something everyone knew to avoid.

"Trust me when I say that everything that can be done is being done. I know it is hard to trust us, but we are doing the best we can." Nora leveled her gaze with Harry's. "Your time of doing things the backdoor way are over. This is the adult world, and everything here has a place. We are governed by laws here; any finagling will not be taken lightly." The threat was clear. "And if there is any finagling, you need to let me know. The last thing I want is any of you getting caught."

True, they had all gotten off fairly easily for breaking into the Ministry back in fifth year. They had gotten off easily when they had claimed responsibility for breaking into - and out of - Gringotts. But now that they were adults, working adults, they had to play by the same rules as everyone else or suffer the consequences.

Dinner with the Weasleys was a quieter affair than it usually would have been, or rather, should have been, considering Hermione's presence at the table. She liked to think that she was not putting a damper on the mood, but she could not be sure, what with the way the various family members were disapprovingly gawking at her like that.

"How is your research going, Hermione?" Ginny asked quietly, reaching across her to grab a bowl of mashed potatoes.

"Well, I suppose."

Ginny nodded, turning her head away and spooning more food onto her plate. "I guess it will help with the trial, then."

She nodded, pushing her food about with her fork, swirling sauce and tiny bits of pepper around into patterns.

"I think it's going much better," Harry piped in, his hand rubbing life into Hermione's stiffened shoulder. "Gerard is doing a wonderful job."

"Since when did you get so supportive?"

"I'll support Hermione, no matter what happens or what she's gotten into… obviously." Some members of the group chuckled. Though Hermione appreciated the thought, she didn't appreciate the subtle condescension. It wasn't like she was usually the one who got into trouble. "Even if that means helping out Malfoy."

"Git," Ron muttered from across the table. Hermione looked down at her plate in case his gaze was searching for hers. She had avoided that particular conversation for a long time now and didn't want it striking up at the dinner table.

"We all support you, Hermione," Molly Weasley put forth, smiling reassuringly at her and leveling Ron with a disapproving look.

As soon as Charlie rose from the table, stretching, the other members followed suit, ready to escape the awkward silence and feeble conversation. They began grabbing their dishes and depositing them into the sink. Ginny waved off her brothers as they made to help, making it clear that she would take care of it.

"I'll help with the dishes," Hermione said as Ginny brushed past her to turn on the sink water. She shrugged almost imperceptibly, her stance tense as she took up a sponge and levitated the bottle of soap over to them.

"I'm sorry I haven't been around. Is Ron terribly mad at me?"

Ginny shook her head, beginning to scrub. She was clearly not in the mood to converse with Hermione.

"Ginny, look at me." She shook her head again, still scrubbing, the plate chiming against the sink in protest.

Hermione wrapped her arms around the girl's waist, willing her stiff body to turn around. When her face came into view, Hermione sighed; the girl was fighting off tears.

"I don't like it," she mumbled. "I'm sorry!"

Hermione nodded, feeling her own eyes prickle as Ginny buried her face in her hair. "I know. I'm sorry too."

"It's just… things were going to be perfect - you were going to be home, and I thought the thing you had with Malfoy would sort of disappear… and then you didn't talk to us… and Ron's a mess… I thought this was going to be over." She wiped her eyes, trying to suck in her messy feelings.

"I know it's all just… wrong. But I can't explain what happened… we just sort of… fell."

She sniffed and muttered angrily, "No offense, but if I see him, he's gonna get a slap."

Hermione's heart warmed a little as her protective friend raised her head, and she saw the fire in her eyes. "That's fine."

She smiled. "I'm holding you to that."

Hermione released her and stepped in beside her to soap up a cooking pot. "It's both of our faults, really. I could have stopped it if I wanted to. And I wanted to… but I didn't. I can't explain it."

"He didn't…" Ginny trailed off awkwardly.

"Didn't what?"

She put the plate she had been cleaning in the drying rack, hesitated, then started on the next one. "He didn't touch you, did he?"

Hermione scoffed, rinsing her pot. "No more than I wanted him to."

"What does that mean?"

"It means…" Hermione put the pot in the drying rack and faced the girl properly. "I don't know if I can tell you this. You can't tell the others, okay? They already think the worst about the whole thing."

Ginny stopped as well, her eyes brightening slightly at the prospect of juicy news. "I promise I won't."

Not normally being a person to kiss and tell, Hermione could feel a blush beginning to rise in her cheeks. Sure, in retrospect they hadn't done a lot romantically, but considering how inexperienced she was it certainly felt like a lot to her.

"Did you fuck?" Ginny burst out.

"What? Absolutely not!"

She paused. "Did you suck him off?"

"No!"

"Did he go down on you?"

"No."

"Did he finger you?"

"No!"

"Then what did you guys do all those months?" she asked, her frown dropping into a slight smirk.

Hermione shook her head.

"You had to find some way to pass the time."

Irritation added to the redness of her growing blush. Surely normal couples didn't shag all the time? They were still fairly young, after all. Hermione knew that there were plenty of girls she knew who had already begun having sexual relationships with people. While it was understandably a large part of a relationship, it wasn't the standard, was it? "I don't know. We argued a lot, he ignored me a lot. Then it got awkward… and all I could think about was him… and then it sort of happened like that."

"Like how?"

Hermione sighed in frustration, wondering why she couldn't articulate the beginning of their relationship properly. "Well… this tension was building. It was almost painful. And then one day we were arguing about something, and I just kind of snapped. I told him what I felt… and then he kissed me."

"Just like that?"

"Yes, but well… even after that it was awkward. He's still a prick."

The girl nodded, taking up her sponge again. "So you didn't shag, then."

"No."

"Then what happened?"

"I guess… we sort of fooled around."

"Like how? Give me details."

Hermione frowned, dropping the last dish into the drying rack. "No!"

Ginny rolled her eyes. "It's not unnatural. Surely you know that. You may think it's embarrassing because it's Malfoy, but I'm sure he gets around anyway."

"He doesn't. He's not allowed to."

Ginny snorted. "That never stopped a lot of the Slytherin purebloods. Just look at Pansy, or Nott." She eyed her friend's slightly crestfallen demeanor and backtracked. "That is to say, his family is stricter than most, I'm sure. Well, then? What did you two do?"

Shaking her head, Hermione crossed her arms, hugging her sides. "Mostly we snogged." The connection she had with Draco was something she wasn't ready to tell anyone about. While this would be a key bit of information to share, she wanted it to stay between her and Draco. "We showered together a few times."

Ginny's face opened up into a smile, but it darkened as she seemed to realize who they were talking about. Despite him being a fairly attractive member of her preferred sex, the thought of him naked wasn't something she wanted to dwell on. She looked away for a second to cover herself. "And he didn't try to… you know… facilitate anything?"

"Not really." Hermione paused. "How come you know about this sort of thing? You and Harry haven't done anything like that yet, have you?"

The smirk that came over Ginny's features rivaled one from Draco himself. "You don't think we were sneaking off all those times last term to just snog, did you?"

"We as humans have a tendency to argue about the smaller things rather than address bigger, scarier issues. It was why we fought all the time; neither of us wanted to go any deeper than we were, it felt too raw and indecent. It was easier for me to say that he was arrogant and petty. But we didn't have to - honestly, we didn't want to fight. We just did because it felt like what we should be doing in the situation."

"So… you fought and argued because you felt you needed to?"

"Yes. To maintain our previous enmity."

"And why would you want to maintain that?"

Hermione paused. "To make it seem like the world hadn't fallen apart." It was true. Maintaining their negative relationship, in the beginning, had been about making things seem normal, making things seem as if there was nothing to worry about. Nothing was happening between them, how could there be? They were still squabbling like a couple of teenagers. Of course they weren't growing to like each other, and of course there wasn't a terrorist organization after them.

Gerard shook his head. "That's not going to be good enough, Hermione. She's going to pick the meat from your bones."

Hermione's head dropped into her chest. As if talking about this wasn't hard enough, there was a possibility that none of this was going to make any difference. "I'm trying. It's just… everything is rooted in emotions."

Gerard nodded, looking over his question parchment. "We know, and the prosecutor knows that as well. Emotions are vague and messy. You have to make it obvious, make it real, make it tangible. At least that way, the Wizengamot and jury will likely relate. That is what we are aiming for."

She nodded, looking down at her parchment pad.

"Let's try something else. What do you think she is going to ask you?"

"She's going to ask about… what he did to me."

"Correct. She's going to ask about actions, about events. Things that can be proven, especially by her. She's got your memory evidence. She can play anything back that she wants."

"And she will ask about his initial intentions."

Gerard cocked his head to the side and tutted. "Perhaps. But she will be expecting the same drivel about him being heroic and trying to save the day. Unless his intentions can be explicitly proven, they aren't worth their weight."

Hermione shook her head, her mind soaring. Surely there was something, anything that could prove that without a doubt he was doing everything for the right reasons. She thought back to the very beginning of their journey, when he had taken her hands and planted them on the panacea tree she had been so desperate to see. They had argued constantly then… but even though he had been an egotistical prat at best and a depressed bully at worst, he had always meant to protect her. Maybe not for her worth to him personally, or even as a person, but protection had to mean something either way.

He had always protected her.

"He protected me from the beginning, whether he liked me or not."

"Uh huh. That's all good and well. But… " Gerard crossed his arms, "where is the proof?"

"I'm still alive."

"Okay." He didn't sound convinced.

"We won, in the end."

"Uh huh. You don't have to answer me now, Hermione. You don't have to go on the stand for some time. But these are the things you need to be thinking about. The prosecutor will turn you against yourself. So be ready."

Author's note: Hey guys. I know updates are spaced a lot. I promise that this story will get done though.