Severus was as good as his word. He visited the next week and the two men shared a drink just the two of them. He did not ask what Lucius got up to in the days between, as he did not particularly care to know. It was not until the following Saturday that he even saw the girl again, and that was quite against his will.

Unlike visits past he did not Floo to the Manor. Instead Lucius' wide-eyed elf led him and his accompaniment into the foyer and popped out to inform the master of the house that he had guests.

"Just what is this?" The pale man was still dressed for dinner, and he appeared like a figure in a Renaissance painting at the top of his staircase, warm light kind to his aristocratic features.

Severus strode to meet him, the men gripping one another's forearms in greeting. "I apologize, Lucius, but the boy has been quite insistent."

"Hm." Lucius eyed the burly youth with one raised brow. "I suppose you are here to see Miss Granger?"

"Er, yeah. If that's alright, Mr. Malfoy." Neville resisted the urge to scuff his shoe across the shining marble floor. "I hope I'm not too much of a bother."

Lucius' eyes were as cool as his voice. "Not at all, Mr. Longbottom. Hermione is still in the study. Come."

The young man glanced toward his former professor before following the man up the stairs and down a hall. The portraits, mostly blonds of varying degrees, all murmured among themselves and he absently wondered if any of them were his own descendants; Gran would know, but he hadn't cared much to study their family tree.

"Here we are."

The door swung open to reveal a richly adorned room with a cheerily crackling fire. Hermione was curled up on the settee facing it, a plush little piece with velvet green cushioning and polished ebony legs. She blinked her way out of the gravity of her book and stared up at them.

"Neville?"

Her tawny eyes were owl-bright as she watched him, so focused on her schoolmate that she didn't flinch when Lucius Malfoy dropped into the space beside her, one arm draped across the back.

Snape took up the chair adjacent to his friend, which left Neville in one across for the pair.

His evergreen eyes flicked between the Death Eater and the Gryffindor, but no one remarked on the odd seating arrangement. Then again, the pair had been alone here more than a month and it stood to reason that they may have developed an understanding in that time. "How, er, how are you?"

Hermione slid a marker into the book and closed it over her thighs; her legs were tucked under her, bare feet brushing Malfoy's thigh. "Better than the last time you saw me," she supposed. "And you?"

He laughed and brushed a hand through dark blond curls. "The same. But I've been worried about you. Many of us have."

"Yet you're the first to visit." The bitter shape of the words was like a dart.

"You haven't answered any correspondence; I think they believe you'd refuse to see them."

The muscles of her jaw ticked. "I might. For some, at least."

"He's been struggling." Neville dared not say the name, the memory of the last time she'd been near her former best friend lancing through his mind. "They lost Mrs. Weasley and Fred both. And Ginny was lucky for the most part, but she didn't escape unscathed."

"I know." Her voice scraped out of her throat this time, a heaviness flittering behind her eyes. "The war has taken its toll from us all, but that does not excuse…" She shook her head. "I don't think I am ready to forgive him, Neville; I don't know if I ever will be." Her gaze dropped to her lap, the fingers of one hand darting to rub at the wrist of the other.

She was still hurting; he could see the past threatening to rain down her cheeks and the familiar urge to reach out and hold her rose in his chest. Neville leaned across the small table between them, but she flinched back, steadied in her jumping skin by her host's pale hands instead.

"Sorry." Confusion overcame the rejection as she leaned into Malfoy's touch. "I didn't mean-" Neville sat back and shook his head. "Sorry. I shouldn't have come, should I?"

Her head snapped up. "What? No, of course I'm happy to see you, Neville. You are maybe the only person I'd care to see right now. The only one of them who might not judge me, might understand. I don't think I could bear to see anyone who actually knows me and might expect me to be the same Hermione Granger as before all this. And I don't think I want to shatter everyone's image of me. I'd just be a disappointment."

It did not escape him how Lucius' grip remained on her forearm, nor how Snape's obsidian eyes caught on the gesture. There was something there, but this was a fragile moment and Neville didn't want to break it with something as inconsequential as what was going on between her and Lucius Malfoy.

Even though he really, desperately wanted to know.

It just wasn't as important as the woman in front of him herself. "You are not a disappointment. And you are not a different person. You are still the Hermione Granger I know, the same one who helped me look for Trevor on the Express, who jinxed me so I wouldn't tell when you three snuck off first year. You're even the same Hermione who turned every head at the Yule Ball. Do you know how I know that?"

She shook her head slowly, eyes bright and shimmering.

"Despite all the horrible things that have happened to you since- Merlin, let's be honest, since fifth year," and his eyes flicked to the hint of scar peeking over her neckline, "you still managed to escape. You came here and you healed person after person. You then told off your best friend for being a tosser, and put the entire leadership of the remaining Order in their places. You did all of that after half a year with that monster. Now, tell me who could possibly manage that other than Hermione Granger?"

She wiped away a few errant tears and laughed. "Oh, Neville."

"Am I wrong?" He turned toward Snape; the man had acquired a tumbler of whiskey at some point during the exchange and his pointed glare made it clear he hadn't wanted to be dragged into this Gryffindor reunion. "Am I?" When he received nothing from the professor, he said, "Well, I'm not."

Hermione's smile dimmed, but the flush still hovered across her cheeks. "Still." Malfoy's finger was now soothing the spot on her wrist she'd chafed at before.

"Still." Neville nodded in understanding.

"Are they together?" His tongue stumbled over the question. Neville had accompanied him back to Hogwarts, figuring he could Floo to Grimauld from there.

Beetle black eyes glanced askance at him. "Would it bother you if that were so?"

He considered that, and the answer was complicated. "Maybe," he settled at last. "But is she alright with him? He's not going to-"

"He will do nothing to her she does not willingly allow, fool girl though she may be." The deep voice crackled with sardonicism. The Headmaster swung around to face him and it almost surprised Neville to realize he wasn't afraid. Snape didn't tower over him anymore, and he wasn't necessarily stronger either. Neville had no reason to fear him. "Are you going to run and tell the Weasleys how big, bad Lucius Malfoy is taking advantage of the injured Miss Granger?"

Neville snorted. "And have her hex my bullocks off? No, thank you." He frowned. "Is it just because she's lonely, or…"

"Is anything ever 'just because' with that girl, Longbottom?" He could hear that the sands of Snape's patience were draining fast. "If you wish for details you should ask her; I prefer not to dwell on it. Now, there's the Floo powder. Help yourself. You'll excuse me if I take my leave." The man stalked out before Neville could say his goodnight.

There was something that prodded at him as he prepared for bed that evening, tickling at his thoughts as he brushed his teeth and interrupting his humming as he changed into his sleeping trousers. He laid in bed and stared at the ceiling, trying to think through the meeting at Malfoy Manor, but it kept slipping through his grasp between images of Hermione's soulful brown eyes and the way Lucius Malfoy had stroked her wrist.

Her wrist.

He had seen a sliver of angry red flesh peeking out from her sleeve. He frowned and thought back to the moment he'd almost reached for that hand, when he'd had his best look at it.

Wrapped around her wrist like a bracelet had been rope marks.