Even with my weekend plans cut short, I still wasn't able to meet with Blaise until Monday in the office. I told Ilse to block off my lunch hour before sealing the door and silencing the room.

"I don't know when your next Quidditch date is with Ginny, but Severus is close to getting her out safely. It sounds like she's next. Could be only a week or two."

Blaise nods silently. He's been expecting it. That doesn't make it easier.

"But also -" I continue and Blaise looks up, startled at my tone, "- Granger's remembering. I don't know what exactly or how much, but she's unsettled. I don't think she trusts me to tell her what's going on."

I ignore the fact that she clearly doesn't and that I clearly didn't know how to describe the truth to her anyway. "If she's talking to Ginny about any of it… well, just be prepared when you go back in again."

Blaise takes his time absorbing this, the implications of this.

"It was great while it lasted, wasn't it?" he says softly, staring out my window.

"None of it could ever be real," I reply and the irony is impossible to ignore. "That was the entire point of the park from the beginning, remember?"

"Well, with slightly different goals for the people who used it," Blaise's face twists. "But at least we were able to stop their abuse, if nothing else. We made a difference for three of them."

"Yeah," I say with a sigh. "And at least Ginny will be able to leave, like Lovegood. But Granger won't ever be."

He gives me a sad look.

"And once Ginny's gone," I can't stop myself from continuing, "she's going to be entirely alone. If she refuses to see me, that is. And she might."

We both sit in silence for a few minutes before Blaise says abruptly, "I need a pint after work. Pub?"

I need a pint too - or four.

Which is how, after giving her an entire three days alone, I find myself going back to see Granger.

Blaise tried to talk me out of it, but not very hard. I have to know what she's thinking.

I don't know how to answer her questions yet, but I have to try. And planning answers ahead almost feels just as dishonest as I've been the last six months.

Also, I've had the several pints I wanted, and a firewhisky or two to boot. So everything seems like a good idea just now.

Deliberately trying to avoid Severus, I find Vaisey leaving for the evening. There's no reason he should have to work this late and I wonder exactly how much of the heavy lifting Dolohov is delegating onto him, but now isn't the time. I'm just glad he's here.

Vaisey is marvellous because he asks exactly zero questions and puts me into a fic with Granger at once.

I've sent us back to Flourish and Blotts, wishing I was more original. But Moribund's has distinct Dark tones, which will make her think of the war, and anywhere at Hogwarts is very reminiscent of us at fourteen. Our flat is clearly the wrong call, offering a terrible reminiscence of what happened a few days ago.

I land before she does, as is typical, and give a tentative, "Hello, Granger," when I see her.

No grin today. Her eyes fire and she marches right up to me, planting both palms flat on my chest and giving me a good shove. "I don't want to see you, Malfoy," she hisses.

Well, that answers that question. I back up agreeably from her push - and the alcohol - and feel the backs of my legs hit a table. I boost up on it, roughly three paces away from her now, and say, "Ask me whatever you want. I'll do my best to answer. I swear it."

This open declaration catches Granger off-guard, which is handy.

Seeing her come at me like she did gave me brilliant flashes of our earliest fics, when I'd wind her up until she hit me. I'm buzzed and definitely need to keep my head on straight for this, so I give myself a little shake.

We've moved far past that, Granger and I. But if what I want by the end of the night is to get hit like I used to, I'm sure she'll oblige. The least I can do is try to answer her questions first.

She regroups with rapid speed, which would undoubtedly be the case even if I wasn't slowed by firewhisky, and when she meets my eyes again, there is no fire to be found. Only a wall.

"We lost the war, didn't we?"

I nod slowly. "Yes, Granger. You lost."

She starts to pace. "I thought so. Ginny wasn't sure. But nothing else makes sense."

Without warning, she strides over to the door and yanks. Yanks again, throwing her weight behind it.

It doesn't budge.

"I'm sorry, Granger."

She whirls on me, hair flying. "Sorry for what?" she spits. "That I can't open this door, that I arrived here without warning, to a place I didn't choose, to see you?"

My heart hurts at this and I cringe. "...Yes. I'm sorry."

"Or sorry that we lost the war and you didn't tell me, just let me live here in this - this -" she tangles her hands in her own hair and makes frustrated fists in it. "Where are we?"

I still don't know if she's put everything together and although I promised her honesty, I can't bring myself to tie in the rape and abuse if she doesn't remember that clearly. "This is… a holding area, of sorts. I've been keeping you and Ginny away from the worst of it, for as long as I can. Luna, too."

She obviously does not believe a word I've said and I can't blame her. "What happened to Luna? What really happened?"

"Lovegood was moved out of this place weeks ago," I tell her. "The three of you were closest to remembering… well, what you're remembering now. We separated you from the others, the ones who still didn't know what was going on."

"I still don't, you complete arsehole!" she shrieks and she looks half mad.

"I know," I try to soothe and she chucks a book at me. I dodge to the left and say hastily, "You asked what happened. Let me tell you."

This stops her, at least temporarily, and I take advantage of the opening. "The Resistance lost the war. Resistance fighters were kept alive. As your side tried to mount rescue attempts, our side captured more of you. You were all kept Obliviated to keep you reasonably calm."

"So… all the Horcrux research. It's a waste? It's all over?" she whispers.

Somehow I'm surprised that her mind immediately goes to the useless work she's put in. I give an awkward half-shrug and she's reaching for another book to throw. The idea of Granger being willing to damage books for this is disturbing, even if she does have a lack of other ammunition.

"Lovegood was…" I barely stop before I say 'sold.' "Lovegood left. There's someone working with the families, as a cover, to smuggle some of the Resistance fighters out. Krum. Do you remember meeting with him recently? We've been slowly working through the roster with him here for months, getting people out."

This stops her and she eyes me with suspicion, book in hand. "How?"

"He's posing as a 'buyer,' essentially human trafficking," I say, cringing instinctively, but the book doesn't come flying. Yet. At least I was able to give some meagre context before introducing this bit. "He's been able to facilitate the 'sale' of captives here, little by little, to their distant relations or concerned friends, I suppose."

"You don't know for sure?" Her scorn is palpable.

I realise that sounds awful, but I do not. "Severus is the only one he's in contact with. I've trusted his word on it."

Unexpectedly, this seems to satisfy Granger somewhat - on this point, anyway. "Snape? Dumbledore was always sure… but after he was killed, you ran with him. We wondered if he'd turned, or turned back. Who could tell?"

"Severus serves his own master and always has," I say, a little bitterly. "But he's helping smuggle people to safety here. Ginny… should be next."

I deliver this news gently, but I needn't have bothered. Granger's face lights with hope for the first time this evening. I raise a hand to caution her. "It's not done until it's done. Something could still go wrong. We're counting on her status as relatively unimportant to the war effort, so her 'sale' sounds plausible."

"Where will she go?"

"Europe, somewhere. I don't know the details. Our contact - Krum - is working hard to keep the cover intact, that the captives he 'buys' are going to wealthy families who…" I trail off. There's no need to spell out this level of detail, what those families would be trafficking in people for.

"Who else?" she whispers, and I hate to break her heart with this. There's no way it'll surprise her, but even so. I wish I could tell her something good, anything.

"Most everyone is already gone, safely out," I start with. "But… Granger, the Dark Lord will never let you or Potter go. You must know that."

"What about Ron?" Her big brown eyes look up at me now, through her lashes, and a tear slips down her pale cheek. My own heart breaks a little further.

"Hopefully… Ron, soon. But he's an even longer shot than Ginny, so -" I almost choke up at the look of pain on her face. "- Granger, it's not likely. Even if the Dark Lord holds more stock in you and Potter, Weasley was part of it."

Swallowing hard, her hand rests against her throat and she nods once. She wanders away from me, towards a rack of shelves, and she leans her forehead into it.

I give her a few minutes of space, letting her just breathe and think.

When she returns, she's reasonably contained. "So where we stay, the dorm - we can't leave. Clearly. We don't have wands."

I shake my head.

"There must be anti-Apparition wards, just in case."

There are. "And there are calming spells and protections in place, to try and help with anxiety and boredom. But overall, the regular Obliviation was supposed to alleviate the majority of that."

Granger mulls this over. "Is that why I started to remember? The Obliviation began to wear off?"

"We don't know," I say, relieved at an easy and honest topic for once. "Nothing like this has ever been done before. But it's my best guess."

"Has anyone else remembered?"

"Luna did, but no one knew. She told me at our picnic, do you remember?"

Granger's brow scrunches. "Yes… but I don't think I put together that this is what she was referring to. Not then, anyway."

"And Ginny is remembering bits and pieces too, but different bits, I think. You were top of the class, as usual." I meant this lighthearted but she shoots me a nasty look.

Not the time.

She starts to pace a few steps at a time, one hand back in her hair as if it helps her think. Maybe it does. At least she's talking enough to not worry her lower lip into bleeding territory.

"So through all this… all this time -" she breaks off suddenly. "How long has it been?"

I wince again. I can't make it better. "A little over two years."

She blanches. "I've - we've - been here for two years?!"

Nodding mutely, I can't soften the blow.

Blinking rapidly several times, Granger gathers herself with impressive speed. "So for… two years… you've been - what? Coming here to spend time in my knickers? Was it a pro or a con that I could suddenly remember it?"

"That's not what's been happening for two years," I tell her softly. "I swear to you."

"How can I believe you?" she screams at me and I deserve this. I know I do. It doesn't make it hurt less.

She turns away from me and I see the tears on her face before she disappears from view, behind her hair and her turned face, and her walking away.

Please don't walk away, I want to beg. What I manage is a croaked, "I love you. I'm in love with you. I wouldn't have done that to you."

Granger stops and turns, slowly, deliberately. The look on her face is fire again, her eyes blazing, but her voice is deathly quiet even as it quavers the slightest bit. "You don't know what love is."

Mercilessly, she surveys my speechless face and delivers another blow, her chin raised high. "I don't want to see you again. I can't leave here on my own, can I?"

She cannot.

"So you leave. Go. Now."

And she turns her back on me.

Well, I'm back to not focusing at work, Occlumency practise be damned. Not like I've prioritised it lately anyhow, but I don't think it would help. Walling Granger into a corner in my mind is too painful to do. Her last words to me were excruciating, but I wouldn't remove them. I wouldn't remove any part of her from my mind.

And I deserved every word she threw at me, every book. Everything.

('You don't know what love is')

Blaise can tell something's wrong, something serious, but he's giving me space. By Friday night, he's had enough though. Maybe he figured it out on his own but either way, he puts drinks on my calendar after work.

This alone is notable; neither of us is going into the park on a Friday night, for the first time in months.

We're at the pub on the other corner, the one no one from work frequents. I'm not in the mood for a crowd and I can tell he isn't, either. I pick up the first round, unable to enjoy the flirtatious lean over the bar the bartender gives me to highlight her cleavage.

"So no Ginny?" I prompt. Might as well get it out of the way.

Shaking his head slowly, Blaise responds, "No. I figured if Granger is making so much progress on it, who knows what Ginny's aware of now. She'll be leaving any day. Maybe I'm a coward -" he takes a deep gulp, "- but I'd rather have better memories of our last times together."

"The last ones?" I inquire, truly curious. "Not the first ones?"

"Nope," Blaise says, popping his lips slightly on the 'p.' "Just being around her for real, when she knew it was me and still wanted to hang out - play Quidditch, or even Exploding Snap, stupid shit, anything. I didn't care. I just wanted to be there."

He's looking over my shoulder and I see his Adam's apple swallow. Giving him a moment of privacy, I take a healthy swig of my own drink. Oh, how we've matured, I think bitterly. Six or seven months ago, I'd have given him hell for this.

The bartender wanders over to check on us. Since I'd given her nothing to work with at the bar, she eyes Blaise optimistically. He gives her a perfunctory wink and a wide smile I can clearly spot as false. She doesn't seem to notice, though, and sways her hips back to the bar to place the order for the appetisers Blaise asked for.

"She was amazing," he says quietly, staring down into his drink as if it could drown him if he tried hard enough. "Everything about her."

I can relate. "Yeah." I swallow hard myself, glad Blaise is still trying to mentally drown himself in a merciful sea of firewhisky. "What was your favourite thing about her?"

He glances up at me quickly, then away again. I'm glad we're both playing the 'I don't see you' game, even if we look bizarre from the outside in.

Sighing deeply, he finally answers, "How tough she is. She never let me get away with shit. It was a constant battle, the best kind. She enjoyed the fight, I think, calling me on things."

"Now you understand my first fics with Granger," I say without really thinking about it, and he stares at me.

"I guess… maybe I do." Blaise gives me a weak smile. "Ginny never whacked me across the face, though."

"Ah, you didn't push her hard enough," I say, in an attempt at sounding breezy. "She has it in her. She must like you."

This is undoubtedly true - Ginny likes Blaise more than me, anyway - but it has a second layer of meaning that we both silently let land across our little hightop table.

"What was your favourite part with Granger?"

I can't even pick. I need time. The bartender returns with our food, far too quickly, and I cringe a little at how stale it might be, leftover from the meagre lunch crowd this place must draw.

"I think… shit. I don't know. She's brilliant, of course, and watching her work on the war effort was incredible. But she trusted me. For a while, anyway. I never thought she'd ever - not after school, and -"

Fuck me, I can't finish. Blaise diplomatically stands up to take a piss and I try to reorganise myself.

Granger trusting me with the entire Horcrux strategy, even from the very beginning of her remembering. Telling me about Potter. Telling me anything, everything about it.

And it's all gone.

I'm home more. Obviously.

My father is often out, but I can tell my mother notices. Even though I try my best to spend as much of my time in my own wing of the Manor as possible, they still know when I Floo in or out.

I see her eyes on me at times but she doesn't pry. She doesn't invite me to dinner or to breakfast.

I'm very grateful.

I don't think about gloriously insane hair, or gorgeous, deep brown eyes, or how Granger nibbles her lip when she thinks.

I try to go back and see Granger once more. I can't help but think she must still have a thousand questions that she never asked the last time. Yes; I'm dying to see her, but I can help her also.

'So I'm trapped in this place?'

'Fill in the last two years for me. Now.'

'Am I going to die in here?'

Granger may have those questions, but she does not want to ask; at least not more than she wants to scream and curse at me.

Somehow, I find my gluttony for punishment in our earliest fics absent now.

"I don't want to see you again!" she shrieks furiously through her tears, and I want to respect her. I really do. But I have to get in one statement, just one.

"If you did want to, you couldn't tell me. I just wanted -"

"Get out!" Granger screams, red-faced, red-eyed. "Get out!"

And because I'm the only one who can, I do.

I mentally coast through our next financials meeting.

Revenue up. Overhead down. Profits up.

Roaring success, more to come.

A roaring success for whom, exactly?

I don't think about how fast Granger reads, flipping pages as if she's devouring them. I don't think about her determination to find out how to fight a Manticore on the battlefield.

I avoid Severus.

Somehow I keep collecting a paycheck, which is helpful as I keep sending the near entirety of it to the park to keep Granger out of fics. She's not alone; not yet.

Ginny isn't gone yet, as far as I know, so she still has some company.

This is a small solace, but I do take some comfort in knowing she's not being attacked and raped in my physical absence. I can still keep her separate from the violence, even if I can never get her out to safety completely.

She never has to speak to me again if she doesn't want to. I'll keep sending payment to the park.

At least with my added time and mental energy - eventually, whenever I determine I can properly focus on it again - I can advance in my own career and loosen the spending reins slightly as I earn more money.

Another small solace. I suppose.

Blaise and I are walking out of the sketchy pub on the corner the following Friday, the presumed start of a new tradition to make us forget we aren't spending it with our girls.

Or maybe to make us forget in the literal sense, getting too pissed to know where we are one way or the other, or who we're with. Or not with.

We're heading for the closest Apparition point to go to our respective (miserably empty and alone) homes when a silvery Patronus darts across the street, startling both of us.

It pauses between two buildings, lighting a dark alley with its glow, and sticks its head back out to ensure it has our attention.

I'm… not sober. Neither is Blaise.

But we look at each other somewhat blearily, confirming we each see it, and make our way laboriously towards the alley in question.

Once in the privacy of the darkness, the Patronus - a doe, I think - opens its mouth and says in Severus's deep, gravelly voice, astonishingly disparate coming from the delicate creature, 'We have a situation. Come at once.'

I'm too shocked to react at first. Me? Blaise? Both of us? But a Patronus is not there for conversation; it has a message to deliver, and that's it. The doe (?) vanishes and we look at each other dumbly. I feel my mouth opening and closing and Blaise is blinking, and we are too pissed for this.

"I have sobriety potions at the Manor," I manage finally, and Blaise shakes his head.

"It'll add a stop. Snape should have some handy."

"You think? I don't think of Severus as being much of a heavy drinker," I scoff, finding an inappropriate flash of humour in the moment.

"He's a potions master," Blaise insists. "Let's roll the dice."

Pissed or not, we're going to have to Apparate. We'd have Apparated home regardless, and I try to focus on that. It was unwise ten minutes ago. At least now we have a shared focus of urgency.

Still, I hesitate, trying to organise my thoughts into something coherent. "Do you have a Patronus we can send ahead to ask him for some? I… don't. I don't have a Patronus."

Blaise looks at me, a little surprised, then recovers. "Yeah. Yeah, that's a good call." He conjures his, something that resembles a horse in my fuzzy vision and sends it along ahead of us.

Will it be faster than our Apparition? I'm academically curious. We have to Apparate to the designated point outside the park, after all, and it'll take a bit of time to walk up from there. Well, either way, it can't hurt to have tried. I start striding towards our own closest Apparition point, Blaise just behind me.

We arrive outside the park moments later, feeling more clear-headed than I'd expected - probably from the feeling of impending crisis Severus managed to impart.

However, we must still look pissed because Snape is obviously annoyed. "You two idiots -" he breaks off and points his wand angrily behind him, catching the two vials that zoom into his hand without even looking.

Showoff.

He tosses them to both of us, demanding a level of coordination to match his that we are not currently capable of.

When we're finally sober-ish, he stalks into a dark conference room, slamming the door behind us. He casts the usual assortment of extensive privacy charms, even though the place seems completely empty. Everything here is dark, I notice, and it should be. It's far past active hours, and it makes me wonder again what's going on.

Snape eyes Blaise for several long moments, assessing him carefully. Blaise meets his stare in confusion, finally giving a small shrug as if to say, 'what?'

Snape turns to me instead, choosing to accept Blaise's presence for the time being. "The snake is dead."

Even after the sobriety potion, this takes me a moment. "What?"

"The snake is dead," he repeats firmly. "I trust you understand what I'm saying."

"How -" is all I can manage before I break off, dumbfounded.

"What I'm about to tell you both cannot leave this room," Snape says in a cold voice. "The captives that have been sold and released to their families are largely re-joining the active Resistance. It's still thriving in Europe, deep underground."

This shouldn't be a surprise, and yet, it is. I feel my mouth open and close in shock, my eyes locked on Severus. Blaise is frozen next to me but I can't turn his way.

"Initial reports from my contact -"

"Krum?" I interrupt, although it really shouldn't matter.

He's annoyed at the interruption. "No, not Krum. Another third party you don't need to know. Initial reports to me from the Resistance are that Longbottom killed the snake."

"How?" I ask again. "Who knows about it?"

"Well, the fact that Nagini is dead is hard to hide," Snape says caustically. "But they don't know who did it. Longbottom was polyjuiced as an anonymous Muggle. They don't know who performed the assassination, but they obviously suspect that it wasn't random. The Dark Lord is incensed. He will be here within the hour to check our remaining captives. Probably much sooner."

My blood runs cold. "But there's hardly anyone left here."

"We are going to need to move fast," Snape emphasises. "I trust the two of you are still willing to do what is needed."

We both nod, mutely.

"I'll send you both into a fic with Ginny and Granger. I'll bring you out when I can - don't request to be brought out, under any circumstances. Explain to them what is happening, since Ginny is due to leave as soon as I can manage it."

"Can you still -" Blaise begins, but Snape shushes him with a sharp cutting of his hand through the air.

"My intentions haven't changed. If we can satisfy the Dark Lord that what's happening here is above board and has nothing to do with the snake's killing, in another week or two I hope to move her out."

"Maybe you should just send Zabini," I say, with a weak wave in his direction. "Granger hasn't exactly been -"

Snape silences me with a look, the sort that cuts my knees out from under me with no effort at all. "If I could trust your Occlumency, Draco, I'd consider it. Unfortunately, I can't. You are a liability and you'll go in with Zabini. End of discussion."

Fine, then. I can't argue too much about that. "What about -" I swallow hard and force it out. "What about Potter and Weasley in this?"

"The Dark Lord can check them all he likes. They're exactly where they're supposed to be, in their dormitory. We'll put Granger's and Ginny's simulations in their dorm in their place." Snape is moving quickly towards the door, ready to unsilence it and remove the wards.

But my mouth won't shut up. "But they're in the same position, aren't they?"

Severus turns to me, impatient and dismissive. "No one is remembering like Granger and Ginny. They were the most used, the most raped, the most Obliviated. The smartest, a team, the most capable to put the pieces together. Potter and Weasley will be fine."

This doesn't sit perfectly with me; it feels thin, but there's no time to waste.

"Where are you going to send us?"

"The Quidditch pitch," Severus says quickly. "He'll be most suspicious about Granger's whereabouts, and that's the last place he'd look - if he thinks anything is off with her simulation."

'If he' - my stomach drops. "Severus, will my wand work in there? If we need them," I gesture at Blaise, "can we use them?"

"Somewhat," he says, sparing me a glance over his shoulder. "No Unforgivables, of course, and no Apparition. No permanent damage, nothing our Healers couldn't fix on the captives."

Brilliant. I tighten my grip on my wand and fervently hope I don't have to use it.

"How good are their simulations, now? How convincing?" I ask quietly, as we hasten through the corridors to the cubicles. I wish I'd paid more attention in our latest meeting with Dolohov's development team.

"Rather good," Snape says over his shoulder with a falsely bright tone that's alien to him, minus the sarcasm. I can picture his manically ironic smile, but he's facing ahead, hurrying along.

I hope they are.