Disclaimer: My name is not Jo, though you already know. HP is her, but these are my words.

A/N: Like my lil old school rap disclaimer? Lol. Sorry it took so long for me to finish this story. For the past couple of weeks I have only been focused on job hunting. But now that is all over and I am finally a new member of the work force! Well, guys, this is the last chapter of Things Can Change. Thanks to everyone who stuck with me until the end, I hope I didn't disappoint. Enjoy!

88888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888

Draco had never been so nervous in his life. He had been sitting in Hermione's room for the past ten minutes just staring at his hand. He just had no idea how he was going to make it through this conversation.

"If you have something to tell me, it would be a good idea to start speaking. I'm not a mind reader." Hermione said, the irritation apparent in her voice.

'I guess Blaise wasn't lying when he said she was upset with me.' He thought as he gathered his courage. "I'm sorry, I just never wanted to have this conversation with you." Draco responded softly, still looking at his hands.

"If you're going to tell me that kissing me was a mistake, you can save it. I've already figured it." Hermione said in a nasty tone that he hadn't heard from her in a while.

Draco's head snapped up and he glared at her. "Would you just let me say what I have to say before you start making stupid accusations?" he said sharply.

Hermione shrank back into the headboard of her bed. He could see that her lower lip was beginning to tremble and she was holding back tears. Draco sighed and rubbed his face his hands.

"I'm sorry. You have every right to be angry with me, but please can you just listen to me? This is going to be extremely hard for me to say and I just need to you be patient with me."

"Ok" she said softly.

Draco took a deep breath and began the story that might change his and Hermione's relationship from this day forward.

"You never knew this, but before I became part of the Order I was a full-fledged Death Eater. When I became a Death Eater the summer before last year, I never had the intention of becoming a spy for the Order. Contrary to popular belief, I wasn't putting up a façade, I really was the prejudiced ass that you thought I was, at least I thought I was. I was so proud to have been let into Voldemort's inner circle, Blaise and I were two of the youngest Death Eaters in history to achieve this honor. My age was seen as a great advantage to Voldemort, since I was still a student at Hogwarts I had unlimited access to Harry and the people he cared about the most.

"So my first mission was to dispose of one Harry's friends, more specifically you. He gave me 6 weeks to come up with a plan and to carry it out. I want to be totally honest with you, so I will admit that at the very beginning I had every intention of carrying out the mission. I despised you, and had thought that life would be better if you weren't around. So I began to study your habits, where you went, what you ate; things of that nature. But as the weeks went by, the more apprehensive I became about actually completing my mission. I starting losing a lot of sleep, and when I did sleep I had terrible nightmares. It was then, when I had pretty much become an insomniac, that I starting noticing this about you, like the way your face glowed when your friends gave you a compliment, or the way you bit your lip when you concentrated. When I saw these things, it was as if something inside of me snapped. I realized that I could kill an innocent person, I couldn't kill you.

"I didn't know what I was going to do; Voldemort was going to kill me if I didn't follow through with the mission. I took a chance and went to Blaise with my problem, and thank God that he felt the same way about what he had to do or I would've been in trouble for sure. I would love to say that we figured out a brilliant way to get me out of it but we didn't have a clue. So a week before the deadline my father sends for me and inquires about my progress. I told him that everything was going just fine, but he could see right through me. He used legilimens on me, and since I hadn't slept in weeks, I didn't have the energy to block it. He shifted through all my memories of the previous five weeks with a look of disappointment on his face. When he was finished he told me, in this completely eerie tone, that if I didn't complete my mission, he would have to do it for me.

"Looking back at it, I probably should've gone to Dumbledore after the meeting with my father, but even with all of the stuff that was happening, it had never occurred to me to try and get out of being a Death Eater. So when the night finally came where I was supposed to… finish my mission, I kept a close eye on you, hoping that you wouldn't take your nightly walk to lake. But as luck would have it, you did making you an easier target for my father than if you inside the castle walls. I was able to spot him a far way off coming out of the forbidden forest and I tried to convince him not to hurt you. He said some things and when he was about to go after you, I killed him."

Throughout his whole speech, Draco kept his eyes on a spot on a wall away from Hermione. He couldn't bring himself to see Hermione's face while he recounted the events of his horrible past, he was sure that if he saw his face his heart would break, and he wouldn't be able to get everything out. Draco now sat there, silent, staring at the same spot waiting for her to say something.

Ten minutes of silence had passed until Draco had the courage to look at her. She was staring at him with tears falling down her face. His heart broke in many pieces at the sight. He never knew he could hurt so much without an unforgivable being cast on him. Draco opened his mouth to say something, anything, to make the expression of betrayal leave her face, but Hermione beat him to it.

"Does everyone else know?" Hermione asked in a shaky voice. Draco could tell she was trying to hold back her emotions. He looked back down at his hands.

"Dumbledore, Blaise, Harry and Ron saw me do it. Blaise had told Dumbledore the whole story and Harry and Ron used the map to find us. Eventually, they told the girls, but that was the night Blaise and I pledged our allegiance to the Order." Draco replied softly.

"Why didn't they tell me?" she now asked quietly.

"I asked them not to."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't want you to think you owed me something."

Draco heard Hermione move off of the bed and walk over towards his chair. She kneeled in front of him and gently lifted his head so he was looking at her.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Hermione repeated looking him in the eye.

"I didn't want you to hate me." Draco replied, his voice trembling.

"Why would I hate you, you saved my life."

"But I killed my father to do it. I used an unforgivable on a member of my family. I'm a horrible person." He felt his eyes begin to water

"Draco, you saved my life. I could never think you were horrible, no matter what you had to do to save it."

Draco gave her a soft smile, she had no idea what that meant to him.

"But after all of that, how come you were still nasty to me?"

This was the question Draco had been dreading. He took a deep breath before he answered. "I felt really guilty about what I did, even though he was evil, he was still my father. His last words to me before he died were 'I never thought my son would betray me because he was in love with a mudblood.' I was angry with you because my father thought I killed him because I was in love with you and I wanted you to feel the pain that I felt."

Hermione averted her eyes. "Then why did you stop?"

"Well you can imagine how stupid I felt when I realized that my father had been right." He replied nervously. "I mean, I've been trying to deny it to myself ever since the Hogsmeade trip but, I think that our kiss in the hallway finally made me admit it to myself."

Hermione looked back at him, her eyes shiny. "What?"

"I'm in love with you, Hermione." He said simply. It might have come out calmly but inside it felt as if hundred of miniature pixies were playing basketball in his heart.

"Are you sure?" she whispered.

"Well considering that I almost gave myself a heart attack by telling you, I think that the answer would be yes."

Hermione gave him a bright smile that took his breath away and leaned over to hug him tightly. Draco had never been happier. Even though she didn't say anything about returning his feelings, he was just grateful that she understood and didn't hate him.

"Draco?" came her muffled voice from his shoulder.

"Yes, Hermione?"

"Where were you last night?"

Draco had been wondering when she was going to ask him that. "I went home to be with my mother. Today would've been my father's birthday."

"Oh"

Draco continued to hold her. He felt like an anvil-sized weight had been lifted from his shoulders. It was a wonderful feeling.

"Draco?" came the muffled voice again.

"Yes, belle?"

Hermione pulled away from him smiling. "I love you." She said before leaning in to kiss him.

Draco and Hermione stayed like that for a long while, just holding each other and kissing sweetly. Their kisses were full of hope and promises for the future. When they finally pulled away, they just gazed at each other. Draco felt that he could stare at her all day and never tire of the sight.

"Thank you for telling me all of this." Hermione said breaking the silence.

"I wanted our relationship to be based on honesty. I didn't want to continue hiding this from you."

"Relationship?"

Draco felt as if a bucket of ice water had been poured over his head. Of course she wouldn't want to be in a relationship with him, he was too damaged. She needed someone good and pure, just like her. When he said that she loved him, she must've only meant it as a friend.

"Well…I meant…What I mean to say…" Draco stuttered.

"The problem is," Hermione started shyly, "that you haven't asked me to be your girlfriend."

Draco smiled, thank goodness that she still wanted to be with him. He stood up and extended a hand to gently pull her to her feel. He gazed into her eyes and gently stroked her cheek with his hand.

"Hermione, will you make me the happiest man at Hogwarts, if not the world, and be my girlfriend?"

"Yes, oh yes." she responded breathlessly capturing him lips in a kiss more passionate than the previous.

As the kiss deepened she began to back up towards the bed. Never breaking their kiss, they fell onto the bed, scooting up until Draco was comfortably lying on top of her. Draco moved away from her lips to begin kissing her neck. While he was doing this, he felt Hermione begin to unbutton his shirt. He pulled away from her in order to make the task easier. When she finished, she slid his shirt from his shoulders and leaned up to place a gentle kiss in the middle of his chest. She pulled her shirt over her head, dropped it onto the floor, and then quickly unclasped her bra. The bra met the same fate as her shirt and before he could truly admire the sight in front of him, she pulled him in for a slow and gentle kiss.

The feeling of her bare skin against his chest aroused him more than he had ever been in his life. By the way she was shifting under him he knew she could feel how aroused he was. It was then she breathed in his ear, "I'm ready."

Draco pulled away from her and pulled down her cotton pants. He took a moment to admire her in just her light blue, lace underwear before he gently slid them down her legs. Hermione reached up to unbuckle his pants. She quickly did the same to his pants and pulled down both his pants and boxers in one quick motion. He smiled at her impatience as he kicked his pants onto the floor.

Draco leaned down to give her a passionate kiss as he entered her. There would be no teasing tonight, just gentle lovemaking; they had all the time in the world to play games. Tonight would just be about showing each other how much they loved each other.

He showered her with kisses and he moved in and out of her, attentively listening to her soft sighs and moans. When Hermione finally reached her peak, he whispered how much he loved her in all the languages he knew until he reached his. After he pulled out of her, he held her against his chest. He had never felt this way before, he had no idea that he could have fallen even more in love with her than he had been, but he did.

Draco looked over at her clock and realized that is was now past midnight.

"Happy Christmas, love." he said, kissing her softly on the forehead.

"Happy Christmas." she responded, smiling and gazing at him. "I think this will be the best Christmas ever."

Draco chuckled. "I think so too. I have something for you." He pulled away from her to reach into a pocket of his jeans that were now on the floor. He handed her a small package wrapped in shiny red paper tied with a green ribbon.

Hermione eagerly ripped open the package and Draco had to smile. She just looked so adorable. Inside the package was a small black velvet box which she opened slowly.

"Oh my God! This is beautiful!" she exclaimed. Inside the box was a ring that matched the necklace that he had given her perfectly. He took the ring and put it on her left ring finger.

"It's a promise ring. I promise to protect you for the rest of my life, and if I don't, well let's just say there will be consequences."

Hermione gave him a tight hug. "Thank you so much, Draco. It is the most wonderful present I could ever receive. I'm so sorry I didn't get you anything, its just that with everything that has happened…"

"Shh..." Draco interrupted. "You've just given me the best gift I could ever imagine receiving. Your love." he said. He gently brought them back to the position of lying next to each other while he held her. They lay in silence for a short while.

"You know, we are one of the two most powerful couples in world now." He said sleepily.

Hermione laughed softly. "Is power all you care about?"

"No, I care about you a lot more. Et un jour je vous ferai ma femme ( And one day I will make you my wife.)" he murmured softly before falling asleep.

88888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888

Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. If you guys have and questions, comments, or criticisms, I will try to respond to all of them. They will help for when I write my next story! Thanks!

slykitten