CHAPTER EIGHT

Just as she reached the door, freedom a heartbeat away, she heard footsteps.

"May I see you out?" Draco asked stiffly.

"Out the door?" she asked, feeling instantly ridiculous for the question.

He clenched his jaw, his gaze directed just over her shoulder. "I would like a moment to talk to you, if that's all right."

"Oh. Of course." As her hand was already on the knob, she proceeded to open the door and walk through it. Draco followed her, closing it behind him. She descended the short stair set and walked down the sidewalk, heading toward the little white fence that surrounded Harry's property. She stopped a little way from the gate.

Draco followed her, staring at the ground as he stopped a few feet behind her, his hands thrust deep into his pockets. He looked up at her through his fringe, an almost apologetic smile on his face. They looked at each other for what felt like an eternity before he spoke. "I have imagined this moment for a long time," he began. "And I have two things I need to say to you. All I ask is that you listen. Then we never have to speak again."

She frowned, startled. Surely he didn't mean they would never speak to each other! Why would he say that? Her heart started to race. "All right."

"First, I have to thank you."

She blinked in surprise. "Thank… me?"

He nodded. "Thank you for being you. For being you, who rejected me so easily when I came to bring you back. For telling me—shouting it, at times—all of the reasons why you couldn't even consider fulfilling the Marriage Law. If it hadn't been for what you said and, equally as important, the way you said it, I don't think I'd have come home and made the decision I made to fight it. And I meant what I said in there. This is the best thing I've ever done."

"Draco, you shouldn't be thanking me for that," she said, feeling ashamed of how she'd treated him that day.

"No, I should," he argued gently. "I've learned more about myself and more about this world in the last year than I ever thought possible. I'm better for it. For what your conviction forced me to face."

Hermione shook her head. This wasn't going at all how she'd imagined their reunion. Tears threatened, but before she could make any reply, he continued.

"I also want… need… you to know something. I did this, all of this…. I need you to know that I did this the right way, Hermione." His voice was so earnest that it made her feel sick. She wasn't about to lose him, was she? Him being with someone else, like Anna, was one thing, but this was starting to feel entirely too final. "I did it for all the right reasons. I've never done anything like it before. Because you were right. So right. In everything you said. And I'm grateful to have heard it. I'm glad I had your friends to talk to because they helped me move toward this."

"Draco—"

"I will always be grateful. Good night." He took a step back, nodded slightly, and turned to go back into the house.

"Wait," she called, taking two steps toward him. He stopped just before the steps and faced her, his expression wary. "I have just one question for you. And then I will leave you alone."

"Go on," he said, crossing his arms and leaning against the handrail.

She didn't really know where to begin but she knew she couldn't let it end. She took a few more steps toward him. He was just a few feet away now. If she stretched, she could touch his hand. "You… you said a lot of things. In interviews, quotes, and so on. A lot of things along those lines—of doing this because it was right. You said, repeatedly, that you gave up hope. That you had to let me go. That in the end, you had to be okay with never seeing me again."

His brow furrowed, his eyes searching hers. He only nodded.

"It's just… I have to know… Did you really—really —give up all hope?"

Draco frowned deeply, his expression conflicted. He seemed to consider her for a moment before he spoke. "Well, no. Hell no." Something like relief started to bloom in her chest. "But... also, yes."

Hermione swallowed hard, the sensation stalling.

He shook his head. "You'd made it so abundantly clear that there was no point in any hope."

"I know," she said. "I did what I had to do. I needed you to come back here and forget about me, so that you could move forward with your life."

He nodded, his gaze drifting to something up the road. "You were quite effective in your aims. I did have to forget about you in order to keep going. But the heart... it's a strange thing. It wouldn't let me completely extinguish the tiniest flame of hope. I had to push it down, of course. Relegate it to the deepest parts of me, hidden from light and anything that might fan it." He chuckled humorlessly. "You completely crushed me."

Hermione squeezed her eyes shut. "I truly hated doing it."

Draco crossed his arms over his chest. "You did what you had to do."

She nodded, tears threatening to spill. She'd damaged their tenuous relationship beyond repair. "I am so sorry."

He looked away again. "There were days, especially in the last few months, when I thought the hope had died completely. It was only when I thought it was gone that I realized it had still been there at all."

"And tonight? How did you feel when you saw me?" She felt the first tendrils of dread reaching into her own heart, where nothing but hope had flourished since he'd found her in Lyon.

His expression was thoughtful once more. "Honestly? I felt like I'd been punched in the gut, or took a Bludger to the head. Had the wind knocked out of me. I was... speechless."

She tried not to let her disappointment show; his words were not exactly what she'd hoped to hear. It would seem that all of her increasing admiration of him, even her fledgling feelings for him, would come to nothing. It was no less than she deserved, of course. She'd meant to push him away, completely away, to give him no hope of her ever coming back or returning any of his affections. She had done exactly what she'd meant to do; it was only a cruel twist of irony that had brought her to a place where she wished she hadn't done such a stellar job.

"I understand," Hermione said eventually. She mentally gathered herself. Her world had been twisted three hundred and sixty degrees in the last two hours, and her mind was spinning with an unpredictable array of 'what-ifs?' Her job, Lyon, the Ministry, her friends, her parents, Draco's friendship with her friends—too many data points were bombarding her for attention. "Thank you for answering. Good night, Draco." Without waiting for a response, she turned to go, biting her lip to keep the tears at bay until she was alone.

"Hold on," he said, grabbing her arm before she could take two steps away.

Hermione whirled around but couldn't look him in the eye, so she concentrated on the spot where his hand rested, just above her elbow. She bit her lip.

"Why did you ask me that?" Draco's expression was one of determination, of earnestness. Of pleading, almost. He released her and took a step back, his brow furrowed in concern.

"Oh, um." Now her thoughts were barreling over each other to respond. Self-preservation and a strong desire to flee vied with the powerful hope she'd harbored for months and the reality that he had stopped her, and—what if.

In Lyon, he'd never actually told her he was in love with her, instead dancing around the idea and merely hinting at it, coming within a few bold syllables of that line from which, once crossed, he couldn't retreat. He'd asked her to choose him, but he'd never expressed actual feelings for her, even though she could read them between all of his words, see them in his eyes. He'd held on to just enough that he could deny anything. She couldn't blame him; even a profession of love wouldn't have changed anything. But she wouldn't do that to him. She wouldn't dance and suggest and imply. She'd put him through too much, and though it had been necessary, he deserved better now. He deserved the whole truth.

Hermione took a deep, shaky breath. "Before the Law," she began. He nodded, waiting for her to go on. "Before it was a whisper out in the world, I... I fancied you."

Draco's eyes went wide as plates. "You did what?"

She nodded, feeling a weight lifted at the admission.

He sniffed a laugh, shaking his head. "I need to sit down."

The porch steps were wide enough for both of them to fit, and he motioned for her to join him. He leaned against the wall of the steps and faced her, his expression highly amused. She sat gingerly as far from him as she could get, facing the path front of her.

"I fancied you," she repeated.

"How long?" he asked gruffly.

She didn't know what purpose it would serve but she felt she owed him some answers. "Months, actually." He laughed quietly to himself and shut his eyes, resting his head against the bricks. "But once the rumor of the Law started, I had to... stop. I had to put that out of my mind. Because I knew very early on that I wouldn't be staying in England if the Law passed."

Now he looked at her, intently, meeting her eyes with determination in his. "I understand why you did it. I really do."

She couldn't believe he'd taken her confession so easily. In her musings about meeting him again, she'd worried that he would be angry with her, that he would feel as though he'd wasted his time getting the Law overturned because they'd liked each other at the same time. It would be a completely reasonable thing to be upset about; she had expected it. Either she had misinterpreted everything he'd done since finding her in Lyon, or he really, truly understood her reasons and accepted them and believed they had value. It made her heart ache, made her feel more deeply the loss of him.

"Thank you," she whispered, tearing her gaze away. After a moment collecting herself, she continued. "I did my best to stop. And I think I would have been okay. But then... Draco, you found me. You searched for months to find me, and you came to ask me to come back home with you. It was the most... romantic thing anyone's ever done for me. The results notwithstanding."

"Romantic?" he repeated, surprised.

Hermione nodded, flicking her eyes to his long enough to see that he was truly surprised. "You spent an enormous amount of effort to find me. I... I couldn't imagine you doing that for any reason other than you wanted me to come back. Wanted me to come back. But I never expected... this." She spread her hands out, palms up. "That you'd fight the Law and get it overturned. How could I possibly have foreseen that?"

"I sure didn't see it coming," he muttered, turning on the step to face the same direction Hermione was facing.

"Exactly. And... after you left, I acknowledged that you'd taken my breath away, and made me feel... wanted in a way I'd never felt before." She laughed bitterly. "You finding me in Lyon, your entreaty to come back with you... I used that to quash your hopes, and yet it was the very thing that stirred mine." Hermione felt his questioning gaze but she had to finish her thoughts. "Luna sent me the Quibbler with your first interview. And everything after it about your work. Draco, I..." Hermione felt her stomach clench with nerves at what she was about to do. It felt something like being on a roller coaster at the top of a steep climb, the moment after you tip over the edge and right before you start falling.

"I... fell in love with you." The rebound of those nerves was so intense she had to catch her breath. "Well, as much as one can via news clippings. And I let myself entertain the thought that you were doing all of this for me. Despite what you claimed in those interviews." She stopped talking and silently begged him to speak. When he didn't, she realized she had one more thing to say. "When I saw you tonight, I'd hoped there would be something—anything—to make me believe that you still felt for me the way you did once before." Now she was quiet and was content to let him speak when he was ready. It felt cathartic letting all of this out, like a cleansing rush. Even if he didn't answer her hope, telling him the truth was the right thing to do.

When moments passed with no response, she glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. He was peering at her, a look of intense concentration on his face. She supposed she should be grateful that he wasn't angry. Still, the moment stretched, and she couldn't look away. His gaze had captured her, and for some reason, it was stuck.

There were only a few feet of cold, hard stone between them. It surprised her how quickly he crossed them, closing the distance in a fraction of an instant. He gently turned her face toward him and pressed his lips to hers. She was startled, but delightfully so, and eagerly kissed him back. It was the intensity of the kiss that surprised her, as though she had been dying of thirst and his lips alone could quench it. It was heavy and loaded and seared through her heart like a brand, and she grabbed his shirt to keep him from moving. Her other hand found purchase on the back of his neck, and it was the most amazing feeling. She let her fingers just ghost the wispy ends of his hair at the nape.

She was mentally settling in for a delicious snog when he pulled away, his eyes wild. They stared at each other for a moment, breathing heavily, neither quite sure what had just happened.

Draco put a little space between them, but remained close enough that she could still feel his warmth. It was enticing.

"That was..." He began, trailing off with a bewildered shake of his head.

"Far better than it logically should have been?" she offered.

"Yeah." He chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck where her hand had been just moments before.

Hermione shivered. The silence stretched long until she finally spoke. "So... what now?"

"Now?" Draco repeated, leaning back and resting his elbows on the step behind them. He seemed to be deep in thought for a few long minutes. When he finally spoke, his voice was steady, low. "Tonight has been... well, far more than I can really comprehend." He paused, meeting her gaze with a boldness she didn't remember in him. "But I think it's only fair that I'm completely honest."

"All right," she said, feeling a slight sense of foreboding.

"In Lyon, I was... afraid to tell you everything. How I felt. I thought if I could get by with not putting voice to my feelings, it would help me, somehow. Salvage some pride, perhaps, or help me to get over you." Draco took a deep breath before he continued. "Because I was in love with you. I had been for... oh, many years."

Hermione gasped. She'd suspected his feelings when he'd nearly-but-not-quite confessed them that morning on the Saône, but she'd never have guessed they'd been present for years.

"Granted, the feelings waxed and waned, as you might expect considering they started in second year."

"No!" she blurted, unable to help herself. "What?"

Draco nodded, somewhat glumly. "I was such a little sod, wasn't I? But I fancied you, best I could at twelve, and then fought it for the next four years. I was successful, on occasion. Then sixth and seventh year, I lost all feelings anyway, and it was a few years after the war before I remember feeling much of anything. But then when we worked on the same floor, before being partnered, it started coming back."

Hermione was stunned. It was her turn, apparently, to be rendered completely speechless.

He shook his head with a sad chuckle. "I was too afraid to consider approaching you. I tried, again, to fight it. I ignored it, pushed it away, tried dating other people. I gave up all of that when we started working together, but I still couldn't work up the courage to ask you out. And I was a complete coward once I learned of the Law. I figured that I'd loved you for so long that I had to be better for you than someone else. Surely, I could at least make you happy, if I could never be loved by you. And, perhaps, maybe, you'd eventually see me as more than simply the man you were married to."

Draco had rushed through that last bit, but now he stopped and faced her, taking her hand in his. "I apologize for being such a coward. I was not worthy of you in the slightest then. I'm different now, and I think I'm closer."

Hermione's heart was pounding, delightful flutters of happiness dancing through her senses. "Draco—"

He held up his free hand to indicate he had more to say. "There were times over the last six months when I allowed myself the freedom to imagine how things might look if everything went my way. If I won and the Law was overturned, if you came back unattached and for some reason let me into your life... I even imagined, just once, what it would be like if you came back wanting me just like I wanted you."

Hermione had to remind herself to breathe.

"There was one thing I decided had to hold," he said carefully, "in the event of that seeming impossibility. We would have to take this very slowly."

"Slowly," she repeated. Slowly was not exactly what Hermione had in mind, especially when she thought about that kiss.

"Yes," he said, trailing his fingers lightly across the skin on the back of her hand. "It's vital for a number of reasons. But most importantly... we aren't the same people we were all those months ago. I've changed a lot in the last year, and I'm sure you have too. I want to be sure both of us like who the other has become." Draco looked her in the eye then. "At least, that's what I want to happen."

Hermione nodded, still processing what he'd said, all that had happened to her that day. In the course of a few mere hours, she'd gone from an enemy of the Ministry to being forgiven by the government, being legally betrothed to Draco via the Law to being completely free and welcomed home. Then she'd confessed the depth and strength of her feelings to Draco, and he'd turned around and shocked her with his own confession.

"Hermione?"

"Sorry," she replied quickly. "Are you saying you want to be with me?"

He gave her a half-smile, half-smirk. "I think it's safe to say there's something between us, don't you?"

Without thinking, she glanced at his lips, her cheeks pinking instantly when she realized. She shut her eyes tight. "I would say that, yes."

"I'm not sure it's wise to make anything... official... at this point. So in that sense, I think we must wait. But I want to move forward, however that looks. Is that not what you want?"

"I do!" she said with a rush. "I mean, yes, it is what I want. I simply wasn't prepared for this!"

He chuckled. "Nor I. Yet here we are."

Hermione marveled somewhat at his poise, his composure, his self-confidence. It was definitely something new about him, a trait forged over his experiences of the last year. He seemed calmly honest and unafraid of whatever she might say. Whereas she felt as though she were falling and might never stop.

Draco threaded his fingers through hers, sending her stomach into delightful flips and flops. "Hermione. Let's have coffee."

Her mind spun into overdrive, thinking of all the things that could go wrong. He'd said they should take things slowly for many reasons, and her mind started supplying what those reasons might be. She still lived in Lyon and hadn't even been officially welcomed back to England. She had a job there, a flat, a life. He had spent over a year in his efforts to bring her home, and had quit a job he loved for that cause. He'd championed a cause that, in his circles, wasn't popular at first and was only grudgingly accepted later.

Hermione's eyes went wide. "Oh! If there's any hint of anything between us, they might—"

"Yes, let's... not worry about that tonight, shall we?" He smiled warmly. "It's something we must discuss, of course, but there's no hurry."

"You're right," she replied. "It can certainly wait."

Draco stood. "Where are you staying tonight?"

Hermione shook her head with a laugh. "I've no idea. I had no plan when I drove in, and I'm exhausted now. It wouldn't be safe for me to try to drive back into France tonight."

He nodded once. "You'll stay here, of course, with your best friends. Tomorrow we can have breakfast."

"Here," she said in a rush. "I don't want to risk being seen out with you."

Draco casually put his hands in his pockets and shrugged. "We can always go somewhere in Muggle London."

She smiled, silently scolding herself for not thinking of it. "Absolutely."

"It's settled then. I'll come over in the morning, and we'll go together. You can... drive me around in that large box on wheels if you like."

"I would like that very much," she said, unable and unwilling to keep from smiling.

Draco held out a hand to help Hermione up. She let him guide her up the steps to the door of her best friend's house, a hand pressed gently to the small of her back. Just as she was about to reach for the doorknob, he said, "Wait."

She turned her head, a question in her eyes, but he quickly kissed her again, winding his hand around to her stomach. He pulled her close to him, her back to his chest, and hesitantly touched his tongue to her lips. Hermione was thankful for the support his arm was providing because she felt weak at the knees and liable to buckle under the intensity of the kiss. When it became clear he wasn't planning on making this one short, she spun in his arms, reaching up to grasp his face and pull him closer. She stood on her toes to reach him better, and when she gently nipped his lip, Draco growled softly. Just when she thought they were dangerously close to going too far, standing outside in plain sight on Harry's porch, he started to pull back, though he took his time.

They were both breathing heavily, his eyes wild and dark as he stared at her.

"What did you say about taking things slowly?" she asked, breathless.

He chuckled deeply and kissed her again, this time only lightly. "Yes, well, we'll have to discuss the particulars of what exactly that means."

She smiled up at him. "I can't believe I almost missed this. Missed you."

He grinned mischievously. "Feel free to show me just how appreciative you are."

Hermione laughed and let Draco lead her back into Harry and Ginny's home. There was much to consider, much to plan for and do. They had hurdles to clear that made her head spin if she started thinking about them. She had a job and the beginnings of a life elsewhere to leave, and her path home was anything but clear. Yet somehow, beyond all hope, her hand rested in his, and it was enough.

THE END

Author's note: Ahh! I can't believe it's done! I'd hoped to post it last night, but I just didn't make that happen. Wow, so, overfour years since I started this story, it's over. Thank you to everyone who read it! Thank you tremendously for all the nice and encouraging comments on it. Many, many thanks to my beta, eilonwy. I'm so thankful I got to write this and actually finish it and share it. Yay!

The title of the story comes from a poem by Emily Dickinson:

"Hope" is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all –