A/N: I can't believe it's been a year and a half. My relationship with this story is extremely whimsical. I want to finish it, but it doesn't cooperate and then I forget about it for months on end. It weirds me out that I've been writing this twisted little piece of fanfic for almost five years already, and I still haven't gotten close to finishing. I'm not abandoning it, but then again, the end of the world might catch me unawares, leaving it incomplete forever. I *think* I envision around 5 chapters more, plus epilogue, but I might be wrong. We'll see.

For what it's worth, I think this chapter is twice as long as the previous ones. It's also not my best work. I'm sorry for that in advance, and hope you'll still like it. Somehow.

Dreams of Grey

By Mizuki

Chapter Fourteen

Granger's shrill voice echoed in the quiet tent.

'What?'

Later Draco would wonder just what on earth made him say it, but at the moment he just couldn't help himself, the words came tumbling out of his mouth completely against his will.

'You heard me. Your family are there, aren't they? You're going to talk to them. Really talk to them, like you just talked to me. So let's go.'

He stood up, adrenaline rushing through his veins, and crossed the tent to retrieve his broom from where it was propped against the wall. When he turned, Granger was still sitting in the chair, gawking at him in utter shock. He didn't blame her. He was just as stupefied, if not more.

'Are you serious?'

The question hung between them like a life raft. He could either climb aboard and reclaim his sanity, or he could swim away into the murky waters of madness.

One look at her miserable and confused face was somehow enough for him to choose.

'Yes,' he snapped. 'Stop gaping like a codfish and get a move on. We'll only have a couple of hours.'

'You're serious,' she mumbled, before snorting. 'No, you're insane. Bonkers. Absolutely bloody mental.'

Draco grimaced.

'Possibly,' he allowed. 'But at least I'm not a coward.'

He didn't know what made him say it. He knew perfectly well that he was a coward and the girl sitting in his chair had to be the bravest woman he had ever known. Her look of outraged disbelief told him that she knew that too. He supposed he'd said it to get a raise out of her, to propel her into action. Or maybe he just didn't know what he was saying.

He surely didn't know what he was doing.

'Listen,' he interrupted before she could gather her wits. 'I don't believe your parents would simply throw you out. I think there must have been some misunderstanding. So you just need to clear it up instead of moping around and driving me insane.'

'Malfoy…'

'We'll have to fly outside the wards to Apparate… But since you're so good with a Disillusionment charm there really shouldn't be a problem…'

He felt her fingers grasp the edge of his sleeve. 'Malfoy… why are you doing this?'

Ah, there it was. The million Galleon question.

He stared at her in bemusement, trying to come up with a suitable reason. He wasn't sure that she would appreciate an 'I don't know' or an 'I just can't stand to see you cry again'. So he latched onto the first thing that came to his mind.

'I'm just repaying the favour, sort of,' he said, forcing himself to sound unruffled.

'What favour?'

He cleared his throat. 'Thanks to you and your friends my family was able to remain intact.'

Her eyes widened in disbelief. 'But - !'

'I know, I know. I'm here, my Mum's in house arrest and my Dad's in Azkaban, I know it doesn't look like we're intact. But we are. None of us are dead and we are closer than we were before the war.' He didn't really know why he was telling her all this, but perhaps after all the things she'd just told him it was only fair. 'And in only five years we'll be together again. It's all thanks to Potter.'

'But I'm not Harry, Draco,' she said after a moment. 'You don't owe me anything.'

He shrugged. 'I figured that by helping you I'm repaying him at least a little bit.'

Suddenly he realized that it wasn't just a phantom reason. Even though he'd told Potter that by helping his family he was repaying the life-debt to his mother, what he really felt was that he owed everything he had in his life to Potter. And it really wasn't a pleasant feeling. Maybe by helping Granger he would reduce this enormous debt at least by a fraction.

She was looking at him searchingly, worrying her lip, her puffy eyes intent.

'Okay,' she said finally and then her face broke into a soft smile. 'Okay. Let's go.'

A surge of relief swept through his body. He couldn't help but smile back.

'Let's go then.'

When Malfoy flew them – Disillusioned, of course – across the castle's grounds, Hermione clung to his shoulders, a bile of dread in her throat – not only because they were airborne, but also because of where they were going. It was actually what lay ahead that frightened her more. Flying with Malfoy turned out to feel surprisingly safe – she'd only ever flown with Ron before, and even though he was a very good flyer all around, he tended to make lots of sudden, jerky movements, which in turn always made her feel slightly nauseous. Malfoy's flying was vastly different. His pace was steady, his turns fluid, the muscles of his shoulders relaxed and confident.

'Loosen up, Granger!' she heard his voice over the wind. 'You're leaving bruises!'

'I can't loosen up!' she cried shrilly. 'I'll fall down!'

His shoulders shook under her fingers as he laughed. 'Come on, give me some credit! I won't let you fall!'

Somehow – and she had absolutely no idea why or how – she actually believed him. Slowly, not really understanding herself, she relaxed the death grip she had on the dark fabric of his robes.

In the end, it was over before she knew it. Malfoy landed them on a hill some way outside the Hogwarts wards, touching the ground without so much as a juggle. If she wanted to be honest with herself, it was really quite amazing. A bit embarrassed – was she being in any way unfaithful to Ron by appreciating Malfoy's flying skills? – she hastily let go of his shoulders and stepped away.

'Well, it's your turn now,' said Malfoy, outstretching his hand.

She blinked at him in confusion.

'Come on,' he rolled his eyes. 'You have to Apparate us, remember? You'll need to do a side-along, I've no idea where your folks live.'

And in that very moment, as she stared at his face, slightly flushed from the flight, but still completely serious and determined, was the first time she actually realized what they were doing. Of course she had to have known it before, she'd agreed to it, after all, but it was only now that it really dawned on her.

She was going to her parents' house in Australia.

With Draco Malfoy.

It was really quite ridiculous once you thought about it.

'Well? I'm waiting here.'

'I… I don't think it's such a good idea…'

'Oh, really? Well, you should've thought about it before we left the wards. You do realize that I'm not supposed to leave the grounds, don't you? And I'm sure not going back now to get punished for breaking out for no reason.'

What? She hadn't known he was forbidden to leave the grounds!

'You… You! But it was your idea!' she cried in sudden panic.

'And you agreed to it. So if you back out now, you'll be responsible for whatever they decide to do to me.'

'But it doesn't matter if we go! You're going to be punished anyway!'

He smirked. 'But at least then it'll be somewhat worth it.'

Bemused, she looked at his hand, reaching out, palm up, towards her. It felt surreal.

'I… I'm scared, Malfoy,' she admitted reluctantly.

He snorted. 'And I thought you were a Gryffindor.'

And those words were somehow – somehow – enough for her to grasp his hand.

Without another thought, she turned.

They Apparated to the backyard of a Muggle house on what seemed to be early morning. It was cool, bordering on cold, and Draco was suddenly very glad he was wearing full wizarding robes. Granger, clad only in her flimsy blouse and a knee-length skirt, was shivering.

'It's r-really early,' she said, teeth chattering. 'They might be asleep.'

'Well, we'll have to wake them up,' Draco answered simply. 'We need to be back by morning and I'm guessing you'll need a lot of time for that talk of yours.'

Not waiting for her, he walked over to the back door and turned the knob, but it was locked. He reached into his sleeve for his wand and was about to Alohamora it open, when Granger caught his wrist.

'Don't,' she hissed. 'We can't just break in! They don't trust me as it is, how do think they're going to react when they see us inside without their permission?'

He considered her words, then shrugged. 'Fair enough. But how do you want to go about getting in before you freeze to death?'

She grimaced. 'There's a doorbell at the front.'

They went around the house to the front door. The entire street was deserted, which probably had everything to do with the fact that the sun was only just peeking around the horizon.

'Shit, it must be around four o'clock!'

'Six, I'd wager,' said Granger. 'It's winter in Australia. And I think it was nine in Scotland, and with a nine-hour difference between GMT and Australia…'

He groaned. 'All right, all right, stop showing off. Are you ringing the bell or should I just do it for you?'

'Malfoy…' she whined. 'We can't just barge in like this! It's six o'clock on a Sunday morning!'

'And if I'm right, they're not going to care!' he snapped. Sweet Merlin, the girl was obtuse. Annoyed, he sidestepped her and pressed his thumb to the doorbell.

The sound rang through the house, unnaturally loud in the stillness of the morning.

'Malfoy!'

When nothing happened, he rang it again and again for good measure, completely unruffled by Granger's puny attempts at yanking his hand away.

Then, after a moment, they heard slow, heavy footsteps inside of the house.

'Oh, God…!'

As the person approached the door, Granger looked ready to faint – or bolt – so Draco, exasperated, caught her elbow to prevent her from doing either. She shot him a death glare and…

… the door opened.

'Good Lord, it's five in the morning, people…' a sleepy male voice mumbled angrily, and then stopped.

It was a man in his early fifties, brown hair thinning, eyes blurry from sleep, a dark dressing gown thrown hastily over a pair of checkered pajamas. His gaze swept over Draco in surprise and morbid recognition of his robes and the broom he still held in his hand, and then fell to the left, on Granger.

It took only a second.

'Hermione!'

Draco blinked and then his grip on Granger's elbow loosened as she was enveloped in her father's arms.

'Hermione! Thank goodness!'

For the next five minutes, as he watched the unfolding teary scene, Draco couldn't help but smirk in satisfaction. He kept smirking all the way through Granger's heartfelt exclamations of 'Dad! I'm so sorry!' and 'I love you so much!', through her father's assurances that it was 'going to be all right', through his frantic calls of 'Yvonne, come quickly, it's Hermione!' and finally through the invitation to come inside.

As he stepped into the house and closed the door behind him, there was only one thought occupying his head.

I knew it.

Hermione felt like she was choking. Her father's grip on her was so hard and the onslaught of emotion so overwhelming that she could only gasp for air like a fish out of water. She had no idea how she found herself inside of the house. Between one blink and another she was seated in the living room and her father was clasping her hand and smiling a face-splitting grin. He was speaking, but she was so detached that she didn't catch a word he said.

And then her mother entered the room in her nightgown and with her fly-away hair tangled into a bird's nest, and Hermione found herself once again snatched into an embrace so fierce that as she buried her face into the crook between her mother's throat and shoulder, she felt the dam on her feelings shatter into a million pieces. Shuddering from the overwhelming relief and love, she broke into sobs and quickly found herself wailing into her mother's shoulder. She didn't care that she was behaving like a child. She didn't care that Malfoy was in the same room – was he? She'd quite forgotten about him – she didn't care, because it really didn't matter. She'd finally come home to her parents and she was safe.

'I'm sorry, Mummy…' she cried. 'I'm so sorry! But it was so horrible and so awful and I couldn't let you die, I just had to do it, you have to understand, please… So many people died… Tonks and Professor Lupin, and Professor Snape, and Fred and even Colin Creevey, Mummy… He was two years younger than me! And I was so afraid…'

Throughout her broken speech her mother murmured encouragements into her ear and stroked her hair. Eventually, her sobs died down, but she still clung to the fabric of her mother's nightgown.

'Hermione, love, shh… Everything's all right now… Shh… I'm here…'

She felt the weight of her father's large hand on her shoulder.

'We forgive you,' he said soothingly. 'We were really angry, but we love you, honey…'

'We were so worried,' added her mother. 'We thought we'd never see you again…'

At least several minutes passed before she managed to calm herself enough to be passably coherent.

'So you don't hate me…?' she asked hesitantly, sniffing.

Her mother handed her a tissue. 'Of course we don't hate you. We hate what you did, that's true…'

'Because you really should have told us, honey,' said her father. 'No matter what it was, you should have told us. You cannot do something like that to people's minds without their permission, honestly – '

'Mark!'

'Right… Anyway, just tell us everything from now on. You've kept us in the dark long enough.'

Hermione hung her head in shame. 'I'm so sorry…' she muttered. 'I thought… I thought I couldn't tell you about magic because of the Secrecy Act.'

'What? But we already know about magic!' her father exclaimed in confusion. 'I thought parents of witches and wizards weren't under the Secrecy Act!'

'They aren't.'

Hermione actually jumped in her seat when she heard Malfoy speak out from across the room. She whipped her head around and stared at him in shock and embarrassment. She had forgotten about him. She had been so distracted by her staggering relief and the realization that her parents forgave her that she hadn't even remembered he was still in the room.

'What do you mean?' demanded her father.

'Parents of Muggleborns are not tied by the Secrecy Act, but they might as well be, because the matter is deliberately made confusing,' Draco explained, his voice carefully neutral. 'Muggleborns are not sure how much they can tell their parents without breaking the supposedly existing law, so in the end they edit as much as possible, which is precisely the aim of the Ministry. Muggle parents of Muggleborns know as little as possible and the Muggleborns often become estranged from their families, which then further removes Muggles from the Wizarding community and helps Muggleborns assimilate better and commit themselves to living as a witch or wizard, without the unwanted Muggle influence.'

A long, awkward silence fell over the room.

'That… That actually makes sense,' Hermione mumbled. 'Even though it's barbaric and immoral.'

'Hermione, dear,' said her mother uneasily. 'Perhaps you could introduce us?'

She felt her cheeks heat up, realizing that she'd brought Malfoy to her parents' house without so much as telling them who he was.

'Mum, Dad… This is Draco Malfoy. Draco, my parents: Mark and Yvonne Granger.'

'Pleasure,' Malfoy drawled, almost haughtily, but Hermione saw him fidget nervously with the broom that he still held in his hands, and he looked so endearingly out of place in this Muggle living room that Hermione couldn't help but smile at him in a strange surge of affection.

'He's the one who made me come here today,' she said softly.

'Ah!' her mother cried. 'It's nice to meet you, Draco! Where are my manners? Please sit down!'

Malfoy lowered himself stiffly into an armchair. An awkward silence followed.

'Right,' said Hermione's father with a pinch to his nose. 'If you don't mind me asking… How long can you stay?'

'Oh, only a couple of hours. We have to be back by morning…' Hermione replied, her tone apologetic. 'It was actually a spur of a moment decision to come here…'

'Hmm,' her father lifted his eyebrow and shot a quick glance at Draco, and then exchanged looks with his wife. 'Then why don't we start with a nice cup of strong tea to wake us up? Then we can have a real talk, if you don't mind.'

'No, I don't mind,' Hermione exhaled in relief. 'I think it's long overdue.'

Her mother clapped her hands on her thighs and stood up.

'Right then! I'll put the kettle on, and maybe throw something quick for breakfast. Hermione, be a dear and help me out, won't you?'

Alarmed, Hermione immediately locked eyes with Malfoy, who quickly hid his panic behind a curtain of haughty indifference. She was about to leave him alone in a room with a Muggle – her father, no less! – and she knew that the experience would be at the very least unpleasant and awkward for both parties, but she couldn't think her way out of this situation in her present state of exhaustion and emotional distress. She tried to infuse her stare with a pleading message, but as she herself was not quite sure what she was asking for, she doubted that Malfoy would understand her. The flicker of a frown she saw cross his brow as she left the room assured her that the message – whatever it was, whether a plea to behave or an apology for her father – had not been conveyed properly. Feeling her insides twist with dread, she followed her mother into the kitchen.

'Would you butter up that bread? Let's make some sandwiches,' said Yvonne, busying herself with filling the pot with water. Hermione set about preparing the food, thankful for the distraction, but she couldn't help but steal a glance at the doorway every now and then, even though the only thing she could get from what was happening in the living room were muffled voices.

For several long moments the two of them worked side by side in silence, falling into an old routine, and Hermione felt herself slowly unwind. She listened to the soft hiss of the gas cooker and watched her mother slice a cucumber into thin slivers, before putting them on the ham and cheese sandwiches she'd prepared and arranged on a plate. The domestic simplicity of her surroundings made her chest tighten with sudden emotion. She tried to reign it in, but a sniffle gave her away. Her mother shot her a careful glance, and when she saw the tears leaking from her eyes, her face crumpled into a frown.

'Oh, love,' she choked, before gathering her into her arms. 'I'm so sorry… We were so angry and confused and we'd never thought you'd just leave… Oh, I'd thought I would never see you again, we didn't know how to contact you… You're so far away from us in that world… and now we're even on a different continent! This last month, oh, it's been a nightmare… I can't begin to imagine what you must have felt…'

'It's not your fault,' Hermione said shakily. 'It's mine. I should have told you… But you would have stopped me and I had to, Mum, I just had to… You had no idea what it was like… I had to help Harry stop You-Know-Who, I had to…'

'Hush,' said Yvonne, tightening the embrace. 'Hush now, we're going to talk about all of that in a moment, all right?'

Hermione nodded into her shoulder.

'But now, before we go back there, I need to know who's that young man that you brought here with you.'

She stiffened, before extracting herself from her mother's arms and stepping away. 'He's… uh. He's a…' she managed to say when she was suddenly struck with a realization that she didn't know how to continue. He was… what? What was Malfoy to her?

Her mother's eyebrows rose in tandem. 'Oh. Well, that's a bit of a surprise. I thought you'd fancied Ron, myself. Your Dad was dead sure on Harry, but a mother always knows… But… Oh, God. Oh, good Lord, has something happened to them?'

Hermione blinked, at a loss for words. 'Wh – He's n – No! No, Harry and Ron are fine, they're great, they're alive!'

Yvonne deflated in relief. 'Oh, good. Great… Don't scare me like that!'

Hermione stared at her wildly, still trying to process her implications.

'So… who is this boy, then? I don't think I've ever heard about him before.'

'Yes, you have, you must have, I remember telling you about him,' Hermione said, latching onto something she could reasonably counter. Because the other – thing – was just too…

'You did?'

'Yes. Draco Malfoy, from Slytherin? Harry and Ron had a bit of a feud with him at school… Well, not a bit. A lot. And me, too. I think. But then the war happened and… No, not much has changed really, only it has. He's saved our lives, sort of – well, at least helped delay our captors… kind of. And then Harry saved him from the Fiendyfire, and his mother lied to You Know Who about Harry being dead, but now his father is in Azkaban and his mother is in house arrest and he's doing community work rebuilding Hogwarts… And I… I needed a place to study, so I started coming round to his tent and he's really quite nice once you get to know him, well, not nice, but not horrible as he used to be, and…'

She trailed off, noticing her mother's horrified expression. She swallowed, going over what she'd just blurted out, and felt the blood draining from her cheeks. She'd just brought a war criminal into her parents' home. Without even thinking about it.

She'd left her father alone with an armed Death Eater.

A wave of soul-shattering panic hit her, only to be washed away by an even more sudden – and completely irrational – realization that it was Draco Malfoy and that's why it was all right. Because he wasn't going to hurt them. He wasn't. She knew that.

She trusted him.

She gasped out a short laugh.

She trusted Draco Malfoy.

Which was ridiculous and she had to be insane, because there were no valid reasons for it, but…

She really did trust him.

'Hermione…' her mother ventured, her voice unsteady. 'You were… captured?'

'Captured…? Oh, yeah. But we escaped. I'll tell you about it later. Let's go back and we can talk, okay?' she knew she must have sounded a bit manic, but she couldn't help it. Her hands were shaking, but her heart was calm. She trusted Draco Malfoy. On paper, it sounded absolutely ridiculous, but in fact, it seemed oddly right. The sky was blue, the Earth revolved around the Sun, and Hermione Granger trusted Draco Malfoy.

The universe had never been stranger.

Draco shifted in his seat, trying for nonchalance and failing miserably, if Mr. Granger's intense stare was any indication. The older man regarded him with curiosity laced with a touch of steel.

'So, Draco,' he said eventually. 'How did you and Hermione meet? Can't say I've heard about you before.'

Draco's eyebrows rose in surprise. 'We know each other from school,' he answered truthfully, and then added, hoping for diplomacy, 'We've never been part of the same… circle of friends… though.'

'Oh, so you aren't a Gryffindor, then? A Ravenclaw?'

'No, sir. A Slytherin.'

The way Mr. Granger's expression shuttered closed gave Draco all the answers regarding what Granger had been telling her parents about his House. He frowned, drawing back defensively.

'Really?' the older man remarked with an air of polite surprise. 'How interesting. I thought Gryffindor and Slytherin were at odds with each other. Glad to see that people are still able to see past a petty school feud these days.'

A petty school feud? This man obviously had no idea of Draco's involvement in the war. A cold shiver ran down his spine. How would he react if he ever found out that his daughter had been tortured by Draco's aunt? At his own ancestral home? He really didn't want to imagine it.

'Well, Draco, you must indulge me, then. How did the two of you get together? I'm sorry for being nosy, but I'm sure you can understand where I'm coming from, really. I would like to know a bit more about you.'

Draco's mind stuttered to a stop.

What?

He stared blankly at the older man, noticing his pleasant smile and slightly lifted eyebrows, but unable to make the necessary connections between the facts.

Was he really…?

He couldn't possibly think….

He could. He was. He thought he and Granger were… Were what?

But of course, moron, he admonished himself, you've come with her across the globe to see her parents. What else was the man supposed to think?

He started shaking his head no, but then Mr. Granger spoke up again. Obviously his expressions had been evocative.

'Oh. You aren't together? I'm sorry, I just assumed…'

'No. No, we're not… Granger and I… we're not…'

The man frowned. 'Right. Sorry. Seems like I put my foot in it, didn't I?'

'It's… fine,' he cleared his throat. 'I'm sure seeing me here with your daughter looks very strange.'

'It does, indeed. I wasn't aware she had any friends outside of Harry and Ron, to be honest…'

Draco blinked again. 'I'm not…' He wasn't… what? 'We're not…' They weren't what? He coughed, then licked his lips, and finally gathered himself enough to string together a full sentence. 'I just helped her make a decision. I have no idea why I brought myself along, really.'

'I… see,' said Mr. Granger. 'Then thank you. We didn't know how to contact her. No one to tell us anything about the Wizarding community over here in Australia, so we couldn't very well hire an owl.'

As he listened to the man speak, Draco was thrown by the fact that what he was feeling at the moment could only be described as compassion. It was easy to be against Muggles and Muggleborns if one didn't actually interact with them. But here in front of him was an actual person, a man, a father, who couldn't even keep in touch with his daughter because he didn't know how, because no one had ever told him that he didn't need an owl for a letter to reach Hogwarts. It was easy to assume that it was because this man was not intelligent enough to work that out for himself, that he was beneath them, that he was simply an uncaring idiot, but it wasn't true. None of it was true. There were people hired to ensure that he didn't work things like that out. To ensure that he lost contact with his little girl. And this was more cruel than anything else. Because, in the end, family was all one had.

'You don't need an owl to send a letter, you know,' he found himself saying, eyes straying away from the man's face, focusing on the coffee table instead. 'There is a system – well, a notification charm – that alerts the Ministry of Magic whenever there's a letter addressed to a magical location in the Muggle post.'

Draco could hear the rustle of the man's dressing gown as he leaned forward in his chair. 'Really?'

'Yes. The letters are found, segregated in the Department of Magical Communication, and then delivered by owl.'

Mr. Granger gave a short, humourless laugh. 'Well. Would have been nice knowing that earlier.'

Draco grimaced, but didn't answer.

'You are very knowledgeable about this sort of thing.'

Draco shrugged. 'I'm a Pureblood. I've known these things all my life.'

'Oh,' said Mr. Granger, then lapsed into an uncomfortable silence. 'Then… Are you like the Weasleys, then? You don't have a problem with us Muggles? Because Hermione told us about this other family, the Malloys, I think they're called, and they – '

The sudden catch in his voice, coupled with Draco's equally sharp intake of air, drove the two of them into locking eyes. The realization and dismay he saw in the older man's face was like a terrible blow to the gut. Draco felt churning dread burning a hole in his chest. It was an awful feeling. It was… shame.

'Well,' Mr. Granger managed to say. 'Well.'

Draco didn't answer. Even if he wanted to, he had no idea how.

'So… you're the boy – you're the bully who harassed my girl and her friends.'

He looked away. Suddenly there was nothing he could be proud of. He felt his neck heat up.

'But…' Mr. Granger's voice lost the neutral inflection and turned incredulous. 'If you're who I think you are… Then how… What are you doing here? I don't understand.'

Draco knew that he had to find his voice quickly, so he cleared his throat and braved a look at the other man. What he saw made him pause. He wasn't furious. He wasn't judging. He was… speculative.

'War… changes things,' he rasped eventually.

Silence fell between them, but it wasn't what he'd expected. Mr. Granger didn't rage, neither did he look at him with accusations. Instead, he was quiet, and thoughtful, and somehow, that made Draco even more unsettled.

It was into that strange silence that Hermione and her mother decided to enter, carrying trays with tea and breakfast.

And then something else happened.

Granger set her tray on the coffee table and when she straightened herself, her eyes strayed to him.

The warm smile that bloomed on her lips left him breathless.

Recounting the war took – with some careful omissions – more or less five hours. Hermione didn't dare go into details about several key points of the story. She didn't elaborate on her, Harry and Ron's time on the run, neither did she mention her torture at the hands of Bellatrix Lestrange, and she also glossed over some aspects of the final battle at Hogwarts. She knew her parents weren't ready yet to hear everything she had to say. Their horrified expressions spoke volumes about what they thought of their daughter running around as a fugitive. She really didn't need to scare them even further. She would tell them eventually, but the truce they had established was still too new. Some things would have to wait.

The journey through the truth was extremely emotional. Tears fell freely from Hermione's eyes and there were times when she couldn't bring herself to continue. During those moments, unexpectedly, Draco would take over, providing a concise, carefully worded narrative of the events until she composed herself enough to speak again. At first she'd been surprised, but then she would just glance at him and he would start talking without a second's pause. It was reassuring and comforting and she couldn't help but thank whatever deity had made her agree to this entire mad, impossible situation.

Her parents, despite their obvious horror, were taking it all fairly well. Perhaps they were still in shock. Some things would take time to internalize. Perhaps they just didn't fully realize what the war truly meant. That she'd been close to death at least a dozen times. A hairsbreadth away. She really didn't want to be there once the idea actually dawned on them.

The hours passed almost without them noticing, and soon it was almost noon.

'Excuse me,' Draco spoke up politely, glancing at the clock at the mantelpiece. 'But we really need to go.'

'Oh!' cried Hermione, 'Right. Of course. Are you working today?'

'Of course,' he said pointedly.

'But it's Sunday!' Yvonne protested in surprise.

Draco snorted. 'No rest for the wicked,' he blurted out, and then caught himself when the words caused an awkward silence. 'Right, well. I – '

'Let's go then!' Hermione said quickly, standing up. She then turned to her parents. 'I'll come back next week, is that all right?'

Yvonne's face crumpled again, but it was Mark who answered, 'Of course, dear. We'll be waiting.'

Feeling wobbly once again, Hermione fell into their embrace and hugged them with all her might. 'I'm sorry… For everything. I'm so sorry…'

'It's all right,' her mother murmured, caressing her hair. 'We'll work it out somehow. It'll be fine.'

'Well, then. Till next week,' Mark cleared his throat. 'And Draco…' He looked over at the younger man and held out his hand. 'Thank you for helping her make a decision.'

Malfoy appeared startled. There was a flush rising up his neck when he reached out and grasped her father hand in a firm shake.

'It was nice to meet you, Mr. Granger.'

'Likewise, Mr. Malfoy. Oh, and it's Dr Granger, actually.'

Draco blinked. 'Doctor?'

'Yes. Didn't Hermione tell you? We're both dentists,' said Yvonne, smiling, as she crossed the room only to draw him into a loose embrace. Hermione saw Draco's eyes grow huge and the blush from his neck travel up to his cheeks. The sight made her warm inside.

'Right,' she said once the goodbyes were made. 'Shall I meet you outside the gates?'

Draco's gaze snapped to her and several expression crossed his face, before he shook his head. 'You're extremely emotional, Granger,' he drawled haughtily. 'You're going to splinch yourself.'

She frowned. 'What? Of course I won't, I Apparated under greater stress, I'll be fi – '

But before she knew it, Malfoy rolled his eyes, grabbed her hand and yanked her away through space back into the crisp air of an early Scottish morning.

She landed with an indignant yelp, and she would have fallen onto the grass had it not been for the tightening of Malfoy's bony fingers around her hand.

'What was that?' she cried. 'I was perfectly capable of Apparating myself!'

'Well, sorry if I don't believe you. I did spent six hours watching you snivel and leave snot all over your clothes.'

'I did not snivel!'

'Yes, you did. I sure hope you've cried yourself dry, because if I see another tear out of your eye, I think I'm going to strangle you.'

'Oh, just shut up, will you!' she bristled angrily. 'I had good reason!'

'Oh, so now you're admitting it, aren't you – '

'Draco!'

He fell silent, and his eyes shifted awkwardly away and at this moment she understood. Her annoyance left her in a flash. The strange warmth she'd felt when she first realized that she trusted him filled her now and she felt herself smile.

'Draco,' she said softly.

'What?'

And then she simply came up to him and put her arms around him in a hug. 'Thank you.'

He was taller than her, but not as tall as Ron, so her head rested on his shoulder instead of against his chest, and it was – different – and a bit uncomfortable, because he was stiff as a board. Embarrassment crept up her cheeks in the form of a blush and she stepped away, avoiding his eyes.

'Right,' she coughed. 'Let's go back, shall we?'

He didn't speak as he mechanically mounted his broom, and she was equally silent as she settled herself behind him.

This time, when he kicked them off the ground, she didn't cling to his robes.

He wouldn't let her fall.