So long time no update, bad fanfiction writer! I am sorry about the ridiculous wait, guess I lost heart in it a little bit but I am back and ready to write. So if anyone it still interested in this story enjoy and feel to review!

Months passed the two women barely noticed the time go by, they were so preoccupied they didn't even notice autumn go out like a lamb and the bitter winter come in like a lion. It was December now and it only grew darker and sicker, as huddled student with colds staggered from lesson to lesson dreading the Christmas exams. The library was florescently filled with busy notebooks and runny noses. Friendships were consolidated in the crisis mentality of the coming end: end of their first term, end of this grand new beginning. Hermione shared exam worries with Ginny in the three broomsticks; ate breakfast with Luna most mornings.

She even visited Honeydukes with Draco for Ice cream a few nights. Normally Draco was much too cool for Hogsmeade, he spent most of his night lost in time with his adoring wife, who was just about ready to pop. Over one or two sweet scattered scoops Draco had said the same thing to Hermione that others had said recently: I hardly see you around any more. Where have you been hiding? And: You look good – different, somehow. Have you changed your hair? Draco who had the most immediate reason to have paid attention, seemed not to understand that the change was not just simply seasonal, that there might be a specific person behind Hermiones new shape and movement. He had caught them in many almost intimate moments several times. He was a good guy though and what he suspected he didn't say.

"Take care of yourself, Granger." he concluded as her scraped scraped rubbery almond pellets from the bottom of the Styrofoam dish. "Don't burn the candle at both ends. They say it diminishes performance." She eyed him, licking fruits of the forest from a plastic spoon, wondering if he had meant the innuendo. He probably did. "Thanks for the tip." She answered.

There was, inevitably, a crushing stress that drew closer, the inexorable iceberg, along with the beckoning Christmas break and it's promise of freedom. She felt stress. Of course she did. But she was protected from it, too. Wrapped in the arms of her girlfriend – hers – Hermione was fundamentally untouchable, even by exams and papers and the gruelling needlepoint of footnotes. Whatever letters might collect on her transcript from this last series of assessments, she was not going to panic for once. After all, such grades were nothing – invisable ink – next to the permanent imprint she'd wear on her skin from this passion. What marks could matter more than love's tattoo?

As for the two of them, they had early-winter pleasures to enjoy. Late dawns and early dusks, the sweet taste of smoky kisses when the air outside is iced and salty; the joke of the fifteen minute striptease, when coats and scarves and sweaters and all have to be shed on a warm floor bound bundle before flesh can finally meet flesh. Close embraces on late streets, in a lamplight two female figures (one older, one younger) had to hope would not expose them to unfriendly attention. Day or night walks through ice-petrified wonderlands, against the ever-present kitsch of carols. Falalalalaing to each other slyly, in the tinsel-glittered rooms of restaurant or the naked seclusion of their London apartment a safe distance from Hogwarts eyes, when Minerva permitted them to leave the odd time.

Then break was on them. Hermione packed for the reverse journey in the train to the Weasley's, as Molly would not hear of her spending Christmas alone while her parents where in Melbourne for the holidays. And she still wasn't ready to divulge the real reason she wanted to be alone. The holiday passed quickly but it didn't stop Hermione feeling lost.

Hermione never considered that the word "ache" might be meant literally, when applied to the heart. "Heartache" was fancy, surely, a gift for songwriters and a handy rhyme for "heartbreak." They weren't serious? But no they were. It was something else to learn. The heart did ache actually. She felt a dull grind of lack somewhere near her diaphragm, a pain that occupied the space of something removed. A phantom limb. A scratchy hunger. The waiting muscle fatigue of want. Thankfully it wasn't long till the holidays were coming to an end and she was able to bid the Weasley's adieu!

And a few days later she did just that, she met Narcissa in a small pub near the apartment. Hermione chose her outfit carefully. An elegant, sea-coloured jacket, cut straight and short in a way that complimented her slender height, straight levi's, and a chic new pair of boots, her mother's Christmas present to her, which might now put Hermione's feet on the map. Narcissa was already there, waiting in a booth. The two greeted each other uncertainly in the familiar dim interior; not as friends, but not, after short separation and in the public setting of the bar, as lovers. Not yet, anyway. They ordered drinks and sat at the table, unsure how to reacquaint themselves. Hermione couldn't help the glow that set into her cheeks, as she watched the woman she had fallen in love with, light up telling her of wonderful Christmas with Draco and Astoria.

The years coldest days were the hottest she had ever lived. They summered inside the apartment with the heat turned up high lounging on the bed as if poolside, sometimes sipping tall, ice lemonades for a joke. Heat was their one, main, luxury: they choose it it over dinners out and fancy gifts, or weekend excursions to exotic places. They picked summering in winter as their treat.

Dress code was casual and scant: sleeveless T-shirts and brief white underwear; a blue, long sleeved man shirt and nothing else, spaghetti strapped tops, on Narcissa and calf-length leggings. Hermione legs were often free of covering, and she got used to seeing their lean pale shapes stretched out under the admirations of Narcissa's moving hands. "A match made in heaven." she would whisper and purring Narcissa would agree. Outside, it snowed. And slushed. And froze again; and blackened; and the treacherous streets caused hurriers to slide, elderly to fall. Bare branches grew brittle and fractured in the cold snaps, while vicious icicles dangled. There were road accidents and chilblains. Cold sore-blistered lips and encrusted noses. Muffled heads and cloudy speeches, slow-starting cars and deep-racked cough of all the stages of bronchitis. Meanwhile, inside their hot retreat the two women swooned.

Each woman rejoicing in the others body, Narcissa luxuriated over Hermione's legs, running her hands along them as if along a burnished banister. Despite Narcissa's graciousness Hermione felt they both knew that Narcissa was the one whose dimensions were mysteriously divine. Hermione fit her arm around Narcissa's neat waist one afternoon, in the languid heat of the apartment and told her so. "You are so small and perfect." she said, "It's just that your perfect." She let her hands re-sculpt Anne's perfection for a soft minute before she heard the silence that met her remark. When she looked up, she found a surprising flutter of grief over Narcissa's face. "That," she said "Is almost exactly the opposite of what my mother use to say to me." "Why what did she say to you."

"That I was too small. Weak. Frail. She said I never lived up to my name or that of the Blacks. She said I was a disappointment, from my fine "defenceless" frame to my blonde hair. I didn't even look like a Black she would say. She didn't like me so much, my mother, hence the reason she married me off so soon. She thought if I had a strong enough husband they wouldn't notice how pathetic I was." Narcissa laughed. Or rather, made a sound that approximated laughter. "Her life would have been immeasurably better if she had never had me." Narcissa played gently with Hermione's hair as she told her the story, "Of course my life would have been immeasurably better if I had never known her." Hermione didn't move or breathe. She had never heard this before. Any of it; she had assumed all the Black girls where worshipped, that's the way it appeared to everyone else. "She used to pinch me and slap me, when she was annoyed with me she would slap my cheek – to wipe the smirk off." Narcissa chuckled slightly. "Truth is I preferred smirking to crying it bothered her more."

Hermione was cautious still. But she had to ask – she had to – "How could anyone hurt that face?" She fit her palm around Narcissa's smooth cheek, stroked the loved line of her lips. "That beautiful face. How could anyone?" For a second Narcissa's eyes were a different shade, they were clouded and dark. She tried to pull away from Hermione but she only held on tighter. So she turned her face away. She couldn't even look the younger witch in the eye. "You know what people are like," she said, in a voice gravelled by old battles. She turned herself away from Hermione's, her face untouchable. "They're cruel, and they will do anything." Hermione in a rather abrupt sprout of courage place her hands either side of Narcissa's face and slowly turned her head so their eyes would meet. "That's because some people don't see how precious things really are, they are to focused on themselves to notice the things that matter. And you are so precious and matter more to me than anything in this world. And I will never let anyone hurt you again. I Promise!"