Hello! Thank you for the kind reivews. I just wanted to make this Author's Note (I feel this title needs horror music in the background? Don't you?) While I hope that the I made it clear within the chapter itself, I'll state it in simpler terms: the war was fought and won in their sixth year of school, the seventh year is what you find this chapter taking place in. Such simple terms!

I won't be focusing on their school life very much. In fact, I will most swiftly find myself posting chapters that occur after the prologues happening. A bit of 'A La Dolce Vita' thing, though hardly as good: you see the person on the ground, dead, and then you spend some time finding out what led them to it. It's fun! Right? RIGHT!

But 'fun' aside (no fun here!), I wanted to write this story because I wanted to showcase a side of love that's hardly ever seems to be in focus. While I agree love can be seen as heart warming and fluffy, I believe that something so often paired with the words 'insane(ly in love)' and 'crazy (in love)' can hardly have such a flawless and butterfly filled reputation. Rather then seeing love as a redemption from a naturally sin filled humanity I wanted to show it as something that throws people even deeper into their humanity, or the 'sin' filled part of it. I like that part. It's a human and natural part.

All right, no more horror music. Thank you for reading. And as always, I own nothing; but, your kind words and helpful suggestions would let me temporarily own a heart filled with joy. (Awwww! That's right...I just made myself 'aw' - it's hardly the first time.)

Chapter 1

Four years ago prior to Prologue. Year 7 at Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Draco Malfoy was not pleased.

This wasn't new, in fact, one could call it timely. This 'one' person could never say the words out loud, but he could think it. Draco would grant him that much. He was generous. And it was this generosity, taken so for granted, that led to his unhappiness as he stood in front of the head girl's desk.

"Pardon?"

"You heard what I said, Malfoy." Hermione said, impatiently, double tasking between their conversation and an intimidatingly large scroll of parchment. Her annoyed flourish somewhere in its middle led him to believe it was this scroll that she would wish to single task on if she had her choice.

"You're kidding."

The bundle of curls didn't even lift up her head. Damn her.

"I'm sorry, Malfoy, but you can't simply go throwing your rounds at other people. " He watched as she blew a stray curl that had so unwisely thrown itself between her and her unbearably small script, Merlin now she won't even spare to lift her hand? Cast a beautification charm? Was she actually putting him third in all this! "I give everyone an equal number of them, it's hardly strenuous math work to just do your share."

Draco Malfoy watched her not watch him.

"Granger," she sniffed from a the start of a common cold (this made Malfoy feel a bit better), and perhaps to show that she was paying attention (and back to bitter), double tasking even to this level of low, "Granger, I'm not sure what Abbot told you, in this little mutinous meeting-" She finally looked up.

"Hannah didn't say it."

"Oh please."

"It wasn't Hannah!" Granger had now placed her quill down, ignored the curl that was blocking her left peripheral, and was looking at him intently.

Malfoy looked her up and down, pretending to study the parchment, all the while noting that it was a blessing she was smart and a friend of Potter's: she looks like hell.

She hissed. He looked at her as if she might claw him.

"Malfoy, my colds are on a scheduled rotation, I found myself asleep with my ink bottle, I hardly can be expected to look…dapper."

Not dapper indeed. He thought genuinely studying the parchment this time, "But if it wasn't Miss Hannah Abbot then exactly who was it?"

Hermione dared give him a frustrated sigh, "Hannah's boyfriend, the one she hasn't seen for the past three months, the one who thought she had gone on an exchange to Bulgaria."

"Now why would he think that."

"The letter in Abbot's hand writing stating that she would be studying in Bulgaria."

"Oh, those Hufflepuffs, always finding new ways to keep the fire in the hearth." He felt her stare and he met it, "You were focusing on an potion's essay?" she rolled up the parchment, but in the direction that only increased it's visible length, "I came in - on your request for a conversation- and you we're focusing on… The Benefits of Mollusk Musk?"

Hermione gave an apologetic glance…at the scroll and Malfoy felt like ripping it from her desk. He would not be multi-tasked with! Not for mollusk extracts…though that in paragraph two seemed slightly helpful-

"Malfoy, you made her take your rounds for months!"

"Not for free!"

"I would hardly consider a one to eight day ratio a fair equivalency."

Malfoy raised his eyes, "And did Hannah, or beau, not mention monetary compensation for her time?"

Hermione Granger dared to look bored, "Malfoy, that's not the point."

"Oh really, Granger? Because it seemed to be that very point that led Hannah to agree to be oh so helpful in the first place." Malfoy didn't want to sound too invested in his reputation, so he gave a small yawn. Hermione yawned in reciprocation and something told him this wasn't calculated. Damn her.

"Mafoy, to be frank, this is not worth my time." Really, really damn her "And if it was so simple as an agreement between friends," In a move to take out his pocket watch he brushed his arm against her quill holder sending it to the floor with a pronounced thump, "…or acquaintances, it really wouldn't attract my attention but," she picked up her wand and did a quick cleaning charm, one that gently placed the quill back in it's holder, more then a few feathers ruffled from it's fall, "but Hannah's getting tired, her rounds, or rather your rounds, are getting sloppy. Yesterday she missed three third years trapped in one of the lonelier broom closets."

"Three?" Malfoy didn't make an exhaustive effort to hide his small smirk as Hermione brushed an invisible speck of dusk from her desk. "I would have left them there."

"Well then at least it would have been your fault, not Hannah's."

"She agreed!" He said in a voice he thought a bit too defensive. And defensive to who…

"Malfoy, just do your own bloody rounds!" Said the 'who' in a tone that suggested he agree and leave her to her musks.

"I can't!"

Hermione really looked at him this time. Looked at him as if she was actually listening. Draco had to admit, it felt good; that is, before he had remembered what she was waiting for him to say. "I just…can't."

Hermione rolled her eyes and was about to turn to her papers, to mollusks and parchments, to quills that could really use a sharper tip (had she been writing that much?) She was about to put him second again. No!

"I can't!…I don't…" he looked for the words that fell between too little and too much, and hoped such words came in small doses, "I don't…have the time." She looked a bit sympathetic, Draco suddenly had the urge to elaborate, "The school work…The year before I didn't get much of it done, you see…"

She gave him a small nod and he settled into his word choices with a bit more ease, perhaps a bit too quickly because without giving him the time to let it set in, his audience of one continued for him.

"And by school work you mean…" Hermione thought that he was eyeing her like she had drawn a knife, so she settled for a rather small, "defense against the dark arts."

He let out a breathe he wasn't aware he was holding. She hadn't mentioned his family and she hadn't mentioned his father's imprisonment. She didn't mention the year of school he missed, nor the considerable fortunes lost or taken as collateral from the Malfoy name. He suddenly felt Hermione Granger could be forgiven her yawns and bushy hair, her dull quills, too.

"Yes." Draco said. Eyeing two curls that had now fallen in her line of vision. Suddenly having the urge to trap them behind one of her ears for the view that they prevented him from fully having. I could definitely forgive her of her eyes. "Yes, that class has been…moderately troublesome."

Hermione looked at Malfoy's face that seemed to have joined the growing ranks of unnecessary and unwelcome weight loss. Everyone was having a hard year. War had left each pocket with a little, or a lot, less 'troublesome' knuts that would have most likely eyed as hardly all that troublesome in the current way of things. But more then knuts or galleons, it was Malfoy's family that had fallen under the few that had surrendered at the last moments: his father had already been imprisoned, and with his mother and his lives under bitter filled scrutiny by the papers (determined for their readers to have a maurder) he had sacrificed what little information, and what substantial, sums he had for proof of cooperation and innocence. Though beneficial, the act lost the youngest Malfoy considerable fortune (considerable but not all – thank you very much) and friends that ran much deeper then simple gossip and dinner parties, creating a silent but understood unwelcome within most of the older families who had lost something with the information given. As far as finding friends within the new allegiances of 'good' and 'this is right' it was understandably hopeless. No one wanted to extend arms to someone who extended theirs so late and with the blood still dotting their fingers.

And she hadn't mentioned any of it…

"I'll…" she shuffled around her desk, looking for the folder that he, even from his position, could see was clearly in front of her, falling under the label of, 'Prefect Schedules and Information.'

"It's right there." He stepped a bit closer to her desk and pushed it with the just middle finger's nail, gently bringing it's presence into unavoidable awareness.

"Ah, so it is." Hermione reached a bit too quickly for the ruffled quill, "I-I'll do half of your rounds."

Malfoy felt pleased with himself. Pushed into a corner all Gryffindors were the same: self sacrifice all over. He didn't quite know at what point he decided he wanted to see Hermione Granger be that sacrifice but he was in the middle of it now, beginnings have very little to do with ends and middles. If that was one thing to learn from all this.

"Half?" Draco said, just to be able to say something.

"You expect more?" Hermione suddenly looked tired. Draco winced, he didn't want her looking tired or pitying him, he simply wanted a bit more time – surely he could have that?

"No. No, half is fine...thank you."

"Your welcome."

"But!" He said before she finished signing the bottom of the sheet that would mark the end of their discourse. "But…what do you want in return?"

Hermione looked at him wearily but with the a new hint of sympathy that made him feel like he could do all his rounds, as well as take care of his mother, as long as Hermione was available to look and listen while he did it

"Nothing really, Malfoy, just for you to…um, fix the dark arts work and..." he watched her dot the line slowly and without the usual quick flourish, "…get back on track with doing all your rounds. That's all." She placed the paper in the folder. He was running out of his time. "Just make sure to get back on tack, you know, so you can start doing all your rounds again."

"Easy enough." He said, unable to think of anything to prolong this moment more.

Draco got a small nod, a smaller half smile, and before he knew it he was outside head girl office, did his feet do this to him? Voluntarily? Why?

While Draco walked back to his common room, taking the path that perhaps could have been called 'the less traveled' but one certainly passing more then a few broom closets (Just how many brooms does one need when you're in possession of such classic works as '503 Charmed Days of Dusting'?) He wondered at Hermione Granger.

While it was true that he hadn't been the recipient of the most welcome reception this year (why he could count two different scowls in the present vicinity, and there was only four people, two of which hadn't seen him…) He wasn't so desperate for pity and understanding that he would jump on the nearest offering…would he? Pansy still liked him, after all…he wasn't about to go around looking up Ever-Sharp Quills for her…right? He was strong and fine. He could take care of his mum's increasing silence, the Manor's decreasing state, his own classes, he could do this by himself…It was just, no one had ever willingly offered their aid without insisting he recall this list. No one took his words for value without question in so long he almost felt the need to explain. To explain that his 'prefect duties' we're hell: walking through halls of parents his father helped kill. Naturally he would have locked those three third years in the closet, he was afraid of them. Terrified of them.

And while he could understand that Hermione Granger couldn't possibly have understood the significance of her silent acceptance and quick solutions he really didn't think it mattered. To have someone help him, in Merlin knows how long, he wanted to be around them. Around her.

"Murderer."

Draco heard the familiar word from one of the dungeon's many nooks. A voice without a face, but spoken with such frequency that it became the face of all. "You're a murderer, Draco Malfoy."

I know. Was what he usually thought to himself, he might have even said it out loud a couple of times, but it had little purpose when they repeated it so frequently, as if he wasn't so fully aware of it in every fiber of his being.

But that was just it. With Hermione Granger, however temporarily, he forgot it. And that forgetfulness was what he hopefully would find once again tonight, when he would claim to have confused his original rounds with those that she had so unquestioningly took from his responsibility.

Now how to get her to stay by him…

Again! Thank you for reading! Criticism is usually read to tears, but then (!) very wonderfully and modestly accepted and worked on. Just so you know what you do to me.