Hey all, back again with another D/H fic. It'll be a multi-chapter and deals with something that has affected everyone's life in one way or another. It's not meant to be offensive or insensitive in any way, shape, or form. This subject is something that has touched my life greatly and that I have lost family to. Shoot me a review if you have something you'd like to say or if you have initials you'd like me to add to the dedication.

Dedication: For anyone who has ever felt the pain of cancer.
B.A.W. – N.W. – K.B. – J.P.M. – K.M. – R.W. – S.M. – B.D.

"Malfoy?" Hermione's grip became white knuckled on her apartment door.

To say she was merely surprised to see Draco Malfoy knocking on her door would have been an enormous understatement. She couldn't fathom the reason for him being here, looking a bit nervous.

Words escaped her and despite their unspoken truce over past grievances, it was only her slight understanding of his past circumstances and her good manners that kept her from slamming the door in his perfect face and breaking his perfect nose, just to give him a small taste of the pain—his physical, hers emotional—that he had hatefully caused her throughout their Hogwarts years.

Something must have read of her face because his eyes widened and he placed a flat restraining palm on her door. "Don't slam the door in my face." Apparently her next look didn't reassure him any. "Please."

She about died of shock right there. A Malfoy saying please...and meaning it.

"Should I catch you if you go into a comatose state from your shock or would hitting your head on the pavement be preferable to having me touch you?"

Her eyes widened. Was her face that easy to read? She surely hadn't thought so. The corner of his mouth lifted up into something she would have defined as a smirk but it wasn't the infuriatingly arrogant one she had been used to seeing on him. This one actually looked nice. She shivered. Nice Malfoy was giving her the creeps.

"Wha-who.." Brilliant. She cleared her throat and started again. "What are doing here?" She stuck her head out the door, looking left and then right. This wasn't an ambush was it? No. What a stupid thought. The few times they'd seen each other out in public—very few admittedly—they'd been friendly. Well, relatively friendly. Not hostile. Bingo, not hostile. They'd nod at each other and then continue along their respective ways. No further interaction between the two had been necessary.

Indifferent, she supposed, would be the word that she would use to describe how they felt about one another—or at the very least how she felt about him. Though her earlier thoughts about smashing his nose in sort of contradicted that belief didn't they? His voice scared her out of her thoughts, admittedly making her jump a touch. The corner of his mouth raised a hair at her jump but he didn't stop talking.

"I know this may not be the time or place or whatever other reasons—justifiable ones, I might add," in her mind her head cocked to the side like a confused puppy. Had he just said she was justified in not wanting to talk with him? And in a round about way admitted he'd been wrong? Surely not. "That you could come up with to never have to talk to me again but I swear, just humor me now and you'll never have to deal with me again." A weird morose-type smile adorned his face for only a second before it vanished.

Strangely enough, she nodded and found herself stepping aside to let him in.

Had she really just freely let Draco Malfoy into her apartment with out some type of backup? Protection? Pepper spray? A bat? Where was her wand? Her head flipped around until she found it on the side table, right where she'd left it. She tried to stealthily grab it up before sliding it into her back pocket—not that she expected to need it, just precaution, of course.

"You won't need it. I swear, Granger, I'm not here to cause you any trouble."

She nodded and gestured her arm, offering him a seat on her couch. He took it, while she sat in her arm chair, several feet away.

"What is it you need from me then, Malfoy?"

"Nothing, Granger. I don't need anything from you, other than for you to just...listen..to what I have to say for a few minutes." He held his hands out, palms up in a sort of pleading gesture. "I..it's not going to be easy to get through but well, considering I've already said part of it several times, to several different people already, it should come out easier. You'll probably want to laugh, or kick me or I don't know have a celebratory party but it's all stuff that I've got to get out. I'll try not to take up too much of your time."

He was rambling. She'd never witnessed him like this before. His cheeks were turning a light shade of pink and his hands were trembling and gesturing every which way, she finally took pity on him.

"You're fine, Malfoy. Take your time, I don't have anywhere else to be. Everyone else is busy today and I'm completely alone." Said the victim to their killer. Nice Hermione.

He abruptly stood up before sitting back down. He ran a shaky hand through his hair, stood up, took two steps away from her, spun around, took to steps the other way and sat down again. "I just... Why are you being so nice to me?" He nearly snapped at her, out of nowhere.

Her head really did cock to the side this time. She spoke with deliberate slowness. "Would you rather I yell at you?"

"Yes..no. I just don't understand." He admitted, moderating his breathing and twining his hands together in front of him, resting his elbows on his knees. "If I were you I don't know how I could be so...so...civil to a person who was..." He struggled for words. "Like I was to you."

"I suppose that's where you and I differ."

"Apparently." He let out a humorless chuckle. "I mean, I was horrid to you. I was horrid to everyone. I spat at your name every chance I got –"

"Hey, it went both ways, Malfoy." What? Did she just defend him? She quickly backtracked. "Though you mainly instigated it, insults and taunts came from Harry, Ron and I too."

"And then you defend me, Gods, maybe I do have a hope of this. Never mind. Okay that's not even what I'm here for." He waved his hands in the air, as if erasing the conversation that'd just taken place. "You, Granger, Hermione, if I may?"

She found herself nodding with wide eyes. All the years she'd known him and this was he first time he'd ever actually called her by her given name. Which made her wonder who the hell it was sitting on her couch because it definitely was not the Draco Malfoy she'd grown up with.

"Okay, then. You, Hermione, are the last on my list."

"List?" Like a hit list?

He just nodded. "Well first actually but that makes you the last. To visit anyways, not as of importance." He was rambling again. He seemed aware of it this time. "I'm seeing a therapist." He cut to the chase. "Go ahead get your jollies out if you wish. You won't be the first."

She felt quite indignant at his statement. "How dare you think I would laugh at something like that, Malfoy. What do you think me, some emotionally stunted first year?"

The stupid ferret had the nerve to bark out a laugh before slapping a hand over his mouth.

"What?"

"No. Nothing." Her glare didn't waver. "No, it's just you think someone that'd get their jollies out of me seeing a therapist would be an 'emotionally stunted first year' and well Weasley seemed to get a pretty big fall out of it when I informed him earlier today."

That stopped her on two accounts. "You talked to Ron?" This visit just kept getting weirder. "And I've known Ron was emotionally stunted since the first time I heard him speak. Some things will never change." She added as a side thought.

Malfoy nodded. "Yes, I spoke to him just a few hours prior but back to what I was saying. I'm seeing a therapist for certain reasons that I will get to before long. I've talked to her—my therapist—a lot over the past few months and between that and the happenings in my life I've come to view things in life a lot differently." He met her eyes head on, his elbows resting on his knees again. "You know, it's just..." he struggled to explain. "When your beliefs are so completely entrenched in certain ideals it really takes a massive blow to put things into perspective. To really make a person see what is actually of the most importance in this lifetime."

"I can understand that."

He nodded as though grateful for her understanding. "After the war...I was angry." He stopped talking, all was quiet until Hermione felt the need to break the deafening silence.

"I think we all were." 'Though about different things,' she added silently.

He again nodded. "I was furious. Not about Voldemort's demise. No, I had...prayed for that." News to her. Though he had helped them during the war hadn't he? "I was furious that I was made look a coward. I was furious that my father and probably my entire family was going to Azkaban for life –though you know he managed his way out of that one, correct?"

Hermione nodded with an angry frown. Lucius Malfoy. Death Eater, murderer, and all around evil guy sentenced to nothing more than a hefty fine, being revoked of his magic for the next 15 years with no chance of regaining it sooner, and being implanted with a tracking device so as he would never be off of the Ministry's radar again. Countless lives had been taken by that bastard and he basically got a get out of jail free card. She supposed money did by happiness—or freedom in this case. She kept her hostile opinions to herself though. No need to rile her...guest.

"I won't even start on that." He shook his head. Again, she was confused. "I was angry that I was bested by those who I was supposed to be better than. But most of all I was angry that I lost my Mum."

Hermione shook her head sympathetically. She knew it had taken them three days to find Narcissa's body within all of the wreckage. She had been crushed underneath a stone pillar that had come down during the battle, though it had been later determined that her actual cause of death had come from the end of an allies' wand. Killed by her own kind.

"Furious as I was, I never acted on it. Instead I just...well...mentally, shut down. I honestly cannot tell you what happened through the months after. I don't even remember my own trial. I don't remember when I came out of that period of breakdown either. A type of severe clinical depression is what Denise called it. Denise is my therapist." He explained. "I don't really know but one day, months later, suddenly things weren't black and white anymore. I could taste food again. Smell the grass. From then on, day by day, things started looking up. I think it was Liely actually, that brought me back around in the end."

"Who's Liely?" She asked politely, hoping her interruption didn't cause him to clam up.

"Liely is my house elf." He saw her face harden and stopped her. "I know, Granger. I know how you feel about it, and though my thoughts may differ slightly from yours, none of the others are under my power at any account. I do not have the power to set them free. Only my father does." He gave her what could pass for a guilty shrug. "Liely has been assigned to me since I was a tot. She's my oldest friend." He sighed, before she could even get a word out, apparently exasperated with her constant near interruptions. "Yes, Granger, friend. On any account it was her constant worrying and presence that finally brought me back out of my darkness.

As I said, things started to get better. And at a little over two years after the war things were the best they'd been. And though I still missed my Mother, in all reality it was her death that had put everything into perspective for me." He wiped his palms on his black slacks. "Like I said everything was going good. I'd somehow managed to find work with a one-in-a-million, sympathetic employer. When I built up my own income I moved out of the Manor and attainted my own living quarters, Liely came with me. It was an extremely modest living compared to my childhood and it was extremely difficult to get used to but now I actually find that it fits well with me knowing I'm being entirely independent. I no longer need my father's money or anything from him really. Around the time I finally moved out we weren't getting on very well and I'd come to ultimately blame him for my mother's demise."

His brow wrinkled, though whether in distaste or confusion Hermione didn't know. "We went to blows that night because I didn't want anything to do with him, I still don't, really. He surely got back at me for that line of thinking. Ultimate irony, I suppose." He said, arousing Hermione's curiosity but didn't elaborate further. "It was then that I started seeing Denise with the little extra money I had saved up. Liely thought it necessary." He smiled fondly. "And I thought it might be a good idea if it kept me from retreating back in on myself again."

He met her eyes straight on, something she could tell was difficult for him to do. "For the first time since I could remember I was actually happy." He sighed, though it came off tinged with a cheerless undertone as he relived his memories. "It wasn't even two months later when I started to lose weight again." He scratched his pale head. "I was constantly tired and though I had no severe mood changes I was worried my depression was worsening again." He wiped his palms on his pants again. "I'd talked with Denise about it and she seemed to agree with me, even prescribing me a weekly antidepressant potion to manage my symptoms. As you can probably already tell, it had no affect."

Hermione's hands were tightening into fists. She had a feeling she knew what was coming next. It was something she'd been witness to first hand with her mother and oh God, how she'd never wish it on even her worst enemy. Malfoy wasn't anywhere near her worst enemy. He wasn't even considered an enemy, by her standards, anymore.

He nodded to her. He seemed to be able to read her like a book. He knew she'd figured it out. "Three weeks later I was at the office when a coworker tossed me a book. A rather good sized one, not all that big but big enough, apparently. I misjudged and it connected with the middle of my chest, right below my collarbone."

He nodded, rubbing at his chest. "It hurt something fierce and knocked the breath out of me but I though no more of it until I went home later that night." His eyes delved to the ground, his voice becoming almost reluctant. "I was changing for bed." He ran a hand in a circular motion from the top of his collar bone to several inches below where he'd said the object had collided with his skin. "My entire chest from here to here was covered with a massive black and purple bruise." He looked down at her coffee table and traced an invisible pattern on it with his finger. "As you can assume I flooed to St. Mungo's immediately." He looked back up at her and spoke flatly. "And a week later, after various tests and such, I was diagnosed with Acute Myelogenous Leukemia. Cancer." He unnecessarily translated with a frank voice and careful shrug.

A/N: Please review and let me know what you think. I'm not quite sure where I'm going to end with this one. I'm open to ideas.