Author's Notes:

A revision to this chapter, too, from the original fest piece.

Please review!

*.*.*.*.*.*

FIVE YEARS LATER...

*.*.*.*.*.*

Hermione lay the conjured white rose and her relic firebrand-wand down in front of the snow-covered gravestone, and then stepped back to say her final goodbyes. This was the last of them; she'd already visited Harry, Ron, Ginny, Parvati, and the others. Now, there was only him to memorialize.

It would be her final goodbye to them all, too, as she'd determined she wouldn't be coming here anymore. It was time to let go of the past, and to move on, now that Voldemort had been brought down and the world had moved on.

It had begun twenty-some-odd years ago with Theodore Nott, who had risked everything to save his best friend and blood brother from his deadly exile, and it had ended five years ago when the Dark Lord had had his throat ripped out by Teddy Lupin. Werewolves had begun it, and they'd ended it... and then they'd scattered to the four winds, knowing that the world would never truly accept them, with or without a Dark Lord in the picture.

"Ready to go, love?"

Nodding, Hermione drew her cloak in tight, and shoved her hands in the pockets to keep them warm. Her breath was a chilled cone in the air as she sighed, staring at the way the Cold Moon shown down on the raised 'D' and the 'O' on the headstone.

"For a long time, I was so angry with him for everything he'd done to me, but really, he'd saved my life by sending me to you," she stated, feeling an odd melancholy seize her. "I thanked him for it before the end, but still... I'll never be able to repay that debt." She gripped the area over her heart where an empty space had taken up residence since his death, feeling the hole in their pack that he'd left behind when his soul had burned out. It still pained her, even after all this time. "He wasn't mine, not like you are, but I still feel his loss. It's like... something's perpetually off. Like looking at a picture that's tilted and hanging all wrong, and I know it's skewed, but because it's too far away from me, I can never fix it. It bothers me, almost to the point of obsession if I think too long on it. And when I focus on something else, it still lingers in my mind. I'm never not aware of it. Does that make sense?"

From the corner of her eye, she watched as her companion's shadow tilted its head, as if to say, "yes".

"Is this how you feel whenever you think about him?"

He nodded.

"Does it ever go away, this... heart memory?"

"No. Pack bonds never fade." He glanced at her through hooded eyes. "The same with mate bonds."

"Ah." She sighed and reached out, blindly asking for his hand. "I suppose there's no use for it then: you'll just have to come home with me."

"You sure? I don't know if I can control the biting thing when I'm around you, and we just got you cured of your wolfish tendencies a few years ago."

Taking a deep breath, Hermione smiled. At thirty-nine years old, with a four-year-old waiting at home and free of the Werewolf curse (except the telepathy thing, which she found to be both a convenience and an inconvenience at times), she was finally feeling comfortable with the freedom that came with making her own choices—how big a space to live in, what clothes to wear, what food to eat (absolutely no fish!), and especially who to seek out when it came time to finally settling down with a mate, like now.

She did the math in her head. Five years of unrequited love back in school, fifteen trapped in limbo where he'd waited to be reunited with her, and five years post-war for them to learn to be friends and proper lovers. A quarter-century had been enough time to make him truly penitent of his earlier ways, hadn't it?

"Yes, I've decided I definitely want you to be my official mate now."

He let out a deep sigh of relief.

"It's about bloody time, Granger."

His magically shackled wrist came into view, and his very human hand reached out and took hers. When their fingers connected once more, it felt good. It felt right... as it always had.

They turned in silence and departed the cemetery together, anticipation quickening their steps. They left their dead loved ones behind to find some peace in the pale, magical light of the winter's Cold Moon.

~FIN~

Author's Final Notes:

We come to the end of our tale at long last. I know some of you wanted to see this fest piece turned into an epic, complete with battle scenes and Voldemort's final defeat, but to be fair, this was intended all along to be a rather short fest piece (which it wasn't, coming in at almost 30,000 words), and the tale was meant to be a snapshot of this one event: Hermione helping Draco escape his captivity and the death of the Forbidden Forest (a metaphor for Voldemort's days coming to an end). I think you can fill in the rest using your own imagination, and it would probably be better than how I could write it anyway. :)

Yes, I purposefully left the graveyard scene ambiguous as to whom Hermione is saying 'good-bye' to, but there were plenty of hints there. Can you guess? If you said it was Theo, you would be correct. He was murdered by Zabini... who I envision was later torn to shreds by Hermione and or Ginny.

No sequel planned. Hope you enjoyed this romp through Prisoner!Hermione/Werewolf!Draco's alternate universe. Leave a review, if you would, and let me know!

A Big, huge, happy, ecstatic thank you to whoever nominated this story for this round of the HP Fanfic Fan Poll Awards for Best Dark Fic! I am so, so, so, so grateful! *SMOOCHES*