Six months later

The war ended with a bang on the second of May. Casualties had piled up high on both sides, not the least of which included the supposedly immortal Dark Lord himself. There weren't enough words in the world to describe the relief that had flooded though him on witnessing Voldemort fall to Harry Potter's wand. Perhaps Scarhead had been good for something, after all.

The damages from the war were widespread: Diagon Alley was in ruins, Hogsmeade had been decimated, and Hogwarts itself was on the verge of crumbling entirely. Most everything would need to be torn back down to its foundations and be rebuilt to be viable once more, but even with magic there was no telling how long that would take.

The volunteer effort was immense. Help came from far and wide, from international Wizarding communities, to the Squibs that dotted the nation. It humbled Draco in a way, to witness the camaraderie in the fallout of what could only be described as a horrible, terrifying tragedy.

He hadn't seen Granger since she had left nearly six months ago. He had thought that maybe she would fight, making the contribution she had so desperately wanted to while she was trapped inside that barn, but there had been no sight of her during the Battle of Hogwarts; no sideways catch of her curls, no brief, impassioned glimpse at her intoxicating whiskey-coloured eyes, no furious cry of a curse as she pushed her way through the fight to stand alongside her friends, ready to defend them and everything she believed in to the death.

He had thought too that she might have come to his trial back in June, that he might have spied her watching from somewhere in the stands. Again, there had been no sign of her. His advocate had instead come from a most unlikely source in Harry Potter himself. Potter had shot him the queerest looks as he defended him in front of the Wizengamot, as though he was being forced to swallow lemons by speaking the words out loud. Draco had nearly laughed at the impassioned defense that held no passion at all before he realised that it was highly unlikely that Potter was defending him because he genuinely believed Draco to be innocent. Far more likely was the notion that he was doing it as a favour.

Potter's defense had been what had saved him in the end; one year without the use of his (near useless) wand and mandated community service, helping with the cleaning and rebuilding. All in all, Draco felt he got off quite lightly, especially when he considered his father's ten-year Azkaban sentence and his mother's eighteen months of house arrest.

Today saw him on a rotation at Hogwarts. The day before he had been helping Florean Fortesque restore his Diagon Alley shop. Before that, he had been clearing the rubble that had once been Hogsmeade Station, before that he had been part of a line of volunteers that were rebuilding by hand a Muggle street that had been decimated by a random Death Eater attack.

"Mister Malfoy," McGonagall greeted him wearily as he met her at the top of the steps that once led to the majestic doors which opened into the Great Hall. She consulted a piece of parchment and pursed her lips in consideration. "You'll be… on the first floor, by the second-year Defense classroom."

"Of course, Professor," he responded dutifully before turning to leave.

"And, Draco?" she called after him.

He paused and turned back. "Yes, Professor?"

"Promise me that you'll at least… try to get along with them?"

"With whom?" he asked, puzzled.

"You aren't the only one volunteering your efforts, Mister Malfoy," McGonagall informed him, looking down at him over her glasses. "And many here fought for the Order."

"And that should matter now because…?"

"They may not be best receptive to you in their midst."

"Just because I wasn't aligned with your Order, it does not mean I fought for Voldemort," he reminded her, a little more tersely than he intended.

"Of course not," McGonagall answered cagily. "And it was not your incitement that I had anticipated in any case." She turned on her heel and began in a direction towards the dungeons. "Good luck, Mister Malfoy, and keep out of mischief!"

Draco wanted to laugh at the stupidity of the implication. Any 'mischief' would earn him a one-way ticket to Azkaban for a cell adjoining his father's.

The distance to the second-year defense classroom was nothing now that the walls separating the corridors had been blown away. Draco allowed himself a silent moment of mourning for the building that had served as his home for so long.

He stopped suddenly at a corner at the sound of painfully familiar voices on the other side.

"Blimey, Harry! Why are you doing it like that?"

"I'm not entirely sure. I think this is one of those things I have to do by hand."

"Like Dobby's grave?'

"Yeah. I suppose so."

Draco sneered to himself. Potter and Weasley. He braced himself against the battered wall and listened in.

"Hey, didn't 'Mione say she was coming today?"

'Mione? Oh, Merlin, what a vile butchering of a perfectly good name.

"I'm not sure. She said she would, but I think your mum might have forcibly tied her down."

They both chuckled, and Draco strained to hear the rest of the conversation as they moved further down the length of the wall.

"You'd think, in her condition, she might bloody well sit still for once. It's not as though they're short of volunteers here."

Condition? Was she ill? Draco crept along the wall and peeked out over the corner, finding both Potter and Weasley levitating small piles of rubble into another, larger pile.

"It's Hermione, Ron," Potter was saying, "she's incapable of sitting still. And you know her; if there's a campaign that need spearheading, she'll do it."

"Even after the healers told her she shouldn't be moving around too much?"

"Ron, when have you ever known Hermione to listen to a person when they tell her to do something? Besides, I'm sure she knows her limits by now – she wouldn't push herself, not with her baby."

Draco choked on his breath of air. Baby?

"Hermione, bloody pregnant," Weasley muttered. "I swear, when I get my hands on –"

"Draco?"

Draco immediately stilled and closed his eyes, letting out a breath at the low, melodic voice. He was almost afraid to turn around. If he did, nothing would ever be the same again. Then, he supposed, a wry smirk on his lips, in those two months they had spent together, she had all but ruined him. Nothing had been the same since.

He turned slowly to find her smiling shyly up at him, her face slightly rounder than what he remembered, but still beautiful, glowing and completely, utterly happy. His eyes trailed down to where her hands were wrapped protectively around a swollen belly. His eyes widened, his world narrowed and, completely against his will, he stuttered out the only thing that came to mind:

"You got fat, Granger."

AN: And that's the end of that! A few things:

1: I know this will be a contentious point, but I'm not sure I want to write a sequel to this. I like ambiguity and open ends in my stories, as those who have ready my previous fest pieces can attest to. I'd prefer you to make up your own mind for where Hermione and Draco go from here HOWEVER this is not to say that I won't write something else down the line to round this out and make it more definite. If I did, it wouldn't be as long as this (probably...) and it wouldn't be until some time next year.

2: Things that have been brought up in reviews, both here and in the fest: Firstly, if anyone was concerned, we can safely assume Draco beat the life out of Dolohov in the previous chapter. Secondly: why didn't Draco bring crap to help Hermione, namely medicine? He wasn't able to. It was stated earlier that the potions his mother got him were stolen. If it was a battle for her to get them with a wand, Draco had no hope. And thirdly, those familiar with the original couple know that Elphaba did eventually turn out to be the Wicked Witch of the West we know from 'The Wizard of Oz', and does in fact die. Fiyero, Elphaba's secret lover in the book, also died. I didn't want to follow the prompts from that couple quite so closely, hence why everyone is still alive now. Fans of the book will recognise the scene in the first part in the church as mirroring the book, as does the secret relationship and the baby at the end (though this was an odd point in the books).

3: Of all my stories so far, I'm particularly proud of this one. I loved every minute of writing it, and I hope you've enjoyed reading it. Please leave a review and let me know your thoughts, and I'll see you again shortly with a couple of one-shots I wrote for HP_Drizzle. Til then :)