Hello! This is a story I have been working on for a while and are now finally going to share it with you! I do have some chapters already written but it's not completely finished. I will be posting every week or so, so be patient and I hope you like it!

Disclaimer: While I would love to have these characters in my back pocket I don't and none of the canon plot or characters are mine, but I can pretend they are for the time being. :)

Lemons will be in this story just in a little bit, a few more chapters in. Also, at the moment this is a primarily HG/HP story, but eventually it will become a HG/HP/DM story that explores the parameters of a 3-way relationship not just a threesome that happens. If you don't like the eventual three-way relationship please just leave the page; rude comments are unnecessary, however, constructive criticism is welcome. Thank you for taking the time to read the story and I hope you enjoy :)

Warning: Slight suicidal thoughts happening in this chapter. It could be a trigger and I don't want anyone to be set off by these words. If anything like this comes up again through the story there will be warning.

If anyone walked into the attic bedroom of the Burrow that night, they would see three best friends. Those best friends were Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ron Weasley, three best friends who had been through everything together. At the core was Harry Potter, The-Boy-Who-Lived, The-Man-Who-Survived, the other two were his family, all he had left. Then there was Ron, Harry's first friend, the one with the ridiculous appetite, and the one who would always be his best mate regardless of how many times they'd fallen out. Finally there was Hermione, the scarily brilliant one, the stubborn and annoying one, the one who'd never once abandoned Harry, even in the worst situations. They were his family and he wouldn't change it for the world.

By the end of the night all three were settled into that one room and Harry lay on the bed, Hermione in the bed beside him. After being on the run and from being used to being confined in such a small place together, they'd grown used to the closeness. They'd become used to the feeling of comfort they had around each other, Harry more than any of them. This close proximity made Harry feel calm and at peace, he looked up at the sleeping girl, the sleeping woman, next to him. She had her back to him but he could see the curve of her body under the sheet. She was beautiful, there was no doubt about it, but she was Hermione. Only Hermione, that's all she'd ever been. It's not like it hadn't ever crossed his mind, it had many times throughout the years, but he couldn't betray Ron. Harry knew Ron had feelings for her, he'd just never know quite how deep those feelings went.

Harry had assumed that once all this was over, Ron and Hermione would be together and he and Ginny would be too. It was just that after Ron abandoned them in the woods things just hadn't been the same. When he'd left, Ron had shattered all of the trust Hermione had previously had for him and even assuming that one day he might return, there had been no doubt in Harry's mind that things would never be the same. How could they be? Ron had left due to his petty jealousy, and he'd left them completely alone, regardless of what he knew would eventually have to happen, and as a result they could never be sure he wouldn't leave again. It was an unspoken agreement between Harry and Hermione that they were all the other has, it seemed inevitable. The two trusted each other, loved each other, they'd been through everything together; so why shouldn't the thought of them being more than what they were cross his mind? But nothing could happen between them, whether Harry wanted it to or not.

Harry sighed and turned away from Hermione's sleeping form; he needed to get her out of his mind if he was going to get through this year at Hogwarts. Hogwarts was the one place he felt safe over the years, the one place he truly felt at home. He couldn't help but be glad to be going back, he had some of the best memories there, but he also had some of the worst. He didn't know how he was going to step foot in a place where all those died. Classmates, teachers, Aurors, all dead because of him; surely he could've done so much more to save them. He could've saved them all if he had just done something differently, anything. Maybe if he had died long ago, none of them would have been hurt. Maybe if he'd died long before, they could've been still alive today. Harry felt the familiar tightening in his chest and he let out a ragged breath. Don't you dare cry, you don't deserve to cry. They died and suffered because of you, you don't deserve it. Harry buried himself in his blankets hoping to finally fall asleep, the sooner he slept the sooner he could get the first day over and done with.

Hermione gingerly ran her fingers over her Mudblood scar. She hated that scar; it was a constant reminder of everything that had happened over the past year. She sighed and looked at the photo of her parents next to her. There was an empty feeling in the pit of her stomach as she stared at her family album. She missed them more than anything. She missed her mother's warm hugs that comforted her even when she acted like a spoiled brat. She missed her father's playful jabs at her constant reading. She missed the yelling matches and the arguments, she just missed them. She wanted so much to blame someone, anyone, for them being gone but she couldn't. She had no one to blame but herself, she had erased their memories, she had sent them away to Australia, and she sent them out of her life. There was no way she could bring them back; she'd never planned on bringing him back, that was never the plan. She'd never thought she would survive, let alone come up with some sort of plan to bring them back if she did survive.

A loud crash and a following bellow of laughter rang through the house from down the stairs. Hermione wanted nothing more than to go down and join the festivities, to have fun, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. She knew she would happen if she went down there; Ginny would be distracting herself from her brother's death, either cooking in the kitchen or fawning over Harry. Ron would be somewhere trying to hide the hurt, but she'd be unable to not notice it there. She knew she'd hurt him when she'd broken things off with him. She hated that she had too, especially now, especially after everything. She just couldn't get the look on his face out of her mind when she told him; she could remember it like it was yesterday…

"I'm sorry, Ron." Hermione looked down at her hands, trying to avoid as much eye contact as possible. "I know I should've said something earlier, I just couldn't do it. I can't stand knowing that I'm hurting you."

"Then what the hell do you think you're doing now?" Ron's voice cracked with hurt, she looked up at him. He was devastated, she knew this wasn't helping him at all and she hated the fact that she was hurting him. She hated the fact that she couldn't do anything about it; anything she said she knew would hurt him even more.

"I'm so sorry, I just want us to be friends, for us to be the Golden Trio again; just the three of us; you, me, and Harry." Ron didn't look at her as he nodded solemnly. She laid her hand over his, squeezing it slightly, "You deserve someone who can love you with all her heart and I'm not that girl."

For weeks she and Ron hadn't spoken much, a nod of the head and on good days a smile was all she would get from him; he'd barely looked at her. Then just two weeks ago they had actually had a conversation. They would never work; he loved her and she just couldn't love him, not the way he wanted her to. They just weren't meant to be together, she couldn't bring him the happiness she felt he deserved, and she couldn't be the girl he needed her to be. She hadn't completely lied; she did want them all to be friends again. But she felt something for Harry, she knew she did, but she wouldn't dream of them ever being more than what they were now. Harry had Ginny and she was perfectly content with them just being the friends they were for as long as he would allow her to be. Not that that would change any time soon, to him she was a sister after all. A sister. Hermione sighed and shook her head, once again reminding herself of that truth.

There were two people in a loft in Diagon Alley that same night; Draco Malfoy and his mother Narcissa Malfoy. They lived in a loft over some self-owned family business; this was their life now. They had nowhere else to go as they had to avoid any type of confrontation with any Death Eaters. Since Lucius had left them, they were no longer safe against the wrath of the Death Eaters so they had left the Malfoy Manor. Neither of them had seen Lucius since; however there had been the one incident when Lucius had tried to close off their source of money. However, with Draco being over 17 and officially an adult; Lucius had no control over them anymore. Technically, they could now live in peace.

Draco wasn't sad or even upset at the fact they'd had to leave their home. So many things he wished he could have changed throughout the years, so many things he could've done if he'd just stood up to his father. Maybe he'd have been able to stop the abuse against him and his mother, maybe he could've avoided becoming a Death Eater, and maybe he could've even saved the house elves. Merlin, I'm starting to sound like Granger. But that didn't change the fact that he couldn't be happier to be out of that place and away from his father. Draco loved his family, but sometimes love just wasn't enough to excuse the things that had been done so many times over the past 18 years to both he and his mother. He loved his mother, more than anyone or anything else in the world and all he wanted was to take care of her.

However, by this time tomorrow Draco will be back at Hogwarts surrounded by those who hated him and whom over the years he'd tried to prove his hatred of. Things were different this year, he didn't need to hate them, he didn't need to treat them the way he did, not that he'd actually ever needed to in the first place. When he was younger his father had tried to shove the belief that those who weren't pureblood, even those who were also pureblood as well really, were inferior to him down his throat. His mother hadn't wanted him to accept that. His mother had hated what his father was trying to press on him, but there was nothing either of them could say.

So Draco did the only thing he knew he could do to ease his father's mind, he lied to everyone, his mother and Snape excluded. He had laid the lies on thick; he'd tortured so many people, people who didn't need to be harmed. He'd purposely ruined people's lives for the sake of his father. He hated what he'd done to those people; he hated everything he'd done. Draco sighed, what he'd done was in the past and now all he could do was live with it. Live with what he'd done, live with what his father had done and was maybe even still doing, and to keep his mother safe and happy. If keeping his mother safe and happy was the only thing he could do, considering his past, then he would be happy to. After all, they were all each other had.