Draco didn't want to talk. He didn't want to move. He didn't want to think. But no matter how hard he tried to clear his mind he simply couldn't get the image of Hermione getting slashed by that vindictive witch out of his thoughts.

It had happened so fast. Draco fought the pain in his chest from all of his physical exertion and scrambled to his feet. By the time he had reached Hermione's side the pain he was feeling had steadied itself over his heart. The charms had broken. He could feel vulnerability living under his skin and staring at the blood flowing freely from his girlfriend's stomach didn't help any. Draco pushed away all of his internal agony –both physically and emotionally –and helped Harry take Hermione to the fireplace and bring her to St. Mungo's.

Both men followed the Healers down the corridors and to the emergency room. It was there that it took less than two minutes to declare Hermione dead. The wound was too deep and there had been too much blood loss. Harry's face had drained of all color and he looked sick. Draco felt weak all over, but before any of the Healers could cover her face with the dreaded white sheet and close her eyes his words stopped them all.

"Try again."

All of the Healers stared at him in confusion as though he spoke an unknown tongue. Only one of the Healers dared to speak and even then it was with a tremble to his voice. "I –I'm sorry, Mr. Malfoy, but she's-"

"Did you hear what I said?" Draco snarled at them all. He drew his wand and took turns pointing it at each of the four Healers in the room. "Try again. DO IT!"

Harry stared at the man with wide eyes and then at the Healers bustling about. They knew the better option was to work on Hermione or face a serious hexing from Draco. And so they worked. The Healers threw various, fearful glances at Draco and pleading stares at Harry to call off the potential attack. Harry on the other hand didn't move to do anything. What if they could do it? What if they could bring her back? It was the only reason he allowed Draco to stand there at his side, his wand raised and ready if anyone dared to stop with the potions or the spells.

One minute passed.

Then three.

A full five minutes went by and Draco's hand began to tremble. Fresh tears started to prickle and sting his eyes as ten minutes came to a close. With a stiff hand Harry brought it to Draco's wand arm and slowly lowered it. A second later the wand fell from his hand completely as he tightly grabbed his left arm. Harry stared at him frightfully.

"Malfoy? Malfoy, what's wrong?"

"Potter," Draco gritted through his teeth. He moved his hand away from his arm and then over his chest. He would collapse at any minute. "I… I think I'm having a heart attack."

"Help him!" Harry shouted to the Healers who hadn't realized that Draco's wand was no longer on them. "Help him! His heart is failing!"

Healers immediately stopped tending to Hermione and ushered Draco onto the other bed next to Hermione's. Through clenched teeth he told them about the barriers around his heart that he knew had broken. They didn't have time to open his chest and so they did what they could with spells that could permeate the skin and bone. As Draco lay there he could feel himself dying. He turned his head as best as he could so that he could take in as much of Hermione's form before he couldn't see anymore. And with the little strength that he had he reached out for her hand, figuring that he if was going die that he wanted to do it with her.

As Draco closed his eyes and waited to find out what death actually felt like, he could feel the spells doing their work. The barriers that he hadn't missed until they were gone were being put back in place despite the layer of skin and bone they had to work through. Something else was happening too, but Draco refused to open his eyes in case it was all a dream. The cry of a Healer and Harry's gasp was telling him otherwise.

This was the one and only time that Draco had ever cried. He could feel Hermione's hand moving in his. He heard another Healer calling for others to get into the room to help stabilize her while they finished working on him. He couldn't believe it. He just couldn't believe it. If his chest didn't still hurt he would've laughed. Even death couldn't separate them.

And that's exactly what he told Hermione when she opened her eyes three and a half days later. She had been surprised when she first heard his voice, and then she was confused as to why he was lying in a hospital bed next to hers. Draco merely pulled down his dressing gown enough to show the bandages over his chest. Although Healers had done wonders with his heart, they weren't taking any chances. They'd done surgery on him that very night to ensure the barriers were properly in place and added an extra layer of protection.

"And that's why I told you not to come!" Hermione hissed at him, careful not to move too much. Draco chuckled and stared at her tenderly.

"Even after all that we've been through, you're still going to be angry with me?" Draco laughed this time and sighed. "I love you, you know that?"

Hermione felt herself grow red. Of all the people she thought would be saying that they loved her, it wouldn't have been Draco Malfoy. And here he was, his hospital bed pushed close to her own than was usually permitted by St. Mungo's staff, caressing her hand, and looking at her like she was the dearest thing to him in the world.

She smiled. "You'd have to love me a lot to risk your health like that. Stubborn arse,"

"Your stubborn arse," Draco corrected as he leaned forward as much as his pained body could allow and kissed her. Yes, he did love her a lot.

November 2009

Trying to explain who Amelia was and why she was dead had proved to be difficult, albeit not impossible, to a stunned Minister. Luckily, being familiar to Harry's past exploits made him susceptible to the otherwise incredible. While Hermione and Draco continued to recover in St. Mungo's, Kingsley and Harry had worked hard to dispel many of the rumors circulating as to why they were so seriously injured and to keep Daily Prophet reporters away from the hospital and their respective homes.

In the interim, some mysteries of the elusive Lady Malfoy had come to light. It all began when a horde of letters as well as in-person visits to the Auror Department and St. Mungo's came rushing in all at once. They all pertained to symptoms of confusion and the surety that both their lives and their free will had been tampered with. It didn't take much investigating to figure out that this was Amelia's handiwork. There was no way for her to remain undetected for so many years, centuries, without some form of help, and that help came in the form of memory charms and the Imperious Curse. The amount of people her wand had touched was insurmountable. Members of the Lovell family were among them, for starters –all of whom claiming their memories had been tampered with to include a young woman as their own. The Imperious Curse had been used on those in the Ministry –Records Department to be more exact –to rid of any record pertaining to Amelia. Indeed, she had been quite the busy witch.

That wasn't all of the grunt work that Harry and Kingsley did on behalf of Hermione and Draco while they were under strict orders not to do anything strenuous. Per Draco's orders, they burned Amelia's body. He couldn't live knowing that her body was fully intact and wanted it turned to ash. Said ashes were burned again until there was nothing left. As for the rings, the formerly cursed pair refused to touch them. Instead Harry took them personally -careful not to directly touch them. A favor allowed the sword of Gryffindor to leave its home in Hogwarts, and the moment it arrived via Floo and in the school's Headmistress' hand, Harry smiled. McGonnagall didn't ask why he needed it, nor did she inquire as to why one of her favorite students had taken the sword in his hands and stared down at two seemingly harmless rings with a scowl. The two rings were gone from existence as easily as they had come the moment Harry swung down the blade.

As for Hermione and Draco themselves, they had been given leave from Kingsley for the rest of the year. They had happily spent it in Draco's bedroom, curled up in one another with (much to Hermione's displeasure) the Manor's house elves at their beck and call. When they had finally returned to work towards the end of February of the next year, both of them had realized that being cursed had played a central role in their lives. Draco wasn't as adept at sensing cursed objects as he used to be. As for Hermione, she couldn't venture into the Lockdown Room without feeling sick. Being cursed had not only protected them from certain magic, but it had also made them proficient in seeking it out. Knowing this didn't stop them from doing their jobs, however. Hermione simply employed a layer of shield magic to stop her from falling ill, and Draco endured taunts from his coworkers at finally succumbing to the use of magical glove wear.

And now four years later Hermione was somewhere that she had hoped she would never be again: the hospital.

Although she had vowed never to step foot in a hospital ever again after the whole Amelia ordeal, this was an exception. Hermione had to give credit to where credit was due as Draco didn't pass out as she thought he would have. He came close though, she knew. The moment Healer Hobs told her it was time to start pushing and he had taken a peek at what the hell was happening, Draco's face was positively petrified. Her bone-chilling scream and the crushing of his hand brought him back though, and he kept his face focused on hers through rest of it.

Two days. Hermione had been in labor for two days all the while growling obscenities at him and then apologizing shortly after. That Draco hadn't minded too much since she yelled at him at least twice a day at home. It was pretty much the same except for the crazy tight grip and the excessive crying. Eventually though, Draco heard crying that didn't belong to his wife. Healer Hobs was smiling and as he raised a small baby up for them to see.

"Here's your little boy!" Healer Hobs grinned. Draco would've been the third person to cry in the room had Hermione's smile not been short-lived and she started screaming again. The Healer handed off their son to one of the other Healers in the room as he attended to Hermione yet again. A minute or so later there was another sound of a baby screeching in the room, and Draco laid eyes on his daughter.

Hermione's tears were nothing short of joy. Her children were almost as she imagined they'd look like when they were born. Instead of the full-on Malfoy blonde hair, it was tainted with her brown. They had Draco's eyes, though, and they shined beautifully. All in all they were lovely. Both babies were placed in Hermione's arms and she could barely see them with how much tears were springing from her eyes. Draco stared at the scene completely in disbelief. It was one thing to find out you were going to be a father, but to find out that you were having not one, but two children at once was mind-blowing. And then to finally have them right in front of you, that was something else entirely.

Sometimes the events of Hermione and Draco's lives that led up to this moment were hard to believe. They had gone from spiteful enemies to coworkers who enjoyed a good sarcastic remark and making the other feel either incompetent or uncomfortable. From there they were simply a coworker helping another coworker with a cursed ring only to find out that they were cursed as well. Vivid dreams, a vengeful witch, and death is what brought them together. And despite how chaotic their lives were with one another, they were still together. They were always meant to be together, and now that they had each other they would never be without one another again.

"What will you name them?" Healer Hobs asked the new parents. Hermione and Draco looked at each other and grinned. It had been a conversation that they had only needed to have once, and the names they had chosen were perfect.

"Cornelius Julius Orion-"

"Matilda Giana Beatrice-"

"Malfoy," Hermione and Draco said together, smiling when their children smiled too.

Author's note: That's the end everyone! Amelia's finally out of the picture, the rings are gone, all questions are answered, and Hermione and Draco finally get to have their happily ever after. If they didn't get it then I think that'd be pretty mean of me haha.

Thank you SO MUCH for everyone who's been reading, reviewing, favoriting, and following. Every form of support has been great and it was a pleasure to bring this story to you guys :). I'm going to be taking a small hiatus from posting for a bit (probably just the month of January) so I can concentrate on just writing. My profile will have updates on what I'm working on/when I think something new will be out.

Once again, thanks! And an early Happy New Year to everyone :D

-WP