A.N: I can only apologise for the wait! A levels and life in general just got in the way, and I lost my motivation to write for quite a while. I hope you enjoy this chapter, and please review! :)

Once she received a note of confirmation that yes, 2 o'clock was fine, Hermione went into full anticipation mode.

She showered, tamed her hair (yet still allowed her natural texture to shine), got dressed and brushed her teeth all within half an hour. Which left (she looked at the clock on the oven)... two and a half hours of boredom.

She tried reading again but couldn't hold her attention to the words for more than a minute at a time, so she gave up and dropped the book on the floor in exasperation, before feeling guilty and putting it back on it's shelf.

She had no idea what to do with herself. The thought of sitting down to finish her mountain of paperwork was even less appealing than doing absolutely nothing. Which was sad to her, somehow. Somewhere along the way to where she was now, she'd lost her passion for working and getting things done. Back in her school days, work had never been a chore; it had always been enjoyable, knowing that she was constantly building on her skills and working towards her goals, all whilst proving herself to whoever doubted her. But now? For the life of her, she couldn't think of one single goal she had now. She wanted to travel someday, that much she knew, but it was such a vague and un-empirical aspiration that she didn't really have any particular drive to get up and just... get it done.

Her life had become a schedule; a rota. Work, home, friends. Work, home, friends - every week for the past two or so years.

After her parents deaths, she had appreciated the structure and the regularity of that pattern - it allowed her to latch onto a sense of normalcy. With the help of Harry, the Weasleys and Pansy especially, Hermione had made it out of one of the darkest times of her life, and she loved them all so much for it. Even now, over a year after the fact, they all checked in with her regularly, asking how she was and if she wanted to meet up for lunch, or meet at their house for dinner, or calling round just to chat.

But in keeping busy for so long, Hermione now felt like she was no longer able to just... be. The Hermione who used to be able to sit alone for whole days, reading and keeping to herself was just... gone. Whenever she allowed herself to sit alone in the quiet, she found herself ruminating and dwelling on all the ways in which she was unsatisfied with her life. It always seemed to come back to her parents or her job - one of which she was unable to change and the other she was, but didn't have the energy to do so.

She needed something different, something to shake her up a little bit. She supposed that that was why the idea of striking up a friendship with a changed and improved Malfoy sounded somewhat appealing - never in a million years was that what she had expected to be thrown her way; and that was exactly what she needed.

Hermione sat up straight, stretched, and checked the clock on the living room wall - 1:00. She growled lightly in frustration, before making a decision to just go early. There was no point waiting around doing nothing when she could go out on her own and get something done. She did need some new clothes, she thought, looking down at her worn jeans (which were starting to feel a little too tight), her loose t-shirt and faded red converse. Maybe she'd go and do that.

Hermione stepped out into the bright sunshine of a very crowded Diagon Alley. Witches and wizards were bustling about as far as the eye could see - it was a perfect day to get lost in the crowd.

She started walking to where she knew the few muggle clothing shops were. Since the end of the war, these shops, which were beginning to integrate certain aspects muggle culture into wizarding life, had started to pop up left, right and centre - much to Hermione's delight. She had never completely taken to traditional wizarding dress, but had always gotten strange looks from the magical community when wearing an entirely muggle outfit out in public. Now though, more and more people were beginning to adopt the much more modern way of dressing, and she could see more than a few people decked out in jeans and t-shirts.

Making her way through the crowds, she couldn't help but notice that people still stared. While she had no regrets about her involvement in winning the war, the level of celebrity that came with it was something she had never even thought about. The first time she ventured out after the celebrations had died down, she had expected a just few looks or possibly a day or two of whispering - after all she was no Harry Potter. In her opinion, she didn't warrant much more than maybe a double-take or two. Instead, she found that suddenly people talked about her when she walked past, openly stared at her and even came up and stopped her in the street, offering gratitude and congratulations. Social interactions had never really been Hermione's forte, and she had always found these occurrences to be quite unnerving.

As she walked, absorbed in her own thoughts and attempting to ignore the roaming eyes of the public, she collided hard with the back of someone.

"Sorry," she mumbled, eager to get moving towards her destination. She wanted to get her shopping done and drop it off at home before she met Malf- or should she call him Draco? No, no, Malfoy for now, she thought with a swift shake of her head.

She realised with a start that not only had she not started moving yet, but that the person she had just bumped into was actually talking to her. She looked up quickly and saw that, stood in front of her, platinum hair looking white in the sunlight, was none other than the former ferret himself. She could only laugh at the sheer absurdity of it all.

"Sorry," she said again, chuckling nervously, "I think I missed that."

"Yeah, no shit," the blonde said, rolling his eyes. "I said hello and asked why you were here early, but evidently you were being too self-absorbed to notice me," he said with a sniff.

She was about to offer him a swift and scathing reply, justifying her absentmindedness, when she looked closer and saw a hint of playfulness on his features. He wasn't really annoyed.

"You were the one stood in the middle of the street, I've probably got concussion now from the impact! That must've been why I didn't hear you; I could sue you know," she said, matching his expression and folding her arms in mock anger.

He laughed, and Hermione felt proud that she was actually able to make someone laugh - none of her friends had ever really shared her sense of humour.

"Really though, why are you here so early?" he enquired. "We did say 2, didn't we?"

"Yes we did, don't worry," she said quickly, "I needed to go clothes shopping." She gestured towards her outfit, stifling a grimace. "Evidently."

He shrugged, and offered a neutral hum in response. He clearly agreed with her assessment, but didn't want to risk offending her by openly saying so.

"Where were you planning on going to?" he asked, sounding vaguely interested.

"Oh, nowhere special, just to the nearest muggle clothing shop," she pointed to a smallish shop about 50 metres down the street, "just there."

He thought for a second, evidently having an internal battle with himself, and then let out a deep breath, slowly and almost inaudibly.

"Do you mind if I... tag along?" he offered, and Hermione could hear the tentative apprehension in his voice. "I don't exactly have much else to be doing right now, truth be told."

Hermione, who was shocked by his openness, felt her eyebrows travel slowly upwards - and judging by his odd expression, he'd seen her subtle facial movement too.

"It's fine if you don't want me to," he quickly backtracked, "I can just wait somewhere for a while and - you know what I'll just-"

"Malfoy, stop rambling," she cut him off abruptly, and he looked mildly affronted at her bluntness. "You can come with me if you want; I'd quite like the company, in all honesty. There's no point in waiting around for me to finish when we'd be meeting up later anyway."

She tried to read his expression as he reacted to her words, but Hermione might as well have been trying to read a book in complete darkness - every single thing he was thinking or feeling passed over his features, but far too fleeting for her to process. He just looked at her for a few seconds, eyes narrowed ever so slightly.

He must have settled whatever dispute he was having with himself eventually though, as he broke the silence.

"Alright, if you could use the company then I suppose I'll have to do; let's go."

Malfoy turned to walk in the direction Hermione had previously pointed, leaving her staring bemusedly at his back for a moment before she caught up to walk just beside him in the jostling crowds. Now people are definitely going to stare, she thought to herself.

"And you would just, wear these? I mean... for what purpose?"

Draco Malfoy was holding up a pair of jogging bottoms, a strained expression on his face.

Upon entering the shop, Hermione had become aware of the fact that Malfoy knew a very limited amount about muggle clothing. She should've guessed, really - the only clothes she ever saw him wearing were smart-but-casual black wizarding robes, crisp white or black shirts and tailored suit pants. All of which, he had informed her, he didn't actually go out to shop for; they were ordered in from designers in Italy or France or... wherever. Hermione hadn't really been paying full attention to his descriptions of high-fashion tailors from around the globe.

She did, however, pay attention when he gasped quietly upon seeing the racks and rails of muggle clothing. It was a mixture of amazement, curiosity and distaste, and Hermione couldn't help but laugh at him, which earned her a swift glare and prompted the discussion about his own clothing habits.

Forty minutes after their arrival, they had perused the various aisles of clothes and Hermione had even managed to convince him to take a few items to try on, after a fair amount of resistance. The jogging bottoms were the current battle.

"For what purpose?" She laughed. "A lot of purposes, actually."

"What does that even mean?" he asked, looking thoroughly perplexed and a little bit disgruntled.

"Well, some people wear them when they play sports, others wear them like normal trousers for going out in, and most people wear them around the house, you know; like lounge pants."

He still looked completely bemused.

"Just try them on," she urged, "they'll be a hell of a lot comfier than those things." She pointed at his suit pants.

He looked between her and the jogging bottoms a few times, before huffing and laying them over the crook of his arm along with the few other items Hermione had convinced him to try. She smirked to herself - small victories, Hermione, small victories.

A short while later, Hermione was stood outside of the two curtained changing rooms at the very back of the shop, waiting for Malfoy to finish trying on the clothes he'd deemed not too disgusting. So far, he had tried on a forest green shirt (ever the Slytherin), a pair of dark blue jeans, a light summer jacket and an assortment of plain t-shirts - all of which he had initially tried to convince her that he disliked. She knew he didn't though, because every item so far was on the 'buy' pile on one of the chairs surrounding the changing rooms.

"Jogging bottoms, Malfoy," she shouted from outside the curtained cubicle.

There was a drawn out sigh from inside.

"Fine," he whined. Malfoys didn't whine, Draco knew this - but he thought that perhaps his ancestors might be more lenient considering his current situation. Actually, he thought, scratch that. Wearing muggle clothes, in a muggle clothing shop, with his muggleborn 'soulmate', entirely by choice? He'd be more likely to get an execution date than any sympathy from those ancient bastards.

He looked down at the jogging bottoms he held in his hands.

He was being stupid - fuck the ancestors, it was only clothes. He was going to wear the bloody pants.

He put them on a quickly as possible, eager to get the whole thing over with. All he had to do was put them on as a weird 'fuck you' to... whoever, and then he could just take them off agai-

Fuck. They were the comfiest things he'd ever worn. Not that he'd ever tell Granger that - he'd never hear the end of it from her if he admitted that all his griping had been for nothing.

"They're uh... awful," he shouted, unconvincingly. "Yeah, I absolutely hate them."

There was a pause, and then Granger laughed.

"You're a horrific liar you know."

He growled. He just couldn't lie about these damn pants - they were too good.

"Fine," he ground out, "they're the best things I've ever worn and I never want to take them off."

Another pause.

"Do you want me to go and grab the darker pair too?"

He sighed.

"Yeah, If you don't mind."

Sitting down at the back of a coffee shop a short while later, Hermione ruminated on her current situation while she waited for Malfoy to finish ordering at the counter.

The only word that she could conjure up from her huge vocabulary to describe everything was absurd. A year ago, if someone had told her she would be Draco Malfoy's soulmate, and that she would voluntarily spend time with him and not entirely hate it, she would have laughed in their face and perhaps recommend a check-up at St. Mungo's. But that really was where she found herself to be. No matter how much she wanted to hate spending time with him — purely for her own pride and resentment for the soulmate system as a whole — she couldn't honestly say that she did. And no matter how much it might pain her younger self to admit it, Malfoy really had changed. There was no denying that he had matured; she supposed that spending your teenage years living under the same roof as a murderous, nose -less psychopath, surviving a war and losing a parent could do that to you. It had certainly done so for her — and she'd only had to deal with two of those things.

She was so lost in thought that she didn't notice Malfoy sliding into the booth, sitting down opposite her as he set down her cup of tea and his cup of coffee. It took a hand waving in front of her face for her to be pulled back to reality.

"Oh," she said, "Sorry, I didn't notice you were back."

"I'm positively devastated that my supreme aura wasn't enough to alert you," he quipped, his face betraying no real emotion. She narrowed her eyes and sized him up — was he really going back to that? Or was it just playful sarcasm? She needed to get better at reading him.

"Sarcasm," she stated, eyes still narrowed.

He looked back down at his cup, smirking ever so slightly, and she relaxed. Point two to Hermione.

They sat in a semi -comfortable silence for a few minutes, before it was broken by a soft giggling from Hermione. Quickly, the giggles turned to chuckles, and Malfoy looked at her with his nose wrinkled, seemingly downright affronted.

"What, what is that," he said, "what are you doing?"

"I'm laughing Malfoy," she said through her giggles, "you might like to try it some time, relax your frowning muscles."

He sniffed, even more affronted.

"I assure you I do laugh, but only at things which are in any way funny," he stated, nose raised slightly. "And besides, you're not laughing, you're giggling - Malfoys don't giggle."

Her laughter faded slightly.

"Sorry," she said, gathering herself together. "I've been trying to get over how strange this all is, but I just can't seem to get past it."

He stared at her, brow furrowed.

"How strange what is?"

Now that was a surprise. She tried to read him again, but couldn't detect any signs of sarcasm in his voice this time. He was being serious.

"I mean, just all of this,"she said, gesturing widely, and then between the two of them. "It's just... who could have ever seen this coming?"

He blanched, mulling over her words, before a strange expression came over his features.

"Granger," he started hesitantly, leaning forward onto his elbows and clearing his throat. "While you are a pleasant enough person to spend time with in small doses-"

"What a flatterer."

"-I need you to know that there isn't... and I don't plan on there ever being... an 'us'. If you catch my meaning."

Hermione began to laugh again with renewed vigour, leaving Draco looking even more confused than before.

"Stop laughing Granger, this is serious!" he said, sounding exasperated.

"No, no it's just... oh thank Merlin," she exclaimed, "I've been meaning to bring that up but I just didn't know how!"

Draco didn't know whether to be offended at how relieved she sounded or glad that they were on the same page. He settled for somewhere in between.

"No need to sound so pleased Granger, I'll have you know I'm usually a very desirable guy," he said with a slight air of annoyance.

"Well," she started. Should she tell him? She wasn't ashamed, and pretty much all of her other friends knew so.. why not? "It's just that I'm asexual, so the whole idea of having a romantic relationship thrust on me like that wasn't appealing at all, regardless of who it was with," she added pointedly, trying to alleviate any offense.

Draco didn't look any more enlightened than before. If anything he looked even more confused.

"You're... what-sexual?" he enquired, face scrunched up in confusion.

"Asexual," she said, hoping he had some idea of what she meant.

"Like.., a plant?"

Internally, she sighed deeply - this might take a little more time than she'd expected. she supposed that the plant association was to be expected from a scientist.

"No, not like a plant; like someone who doesn't feel sexual attraction."

Draco's eyes immediately widened, and he sat up a little straighter in his seat.

"That's.., that's a thing? I - I didn't know." He sounded genuinely intrigued, so Hermione decided to elaborate for him.

"It is," she said gently, getting the slight feeling that something about this was clicking for the man sat opposite her. "I don't feel sexual attraction to anyone, at all, and I very, very rarely feel romantic attraction. Ron was one of the rare times, and that was only after years of being friends."

Malfoy looked flabbergasted, and Hermione watched the far-off look in his eye right until he seemed to step off whatever train of thought he'd been on. He noticed her looking at him curiously, and cleared his throat.

"I um... didn't know that. Thank you for explaining it to me."

Hermione felt that a genuine thank you from Draco Malfoy should be surprising, but somehow, it wasn't.

"You're welcome," she said simply, and they fell back into silence for another few minutes.

Hermione didn't mind explaining her sexuality to people - especially if they didn't have a clue what it was. She preferred knowing that she could educate people in the right way, and give a factual, positive view on the matter.

She was feeling fairly content until Malfoy spoke again and nearly made her choke on her drink with his question:

"Sorry but, if you don't mind me asking, why did you and the Weasel break up if it was one of the rare times you felt romantic attraction?"

She gathered her thoughts quickly and looked up to see that, instead of the teasing she would once have expected, Malfoy seemed to be asking from a place of genuine interest. He was actually interested. In her.

"I mean its not that I would think of Ronald Weasley as being someone worth sinking your claws into," he continued quickly, "but if you planned on trying to go against all of this soulmate bullshit anyway, and you actually felt that way for him, then why?"

Hermione thought for a few moments, weighing up her options. She knew why her and Ron broke up - but did she really want to tell Malfoy? Her immediate instinct to be defensive was quickly overridden by the feeling that she was safe telling him all this - that somehow she knew that he wouldn't use it against her.

"It was a mutual decision," she began. "Well, mostly anyway."

Malfoy leant forwards, letting her know she had his attention.

"Ron had always been accepting of my sexuality, and for the most part it didn't really affect our relationship. I mean, we still... did things-" (she tried to hide the blush that was creeping onto her cheeks) "-but it was just that I didn't really rate doing them as being of any importance, whereas I think he did. But like I said, it didn't really affect much - the real issue came when Ron started to think seriously about the whole soulmate business."

Malfoy sat back in his seat, crossing his arms as he listened intently.

"While I was positive that the timers wouldn't affect me wanting to be with him, or affect the fact that I loved him, Ron was always quite traditionally romantic - I think there was something in the soulmate idea that really appealed to him - and the fact that it could turn out that his soulmate wasn't me was enough to freak him out. It started more than a few arguments, just because for me it was mostly a non-issue, but for him the future of our relationship really started to hinge on it - he was going to sit with me as I turned 21, and if the timer didn't immediately glow - you know, to say that my soulmate was him - then it would be over. By the time we'd made the plan, I was pretty sure that I didn't want Ron to be my soulmate anyway. It wasn't that I didn't love him, it was just that that whole experience had really opened my eyes to how different we really were; I mean, supposedly opposites attract, but I think that we were far too different in some very basic ways. I knew I couldn't make him happy forever. So when my 21st birthday came and the timer had a couple of years on it, we vowed to still be friends and then... we went our separate ways."

She turned her head and looked out of the shop window onto the bustling streets outside, thoughts lost in the past.

"And then he met Pansy again," Malfoy added.

Hermione looked back and smiled.

"Yes, then him and Pansy met again and they've been happy pretty much ever since - they really do work surprisingly well together."

There was silence for a moment.

"Yeah," he agreed, mind now elsewhere, "I suppose they do."