Chapter 9: Five Years

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Five years. That was how long it had been since Draco Malfoy had seen anything other than the bare, cold walls of the infamous Wizarding prison. And today was the day when he would finally be able to walk as a free man, no shackles to bind his hands, no chains to drag behind his feet.

He was standing in a stark room, one he had only ever been in once before when he was first taken to Azkaban. Even though it had been so long, Draco could clearly remember the events of that day and the exact way he felt. So much had changed.

The cold-hearted, pained man who had been brought to Azkaban's depths was gone. In his stead stood a man who was willing to turn his life around, to find a new start. He was not perfect, or close to perfect - nor would he ever become so. He was simply a man who had the desire to change despite his knowledge of the hardships he would encounter. The years had taught him of live's ability to continue and forgive, of the goodness to be found in people if he only took the time to look, and of the enduring hope and friendship certain people could naturally, endlessly give. He was still Draco Malfoy, pureblooded, independent, and intelligent, and sometimes still cynical and distrustful, but now he had a second chance to overcome his instinctually malign traits to emerge from the prison as a man improved.

The guard coughed once and brought Draco out of his reverie, pointing to several long tables stretched across one wall with square tubs. He motioned at the box second to the left.

"Your robes and possessions are in there. When you've changed, exit out that door," indicating to a solid exit across the room, "and get your wand from the witch behind the counter. You'll then be led outside where your escort will take you home."

Draco nodded silently as he stepped toward the tables and sensed rather than saw the guard leave. It felt odd to be in a strange place completely unguarded. For over five years, he had either been in a cell alone or in someone else's company wherever he went. He almost felt too exposed, naked. Quickly he shook off the disturbing feeling and reached into the tub.

His robes were the ones he had been wearing the day of his "capture," so one sleeve had a small tear and the hem was slightly jagged. Overall though, they were in a well enough condition, and as he slipped them over his head, a comforting familiarity swept over him. Where once they had been finely tailored, now they hung just loose enough to show he had lost a little weight over the years.

Feeling in his pockets, he withdrew a small piece of parchment, some loose change, and the tip of a broken quill. The parchment had the titles of books written across it in his fine, tidy scrawl, and Draco smiled as he remembered writing the list as he planned to stop by Flourish and Blotts. He never got around to it. Maybe now he would have time as he tried to form himself a new life.

Shaking off his thoughts, Draco turned to the door and hesitatingly pushed it open. The adjoining room was similar to the one he had previously occupied, only there were no tables. Instead a glass window across the top half of the wall allowed him to see a waspish little witch sitting behind it, piles of folders and loose papers laying around her.

Cautiously, he approached the counter and looked at the witch. She met his gaze with hard, jaded eyes. She had wrinkles on her forehead and around her mouth that made her look perpetually annoyed.

"Can I help you?" she asked, her tone sharp, biting, and none-too-friendly.

He hid a smile and replied, "Yes, please. I'm Draco Malfoy, here to pick up my wand."

Her eyes widened as he said his name and she quickly stood and disappeared out of sight. After several long minutes and lots of rustling and exasperated huffs, she finally emerged carrying a long box.

"Now, there have been restrictions placed on it, so you can only perform very basic magic for three months. It acts as a parole of sorts. Soon though, you will have full access to your magical capabilities."

Slowly, she slid the box through a small hole in the glass, just large enough for the box to glide through smoothly.

Almost in slow motion, Draco saw his hands reaching for the thin box seemingly on their own, detached limbs that were not his. They were lifting the lid off, and now there was his wand.

Suddenly he had complete control again, except he couldn't help the slight shaking of his right hand when he reached into the box. It felt warm to the touch, alive, pulsing with sparks and streams of magical currents. A rush of conflicting emotions came flooding at him: familiarity, relief, hope, regret, disgust. They raced through his mind, nipping each other's heels in their haste to gain dominance over his mind. He settled on a sort of hollow comfort as he rolled it over in his palm. He remembered how it felt, how it seemed to fit perfectly in the curl of his fist. Eleven inches, ebony, dragon heartstring. How like Draco it had once been – dark, mysterious, fueled by blood.

Now instead he felt a sort of remorseful kinship with the wood, as if it too was regretful of the spells, the dark curses that had once poured from within its magical depths.

The hawk-eyed witch interrupted his thoughts. "Do you have someone coming to pick you up?" she asked peevishly.

He looked back to her, and with a tight, polite smile replied, "Yes. She should be here now."

The witch nodded and twisted to press a bony finger to a metal plate on the countertop. Immediately, another burly guard swung open a door across the room and motioned for Draco to step forward.

Hesitantly, he walked across the room and followed the guard through the exit.

It was brighter outside, and Draco blinked rapidly as he walked behind the guard down the length of a sharp-looking metal fence. It was early dawn, the grey mists of morning swathing everything in a pale light. A harsh, winter wind blew against the gloomy prison whistling a wailing, unsettling song. It brought a stark coldness with it, dry and frigid and merciless. The distant sound of waves curling up against the rocky shoreline was almost drowned by the howling wind.

Abruptly, the fence ended at a tall gait. Shuffling in his pocket, the guard pulled out a ring of keys, selected one quickly, and turned it in the lock. The gate flashed a dim white before swinging open on invisible hinges. With a quick glance at the guard, Draco stepped through the opening.

The sudden closing made Draco turn and stare up at the fence, an unsure, unconfident expression flashing briefly across his face. An involuntary shiver danced up his spine as another hard gust of wind blew against his back.

"Malfoy?"

Twisting swiftly towards the sound, Draco's eyes quickly found Hermione standing a little ways away from the gate. She was wrapped in a long, fur-trimmed cloak and a scarlet scarf. Her hands were partially tucked and hidden in her pockets, bare and uncovered. She smiled as he faced her, her nose and cheeks an endearing pink, her hair curling around her head as the wind blew relentlessly.

"Come on, the Apparition point is down this way a bit," she said as she waved a paled hand at the slight path leading away from the building. She turned to start walking away, so Draco thrust his own hands into his robe pockets and hurried after her. He slowed as he caught up with her, glancing down at her for a moment before speaking.

"Thanks for coming to pick me up."

She looked his way as they meandered down toward the shore, a pleasant expression warming her face. "That's what friends do. After all these years, did you think I wouldn't?" she asked, a playful twinkle lighting her dark eyes.

His own face broke into an amused smile as he replied, "No, I'm just grateful. I don't think I could manage to Apparate after so long without splicing myself."

Her light laugh cut through the cold wind cheerfully. "We wouldn't want that, now would we?"

He chuckled and shook his head, contently bemused at the ease of their banter. He had finally come to terms with the idea of being Hermione's friend. Five years can do that to a man's thoughts. Now he simply reveled in a sort of blissful surprise when he was around her positive presence. She never failed to reveal something new and amazing about herself when she was with him, something he had never known or even expected about her, keeping their complex relationship alive and fascinating. He wasn't quite sure what he was going to do without her and her unwavering support now that he had been released, but that was a thought he had refused to confront for several reasons he didn't wish to acknowledge. He simply assumed that she would move on with her life now that he wasn't a charity case that needed care, despite how much the idea pained him.

Hermione stopped almost at the water, where the spray of the angry ocean could nearly reach her with its raging fingers. White foam erupted across the black rocks in sharp, severe contrast. She turned with a welcoming smile and motioned for him to come closer.

As he stepped onto the same rock she was standing on, she asked, "Where is it you want me to Apparate us to?"

He paused, just gazing down at her, a slight frown curving his lips. Running a hand loosely through his wind-swept hair, he furrowed his eyebrows and spoke haltingly, "I'm not sure. After all these years of being in one place, I don't know where I want to go now that I finally can."

Her eyes wrinkled softly in concern as her smile turned sad. "Don't you want to go home?"

He shook his head bitterly. "Malfoy Manor is not my home, it's just a place I once lived. I have no desire to go back."

She nodded in understanding and instinctively reached out a hand to comfort him. The moment she clasped his hand in her own, another shiver ran down his spine, this one not from the cold. They fit perfectly, her delicate fingers curved across his palm. He was staring at their connected hands in a sort of hesitant realization, and her expression seemed to mirror his. For five years they had never been able to touch, to feel, and now, abruptly, they were.

For so long, Draco had assumed he would always pull away if she ever touched him. But now he wasn't, nor did he want to. Instead, he found himself doing the very opposite. Without lucid thought, he moved closer to her, as if her warmth was drawing him near with the same effect the moon had on the oceans. She met his eyes, an unknown, almost unrecognizable emotion filling her own. He could only think one thing: five years, five years and I was never able to touch her.

"Draco."

A single word. A single word was all it took for his last shred of control to blow away, his weakened discipline to break. She was too close, too near.

So he kissed her.

It was so light, ever so gentle, that if not for the sudden rush of heat and warmth through his body, Draco could never be sure their lips actually touched. It was as if time itself had slowed and the only thing that mattered was the way he touched her, the way she felt. Long years had separated them, kept them from believing the extent of their feelings. But not anymore.

Then she leaned towards him and softly raised a small hand to his neck and pulled him even closer. Her other hand curled around his shoulder as if holding herself steady, keeping her from falling, completely collapsing into his arms. Draco could have sworn the very earth had ceased to spin.

It was like every cliché he had ever heard, electric and life-changing, yet still new and unique and totally different from anything he had ever known, could ever dream. It was the very definition of magic, the subtle, recognizeably familiar power magnified one hundred fold by time, exponentiated by the few feet that had always kept them apart.

He dropped a hand to her waist, pulling her towards him firmly because he now knew she was as essential to his survival as the very air around them. Because he now knew, without a doubt, that he was willing to cross the world on foot for her.

It was pathetic really. For five years, they had known everything about each other. For five years they have shared everything. So how had he not known this? How had he been able to look her in the face and deny to himself that he felt anything for her except a familiarity, a comfort, a gratefulness? How had he not been able to see it when it had been staring at him for years through brown, warm eyes?

And as they pulled apart ever so slightly, their lips still a mere hair-breadth apart, and as he felt her warm breath across his skin, he realized that this emotion, this feeling had been there almost the whole five years, lying unnoticed and dormant underneath all the commotion and complexity of their lives. He had just never been able to admit it to himself.

So now, the passion, emotion, the intensity between them finally recognized, finally admitted in the most undeniable form, he wrapped his other arm around her, across her back, so that she was as close to him as she could ever be. She sighed against his chest as he hid his face against her hair, brushing his lips against her jaw, her neck.

And as he whispered her name, her blessed, beautiful name, he knew that she was smiling.

The wind still blew, and the waves still crashed against the rocky shoreline, but now none of that seemed to matter.

Her words were muffled against him as she spoke, but he clearly heard what she said.

"Draco, let's go home."

He didn't know where home was, but her words still made him smile and caused a kind of brightness within him, because he didn't really care where home was as long Hermione was there, as long as she was with him.

And as she pulled a little bit away to fumble in her pocket for her wand, as she smiled at him as she grasped it in her hand, as he grinned back and pushed a lock of dark hair behind her ear, and as they Disapparated from that rocky shore and away from the prison that had held him captive, Draco knew that five years wasn't too long to wait for a love like this.

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A/N: There it is, folks. The final, sappy, extra-long chapter of Five Years and the end of my first multi-chaptered fanfiction. I would have never done it without all of your support.

A special thanks to all who ever reviewed: witch, marauderbabe289, Punkindoodle, aperfectattitude, yummy food, WinnieThaPoo92, D.M Lover, Marionette, googleaddict, mytondeftiger, pstibbons, PadfootPatronus, Kae-Lae, chaste-aeon, Princess Amoretta, whymuzitellu24myname, Charu, FireboltPheonix, Nothing Rhymes With Orange, silverlovedragoness, Waiting For An Absolution, grace, ca803, Darkforesta, Twitchy the Squirrel, and LightningRose. I tried to reply to every signed review I recieved to thank each of you personally, but I apologize for any I may have accidentally missed. You are the most wonderful people and your reviews always helped me to keep writing. Thank you so much!

As for more stories, I have several ideas floating around in my head, so keep a look-out for me. My muses are over-active, so I'll be posting more shortly.

In the meantime, check out the C2 I'm manager of to fill all your DHr cravings. It's called Sophistication: The Dramione and specializes in really well-written fics. Only the best go up here, and my staff (chaste-aeon, who's awesome, by the way) and I are always scouting for more good work.

This is the last time I'll ever beg for reviews for this story, so please indulge me and let me know what you think of this chapter, this story, other stories, fanfiction in general, ice cream, snow, shoes, or anything that strikes your fancy. I'd especially love to hear if you have any requests or suggestions for other stories; I might just be inspired!

Thank you again,

BIE : )