Thanks so much to my wonderful beta Híril, whose dashing efforts to keep my grammar in check are much appreciated. Any remaining mistakes are my own. This was originally written for the The DramioneLove Mini Fest Round 3 on LiveJournal.

Impossibly Far And Incredibly Close

-oOo-

Draco looked again, just to be sure, but there was no mistaking that high-pitched voice and the remnants of bushy hair. Somewhere, someone was laughing their arse off. Fate, perhaps. More probably, it was some Ministry parchment-pusher overcome with mirth at the prospect of Draco Malfoy spending the rest of his life in the cell next to Hermione Granger.

"Ma- Ma- Malfoy!" Granger wrapped her arms around her torso as if that was going to stop the freezing wind.

"Five points to Gryffindor." Draco had been there long enough to be pleased she recognised him.

"I tho- thought you were in France." She started jumping up and down to keep warm; clever move. Until she realised the outer walls weren't exactly the most stable of constructions. It made sense Granger would join Draco at the edge of the waves; it would have been a waste of all that freezing sea air to allow her to continue to languish in the dungeons.

Of all the things he would miss, he never thought living in a dungeon would make the list.

"It's a long story," he said.

"That's unfortunate, as I happen to very busy at the moment." Her eyes were sharp and brown and alive, and he felt the corners of his mouth drift upwards hesitantly.

"I might fit you in on Monday, then." Or was it Monday today? Draco didn't have a clue, but he felt a spark of energy. There was so much he had almost forgotten.

"OK, I have it: you stole the Crown Jewels. That's why you're here." Granger was standing at the edge of her cell, while Draco laid on the slab of concrete that passed for a bed in Azkaban.

"The what, now?"

She sighed so loudly it almost drowned out the high-pitched whining of the wind. "It's a Muggle thing. Merlin's wand, then."

"Nope. Try again." This was the best idea Draco had had for a long time. Granger positively squirmed in discomfiture as she failed again.

"You found out you were secretly adopted: your real parents were Professor Snape and – and your aunt Bellatrix."

"Then what? Being adopted doesn't usually carry an Azkaban sentence." Draco was nothing if not reasonable – he didn't even point out Snape and Bella had been united only in their mutual hatred.

"It does if you kill the official who processed the paperwork. With a sledgehammer."

"No. Not even close. I'm a Slytherin, remember – I'd do it neatly. With poison, or preferably by getting someone else to do the deed."

"That doesn't explain how you ended up here, though."

"You're the one trying to come up with an explanation, not I. Failing badly, I might add."

She went silent. Temporarily.

"Was it because you organised an indefinite house-elf sock-washing strike until they all got clothes?"

Draco leveraged himself up with his elbow, instantly regretting the exertion as the cold wind got him in the back, too. "I thought that was why you were here!"

She almost smiled. "Well played, Malfoy."

He wasn't sure of the finer details why Granger was there either – the papers had been strangely silent on that point, even after her trial. It wasn't surprising the Ministry had wanted to put her in Azkaban; she had been a thorn in its side ever since the war had ended.

It had been well and good while Kingsley Shacklebolt was the Minister, but when he had been hit in the head by a stray Bludger at the Intra-Ministry Quidditch Championship in 2001 things had changed.

It was odd, how the same tide that had driven the Malfoys back to their ancestral lands in France had landed Hermione Granger in Azkaban. Someone who had not gone to school with her may have believed she would automatically be for whatever Draco was against; it only went to show how little most people knew.

She never gave up, for one thing.

Most people put up with a few things in life being less than perfect as a matter of course, from their wand pulling a bit to the right to their spouse being useless in bed, but not Hermione Granger.

The same week the grand unveiling of the peace monument replacing the destroyed Magic is Might statue, made of thousands of pieces of rubble from Hogwarts and other battle sites, she had staged a demonstration for proper judicial processes – whatever that meant. It certainly did not win her any friends in high places.

It had only gone downwards from there – every time the Wizarding establishment made a point of showing how progressive it was, Hermione was there to point out how nothing much had changed when it came down to brass tacks. Still, this was Granger – Draco could not even begin to imagine what she had done that was worthy of Azkaban.

He could afford to be patient, though – it wasn't as if she was going anywhere.

"What's this 'due process' thing you're always banging on about?" Draco asked one afternoon when the wind was coming from the east and he almost felt like he could face the inevitable lecture.

It wasn't like he had anything better to do.

"Did anyone give you a trial before they put you here?" she asked, sitting up straight as if they were in class.

"Not sure – I was pretty out of it for a few months."

Granger pursed her lips, pretending she was McGonagall in a snit. "That would be an indication due process was not followed. It means not making things up as you go along, which seems to be the Wizarding World's favoured modus operandi."

"Let's pretend the supposedly brightest witch of our age has actually figured out why I'm here: why do you think a trial would have made a difference in my case?"

"The lack of it is just a symptom – the underlying cause is what brought us both here. When there are no clearly defined rules, whoever is running the show can have everything their way. Over time, this means that the kind of people rising to the top are those willing to tweak the system even further in their favour."

Draco spotted a flaw. "It worked for thousands of years, though."

"For your family – generations of Muggle-borns wouldn't agree." Looking sardonic didn't agree with her, but Hermione didn't let that dissuade her from making an attempt.

"You're never going to make everyone happy.

"Please don't tell me that's something your father says."

Why was she always right about everything? "It's still true, though," he said.

"Well, you can either have people unhappy about the system not favouring them but ultimately be fair and predictable –"

"Or?"

"Or you can have Wizarding Britain." She sighed. "You don't know why I'm here, do you?"

"You were a pain in the Ministry's arse for too long? The throbbing haemorrhoid that eventually had to be cauterized?"

For once, Draco reckoned her shiver was completely unrelated to the lack of insulation (or window glass) in their cells. "Please tell me you have no literary ambitions. Some people should be banned from using metaphors," she said.

"I haven't got a quill, never mind a literary agent, so you can rest easy. Why are you here, then?"

"Very few people know the actual reason. Even the Ministry didn't just throw me in here because it suited them – or at least they couldn't do that at the time. Merlin knows what's going on out there now, though..." Granger looked as if she actually cared, which was absurd – what did it matter to her when she was stuck in Azkaban?

"This place would be bursting at the seams if they were, so I think we can be fairly confident minor infractions like not paying one's Crup licence still don't carry an Azkaban sentence. Which begs the question of what you did to receive yours?" he asked.

Again.

Maybe by the time his hair turned grey, he would actually get an answer.

"I Imperious-ed the Minister for Magic," she said with the same inflection Draco's mother used to announce tea was being served.

"You what?" Draco checked quickly, just to be sure, but it was still Hermione Granger sitting on the other side of the rusty bars. The hair was longer and frizzier than when she first had turned up, but her eyes were exactly the same. It was strange, how they alone could be warm when everything else was bleak and grey.

Refusing to be sidetracked by Granger's eyes, Draco ploughed on. "It didn't occur to you the Ministry might be a tiny bit upset if they found out? Or that the role as Minister for Magic has more protective spells than – than Hogwarts?"

"The Hogwarts wards didn't exactly turn out to be watertight, did they? I'm not saying it was easy."

If Granger admitted that much, it would have stretched even Merlin.

"What did you get her to do, then? Free the house-elves?"

"I may be a Gryffindor, but give me some credit. It would have made it pretty obvious something was up."

"What did you Imperious the Minister to do, then?"

"To be just and act in the best interest of all wizards and Muggles."

Draco looked at her with horrified fascination. With a mind like that, it was almost fortunate she was in Azkaban. "Bloody hell. That must have been a shock to the system."

"It took them months to figure out something was wrong." Granger sounded quite detached; knowing her, she would have weighed up the risks and considered the consequences very carefully before acting. Then she had gone and done it anyway.

"How did they pin it on you?" Draco's family had spent quite a lot of time over the centuries encouraging constructive ambiguity around Unforgivable curses. Granger was surely clever enough to cover her tracks.

"Percy Weasley got suspicious when the Minister interfered in a Goblin asylum case, so he put Veritaserum in my tea. Which also carries an Azkaban sentence, incidentally, but you wouldn't catch Perfect Percy hanging around here." Finally, a bit of vindictiveness – it had been too much to bear if she had come out with the Granger equivalent of 'It's a fair cop, guv'.

"I never liked him."

"You never liked any of the Weasleys," she pointed out.

They came for him in the night.

Draco had almost given up hope a long time ago, despite being The Heir. Perhaps his parents had got lucky a second time in his absence– in which case the best he had to look forward to was permanent frostbite.

In the end, all it took to break him out of Azkaban was ten people, a ship and a strategically placed dragon.

"Get in!" someone roared at him, over the noise of the waves breaking against the walls crumbling into the sea.

"You have to get Granger!" he roared back, scrabbling to get across what once had been a window surrounded by a wall. "Get her, or I'm not coming!"

"Do you want to get out of here or not?" asked a wizard with a beard so large he had tied it up to get it out of his way, as he helped Draco to climb onto the dragon. The beast flapped its wings, jostling his off his precarious balance. A timely hand grabbed the scruff of his neck, saving him from falling into the sea.

"Get her! She's in there!" Draco pointed to where her cell had been, noticing the piles of rubble with a sick feeling in his stomach that had nothing to do with the incessant rocking of the dragon.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," a burly witch muttered, casting a swift net of spells to dissuade any guards from approaching them. It was only now Draco noticed there were several flyers on broomsticks flitting through the air, frequently blown off course by the winds but gamely throwing curses to hold off the guards long enough to pull Granger out of the rubble.

"Where am I?" Hermione asked, hoping very much the answer would not be 'Azkaban'. It was warm, to start with. Well, warmer.

"En route to France," said a familiar voice.

"Draco!" She had heard the bang and seen something coming for him – she just hadn't realised it was actually a dragon at the time.

"Did I ever tell you why I was in Azkaban?" If Hermione didn't know better she would have thought he looked uncomfortable.

"This is the time you choose to tell me?"

"Yes." He shifted as he sat on the dragon's broad back, and Hermione flung her arms around him out of instinct. He didn't push them off. "Obviously I couldn't tell you while we were still there, but Potter cashed in my life debt to him in an attempt to get you out."

"Right," Hermione said. Perhaps this was a good time to find out – she barely had time to worry about being thousands of feet up in the air. "You're the cavalry?"

"Yes."

It made sense, in a twisted sort of way; she was willing to bet her last Galleon Ron had come up with the idea, but she knew in her bones Harry would not have given up on her. No matter what.

"Now, what?" Hermione asked lazily as they drifted far above northern Belgium (the broomstick fliers were still accompanying them, only now they kept refreshing the Disillusionment Charms on the dragon).

"We spend the rest of our lives in front of a very big fire. In the sunshine." Draco was wearing four jumpers; he would no doubt put on a fifth once they landed.

"Yes, but where? I can hardly go back to the UK."

"You could stay with me." His look of acute discomfort convinced her the offer was genuine.

"Do you have your own place?" she asked carefully.

The grin on his face was something to behold: Hermione didn't think she ever had seen him smile properly before. "I have a chateau, so I'm sure I can squeeze you in somewhere."

She realised she had been a bit precipitate. "Do you have any house-elves?"

"Oh, Hermione," he sighed, as if he used her first name all the time. Perhaps he did, in his own head – she seemed to have slipped into thinking of him as Draco without even noticing. "What am I going to do –"

She kissed him before he said something stupid (Hermione had a feeling this wouldn't be the last time).

Kissing Draco Malfoy while riding a dragon currently cruising above the Ardennes felt surprisingly natural – maybe one mad thing cancelled out the other.

"On the other hand, maybe things will work themselves out." He looked slightly dazed.

"Maybe they will," she agreed, wrapping her arms closer around him. It was nice having a future, even if it didn't look like she had expected.

THE END