Hermione was dreaming. It was a replay of an old memory, from when she had first started at the Ministry.

She had been persuaded by both Ron and Harry, not to mention Kingsley into going through Auror training, despite her original reservations.

""I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you to take our country's welfare into account and consider becoming an Auror, Hermione," Kingsley had said. "You are a singularly talented witch and from what I've heard, saved Harry from himself more than once. It doesn't just take skill only, it also takes instincts to be a first-rate auror, and you've demonstrated both qualities in full."

Maybe it was being flattered by the man people claimed would be the next Minister or it was that she wasn't immune to the imploring of someone whose ethics she admired, but Hermione caved. She caved big-time and decided to sign up for auror training.

And the first person Hermione saw, on the first day of training, was someone with whom she'd had a relationship comprised entirely of animosity.

"Granger," an unwelcome voice belonging to a platinum blond wizard greeted her.

"Malfoy," she replied through lips that hardly moved. Fortunately, though, that seemed to be the extent of his verbosity. He moved to a seat at the opposite side of the room after a surprisingly civil nod. Hermione could hardly believe it was the same person who used to sneer at her.

They were partnered up for the very first exercise, a dueling routine to evaluate how quickly they thought on their feet.

Wonderful, Hermione thought, eyeing her partner. He eyed her right back.

"We are going to really mix things up for this first exercise," Hemmings informed them. "I've found that some graduates come to us with preconceived notions, and we're going to do away with that right now."

"I'm not going to kill you," Malfoy said to her, looking exasperated. "So you needn't behave as though I were considering it."

"I wasn't," she denied, blushing furiously, because the thought had crossed her mind.

He rolled his eyes. "Right."

"Fine," Hermione said. "Then put my doubts to rest: why are you in auror training?"

He gazed at her for a minute in which she was certain he was about to tell her to sod off. Then he shrugged and said, "Professor Snape recommended me, all right? After he was awarded a posthumous Order of Merlin, First Class, several of his... actions came to light. It seemed ungrateful not to put his recommendation to good use when all he ever did was to look out for my well-being." At first, he seemed as though he were going to say more, but then his lips clamped together.

Hermione wilted. She didn't know what she had expected-for Malfoy to claim he was much more qualified than she ever could be to be inside the Ministry. Or for him to claim his skills at dueling far outstripped hers-which had been true in school. She hadn't expected a desire to remember a man who had sacrificed himself for the good of wizardkind and who had certainly acted like a doting father to Malfoy, even if he had behaved like a giant bat to everyone else, herself included.

"Oh," was all she could find to say.

His lips pulled outward at the sides as he acknowledged her speechlessness.

"En garde!" Hermione said and was promptly sent flying backwards as she was hit with a cyclone of cold wind.

"Are you alright?" Hermione looked up to find Malfoy's uneasy face above hers.

"Fine," she grimaced.

"Maybe you should go to the infirmary," he suggested, glancing back towards the instructor. He looked so uneasy that Hermione realized he was even more aware of his status as a social pariah than she was. He hated going up against her even more than she did.

It made her feel magnanimous, even. "I'm fine. That was a good one. Let's go again."

That was how they had fallen into a non-contentious relationship.

The first time they had been assigned on a raid was an unmitigated disaster, and part of the reason she dropped out of the program two months later.

There were trip-hexes around the entire perimeter of the estate. Although they had a warrant, they should have known it wouldn't be so easy. The one thing about dark wizards was that they were all unpredictable.

"Three layers of protective charms," she had said calmly, and listed them out. "Classic disillusionment, Notice-Me-Not, and warning spells."

Keeblewhite, their lead, nodded in approval of her diagnostic spell.

"There should be more," Malfoy said with a frown.

"But there aren't any beyond the apparation point," Hermione argued. "See? Otherwise, this Sneakoscope would start spinning."

She didn't have to look to see Malfoy rolling his eyes. "That's an outdated artifact, Granger. Everyone knows that."

"Then what would you suggest?" Hermione challenged, hands going to her hips an instant before Malfoy knocked her over. Purple light exploded behind her less than a second later.

"Good save," Keeblewhite acknowledged. "It was a trip-hex, undetectable by diagnostics, because they only show up when triggered."

Hermione struggled up and gazed at the tree that had taken the brunt of the curse. There was a hole directly through its trunk, still rimmed in fiery sparks. "You saved me," she whispered, staring at Malfoy.

For the first time since training started and maybe ever, Malfoy smiled at her. A genuine, non-sarcastic smile.

"Now we're even," he said.

Hermione found her voice the following week when they were paired up again.

"When did I save your life?" she demanded.

"When you and Potter and Weasley rescued us from the Room of Requirement," he replied promptly before raising an eyebrow.

"Anyone would have done that," she said.

"Precisely. So now we're even."

There was no reason for her to be seeking him out voluntarily. Right, maybe there were a couple of reasons. Shorn of his youthful bravado and mouthful of insults, Hermione found this new person was not unpleasant to be around. Certainly he knew more about Dark Arts than anyone she knew and that definitely gave her pause. However, even the instructor had acknowledged that knowledge of the Dark Arts would be something that saved them in raids, because dark wizards weren't going to go by the book in defending themselves. Dark Arts weren't taught at Hogwarts, even though they were at most other schools, specifically Durmstrang, and that was a pity for the British denizens, Hemmings said. After the noticeable slew of shocked exclamations, he told them to settle down and understand that in order to defend against dark spells, one had to understand them. It was alarming to discover just how much knowledge Malfoy possessed on such an obscure area of magic.

Hermione had a rather poor opinion of the schoolboy she had known, least of whose faults was his propensity in fooling about behind professors' backs. This new Malfoy took his training seriously. She found that, on more than one occasion, the books she wanted for extra research had already been checked out by him from the Ministry library. When she asked him for the books, he handed them to her without any snarky comments, only a few offhand reminders to not move his markers charmed inside the books. Things that only another avid reader and studier understood.

They had even amicably exchanged notes from training a few times. It was a foolish thing to like someone for their penmanship, but that was exactly what Hermione found herself doing. Malfoy's handwriting was superb, with a slight windswept quality to his lettering. And while she wrote down every word the instructors said, his notes were succinct, with lots of shorthand. She found herself tracing some of his written words. They reminded her of old-fashioned letters, when people wrote with beautiful penmanship detailing their day with vocabulary and syntax not often used in present day. She had never seen cursive so elegant outside of a wedding invitation.

In short, there were more than a few things Hermione found to like about this changed person. Or maybe those qualities were always there, only waiting for the devastation of war to bring them out and the maturity of adulthood for someone to see.

X.x.X

Three years ago

Hermione knew Malfoy would be the one to find her.

"At least use the women's loo down the hall, Hermione," he said, from outside the door. "This is the only loo available for men in this section."

He had started calling her Hermione a while back and she still couldn't get used to the sound of it on his lips. Hermione. His posh accent made the name sound positively decadent. She had toyed with the idea of calling him Draco, since that was, after all, his name. But the thought had died unspoken. Her name didn't mean much to him, she was sure, while her saying his first name would be…

She didn't know what it would be, but it would mean something, if the thought of it made her blush.

But right now, it was none of his business that she was using the gender-neutral loo close to their department. He was right, though-she should have gone further afield.

Still, this was the closest place she could find to throw up. Seeing that child who got hit with multiple jinxes had taken an enormous toll on her, especially the horrifying jinx that ended his life by turning his esophagus into a live fish that had tried to flap its way of of his body.

Another knock. "Hermione," he said. "I know you're in there."

"It's occupied, Malfoy!" she yelled out.

"Look, you're upset, but you can't be serious about dropping out of the program," he said through the door. She could just imagine him with both hands on the door, mouth close enough to leave fog on the plaque denoting this as a public toilet.

Hermione jerked the door open. "So what if I am?" she demanded.

He crowded her so that she walked backwards into the bathroom again. He closed the door with a quiet click, glanced around and grimaced before he transformed the washbasin and the mirrors into a table and chairs.

After sitting in one of the chairs, he said, "You're halfway through training. Did you think it was going to be all peaches and cream? Didn't you think that our instructors had something up their sleeves when they looked suspiciously eager today?"

Hermione thought back and realized he was right. "It's still disgusting."

"It is. But that's the sort of thing they regularly come across. As will you," he said. "Aren't you eager to present your diploma to your friends?"

"And what about you?" she asked.

"Oh, terribly eager to show your friends," he said with some of his old mocking edge.

Hermione blinked at the floor, now glamoured to resemble a parquet floor in a restaurant. "I thought I could do it, Malfoy," she said. "But I can't. It was one thing when it was during war and we were fighting for the survival of mankind, but now that it's over, I just can't do this every day. I can't face seeing that sort of torture and…having to remember it," she finished at almost a whisper. Her right hand subconsciously fingered the scar on her left forearm through the sleeve of her robes. His eyes followed her movements.

He didn't speak for the longest time. When he finally did, it wasn't what she had expected him to say. "Are you ever going to call me by my first name?"

She gaped at him. "What?"

"My name. I have a name. Are you ever going to use it?"

"Er," she said, looking anywhere but at him. She looked at the pastel art on the wall he had transfigured over the partition dividing the bathroom. At the discreet lamp hanging over their makeshift table. Transfiguration lay in the details, Professor McGonagall had told them. Clearly, Malfoy had paid attention in class. "Probably if you save me again," she said finally. "Then I'll owe you, right?"

"I don't count on that happening anytime soon," he remarked with the faintest of smiles and stood up. "So this is it? You'll be gone in the morning?" His lips were twisted into some sort of expression she couldn't fathom.

"I'll probably transfer to another division of the Ministry," she said. His eyes were narrowed at her as though he wanted to say something. She waited, but he didn't say a word. "It was nice working with you, Malfoy," she said finally.

He scoffed, opened the door and stopped. He made a sound that was a scoff and opened the door and stopped. Without turning around, he said, "Put the loo back in order before you leave, will you?"

Something inside her screamed at her to say something, but nothing came to her as she watched him leave.

Hermione Granger was someone who prided herself on not putting her feelings above her work. She had done that once before, when she was a teenager, and it had amounted to absolutely nothing then, so she had sworn off such behavior. Certainly, she had gotten to know Draco Malfoy that much better in their sequestered training and had even (gasp) enjoyed his company. Was there a teeny tiny part of her that had started to find him attractive and that wanted to know him better, perhaps outside of training? Yes, perhaps. But sacrificing her lunch thanks to painful training sessions, as well as her future career goals to pursue that (probably doomed) possibility was not what being an Auror was about. So she dropped out.

There were so many different degrees of dismayed reaction to her decision that she didn't have the time to catalogue them all. The only person she thought of was her former partner in training, who seemed so unaccountably unapproachable now that they were no longer in the same department.

Hermione was a fierce and brave warrior in all but one area. When it came to relationships, she simply didn't have what it took to bat her eyelashes and wiggle her bottom to get what she wanted. And it didn't seem as though Malfoy were interested either, if she was being honest with herself.

After the first few times of going out for drinks with the Auror department, with Hermione sandwiched in between Harry and an ever ebullient Ron, she gradually gave up trying to talk to him. How could she, when all Malfoy ever did at the social functions they attended at the same time was look over her head and direct close-mouthed smiles in her general direction?

It was a pity, that was all. She had thought they had quite a rapport together, despite all the differences stacked against them. They had worked quite well, in a way, and in fact, she thought the instructors liked to pair them together for that exact reason.

That was, most likely, all in her own mind.

X.x.X

Present day

"It's been weeks," Harry responded to Hermione's question. He looked stressed and possibly even a little sad. "There's been no sign of his whereabouts. I finally narrowed down the suspects to two of our last cases, but I haven't been able to take a leave to check it out. As far as the department is concerned, his wand has already been found. Fact is, wizards die all the time without leaving a trace, so the case is closed, pending an investigation as to my... issues." Harry buried his face in his hands.

Hermione gazed across her desk at him, feeling pity and something else that felt vaguely like a rock churning in her gut. Harry and Malfoy had a long and complicated past together, but she thought that, in a way, they understood each other in almost the exact same manner Harry and Ron got each other. A past filled with animosity and misunderstandings served as something of a bridge when truce was called.

Now, Harry was being hauled up before the ethics committee after the latest episode, which was probably exacerbated by his and Malfoy's string of reprimands. Not for one minute, though, did Hermione think he had anything intentional to do with Malfoy's disappearance.

As for what she did think… Hermione didn't want to dwell on her own feelings on the matter. That was something she only did in the dark recesses of the night. She concentrated on the facts, and it was a right shame that someone as talented and young as Draco Malfoy would die so early. It was nothing personal, her own feelings of sadness. Not at all.

"I went over to the Manor," Harry said, swallowing. "I had to talk to his mother. His mother who wanted to save him so badly she purposefully lied on my behalf to save me. It was horrible."

"What did the healers say about the obliviation hex?" Hermione asked, changing the subject.

"You know the memories are usually gone, unless the person specifically siphoned them out beforehand as insurance. I'm definitely going to start doing that now," he replied with a short laugh.

"You were... harried when I saw you that Sunday. You were muttering about work. You didn't want to let me in, but Ginny made you. You both cancelled on our lunch, so Ron and I ate together. You said something about, 'this is a hell of a time for this to happen. Now I'll have to file papers for Malfoy,' or something of that nature."

Harry sighed. "Again, this is all evidence against me."

"Not necessarily," Hermione denied. "Why would you file papers for Malfoy if you were implicit in his disappearance? Wouldn't you want someone else to discover that he's missing?"

Harry groaned and pulled at his hair. "I don't even know anymore."

"Harry…" Hermione said helplessly. "Are you sure you won't even take the kneazle back? Even Ginny said it might have something to do with your last case."

"I honestly can't imagine what on earth possessed me to bring home a kneazle when James is allergic. That's so unlike me," he grumbled and pushed to his feet. "Thanks for listening, Hermione. I'm going to go back to the grind and see if I can track down those two suspects."

Hermione smiled weakly at him as he stumbled out of her office.

At home, she was greeted by a buoyant Crookshanks, who had demonstrated his superiority over the new arrival, and a very lackadaisical Pinchpunch, as he had been recently. Hermione picked up the droopy kneazle and spoke some nonsense to it, pulling him into her lap for a grooming session.

Today, he lifted a tail half-heartedly in response to her brushing him before lying down, a completely disinterested customer. She scratched Pinch under the chin and the animal turned his head to look at her. Hermione blinked as she gazed down at the animal. Now, she was completely certain it was undergoing some type of change-she was positive that his pupils now looked slitted and almost sky-blue. He miaowed at her plaintively and sighed.

Hermione made up her mind. Holding the kneazle under her arm, she floo'd away.

She was apologizing as she made her way from the fireplace: "I'm so sorry for this intrusion, Professor."

Headmistress McGonagall has risen from behind her desk with raised eyebrows.

"I don't know if you've heard, Professor, of Harry's current problems?"

The headmistress's eyes softened. "Only a fool would think that boy had anything to do with anyone's disappearance, much less his own partner's. What's this? A new pet?"

Hermione gazed down at her armful and held Pinch up. He shrank a little before the older woman. "Sort of. This was what Harry put in my care before he was obliviated. I was wondering...well, I was wondering if you could tell me if it's been transfigured."

The headmistress raised her eyebrows even higher. "An animagus, my dear? They're practically undetectable unless one catches them in the act. Or do you mean transfigured by someone else?"

"Yes, that's exactly what I'm wondering."

The headmistress came forward to study the animal, who blinked up at the former professor. "I'm sure you're now far more of an expert than I am, Hermione, working in the Beast Division as you are. Such things are far more complex than a simple transfiguration spell, which can be undone by finite or even by touch at times, and usually wears off within a few days if not reapplied. I'm afraid if you have checked it out yourself that there isn't much more I could tell you."

"Thanks, Professor," Hermione said with a wry smile.

"Minerva," the headmistress corrected. "Surely we've graduated into first names?"

Hermione blushed. "Right. Sorry. Habit. Erm, actually, would you mind if I visited with Hagrid for a few minutes? He's not away, is he?"

"Yes, please help yourself, dear. And you may use the new Apparation Point, you know. It allows Hogwarts staff and Ministry personnel to exit from the premises."

With another short exchange of pleasantries, Hermione made her way outside and down the hill to Hagrid's cabin, where she was relieved to see had smoke rising from the chimney.

"Blimey, Hermione!" Hagrid said after helping open the door. "Aren't yeh a sight for me sore eyes? Come in and have a few of my stone cakes."

Unsurprisingly, Hagrid also sported a few singe marks on his face and beard. "What's happened there?" she asked, clearing off a chair before sitting down. Pinch flicked his tail multiple times before he conceded to sitting on her lap.

"Oh, ergh, some little mishap with a lightning chick, but never yeh mind. What's got yeh down here at this time of the day, Hermione? Something on yer mind?"

"Actually, yes. Hagrid, if you don't mind, I wanted you to take a look at this animal," Hermione gestured down at the white kneazle in her lap.

"What's that yeh got there, a kneazle? No, some other animal. No kneazle's that color. Too big to be a regular cat, though, and not with those ears and that tail," Hagrid was mumbling to himself.

"Wait a minute, Hagrid. Are you saying this isn't a kneazle?"

"Well, it could be done, right? But, never seen one with that color afore in my life, and that's saying something." Hagrid reached forward to stroke the animal and Pinch lurched back so quickly he knocked his head on Hermione's chin.

It was hard to tell who was more surprised. There didn't exist an animal Hagrid couldn't charm into purring for him, Hermione was certain. Hagrid was similarly taken aback and stared for a minute at the kneazle in befuddlement before scratching his beard. "Well, he's a one, isn't he?" he chuckled. "Where did yeh get him?"

"Harry," Hermione said. "Except he doesn't remember how or where. So I was hoping our resident expert could tell me."

"I can't tell you a thing you wouldn't know, I'm sure," Hagrid said gruffly, cheeks flushing at her praise. "But one time I met a nasty fella, who charmed animals to having some very rare traits, all for the sake of making a few knuts. Nasty business that. You might find that under the glamour, this poor little animal is just your average, mixed breed kneazle."

Hermione ignored the fact Pinch was trying to swat Hagrid's hand away from his head. "That's just it, Hagrid. There's no glamour on him that either the headmistress or I could detect."

"Blimey, that's a conundrum, isn't it?" Hagrid said, now with one massive hand on his hip and the other on his head as he tried to figure out why the animal was behaving with such antipathy towards him. "An enchantment, do yeh suppose? But it'd have to be quite the charm if neither of yeh two could figure it out. I mind old fairy magic, that's the only sort of thing that would escape the notice of a couple of smart witches like yeh two. I don't know what else to tell yeh."

Dispirited, Hermione thanked Hagrid, exchanged a few more tidbits of gossip about Hogwarts and the Ministry before she made her way to the Apparation Point and returned to her dark flat. It was already nine o'clock and all was dark.

Hermione set Pinch down and picked up Crookshanks, crooning to the neglected cat. "I'm sorry, Crooks. I know I've been neglecting you dreadfully, but I've got to see him home somehow. You wouldn't like to be so far from me and not have someone help you, would you?"

In keeping with her newly awakened suspicions as to the origins of the animal, Hermione took Crookshanks into the bathroom with her and firmly closed the door on Pinch, ignoring his hisses and protests as she showered.

When she emerged, Pinch was steadfastly trying to ignore her, sitting with his back to the bathroom door, one paw up to one side of his face, trying to groom himself but not even using his tongue.

Hermione almost laughed at that. "Tomorrow, Pinch, I'll hit the library and dig up more information. I don't think we should rely on Harry's leads."

The white kneazle unbent to miaow his approval. He stalked about her room, his tail brushing over the spines of the books on the lowest level on her bookshelf.

Over the years, Hermione's instincts had been sharpened into closely observing animal behavior especially when she was stumped as to problems. She dropped to all fours and ran a finger over the titles of the books before a thought struck her. "Forgotten Fairy Tales," she read. "Fairy magic!"

Pinch stared back at her unblinkingly, with only his tail swishing behind him.

That night, she sat up in bed, flipping through the pages of the book. It was an older book in her possession even before she had gotten her Hogwarts letter. Going through it now, she was surprised at how accurate a representation Muggles had gotten the world of magic without even knowing it existed.

After reading through almost half of the book, she looked up at the two animals next to her. "I don't know what I'm even looking for, is the problem," she admitted before turning out the light. "All I know now is to call out your name if you're ever in a jam."

Somehow that made her think of Draco Malfoy and her friendship with him that died before it even began. She wished…she wished now that she had tried just a little harder. But what was the point, right? A relationship took two. At the very least, she thought, she could have called him by name. By his real name, as he had requested.

"Draco," she tested tentatively in the silent room.

The room was still. Even the kneazle stopped moving and stared.

"Draco," she whispered, tasting the name on her tongue.

She fell asleep.

X.x.X

Hermione was dreaming again. She was reliving another memory.

"Malfoy!" someone hailed, and she saw with surprise that she was looking up and at herself. She was in someone else's body, looking through someone else's eyes.

"Did you come to steal another of my books?" she was saying. No, Malfoy was talking, and she was seeing the event unfold through his eyes, from inside his body.

"I wouldn't have to if you would just stop checking out all the good ones," dream sequence Hermione said with a cheeky smile. Real Hermione's eyes lingered on that smile-no, Malfoy's eyes did.

"Have at it then, Hermione," he said, emphasizing her name.

Real Hermione watched the wash of color spread across her face. "Er, right," Dream Hermione said, ducking her head and picking through the books that were stacked on the table. They were in the Ministry library. She remembered this scene, but vaguely. They had been stymied by a list of Russian and Pan-Asian hexes that the instructor had rapped out in quick succession in training that day.

"Still not going to call me by name, are you?" Malfoy was drawling in that knowing manner he had. She never knew what to make of him when he did that. She never knew if he was teasing her or testing her. Now, in the dream, Real Hermione could tell that Malfoy's eyes were tracking her every movement-the way she tucked her hair behind her ear, the way she tapped twice on a page she found particularly interesting, the way her brow furrowed a bit when thinking. He hadn't done that in real life, had he? This was all in her mind, a dream.

"What did you make of the Asian curses? Specifically the Tibetan types?" Dream Hermione was asking, looking anywhere but back at him.

"You'll have to be more specific. All Hemmings discussed today was thread magic. You do realize that Buddhist magic is older than anything we have, right?"

"I've actually never read anything about Buddhist magic," Dream Hermione admitted, a little abashed. "There aren't that many translations of the subject."

Malfoy hesitated before saying, "I have a few at home. At the Manor. In the library."

"Oh," Dream Hermione replied.

"You're welcome to come peruse them at your leisure." He paused for a moment. "A war heroine as you are. I doubt many doors are closed to you. There's no reason the Manor should be an exception."

In his eyes, Dream Hermione looked uncomfortable. "Oh, that's all right. I don't want to impose."

Real Hermione remembered this moment. She had felt ashamed that it had been so easy to get places and receive awards for something she did when she was barely aware of what she was doing. There had even been talk of her and Ron getting the Order of Merlin, Third Class, but it hadn't passed through the committee, much to Ron's chagrin.

Compared to her situation, she was very much aware that Draco Malfoy had fallen far indeed. She hadn't been blind to the mutterings behind his back when people thought he couldn't hear them, or the fact that the instructor had bald-facedly told him that if it hadn't been for the recommendations of Severus Snape, who had a posthumous Order of Merlin, as well as that of Harry Potter, who was the national savior, he would have found it hard to lift his head at the Ministry. It would have been far easier for him to opt for the easy way out and hole up at the Manor. Yet he was here, trying to honor a man who Hermione could now see as a reluctant benefactor.

In Real Hermione's eyes, she saw the moment Malfoy shrank back within himself. "I'll bring a few for you, Granger," he said finally, looking away. There was a hard knot in the pit of her stomach that she recognized as his. Or maybe it belonged to her as well? It was difficult to tell. "Now if that's all?"

She knew that Dream Hermione was at a loss when it came to these quicksilver changes in Malfoy's demeanour, not to mention a little put off by his ofttimes sudden rejection. Now she realized that he had been protecting himself in the same way he had all during school.

Draco, she thought.

Draco, she mourned.

I should have tried harder. I didn't see any of this. I was blind.

"Draco," she murmured half-asleep into the dark room before realizing that it was only a dream.

X.x.X

In the morning, Hermione rolled over onto her other side to find that the blankets refused to turn with her. She came gradually awake as she tried to yank the blankets from where they had gotten stuck around something heavy.

She blinked twice at the blond head lying next to hers on the bed. Her eyes must have been playing tricks on her due to her vivid dreams of the evening before.

"Draco?" she murmured, unsure if she was dreaming or if this was really happening. If this was a dream, though, it was embarrassingly vivid. His upper body was completely nude and she refused to look any further downwards.

His eyelids fluttered and he opened his eyes. Grey eyes. The color of the sky before a lightning storm. He blinked a few times before he saw Hermione. Then he smiled.

Every time he focused those eyes on her sent a sort of an electric shock through her. Like his father, he had pale grey eyes framed by brown lashes and dark brows. The effect of the light color against the darkness was always a little startling and left her wishing she too could have such interesting features and beautiful contrasts as he had. That was especially true when he had the kind of translucent grey eyes that reflected back the color of whatever he was wearing. Or not wearing. Right now, his eyes seemed awash in the blue of her coverlet.

"But you're missing," Hermione said dumbly. "Presumed dead."

"I think," he began, and looked a little surprised to hear his own voice. He lifted his head slightly and raised his bare but unmistakably human arm up in the air to examine it. "I think I've just been resurrected."

"How?" she asked. "Why here? Why now?"

He smiled faintly and suddenly moved so that he was above her and pressing her against the bedspread. "I think it's leh," he said. "That's Tibetan for karma, in case you haven't read that far."

And then he leaned down and kissed her.

It was a tentative brush of lips against each other, of breaths that came together and commingled in the still morning air. Of the subtle whisper of skin and clothes and the deep inhalation of the scent that marked them as individuals. It was somehow everything she had been imagining all those months ago but had denied to herself.

"Are you real?" Hermione asked fuzzily. "Or am I dreaming?"

His lips pulled up further on one side. "I think I might've been dreaming a lot longer than you."

She wanted to ask him what he meant, but in the next moment, there was a loud sound from the next room.

"Hermione, I've got it!" Harry's muffled voice floated to her. "Open the Floo and let me through!"

Hermione blinked and sat up. She gazed back at Draco and shook her head a little. The early events of this morning still had her in a dream state. She stumbled from the bedroom into the living area.

Harry tumbled out of the fireplace once she had let him through. "I've got it. It's the Mage. Hermione, I'm going to request a short leave and track this man down. I'm sure he'll be able to solve this issue and tell me where that blond git went-what is this?!" Harry ended on a shout, his jaw dropping. He danced forward and back in a comical imitation of a griffon with its feet on fire.

Hermione whipped her head around. She was somehow all at once surprised and not at all surprised to see Draco Malfoy dressed in her bedsheets in the doorway.

Harry was simultaneously jabbing the air with one finger and pushing his glasses up his nose with the other hand. "Is this some kind of a joke? Has he been here this entire time? Did he put you up to this? Hermione, how could you do this-"

"You see him too, right?" Hermione replied and turned around to face the blond man. With a sigh, she transfigured the bedsheets into something resembling wizarding robes.

"What do you mean, do I see him too? He's right there! What is going on here?" Harry demanded, pulling on his hair.

"First of all, Potter, thanks so much for getting yourself obliviated. Second, I have been here, because you pawned me off on Hermione after your wife made you. Third, really, you've just now figured out that it was the Mage? It's been over two months."

Harry gaped and glanced at Hermione for support.

"I'll make some tea," she said, resigned.

Over breakfast, Hermione learned that it was thanks to the partners' uncoordinated interview of one wizard going by the moniker "the Mage" that Draco had ended up being turned into a kneazle.

"Nothing Harry tried worked. We decided against going to our supervisor, since he was already pissed off at us because of how we conducted our last assignment, and had threatened to reassign the case. Harry heard about some artifact in the Department of Mysteries that could reveal the enchantment, this Mirror of Kulasa. My guess is, while I was at your place, he went down there, got his hands on the wrong thing and got himself obliviated for his troubles."

"I don't understand why you didn't tell me," Hermione asked Harry. "Or Ginny."

"Oh, ergh, c'mon, Hermione, you know you always take Ginny's side," Harry said with an abashed grin. "And she would have read me a riot act if she knew about this."

"How did you transform back?" she asked Draco, sneaking a look at him and finding that she was blushing. He had been naked in her bed just that morning. Maybe. She hadn't looked though, but maybe she should have. Who knew when she would get a chance again?

"It must have been in the middle of the night," Draco said thoughtfully. "To be honest, I started feeling like my handle on humanity was starting to fade little by little. If it had been much longer, I think I might have completely gone over. I'm not sure how animagi do it, to be honest."

"Fairy magic," Hermione said suddenly, recalling her reading material of the night before. "To call a person out of his animal enchantment, call him by his name three times. I had a dream…" Hermione blushed and ducked her head.

"What?" prompted Harry.

"Nothing," she said. "Just that I guess I should have known to try that. Everyone knows that old fairy tale." She lifted her head and met Draco's very human, grey eyes glittering back at her.

"I guess I owe you another one," Draco said, his mouth in that peculiar non-smile of his.

"Huh?" asked a confused Harry.

"Don't you have to go back and tell Ginny what's happened?" Draco asked without taking his eyes off Hermione.

"Ha, right," Harry said, nodding and then shaking his head in bemusement. "I should have known Hermione'd crack it. All these weeks. I'll owl you later. Malfoy, come by the house to get your wand. And we have to go in to the office to get your statement on the Mage."

Harry was still talking as he made his way to the Floo.

Draco shook his head after his partner.

"Well, you're back," Hermione said, smiling weakly. In the back of her mind, she started cataloguing all the things she had done and said in front of Pinchpunch the Kneazle for the past two months. Now that he was back to being a human, it was disappointing because she didn't think she could ever look him square in the eyes ever again. Which was a pity, because he really did have the most lovely eyes as a human and because he kissed so wonderfully and because…

"I kept having these dreams," Hermione blurted out, face flushing but intent on reasoning things out.

"About that," Draco said, rubbing his chin. "You know I'm a legilimens. Hemmings brought it up in training before you left. Well, that was the only way I could stay sane and human. Except it didn't work most of the time. The only time it seemed to work was-"

"When I was asleep," Hermione finished. "The defenses are less strong then."

Draco hesitated. "Yes."

Hermione was struck with a thought. Did he know of what she thought and felt about him? Had he been looking through her thoughts and dreams?

"Hermione," Draco cut into her thoughts. "Stop thinking."

"What?"

"Your thoughts are going everywhere. Listen," he said and took her limp hand across the table. "I've had a lot of time to think these past few weeks as an animal, when I couldn't communicate or do much of anything and I wanted to vomit every time I had to eat kneazle food."

"Are you hungry?" Hermione asked, concerned.

Draco held up the hand not touching hers. "Let me just say this all at once. When I realized I might never go back to the way I was, I realized I was a fool for letting so many chances pass me without doing a damn thing about it, other than...well, silly tricks to throw our departments together. You know the reason I was unable to say before any of this happened was because I felt-partly responsible for you having dropped out of the program."

Hermione frowned. "Say...what? Responsible-that was my decision!"

"Based on the torture you experienced at the hands of my family members," he said, mouth twisting a little. "And to be honest, the fact that you could never call me by my name instead of my surname always made me feel you could never separate me from them."

"I-I never blamed you for that. It's just-now that the war's over, I just can't face dueling every single day. I frankly don't know how you and Ron and Harry do it."

"Well, we're men, right? We fight to prove it."

Hermione laughed. He suddenly sobered and directed his words down at the table in front of him.

"Hermione, I like you. I like that you can look past the prat that I was in school. I like that... when we talk, it doesn't feel as though all you think of me is based on my past and my family - even though Merlin knows you have more than enough reason to. I like that you are so forthright and blunt and still so... inexplicably shy," he said, all in one breath. He paused, exhaled, and looked up at her, eyes blazing. "Do you think-can we do this? You and me? Can you give me a chance to make up for the past decade?" he finished, shaking his head slightly as though chastising himself for his lack of eloquence. His eyes spoke the rest for him as they shone across the table at her.

To Hermione, his words were beautiful. She wouldn't have changed a word of it. "Yes," she blurted out. "Or leh." She smiled at him. "It also means yes. Or, like you said, karma."

AN: Thank you to my betas takeavacation, mojojojoiamhe, and all the mods who hosted this fest.