A/N – This is the final part of the Shattered Trust series. I'm sorry for the delay, but when I started posting this series at the beginning of the year, I honestly thought I would have it finished long before now. But to be honest this year has been a bit of a disappointment writing wise, and I haven't managed the amount of writing I had expected to do. As such, I still haven't finished this final part so I can't say exactly how many chapters it will be in the end. But I can promise you, it will be finished before the end of the year.

So until I've finished writing, updates will be the usual Wednesday. Once I've finished it, and seen how long it is and how much of the year is left, updates will increase. But for now enjoy the final part of Shattered Trust.

As midnight approached, Hermione Granger, stood on the balcony of the Malfoy villa in France. On the beach, just a short distance from the villa, a party was taking place to celebrate the New Year. Hermione could hear the faint sounds of music and laughter drifting up from the beach, but she was content to be away from the party. Just as Hermione heard soft footsteps behind her, fireworks from the beach party exploded in a riot of noise and colour overhead and she could hear the faint peeling of a church bell from the nearby village.

"Happy New Year," Draco Malfoy whispered in her ear as he wrapped his arms around her and brushed his lips against her neck.

"Happy New Year," Hermione returned.

Hermione was more than pleased to be saying good riddance to the year they'd just endured and it was her fervent hope that this New Year would mark the start of a new future for everyone. Of course, right at this moment in time a bright future was still a bit of a pipe dream, but towards the end of the previous year she and Draco had taken the first steps into making that dream a reality. They had a plan, now all they had to do was make sure that their plan was successful.

"What do you think we'll be doing this time next year?" Hermione asked, quite content to just stand in Draco's arms and watch the firework display.

"I don't know," Draco answered quietly. "But if this last year has taught me anything, it's that life is unpredictable. We never would have predicted events of the past year."

"True," Hermione agreed with a small nod of her head.

Never in her wildest dreams could Hermione have ever imagined the horror and trauma she and Draco had endured over the last year. And worst of all, it had all been inflicted by the people she'd trusted the most. Her two best friends had betrayed her and broken her trust, and in return she'd helped land the pair of them in Azkaban, along with the others who had helped in the plot to fake her death and kidnap her.

"Do you think it will all work out in the end?" she asked softly as she turned to face her lover.

"I don't know," Draco answered for the second time, the expression on his face totally unreadable.

Hermione sighed softly at the distance she could see on Draco's face. She knew he wasn't shutting her out on purpose, but even their recent reunion hadn't been enough to completely crack through the icy exterior he'd encased himself in following her faked death. Truthfully, Hermione knew that Draco would never be the same wizard she fell in love with, but she still loved him with all her heart and she knew the feeling was entirely reciprocated. Although to be fair, she also wasn't the same witch he'd fallen in love with. Recent events had changed her and unleashed a dark side of her nature that she'd never known she possessed.

"We shouldn't worry about the future," Draco said softly, brushing a curl of soft brown hair away from Hermione's eyes. "Let's enjoy the moment."

"I'm all for enjoying the moment, what did you have in mind?" Hermione asked with a teasing grin.

Despite everything that had happened their sex life was still as smoking as ever. In fact, if anything it was even more adventurous and more passionate now they both knew what it was like to live without the other one. They'd spent months apart, with Draco not even knowing Hermione was alive, and since being reunited they couldn't get enough of each other.

"Take a wild guess," Draco said with a slight smirk as he slid his finger under one of the thin straps on Hermione's deep red dress and slid it down her arm.

As the strap fell down Hermione's arm, the top of her dress also slipped down, revealing one of her pert breasts, complete with a pebbled, rosebud nipple. Doing the same with her second strap, which revealed her second breast, Draco's grey eyes lapped up the sight of his topless girlfriend. Hermione shivered slightly under the intensity of Draco's gaze and she felt the arousal flooding her senses. With his eyes still glued to her exposed flesh, Draco tugged on the soft material of Hermione's dress and slid it down her body. Once the dress slid over her hips it rippled to the floor, pooling around her feet and leaving her standing in her lacy red knickers.

Kicking the dress off to one side, Hermione moved towards Draco, but her boyfriend stopped her with a shake of his head.

"I'm not done yet," he muttered, letting his hands trail down Hermione's side until they reached the flimsy material of her knickers. With one firm tug, he then tore the material away from his girlfriend's intimate area.

"Now are you done?" Hermione asked with a chuckle.

Since her return, she'd lost count of the amount of underwear her boyfriend had torn from her, but he was very generous with his money and had lavished a fortune on buying her new clothes and anything else she'd needed. At one point he'd even bought her a new wand, until the Ministry had forced Dumbledore to hand her original one over after he'd hidden it while she was his prisoner.

"No," Draco answered as he pulled Hermione into his arms and crashed his lips over hers.

Hermione eagerly returned the kiss, winding her arms around Draco's neck as she got as close as she could to him. The fact Draco was still fully clothed, while she was stark naked, merely added to Hermione's arousal, and little moans of pleasure kept falling from her lips as her sensitive nipples kept brushing Draco's expensive shirt.

"You are so sexy," Draco muttered as he walked Hermione towards the edge of the balcony and lifted her up onto the balcony wall.

Hermione couldn't help but glance over her shoulder at the fall that awaited her if she slipped. The balcony they were on was situated over grass and it wasn't a major fall, but it would certainly hurt if she fell her from precarious position.

"Don't worry, I won't let you fall," Draco said as he spread Hermione legs and stepped in between them.

Any argument Hermione was going to make was lost as Draco slid her forward slightly and she found herself pressed up against his arousal, straining in his trousers. Trusting that Draco would keep her safe, Hermione slid her hands in between then and slowly pulled down the zipper on Draco's trousers. Plunging her hand into the dark material, she easily found what she was looking for and swept her hand up and down her lover's rock hard length.

"Enough messing," Draco growled, using one hand to remove Hermione's hands from his trousers and free his erection.

In one swift move, he buried himself inside Hermione, and with one of them completely naked and the other fully dressed, they began to make love on the balcony. Down below them on the beach the party was still going strong, and even the fireworks were still exploding above them. However, Hermione and Draco only had eyes for each other, and they were totally oblivious to their surroundings as they raced towards their climax. When it hit them, they both cried out each other's names, and Draco had to tighten his hold on Hermione to stop them both tumbling over the edge of the balcony.

"Maybe we should move this indoors," Hermione chuckled once they'd recovered. "And maybe then, I can undress you."

"Sounds good to me," Draco replied. Picking Hermione up in his arms, he carried her inside the villa where they settled down on the large bed to carry on celebrating the New Year and what they hoped awaited them over the course of the next few months.

"Watch your step, these rocks are slippery," Draco called, clutching Hermione's hand as she almost went tumbling into the nearby sea.

It was late afternoon and Draco and Hermione were on the very same beach that the previous night had been hosting a New Year's Eve party. The beach was only a short hike from the Malfoy villa, and it was a beach Draco used to play on as a child when his family visited France. However, instead of relaxing on the beach itself, they were scrabbling over some rocks to get to a cave Draco also used to play in.

"Have these rocks always been here?" Hermione asked with a frown as she carefully manoeuvred around a large rock covered with slippery looking seaweed.

"Yeah."

"And your parents let you climb them?" Hermione questioned in surprise. She may have only been getting to know Lucius and Narcissa, but she didn't picture them as the sort of parents to allow a child to undertake such a risky task as climbing over slippery rocks where he could fall and be swept out to sea.

"Father used to climb them with me," Draco replied, flashing Hermione a quick grin. "He may not seem it, but Lucius Malfoy, is quite the adventurer. The summer after my first year at Hogwarts we went to South Africa and he took me cage diving with the Great White Sharks."

"Wow," Hermione said with a low whistle. "And what about your Mother? I can't see Narcissa as the adventuring type."

"She's not," Draco said with a fond chuckle. "She almost strangled Father when she found out we'd been cage diving, and when we were here on holiday she was always warning him that one day we would slip and be swept out to sea."

"But you didn't listen," Hermione deduced.

"Of course not, we're Slytherins," Draco snorted. "Disobeying people is in our DNA. Now come on, the cave is just over this rock here."

Hermione was relieved when she climbed over the rock and found herself on relatively flat stones. A dark cave mouth was etched into the side of the rocks, and Hermione shivered at the thought of entering the darkness. She suspected that when the tide came in the cave would be underwater, and she hated to think what unpleasant surprised awaited them in the cave.

"Come on," Draco urged as he pulled his wand from his pocket and lit the tip with a bright white light.

Following suit, Hermione kept her lit wand straight in front of her as she carefully followed Draco into the cave. Surprisingly, the cave was rather spacious and Hermione was surprised to find the roof was several feet above their heads. Just as she was thinking the cave wasn't as bad as she thought, Draco started to move down one of the smaller tunnels that led off the back of the main cave.

"Where are you going?" she called, not really wanting to follow her boyfriend further into the darkness.

"Just stay there, I'll be back in two minutes," Draco called back.

"Make sure you are, otherwise I'm leaving you," Hermione shot back.

She heard Draco chuckle in response, but if he also said anything she didn't hear it. For a short time she could hear her boyfriend in the tunnel, but then everything went quiet. Taking a few deep breaths, and glancing towards the entrance to remind herself that they weren't trapped, Hermione patiently waited for Draco to return. It was a good couple of minutes before she heard movement in the tunnel, and shortly afterwards, Draco emerged into the cave, a silver cup clutched in his hand.

"Is this it?" Hermione asked, taking the cup from her boyfriend.

The cup was actually the real reason they were in France. It had been one of the objects Voldemort had asked Draco to hide for him, and since they thought they were Horcruxes, they were planning on retrieving them so when the time was right they could destroy them and finally kill Voldemort himself. However, until that time they had to play the part of loyal supporters and it was imperative that The Dark lord didn't find out the true reason for their visit to France, which was one of the reasons they'd coincided their visit with New Year so they'd been able to say they were merely celebrating.

"It is," Draco confirmed. "Is it a Horcrux?"

"I don't know," Hermione admitted with a frown. "Dumbledore was the one calling the shots. I assume he had a way of telling if something is a Horcrux or not. Although, I can't see why Voldemort would want to hide this unless it was a Horcrux."

"For now let's assume this is a Horcrux," Draco said, taking the cup back off his girlfriend. "Now let's get out of here before the tide comes in and we get stranded."

"Not a prospect I relish," Hermione said, following Draco out of the cave.

Getting back to the beach was almost as hazardous as reaching the cave, but with Draco's help, Hermione managed to get back to safety unharmed. They then returned to the villa, and while Draco made some herbal tea to warm them up, Hermione studied the silver cup they'd just rescued from the cave.

"I know this cup," she declared as she realised the etching on the front was a picture of a badger.

"You do?"

"Back when I was trapped with the Order, they had me looking into Horcruxes. One of the things they wanted me to do was track down a cup that once belonged to Helga Hufflepuff. I'm sure this is the cup."

"I can't believe the Order expected you to help them after what they did to you," Draco snarled, unable to hide his hatred of the Order, and in particularly how they're treated Hermione.

"They were convinced that one day I would come around and see what they were doing was for the best," Hermione replied with a grimace. "But let's not get into that right now. I'm now even surer that this is a Horcrux. One of the original ones he made."

"Let's just hope he's been giving me all his new ones to hide," Draco said. To be honest the only real problem in their plan was going to come if they didn't have all of Voldemort's Horcruxes and when they did make a move he was still invulnerable.

"Let's not worry about things we can't control," Hermione said firmly. "We achieved what we came here to do. We got the first Horcrux. We've made the first move. Now let's get this back to the new headquarters and call our first meeting of the year. The final act has begun."