Disclaimer: Yeah. Still broke and still teenaged and still don't own it.

Part Two

1.1.1.1.

To lessen the tension between them, Draco decided that he would introduce a new subject rather than the other way around.

"I asked out a girl today." He felt twelve again, asking his daddy what to do so a girl would like him a bit more than she did right now. "She, er, said no."

"OH, THAT'S TOO BAD, SON." Beneath the thin layer of faked disinterest, Draco sensed Lucius's overwhelming curiosity. Draco confided little about his personal life to his father; had learned not to after his fourth year when he had complained one too many times about Harry Potter Who Was Loved From The Beginning. (He liked this Father, though, so he supposed that he was simply getting to know a stranger all over again.)

"Mn. Do you remember Hermione Granger?"

Lucius paused. Draco could sense his frown. "NO." The drugs blurred the edges of his father's memory; blurred them so effectively, in fact, that even the memory of the Dark Lord was only a distant dream in shades of black and green. Lucius barely remembered anything when his drugs took complete hold—the only things that he seemed to remember about his former life were his son, his wife, and random memories comprised primarily of sense and feeling and color.

"Oh." The younger man relaxed and felt ashamed for it. "I don't know why I asked her to dinner, actually. It seemed to make sense at the time, only that it really shouldn't have, as she was screaming at me and putting to good use those powerful lungs she developed while lecturing on the evils of the enslavement of house elves." He paused, hesitating for a moment, before remembering that the man on the other end of the phone line was a stranger. "I think that…Do you think people deserve second chances, Father?"

The answer came quickly and simply from the mouth of one who barely had the sense and moral conflict and memory to continually debate the issue. Draco got a little choked up (that lump in his throat must be a remnant of ham left over from lunch) at the child-like simplicity of his father's thinking. "WELL, THAT DEPENDS on the person, doesn't it?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess it does." He said goodbye and hung up before turning around to see an irate Pansy standing in his doorway and drumming her fingers along her forearm—always a danger sign.

He was going to die, wasn't he? Alone and celibate and desperately craving pickles and ice cream. (And apparently man-preggie.)

"You were rude to her, weren't you?"

"Is she your new best friend or what?" Draco asked evasively, hoping that Pansy hadn't found out that Draco had asked Granger out. His reputation would be ruined. (Or…wait, he didn't have a reputation any more. There was something liberating in that thought.)

"And you asked her out."

Oh, shit.

"You screw this up and I will kick your ass, pretty boy."

Pansy had been watching far too many American movies lately.

"Because I…I kind of like R—Weasel and…and…and I'd rather you not make his best friend pissed off at you and through you, your best friend, me, and then make Ron angry at me." Pansy was cute when her mind went in circles and she didn't know what to say. (She was cute when she was silent and had locked up her storage of obscenities and insults with confusion.)

Draco's face softened, because somewhere in there was the innocent fourteen year old girl that he had always sort of loved. "Aw, Pans…I'm your best friend?"

"No. I'm your best friend because I'm the only friend you have because you're a socially inept, arse-wiping dipshit." So charming. So charming.

1.1.1.1.

The apartment wasn't decorated in palettes of red and gold and burgundy, because frankly she had always thought that the décor in the Gryffindor common room had looked a little too opulent for her tastes. It may have suited a centuries-old castle. It did not suit real, practical life.

Her furniture was darker because that way stains weren't so visible. Her floor was mostly bare to avoid the consequences of various messes that would inevitably stain her carpet—if she had carpet, that is.

There was no regulation of color for her apartment, actually, because she had learned, long ago, the benefits of chaos. (She still kept grocery lists, though, and made sure her refrigerator was always organized, and knew where her pots and pans were at all times, and folded her socks and underwear, and organized her take-out menus in alphabetical order.)

Harry had left both her and Ron a large sum of money—had they accepted it, they would have been able to live in relative luxury for the rest of their lives. But they had refused. And they had also refused the money the Ministry and other businesses, enterprises, and individuals had offered them in exchange for Winning the War, because that would cheapen the sacrifices made to ensure that victory. So, you know, now they only officially appeared to the public during the annual We Won the War! Festival Day and in exchange for that one annual appearance, the Ministry left them alone.

In retrospect, she thought it was a pretty good deal.

When she called Ron, the phone rang exactly sixteen times before he answered. "Who is this?"

Hermione took the phone away from her ear and glared at it. "Ron, that's no way to answer the phone. What if it was someone important?"

"Well, I'm lucky that it's just you, aren't I?" Ron remarked, and Hermione lamented the loss of her far-too-decent best friend who had suddenly been replaced with this world-wise, sardonic meanie. "I'm sorry, Hermione," he sighed. Hermione suddenly noticed how heavily he was breathing and wondered if he had seen Pansy in her knickers again. Ew. Ew. She noticed she had a rather unfortunate habit of picturing the bedroom activities of her friends. "But I'll call you later, all right? Igottago." And he hung up on her.

She stared at the phone for a while before hanging up and then picking up again, staring half-heartedly at the number that Ron had given her and punching its permanent imprint into her phone. "Malfoy?"

Why was she calling him? Why was she calling him? She called him and she immediately accepted him back into her life. She called him and that meant that she was giving up. She called him and…and wasn't she disrespecting Harry's memory by doing this? Wasn't she?

"Who the hell are you?"

The downfall of their society began when people forgot their telephone manners, Hermione realized. "What do you mean, who the hell am I? First Ron, then you—next thing we know, the Queen will start answering her telephone with obscenities."

"Oh, Granger. It's you and your swotty accent come to plague me again. And how do you know the Queen doesn't answer her phone with, 'Fuck off before I send my knights to kill you all'? Although that threat mightn't work, seeing as she's knighted far too many Americans and old people for my liking."

"Because the Queen is the Queen and—oh, this is ridiculous."

"You started it," Draco answered comfortably.

"You're so juvenile."

"Says Miss Mr. Modesty."

"That doesn't make the least bit of sense."

"You said it."

"I did not! And oooh, you…you! Stop distracting me. I seem to remember you mentioned something about a meal?"

"That depends. Are you paying?"

"I…you know what, Malfoy? I don't need your generous Malfoy charity. I don't need company and I certainly don't need you as an acquaintance or even—God in heaven graciously forbid—a friend. I can eat dinner by myself, in front of the television, and I will be perfectly content."

She could feel him beaming on the other end. "Brilliant. I'll pick you up in five minutes."

He did, indeed, pick her up in five minutes, although it was more like four minutes and thirty-seven seconds. Although 'picking up' might have been stretching it a bit far—all he did was show up at her door in jeans and a T-shirt and about two pounds to pay for a meal that would cost about ten. Fifteen with drinks.

"Just so you know, Malfoy," Hermione said around a mouthful of fish and chips an hour later, "you're the worst date I've ever had."

"This isn't a date," He mumbled, also around a mouthful of fish and chips, but with cheap beer added to the swill. "This is my method of getting you to pay for my food."

"And that after this is over," she continued unabated, "I never want to see you again."

He shrugged. "Okay."

1.1.1.1.

They saw each other a few times after that.

Just a few times. Sometimes she called him up when she was feeling a little sad and wanted someone to get her chocolate, and Ron was too occupied with Pansy and, well, she hadn't really seen Ginny since she got married to Dean. Sometimes he called her up when he got tired of the television and thought that his apartment echoed a little emptily.

"And just to let you know, Malfoy, after I finish this cake, I am leaving."

"If you like."

1.1.1.1.

"As much as I think that you're rather a decent person, Malfoy, after I finish this lobster, I refuse to see you ever again."

"All right."

1.1.1.1.

Lucius Malfoy had gotten to know this Hermione Granger a little too well over the past three weeks.

"…and do you know, Father, that she folds her underwear? What sort of pathetic person folds their underwear?"

Much too well.

His voice regained a small percentage of the imperious tone it had known so well before. Of course, that might have been because he started off his every speech with shouting before he remembered rather belatedly that one didn't have to shout on the phone. "DRACO, IF YOU insist on discussing this Hermione girl as if she was the only thing in your life—as if she was your wife, in fact, with all this complaining you do—why don't you take her on a proper excursion to a nice location—I think…I seem to remember, at least, that there was a lovely restaurant that your mother and I went to—you were conceived that night, you know— and please stop talking about the tiny freckle on Hermione's eyelid?"

His son scoffed. "What, are you mad? She'd run away. The woman adores me and an action that blatant will send her scurrying away into the underbrush like a scared deer. And that's disgusting, Father. I don't—wouldn't—want to court her in the same place that my parents copulated."

"ADORES YOU? COURT HER? MY DEAR Draco, has your ego inflated all over again and given birth to a Byronic soul in the process?" As his drugs reached the end of their effectiveness, Lucius grew wittier. He also remembered a little more. The anger returned a bit later, so it was at just this moment that Draco loved and liked his father best.

"You're so funny, Father."

"DO YOU LIKE HER?"

Draco paused. "What do you mean?"

"WHAT PHYSICAL, MENTAL, emotional, and spiritual traits—"

"Oh. Well, she's not…ugly. She still has that awful hair and she's almost as tall as I am and she constantly nags people and she's really annoying. But…I don't know. She still believes in stuff, you know? Like, I know she tries to be all cynical and world-weary but deep down she's still that girl knitting those damn ugly hats for house elves."

A part of Lucius didn't think that his son—his own son—deserved the girl he'd heard about. And a part of him did. "DOES SHE CARE ABOUT YOU?"

"Well, off course she's desperately in love with me," Draco said confidently. There was not a shred of sarcasm. "It's completely obvious. It's only a pity that I can't return the affection."

1.1.1.1.

He was desperately in love with her. He made it far too obvious, and it was only a pity that Hermione couldn't return his affection.

Really.

If she could, she might—just might—love him. But she couldn't forgive him. Not just yet. She knew that he had spent most of his years with the Dark Lord avoiding all action that might bring about his death (he had always been a sniveling coward; had learned from the best), and so had avoided all action that might bring about the deaths of others as well, so technically he was innocent of Crimes Against Humanity.

He hadn't even found the courage to raise a stick of wood and say two words to bring about the death of an old, tired man. He was too scared of the consequences. (Children are controlled and molded by fear and fear alone. We are not born with innate ideas and we are not assured of divine truths.)

But he hadn't done anything to prevent anything. That was what Hermione couldn't forgive him for. For doing nothing. For lying like a bloody amoeba in the red cesspool of the war.

It was Valentine's Day in three days, and Hermione was depressed. She was so depressed, in fact, that she found herself crying for characters on the Jerry Springer show. (That poor woman. How could she have known that her husband was having an affair with the one creature she trusted most of all? How could she have known that her husband was in love with the family dog? How could she have known? So don't blame her for not suspecting and for not taking in the warning signs. Don't blame her for her tears!)

She was depressing.

Normally, she and Ron spent Valentines Day watching absolutely awful romance movies and inhaling too much popcorn and chocolate and alcohol to be healthy and bitching about their nonexistent love lives and what kind of people they wanted to be with. (Ron had wanted someone "Just…decent, you know? A decent girl. Someone without so many expectations but whose eyes just kind of, like…light up, you know? When they see me and stuff. Shut up." He kind of won on that. She wanted someone "…who didn't try to change me. Because I don't mind who I am, Ron. I really don't. But I'd like someone who sort of…give me a reason to dress up once in a while. And I wouldn't mind if he messed up my alphabetized take out list trying to find the scissors or whatever. I wouldn't mind. Shut up, Ron.")

But this year, Ron had that girl. And she still didn't have one. A boyfriend, that is; not a girlfriend. Although she didn't have a girl friend, either.

She told this to Draco. She and Draco had a lot of discussions like that—she told him a lot of things about herself, such as the fact that her parents died the instant the victory bells were rung for the Light Side; a Death Eater apparated into their house and killed them, one last hurrah for the forces of Voldemort. She also told him that she found it unbearably sad that Harry was killed by a drunk driver just a few months after he'd won the war.

He told her that he thought that it was really sad that he was forced to do his own laundry because it was the most unmanly household activity one could do. At least with vacuuming you could pretend that the vacuum was a giant monster sucker of doom and that all the dust and dirt were little people running away from the killer machine.

She found something comforting in Draco's predictable, badly-done sarcasm as a means to deflect the conversation away from anything that might touch on a sensitive issue. She found something joyous in his sometimes surprising her with a weird compassion.

He didn't tell her much. Draco did tell her that when Voldemort had died, his Mark had disappeared and he'd felt so free all of a sudden, and felt like such a traitor when he saw that there were others who were broken by that release from their master, others whose Marks didn't vanish and never could, others who wailed in high, keening voices at their loss. He also told her that Voldemort had killed his mother in a homicidal rage when Draco had failed his task. (Which didn't make sense to Draco at the time, because after all, the task had ended up completed anyway.)

He found it hilarious how her face twisted and scrunched up into an expression of sympathy, even though she tried to hide it with a mask of stone and barbed, hateful words.

"You're not a very nice person, Malfoy," she told him once.

"It's not in my genetic engineering."

"How do you know so much about Muggles, anyway?"

He shrugged. "Took Muggle Studies at Hogwarts—get to know your enemies and all. And living in Muggle Prison and Muggle Land the Sequel can force a person to adapt."

She had stared at him before saying carefully, "Muggles are not your enemies, Draco."

He'd looked at her in disgust. "Don't be such a wanker, Hermione." And then he'd laughed.

What she'd noticed about his genuine laugh was that it was completely, entirely, beautifully uninhibited—it seemed to be the only thing about him that was without care or the weight of ten years of mistakes. And when she'd noticed that, she'd found herself so in danger of falling in love with this changed Malfoy that she avoided him for a whole 48 hours; in her hellish world, the equivalent to a hundred years.

The world turned 1080 degrees and it was Valentine's Day, that day where all that is pink and red come together for their one day to take over the world, that day where all that is hellishly sappy and lovey reach their peak, their crescendo, their top of the effing mountain to crush perfectly sensible relationships beneath their monstrous wheels.

She was mixing up analogies again, wasn't she?

"You can't goooo!" She wailed, perfectly willing to grab Ron's ankles and never let him leave her apartment until this demon parade was over. "We have our tradition!" She was a selfish little girl, she really was, because she should be smiling and telling Ron to have a good time with his girlfriend instead of asking him to stay with her because she was lonely.

He looked torn. "Hermione, I—"

"You see Pansy every day. I never get to see you anymore—besides, there's nothing so special about today. It's simply another day on the calendar that people glorify because they want—nay, need—the opportunity to get laid."

"I would stay, Hermione, I really would, but Pansy…er, Pansy and I, well, made plans. And I'd ask you to come, but you wouldn't like it at all and it's kind of…I don't know. It our day, you know? I'm sorry."

A wave of guilt defeated its dam and Hermione crumbled under the weight. "Oh, fine. Go have sex with Pansy."

"Hermione!" She giggled at Ron's shocked expression.

"No, it's alright." She smiled wanly. "I'll be fine. Go. Go on, go. I'll have fun. I'll get to watch my movies without you voicing complaints every five seconds."

Her best friend—the sweetest, nicest, best best friend she had ever met—grinned in relief and trotted out the door. "Alright. If you're sure. I'll talk to you later, okay?" And the door slammed. He was, apparently, not that concerned about her faith in her decision.

When he left, she found herself thinking about Draco.

Oh, fuck.

She'd gone and moved on and forgiven, hadn't she?

1.1.1.1.

Another similar conversation was taking place one block down the street.

"But you can't go, Pansy. You can't. Are you honestly ditching me for the Weasel?"

"Hey." She stomped on his foot. "You said yourself that he was alright, after he punched you in your spleen. So don't talk about him like that."

Draco rolled his eyes and offered a truce, mindful of her sky high stilettos. "Thank God he has you for his knight in shining armor. I don't know how he managed to survive without you."

She beamed at him and pinched his cheeks. His bum cheeks. "You're so sweet."

Those pinches totally revoked the Pansy Toleration act. "But I'm depressed." He whined. "I'll be all alone on Valentine's Day and maybe I'll even kill myself but nobody will notice for twenty four hours because you'll all be too busy rutting."

The glare Pansy shot him could have blinded someone wearing sunglasses a meter thick. "You are without a doubt the rudest person I have ever met."

He smirked and pinched her cheeks. Her bum cheeks. "You're so sweet."

She slapped him and then leaned down to peck him lightly on the cheek, and with a quick flash of her teeth (flicker shimmer glint like fish scales underwater) she was gone.

His home felt a little empty after that.

Popular decision indicated that Draco Malfoy had no feelings. Wasn't quite sure what love was. Was still immature, both in body and character—he was still rather short…thin and wiry like twelve-year-old boys of summers past…only had to shave once every two weeks and with a thin, sensitive mouth that made him look years younger than his 26. Draco traced his jaw line in the mirror. "Mirror, mirror, on the wall," he whispered.

This was stupid. He had no time and no energy for mind games with himself.

The city's streets gleamed grayly in the odd night lighting. From his window, Draco could see various couples huddled so closely that in the shadows that changed like ripples on water they looked like they were one being. A girl in a red cap slipped her mittened hand into the large, clumsy-looking one of her partner and Draco saw her smile (flicker glimmer glint like fish scales underwater).

It was in that moment that Draco realized how very tired he was of being alone all the time, and how very tired he was of paying for the mistakes of a father and of a child.

He decided that he'd get some ice cream to cheer him up. He'd read somewhere that ice cream had special cheering-up attributes and hoped that those qualities didn't apply merely to menstrual females and divorcees.

1.1.1.1.

Those sick bastards. Those sick, sick bastards.

What kind of institution didn't have ice cream? Especially during this season. Especially today. Especially when hundreds of lonely women such as herself would be clamoring for chocolate, ice cream, potato crisps, alcohol, etc., anything that had thousands of calories and grams of sugar and fats that would go straight to their thighs? Especially when lonely women realized that an insensible affection for the most loathsome creature on the planet festered in their hearts? When lonely women realized that they had two friends in the world, one of whom was off on a date with a violent, completely independent, completely unsuitable-for-him woman and that her other friend-ish thing was an ignorant, prejudiced buffoon who made her pay for her own meals every time he asked her out?

This was all hypothetical, theoretical, and rhetorical, of course.

Never mind that it was one o'clock in the morning. Never mind that most people who thought ahead (and oh, lord, how she missed being one of them) had probably emptied out all grocery stores and drugstores in the near vicinity of everything yummy and loaded with guilt. Never mind that the person at the cash register quivered in fear as Hermione stalked out of the store with eyes ablaze and a-crazed. Never mind all that, for if Hermione Granger wanted ice cream she damn well better get it.

And those who stood in her way would be rolled over and ironed and creased into perfect pleats on her skirt of freaking war.

She walked two more blocks down the street to the next store.

1.1.1.1.

Lips stained red left faint outlines on his pale, freckled neck. Ron knocked over the umbrella stand and fumbled with Pansy's buttons, briefly coming up for air and then kissing her again.

"Okay…yeah…yeah, that's…oh…mn…" She wasn't silent when they had sex. She didn't say much of anything intelligible, but she certainly wasn't quiet. Pansy groaned again and fumbled behind her for support, resting her hand on an innocent umbrella lying quietly in the corner. "Oh…oh, that's nice…"

"You've taken…understatement…to an art form…" Ron mumbled between kisses and licks and nibbles, scrunching his eyes (beautiful eyes, she thought, although she never told him because blue eyes were such a cliché) at her.

She laughed.

And slipped.

And, while trying not to fall down, accidentally stabbed the umbrella into Ron's rather excited nether regions.

He gasped in shock, pupils dilating as she stared at him in horror. In slow motion, he rocked back and forth and fell sideways, whimpering like a baby. "Oh, God."

"Oh, dear." She whispered, tentatively poking Mr. Mighty and placing her hand over her mouth, eyes wide. "I think we've killed him."

"Of course we killed him!" Ron squeaked, all testosterone having officially left the building. "Of course he's dead! Oh God, he's dead!" He'd never be able to have children. His most prized possessions were permanently damaged.

His future descendants were killed by an umbrella that quacked when you pushed its beak.

1.1.1.1.

No ice cream? No ice cream?

After all these years, Draco hadn't yet adapted to disappointment and not getting what material things he felt he deserved. (And damn, but he deserved this ice cream. He deserved velvety chocolate ice cream because he was a sad, pathetic person without a date on Valentine's Day. He deserved this ice cream like he hadn't deserved anything else in his life.) So Draco pressed his lips in a thin line and tilted his nose in the air and swaggered out in search of a place that just might have the fix he needed. Company to watch sappy old romance movies with.

He went through two more stores, gradually growing more frustrated and irritable until a holy light shone on one lone carton of ice cream sitting by itself on its little shelf in a tiny drugstore that smelled like incense. Draco licked his lips and ran for it.

He crashed into a walking, talking brown bush.

"You!" It shrieked.

There was something startlingly familiar about that word said in that voice. And about that walking, talking brown bush with scarily snapping eyes, as well. "Back off, Granger," Draco snarled, holding his carton protectively to his chest. "This one's mine."

She sniffed. "You're pathetic."

"Yes, well, need I ask why you're eyeing my ice cream so rapaciously?"

There was another reason why he'd hated Granger in the past. It was that infuriating, condescending tone that so clearly stated how much better she was than Them. "Don't use big words you don't understand, little boy."

Draco was tempted to smack her (because he wasn't that great a person, and he had hit girls before), but remembered just in time that he was the one with the creamy, chocolaty goodness in his arms. "Mine!" He cackled out loud. Then he realized how weird he sounded and ran away to pay for his food.

Hermione followed close on his tail and brought him down with an impressive leap-and-tackle, crashing him into the Valentine's chocolate display in Aisle 4. "It's mine!" She hissed into his ear, wary of the dozing clerk in the corner, who thus far had only twitched when the tower of chocolate came tumbling down.

"Try to take it from me," he hissed right back, rolling over and accidentally-on-purpose jabbing her breast with his elbow.

She curled up in pain, and then her foot snapped up as if of its own volition and kicked him in a very tender spot.

He clutched his bleeding lip. "Ow! You play dirty!"

The corner of her lip twitched upwards in a rather nasty smile and her other foot kicked him in the tenderest spot on his entire body. "I learned from the best."

He collapsed on the floor with a groan, clutching his groin and taking in deep, shuddering breaths. "Oh, Jesus Christ. What the hell did I do this time? Said some itty bitty thing that contradicted your daily itinerary? Screwed up your alphabetized take-out drawer?"

She paused. And for some bizarre reason, that one last line sent Hermione into hysterics. Her nose got so red and she began to worry him so much with her excessive emotion that Draco was unable to do anything beyond lick his lips in shock. "You're such a…you're such an asshole, do you know that? You know that, Draco? You're just this…this weak, selfish person and I don't even know why you're still around. God, you didn't even…how can I…you're not even a person. You're just a shell of a person because you don't have magic and you don't have your Malfoy fortune and your dad's mental and you…and I…I despise you, Malfoy. I hate you so much and do you have any idea what it's like to be me at this moment? Do you?"

"Don't talk about my father, Hermione. Don't you dare talk about my father that way."

This couldn't be all about the ice cream. As lovely as chocolate ice cream was, it could not have sparked Hermione's sudden breakdown. No ice cream in the world could have prompted this sudden verbal slamming that Draco had been resignedly expecting from the moment he flew through her window.

"What happened, Malfoy?" She spat angrily. "What happened to you during the war? Did it change you? Did it make you better? Does that justify Harry's death, that one person suddenly realized that his actions as a child were just that—the actions of a mere boy with no thoughts of his own?"

Draco drew himself to his full height, and gained a few more inches on Hermione. "Perhaps. Perhaps not. Perhaps we are all born with innate ideas and innate truths within our souls, and perhaps one of my pre-conceived beliefs is that you will always be lower than me." And spitefully, angrily, because he wanted really badly at that moment to see his dad and to make up for his past and to return to the boy-child who knew nothing beyond the borders of his sheltered mansion/castle life, he said, "Mudblood."

Her eyes shattered and he broke the little girl that tried to free those who were too ignorant and too happy to know what freedom was. And he felt genuinely bad for the first time in his life.

"Hermione…Hermione!"

He shoplifted the ice cream, absurdly giddy that he was getting away with crime, and ran after the foolish (no, not so foolish, just very confused) girl. "Hermione, I didn't mean it, Hermione…"

She whirled around in the middle of the street, wiping her snotty nose with the back of her hand and sobbed for the entire world to hear, "I hate you so much, Malfoy! You say that word, that word, a word that started a war, and do you believe that I still LOVE YOU?"

The world turned one degree.

He saw the truck before she did, and saw the bright white lights reflected in her eyes reflecting his eyes and screamed her name, pushing the noise out of his lungs, pushing his lungs out of his chest as he ran in slow motion towards her because he had to get to her in time.

"It's so sad, Draco, don't you think? He saved old people and friends and lovers and children and babies and flowers and sunshine and was killed in a random hit-and-run accident by a drunk driver. That's the tragedy of it. That he died before he was able to begin a life of his own, and he died for no cause at all."

He felt long-forgotten muscles flex, as if aching for the feel of the most expensive, fastest broom between his legs; he felt his arm muscles stretch as he tried so, so, so hard to reach for the snitch—no, for Hermione—felt Hogwarts scream with him and surge to their feet—no, that was long gone, this was just a crowd of Muggles that saw a miracle unfold—and God, but he needed to win this game, beat this game upside its ass—stretch, stretch, stretch, Draco-my-boy, because you need this more than anything in the world—felt his fingers just brush the golden, smooth surface of the winged ball—no, that was her cheek—

February 15 1:37 am:

Draco Malfoy, wandless, illegally performed magic for the first time in seven years.

And he was whole again.

1.1.1.1.

He opened his eyes to Hermione's face. He looked down to see London bobbing below them. He closed his eyes again; when he opened them, he was still floating a mile above ground. "What are we doing up here?" He asked groggily, wriggling his limbs and bringing himself upright.

From this vantage point, he could see every eyelash. He could see her brown eyes and feel a bit of her hair brush against his arm. He could also see a pimple forming at the midpoint of her eyebrows, but decided not to tell her that.

She looked exhausted and when she spoke, her normally forceful voice was subdued. "I don't know. You rushed towards me at this just…supernatural speed, and then there was a rush of wind, and then we were…here."

Draco tested the air. His feet met no resistance, but neither did they move. "How long was I unconscious?"

"Only about thirty seconds."

He nodded awkwardly, unable to stop staring at her, at her frown, at her confused, defensive expression, at the little dent in her bottom lip.

"Did you know that the peregrine falcon is the fastest animal on earth at a highest recorded speed of 440 kilometers an hour?" she said abruptly. "I read it in a book once. It uses its speed to kill." Hermione paused, chewing on her lip and pronouncing the dent. "You surpassed that speed. To save me."

He smiled softly at her, and pulled gently on a curl, using his hand to smooth out the frown lines and pull up the corner of her mouth. "So that's where you've been hiding." He whispered.

The girl—no, woman—coughed and sobbed and snorted a clump of bogies onto his shirt. "Oh, God, stop being so nice to me. I hate it when you're nice, especially when I've been so horrible."

"I deserved it."

She paused. "Yes. Yes, you did, actually."

"Hey! I—"

She interrupted him with a swift, sweet peck on the lips that couldn't even be counted as a kiss. But he leaned forward for more as she leaned back, pursing his lips and frowning when they met nothing but air and giggles.

Hermione snorted when she laughed. It was that donkey-like bray that he found unbelievably attractive about her. And it was contagious.

"You have a wonderful laugh." She blurted.

He blushed like a woman-thing. This was a strange turn of events, and he swore that if she came up with any more compliments to set him at ease before she struck, he'd jump off a cliff and kill himself before she could. "Hey." He grinned, embarrassedly changing the subject and pulling something out of his pocket. "I still have the ice cream."

"Did you pay for that?" she asked suspiciously.

"Yes."

"Okay." Satisfied, she searched for her wand to transfigure something into a spoon…and didn't find it.

"But I lied."

"What?" She yelped, snatching her fingers away. "You stole this? Do you have any idea how much trouble you'll be in if you got caught on the security cameras?"

"Oh, come on, Granger," Draco said easily, pulling off the cap with a pop. "Live a little. Eat stolen ice cream with your fingers. Float in a random bubble of space above London and don't question it. Realize that you can't change everything. Fart like a man and stuff."

"You're so revolting."

He shrugged and scooped out a mouthful of ice cream with his hand. "And unhygienic, as well. You're going to end up sharing Malfoy cooties if you want any ice cream at all."

The stars shone dully behind sheets of clouds. "Oh, no. I went to five stores looking for ice cream and I'm going to have it. At this point, Malfoy cooties don't scare me in the slightest."

"Oh, yeah?" He tried to growl sexily, but failed because he forgot he still had ice cream in his mouth and sprayed the gloop onto her face. "I'm a bad boy, you know."

She eyed him in amusement, silently wiping away the ice cream droplets, much to the grateful salvation of his ambiguous dignity. "Whatever you say."

"So…" He said after a while. "Does this mean that you'll take me out to dinner now?"

Hermione threw ice cream at him and glared. "You're an idiot. I happen to think that my declaration was…well, what I said was sort of romantic."

"Oh, yes." He played along for her sake. "Very. Standing in the middle of a wet street, on top of a piece of gum—that's still stuck to your heel, by the way—and shouting that you hate me before you get to the actual declaration part."

"Yeah? Well, I didn't exactly hear you spouting poetry, either." She fumed, suddenly discomfited because she didn't actually know how he felt about her.

…Did she just say that out loud?

He eyed her in confusion. "I should think that my saving your life should be enough."

He was such a man. "Of course it isn't enough, Draco." And she was tired of fighting with him. "Some things need to be put in words. And…anybody could save anybody's life."

They were silent for a while. "I wouldn't have saved Harry's life, you know." He finally muttered. "I couldn't have performed magic," he rolled the word around his mouth as if it was new, "for him."

"I know." She whispered.

He leaned over and kissed her—a proper kiss this time, begging her to understand that he was Draco Malfoy and that meant that he wasn't too great with words. His pale pink lips touched her blushing red ones. I love you.

His terrified tongue traced and glided and danced around hers. I love you.

Their teeth clacked together with the force of his momentum and his front teeth gently pressed against her bottom lip, so scared that she'd pull away. I love you.

Noses bumped and she realized that his features weren't as angular as she thought, and he realized that all her hair hid the most kissable neck. I love you.

"I'm sorry I said that about your father." She whispered when he placed a centimeter of space between his face and hers.

"I know."

The kiss tasted like chocolate ice cream and fear and unwashed breath and blood and forgiveness and wind on top of the city.

I love you.

1.1.1.1.

Two weeks later…

"What are your intentions towards my son, Ms. Granger?"

Hermione's nostrils flared as she tried to take in the situation. "Pardon?"

Lucius leaned forward, slightly watery eyes boring into hers. "Are you prepared for the responsibility of a proper relationship with my son? Can you appreciate at least a few aspects of his personality? Or…" He leaned closer, definitely invading her personal space, and said lowly in a serious tone "…do you only want him for his body?

Changing her hysterical giggle to a cough, Hermione graciously refrained from informing Lucius that his son was only a little taller than her, probably weighed ten pounds less than her, and was anemically pale and had on more than one occasion been mistaken for a girl because his eyes were so big and gray and his hair was so pretty. "Believe me, sir, I wouldn't be with Draco if I didn't love him."

The older man eyed her suspiciously and then, shooting a mischievous glance towards his handler, opened his arms and hesitantly reached for Hermione in a tentative, frail embrace that made way for the brave new world ahead. "I've heard a lot about you." He muttered into her hair.

And while a small, stubborn part of her (although Draco would say that that was impossible, as all of her was stubborn) still recoiled at even being in the same room as the man who had made it his life mission to eradicate her family, her friends, her world…a bigger part of her was so, so happy that it was possible for things to change. That Lucius was given a new start. That the little girl in her that bought ugly cats that no one wanted and knitted ugly hats that their intended receivers never wanted was still around to keep the older girl in check.

Hermione sniffled into Lucius's shoulder, and glared at the handler when he rushed over to pull Lucius away.

"I'll see you later, all right?" She smiled, repressing the urge to coo when Lucius's face stretched into a heartbreakingly joyful grin. She saw, now, the resemblance between Draco and his father.

"All right, Hermione. I'll see you later." The informal phrase sounded so funny in Lucius's deep voice that Hermione bit her lip in a small smile the rest of the day.

The morning after Valentine's Day, various Ministry officials had arrived on the scene to Obliviate Muggle witnesses and retrieve the couple from the sky. They didn't know until their broomsticks arrived and they were able to fly up that The Hermione Granger was with the ex-convict. And it was solely through The Hermione Granger's earnest assurance that they let The Draco Malfoy go without punishment.

Having a girlfriend who saved the world seven times during her career as a heroine, Draco reflected, was quite useful.

And he had his wand back, as Dumbledore's will (and his word was law, especially after his death) stated that after his release from prison, Draco's wand was to be returned to him—the Ministry had conveniently 'forgotten' about this stipulation, and had had convenient 'difficulties' locating Draco. He didn't press charges. It was not precisely his old wand, as it had been broken and burned a long time ago. But a new one, from Ollivanders, that fit in his grip like he'd never lost the feel of it, answered all his wishes. It was knobbly and crooked, made of pine, unpolished, and tended to give him a splinter every time he picked it up.

Draco thought it was one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen.

"I feel so pathetic," he muttered as Hermione walked into their home. "I can't even remember the unlocking spell."

"What can you remember?" She set her things on the counter, walking across to him. "Perhaps the Shield Charm? Cheering charm?"

Draco's eyes lit up and he spouted enthusiastically, "I can remember the Tripping Jinx. And Furnunculus—used that on Longbottom once, didn't I? And Petrificus Totalus…Oh, shit. Hermione?" He looked at her stiff body on the floor and shuddered. She looked a little too…well, un-living for his comfort. He didn't like seeing her lying so motionless on the ground. "Uh…damn, what was it…Finito Incantion…no. Finite…Incantum? No…oh, of course. Finite Incantatem!"

She sat up and glared half-heartedly at him. "Of course you remember hexes and jinxes rather than charms that might actually bring joy to people's lives."

Perfectly serious, he asked, "Well, what's the point of those, anyway? All they have to do is run a little and get some natural endorphins into them. Why waste energy on useless things like Cheering Charms when one can get infinitely more satisfaction from performing the Jelly-Legs Jinx?"

"Really." Hermione looked doubtful. "I shall have to try that sometime. Densaugeo!"

Draco's teeth suddenly lengthened like Pinocchio's nose, with the same panic on the bearer's face. "Vat da…Hervione…! I faid I vas forry for dat in Fourf Year!"

She smirked at him. "Payback, Malfoy. And it feels good. Finite Incantatem."

His teeth back to normal, Draco scowled petulantly. "What happened to the honorable Gryffindor in you?"

Her eyelashes fluttered. "Did she ever exist?" Flirting over, Hermione cleared her throat. "Now, Draco, to return to the topic at hand. I suggest that we start from the beginning, with one of the first spells we ever learned. Repeat after me: Wingardium Leviosa." She pointed her wand at an apple and levitated it towards them.

Draco frowned. "Wingardium…Leviosa?"

"Now, don't ask it. Command it. Wingardium Levi-O-sa."

"Oh, I see." Hermione missed the devilish grin that crossed Draco's face as he pointed his wand at her and said quickly, "Wingardium Leviosa!" and levitated her, outraged and squawking, above his head. "Let's see. Incarcerous…" Ropes wrapped around Hermione's wrists and he smiled up at her. "…and then…Avis!..." a flock of birds burst from his wand, twittering and cheeping giddily around her head as Draco slowly, gradually brought her level with him. "Hello, you." He smiled.

She was the one who closed her eyes, curved her lips and rubbed her nose against his in a sign of affection that filled his heart to near bursting point. "Hello, you." She breathed. "And you lied. You so remember everything—it's like riding a bicycle."

"I'm sorry I didn't get you roses for Valentine's Day."

"It's okay." She replied, conjured ropes vanishing before she winded her arms around his waist. "I'm allergic."

"Or diamonds."

"I think they're unfriendly, anyway."

"Or sexy underwear."

"I would have murdered you in a fit of passion."

"Hopefully the good kind?" Draco asked expectantly.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "You're irrepressible, aren't you? Pansy's pregnant by my best friend and you couldn't care less, as long as you get some action."

"Of course I care about Pansy and her health and wellbeing and all that shit. I'm going to be a godfather. I'm just far more concerned about the…satisfaction…of my girlfriend."

Despite herself, Hermione squeaked with laughter when Draco pressed his lips against her collarbones, traveling down to her armpit and hands and waist and ribs. "Why do you like me?" She asked absent-mindedly.

He paused only for a second, before continuing as if he thought it was obvious, "Because your hair makes a lovely pillow and I like your laugh and I like your kisses and because you're the best thing that's happened to me since I got my first broomstick."

Boys and their flying toys. "Thank you." Hermione murmured thickly, touched in a really odd sort of way. "I think that's the sweetest thing someone's ever said to me."

"Then you have to get out more because that was an awful answer." His rather beautiful lips stretched into a rather beautiful grin, and his laugh was that of Pan, and his eyes like stained glass, and Hermione would have given the world to spend the rest of her life with this man.

"If you had a choice, would you pick the happily ever after?" She asked him, not bothering to explain her train of thought because she knew that he knew it already.

Like everything that Draco did, he didn't pause for thought. "Depends. I should think that the happily ever after would be boring, wouldn't you?"

She smacked him. "That's the most clichéd answer in the world. Where do you come up with this stuff?"

Truthfully, he answered, "Badly written romance novels."

"You woman."

"You man. What're you gonna do, slap me around? Think you're something big, eh, punk?"

"At least I have a job, you broke bum, because even if it is at the Ministry they are at least letting me do something about the treatment of house elves."

"Hey, I'm working on the whole job thingum."

"While eating my food and drinking my drink, si or no?"

"Well, I still have 'til Saint Patrick's Day to make it up, don't I?"

Fade out and there is a small street below the moss-coated building. A fat orange cat wanders across it, pausing to hiss at a young red-haired fellow who glares back (they are old enemies) before looking down at his fiancee's still-flat belly with pride. The sounds of a happily squabbling couple drift down from a window above and send laughter and brightly colored sparks of magic that they will later pass off as a fireworks experiment gone bad into the air. The sun has come out, a rare sight on any day but especially in February, and even the worst of all cynics admits that there is some good in this world, no matter how many angry salespeople and caffeinated power-walkers in spandex shorts seem to fight it.

There are some innate truths in this world.

One is that soul mates exist.

Two is that there are some things that should never have been invented.

Three is that even the greatest tragedies find it within themselves to grant happiness to those to whom the chance to chase it matters most.

I love you I love you I love you.

1.1.1.1.

The end

You are writing for: Vashka

Side pairing: Ron/Pansy

Rating: Whatever

Period: Whenever

Includes:

1) Oh, dear. I think we've killed him."

2) Lucius

3) ice cream

4) the color red

Tone: Romance

Ending: Happy of course!

…I hope that this isn't as bad as I think it is. But I do hope that it met your requirements, and that you liked it. Happy Valentine's Day, y'all!

Shout out to Artic Demon: Your review totally cowed me. XD Here's the next installment, missing for a while because to be quite truthful, I forgot about it. (Yeah. I'm a terrible author-person.) And yeah, I was inspired by Happy Hour and was hoping no one would notice, lol. And thanks so much for your review--they never fail to make me smile all weepy-like at the totally undeserved praise you always shovel on me. But you know that I know that you're awesome. :)

Please review!