Hermione spent the following weeks that passed mostly curled up on the couch of the library, staring into the fire. She had been allowed conditional re-admittance into the aurors at the request of Harry and Moody, but had declined the offer. Now that Voldemort was dead, she wanted to focus on someone less practical and more interesting. Probably some sort of research, maybe either spell or potion development. It was hard to choose a path when all her thoughts ended up turning back to her former lover. He had loved her, of course. She should have seen that. Why else had he protected her, set her free, turned against the Dark Lord? Had she been the only reason he had turned against them? There were bands of renegade Death Eaters gathering across the country. Would he go back to his old ways now? Would he join them since she had rejected him? She stared into the fire and contemplated the possibilities.

This was how Harry found her when he returned from work. He sat down on the couch next to her and placed a small piece of parchment in her hand. The parchment contained a set of apparition coordinates. She looked at him inquisitively.

"All former Death Eaters are being required to register their location with the Ministry."

She didn't have to ask which former Death Eater was located at these coordinates.

"It's not the Malfoy Manor," she mused, staring at the coordinates.

"No. It's not."

"Do you know where they lead?"

"By the prefix…maybe somewhere in Spain. That's all I know."

She was encouraged by the fact that it was not the Malfoy Manor, that he had not gone seamlessly to fit back into his old life.

"Are you going to go?"

"I don't know. I don't know if I can" She handed the parchment back to him and went up to her room to go to bed.

She arrived downstairs in the kitchen the next morning. The piece of parchment was sitting on the kitchen table. She stared at the door, the door that he had walked through and left her life forever. She picked up the parchment and apparated.

The apparition point was at the edge of the property, but it afforded a clear view of the distant house. The house was nothing like she expected. As she neared it, she got a good view of the modernist home of glass and steel perched on the edge of the cliff. The house told her everything that Draco could not. It was as different from the heavy stone of Malfoy manor as anything could be. The house seemed light, barely tethered to the ground, built of steel and glass and little else.

This house told her that he was leaving the past behind. History and tradition had been sacrificed for light and air. Malfoy manor had secret rooms and passageways hidden beneath the stones, this house had only glass; there was no place for secrets to hide. The house had few interior walls, simply letting the space of one room slip into the next. Only a man who had spent time in Azkaban could want this much freedom.

She walked towards it, ,up the hill on the narrow path overgrown with wild grasses and flowers. All was silent except for the occasional ruffling of wind through the grasses.

When she reached the house, she found the front door unlocked. She slipped in silently, finding the house as light and airy on the inside as it appeared from the outside. It was clean and bare. She walked through the kitchen, dragging her hand lightly along the crisp edge of the countertop.

Upon reaching the end of the kitchen, she found herself facing large sliding glass doors which almost seemed to disappear, letting the nature beyond slip into the house. She stepped outside and noticed the water of the pool ripple. As she peered down into the water, she realized that it was a body swimming underneath the surface that was causing the ripples. She watched him swim, mesmerized by the movements.

Finally, he came up for air and saw her standing there in the sunlight watching him.

He pulled himself out of the pool and approached her, water dripping off his body. She did not need to say anything, she had come and that told him everything he needed to know. Ignoring the fact that he was wet, he pulled her into a tight embrace and just held her and the water seeped through her clothing.

After everything, as complicated as their situation had been, it ended in the simplest possible way; he left the door open for her and she came to him.