It was gray this morning. The sun was at its zenith but the clouds covered it so well that you could not see the great light it gave off or feel its magnificent ray upon your skin. The exact opposite Hermione Granger needed to lift her spirits.

She stood a few hundred feet away from the Manor – the Claret residence. The lush grass was littered with fallen dead leaves, brown and black and crispy under her tennis shoe-clad feet. She stared listlessly into the green and brown before her and thought. She thought about betrayal, about her friends, about Draco, about the Malfoys… her thoughts issuing never ending possible outcomes – children with Draco, death, more betrayal. What did all this mean? Why was this happening to her?

She was almost ready to go back inside, eyes burnt out and head hurting from the light of an overcast day. But the sound of crunching leaves in the distance stopped her. Her back heated up at the feeling of someone behind her. The footsteps weren't any that she recognized but had a rhythm to them that said they got to the point – they didn't like to lollygag or evade the issue. The man (she was positive this person was a male) slowed as he got closer until he was standing practically right next to her. Hermione didn't look at him. She listened to the sound of his slow controlled breathing – so reserved and self-conscious in that one movement - and then she knew.

"I met your aunt the other night." There was no personality in the statement, only fact, completely hard, cold fact. A moment of silence stretched out before them, messing with their heads, making them feel like minutes rather than seconds were inserted between her statement and the next.

"Did you like her?" Draco's voice was quiet and uncharacteristically unmotivated toward anything snide. The question, like what Hermione had said, held no life, just a means to keep a conversation going.

Hermione sniffed. "No." She would have answered differently to a different question – to a different person – to a different place! But Hermione was tired. She didn't want to play this little game anymore. She wanted to stop and go back. Back to normal. Her shoulders sagged and she dropped her face into her hands.

"Clara-" Draco started.

"Don't call me… that." Hermione lashed out, turning around to look at him for the first time. She was grossly taken aback. It wasn't Draco she was talking to. Or, at least, how could it be? He wasn't wearing his freshly pressed, perfectly tailored black Malfoy suit, nor was he in any sort of formal attire. He was wearing jeans. And a t-shirt! In complete shock, she looked him up and down. Everything was still black, and he had on Italian leather shoes, but still, it wasn't his suit and nothing was green. She turned away angrily then, upset that his appearance had distracted her.

"Hermione-" He tried again softly.

"How can you do that?" Hermione lashed out again whirling around to look him dead in the eye. This time it was a cry of frustration. "How can you act like you don't hate me, like we don't hate each other?"

"I don't hate you-"

"Oh like hell you don't!" Hermione moved past him, making her way back to her home, or that big thing over there, or whatever that wretched place was to her-

Draco grabbed her forearm. She tried to yank it out of his grasp, but he was too strong.

"Let me go." She struggled.

"I came here to talk to you!" He spoke loudly, the first time to do so. Hermione glared at him.

"Let me go!"

"FINE!" He threw her arm down and turned away. "You're right Clara, Hermione, whatever – I don't want to get married, especially to you – are you happy now? Does that satisfy you?" He was expecting an answer from her now. A come back. A snooty bookworm something. She watched him with hard eyes.

"Git." She said quietly.

"Oh, so now I'm the git." He cried out in frustration. "I don't want to get married." He said this more to himself, defeated, but Hermione thought he was being redundant.

"Well I don't want to get married either!" She was angry and sad and annoyed all at the same time.

"I know… I know." Draco said to her. Hermione looked scared. Draco looked tired. Somehow they had both missed these feelings, even when confronted by them before. It was like they were finding out the answer to something they had both known all along.

Hermione broke their eye contact first, looking down at her feet, at the grass… anywhere but back at those gray windows that matched the sky.

"What do we do now?" She looked to her right, at her house, without really seeing it.

"We wait." He said, standing up straight and calming down. Hermione looked sharply at him.

"For what?"

"For the right time to escape."

Hello there!

OK, so I really posted this to remind everyone of this story's existence, but also because I wanted to get another chapter up before Harry Potter came out! And maybe because I've been suffering with a little writer's block.

Can I get a show of hands of who's going to the opening night for HP 7 Part II? I am! So I'll answer questions I've gotten in the last few months in my next chapter because I have to get ready for tonight!

Have a blast, and please let me know how I did on this chapter. And I know it was short, but they'll be longer! Promise!

Cheers!