Draco knew.

He should have listened to that voice in that back of his head—that same voice that had been whispering in his ear since he was a teenage boy blinded and marked by the Dark Lord, guilty for crimes greater than him. It always told him something was not right. It always told him he would never know anything real, anything pure.

But Draco dropped his defenses for her.

She came into his life as more than a passing shadow, as more than a one-night stand gone wrong. She clutched onto him, refusing to be shaken off until he was forced to accept her. Until he was forced to see her overwhelming light—a light he wanted so desperately to bathe in, to cure him of all the darkness he carried.

He should have known it was an impossible concept. She was his recurring nightmare, after all. By now Draco had learned his demons would never extend a hand out to him, ready to make a truce to heal what plagued his head.

This was his punishment.

"You're wrong," Lovegood told him, blue eyes darkening despite their glistening. A frown had settled on the faint lines of her pale face. Draco thought her entire expression odd. "Your life is not on a loop. That's exactly what these sessions were carefully designed to teach you. You do not have to constantly relive your dark days, nor do you have to keep punishing yourself for them. This is not how forgiveness works, Draco."

With a scoff, Draco started reaching for the firewhiskey at the corner of her desk. Lovegood intercepted the bottle before he did, making him glare when she instead slid a cup of tea closer to him. "You're missing the point," he said with a low growl. "I can't be forgiven. That's exactly what these sessions were carefully designed to teach us."

"The Ministry worked hard to—"

Draco stood from the eccentric, embroidered armchair across from Lovegood's neatly cluttered desk. He buttoned his pristine jacket, looking down at her impatiently as usual. He was inclined to call her a foolish, naive child as he often did, but the rare glisten in her eyes threatened to fall down to her cheeks.

"You tried," he said with a reluctant sigh. "There are some things you just cannot change, Lovegood. The way the world collects its debt for our sins and the way we've learnt to accept it just happens to be some of those things."

Lovegood pursed her lips, nodding once. Draco raised a brow at her; he had expected her to continue preaching, to offer him foreign remedies of how to cure his heartache, but he got none of that. Instead, she looked down at her hands for a brief moment before opening the left drawer of her desk. She pulled out a thin, black file she hesitantly extended toward him.

"You could always Floo in," she reminded with a murmur.

Draco took the file, giving her another scoff, this time without any real malice behind it. "We both know I'm not coming back."

He headed for the door, reaching for the handle when he heard her let out a shaky breath. It made him frown again. He was annoyed at her, but not in the way he usually was. His stomach burned when he realized his frustration had formed out of the unwanted thought that he had upset her.

"Do you love Blaise?" He turned around to look at her, finding her somehow small and defenseless behind her giant desk.

Before his head could fill with the memory of the night she was dragged in to Malfoy Manor, beaten and then thrown into the cold cellar, Lovegood gave him her rudimentary response of, "We're not here to talk about my personal life, Draco. These sessions are about you."

"I'm not asking as a patient. I'm asking as a friend."

A small smile formed at the corner of Lovegood's mouth. "Yes. I believe so."

"You should tell him," Draco told her before twisting the handle and walking out her office for the last time.

He swore he heard a clatter and then the clear sound of apparition behind her closed door, but he continued his way to his next appointment at the Ministry before he was due at Malfoy Industries.

xx

"That is it then," said Lucius. "Tierra Pura is officially under our company. We will be sending a representative in the next month to see how Mr. Rivera is—"

"Actually, Father," Draco cleared his throat, earning attention from those already closing their files as the meeting had come to an end. "The contract says I'll be the representative. Rivera and I have worked out the details of my direct involvement with the lab and the product that is created there."

"Since when?" Olive demanded, making herself known from the background where all other assistants had gathered. She stepped away from the small huddle, red seeping beneath her cheeks. "I revised this contract a week ago. There was nothing about you—"

"I changed it last night," Draco said, blinking away from her glaring face to look for his father's impassive expression. "I leave tomorrow morning."

"Hands on, eh, Draco?" Wulfric Macnair grinned from his seat. "You either have no faith that Tierra Pura is going to succeed, or you think yourself King Midas—everything turns to gold when you touch it."

"I think we've proved the latter is right," Draco said to the man, silver eyes narrowing at him by reflex. "Or the sign outside this building wouldn't say Malfoy Industries, would it? How many things around here have the Macnair name on it, anyway? Aside from your father's prison cell, that is."

The meeting room became instantly silent. Partners looked at one another, at Draco and Macnair, before looking at Lucius still sat at the head of the table. They all expected the same brawl that had occurred at their last business dinner—even Draco did, he was squeezing his palms into fists, ready to strike if Macnair gave him so much of a blink—but the older man laughed. A laugh that came from the pit of his stomach, true and delighted.

"You are the future of this company, Draco," Macnair said as he stood. "Our families built our fortunes on old money and alliances, but you are starting to fill our vaults with gold gained from the risks none of us are brave enough to take. I commend you for breaking tradition and finding innovation. I am certain Tierra Pura will revolutionize our labs."

Draco found himself frowning after the man and the other partners as they left the room with brief, jumbled reciprocities of Macnair's opinion. "He's full of shit."

"You're full of shit," Olive hissed at him, slapping down her files on the corner edge of the long, glass table. "Mexico? Really? When the hell were you planning to tell me? When there was a tiny umbrella in my hair, or I was gorgeously tan? Salazar, you're an idiot. There's no way Hermione agreed to this move."

Draco clenched his jaw for a brief, tensed second. "I've got the board behind Tierra Pura. I don't need to be married anymore."

Olive took a step back. "What'd you mean?"

"Miss Crabbe," Lucius spoke up, "there is paperwork Draco will need to sign if he is to have a temporary leave from the company. Make sure it is on his desk for him to sign before the work day is over."

"But how can—Fine. Right away, sir," Olive said through gritted teeth when Lucius cast an infamous Malfoy glare in her direction. She stomped her way out of the meeting room, no doubt picturing it was Draco's head she was crushing under her heel.

"A divorce?" Lucius turned to Draco now. "You have made foolish decisions before, but I do not have to tell you that divorcing Hermione Granger when the board just granted you full support of this new venture is completely stupid. For once use your head, Draco."

"It won't be messy," Draco said, his jaw still squared. "It won't even be public. I can guarantee you that much, Father. I'll be in Mexico long enough for the board to forget that I was even married."

Lucius raised a sharp, pale brow at him. "What happened with Miss Granger?"

"Does it matter?" Draco stood from his place. "She was a mistake. You said so yourself when you found out. Now we have Tierra Pura. Now we can pretend none of this ever happened."

There was no pretending she had not been here, though. She left footprints in his days that would fossilize. Draco knew he was always going to see them on the ground with every step he took, everything in him wondering why she was not beside him, filling the holes she left behind.

That's why Mexico.

When he left the club that night, Draco thought of the thousand ways he could destroy her—of all the ways he could burn everything down to the ground, leaving her suffocating in the ashes of every lie she used to build what they momentarily had together. Yet, while he was no stranger to fury, it was only flickers. There was something else. Something that won over blinding rage. 

And it hurt.

He was unable to breathe when he walked in to his flat. He saw her shadow everywhere. He saw her laying on his couch, her head on his lap as he ran fingers through her soft, dishieveld curls while he told her of his life. He could see her in the kitchen, singing and swaying her hips to a song in her head while she made another meal for them to share. He could smell her on the surrounding walls, hear her in them, too, from when he pushed her against them, her legs wrapping around his waist as he thrust up into her.

It had been a lie. But what he had felt—what he feels for her...

"Did you make it clear to Stewart that he should not, under any circumstance, divulge my address to anyone?" Draco asked Olive as he stormed into his office, snatching the top file from on top of her work area on his way in.

"Who the hell is Stewart?" Olive asked from behind him.

Draco nudged his chin to the door of his office as he settled himself at his desk. "The lanky, sniveling git outside."

"Merlin, you're a fucking twat," Olive said with a grunt. "His name is Earl. He's worked here longer than I have. You hired him, actually. Then you gave me his job and made him clean toilets when he told Lucius you were having a romp in your office when you should've been at the board meeting with the investors from Tokyo."

"Ah, you see," Draco pointed out with a grunt of his own, "Stacy can't be trusted. Wipe his memory of my address then, Crabbe. The last thing I need is Daphne Greengrass barging in on me with her fucking paparazzo."

"His name is Earl!" Olive huffed, approaching his desk now. "And I can't do that or it'll be considered assault. I mean, it is assault anyway, so go fuck yourself. Just because you've already been in Azkaban, I'm not going to do the same."

"I will sack you before I'm off to Mexico," Draco threatened, looking up from the last pile of legal documents he had to sign. "And I'll destroy any trace of severance package deals."

Olive pressed her lips into a tight line. Draco started knitting his brows at her lack of retaliation when she pulled a sheet of paper from the folder in her hands. She extended it to him without blinking.

"What's this? I thought I had all of it."

"It's my resignation letter, Malfoy."

Draco lowered his hand as he had been halfway to reaching for the document.

"Look," Olive began with a low tone, but her chin rising high so her dark eyes could look straight into Draco's silver ones, "I know you think you've fooled everyone into believing yesterday you woke up with intention of divorcing 'Mione and leaving London, but you don't fool me. You love her. I know because you look at her the same way I look at Cyrus. Whatever happened between you two...Marriage isn't easy, okay. You know how many times Cyrus almost left because I'm demented? Or how many times I left because he can't put the toilet seat down? It's not that fucking hard, I mean, pee and just—"

"It wasn't love," Draco interrupted her, picking up his quill to sign his name onto the seventh dotted line. "It was vodka and a business move. That's it."

Olive scoffed, rolling her eyes. "I know you're not used to loving someone, Malfoy—I mean, really loving someone—but running away to Mexico isn't going to get her out of your head."

Draco squeezed the fragile spine of his quill.

He had not been able to get Hermione out of his head even before he knew what her mouth tasted like, or even before he knew what it was like to wake up beside her. She had taken up residency in his head since he was eleven. Her position in his thoughts had not altered much at first (she went from being a nameless, bright-eyed girl looking for a toad in every compartment of the Hogwarts Express, to the righteous Muggle-Born he had been intent on tormenting because she was better than him), but then she was brought in as a prisoner of a ruthless war. She lived with her nails gripping the walls of his mind since the night he saw her bleed and get tortured on his floor.

Then those nightmares of her had momentarily become daydreams. Daydreams of waking up with her head on his chest, his lips on her skin, their limbs locking together as they moved into one another. Then those nightmares had become daydreams of a family. Of a life together.

He didn't know which version of her burned him the most.

All he knew was that she would always be alive in his head. And, yes, Mexico was not going to erase her, but it was better than living in the flat where her scent lingered amongst his things.

Running away was not the answer, but he had always been a coward, hadn't he?

Draco dropped his quill, instinctively reaching for the bottle of liquor at the corner of his desk.

There was nothing there.

He had given up solving his problems with alcohol for her.

He had tried giving up all his vices for her.

"I'm pregnant."

The words that next came out of Olive's mouth made Draco look up. "Well, it's not mine."

"Gross," she shuddered at his remark. Then, as she had done with her resignation letter, Olive pulled out a sonogram from her folder. She flashed it at Draco, grinning proudly. "I know I told you I was menstruating a few weeks ago, but I was really just experiencing my first wave of mood swings."

"First?" Draco repeated with a snort. He wanted to reach for the picture, but he couldn't find it in himself to do so. He picked up his quill again.

Olive continued to grin, her pale face glowing with sweet rosy undertones until her eyes moved to the resignation letter Draco had yet to take. She sighed. "I can't follow you to Mexico. You understand, right? I know there's the Floo and apparition, but this is my first baby. I want to experience every moment with Cyrus right beside me."

Draco kept silent, signing his name a few more times until Olive's anxious foot-tapping became her slamming the letter and sonogram on his desk. He smirked.

"I wasn't going to ask you to follow me," he told her. "While in Mexico, I'll need an actual competent secretary. One that preferably speaks Spanish and not bullshit."

"Dickhead," Olive huffed out at him, rolling her eyes again. "Find one with patience, too, because no one can stand you for more than an hour—and that's pushing it."

Draco took the resignation letter, tearing it in half. Outrage started to appear on Olive's face, and before it could turn into violent action, he said, "I don't need you as my secretary. I need you to be me while I'm gone."

Confusion took away Olive's outrage. "Cyrus won't appreciate me sleeping with random women, nor can I heavily drink in my condition. Isn't that essentially what being you is?"

"You know as much as I do about Tierra Pura, Crabbe," he said, ignoring her comments. "You know the process of startup companies, you know how to collect the numbers and present them to the board, you can find investors—you've seen me do it successfully multiple times. I need you to do that while I'm gone."

Olive's bewilderment did not waver. "When are you coming back?"

Draco closed the file of paperwork, extending it out to her. "You'll find that I've legally changed your position in this company last night, too. You should be receiving the formal contract later this week. And, yes, there's definitely a raise in there for you."

"Malfoy," her voice grew louder, sharper, "when are you coming back?"

"I studied potion-making while at university for business," he said. "I was brilliant at it when I was at Hogwarts. Severus had always suggested it, but Father already had his plans. I would serve the Dark Lord and run Malfoy Industries. Now I get to be a Potioneer for a company I believe in."

Olive blinked away from Draco, taking in the sight of all the boxes. She had not put it all together before—she had been blindsided by the whirlwind he had created within a span of a few hours, after all. Draco had taken business trips before that often took him out of country for weeks on end, but he never packed up his office.

He had every intention of returning back then. Something he did not have now.

"What happened with Hermione?" Olive asked after noticing that not a single box was labeled. Her right hand moved from her sonogram to carefully place it on top of his. "Don't bullshit me, Draco, okay? We're friends."

"Vodka and a business move," Draco repeated, pulling his hand back from her touch.

"Then why are you running?" she asked, no trace of impatience or anger. "You aren't offering me a job, you're offering me your job. You worked hard to get here. No matter what the board thinks, or what the world thinks, you worked hard for your place in a company that is rightfully yours. You're just giving that up because you decided potion-making is your calling? And maybe it is, Draco, but it sounds like starting over to me."

"Do you want the job or not? Because with my leave, you'd go straight to Father."

Olive sighed, pulling herself back to an upright position. She put her right hand on her stomach. "I have a degree in business, too, you know. I've only been bringing you coffee all this time because Mummy Dearest blacklisted me when she found out I was shagging muggles. Now I'm giving her a half-blood grandchild and I'm the head of Malfoy Industries. That's a big enough 'fuck you', isn't it?"

Draco scoffed. "And you say my ego is too big?"

"It is," she said immediately. "Now, is that all, Mister Malfoy?"

"That'll be all, Miss Crabbe."

Olive hesitated. Her eyes glistened the same way Lovegood's had, but there was something more behind the look. It was something Draco had only seen on Blaise (sometimes Theodore and Pansy, too).

It was the look of genuine friendship.

She did not say anything, though. She just inhaled deeply, giving him a firm nod, before turning on her heels. She was at the door already, opening it, when Draco said, "I love her."

"Yeah," Olive said, looking over her shoulder. "I know. So why are you leaving?"

"Because she doesn't love me. And I can't stay here when all I want to do is run to her, but she's running away from me."

Olive closed the door, turning back angrily at him. "Who said she was running from you?"

"I don't get one of these fairytale endings, Liv. Not like you and Cyrus. Fuck, not even like Pansy and the Weasel," Draco looked down at his hand, at the finger now light without a gold wedding ring he thought was on there by a stoke of luck. "I don't get her because I've never deserved her in the first place. So this is how it ends."