[AN: Hey, guys! I just wanted to say I'm sorry for taking SO. FREAKING. LONG. to update this story. Honestly, time got away from me. I haven't opened or touched my laptop in weeks, hence no new chapters and no visible sign of life from me. I'm trying to get back into it, so hopefully I can roll out new chapters sooner than very later. Thank you for all your support!]

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If Draco pulled himself away from comfortable sheets while a warm, soft body slept next to him, smelling of something sweet and a hint of cinnamon, then he blamed it on restlessness—not inner turmoil the cause of his tossing and turning, making him think things someone like him should not be thinking of. It was that same restlessness that made him pull on a charcoal-colored jumper and black trainers (yes, he owned fucking trainers) before he made way into the Floo.

Some other time, once he was no longer concerned with himself and he could spare some for others, Draco would tell Theodore Nott he needed to upgrade his shoddy security wards. It took him less than thirty seconds to break past the enchantments without the walls of the home producing so much as a tremor to signal the intrusion. Draco made a beeline for where he knew the master bedroom to be; once pushing the door open, the moonlight pouring in through an open window allowed him to locate Nott's wand discarded on top of a pile of clothes (which included a woman's silky undergarments). Hovering over the bed, Draco reached the figure on the left, yanking hard on his arm.

Theo landed on the ground tangled in his sheets, narrowly missing the sharp edge of his nightstand on the way down. As a reflex from having lived through a war, his hands searched for his wand in the radius around him, but when he did not find it, he surged up, flailing arms to use his fists as his weapons of last resort.

"I need your complete focus right now, Nott." Draco snapped his fingers over Theo's face, forcing the latter to clock in on him.

"Malfoy?" Theo stumbled after Draco forcefully pushed his wand into his hand, his limbs still weak from the deep sleep he had been rudely roused from. "Mate, do you even know what fucking time it is?"

"Four in the morning," Draco said offhandedly as he reached over to have Theo point his wand at him. "Now do it."

"Do what?"

"Check if I've been put under the Imperius Curse," Draco snapped, ire narrowing his silver eyes, like the request had been so obvious it did not need any explaining.

With eyelids heavy with sleep, Theo tiled his head to the side to better inspect his friend. "Why would you be under an Unforgivable? Did you have a sex dream about Pansy again? I told you she's been biding her time with Weasley until you lowered your guard so she could use some love potion to get you back."

A loud scoff echoed around the room that came from the figure on Theo's bed that had previously been asleep. Turning over into a sitting position, Astoria Greengrass narrowed her eyes at the two men, but still had a smirk pulling at her lips.

"Oh, how the mighty have fallen," she said to Draco.

"Fuck you."

Astoria's smirk glittered devilishly. "You already have. It wasn't all it was cracked up to be."

"Funny," Draco bit back, "that's not what your mother said."

Despite the lethargic state of his reflexes (and mind), Theo was savvy enough to put himself between Draco and Astoria. Just because she liked to keep her fingernails perfectly manicured and clothes wrinkle-free did not mean Astoria would not succumb to fists for retaliation. Especially when it concerned Draco Malfoy. She would gladly wrestle in mud if that meant she could strangle the life out of him.

"Mate," he sighed, "why are you really here?"

"I told you," Draco said through gritted teeth, "I need you to check if I've been bewitched."

It took only two seconds for Theo to give in to his friend's ridiculous demand. He had raised his wand, thinking of the incantation, when Astoria was suddenly beside him, lowering his arm back to his side.

"You're not cursed," she said to Draco, her blue eyes filled with her disdain, but there was a flicker of something else, something like amusement that made the latter's blood boil. "Use your head, Malfoy. If Granger had you under an Unforgivable you would not be here right now. It's time for you to listen to that voice in your dark, twisted head and admit that you're completely fucked."

When Astoria had her own wand pointed at him now, Draco was unafraid of it. Instead he asked, "What does that mean?"

"I'm not your Evaluator," she said with a roll of her eyes, jabbing her wand hard on his chest. "Now get out before I disfigure that pretty face of yours."

He Flooed back to his flat, but he did not return to sleep. He slipped beside Granger, careful not to wake her as he stared up at the ceiling, his trainers poking out from the end of the bed. He did not know what to make of Astoria's comment, but, still, a part of him knew he agreed with her. He was completely fucked. To what extent, however, was still to be determined.

Granger had rolled over to his side, using his shoulder as a pillow for more than an hour. When the sun seeped through the slightly parted curtains of his bedroom, she stirred awake. He expected her to jump away from him, to mutter an apology for crossing the line of boundaries she was so fond of, but it never came. She nestled further into the crook of his neck and his arm tightened around her waist by its own accord.

Several times he thought he was going to tell her she was not a horrible person (something he had been meaning to say last night), but the words did not come out. She should know. She just had the misfortune of falling in love with someone who took advantage of her trusting nature. That's what cruel men did—what devils did. They took advantage of those with light in their souls and exploited it all until there was not one glowing ember left.

How was Draco any different to the man who had broken Granger's heart?

Even if Astoria Greengrass could find a shred of kindness in her heart to explain things to Draco he refused to dive into, she was right; she was not his Evaluator. Luna Lovegood was. As much as he despised the idea of having to apparate to the Ministry of Magic for another pointless round of Cure that Death Eater, his quota of ditching these sessions was nonexistent. Unless he wanted his wand privileges suspended (along with his freedom), he needed to march through her office doors and listen to her try to reform him.

"At least there is no scheduled Legilimency today," Lovegood said to him as she handed him a vibrant yellow teacup. "Here, drink this. It'll help. I received some Japanese herbs and flowers from one of my fellow Naturalists this past weekend. She said they all have calming properties."

Draco did not take the teacup as he frowned at her. "Do you make a lot of tea for Zabini?"

"Blaise doesn't like tea,"she settled the teacup before him anyway, her good nature not diminishing for a slight second. "He's more in touch with his Italian roots than his British ones. He prefers coffee and espressos."

"Good. You pay attention," he remarked coldly. "I didn't expect anything less from you, Lovegood. What else do you know about him?"

"As lovely as this is, Draco, we are not here to discuss my romantic life," Lovegood said with a bright smile despite the words that would have been laced with sharp sarcasm if they had come from someone else.

He scoffed at her response. "This is my evaluation, yes," while his words seemed polite (okay, no they weren't), his silver eyes were unmasked when showing how aggravating he found her to be, "but I don't think this professional relationship is going to work anymore. Call it a conflict of interest. Or a crossing of interests, really."

Luna raised a brow, but that pretty smile still remained as she dipped her odd-looking quill into an inkpot. "How so? I'm not asking you any questions regarding your present life and the people in it—that will be reserved for future sessions, of course. Currently, we are focused on your past as a Death Eater."

Draco's fingers retracted on his knees, gripping on to the expensive material of his black trousers. "You're too involved, Lovegood. The Department of Rehabilitation for Former Death Eaters will not approve that my wife's friend and best mate's girlfriend is the one trying to piece me back together according to what they think makes a perfect citizen. They might find you biased."

"The department finds me a lot of things, Draco, but biased is not one of them," she laughed, the sound like the wind-chimes she hung on her windows. Marking something on her notepad, she then said, "You seem misinformed, actually. I am not Blaise's girlfriend. Surely he clarified that for you."

Again, Draco scoffed. "I've nothing to say to that twat."

"Why?"

"What'd you mean why? He lied to me about you—his bloody girlfriend or not, shag buddy, who the hell cares. He still didn't say anything."

"You tell him about every woman you date, then? Because he seemed genuinely surprised you married Hermione. Isn't he your best friend? Shouldn't he have known?"

Glaring, Draco reached for the tea he had originally rejected. He took a drink to buy him some seconds of silence. At least, he thought to himself, Blaise did not tell this loony bint that my marriage to Granger is a product of a very hazy one night stand.

When he glanced back up, Lovegood's expectant blue eyes forced him to say, "He's one of you now."

Lovegood finished a scribble on her parchment before setting her quill down. She did not say anything, but the tilt of her head asked him to evaluate.

"He got a job as an Auror for none other than Harry fucking Potter. He has fought beside him, beside Weasley, and others we spent our schooldays dunking their heads into toilets. They welcomed him with open arms—people Blaise now calls friends. Society accepts this rejected Death Eater. I didn't think twice about it before; I just assumed Blaise was having a laugh, passing time until something else occupied his attention. I still did. Then when I saw him waltz in with you—Luna Lovegood, war hero and the bloody embodiment of innocence, I knew he was one of you. Blaise isn't coming back."

"I was not aware he left you," she told him, soft like the breeze of tat particular morning.

Draco shrugged, taking another sip of his tea, letting it burn his tongue before swallowing it down. "I don't hate him for it. How can I? He found redemption."

"Do you not think yourself capable of finding such redemption, too, Draco?"

"Blaise was never marked," he told her as if that should explain it all, his right hand abandoning his teacup to reach for his left forearm. Beneath the luxurious blazer and button-up rested the brand of the devil. "Those of us who were never get to where he is."

"That's not true," Lovegood countered, a frown creasing her forehead. "This department takes great pride in giving former Death Eaters new beginnings."

Draco wanted to laugh at her naivety. Instead, with the same weight his demons piled on his shoulders, he told her, "This department is just as wrapped up in fairy-tales as you are, Lovegood. We don't reform. You can't reform us. Sure, we can give up our pureblood mania for your beloved tolerance, but you can't cure darkness from our souls. You don't make us worthy of people like you. You just condition us to repress our nightmares long enough for this department to deem us capable of rejoining society as harmless individuals. You work to save yourselves from us, but who saves us from ourselves?"

He set the teacup back in its place as he stood. Draco knew there would be consequences for leaving his evaluation before his time was up, but the air in the room was no longer breathable. Not when he released the venom he carried inside that was his own source of destruction.

When he twisted the golden door handle, Lovegood said, "We cannot save you from yourself, but you are wrong, Draco. You are worthy of light. If you were not, Hermione would not be your wife."

He had been intent on taking a left when he exited the Ministry, but a herd of paparazzi forbid him from making that turn. Usually after these Evaluations Draco fancied a drink (or two, or three, or a whole bottle), but he knew how this worked; they would follow him, snap pictures of him drinking his demons away, and would label them Draco Malfoy Downs Firewhiskey: Is There Trouble in Paradise? While this ordeal with Granger had been his father's idea, the latter had warned him about bad press. There simply wasn't room for any if he wanted to win favor from the board.

He was pushing his way past the photographers when someone grabbed the back of his blazer, helping him out. Blaise was shouting at the paparazzi, threatening them with arrest for harassing a civilian on Ministry ground, but Draco did not stay to acknowledge the Auror. He instead pushed back into the Ministry, gritting his teeth as he threw in a handful of Floo Powder to take him to the lobby of Malfoy Industries.

Upon entering his office, an intern (Simmons or something) handed him a large stack of mail. He gave an explanation of why Olive was yet to arrive, but Draco did not really listen to it. He just sorted through the post, discarding letters from Pansy (one was actually a Howler, for what, he did not care) and his mother, and writing out one-line responses to business associates who had questions for one thing or another.

Draco was not aware how much time had passed him when fingers snapped over his face, bringing him back to the now. He found Olive raising a brow at him, shaking the file she was extending for him to take while harsh moonlight poured in from the open window of his office.

"Have you been smoking that exotic plant Goyle sent over?" she asked, crossing her arms over her chest now. "For Merlin's fucking sake, I told him that thing is potent. He barely has any functioning brain cells, must he kill the few he does have? I wonder if Cyrus can arrest him. I'm sure there has to be a connection between Muggle policemen and the Department of Magical Law Enforcement—"

"Stop your babbling," he snapped at her, "and get back to fucking work."

Olive's raised brow turned into two furrowed ones. "What's with your foul mood? I'm the one PMSing here, yet I still made your tea with honey like I was serving some fucking child. Did you offer any? No. And you know my menstrual cramps cannot be soothed by potions."

Draco was not sure if he was about to bang his head over his desk until he blacked out or if he was just going to throw her out the window like he did with all the things he did not feel like dealing with. Fortunately for her (because he was already reaching for his wand), there was a knock on his doors. Olive might be an imprudent woman, but she was an obedient secretary (when she wanted to be, that is); as such, she marched over to allow entrance to the visitor. He knew it was unlikely for there to be other partners in the office at this hour, but it still surprised him to see Granger walking into his office with a large paper bag clutched in one hand.

Olive glanced between Draco and his wife, an excited pink shade flushing her pale cheeks. She bit her bottom lip to compose herself, but Draco already knew she was going to fail in keeping in the squeal she was trying to stifle.

It startled Granger when Olive shouted, "I'm so happy to finally meet you, 'Mione!"

Granger flashed confused brown eyes at Draco. He scoffed. "This is Olive Crabbe, my secretary. And your new biggest fan, apparently."

Olive's excitement was briefly cut short when she glared at her boss. "Don't you dare ruin this for me," she warned him before turning back to Granger with a smile and an outstretched hand. "Sorry about my outburst, but I've waited for this moment since you broke Draco's nose last year. Fine work, by the way. Big fan of that."

"Nice to meet you, Olive—"

"Oh, please call me Liv," Olive said as Granger shook her hand. "Everyone does."

"Since when?" Draco questioned.

"Since now, so shut up."

Granger appeared to be waiting for Draco to retaliate to his secretary's cheeky behavior, but instead he just rolled his eyes at her. Once that passed, he looked at her, asking, "Why are you here?"

"Oh. Right." She marched over to his desk, settling the paper bag on it. "I came home from St. Mungo's and didn't find you there. Delta said you usually stayed late these days, so I thought I'd bring you dinner."

"You shouldn't have come here," he said to her with narrowed silver eyes. "Olive and I have files to sort through for my meeting tomorrow. Go home and get some sleep."

The small smile that had appeared on Granger's face vanished. She looked ready to argue with him, but Olive chimed in, clearing her throat loudly. "I'll finish the files," she said to Draco. "You go home with your wife, Mister Malfoy."

"Olive—"

"I won't half-ass this lot, I promise," she said with a smirk. "Besides, Cyrus went to Brighton for a case and won't be home until the weekend. At least one of us should be with their significant other."

Draco wanted to say the last thing he needed was to be around Granger after the grueling meeting with Lovegood, but he could not deny his thoughts had often drifted to her during the course of the day. He kept thinking of the way she curled up beside him, resting her head on his chest as they slept, or the warm, kind smile she gifted him in the morning as she helped Delta serve them their breakfast; he thought of the soft kiss on his cheek she gave him before departing to St. Mungo's, wishing him a good day, and how she cried when revealing the story of her previous heartbreak named Finn Conrad. He could not stop himself from thinking back to her interaction with Lottie Conrad, how gentle her hands were on the burnt little girl, and the undiluted adoration she held for her. Draco could not help his thoughts from telling him Granger fixed things that were broken.

"Okay," he murmured, nodding once as his fingers released the files he had been shuffling around. He grabbed his wand from the edge of his desk, pocketing it, but left behind his blazer.

When he moved to the other side of his desk, taking the paper bag, Olive pulled out her phone and a flash blinded the married couple. She grinned to herself, "This is going to be my new wallpaper." Then she looked up at them before they were out the door, "You'd really fire me if I sell this to Daft-ne Green-arse, right?"

"Fire then deliver you to your wretched mother," Draco threatened.

Olive grumbled as she waved them off.

"Are we going home?" Granger asked, wrapping a hand on his arm as they walked out into the night for the nearest apparition point.

"To change," he said with a nod. "But I'm thinking instead of a late dinner this could be breakfast. How do you feel about the beaches in Australia?"

Once they had made it home, Draco and Granger had gone to his bedroom to find appropriate attire, neither one bothering to ease Delta's worry of them catching a cold with the thin garments they were leaving the flat with. Granger had just bent to kiss the house-elf on the head, laughing when Draco pulled her out the door. The spontaneity of it brought such a pretty glimmer in her brown eyes, he wondered if this was how he convinced her (if he'd been the one to convince her) to get married. He imagined it was rare when Granger allowed herself moments of recklessness, to be young and wild, to be free of any proper, logical thinking; perhaps when these moments did come, she embraced them, ran off with them before her mind caught up with her.

While it was past midnight in Britain, the Australians were a few hours into their morning when they arrived to Perth beach. Given the time, Draco managed to find an isolated corner of sand and rock for him and Granger. She set out the food she bought ('Just sandwiches from my favorite bakery,' she said, 'nothing fancy.'), handing him his bottled drink, but she barely nibbled her food. When he finished his, she jumped up from the rock, kicking off her sandals to run to the shore. She did not go past her knees, but laughed when the waves splashed her all over.

He did not join her, but found himself content on watching her pick up seashells for the children of her ward.

"Thank you for this," she said, breaking the silence that had bloomed between them after she returned to him. He felt her eyes on him, but he did not meet them. Instead he watched a wave recede back into the ocean. "It's just what I needed."

He nodded.

"It's what you needed too, is it not?"

"I'm fine," he said. "I just did not feel like going home. Usually, I'd go to one of my clubs, drink until I have lost all sense of right and wrong, but I hear that's frowned upon once you've been married. So, cheers, Granger, for ending my bachelor days."

She snorted, digging her toes into the sand beneath them. "Need I remind you it's because of your usual behavior that we are married? Had you not challenged me to a drinking competition, perhaps you'd still be enjoying that cherished bachelor life."

Draco looked at her now, finding her with a large smirk on her pink lips. "Oh, now I challenged you?" She laughed, the sound so beautiful and warm, so true, he thought it was a better soundtrack than the crashing waves. He didn't know what it was about it that made him say, "I had my bimonthly meeting with my Evaluator this morning."

"Still?"

His inclination for her shattered when a glare started to darken his silver eyes at the tone she used.

Realizing this, Granger was quick to amend herself. "I meant no offense by my question. It's just...Why do you need more Evaluations? You've been an abiding citizen of the British Wizardying Community for so long. Surely they would have declared you reformed by now."

"Giving up prejudice isn't all they try to cure us from," Draco told her with a humorless chuckle. "They want to fix what is broken. Mind, soul, heart—everything we are. They want to rid us of our demons, but they can't. Not always."

"Not with you?"

Draco could not find a response when he noticed how the Australian sunlight poured around her, making her skin glow golden. For the briefest second he wondered if she really was pregnant; he had heard of the radiance that came over women who were with child, but a part of him knew Granger had always been this alluring and he was just discovering it. Whatever it was, he had to stop from leaning in to her, falling over her like a blind man fawning over the sun after recovering his sight.

This version of her, all gold skin and eyes, all warmth, vanished from before him when his mind projected the worst memory he had of her. He saw her surrounded by grey walls, surrounded by darkness and insanity, surrounded by the foul stench of death as her cries echoed as his Aunt Bellatrix tortured her, carving into her with a silver blade drenched in her blood...

"There is no fixing what I've done," he said without a trace of the fear and regret burning in his chest. He turned back to the ocean, willing to memory away.

He felt the soft weight of her hand on his, lacing fingers in order to squeeze.

"We were at war, Draco," Granger whispered. "While I cannot excuse you for the awful things you once said, I don't blame you for doing what you needed to do to survive. You didn't have a choice, after all. Voldemort threatened your family. You let yourself be branded a Death Eater to save them."

He tugged his hand away from her grasp. "I let myself be branded a Death Eater because I was a coward," he snarled as he stood, towering over her as he glared down. "Don't twist the truth because you think you're comforting me, Granger. It's not what I want to hear. I live with my demons—fuck, you are one of them! And I've accepted it all."

It was foolish for Draco to think that Hermione Granger could be stunned into silence by him. She stood now, too, hands brushing off the sand that clung to her thighs as she glared at him with the same intensity he used.

"Don't tell me how I have to see you," she hissed. "You say you accept your demons, but I think you settled for them. You turned yourself into a monster, but that's not what I see. I know you lowered your wand that night on the Astronomy Tower; you were never going to kill Dumbledore, all your previous botched attempts are proof of that. I remember you did not sell us out to Bellatrix that night we were brought to your manor. I remember you saved Goyle and tried to save Crabbe from the cursed fire. I remember you gave Harry your wand, turning the tide of victory in our favor. You saved his life. Then I remember you coming back; after all the death and grief, during restoration, you came back. You wanted a new beginning, too, but somewhere along the way you decided you were not allowed to have one."

She reached for his hand again, holding tightly to it when he tried to shake her off. With clear, golden eyes beaming with an honesty that was too much to bear, she said, "I won't strip you of your crown as an overconfident, smarmy bastard, you've earned it, but that's not all to you, Draco. Do you want to know what I see when I look past that? I see someone who made a home for himself in the darkness because he is afraid of the light. We all carry our scars and our marks," she said this as she outstretched her right arm, letting him see the ugly lines that spelt MUDBLOOD on her smooth skin before that hand covered his exposed Dark Mark, "but it does not define us. I am not a stain to magic and you are not the devil who made you his servant."

It was an odd moment to be realizing this, but Draco just caught on to what Lovegood had done in their session. The reason why it had taken him (as it had taken hundreds of ex-Death Eaters) so many years without being legally discharged of these Evaluations was due to him not being able to open up. Yes, one Evaluator after another poked into his head, stretching out his memories, putting them under harsh light to analyze, to get to know his position on all these gruesome events, but they could not do that with his heart. They could not take the broken, mismatched, blackened thing to help unknot the feelings of self-hatred and damnation he carried.

Lovegood had not used Legilimency, but she had pushed the right buttons to make him say exactly what he felt about Blaise (something he had not even allowed himself to say to his own reflection) and where that left him. That was why Draco could not focus on his work—that was why all he wanted was to be around Granger, because she had already shown him her broken pieces and he thought he could do the same. But it was more than wanting her presence to numb his open wounds; he wanted to know if Lovegood was right, if he really could be worthy of something better.

Here she was—here was Granger, all sharp sincerity, all passionate truth and guiding light. Draco struggled to breathe knowing one of his demons was releasing him from the prison cell he has been locked in since before the war had come to an end.

He had to be bewitched, fuck what Astoria Greengrass thought. That was the only explanation for him giving in, for him leaning in to press his mouth against Granger's. If it startled her, she was quick to stifle it, for she allowed him to grip her waist with one hand while the other moved to the back of her neck. He pressed himself closer to her, letting all her warmth seep into his chest as the sound of the ocean waves was replaced by the banging of his heart against his eardrums.

It had to be magic what made him never want to let Hermione go.