[[[AN: Oh, God. How long has it been since I've updated this story? No one answer that. Please. I know I've been absolutely terrible. Luckily, after months and finally finding some free time to actually write, I give you a new chapter. Thank you so much for putting up with the super long hiatus and always saying the loveliest things. You are all amazing.]]]

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Hermione could feel their eyes on her, watching her every move. They got louder, talking about their growing and expected children, the state of the Chudley Cannons, Lavender's ugly selection of bridesmaid dresses in comparison to Pansy's stunning ones, George's new prototypes, the upcoming charity event, Kingsley's new boyfriend ("third one this year; who knew he was such a playboy? He should be thinking about settling down at his age."), new limitations on paparazzi Percy will be proposing to the council, Headmistress McGonagall asking Harry to teach a singular lesson of Defense Against the Dark Arts—yet through all of their noise, she heard the one question they were not brave enough to ask.

What happened?

She made a mistake. Not just the obvious one, but dragging them into the mess she was creating for the sake of proving she was not a mess. She saw the way they looked at her—with pity, like she was a foolish, young girl who closed her eyes and leapt off the edge, hope in her stupid heart that there would be someone there to catch her.

When no one had been there, Hermione hit the ground and shattered into a million pieces. And they looked at her like the wind had blown away some of her fragments and grieved what remained behind.

She could not stand it. She could not stand Mrs. Weasley giving her an extra tight squeeze, Fleur constantly reaching for her hand, Ginny's angry, revengeful expressions she often shared with Pansy, Harry and Ron's poor attempts at making her laugh, or Padma steering her clear from the ward whenever it was visiting hours with unbelievable, ridiculous excuses. She did, of course, appreciate their intent, but Hermione did not want them to remember her as this heartbreak—as this lie. So she used Jenna Flint's plot of revenge to prove that she could move on. That she was more than the broken pieces they desperately wanted to put back together.

While Draco Malfoy was not the ideal prospect to prove that, Hermione did not expect that they (after some arguing and prodding) would welcome him in.

Hermione did not expect Draco Malfoy (after some arguing and prodding) to want to be welcomed in.

"Are you all right?" asked Harry after she abruptly stood, making the others silence their conversations to look up at her, squinting really hard to see those shattered lines on her skin.

"I need some air," she said through clenched teeth. "I—" she was unable to continue, not without gasping and clawing at her chest from the sudden, sharp pain stabbing at her heart.

She pushed her chair back in a hurry, practically stumbling over Bill so she could reach the door leading to the backyard. She could hear the loud, penetrating silence they were in following after her, but soon as she opened the door, she ran from it.

"We knew this would happen," Ginny had said, inspecting the gold ring under the bright bathroom light like she had never seen it before, like she was trying to solve the mystery of its missing owner from its curve. "I hate to admit it, but Malfoy is intelligent. We knew there was a high chance he would figure it out before the month is up."

"I'm surprised he didn't blow this place up," Pansy said as she continued to fix her makeup, not entirely interested in the conversation Hermione had dragged her and Ginny into the women's toilets to have. "Then again, it is his own nightclub. It might cost him millions of galleons to fix it up just for throwing a fit."

Hermione turned away from her, looking at Ginny with the weight of her own ring pushing down at her. "What do I do now? How do I fix it?"

"What do you mean?" Ginny's brows furrowed together, a pink shade tinting her cheeks that was no longer due to the whiskey she and their friends had been drinking in rounds of shots. "This whole thing Flint conjured up to patch up her own ego is done. You're done. You don't have to keep playing Mrs. Malfoy anymore. We've had our laugh. That's it."

Pansy powdered her nose one last time before turning from the mirror. "Ginny's right. Flint got her revenge and Draco learned his lesson. Your services are no longer required. You can get back to your own life now—your real life. And you can put this nightmare behind you."

But it had not been a nightmare. Not really. Hermione wanted to tell them just that, but the words would not come out of her mouth. They saw him as the Draco Malfoy that was completely capable of calling the Department of Magical Law Enforcement to remove an unwanted one night stand from his property. They saw him as the Draco Malfoy that had been completely capable of letting Death Eaters into Hogwarts. They saw him as the Draco Malfoy that had been completely capable of being incapable to be committed and loyal. They saw him as the Draco Malfoy of their pasts, all covered in blood and betrayal, in darkness and destruction.

Hermione had seen all that, but more, too.

She had seen his own shattered pieces. She had seen the fragments of what remained after his entire universe crumbled all around him. But she did not pity those pieces. She admired them, put them under a magnifying glass and studied every jagged edge that told a story of horror, pain, misery, loneliness, strength, and flickering hope.

She had seen someone worthy of forgiveness. Someone worthy of light.

Of love.

"You seem happy," Finn Conrad had said, startling her from the medical chart she was revising.

There was a time once when Hermione could sense his essence from a mile away, but now he crept up undetected by her. Still, she tensed, taking a step back from the penetrating blue of his eyes and the vague, familiar aroma of his cologne.

"Found it hard to believe, you being Mrs. Malfoy and all. Didn't he hate you? Didn't his family try to kill you?"

Hermione set aside Lottie's file on the small cabinet beside her empty bed. "My private life is my own, Mr. Conrad. If you don't have any questions regarding your daughter, I suggest you come back when she has returned from her counseling session. Until then, I must ask you to wait in the designated area."

Before she could turn away from him, giving all her attention to another section of the ward, Finn reached for her wrist, holding her in place. Hermione expected the touch to burn, to reignite something in her that she was absolutely terrified of, but it did not come. Instead, she noted how different his skin felt in comparison to Draco's.

"Don't tell me it's in the past and you forgave him, because from my experience you don't forget things as easily as you let on."

"Don't compare yourself to my husband," Hermione spat, pulling her hand away from his clutch.

"Trust me, I don't," Finn returned just as sharply. "He insulted you, bullied you for years, and I made one mistake. I can't compare myself to that Death Eater. Nor can he compare to me, Hermione. I loved you—I love you now. I was your family, and he's just pretending to be. I don't know what made you marry him, but I know he can never give you what I can."

Hermione felt her blood burning from inside her veins. She took back that previous step, getting closer to him so he could see the fire in her eyes, the very same that made her magic hum out of her pores. If he so much as blinked, she could curse him to oblivion with only a twitch of her finger.

"You don't love me, Finn. You never did. And that's okay," she told him with a rough, humorless chuckle passing her mouth before he tried to contradict her. "I was lonely and you fed off of that. I picked up your pieces and you rearranged mine to your advantage."

"Don't start with that bullshit, Hermione," he scoffed. "Don't pretend to know how I felt. I was going to tell you about her—"

"We were together for a year!" Hermione snarled, her magic forcing him back like it had been her hand to shove him. "You didn't neglect to tell me you had a wife, you led me to believe you left her long before Lottie's accident! You used your daughter to get me and that I cannot forgive!"

Finn glared, heaving at the increasing rattle of the room. If he had wanted to rebuttal her accusation once more, he did not pursue it. He let silence fill the space between them.

When she caught her breath and managed to settle that dangerous hum pouring out of her, it was because Hermione thought of Draco. "My husband was a complete areshole when he was a boy, that's true. And he may be one now, too, but at least he is an honest one. So when he holds me close after we've had sex and we are all loose, exhausted limbs, and he looks me in the eye and tells me I'm his...that I'm his family, I believe him."

"Do you?" Finn returned, cold like his skin had been when he touched her. There was something in his eyes that darkened, that warned Hermione he was going in for the kill, one last scar among the ones he had already given her. "Or are you so desperate to belong to someone that you make yourself believe it? Because you did it with me, didn't you? You looked at your friends and saw how happy they were, how complete they felt, and you needed that, too. Let's be honest, that's why you didn't ask me questions about Lottie's mother. So why not delude yourself now into thinking the Death Eater can give you happiness?"

"I only loved you because you lied to me," Hermione said with a courage that surprised her, that rattled her bones at the thought that she was not breaking in front of him, but rather was standing tall with all the strength she had recovered in past weeks. "You pretended to be a good man, but you aren't one. And, yeah, my husband did terrible things, but he tries every day to be better. And that's the type of man I want to be with. That's the type of man I choose to be with."

After Finn had stormed out of the ward, Hermione took a deep breath and tucked the words back into her mouth. A part of her was convinced she only said it to get back at that treacherous man, but another part of her—a much bigger, present part of her knew she was quick to take them from hanging in the air so she did not have to process them. She kept reminding herself she was doing this (this being 'married' to Malfoy thing) to avenge Jenna, to avenge all women who have ever been unjustly scorned, humiliated, and cheated on by awful men. It was a solidarity act, a feminist thing...

But then they sat on the sand of a beach in Australia, sharing more than silence and food. The waves took the lingering resentment and mistrust of their complicated past and carried it away, bringing back only something new.

Hermione never thought there was something else to Draco Malfoy than all he had been until she saw his scars. She took a peek inside that poorly stitched wound, seeing his nightmares and loneliness, his insecurities and regrets. She ran a finger over his Dark Mark and not only saw the terrified, threatened boy forced to carry the devil's sigil, but also the miserable, tortured man who tried to cut the flesh away to start new, but lived in a world that did not want him to forget his place.

"I don't know how you feel about me, Hermione, but I do know how I feel about you," Draco had told her, both of them sat beneath his mother's prized Hawthorn trees. He clutched the edge of the table, his hands shaking as he continued. "I know how I feel when I'm with you. I can't exactly word it right, but it feels like living again. Really living. All this time I was just coasting through, hoping my fucking nightmares would not catch up to me, that I didn't search for more. I didn't think I deserved more. Then Blaise said his second chance was wanting a better life for himself, and I realized mine is you."

Hermione was absolutely terrified when those words left his mouth. She tried to encourage him to be better for himself, but when she reached for his hands, it was for the same reason he was shaking. It was for the same reason he couldn't catch his breath, and why his silver eyes were a frantic storm.

They were terrified of losing each other.

"Just tell me you're going to stay," he said, fingers tightly squeezing hers.

"I was never going to leave."

Hermione let out a scream that had been living between her ribcage ever since she found his wedding ring on the counter of the bar.

She was not supposed to fall in love with Draco Malfoy.

She was not supposed to love the sound of his husky, tired voice in the mornings, or how his arms wrapped around her to keep her next to him, tangled in warm sheets and caring, possessive hands. She was not supposed to love how he kissed her, slowly and with devotion, or how he always devised a plan to runaway from their adult responsibilities to any place with a lot of sun. She was not supposed to love how tidy he was, how he obsessed over the smallest wrinkle on his suit, or how he had a routine that lasted exactly forty-seven minutes to make him look elegantly tousled. She was not supposed love how he peered over her shoulder as she applied her mascara, or how he chuckled to himself when her comb got stuck in her curly, impossible hair, or how he told her she looked beautiful every single time she stripped out of her pajamas (or his old Slytherin jersey) and pulled on her proper, slightly wrinkled work clothes. She was not supposed to love the way he helped her make breakfast (while getting accustomed to his kitchen for the first time), or how he helped Delta set the table, or how he always asked her what she was humming to herself when she cooked. She was not supposed to love the careful way his silver eyes watched her when she spoke of a patient, or how his eyes glittered when he dove into the subject of potion-making. She was not supposed to love the way he kissed her at the door, pressing her against the wall, his hands on her waist, flushing himself against her to convince her that she could live off his mouth and he off hers forever. She was not supposed to love the way he slowly emerged into her thoughts throughout the work day, or how he Owled her ridiculous anecdotes of his (The Crabbes came in for some paperwork. Olive changed her name plaque to Muggle-Fucker. Her father almost had an aneurysm). She was not supposed to love the way she hurried to his flat (to their home), joy mixing with her blood at the thought of seeing him, of breathing in his scent, of laying her head on his chest, naked and climbing down from the pleasurable heights they soared to together. She was not supposed to love the way he bared himself to her, exposing scars, regrets, and unfulfilled dreams ('I thought I could be a teacher. Maybe take up being Potion Master at Hogwarts if I could bribe Severus into retiring. Or maybe at Ilvermorny. But then the Quidditch World Cup happened and the Dark Mark appeared in the sky. I knew my life wouldn't belong to me anymore'). She was not supposed to love the way he let himself share the intimate things that brought him joy, or the secret hopes he held captive behind his heart ('I want to...I want to one day look at my father in the eye and know that I forgive him. I want to let him back in...Then I see him there, in my nightmares, offering us up to that maniac, and I hate him. But I don't want to. I miss him'). She was not supposed to love the way his hand would sometimes rest on her stomach when he thought she was asleep, softly caressing the possibility of a life in her womb, muttering promises of a happy childhood and loving home. She was not supposed to love the way she believed him when he said she was his family, or how she found herself wanting it, him, and everything they could possibly create together.

"Hermione!" At the sound of her name, she turned away from the dark green hills extending far and beyond the Burrow's line, towards the Lovegood home that remained destroyed as a haunting relic of the war against Voldemort and the man who had lost his life inside of it.

As she heaved for air, her lungs burning from the run she had been taking away from her problems, Luna appeared behind her. The cold air blew her long, blonde hair backward, exposing the strange red shade of her usually soft, pale features.

"Luna, what are you—?" Hermione was stunned into silence when her old friend raised her hand to strike her. Even after Luna had slapped her, she could not process the action. Hermione touched her right cheek, still heaving for air, her skin hot and stinging from the hit.

"Fuck," Blaise huffed as he and Ginny came running up behind Luna. He threw his arms around his girlfriend, pulling her several inches back from Hermione as if he were breaking up a fight—as if he knew Luna had all the intention of slapping her again.

And Ginny might have seen that, too, because she was quick to place herself in the middle, arms extended out like she was prepared to catch a quaffle or block an opposing chaser from scoring.

Luna did not put on a fight to free herself from Blaise's arms, but instead held onto him like she was drawing strength or sensibility from his proximity. Still, her pretty blue eyes were narrowed at Hermione in a way none of the others had ever seen.

"You broke his heart," she accused loud enough for her words to echo around the open space. "He opened up to you and you broke his heart."

Hermione noticed the way Blaise tightened his arms around Luna and how his eyes darkened in a similar way. She had known of him in their Hogwarts days, but she had never found herself at the other end of his pureblood mania. Unlike his fellow Slytherin acquaintances, his prejudice came in a silent distance from those he considered unworthy of breathing his same air. She did not know what growing disgust looked like on him until now.

"I was helping him," Luna shouted again, ignoring her best friends low, calm request to lower her voice and take a deep breath. "I saw the good in him long before he started allowing it out. He never thought he was deserving of anything good, let alone your love, but I convinced him otherwise. I pushed him into your arms, Hermione—me! Because I believed in your own ability to see the light in so much darkness, but all along it wasn't real."

"You're right," Hermione murmured after the accusation hung in the air for a long second, the same way her realization of her loving Draco had when she voiced it some weeks back. Instead of pretending it was not real like she had done with her feelings then, she now said, "I hurt him. I...I wanted to prove him capable of it. For Jenna's sake and...and maybe my own, too. It didn't start off real, but then it was."

Ginny turned away from Luna and Blaise, her brows shooting up in unexpected confusion. In that same moment, Ron and Harry chose to apparate among them. They both studied the way Blaise held Luna back, but only Harry caught the red hand mark on Hermione's cheek. He started reaching forward to touch it, to soothe it in a way a brother could comfort his sister, but she stepped away from his attempt.

She deserved Luna's wrath.

"I love him," she said loud and clear, the words wrapping around her the same way Draco's arms had once done during some of their sleepless nights (when they whispered their recurring nightmares to each other in the moonlight, even the ones that contained the other's face). "I didn't mean for it to happen, but it did. But it doesn't matter now, does it? Because I've become what I absolutely loathe—a liar."

"And an arsehole," Luna added with no hint at letting go of her current state of anger. Still, she took a deep breath and patted Blaise's arms twice. Through her small action, he understood that she wanted to be let go. When he did take a step back, lining up with Harry and Ron, Luna said, "I do not condone violence in releasing frustration, nor am I permitted to act in such manner under Ministry decree given that I am employed there, but frankly, Hermione, I don't give a damn. Draco is my friend—"

"I bloody well doubt that," grunted Ginny from the background, earning a scoff from Blaise that almost sounded like he agreed.

"—but so are you. I've seen you be interested in someone before; Krum made you blush and giggle, but it faded away before the year was over. I've seen you be so invested in someone before; Ron challenged you and cared so much about your well-being, but it wasn't enough to make it work. I've seen you lose yourself in someone; Finn Conrad was everything you needed him to be, but he wasn't real. Then Draco came along."

"And it was love," said the person no one expected to consider the relationship between Hermione and Malfoy as something other than unnatural and wrong. Ron cleared his throat, frowning. "I haven't the foggiest why you ditched the git, and to be honest, I hoped it was because of the curse I'm bloody positive he put on you lifted and you came back to your senses, but I gotta admit Looney Lovegood is right."

Instantly, Ginny and Blaise punched Ron on both his shoulders. He cursed, but did not defend himself from the reaction.

"Truth is, 'Mione, you didn't love me. Not really. I guess neither of us ever noticed, not even when I walked out your flat the night we broke up and you let me leave. I started suspecting it when I fell for Pansy—"

"Pug-Face Parkinson," Blaise snorted. Ron punched him back now, glaring. "Yeah, not funny, huh?"

"Anyway," Ron hissed at him, but turned back to look at Hermione. "Things were different with her. It wasn't just because it was new, but because the world made sense. I made sense when I was with Pansy. That's when I knew you actually loved Malfoy—because you started sounding and looking like a version of yourself I hadn't seen in years when you were at his side."

Harry and Ginny both looked at each other. They knew Ron just as well as Hermione did; they knew how hard it was for him to let go of his pride. Although he shocked all of them when he started dating Pansy, and he seemed genuinely happy doing so (so much so he had no trouble blurting out a marriage proposal to her every other month until she finally agreed), they knew his previous romantic relationship with Hermione was a delicate subject to breech. For the first year of their breakup, he acted like they had not been in an intimate relationship at all (for a few months of that year he acted like Hermione did not exist at all, too, until Ginny and George threatened to beat him down if he continued to leave the room whenever she entered). Ron had difficulty accepting that it had failed—that they had failed. He had an idea of what life with Hermione would be like: a big family living in a big home (a life that closely resembled what his parents had). And although he had fallen for her independence, determination, intelligence, and strength, it was those very same qualities that were always destined to take them down different paths.

The truth was this: no matter how much they loved each other, Ron and Hermione were never going to be two halves of a whole. He was always going to go left and she was always going to go right (sacrificing dreams and adopting foreign personalities to meet as close to the middle as they could).

And the truth was also this: no matter how much they hated each other in the past, Malfoy and Hermione were equals in all the areas Ron never wanted nor aimed to reach for. Being with him brought out a Hermione completely true to herself (someone Ron had not seen since their first kiss in the Room of Requirement).

"I'll probably always hate the bloody ferret," Ron said with a slow grin tugging at the corner of his mouth, "but I can see he made you happy. And that's all I ever want for you, 'Mione. So...whatever curse got lifted, or whatever happened, if you love him, you should be with him."

Hermione ran the back of her hand on her left cheek, wiping away the steady stream of tears leaving wet tracks on her skin. She wanted to say something to Ron—anything that would express the flickers of gratitude for the words she knew were difficult for him to share, but all that echoed past her own lips was the sob she had been holding in since Draco left.

"Fuck me," Blaise groaned loudly, stomping forward as he narrowed his gaze at Hermione. "I told you two I did not want to get involved in your stupid, weird relationship, didn't I? But for the record, he did deserve it. Sorry, babe," he cut across Luna's beginning protest of defense. "But he's also my best mate, and you fucked up, Hermione. He deserves an apology, so I suggest you brush up on your Spanish to deliver it. The idiot ran off to Mexico to work in Tierra Pura labs—"

Hermione knocked Blaise to the ground by the force of her apparition.

Ron kicked his knee, his grin now wide. "Quick, isn't she?"

"Not as quick as Luna," Ginny said as Harry offered his hand out to Blaise. "She smacked Hermione."

"You what?" Ron bellowed with an incredulous laugh. "I'm going to need you to use Dad's pensieve, Luna. I need to see this."

"Is that really the attitude to have right now, you idiot?" Ginny demanded.

"Oi," he hissed just as they all started making their way back to the Burrow to finish their dinner, "I love the mental woman and all, but none of you have ever been on the other side of her anger. She's given me a few concussions over the years."

Ginny reached over, smacking her brother over the head. "You deserved every single one."

"That was rather unprofessional, wasn't it?" Luna asked her friends, looking at her hand high over her face. The looming moonlight made the skin of her palm a glowing silver. "Must be the Nargles. The Ministry's full of them."

X

Rule Number One of Apparition: Always know where you are going, or risk getting splinched.

Luckily enough, Hermione found her limbs intact as she landed on her arse outside of the Mexican Ministry of Magic. One of her last jumbled thoughts had been on the proper steps needed to travel between countries—none that she had clearly taken.

She hoisted herself up, squinting at the overwhelming, warm sunlight pouring down on her. She started to pull her thick coat off, making her way inside of the Ministry to ask for directions to Tierra Pura laboratories, when she was suddenly thrown back down to the hot, pebbled ground.

"I fucking knew it!" Hermione bit down on the jinx she was about to release when she recognized the woman straddling her with a wide, self-satisfied smirk on. "I knew you'd never let me down, 'Mione."

"Olive," she gasped, sitting up. "You're pregnant. You cannot be throwing yourself at anyone—let alone a person with magic who might just curse you."

"Thanks for that, Doc," said Cyrus Amal, appearing behind his wife. "She didn't listen to me when I told her exactly that when she was pulling on Daphne Greengrass' hair yesterday."

"I'm pregnant, not handicapped, thank you," Olive huffed as she struggled to pull herself back up to her feet. Cyrus offered her his hand, but she glared at it. Hermione patiently waited as she wriggled on top of her, finding enough momentum that would allow her back up. "In fact, since I am pregnant, I should be able to kick enough arse as I wish. And Greengrass had it coming. She knows better than to be in the same cafe as me."

Once again, Hermione hoisted herself up. As she dusted off her thick jumper and jeans, she noticed that Olive had on a pretty, thin yellow sundress and Cyrus a sky-blue linen ensemble.

"I might be kicking arse now, but we wholly intent to have a small baby-moon right after," Olive explained when she caught Hermione's inspection of her and her husband. "I can afford it now, you know? Since Malfoy gave me his job in Malfoy Industries after you faked-married him. Oh, yeah. Luna told me everything."

"Olive, let me explain—"

"It's all right, 'Mione. I get it. Malfoy's a dick. He once had me escort a naked African princess from his office because Astoria was expecting him for brunch. She cast a curse on me, you know?"

"Liv, sweetheart," Cyrus cleared his throat, adjusting his sunglasses carefully, "you're not really helping the situation here."

"I am helping the situation! That's why I'm here," she retorted back at him before stepping closer to Hermione. "The point is, I know he loves you just as much as you love him. And while I am enjoying my new salary and being a majority shareholder of Crabbe Developments through Malfoy Industries, none of it beats seeing Malfoy happy—don't ever tell him that, though. It's the hormones talking."

Cyrus put a strong, protective arm around Olive's shoulder. "Draco's her best friend. She doesn't like to admit it, but he is. And she'd do anything for him." He then reached into the left pocket of his trousers, pulling out a flask from inside. "She even went as far as buying a batch of Polyjuice Potion from some creepy vendor in Knockturn Alley."

"Okay, that creepy vendor was my Auntie Gertrude. Be nice. She's the only one from my family who still talks to me and was supportive of us marrying."

"Because she married a giant, Liv."

"Giants are people, too, Cyrus! Is it freaky? Sure. But whatever bubbles her cauldron is all on—"

"Olive, as a Healer, I have to strongly advise you against taking any Polyjuice Potion in your current state. And as someone with Auror clearance, I have to warn you against shopping at Knockturn Alley. Do you want to end up in Azkaban for stealing someone's essence?"

"I wasn't going to take the potion," Olive snorted, laughing like that tidbit had been clearly obvious. "Cyrus was. And I technically didn't steal your essence. Delta happened to be cleaning the drain from Malfoy's shower and pulled out a few of your hairs—"

"God, Olive!" Hermione groaned. "What exactly were you planning to do here?"

"Get you back with Malfoy! What else?"

With a loud sigh, Cyrus pushed Olive and Hermione a few inches apart. "I really am looking forward to exploring Mexico and eating real spicy food. But in order for that to happen, we have to get to Draco, all right? So, you two, lets go inside the Ministry to use their Floo Network."

Getting to Tierra Pura laboratories was not the hard part.

Getting Olive to rid her person of all illegal potions and weapons before they were scanned by Magical Law Enforcement officers before crossing the Floo was not the hard part, either.

Standing outside of Draco's office clutching the handle of his door was.

It was a lot easier to face down Voldemort than it was to push it open, too.

He was standing by a large, open window on the right side of his office. There was a thin stack of files in his hands, but he was looking at the scene outside. From where Hermione stood, she could see the hint of a smile as he basked in the warming sun.

But then his shoulders tensed. His smile faded, like clouds obscuring the bright skies as they passed, taking all the light with them.

Draco had seen her from the reflection in the glass.

"What are you doing here, Granger?"

She flinched at her surname. Hermione had not heard it sound so cold and distant from his mouth since before the war of their youth. Of course Granger was hers, but it sounded almost alien to her ears. How could it fit her when she had painted Malfoy on every inch of her skin, proudly presenting it to the world intent on judging him (and her) for it? How could it fit her when she poured love, light, and forgiveness in the shell of his name for him to see and wear?

She wanted to tell him she was a Malfoy—that she felt it in her bones, but instead murmured, "I didn't plan this far ahead, to be honest. When Blaise said you left for Mexico, all I thought was about getting here. I think I violated a few Magical Transportation regulations to get here."

"Do you want me to recommend you a lawyer, is that it? Maybe one to process our divorce while they're at it, too?"

"I..." Hermione stopped, swallowing whatever pitiful sentence was about to come out in contradiction. Even if she was unprepared, she did expect this reaction from him. In fact, she expected much worse from him. Not because of any past shadows of who he once was, but because he had every right to yell, curse, and tear everything down in his path.

Instead, he turned those silver eyes back on his paperwork, making his way behind his desk. She could almost believe he was indifferent to her presence, of her standing right in front of him heaving for air, her hair even more wild than it usually was, her skin covered in a layer of sweat, but the way his jaw ticked told her he was fighting the urge to react.

"You humiliated Jenna," she muttered, completely terrified, but raised her chin when he looked back at her. There was a complication of emotions darkening his eyes, but in the whirlwind, Hermione identified fury. "You did," she persisted. "I should not have been the judge in the consequences of your actions, but you did humiliate her, Draco. You had no right."

"I'll send her a fruit basket with my new secretary," he bit out, his fingers tightening over his file and the other on his ink bottle. "If that's it, the door is right behind you. I trust the Brightest Witch of her Age knows how to use it."

With a wave of his wrist and a perfectly executed nonverbal, the door opened behind Hermione. She turned, grabbing the silver handle to slam it close. She kept her back to him for a moment, inhaling deep to find all the courage she had not let out when she discovered how she truly felt for him.

"Do you remember that day in your mother's garden? When you came to find me after our fight over Wulfric Macnair's slip?" Her feet willed themselves to spin her around, her brown eyes meeting Draco again. That cold, unfeeling mask she was so well acquainted with was on his face again. Back when she had only seen him for what he presented the world with, she would have continued to think him completely incapable of emotion, but she had taken a look behind his walls of steel. He had forced them down for her, after all. He had outstretched a hand and welcomed her in. Because he had, she saw the hurt she had caused him painted pink beneath his pale skin. "You told me to stay with you. I wanted to tell you then about all of this, of what I had done for Jenna, but the words couldn't come out. So I told you I wasn't planning on leaving."

"What was another lie, right, Granger—?"

"No," Hermione interrupted instantly, storming up to his desk with an ire of her own starting to simmer in her chest. "It wasn't a lie. I'm not saying it was right, but I didn't tell you the truth because I couldn't see myself getting up from that chair and walking out of your life because I wanted to be in it. I want to be in it, Draco. I...I love you. And that's real."

Draco held on to his mask, clutching it tight like it was his lifeline.

Hermione could hear the noise of the busy, loud street start to crawl up the side of the skyscraper, penetrating the silence that was starting to thicken in the short space between her and Draco. The glimmering sunlight of the Mexican morning enveloped him, making his fair features a beautiful shade of gold that reminded her of the mornings waking up beside him, all warm inside and out because he was right next to her.

"You never have to forgive me, I just wanted you to know," she found her voice after another long minute. Her gaze scanned the area of his office, watering at what she was seeing. His walls were empty, boxes littering the furthest left corner of the room, but Hermione could see the potential of what the place could be once he filled it.

She knew Draco always wanted to end up in a place like this—surrounded by the sun and his love for potion-making (far from his father and cold, wet London).

"You're going to do phenomenal work here," Hermione managed to say past her tears, offering a withering smile. "I know it."

With nothing else to say, Hermione went for the door.

Draco let her cross it.

She honestly had not thought this far into her arrival. All she knew was that she had a tsunami tide of guilt drowning her from the inside, rivaling the love and longing she felt for him. She wanted to let it pour out of her for him to see. She needed him to know it was real for her now—that what they had was real for her now. She needed him to know she wanted everything they whispered into each other's ear during long midnights when breathing was only easy being beside one another.

But he did not want that with her now. And while she had not thought of the possibility of his rejection or acceptance when she apparated straight to Mexico, Hermione could not blame him for his choice.

This was the consequence to her actions.

Draco had stopped loving her.

"Bullshit," Olive snarled at Hermione, grabbing her by the shoulders, shaking her violently. "You don't stop loving someone in a manner of days, okay? You just don't!"

"Easy, Liv," Cyrus told his wife, reaching to pull her back several steps from Hermione once again.

Olive slapped Cyrus' hands away from her waist. "Malfoy's not going to do this to me! You two were going to be Godparents to my baby! We were supposed to be a big, fucking happy family! I'll kill him—!"

"Fucking hell. I thought there was a law against heavily pregnant, hysterical women traveling to other countries. Salazar, Crabbe. Didn't I just leave London? How are you seven months pregnant right now?"

Hermione spun around, her heart stopping when her brown eyes met with Draco's silver ones.

"Oi, I will shove a baby so far up your—"

"Not that you owe me anything, mate, but can you please make up with your wife so mine will act somewhat sane again?" Cyrus begged as he scooped Olive into his arms before her fist collided with Draco's chin, hurrying out of the Tierra Pura's lobby.

"You brought Crabbe with you?"

"She was already here," Hermione breathed in response. "Draco, I—"

"Why?"

"Why?" she repeated. "I...I told you, I did it for Jenna. I know it wasn't right, but she asked and—"

"Not the Flint thing," Draco cut her off again, his underlying anger over the topic fading when vulnerable shades of silver lightened his eyes. "Why do you love me? Because I can believe you're sorry, Hermione, but you wanting to be with me is something I have trouble thinking the least bit probable."

"Because being with you feels like really living again," she whispered words back to him that he once had gifted her. It had rung true for him then, just how it rang true for her now. Hermione sought her bravery out again, this time to rest her hands on the sides of his face. While they quivered at the feel of his skin under her own, his pulse quickened at her closing proximity. "Please tell me you want me to stay."

"I never wanted you to leave," he muttered back.

Then he leaned in to kiss her