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Hermione had no idea how she should feel. This, in itself, was not really something new, as her relationship with Draco frequently threw her and turned everything she thought she knew upside down.

But no matter how she should feel, she felt remarkably happy. Ecstatic even.

He had said he loved her.

She didn’t quite understand everything he had done to push her away over the months, but that didn’t matter much now. All that was about to end. Everything that had seemed so dire and important before was now fading in the light of their love.

Love.

Could it really be? She wasn’t deluding herself, was she? She hadn’t fallen asleep and was dreaming up this whole thing? She pinched herself. Ow. No, she was awake, and he had truly said the words and assured her that everything would be ok, they would be together.

Of course, she knew it wouldn’t be easy for him to date a Muggle-born, with his parents and his House and everything, but somehow everything would work out now. It had to. She couldn’t bear the thought of some stupid prejudices keeping them apart. Not again.

She refused to believe that the danger was as great as Draco had always claimed. It had just been another way for him to push her away. If there was any danger, then it could be overcome by contacting the Order—easy as that! If the Order would accept someone as horrible as Snape, then surely a repentant Malfoy or two wouldn’t make people as much as raise an eyebrow.

She wouldn’t acknowledge any obstacles. She wanted happily ever after.

Forever?

Well, nobody could guarantee that, could they? Her logic told her that they were both still very young and statistically, they were both bound to date several more people before settling down. Her heart didn’t seem to care about the statistics, though. It wanted to conquer all odds and be with him and nobody else. Who cared about the future; it was the now she had to live in.

And he wanted to be with her too. Right here, right now.

Hermione’s heart skipped every time she thought of that.

She hadn’t meant to do what she had done. She supposed it was true what they said about full moons making everyone a little crazy. She had felt the old attraction to him, but he had been so cold, distant and annoying, and she had assumed that he truly was over her. It had sobered her and made her focus on the task at hand until she had looked up and caught him gazing at her like that. He had looked at her with such a pained yearning that it had stolen her breath and her good sense away.

Of course he had tried to deny it. Tried to get away from her. So she had captivated him the only way she knew how—with her body.

And it had worked. Merlin, had it worked.

He loved her.

He obviously had never meant to say the words for whatever foolish reasons he had for trying to resist. He had meant to go on pretending that he didn’t care about her, allowing both their hearts to break in the process.

I’ll have to punish him for that.

Hermione smiled. Yes, she definitely had to punish him for trying to deny them both. What possible reasons could he have that were good enough? None that she could think of. No, he’d had some stupid idea about what would work and what wouldn’t work, and he had tried pushing her away, enforcing his idea that their relationship wouldn’t work. Well, he was wrong!

Yeah? And what about punishing him for the fact that he slept with Marilyn Shaw?

The familiar pain twisted her insides and her smile faded. She was fairly certain that it had been another stupid and desperate scheme of his to push her away. It did hurt, and she did hate that he would even do this to her, but she wasn’t going to allow it to break them apart. She wasn’t going to give up on them. Not this time.

And if he does it again?

If he did it again… Then he couldn’t really love her, could he? If he did it again, he’d prove that he was incapable of staying faithful and staying in a meaningful relationship. But he wouldn’t do it again. She was sure of that. Wasn’t she?

She tamped down her insecurities. It wasn’t that she was going to forget this easily, but she had already decided to forgive, and she refused to let it bother her more than was necessary. It was necessary to remind herself that she wouldn’t tolerate any more infidelity, but it wasn’t necessary to become bitter and suspicious and start chasing shadows.

He had made a mistake. A big mistake, yes, but nevertheless just a mistake.

When she’d asked him about it, when they were just lying together at the lake, he’d tried to avoid her questions, but ultimately he had admitted to feeling horrible ever since it had happened. He had admitted that he’d felt it to be a betrayal too, in spite of trying to convince himself at the time that it didn’t matter because they weren’t really together. He’d said he didn’t feel like he could make any excuses for it, but he’d been lonely and miserable, and Shaw had come on to him when he was feeling particularly vulnerable. He’d said that he’d never done anything that he regretted more.

That helped a tiny bit.

She knew intellectually, of course, that sex wasn’t always as intimate and fulfilling as when she and Draco did it. Yet… she had no basis for comparison, did she? In fact, he’d had three times the partners that she had. He had grudgingly admitted that he’d only slept with Pansy a couple of times and not since meeting Hermione, and that he had only been with Shaw that one time. He’d said that they didn’t compare, that nothing was like being with her, but still…

No, this was pointless. She believed him when he said he loved her. Merlin knew, he’d lied to her often enough and she had learned to tell the difference. He had been so sincere, so vulnerable, so sad…

Why does loving me make him sad?

Because he didn’t believe in them. She had clearly seen what he hadn’t tried very hard to hide even as he reassured her. He didn’t believe that they would make it against all odds. He didn’t truly believe that they could be together.

Well, she’d show him!

“All right, class, let me see what you have to show for it!” Slughorn said, and then began making his way around the room.

It was the second Monday after the full moon, they had Potions again, and Hermione was not happy. Their project was going very well, to be sure, and they virtually had nothing to do but stir at it every few days, but Hermione’s dissatisfaction was not academic.

It was Draco.

He had not tried to get her alone again, not once. He hadn’t smiled at her or talked to her… He barely even looked at her!

She was fairly certain that that wasn’t how he was supposed to act—even if they were still keeping things secret. He had never wanted to keep a distance like this before! Something was going on that he wasn’t telling her about.

“And you two?” Slughorn asked, surveying the hate potion, which by now mostly resembled something that someone had already partially digested once. It smelled a little that way too. “Ahh, very good, very good. Yes, the color is just right.” He looked at Draco, who was sitting with his head in his hands, his bored gaze fixed on the cauldron. “Perhaps, since this potion requires timing more than labor, you can use your free time in class to write me an essay on the properties of the ingredients and the potion itself, yes?” He made his way to the next pair.

“Bloody brilliant,” Draco grumbled, getting out parchment and quills. “We get to do extra work.”

“Well.” Hermione’s patience was wearing thin. “Maybe if you had looked less like you were in a coma and more like there was an actual use for you, then we wouldn’t have to.”

He looked taken aback, but then it was as if understanding dawned on him, and he held his tongue. Hermione knew what conclusion he had drawn and it annoyed her even more. Why was that always the first conclusion that boys drew? It wasn’t as if she was only annoyed with him at that time of the month! Far from it! And it wasn’t that time! She felt like growling at him, but what was the point? She wouldn’t get anything useful from him while anybody else was around.

Instead, she wrote the title of her essay in her neat handwriting, and glanced covertly at him again. He was scowling at his parchment. Really, sometimes he was just impossible.

“The properties of aconite…” Hermione mused aloud, hoping to get him started.

“Also known as Dumbledore’s Delight, monkshood or wolfsbane—not to be confused with the potion of the same name. Highly poisonous. Has been known to cure aches, which is kind of ironic if you think about it…” Draco’s expression hadn’t changed in the least and he didn’t seem more than slightly aware of what he’d said.

Hermione gaped. “Very good!” she exclaimed, getting a somewhat confused and annoyed look from Draco.

“I do know things, Granger,” he said after a few seconds. “I’m just not a bloody know-it-all like you.”

She frowned. What was this all about? Why was he acting as if… As if…

As if they hadn’t made love under a full moon.

“Right,” was all she said, glad that her voice remained steady. “Sorry.”

She turned back to her parchment, blindly staring at it. Hadn’t he meant what he’d said that night? Had he just been playing with her? Did he enjoy hurting her? Was it possible that she had misunderstood everything that they had together? After all, it wasn’t as if she had a lot of experience with boys. Perhaps all sex really was like what they were doing. Or, maybe…

She felt him touch her arm, but didn’t look up. He probably needed help with his essay. Well, he could write his own damn essay.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “You know I don’t mean it.”

She ventured a glance at him, but he wasn’t looking at her. No, God forbid that anybody might catch him looking at her and actually talking to her civilly. After all, he’d only told her he loved her a week and a half ago.

You’re overreacting.

Perhaps she was, but she was sick of the hiding and the lying and the pretending. She just wished that Draco would show some backbone in this matter.

And what if people might really get killed if he did?

She ignored that thought and began writing her essay instead. No matter what, she would still have to hand this in.

“Why haven’t you tried to see me?” she asked a little later in a calm and steady voice.

He jerked and quickly glanced around the room. “Merlin, Granger. Not here!”

She didn’t look up. She knew nobody was within earshot. “The only thing people might notice is you being skittish and acting as if something is out of the ordinary.”

He blushed. Hermione looked over at Harry, who had indeed seen and was raising an eyebrow at her, but she simply shook her head, dismissing his questions.

“Look, I’m just not comfortable talking about it here,” Draco said. “Can’t it wait?”

“If you regret what happened by the lake…” Hermione couldn’t keep a slight tremble out of her voice at the last word. “All you had to do was say so. I’d understand.” No, she wouldn’t. But it would have been a lot kinder than leading her on.

“Regret?” he asked incredulously. “Merlin, I don’t—” He broke off and lowered his voice, which had risen. “Hermione, I don’t regret it.”

She glanced at him. He looked sincere. She relaxed a bit.

“I’m just not…” he continued. “You have to give me time to get things sorted. You said that you were good with this. If you aren’t, then I’ll… I’ll understand. I won’t force you to stay with me.” There was a flicker of something in his eyes that Hermione couldn’t clearly decipher. Sadness? Hope, of all things? Something else entirely?

“Of course I’m staying,” she muttered. I just wish you’d seem happy about that.

“Then please don’t be like this,” he said, looking away. “Soon, none of all this will matter.”

Draco wasn’t the only person who had changed. Ginny, who had been treating Hermione as if she had dragon pox ever since she’d caught her with Draco, was suddenly acting as if nothing had happened. Hermione didn’t know how to react to that.

She’d tried broaching the subject without actually mentioning it, but Ginny had just said ‘I don’t really know why I got so mad at you. I’m really sorry. Can’t we just forget it?’ and Hermione had agreed. She didn’t enjoy being at odds with her friend and was glad it was over.

They were having dinner in the Great Hall and Hermione’s eyes kept darting back to the Slytherin table.

Why is he talking to her?

Draco was sitting next to Shaw and they seemed to be having an animated discussion, maybe even an argument. For the life of her, Hermione couldn’t figure out what it was that he needed to speak to her about. She didn’t like him being around the girl he’d slept with and who he supposedly didn’t want to sleep with again.

The jealousy was eating away at her and she saw no reason to deny it or even hide it very well.

Draco looked up and caught her eye and he went very still, just looking at her for a second. Then he quickly glanced around and shook his head slightly as if to say that it was nothing.

Hermione narrowed her eyes. She decided when it was something.

Abruptly he stood, and with a final glance at Hermione, he hauled Shaw to her feet and took off with her.

What? Surely, taking off with Shaw to where she couldn’t see what they were doing wasn’t supposed to help anything?

“They deserve each other,” Ginny said, having followed Hermione’s look.

“W-what?”

“He’s a total git and she’s a total slut. I hope they live unhappily ever after.” Ginny’s voice and eyes held no malice or I-told-you-so; she was just stating what she considered a fact.

Hermione stared at her, feeling rather hurt. What kind of a thing was this to rub in her face when she knew?

Ginny, however, just continued eating as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

Hermione got up. “I have to go,” she muttered and then she proceeded to her dormitory as fast as she could without drawing attention to herself.

It was exactly two weeks after their little adventure at the lake, when Draco finally sought her out a couple of days later. Hermione was hurt and angry that it had taken him so long to bother. There hadn’t been as much as a touch or a kiss in two whole weeks. She should turn him down. She really should.

Yet, when he suggested that she met him outside that afternoon, in a secluded spot just at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, she found herself accepting.

After all, she could always give him a piece of her mind then. And she did.

“What are you doing with Shaw?” she demanded as soon as she got there.

Draco forgot to look nervous and twitchy long enough to scowl at her. “You know you have no reason to be jealous.”

“Do I, then?” she demanded. “I suppose it’s normal to accept that your—” boyfriend? The word stuck in her throat. He still wasn’t really, was he? “—lover is going off with the girl he cheated on you with.”

“I needed to talk to her, ok? And you were giving everything away with the way you were looking at us.”

“Needed to talk to her about what?”

He opened his mouth as if to reply, but there wasn’t a sound. Finally, he said, “I’ll tell you later. But it’s not what you think. Please, can we not fight?”

“Why?” She wanted to fight, damn him.

He smiled cynically. “Because it’s my birthday?”

Hermione gaped at him, all accusations forgotten. “Y-you didn’t tell me.”

“I’m telling you now.”

“It’s a bit late, isn’t it? I didn’t get you anything.”

“Who needs things?” he asked, moving closer to her. “You’re all that I want…”

His words, the way he looked at her… Even if tinged with sadness, it was the old Draco, the one she had fallen so hopelessly in love with. She felt her resolve melting away. She knew there were issues that they had to work at, but they didn’t have to do it right here, right now. It was his birthday and he was spending it with her.

She offered him a shy smile and said, “Happy birthday, Draco,” before pulling his head down for a kiss.

He pulled her closer, enveloping her in his arms. She sighed with contentment at the contact. In spite of just having yelled at him, there was no place she’d rather be. His lips slowly caressed hers. It was a gentle kiss, full of affection rather than passion. It wasn’t anything like his normal kisses, but she liked it a lot. She felt treasured. She felt cared for.

She felt special.

She caressed the seam of his lips with the tip of her tongue and he shivered, breaking the kiss, before hesitantly pulling back.

She was a little confused. Why had he broken the kiss when it was just getting nice? Surely he expected more for his birthday than just a chaste kiss and she would be more than happy to oblige.

He pulled out a flask.

“What’s that?” she asked.

His lip twisted. “It’s not pumpkin juice.”

“I didn’t think you drink.”

“I don’t,” he said weighing the flask in his hand. “But a boy’s got to be allowed to do something different for his seventeenth, right?”

She glanced towards the castle. Nobody would see them here. That was the exact reason why he’d chosen this spot for their meeting. They were hidden by a few trees at the top of a slope that went down towards the lake.

He looked at her for a second and then sighed. “Should have known that you’d be the consummate prefect. You’ll probably be Head Girl of the Century next year.”

Hermione was feeling a bit miffed at his unfair characterization of her. “Would the consummate prefect have been fooling around with you all year?”

“Then please share a birthday drink with me?” he asked, offering it to her.

She accepted the flask and took a big gulp. It was firewhisky as she had suspected and it burned. It also had a slight aftertaste that she couldn’t quite define. She took another swig and had to steady herself with a hand on a tree trunk as the world became unfocused for a second.

“That’s enough, I think,” he said hoarsely, reaching to take the flask from her.

She looked at him, shocked to see pain in his eyes, and jerked the flask out of his reach. Something was off. The world became unfocused again, and she knew that it wasn’t just the firewhisky. She hadn’t reacted like this the last time.

“What did you do to me?” she whispered.

“I-I…” He didn’t seem able to actually reply, and he shook his head. “Nothing, Hermione. It’ll be ok.”

“Don’t lie to me!” she shrieked as she was now feeling a little sick and her head had started pounding. “Did you—did you poison me? You did, didn’t you?” Her eyes filled with tears.

His eyes widened. “Merlin, no! I’d never hurt you like that. I’m not a complete…” His voice faltered and he reached for the flask again. Again, she snatched it away from him.

“Then what did you do to me?”

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m making you forget.”

“WHAT?” She stared at him as if he’d grown an extra head.

He opened his eyes and they were troubled, but conviction shone in them. “I’m making you forget about us.”

“Y-you’re Obliviating me?” After everything that had happened between them? Everything they’d shared?

“It’s not exactly the same,” he explained. His voice was calm and distant. How could he be calm? How could he do this to her? “The Obliviation Spell is more than I dared pull off and it’s designed to cut out chunks of your memory. I couldn’t risk that you forgot about my existence entirely as someone was bound to find that out and cure you. With this potion I could make you forget that we ever—” his voice broke and he cleared his throat “—that you ever slept with me that night and anything to do with our… personal relationship, and still keep day to day memories of me.”

What night? To her great horror she realized the potion had started working and certain memories were getting harder to conjure. NO!

What he was doing to her cut at her and tore her heart in pieces. The tears spilled over and she couldn’t hold back a sob. “S-so you planned this for a long time?” she asked, without needing an answer. “You knew you were going to poison me, violate my memories…” He made a sound of objection, but she ignored it. “And still you kissed me and told me th-that you l-loved me…” She covered her mouth with her hand as she tried to regain some control over her trembling body.

“Hermione, it’s not like that. It wasn’t a lie.” He seemed desperate and frantic. “Please, Hermione, it’s why I have to…”

“STOP saying my name!” she yelled. “You don’t get to say my name like you care, anymore!” Raw grief had taken over and she could feel nothing but an excruciating pain.

He never really loved me. He tricked me. I’m such a fool for thinking that he could ever love me. He still thinks that I’m a Mudblood, that I’m beneath his notice… I’ve been such a fool.

His face became stony. “No, you’re right. I don’t,” he quietly said. “Please give me the potion… Granger.”

She stared at the flask in her hand and realization dawned on her. “You plan on taking it, too, don’t you? You plan on forgetting your Mudblood affair!” Promptly she turned it upside down and started pouring it onto the ground.

“NO!” He lunged for her, but she threw the flask as far as she could, and it tumbled down the slope, spilling its contents. He stared after it, a look of hopelessness on his face as he realized he couldn’t salvage any of it, before he turned to her and grabbed her shoulders. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” he choked out. “Do you have any idea what…” Again, his voice broke and he seemed unable to finish. “You’re punishing me for everything by making me remember? Is that it?”

“I loved you!” she said, making him flinch. “And you did this to me. You RAPED my MIND!” she pulled free of his grasp and glared at him through her tears.

She briefly considered if there would be an antidote, but she knew there wouldn’t. If there had ever been one, he would have gotten rid of it. He wouldn’t do this without making sure that it was irreversible. That was why he had stayed away for so long. He had been plotting and planning.

“I had to do it,” he said, the remorse plain on his face. “I had no choice. It’s the only way for us to go on the way we have to. We couldn’t have been together, Hermione. It just couldn’t be.”

“Because you are a coward and refused to ever give it a chance!” she railed, her tears refusing to stop pouring. She hated that he saw her weakness, but she supposed it didn’t matter because in a few minutes she’d forget.

“That’s not why!” he yelled in frustration. “You don’t understand!”

“Then why don’t you make me understand?”

He pulled up his left sleeve. “Look!”

She looked at his arm and then up again, uncomprehending.

“No, Hermione,” he said. “Look!”

She looked again and something flickered. She wiped at her eyes to clear her vision, and then she saw it.

The Dark Mark.

She gasped and stumbled backwards. “H-how can it be? How long?”

“All year. You’re the only one I’ve had to hide it from, nobody else who’s seen me without my robes minded. In fact, I bet that’s what did it for them. And you… a simple glamour charm was all it took, because you never even suspected.”

She turned away from him and gave in to her nausea. He just stood there, his face turned slightly to the side, looking crushed and bitter. Finally, her stomach was empty, but her body wouldn’t stop jerking and shuddering. She leaned against a tree to compose herself.

He’d been a full-fledged Death Eater all year. All the times they had been together. She had known that he had different views than she, but she had thought him to be basically decent. She had believed she could turn him around. She hadn’t thought him incapable of such cruelty. But then again, hadn’t he proved over and over that he was perfectly capable of being cruel? Hadn’t he been cruel to her time and again?

Still, wasn’t he a bit too young to have gotten the recognition that the Mark was to his kind?

“I knew you’d never accept me when you found out who I was,” he said in a hoarse and strained voice. “We never had a chance.”

“You’re right.” Her voice was trembling and he flinched as if she’d slapped him. “If that is indeed who you are, then we wouldn’t. If your idea of a good time is to murder and rape innocents, then we are incompatible.” She had to focus her thoughts now; they seemed to want to slip every time they turned to him and their relationship.

“He’ll murder me and my family if I don’t do what he says,” he said, sounding as if he was pleading with her to understand. What did it matter? In a few minutes she would forget and she’d never ever know the difference. “In fact, I have virtually no chance of surviving the summer,” he continued. “If I tried to be with you, he’d murder you too.”

“So, you just decided that I couldn’t be allowed to remember you anymore.” Her voice was dull, lifeless.

“Now, if you have to fight me… You can.”

She glared at him. “As if I would ever have fought you! You are a conceited bastard and the most spoiled brat I have had the misfortune to meet, but you’ve always been all bark and no bite.”

“It’s not true, Hermione—” he began, but was cut off.

“Then why not just let him kill me? Or do it yourself?”

“Just because I love you doesn’t mean that I won’t kill others. I will. I have to.”

“The Order will help you. They can protect you. It’s not too late.”

“It is too late. They can’t protect me and they certainly won’t protect my father, even if he wanted them to.”

“Your father is in Azkaban, he hardly needs protection from Voldemort there.”

Draco flinched slightly at the name. “You have no idea how powerful the Dark Lord is, my love.”

My love.

“I’m obviously not your love,” she whispered. “So don’t call me that.”

He looked disconsolate. “But you are. At least, until…” he swallowed and looked away. “Until you forget.”

She shook her head. “You wouldn’t do this to someone you l-love…” She was having problems holding on to her anger as her heartbreak was taking over again, and more and more memories were slipping from her mind.

Draco didn’t seem like he would reply, but then he said, “Instead of sacrificing your life for our relationship, I sacrificed our relationship for your life. How can you say that I don’t love you?”

“Others know,” she said. “How will you keep Ginny from telling me.”

“It’s already taken care of. I slipped her the potion days ago.”

Days ago. When she’d suddenly become friendly again.

“Shaw—” she began.

“Yesterday. That’s what we were fighting about when you saw us. She didn’t want her mind manipulated any more than you did. In the end she gave in.”

“She gave in or you forced her?” she asked bitterly.

“I forced her to give in,” he said coldly.

“Like you did me?”

“No… I tricked you.”

She slapped him. It was one last desperate effort to hurt him the way he was hurting her. When he recovered, she slapped him again on the other cheek.

He grabbed her and forced a kiss on her. It was violent and bruising and passionate and… exquisite. She clung to him, answering the kiss, tasting tears. His or hers?

Perhaps I won’t forget. Perhaps if he keeps kissing me like this, it won’t take effect.

It was as if a fog lifted and she gasped, a pair of arms suddenly letting her go.

When she gathered her wits, she frowned and looked around to see Malfoy standing there, his back turned. He was gazing away from her. He seemed to be trembling a bit.

“W-what am I doing here?” she asked him.

“Beats me, Granger,” he said in a voice barely more than a whisper. “But you caught me.”

“Caught you?”

He gestured towards something lying in the grass further down the hill. “Celebrating. Apparently you don’t think a boy should be allowed a drink on his own birthday.” His voice was bitter, as if she had denied him Paradise itself.

He didn’t quite look at her and he looked… sad. No, not sad. Miserable. And lonely. Perhaps there had been more to why he had wanted the drink than what he let on. Why couldn’t she remember?

“Did you hex me, Malfoy?” she asked suspiciously.

He shot her a glance. “Hex you? Now, why would I do that?” he asked.

She sniffed. They both knew perfectly well that if there was any way he could bother her, he would.

He shook his head. “No, no need to hex you. A good push down this slope, on the other hand… you’d break your scrawny neck and nobody would be the wiser.”

His words had no heat and he was surprisingly unconvincing.

“Are you ok?” she softly asked, making him start and glare at her. His eyes were red-rimmed. She wondered what had happened to him.

“I’m fine,” he sneered. “I don’t need some little Mudblood trying to mother me.”

She folded her arms across her chest. “Fine, Malfoy, whatever you say,” she said, abandoning being nice to him. “I won’t give you detention since this is your birthday, but at least try and behave.”

She turned her back on him and walked away.

“Where have you been, Hermione?” Harry asked, a little concerned, when she reached the Gryffindor common room. “You just took off.”

Hermione shrugged. “I went for a walk and Malfoy was being a prat as usual. I swear, one of these days his attitude will backfire.”

“I’d be careful of him, Hermione. His actions are very suspicious lately; we don’t know exactly what he’s up to and why. You can’t be sure that he’s not a Death Eater.”

Hermione shook her head. “I don’t think he is. We don’t know everything there is to know about him, Harry. Even he has his own problems.”

She couldn’t shake the image of how unhappy he’d looked as she had left him behind.