Alternate Epilogue

Ron tried to persuade Hermione to call in sick the next morning, but she refused. She had never missed a day of work in her four years as an Auror, and she’d be damned if she let Draco Malfoy mar her perfect record.

Everything appeared to be normal when Hermione stepped into headquarters. Well, as normal as things can be when half of the workers are nowhere to be seen.

Figuring something significant was going on, Hermione promptly turned around and walked back out into the hallway. She stopped a passing wizard by tapping him on the shoulder and asked him politely, ‘Excuse me, sir. Would you happen to know if the Aurors are having a meeting or anything of the sort?’

The wizard looked surprised. ‘Aren’t you Hermione Granger?’

Hermione blinked. ‘Yes, I am.’

‘Heard some folks mention your name back near the conference room. You might want to check there.’

‘Thank you,’ said Hermione gratefully, before hurrying off in the direction of the conference room.

As she manoeuvred through the crowded hallway, she focused on not allowing her thoughts to stray. She wouldn’t let herself remember what had happened the night before; she wouldn’t let herself think that the curious stares and hushed whispers that followed her were anything out of the ordinary.

Nothing has changed. Nothing is different. It’s just another day at the Ministry, just another day… without Draco.

Luckily, before she could go off on that particular tangent, Hermione arrived at the conference room. The door was shut, so she knocked twice before turning the door handle and opening the door a crack.

‘Hermione!’ said a relieved voice, before Hermione had time to take in the scene.

‘Kingsley?’ Hermione asked, pushing the door open further and noticing the Head of the Hit Wizards standing near one of the windows overlooking the street outside the Ministry. She looked around at the twenty or so Aurors and Hit Wizards sitting around the long table, confused.

‘Just in time, Granger,’ Robards barked from where he stood next to Kingsley. ‘Have a seat; we were just going over our options.’

‘Options?’ Hermione inquired, stepping into the room and closing the door behind her. She felt a brief twinge of annoyance. They were having a meeting without her – that wasn’t normal.

‘We’re trying to decide the best manner in which to deal with Greyback,’ Kingsley explained over the quiet chatter going on between the occupants of the room. ‘He was brought in earlier.’

‘Oh, but I thought – brought in?’ Hermione’s jaw dropped of its own accord as Kingsley’s words sunk in. ‘You mean someone –?’

‘Draco Malfoy, to be precise,’ said Kingsley, nodding.

The room immediately fell silent at the sound of Draco’s name. All eyes shamelessly flicked over to Hermione.

Hermione swallowed. Gritting her teeth, she said in a tone of forced calm, ‘That’s very… impressive of him. Remind me to congratulate him later.’

‘Or you could just congratulate me now,’ said a cold voice behind her.

Hermione jumped a foot into the air and spun around, her heart suddenly lodged in her throat. While she had been preoccupied with keeping her voice coolly indifferent, Draco Malfoy had silently opened the door behind her and slipped into the room.

‘Ah, Malfoy. So kind of you to join us,’ said Kingsley. He sounded oddly distant, as though he were speaking from one end of a very, very long hallway, and Hermione was listening from behind several locked doors on the other end.

‘Shacklebolt,’ said Draco smoothly, sidestepping Hermione and walking over to his supervisor. ‘I’m afraid I wasn’t notified of your little conference until now.’

‘Huh. You might want to speak to your assistant about her promptness in delivering your memos.’ Kingsley clapped Draco on the shoulder. ‘Well, now that you’re here, why don’t you take a seat? We were just letting Miss Granger in on the current situation.’

‘Excellent,’ said Draco, keeping whatever feelings he might have been harbouring perfectly masked. He pulled out a chair next to the newest official member of the Auror squad, John Benjamin, sat down on it, and leaned back, his manner akin to that of a man without a care in the world.

‘As I was about to say before Malfoy decided to grace us with his presence,’ Robards continued brusquely, ‘Noah Lawley turned up on Ministry premises last night. Are you aware of this, Granger?’

Hermione turned to Robards, feeling slightly dazed. Her stomach was currently flip-flopping in a very distracting manner, so that all she managed to say was, ‘Y-yes, sir.’

‘Good,’ said Robards briskly. It appeared that he and Draco were the only ones unaware of the sudden tension in the room. The witches and wizards around the table were shifting restlessly as they watched Hermione, waiting for her to make her next move, like hawks circling their prey.

Try as she might, Hermione couldn’t keep her eyes off of Draco. She wondered vaguely when breathing in his presence had become so difficult, and then silently praised herself for having the strength to even stand on both feet, because she knew, being the smart witch she was, that lack of oxygen usually makes standing upright a challenging feat.

‘Hermione? Are you listening?’

‘Yes,’ she lied immediately, upon being addressed by Kingsley. She willed her eyes to not stray over to Draco. ‘Actually, Kingsley, I was wondering if I could step outside quickly and get a quick breath of fresh air. It’s a bit stuffy in here.’

Kingsley frowned severely at her. ‘Well, if you must…’

‘I’ll be back in a flash,’ Hermione squeaked, nearly throwing herself out the door in relief. It took all of her self-restraint to keep from slamming the door behind her as she hurried out into the hallway.

Once she was safely seated on a bench beside a large potted plant, Hermione leaned against the wall and pressed a hand to her forehead. Her head spun dangerously as a string of questions, all of them demanding an explanation for Draco’s unexpected and unwanted presence in the room behind her, assaulted her fraying grip on the situation. Well, most of them, at least. A steadily growing fraction of them was more intent on figuring out how Draco had managed to bring Greyback to the Ministry by himself.

‘You arrogant, reckless, impulsive asshole!� she hissed under her breath. She had half a mind to go back inside and slap him for behaving so irresponsibly. He could have died, pursuing the enemy without any form of backup. Hadn’t he learned anything in his four years as a Hit Wizard? Didn’t he know that it would have torn Hermione apart to know that he had gone and gotten himself killed while she was back at the Burrow, sobbing into her sheets over her mistake in not choosing to be with him?

Because, when everything came down it, the reason for her desperation to avoid Draco wasn’t that she had been afraid he’d try to take her back once he got her alone, like Ron had thought. It was that she had been afraid that she’d try to take him back. She knew she had made the wrong choice the moment her fear for Ron’s life wore away, but by then she was already back at the Burrow, and there was no going back. At least, she hadn’t thought so.

Now, however, Hermione was wracked with doubt. All night she had wondered whether she was the one to blame for Draco’s unforeseen behaviour. The thought of it made her cringe and flush with embarrassment, but when it came down to it, she was really the one who had led him on. She’d gone and fallen in love with him, in spite of her relationship with Ron, which meant that Draco had had every right to say and do what he had done to her. If she hadn’t… if she’d just stopped him – stopped herself – when she had the chance, she wouldn’t be suffering, and neither would Draco.

If he was suffering at all, that was. Because from what Hermione had gathered before she dashed out of the conference room, Draco was feeling nothing at all – no remorse, no guilt, no distress of any sort. It was as if life had gone on for him without skipping a beat the moment she stepped out the door. He’d done his job and captured Greyback, and now he was back here at the Ministry, treating Hermione like a regular colleague.

It occurred to Hermione that not once since she left Draco’s flat with Ron had she given any thought to his other identity – Shadow. But it made sense, really. Shadow was Draco. He was the other side of Draco, the side Draco had hidden from the glaring light of the public. It was a fortunate coincidence, then, that Hermione had been paired with him in the interdepartmental challenge, because in discovering Shadow, she had simultaneously discovered Draco. Loving Shadow had meant loving Draco, which was, perhaps, why she’d never felt the need to choose between them.

Of course, that didn’t help her very much now. In fact, it only made things worse, by reminding her that she had no right to decide who would love her better based on one, ten-minute-long episode. Draco had proven to her on several occasions that he was capable of being – no, that he was – a good person, and yet all it had taken was one brash outburst from him to convince her otherwise. Ron… she knew he loved her, but was it fair to choose him just because he had given her a lifetime of trust and friendship? Who was to say that Draco couldn’t?

‘This is what happens when you think rashly, Hermione,’ she groaned under her breath, resisting the urge to bang her head against the wall behind her. No, when you think too logically, she silently corrected herself. Because, in a way, if she had just ignored her brain and listened to what every other inch of her body had been screaming, she’d still be with Draco.

Now, Hermione stood up and squared her shoulders. There was no use lamenting over it. It was too late to erase what she had done, too late to give Draco the second chance he really deserved. Someone like Draco would never take her back under such circumstances, anyway; he was too proud. Hermione had to face it: she had made a mistake.

---

Draco breathed an inaudible sigh of relief when Kingsley finally declared the meeting over. He had spent the whole two hours trying not to be too obvious about the fact that his eyes were all but glued to the door, but he suspected that the bloke next to him had noticed. Or, at least, Draco thought that was why he had been regarded with an expression that resembled curious amusement.

In any case, it had not come as a surprise to him when Hermione didn’t return to the conference room. He knew that his presence had flustered her and that he was probably the last person she wanted to see at the moment. But that was exactly why he had showed up for the meeting in the end, after spending a good half hour contemplating the pros and cons of doing so. He hated her for humiliating him and hurting him, but he still loved her so much that none of it mattered – all he wanted was to see her again.

He didn’t know what had compelled him to change his plans the night before. He’d left the house, intending to make a deal – for which his compensation would have been the bite that had seemed so tempting in his grief – with Greyback. The actual evening had transpired differently. Instead of sweet-talking Greyback into taking him back, Draco had ended up using a series of impressive spells and curses to subdue and bind the werewolf. He had then Apparated himself and the unconscious body back to Ministry premises. The rest of the night had flown by in a flurry of excited Aurors, stunned officials, and terrified visitors.

But why? Draco wondered as he swept out of the conference room, ignoring Shacklebolt’s attempts to catch his attention. He’d had nothing to gain and his life to lose from setting off to find Greyback on his own. All the Ministry power he needed was in his hands, so capturing Greyback would have done nothing for him, position-wise.

Then he looked up and caught a glimpse of bushy hair, swept back into a hastily-tied ribbon, bobbing at the other end of the corridor, and it occurred to him that perhaps he’d done it as a last, desperate attempt to obtain her forgiveness. Perhaps it had been his own way of begging her to take him back without actually getting down on his knees and saying the words. He had never been very good at being straight and open about his feelings, especially when he didn’t have Shadow’s mask and letters to hide behind. The only time he’d laid his soul bare in front of her, she’d rejected it for Ron Weasley.

But, oh, how Draco had hoped. He had hoped that she would realise that he could give her galaxies more than Weasley ever could, and that she would choose based on that reality. He had hoped that, for the very first time, she could give him something that was real and permanent. Most of all, he had hoped that she would find and learn to trust Starlight in time.

Draco’s strides lengthened as, driven by impulse, he hastened to catch up to the head of brown hair at the other end of the hallway. He had been wrong to assume that Hermione would so easily be able to overcome her attachment to Weasley. Just as the delicate pieces of her trust had begun to fall into place, he’d tread too heavily, and everything had collapsed. Handing Greyback over to the Ministry, then, was his final attempt to piece it all back together. Greyback was the only threat to her happy existence, and was thus the best – the least painful – way to prove to her that she could trust him.

Before he knew it, Draco was a step behind the brown-haired witch. Without thinking twice, he grabbed her shoulder and said, ‘Hermione.’

The witch turned around, her eyebrows raised in surprise. It wasn’t Hermione.

Draco exhaled in disappointment. ‘Nothing,’ he said in response to her inquisitive expression, turning and walking back in the direction he had come from.

He searched the entire floor for Hermione, but at last, he was forced to admit that she was nowhere to be found. Grimacing, he headed back to his office.

As luck would have it, upon turning the corner into the corridor that Hit Wizard Headquarters branched off of, Draco spotted another head of bushy brown hair – this one belonging to a witch who was definitely Hermione. She was sitting on the bench across from Auror Headquarters, her head lowered and her hands clasped in her lap.

Increasing his pace, Draco walked up to her. Amidst the noise of the other witches and wizards passing through the hallway, she didn’t seem to hear his approach. She did, however, look up with a startled expression when he sat down next to her.

‘Oh. It’s you,’ she said tersely, quickly averting her eyes – but not before Draco caught the wince that flitted across her drawn features.

‘Yes,’ Draco replied, fighting to maintain an aloof tone. ‘I came for my congratulations. It appears that you forgot to extend them in the excitement following my belated arrival to the conference.’

‘Of course,’ she said. Her voice was trembling so uncontrollably that Draco almost pitied her. He could tell that she was trying her best not to let any emotion show, but for once, she was failing miserably. ‘Congratulations,’ she added, a forced smile tightening her lips. ‘Single-handedly taking down Fenrir Greyback… that certainly is a feat worth applauding. Perhaps Kingsley might even grant you the promotion you’ve always wanted now.’

‘A promotion isn’t what I want,’ said Draco, rolling his eyes. For all her intellect, Hermione couldn’t be any denser when it came to understanding how love operated.

‘Of course, you always wanted more. Things beyond your reach,’ Hermione snapped. A split second later, her eyes widened, as she realised the second meaning behind her retort. ‘I didn’t mean –’

‘Naturally,’ said Draco icily, cold disappointment washing over him. How could he have been so foolish as to think that capturing Greyback would impress her enough to take him back? It was part of his job, after all.

But he wasn’t going to be the first to admit that he still wanted her. He’d bite his tongue, and if the feeling was mutual, he’d wait for her to renounce her pride and spit out first. Standing up, he nodded curtly at Hermione. ‘See you around, Granger.’

‘Malfoy, wait.’

Draco automatically turned around, and then cursed himself for not having the willpower to resist her. ‘What?’ he asked levelly.

‘Why did you do it – go after Greyback on your own?’ Hermione sounded nervous, almost timid, and she had reverted to avoiding Draco’s eyes.

Draco’s hands, hidden by the billowing sleeves of his robe, clenched involuntarily. In typical Hermione fashion, Hermione had asked the only question he wouldn’t – couldn’t – answer.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ he muttered.

‘You risked your life to do it; of course it matters!’

Draco laughed bitterly. ‘What makes you think my life is of importance to me?’ he sneered. He knew he sounded pathetic. A month ago, he would have balked at the thought of tempting a painful death by pursuing Fenrir Greyback, the most widely feared werewolf in the wizarding world, without backup, but now he found the danger of the chase welcoming – it added the only spark, the only thrill, to his suddenly dull and hollow existence.

Hermione stared at him, wide-eyed and stunned, and then cried, ‘It’s important to me!’

Silence fell between them. A few members of the Wizengamot shot Hermione odd looks as they passed by, but neither Draco nor Hermione paid heed.

‘What did you say?’ Draco finally asked jerkily, positive that his ears were playing tricks on him.

Hermione flushed, a defensive expression settling across her features. ‘Don’t act like you didn’t hear me!’ she exclaimed heatedly. ‘That kind of attitude is exactly why everyone can’t stand you, Draco Malfoy!’

‘Excuse me?’ said Draco, too flabbergasted by Hermione’s sudden explosion to fire back with a sharp comeback.

‘You give up too easily!’ she babbled. ‘If you don’t get what you want right away, if things aren’t handed to you on a silver platter when you want them, you think that’s that and life suddenly isn’t worth living!’

Draco blinked. ‘What did you say?’ he repeated slowly.

‘I said –’ Hermione broke off there, as she realised what Draco was asking her. ‘I said your life matters to me,’ she finished, in a much smaller voice.

This time, the shock of hearing Hermione say what he thought he’d never hear her say to him again wore off much quicker. Letting out a short, harsh bark of laughter, Draco said sourly, ‘That’s clever. Very funny, Granger. I applaud you on your wit. What’s next? “I want you to take me back�?’

Hermione regarded Draco blankly. ‘Can we talk about this somewhere private?’ she asked.

‘No,’ said Draco flatly. ‘Whatever you have to say to me, you can say to me right here. I’m tired of sneaking off into corners and closets.’

‘Draco!’

‘Wasn’t it “Malfoy� last night?’ Draco inquired, his mocking tone giving the words a hard edge. ‘Or have you forgotten already?’

‘That’s just it,’ said Hermione, her eyes boring into Draco’s, tentative but determined at the same time. ‘I can’t forget.’

Draco opened his mouth to smother the sudden glimmer of pathetic hope in his chest with a biting remark, just like he always did, but Hermione went on.

‘It would be so much easier if you would go away, Draco – if I didn’t have to face the prospect of seeing you everyday. I could burn all the… the letters. And I could convince myself that you were always just Malfoy and that I’m happiest with Ron.’ She sucked in a quick breath, keeping her eyes determinedly fixed on Draco’s. ‘But you’re not going to go away. And neither is the past month.’

Draco rolled his eyes at Hermione, his lips tightly pursed. ‘Skip the wordy prelude and get to the point, Granger.’

‘You know what the point is.’

And it was true; Draco did. He knew what the unspoken question that Hermione’s pride wouldn’t let her voice was asking of him – and yet even though the obvious answer was straining to burst from his lips, his own pride forcibly reined it in, afraid that giving in a second time could be fatal. So he evaded the question.

‘What about the mirror? I said your name into it, and you didn’t respond,’ he said coldly, after a minute or so. The charmed mirror’s failure was his final foothold, the only thread of reality keeping him from plunging into a world of impossible dreams come true. But despite his stony guardedness, the faintest traces of foolish hope that had already illuminated the depths of Draco’s soul were beginning to gain strength.

‘Didn’t you read the letter I sent with it?’ Hermione shook her head, a rueful smile shattering the serious anxiety that had just been in her eyes. ‘I tied to learn the charm; I really did. But it was hopelessly complicated. I’m surprised it even lasted a week.’

‘So you mean to say –?’

‘I expect it just faded away,’ said Hermione, shrugging. She frowned, as if disappointed by her inability to learn the spell. ‘I’m really sorry, Draco. I didn’t mean to –’

‘And Weasley,’ Draco cut in quickly, before his weakening resolve completely collapsed. He licked at the roof of his mouth, tasting the bitter residue Ron Weasley’s name always left in his mouth. ‘What about him?’

‘That’s complicated,’ said Hermione, as if Draco didn’t already know.

‘You like complicated,’ Draco replied dryly.

Hermione shook her head, the corners of her mouth beginning to lift into a smile at the absence of bitterness from Draco’s tone. ‘Not when it comes to us. I took the long way this past few month; instead of taking the shortcut, I tried every twist and turn in the maze. The letters, the aliases, the partnership… there was no point to any of that. I made the mistake of not seeing you and how simple we could have been, even though it was obvious from the start.’

‘We can never be simple. We needed every catalyst along the way to get to where we are right now.’ Draco hesitated, but Hermione’s smile was unhelpfully infectious. Reluctantly, he said, with the slightest note of lightheartedness in his voice, ‘Hindsight bias. You think too highly of yourself, Granger.’

Hermione’s smile widened. ‘Can we try going back to basics?’

Draco struggled to remain stony-faced as he replied sarcastically, ‘Only if Weasley has no objections.’

‘I can’t guarantee that,’ Hermione said softly, ‘but I can promise you that whatever objections he has are no longer at the top of my priority list.’

And then, because his heart was now all but glowing with some stupid kind of warmth that he would later brush off as a linger effect of the exhilaration caused by his earlier encounter with Greyback, and because it felt like the right thing to do, Draco blurted out, as he slid closer to Hermione, ‘Can I kiss you now?’

Hermione swallowed, but she didn’t seem surprised. ‘Right here?’ she asked, her voice low and nervous. ‘People will see…’

Draco made to draw back, but, to his surprise, Hermione stopped him by grabbing his arm. Her eyes twinkling, she amended, ‘Well, they will have to find out eventually…’

‘I think they know already,’ said Draco, clenching his teeth to hold back the smile that was threatening to emerge. He leaned closer to Hermione, turning one of her hands, which she had placed on the bench between them, palm side up with his right hand while bringing his left hand to her shoulder. ‘So, are you positive about this? Have you gone through every other viable option and decided that this is the best one?’

‘No,’ Hermione replied, furrowing her eyebrows in confusion. ‘Draco, you know I’m not that –’

‘Good,’ said Draco briskly. Before she could say another word, he closed the remaining distance between them and kissed her firmly on the lips.

And, as Hermione leaned forward and returned the kiss, stirring the resident butterflies in Draco’s, but not enough to send them into a flurry, Draco shook something out of the sleeve of his robe and pressed it into her open hand. Hermione did not notice at the moment, but later, when they broke apart (to find a stunned and silent crowd of Ministry workers, frozen in their tracks), she would lift her hand and find a tiny paper crane sitting in her palm, tossing its miniature head, its folded wings bearing the words:

Starlight,

A thousand words were never enough.

Shadow

---

A/N: Okay, so I know it isn't exactly the greatest piece of literature in the history of fan fiction. However, I wanted to give this fic closure. I really don't want people e-mailing me years from now, whining about how the original ending sucks, so I figured I'd write something to placate those people :)