For Annaleah for being my 800th reviewer for 'Longing Fulfilled'.

Disclaimer: Thank you to JKRowling for such a wonderful world to play in.

The sunlight was on the tops of the trees, and Hermione sat and watched the wind kiss the leaves softly. She felt at peace here, though others might think that odd.

Fred was here, along with Professor Lupin and Tonks and countless others. Though she paid her respects to each of them, she wasn't really hear for any one of them.

She was here for all of them.

And for herself.

Every so often, Hermione needed a reminder of what it had cost to end the wizarding war. Harry's war. Her own war.

A song in the distance of some bird calling its mate or simply enjoying the end of the day floated in the background, and for a moment, Hermione shut her eyes. It was surreal, coming here. She didn't need anyone else to understand it.

At first, Harry and Ron offered to come with her and she allowed them. The third time, though, she told them it was simply something she needed to do on her own.

A few weeks on, she noticed someone else a few meters away, paying his respects to his own losses.

Hermione watched in silence.

Not because of who he was, but simply because she knew there were no words.

Whether he saw her or not, Hermione wasn't sure.

Until the day he sat next to her on the bench.

She sat with her bunch of pink asters – one for each of her fallen friends. His hands were empty.

So much passed between them without either of them saying a word.

After half an hour, he simply stood and walked away.

The next time Hermione visited the graveyard she had two extra flowers. When Draco sat next to her, she handed them to him.

Without meeting her gaze, he thanked her and walked away.

Hermione noticed his posture then, a bit more erect than before, but still defeated.

He had not been able to save his parents any more than she had been able to save Fred Weasley. The remaining Death Eaters had not taken lightly to Narcissa Malfoy lying to their Lord about Potter's death and found their own retribution.

Horribly, Draco had been the one to find the bodies.

She watched as he placed the asters on his parents' shared marble tombstone. Breath caught in her throat as he reached out his hand and touched the cool stone for the briefest of moments before turning and walking away.

Empathy rose in her throat. She wanted to comfort him, but she knew better.

She knew what a simple touch could do.

For that, Draco wasn't ready.

The late November wind whipped through her cloak, but Hermione came anyway. She came every week now, on Thursdays.

Her silent companion took his seat on the same bench, kept two of the pale blue roses and handed her the rest.

“For your friends,” he said.

“Thank you.”

It was a beginning.

And this time, instead of walking away, Draco placed the flowers on his parents graved and returned to the bench.

And waited.

When Hermione placed all her flowers, she joined him.

“You placed a warming charm,” she observed.

“It's cold.”

And they sat against the brightness of the cold sun as the wind whipped redness into their cheeks.

She risked looking at him then.

He looked back.

Indifference made an attempt to hide unspeakable pain, but she saw it just the same.

And he saw it mirrored in her.

Without hesitation, Hermione took his hand in hers.

Draco let her.

Here, a broken wizard and a wounded witch began to mend.

Long shadows fell across their bench, their flowers and their friends, but those moments had been the most comfortable Draco had known in a long time.

White lilies were the choice on Christmas Eve. Ron told Hermione she was crazy to bother on such a cold night, let alone when everyone was expected at the Burrow for a party, but Harry told him to leave her alone.

He understood perfectly.

Tonight when she arrived, Draco was already there. The bench was warmed, though the flowers still looked perfect.

“A stasis charm?” she inquired and he nodded.

When she rose to place her flowers, Draco went with her. Hermione stared for only a moment and then they made the rounds. When she was finished with hers, she went straight for the place he always stopped.

Even in death they had the finest. Deep emerald green marble, their names etched in silver. The poignant epitaph read, “No pain, no grief, no anxious fear, can ever reach our loved ones here.”

Unbidden, a single tear slipped down her face.

She was softened at once as she understood the man who had once been a Death Eater, the woman who only watched as she had been tortured were also someone's parents. Draco's parents. They were people, torn by the war as much as she had been, and when she looked through her tears to meet the blond wizard's gaze, she saw at once all it had cost him too.

It was more than understanding now; it was acceptance.

Long moments passed as the snow caressed their cloaks and their hair and their eyelashes. She moved infinitesimally closer to him.

He drew a shaky breath.

“Hot chocolate.”

“I'm sorry?”

“We could get some hot chocolate,” he said, his voice barely a whisper.

“I'd like that.”

The spring Narcissas were a nice touch Draco thought, and when he took two from Hermione's arms, he brushed his lips against her cheek in thanks. He was rewarded with a blush and smile.

Flowers resting against bits of marble were the only witnesses the weeks that passed, to the words, to the tears, to the gentle touches that were leading to so much more.

Bluebells followed in the month of May and dinner together every Tuesday. Gardenias arrived with the first of the summer and the knowledge that a heart could be given without pain. The love that was returned was a thousand times more than he had ever hoped for, and Hermione never thought possible.

The day came in late September when Draco and Hermione placed pink roses and forget-me-nots along each and every grave they'd been visiting for more than a year.

“Mum,” he began, but closed his eyes.

“It's alright, Draco.”

He shook his head, cleared his throat and said, “Mum, and Dad, this is Hermione.”

And before her eyes, Draco conjured a single red rose.

“I don't think we need to come back so much,” he said as he handed it to her.

Approvingly, she smiled at him.

“I needed to find some reason why, to understand how it all could be ripped away. To find myself again, if that was even possible.”

Hermione understood that very well.

“What I found was so much more. You took me in with your quiet and your flowers and your compassion.”

And he had taken her in with his pain and his silence and his cracked facade.

Somehow, they made something of it.

The red rose in her hand.

Somehow, they found love from the pain.

And it was more than enough.

A/N: Thanks for reading! Thoughtful reviews are always appreciated.