17

Draco and Hermione followed Dumbledore inside and beheld a table filled with a scrumptious assortment of fruit, pastries, bacon, sausages and eggs. Draco pounced on the table like a ravenous dog, heaping a large amount of food onto his plate. He sat down and crammed an entire cheese Danish into his mouth.

Hermione took a seat and quickly decided to just eat some fruit. The smell of the scrambled eggs was nauseating, and the meat looked repulsive. It was so hot in the cottage, despite the salty breeze that wafted through the open windows. She bit into a piece of pineapple and immediately her stomach lurched. Putting it back onto her plate, she addressed Dumbledore. "Are you going to tell us what this is all about?"

Dumbledore poured himself a cup of tea, added some sugar and a dollop of milk. He stirred it with a tiny spoon, the metal clanging the sides of the ceramic mug. He sipped it, saying nothing.

"Well?" Draco said, snapping a sausage in half with his teeth. "Hello! Answers?"

Dumbledore smiled. "Ah, yes, I had almost forgotten!"

Draco's jaw dropped, and he gave Hermione that look again, the one that said that this man was one flying buttress short of a cathedral.

"About two years ago, I was visited by myself, and we had a nice long talk."

"Were you shocked?" Hermione asked.

"About talking with my future self? No. I was more shocked by the fact that my beard was so long. I had never considered growing it that long before." He smiled and then ran his fingers through the auburn beard. "Do you think it's becoming?"

"We don't give a shit whether you grow your armpit hair down to your ass with dreadlocks. We just want to know why you're doing this!" Draco said, rolling his eyes in exasperation.

Dumbledore turned to Hermione, who was red faced due to Draco's rudeness. "Are you sure this is the man you want to spend the rest of your life with? He seems rather angry..."

Draco stood and glared at Dumbledore. "I have every right to be angry!"

"Draco! Please, just calm down." Hermione grabbed his arm and tried to pull him back into his seat. He ignored her and stayed standing, gripping the edge of the table.

"Mr. Malfoy, I totally agree with you. If I were in your shoes, I would be reacting the very same way."

"If you can sympathize with our situation, and you know how we feel about you fucking with our lives, then why the hell do you go ahead and do it anyway?"

Hermione pulled his arm more fiercely and finally succeeded in getting Draco to sit down. "He does have a point, Professor. Here we are, telling you right now that we don't appreciate the little time travel trip you've sent us on, yet for some reason, in the future, you still go ahead and do it. Why?"

Dumbledore sighed. He looked very somber. "I'm sorry, but I have no explanation as to why I'm doing this to you." He raised his hand as Draco started to protest. "Please Mr. Malfoy, let me tell you everything I know."

"Which I'm guessing isn't much, right?" Draco said sarcastically.

Hermione shot him a look of disgust, and Draco just looked at her innocently, mouthing the word 'what?' She turned back to Dumbledore. "Please, excuse his rudeness. He doesn't know when to shut up and listen."

"I do too!"

"Apparently, you don't, because you are still talking!" Draco snapped his mouth shut angrily, and Hermione smiled at him sweetly. "Professor, just start at the beginning."

Dumbledore sipped his tea again. "Like I said, about two years ago, I paid myself a visit. This would have been the summer of 1936."

"So this is 1938?" Hermione interrupted, her face shocked. "The summer of 1938?"

Dumbledore's eyebrows came together over his crooked nose. "Does this year have some significance for you?"

Hermione knew this was the very summer that Dumbledore went to the orphanage to tell Tom Riddle he was a wizard. Should she tell him everything? Let him know that the boy was going to grow up to affect the lives of everyone in the room, not to mention cause the deaths of hundreds of innocent people, including himself? Would it change anything? What if it did? What if she could, at this very moment, change history for the better?

"Hermione?" Draco asked, concerned. The way she was staring off into space, her eyes wide, and her vacant expression was scaring him. "Hey! Are you all right?" He snapped his fingers in front of her face.

She blinked and looked around. "Huh?"

"Are you all right?" Draco asked again, handing her a glass of ice water. "Drink this."

She took the glass and sipped the cool liquid, still debating whether to tell Dumbledore about Voldemort. "Thanks. Sorry about that," she said, handing the glass back to Draco.

"Did you have something to tell me, dear?" Dumbledore asked.

"I..." Hermione panicked. "Yes. I mean no!" She suddenly had to pee. "Where's the loo?" Dumbledore pointed down the hall. She excused herself and hastily made her way inside, shutting the door quickly.

Draco and Dumbledore eyed each other over the table.

"So, Mr. Malfoy. I hear that you are a Prefect and Quidditch captain. You're in Slytherin, aren't you?"

"Yes. Why?" he asked, warily.

"And Miss Granger is in Gryffindor, Head Girl and a Muggle-born?" Dumbledore asked with a tiny smile that lit up his eyes. "I guess there is a first time for everything! When I was at Hogwarts, the Slytherins and Gryffindors were mortal enemies, and they would never even think of dating one another!"

"It's the same now."

Dumbledore leaned forward, clearly interested. "Then how are you going to explain all this once you get back?"

"I really don't care what they think. I love her, she loves me, we're having a baby. There is nothing they can do about it. It's already done."

"I hope, Mr. Malfoy," Dumbledore said, "that the courage you possess right now doesn't take flight when you need it most. It will be hard to deal with the ignorant, who refuse to believe that you, a so-called pureblood, could ever be in love with a Muggle-born. Acceptance by her friends and your family will not come easily.

Did the man think he was stupid? "I know it won't be easy, Professor, but we know that it all turns out fine in the end, don't we?"

"If you say so, Mr. Malfoy." Dumbledore dipped a fat, red strawberry into the sugar bowl and then bit into it. "I wouldn't know, would I?"

Hermione came back to the table, her mind made up; she wasn't going to say anything. What if, instead of making things better, she somehow made them worse? She couldn't risk it. "Now, where were we? You were saying that you paid yourself a visit from the future."

"Yes, well, it was all a hurried conversation. I handed myself a gold watch and a wand and was told that in the summer of 1938 I would be paid a visit by two of my future students. I said that while sunning on the sandy beaches of Kauai, you, Draco, and you, Hermione, would approach me."

"Wait a minute!" Draco said. "You just said 'a watch and a wand'. What wand?"

Dumbledore grinned. "Your wand. Didn't I give it to you?"

"No!"

"I'm sure I did."

"I would remember something like that!"

Dumbledore got up, went into the next room and came back with Draco's wand. "How about that! I never gave it to you!"

Draco snatched it from the man's hand. "How you ever became known as the one he feared most is beyond me!" He examined his wand for scratches. "It's apparent to me that your brain is already full of holes, even at this young age!"

"The one WHO fears most?" Dumbledore questioned.

Draco was elbowed in the ribs by Hermione. "Nothing. He's just babbling nonsense. Ignore him!" She gave him a sideways glace and asked Dumbledore to continue.

"I was to give Draco the watch and tell him a message, which I did. I told myself that you would be staying for about twelve hours and then would be disappearing in the clock you arrived in. I was to make sure that Hermione got plenty of rest because she was with child. That's it."

Draco looked incredulously at Dumbledore. "That's it? What do you mean that's it?"

"What I mean, Mr. Malfoy, is that there is no more. We chatted about Hogwarts, and I told myself what Houses you both belonged to and that you had been the worst of enemies for almost your entire time at school..."

"Your future self told you nothing about why this is happening?" Hermione asked, getting angry. "If we aren't supposed to learn anything from you, then why the bloody hell are we here? What is the purpose of it all?"

"This is a waste of time," Draco said, getting up. "Clearly, he has no answers. We might as well accept it, Granger! We are going to be traveling through time for the rest of our lives!" He grasped Hermione's hand and pulled her out of the chair and then turned to leave.

Dumbledore sat there, his fingers in a steeple under his chin, thinking. "You're wrong," he said to them. "You told me that you visited your dying self. You obviously do not travel aimlessly through time for the rest of your lives."

Hermione quickly turned around. "That's right! Somehow we figure this all out. Draco, we get married and have children. We live in your Manor House!"

Dumbledore motioned for them to sit back down. "Please, I'm sure if we try we can put the pieces together and get you back home."

"So, you say that there have been strange messages at every place you have visited?" Dumbledore asked. "Messages that each contain a capital letter? Can you remember them?"

Hermione and Draco tried to recall the letters. "Um... I'm very sure the first one was a 'D'."

"It was?" Draco said, trying to concentrate. "It seems so long ago!"

"The message was on the wall in the underground chamber, and it said some thing like 'if a man Doesn't know where he's going, there's no telling where he'll be when he gets there'. The 'D' was capitalized." Hermione conjured a piece of parchment and a quill. "So, the first letter is D." She scribbled it down.

Draco ran his hand through his hair, making it fall onto his forehead, where he blew at it. "Okay, the next place was with the dinosaurs, and the message was on that log in the cave. I do remember that one. It said, 'in two days, toMorrow will be yesterday'. The 'M' was bigger that time."

Hermione wrote it down. "D and M so far."

Dumbledore was pacing the floor, keeping the letters and the places they were found in his head for later use. After all, he was the one who apparently put them there.

"Next was Crete," Hermione said. "Horrid place. Never would I EVER want to go back there! I'd rather face that T-Rex!"

"It wasn't all bad," Draco said. "You got your wand back, and I... I got a little." He winked at her.

"Yeah! From someone else, and I'll thank you to never bring that up ever again!"

"It was all your fault, in case you've forgotten, Granger!"

"I never told you to go and screw that Cretan bimbo! You did that all by yourself, Malfoy!"

Dumbledore cleared his throat loudly. "If you please, you have your whole lives to argue about this, can you do it some other time?"

Draco and Hermione glared at each other.

"What did the message in Crete say?" Dumbledore asked, looking at them over the top of his glasses. "And where was it?"

Draco tore his eyes away from Hermione's. "It was etched into a mirror that was hanging in some room of the Palace."

"They told us that you had given that mirror to the Queen as a gift and told her to hang it where it could be seen." Hermione got ready to write. "What was the message, Malfoy, do you remember?"

Draco shrugged his shoulders. "No, do you?"

Hermione's jaw dropped. "You mean you can't remember?"

"No, and I can tell by the dying carp look on your face that you can't recall it either. That's just fucking great!"

"Please, try and concentrate, the both of you. This is of extreme importance!" Dumbledore pleaded.

Draco laid his head back on the sofa and closed his eyes. Words swam in the darkness behind his closed lids, but nothing jumped out at him. "Was it something to do with seeing or looking? It was on a mirror after all."

Hermione sighed. "I just can't think!" It was so hot in the cottage that sweat was running down her back, and her stomach was rolling again.

"Let's move on. We'll come back to it. What was the next place and message?" Dumbledore began pacing again.

"We went to visit ourselves next," Hermione said, fanning herself with the parchment. "The message was on that pocket watch."

Draco took it out from the pocket of his shorts and read it out loud. "a man with one watch knows what timE it is. a man with two is never sure."

Dumbledore smiled. "So true! I was a genius to think of that!"

"You didn't think of anything!" Draco said, rolling his eyes. "I just told you what to write!"

Dumbledore paused. "You know. That's true. This can be very confusing, can't it?" He chuckled and shook his head in amusement. "So we have a D, M, a letter that's missing and an E. What's next?"

Hermione quickly wrote down the letter E and looked up at Dumbledore. "I don't know. Did you see a message in Hameln?" She looked over her shoulder at Draco, who was still lounging on the sofa with just his shorts on now.

"I saw it. It was in the pocket of that disaster of a coat I was forced to wear."

"So you saw a message and didn't bother telling me about it? There you go again, hiding things from me!" Hermione said, jumping to conclusions. She shot out of her chair and stalked over to him, ready to slap him slap upside the head.

Draco sat up and looked at her as if she was out of her mind. "Whoa! Just hold on a minute, Granger! I didn't hide anything from you, so stop being so paranoid." He grabbed her wrist just as her hand came shooting out of nowhere.

"But you just said..."

"I know what I said! Just let me explain!" He couldn't believe how fast Hermione could go from being calm and normal to wigging out and acting like a total basket case. "When that Sebastian bloke had me trapped in that room, he beat the shit out of me and forced me to put that coat on. When I went to put the flute in the pocket, I noticed that there was some sort of paper in there. I didn't want him to see it, so I just left it there. I forgot all about it until I was on the hill with the children and the clock appeared."

Hermione was suddenly pulled into Draco's lap, and he kissed her. "So, when did you read it then?" she asked, brushing the hair from his wet forehead. "And I'm sorry for thinking you were hiding something from me."

Draco's heart dropped into his gut. He gave her a bright smile and tried not to act guilty. "I forgive you this time, Granger, but don't ever accuse me again." He kissed her cheek and then continued talking to Dumbledore. "I went to put the flute away and realized that the paper was still in my pocket. It's a good thing too, because Sebastian came out of the woods to kill me right then. At the bottom of the paper, under the message, it said 'duck!' If I hadn't, the killing curse would have hit me and not the clock."

"What did the message say, Mr.Malfoy?"

"I only just glanced at it, but I think it said something about looking back... I don't remember the whole thing, but I do know that the letter N was definitely larger than the other letters."

Dumbledore picked up Hermione's quill and wrote down the letter N. "Now we have D, M, E and N. Are you sure there are no other letters?" He looked at the parchment. "There must be a lot more missing than just the one from Crete. This spells nothing."

Hermione suddenly smacked herself in the head. "Of course!"

"What? What is it?" Draco asked.

"The message from Egypt was not the first message."

Draco thought about it for a moment. "Oh my god! You're right! The plaque back at Hogwarts! The one next to the clock!"

Dumbledore grinned happily. "And what did this message say?"

"I remember reading it and having no idea what it meant. It said, 'you'll never get anywhere else if yoU don't leave where you are now'. The U was bigger." Hermione beamed at him. "Now, I understand what you meant by it." She laid her head on Draco's shoulder. "Draco and I were stuck in a hateful relationship, and we had to leave and go through all of these adventures in order for us to realize how we actually felt about one another."

Dumbledore nodded his head. "And that, my dear future students, is possibly the reason why I go ahead and force you to take these trips. You both need a little push in the right direction. Imagine if I listen to your pleas and don't do this in the future. You probably will not end up together, happy and in love. Maybe you will end up alone or perhaps with someone else, unhappy, feeling empty like you're missing the other part of your soul."

Draco and Hermione were quiet, contemplating the results of such a thing. Draco, who had only ever known the love of his mother, would never want to end up in a relationship with someone he didn't truly love, or worse... die alone and miserable. He had seen how much his future self loved Hermione; in fact, he felt it now. He never wanted to be without her ever again.

At that moment, he vowed to save her from being killed, no matter what he had to do or who he had to kill. She was his love, and his life and nothing was going to take her away from him, not even death.

Hermione had never known she could love someone as much as she loved Draco. Sure, she loved her parents and her friends, but that was different. He made her feel complete, and now she could never imagine being without him, didn't want to. "Professor?" she said, softly. "You go right ahead and do what you need to do. I love him, and if it takes being buried alive in a tomb or almost being devoured by a pack of hungry dinosaurs to make me see that, then by all means, you do it."

Dumbledore smiled lovingly at her. "I would do anything to make my students happy, even those who call me Dumblesnore behind my back." He winked at Draco, who smirked. "So now, we have E, D, N, P and U. I wish the letter from Crete was available because I still see nothing." In fact, he was lying. He did see the word, even with the missing letters. He knew they needed to figure it out by themselves, so he said nothing. "I guess I have been no help to you. I'm very sorry."

"It's all right, Dumbledore. At least we get a vacation out of this. For once, nothing life-threatening is happening and we can relax!" Draco said happily. "Merlin knows we need it!"

Dumbledore looked at his watch. "I hate to seem rude, but my vacation is over. The school wishes me to visit a certain Muggle orphanage to tell some unsuspecting youth that he has been accepted to Hogwarts."

Hermione gulped; there was a loud buzzing noise in her ears. This was her last chance to say something, anything. "Do you know much about him, Professor?"

"Only that he is an orphan and shows extreme talent in magical areas already. I should think he will fit in fine and make a brilliant wizard!" Dumbledore was packing his belongings, his wand waving the items through the air and into the star-covered carpet bag by the door. He failed to notice that Hermione was shaking and looked as if she wanted to tell him something.

"Granger, what's wrong?" Draco whispered.

"I'll tell you later," she whispered back. Getting up from Draco's lap, she walked over to her future Headmaster and embraced him. He stiffened for only a second and then hugged her back. "It was nice to see you again," she said through her tears. "I've really missed you, you know."

"You'll see me when you get back, won't you?" he said, wiping the tears from her cheek. "I'll be looking forward to seeing you again in a few years." He looked over at Draco, who was staring at the floor, his eyes seeing nothing but a blur. "It was nice meeting you as well, Draco. Behave yourself and be good to her." He pecked Hermione on the cheek, and then with a pop, he vanished.

They closed the door and walked in the sand, hand in hand, to their own cottage. The sun was at its highest, and it beat down upon them with burning rays.

"What was the problem back there, Hermione? You seemed frightened or upset about something. What was it?"

"That boy whom Dumbledore is going to see is Tom Riddle."

Draco stopped in his tracks. "No!" He looked at her, shock evident on his face. "Why didn't you tell him? You could have warned him what that boy turned into!" He shook his head slowly. "You could have changed everything!"

Hermione sighed. "That's just it, Draco. What if it changed for the worse?"

"How much worse could it get? I think you should have told him." He could barely control his outrage. "You should have told him everything and then let him decide what to do with the information!"

"Sometimes there ARE things that should be left unsaid, secrets that need to be kept, and I think this was one of those times. I believe with all my soul that I did the right thing." She let go of his hand and walked inside the cottage.

He clenched his fists, counted to ten and then followed her inside. Maybe she was right. Maybe it just would have made things even worse. Now they would never know, would they? She definitely was right about one thing though. Sometimes there ARE secrets that need to be kept.

"What's this?" he asked, picking up an envelope from the table. It was addressed to him. "It's from Dumbledore." Draco opened it and pulled out a wad of Muggle money and a large sum of Hawaiian currency. "Feel like shopping, Granger?"

Hermione took off her sandals, tied her hair in a knot and headed for the bedroom. "I don't think so, not right now. I'm not feeling too well."

Draco put the money in his pocket and followed her, concerned. "What's wrong? Is it the baby?"

Hermione took off her clothes and fell onto the bed. "No. Well, maybe that's part of it. I don't know. I've never been pregnant before!"

Draco sat down beside her and felt her forehead. "You're burning up!"

Hermione smiled at him. "This is summer in Hawaii, Malfoy. I just feel really tired, and it's so damn hot! How do people live here?"

Draco took out his wand. "Here, how about I make it cooler in here for you?" He cast a charm that made the temperature in the bedroom drop to where it was bordering on freezing.

"Ah! That feels so much better!" Hermione sat up and kissed him. "Thank you."

"Sure you don't want to go shopping among the locals?"

"Maybe later. I really want a nap right now." She lay back down and flung her arm over eyes. "You go ahead, but put a shirt on first, I don't want all those beautiful Hawaiian girls gawking at you. You just might run off with one."

Draco laughed. "Tempting, but I think I'll stick with you, even though you're bossy and you sometimes act like a nutter." He slipped on a white linen shirt he found in the closet, but left it unbuttoned. "I'll see you later. Have a nice rest." He kissed her cheek, then her bare tummy and left for his shopping spree.

He trudged through the sand, the sun burning his pale skin. He knew he was going to have one hell of a sunburn later. His first stop was to buy a pair of sunglasses. They were old fashioned and not very flattering, but beggars can't be choosers. They would have to do.

Stall after stall held beautiful goods that were beyond tempting. Colorful clothing that he knew would look good on him; brightly decorated seashells made into art and jewelry; wonderfully scented flower arrangements and food of all kinds.

He bought a tiny dress made from some kind of floaty material for the baby. It was pale yellow with tiny pink flowers on it and had a bonnet to match. Draco was tempted to buy a necklace made from shark teeth and actually stood there for ten minutes debating whether to get it or not. He finally decided he didn't need it and put it down. There was something else that he wanted to get.

On and on he walked, venders shouting their wares at him trying to get him to stop, until he stood in front of a store. He smiled as he looked at the window display, seeing exactly what he wanted.

***

Hermione awoke; somehow she had burrowed herself under the covers until only the top of her head was peeking out. "God, it's like winter in here!" It was so cold that when she breathed, she could see her breath.

Draco suddenly appeared from nowhere, Apparating next to the bed. "Damn! It's Christmas in July!" He shivered, his nipples shrinking, resembling tiny, pink raisins. "I went a bit overboard with the cold, don't you think?"

Hermione sat up and wrapped the blanket around her. "I could have frozen to death, but I'd rather be cold than hot." She looked at him with wide eyes. "You are burnt to a crisp!"

Draco put his sunglasses on top of his head and examined himself in the mirror. He had made the mistake of taking off his shirt on the way back to the cottage, and now he was going to pay the price. "Great! Why can't I tan? Stupid parents and their stupid pale skin..."

Hermione laughed, "Come here, lobster boy. Let me put some aloe on that red hot chest and back of yours." Conjuring a bottle of aloe, she smoothed it over his burns as he sat on the edge of the bed with his eyes closed, loving it.

"Turn around, let me get your face." She chuckled a bit at the white circles from the sunglasses, and he frowned, annoyed that he looked like a freak. As she dabbed a bit of the aloe on his nose, she paused and studied his features. He had beautiful, long, pale eyelashes and cheekbones any girl would kill for. "You know, you are a very handsome man." He smiled, his teeth looking very bright against the redness of his skin.

"It's taken you this long to notice, Granger?" he said playfully.

"No. I've always thought you were cute. A bit of an asshole, but still cute."

"You did?" He winced as she tried to gently smooth the aloe into his forehead. "What am I saying? Of course you did! All the ladies think I'm good looking." He shouted "OW!" as Hermione smacked him on the forehead. "What was that for?"

Hermione straddled his lap, putting her arms around his waist. "I just felt like smacking you."

He stopped rubbing his forehead and looked at her, a frown on his sticky face. "Just felt like smacking me?" He leaned forward as if to kiss her, but he made her fall onto her back instead. "You're lucky I love you, Granger, or I'd make you pay for that."

He was on top of her, one hand in her messy hair, the other holding himself up. She reached up, grabbed his head and brought her mouth to his in a hard, brutal kiss. "Make me pay, Draco. Punish me for daring to hit you."

***

They lay cuddled together under the blanket; he was twirling a piece of her hair around his finger when he suddenly sat up. "I almost forgot!"

Hermione jumped. "Forgot what? What are you talking about?"

Draco got out of bed, his white ass looking even whiter compared to the rest of his body. "I bought the baby something." He took the tiny dress out of the bag and held it up proudly. "Isn't it beautiful?"

Hermione got out of the bed and took it out of his hands. "It's a darling!" She especially loved the little bonnet. "It's so small! I can't imagine that she'll be this tiny."

"I have another surprise." Draco started to get dressed. "I've rented us a boat for the afternoon."

Hermione laid the dress on the bed. "A boat? Do you know how to sail a boat?"

He picked up his sunglasses and smirked, looking so much like his father for a second that Hermione almost fainted. Lucius was the last person she wanted to be thinking about.

"We Malfoys have extensive knowledge about boats."

"I meant, have you, Draco Malfoy, ever sailed a boat? I don't mean sat on the deck of a yacht, sunning yourself and eating caviar while some poor house-elf steers you to Tahiti."

Draco's smirk slid from his face. "How hard can it be?" He threw her clothes to her. "Now, get dressed and let's head out!" He whistled happily as he walked out of the room.

Hermione had a bad feeling about this. A REALLY bad feeling.

***

Luckily, the weather was nice, a little windy, nothing to worry about, and the water was calm, or else she would have insisted they cancel their little excursion. She was surprised that Draco actually seemed to know what he was doing. He went around adjusting sails and doing whatever it was that he was doing. Hermione knew next to nothing about sailing, and it was bothering her so much that she vowed to read up on it once she got back to Hogwarts.

Draco went to join Hermione. "Here, put this on." He handed her a life jacket, and after helping her get it on, he put one on himself. "Never can be too careful."

"Look!" she shouted, pointing out over the water excitedly. "Dolphins!"

Draco and Hermione watched as two of them jumped out of the water and dove back in. They resurfaced close to the boat and stuck their heads out. Hermione thought they looked as if they were smiling.

"They are so cute!" she said, leaning further over the edge.

"Be careful, don't want you to fall overboard!" he said, pulling her back a little. "I wouldn't want to have to jump in to save you. There are sharks in there, you know."

"Of course there are sharks, it IS the ocean," Hermione said sarcastically. "And besides, only total idiots fall overboard. Are you saying I'm stupid enough to lose my footing and go tumbling into the damn ocean where any number of man-eating creatures are waiting for a free meal?"

Draco said nothing. Hermione was in one of her moods again. Just a second ago, she was happy and thrilled about the dolphins, and now she was about to snap his head off. He decided to go and pretend he was doing something important in the bow, away from her. He had planned this to be romantic, but she was ruining the whole thing with her bad attitude. "Maybe I'll just go away on a business trip every time she's pregnant. I don't think I can deal with this twice more!"

A half hour later, he decided to try once more to talk to her. He had managed to keep busy, adjusting the sails and talking to himself. He was going over and over in his mind what he was planning to say to her. The wind was dying down, so he felt it safe to go to her.

Hermione looked up at him and then back out at the water. "I'm sorry," she said softly. "I don't know why I acted like that." She burst into tears and sobbed into her hands. "You must think I'm crazy! I feel like I'm crazy!"

Draco, who was laughing in his head, but knew better than to laugh out loud, scooped her up into his arms and held her. "I don't think you're crazy."

Hermione lifted her head and stared at him incredulously. Her face was splotchy, and her cheeks were wet with tears. "You're a liar!" She started crying again and buried her head in his shoulder. "You'd be better off without me and my insane mood swings!"

Draco kissed the top of her head and then forced her to look at him. "Hermione, even though you sometimes make me think you have a split personality and act a little moody, I still love you and never want to be without you." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small box.

Hermione hitched in a breath, trying to remain calm.

"I brought you sailing today because I thought it would be a romantic setting in which to propose to you." He opened the box and took out a ring. It was a thin band of gold, and on the top were two dolphins, their bodies together at the head and tail so that they made the shape of a heart. In the center was a beautiful sapphire that was a blue as the Hawaiian sky.

Hermione's heart was hammering in her chest, and the world was suddenly going black. She grasped the edge of the boat and held on, struggling not to pass out. He took her other hand gently in his and said, "Hermione, will you marry me?"

Hermione was crying again. This time, however, they were tears of joy. "Yes, I'll marry you!" she said, and he slipped the ring on her finger. She smiled and then jumped on him, kissing him passionately. "I love you."

"I love you too, Granger." He put her down gently, kissing her again. The boat suddenly lurched, as if being hit by something, and he accidentally dropped the small black velvet box that the ring had been in.

"I'll get it," Hermione said, crouching down to retrieve it just as the boom swung around, hit Draco in the head and knocked him overboard.

Hermione stood up and ran to the side of the boat. "Draco!" she screamed. "DRACO!" She frantically scanned the water, seeing nothing. Running to the stern, she leaned over and looked for him. There he was, floating in a sea of blood, unconscious. "Draco!" she yelled again.

He didn't answer her. "Please don't be dead!" She turned to look for a life preserver or a raft, anything, when she caught something out of the corner of her eye. "Oh my god!" she said, rooted to the spot. She watched the shark fin get closer and closer to Draco, circling and circling. She opened her mouth and screamed.