Chapter Text
Ronald Malfoy made his way back inside Hogwarts castle. The battle was over. Voldemort was dead. Harry was alive. Ronald had just stood on the bridge while Harry snapped the elder wand and threw the pieces into a chasm, and now he was going to his mother. Molly needed comfort as she mourned Fred. That was a wound he would have to help her tend for the rest of her life.
He stood at the foot of the grand staircase in the Entrance Hall, everything strewn with rubble, and took a breath. It felt like the first time he’d been able to expand his chest to its full capacity, without a horrible weight crushing it, in nearly a year. He was so tired. After months of research and manipulating Slughorn, the horcrux hunt had started near the end of their sixth year, first with just Harry and Dumbledore and then, when Dumbledore was too frail, Hermione and Ronald had joined.
And where was Dumbledore now anyway? Why had he vanished halfway through the battle and left Harry to get through the worst of everything alone? It was frustrating but rather typical of him, really. Ronald looked over his shoulder, watching for Harry who hadn’t followed him inside yet. He had a feeling that, whatever happened to Dumbledore, Harry might already know the reasons why.
Ronald shivered a little, peering through the dust to the top of the stairs, then down at his own feet in the battered pair of boots he’d walked half the country in. It had been a lean, painful year in hiding, on the road. Ronald was left skinny and dirty, worn out, scarred. All that work and struggle had succeeded in the end, and here he stood, victorious but mourning, needing to gather strength to climb a flight of stairs.
There was a hand on his shoulder.
What awful news was it now? He grit his teeth and began a slow turn to face whoever was accosting him.
He gasped. “Pansy?”
“Ron!” She hopped at him, her arms around his neck, pulling him down to fill his head with the sweet smell of her hair.
He groaned his relief into her shoulder, lifting her feet from the ground in spite of his tiredness. “You’re here? All this time, I didn’t see you -- “
Still holding his neck she tipped back, looking into his face, brushing the end of her nose against his as she shook her head in answer. “No, too many Death Eater children in Slytherin. Conflicted loyalties. McGonagall sent us to the dungeon for safe-keeping.”
“Thank the stars,” Ronald said. He was melting with relief, setting her feet on the stair above himself, his spine curving over her, all but falling on Pansy, breathing against the nape of her neck. “You’re safe. You’re here with me.”
“So let’s go,” she was saying, smoothing his matted hair and kissing his rough unshaven chin. “Enough of all of this. I only want you. And not here.”
He laughed painfully, his voice rumbling against her ear. “Months and months later, nothing but handwritten letters between us in that time, me returning half wasted away and scruffy as anything, and you still want me, do you?”
She pushed at his shoulders, nudging him to stand up straight. He had lost a lot of weight. She saw it in his cheeks, felt it through his clothes, and it hurt her heart. Still, he was even taller than the last time she'd seen him, strong enough to keep growing through it all. Her eyes were tracking all over him now, ending at his face, meeting his stare -- oh, that blue. “Still want you? Definitely. Absolutely. Completely.”
He lifted his hand to her cheek. He'd forgotten human skin could be so smooth. She blinked her dark eyes at him, studying his expression. His eyes were the same blue, yes, but with less of a sparkle today -- adoring but sad, a little doubtful. She saw it, and it made her angry.
No, she thought. They will not take this away from us.
She jumped into his arms again, her legs around his waist. He staggered and stepped forward to sit her on the bannister, both of them laughing softly.
“‘Ronald Weasley Malfoy,” she began, “you are going to take me away from here, to your haunted manor, where you will lock us in your bedroom, and get me pregnant.”
He laughed, loudly, happily, bowing his head over her shoulder.
“Or something like that,” she added. “Just take me home, Ron. And do something that will mean you’ll have to stay with me, forever and ever.”
She held his face in her hands, guiding his mouth to hers, kissing him for the first time in months, deeply and joyfully. He sighed, breathing his voice into her mouth. She drove the pace higher, devouring what was left of him, her hands on his chest, clawing at his clothes before she drew back, still pecking lightly at his lips and face even as she kept talking.
“You are eighteen years old,” she said. “Historically, that hasn't been an unusual age for a wizard to start a family. Especially in war time."
"Historically?" he smirked. “You’re a historian now?”
She ignored it, ploughing on with her proposal. "And babies -- well, you’re your birth mother’s son, aren’t you? Twins, triplets, whatever you want -- they’re yours, Ron. Take me home with you. Don't ever leave my sight again.”
Short minutes before, he wouldn’t have thought it could be possible for him to be smiling again so soon. But he was smiling now -- laughing. He wasn't sure if he wanted to get Pansy pregnant, but he was sure he wanted to try. Her legs pulled him snugly against the crux of her body, making all the decisions before him seem deceptively easy.
Still smiling, he spoke against her lips. “Be careful, Pansy love. I’m tired and impressionable right now, liable to give you exactly what you’re asking for.”
She broke away from his mouth with a loud smacking sound. “Good, then let’s go.”
As she watched, his face darkened with grief again. “I'm sorry, love. I need to take leave of Molly before I go anywhere. I don’t know if you heard about Fred but -- I can’t leave until I see the Weasleys and know for certain they’re taken care of.”
Pansy had heard about Fred. She bowed her head, nodding. “Of course,” she said. She dropped her legs from around Ronald’s waist and slid off the bannister to stand on the stairs.
He took her hand. “Come with me,” he said. “Come help me comfort our family.”
They found the surviving Weasleys still gathered around Fred’s body. The agony of the early moments after his death had receded into an awful ache. This agony was theirs for life, and it would crest again later, expectedly and unexpectedly. But for now, the lot of them were quiet and grave. George lay slumped with his head on Fred’s cold stomach, his father’s hand stroking his back.
Molly was shifted from Percy’s arms to Ronald’s and he held her, speaking softly of funeral arrangements. When the rest of the family joined in, and the conversation turned to the logistics of moving Fred to Aunt Muriel’s house to prepare him for burial in the Prewett family cemetery, Ronald’s attention drifted elsewhere. At the back of the hall, stood over a table mixing potions, he spotted two heads of shining platinum hair.
“Mother,” he said under his breath.
Not letting go of Pansy’s hand, he trotted toward Narcissa. It was clear what had happened. For the duration of the war, Malfoy Manor had been used as a hospital for the Order. Narcissa had taken the lead as the healer there. At the end of sixth year, Draco had gone home for the summer, and while Ronald went with Harry to hunt horcruxes, Draco hadn’t returned to school either, but stayed at home to run the hospital with his parents.
Today, it made sense to bring the hospital to the battle, and here the pair of them were at Hogwarts, working with Madam Pomfrey to heal what they could, and stabilizing the rest to send them off to St. Mungo’s in London.
Ronald looked over his shoulder again. Did Hermione know Draco was here?
It was a question that, like so many others on this day, would have to wait. There was a second wand tucked into Ronald’s sleeve, made from unyielding walnut, Bellatrix Lestrange’s wand. Hermione had given it to him to return to his mother, Bellatrix’s sister. Watching Narcissa working with cool composure, he wondered if she knew what had become of Bellatrix. Did she know Molly had killed her in defense of her children, his sister and brothers.
“Mum?” he called.
At the sound of his voice, Narcissa’s head shot up.
Draco looked too, tense and wild, as if he’d been waiting. “Is she alright?” was all he said.
Ronald nodded, grinning. “Yeah, she’s brilliant.”
Draco let out his breath with so much force he bent over the table. Narcissa smiled as she pounded him on the back. “There you have it, darling. Now concentrate.” She was pushing a vial of thick pink potion into Draco’s hand, leaving him in charge as she rushed to Ronald, holding his face and kissing both of his cheeks.
“My darling, you look a sight,” she said. “It’s all over here for everyone but Poppy, Draco, and me -- and Severus, if he ever gets here. Go home, Ronald. Your father is there. You’ll be safe. You can eat -- you’d better. Just look at you. Skinny as when you were in primary school.”
“Mum, wait,” he said, letting go of Pansy and pulling his mother's hands from where she’d been feeling his ribs. He held them still as he produced Bellatrix’s wand.
Narcissa’s face paled at the sight of it. Her fingers closed over the tip of the wand. “So she’s fallen, has she?”
He nodded. “Yes. She’s gone.”
Narcissa raised her head, looking down the length of the hall to where the rows of unclaimed dead, their faces covered with sheets, lay waiting. Bellatrix would be among them. In time, she would have uncovered her sister herself. Now she knew to expect it. Maybe she always had. Narcissa nodded, tucking the walnut wand into her robes. “Thank you, Ronald. Now go home, darling. We’ll join you when we can.”
“Mum, are you sure you can keep at it after -- “
“Yes,” she said. “Bella chose this death herself, long, long ago. I’ve had years to prepare for it. Too long, and never long enough. Please -- Draco needs my help. I can’t dwell on this now. But I’ll feel better about everything if I know you’re comfortable at home. Take Miss Parkinson home and go.”
---------------------------------
Not much later, Harry Potter and Severus Snape came shouting into the triage hall.
“Shut up, Potter!"
"Don't you speak to me that way! Not anymore. How could you let him -- ”
"Cissa, help!" Snape cut him off.
She looked up from her potions and saw not two men coming in together, but three. Between Harry and Snape dangled the pale yellow form of Albus Dumbledore, his eyes half-closed, his head lolling. His robes were soaked in blood. It must have come from the wound in his throat, still trickling.
"Snake bite," Snape said as Draco and Narcissa pulled the headmaster onto a cot. "You know the one."
“Draco -- “
“The antivenom, yes. Here.”
"But it's dead," Harry protested. "The snake -- Neville -- he -- ”
“Only very recently,” Snape snapped in return. “It was indeed the Dark Lord’s familiar that did this, while still alive. I know. I saw him order the attack.”
Narcissa frowned. “He ordered a snake attack on Dumbledore? Sent a familiar after the greatest living wizard of our time?"
"No, of course not. He set the snake on me." The words burst out of Snape like a confession. "Professor Dumbledore interceded to rescue me. He hasn't stirred since, though he should have been able to repel the snake easily. But then -- I can't explain why -- ”
Behind him, Draco swore, soflty, as if terrified. He and Narcissa had pulled Dumbledore’s robes and inner garment away from his body to better see his wound. Beneath his clothing, the flesh on the left side of his body from his fingertips to his sternum was mottled black, as if his skin was smeared and stained with poisoned coal dust from the inside.
A cry of alarm went up from Harry. Snape fell to his knees beside the cot.
Narcissa was shaking her head. “This is no snake bite.”
“The curse,” Snape nodded. “From the incident with the resurrection stone in the horcrux ring.”
Narcissa hissed. “By all the stars, Severus.”
Harry’s jaw quivered as he spoke. “Since sixth year, his fingers were black. That was the beginning of -- this?”
Snape wrenched his own neck, forcing himself to explain. “Yes, I knew he was afflicted this way. And I knew how it would end, and that it was utterly hopeless. But he assured me the progress was slow, not yet past the shoulder. I should have insisted on examining him myself. As it is -- ”
Harry was incendiary. “He told me it was just old age. That he needed rest and peace and he’d be fine. But you knew this was happening? You were watching over him and you did nothing?"
Narcissa stepped between them. "Mr. Potter, this involves spell damage from a horcrux and a hallows together. There isn't anything anyone could have done."
"Everyone get out of the way then," Harry was saying, veering around them, reaching for a wand, any wand. He was the bloody chosen one, handler of horcruxes, of hallows, of anything. If they'd just let him --
“Listen!" Draco called over the commotion. "Listen," he repeated once the room had gone still. From the end of his wand, a line of red light bobbed, marking the rhythm of Dumbledore's heart, every slow bob matched to a soft tone, growing softer, fainter, smaller, until it was gone, and the light went out.
Harry let out a howl, falling on Dumbledore's bare blackened chest to listen for his heartbeat with his ear. There was nothing, just the noise of his own weeping echoing through the empty chamber of his headmaster’s ribcage. Arthur Weasley pulled him back and took him into their circle, Ginny's arms around him, her tears in his hair. Percy dashed off to find Professor McGonagall and bring her the news.
Severus collapsed to sit on the filthy stone floor. "This can't be, Cissa," he moaned. "It can't have happened for me. Not me. It's a waste. A crime."
"It is what he chose," she said, sinking to her knees on the floor beside him. She held his face, his eyes clenched tightly closed. "Severus, darling, please," she said as he began to sob.
Draco turned away from them, reverently refastening the robes over Dumbledore's body, laying a sheet over him.
He'd come to accept the significance of Snape’s connection to himself, and to his parents. But there was something between Snape and his mother that had nothing to do with him or Lucius. Narcissa and Snape weren't just parties to the same Gravida Triadum spell. No matter what Snape had told him when he was younger, they were two people who loved each other, who trusted each other completely, who needed each other. It was strange -- not quite right, but beautiful, powerful. And it was something Draco left to itself. He stepped away from the bedside and returned to his potions.
"Waste," Snape sobbed between the foot of the bed where Dumbledore lay and the warmth of Narcissa’s hands.
"Not at all," she cooed, still bracing either side of Severus’s face. "This great man chose a life, a future for you. It was no mistake. It was a conscious show of his love for you."
Snape shuddered, unable to bear it.
"And here is mine," she said. Narcissa kissed his cheeks, and then, very sweetly, his mouth. It was not a chaste kiss -- too warm, too open and lush with feeling. But it was not wholly carnal either. It reached Snape like a spell, calming his sobs, his eyes clear and open as she drew away.
He breathed her name and let his head fall against her shoulder, the trembling in his body beginning to still.
"Let the headmaster teach you this last lesson," she said into his ear as she smoothed his wild black hair. "Learn that you are loved. By this great wizard, and by the family you created. By me. Learn that, and live."
His large, thin hand formed to the back of her head, pulling her forehead against his. And he answered with a single nod.
She rose to standing, bringing him with her. Draco saw their unsteadiness and rushed to help. Snape swayed on his feet and Draco reached for him, but Snape stopped him with one raised hand.
“It's alright, Draco,” he said, patting his shoulder. "I'm alright, my son."
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Draco was exhausted, the shine of the early moments following the victory had been dulled by hours of wounds and death. The triage hall was nearly quiet now. Dumbledore lay with the rest of the dead. The Weasleys had gone, taking Potter with them. Narcissa had taken Snape back to the manor. Ronald would be there by now too. It was for the best that Draco couldn't imagine his brother as he was at that moment, reclining in a warm, sudsy bath while his brand new fiancee balanced nimbly on the porcelaine edge, washing his hair.
Dim orange lights burned from sconces in the walls, and Madam Pomfrey herself lay on a cot, about to fall into her one-eye-open sleep.
Draco might have been the only creature still moving through the mostly abandoned castle. He stood packing supplies back into the extendible bag his mother had left with him. Finally, his thoughts were his own, and they went where they always did -- to her. Where was she? Why hadn’t Hermione Granger found him yet? Ronald said she was alright. She could walk and see. Where was she?
Maybe she’d already gone back to the manor with everyone else. Her parents had been staying there for the past eight months. Lucius and the ancient enchantments of his old house had been keeping them hidden and safe from the Dark Lord. There wouldn't be any more need for that.
He might just miss them when they returned to London. The Grangers themselves had remarked that they’d spent more time with Draco that year than they’d spent with their own daughter in the past seven. Ann and Tim Granger -- they were like family now.
The thought of it raised goosebumps on the backs of Draco’s legs. There was something about war that drove people to make families. Dr. Tim said it was the same for Muggles, that they even had a name for it: something about babies and booms, or maybe it was bangs. He warned Draco about it, as if it might be a bad thing. Draco wasn’t tempted by the thought of babies, but the bang part...
She approached him from behind, pausing at the entrance to the hall, struck to be in the presence of what she had been longing for and dreaming about for months and months. Draco was mere metres away now, a silhouette lit only by the dim lights in front of him. Hermione hadn’t touched him since Bill Weasley’s wedding. Now here he stood, with shoulders that might be broader than when she’d cupped her hands over them as they danced together under a tent at the Burrow.
At the potions table, the movements of his hands and arms, of his head on his long, fine neck, were quick and precise, lithe, almost like he was still dancing, as if he was more of an artist than a medic.
Even in this hellish chaos, he was sure of himself, competent, natural, not a child, just as she was no longer a child. If, through all that had passed this year, they still fit together the way they used to, she would never let go of him again.
His medical bag clicked as he closed it. She snagged a breath, and waited as he turned around.
They stood for a moment, staring, speechless before he rushed at her, snatching her off her feet and turning in a circle. “Granger,” he said into her ear, a hot hungry growl.
She couldn’t speak his name in return. His mouth was on hers, no shyness, nothing restrained. He crushed himself into her, her nose against his cheek, breathing his scent, her mouth open, tasting him again. Every breath she took seemed to expand her body and soul, restoring her from her dingy, scrawny wartime self to what she used to be -- glowing and robust, the way she was that night she got caught in the corridors after curfew, and Draco saved her with a kiss that changed both of their lives.
“What took you so long?” he said as he dragged his mouth from hers.
“McGonagall,” she answered, swaying, breathless. He hadn’t waited for an answer before kissing from her chin to her collar bone. “I was coming into the castle just as Percy brought her word about Dumbledore, and since all the other teachers had scattered -- oh -- stars, Malfoy. Um, she took me into her office and we cried and made plans for Hogwarts’ rebuilding and future.”
He groaned and pulled away again. “That’s what kept you from our victory snog? You were having a job interview to join McGonagall’s team at Hogwarts?”
She shoved at his chest. “It’s not like I didn’t know you were busy here.”
“I was but -- hell, Granger, even my mum took a moment to kiss Snape -- “
“She WHAT?”
“Don’t change the subject.”
“Me? It’s you who’s -- ”
He kissed her quiet again, her words muffled into the high, soft hum that always undid him. The sound jolted through his arms, and he yanked her onto her tiptoes. She made another sound, a tiny yelp of delighted surprise, and on they went, stoking each other’s fires until, in the hall beyond them, Madam Pomfrey cleared her throat.
He broke away, his hands moving from her waist to just beneath her arms and back again. “Let’s go somewhere. We’ve never been alone together as proper adults before and -- there -- we -- we might want to -- relate to each other -- differently now.”
Her pulse surged, catching his meaning, her cheeks flushing. “Alright,” she said, her throat suddenly dry. “The manor?”
He shook his head. “No. Everyone will be there.”
“Does it matter? That’s where Ronald took Pansy. I saw them leave.”
“Exactly. My poor mother’s nerves. Don’t forget your mum is waiting there for us too.”
Hermione grimaced. “Maybe that’s good. I should probably report to my parents first. Not that Ronald won’t have already told them I’m alright, but still...”
Draco tipped his head against hers, groaning a quiet protest.
“Or maybe we could go to London instead, to their house. No one’s using it. And then I could get cleaned up before my parents have to see me, so they won’t worry about me being all grimy and bloody -- “
“Done,” Draco said, and with the Hogwarts wards in tatters, he apparated both of them into the front hall of the Grangers’ house.
In a twisting, pulling instant they stood in the silence of the house she was raised in, his arms around her in the dark. Hermione didn’t light her wand but fumbled for the light switch, a little surprised to find the power still on. Draco squinted and blinked in the sudden overheard electric light. His discomfiture was sweet and vulnerable, and she kissed him again. The new privacy of the small, empty house heated them in a new way. In the narrow hall, she was quickly backed against the wall, her head pressed against the glass covering her grandmother’s unmoving portrait, Draco’s mouth on her neck again, one hand pulling at her jumper to bare her shoulder to him.
“Malfoy, wait. I’m filthy. I haven’t washed in days.”
His voice was a husky monotone. “Doesn’t matter.”
‘Well, it matters to me,” she said, half-laughing, tugging the collar of her jumper back into place. “I don’t want to risk your first sight of all of me being of me at my worst.”
He straightened his posture. “My first sight of all of you? So you’re -- we’re -- going to -- ?”
“We’re going to remain open to every possibility,” she said with more warmth than primness. “I’ll go up and shower. You go through to the lounge, lie down on the sofa, get some rest, and wait for me.”
By the time she came back, fresh and clean, wearing a fluffy dressing gown over a set of blue satin pyjamas, Draco was facedown and asleep on her parents’ sofa. She didn’t mean to wake him, but the war had made light sleepers of them all. He startled to sitting as soon as she knelt on the floor beside him.
“Sorry,” she said, as he took her hand and raised her to sit next to him. It wasn’t close enough, and he pulled her into his lap, her dressing gown a thick and bothersome barrier between them. She might have batted her eyelashes as she said, “So after all this time, do you still like me?”
He barked a laugh. “Yes. Yes, I do.”
She rolled her eyes. “I can tell you still want to snog me. But that’s not what I’m asking.”
He tightened the link of his arms around her waist. “I fell more in love with you this year, not less. I got to know your mind better than ever with each of the metre-long parchments you wrote and had sent to me somehow. And I lived with your parents. Got to a preview of what you might be like when you’re middle-aged. Got to hear all their stories of you as a jabbering precocious obnoxious little girl, and not even that discouraged me.” He brushed the end of his nose inside her ear.
“And Mum and Dad like you?” she prodded.
He scoffed. “No need to sound so surprised, Granger. In fact, your dad let me in on a little bit of Muggle culture. He told me a few things about postwar baby bangs.”
“Baby bangs?” she repeated, fingering her forehead, where a fringe would be if she still had one.
“Baby bangs,” he insisted. “You know. When young people come home from war and get right down to life affirming marrying and reproducing.”
“Oh!” she said, laughing. She squeezed his cheeks between her hands. “Yes, of course. Baby bangs. Oh, aren’t you darling?”
“And based on that,” Draco said, speaking over her laughter as she released his face. “Based on that, when I see Dr. Tim again, I’m going to ask his permission to propose to you.”
Her laughter cut off abruptly. “Ask his permission?”
There was something chilling in her tone, but Draco kept talking anyway. “Yes. I was raised right and I know that any decent family begins with the blessing of its forebears -- “
“You know that what?” She pushed at his chest. “Draco Malfoy, I am not chattel to be transferred through an agreement between a pair of men.”
“No, of course you’re not,” he said. “But you are precious and I take our future seriously, with all the formalities intact, and I intend -- “
She was struggling to stand, to get out of his hold. “You intend to preserve the backward, stratifying etiquette of the dangerous, destructive pure-blood ideology that got us into this nightmare of a war in the first place? Is that what you intend?”
“I clearly do not give a damn about any pure-blood ideology,” he said, rising to stand in front of her.
They stood close, their chests heaving, cheeks flushed. She glared up at him, her lips parted, her eyes on his mouth. She wasn’t sure whether to yell at him more or to accept him at his word, believe what she already knew about him, throw herself back into his arms, and let their anger transmute into passion once again.
By the stars, she missed him.
There was no time for any of that. There was scraping at the front door, metal muggle keys turning in the lock, and two dear voices Hermione hadn’t heard for too long.
---------------------------
Draco and all three of the Grangers were comfortably installed in the lounge, a cup of tea in everyone’s hands, Tim sat in his armchair with his feet in his slippers, sighing with satisfaction as he took in the sight of his own house, his own daughter -- the young man she must have brought here intending to shag notwithstanding.
“Get that nice warm tea down you, Draco,” Ann said. “And have a biscuit, Hermione. You’re deadly thin. What a day you’ve all had. Cissa was quite exhausted and that gloomy chemistry teacher looked like the walking dead by the time they got back to the manor this evening.”
Draco smiled as pleasantly as he could and sipped obediently at his tea. On the rug, his foot covered Hermione’s, the only place he was touching her, much to his frustration.
“Just like old times, having all of us together in the house again, isn’t it?” Tim observed. “The only thing missing is Ronald.”
“Well, I don’t reckon he’s missing us much tonight,” Draco said, his teacup clicking back into his saucer on the coffee table. “If I know our Ronald, he’s at the manor getting engaged right now.”
Tim reached across the arm of his chair to bat knowingly at Ann’s arm. “See, it’s like I said, darling. They’ve had their war and now they’re after having a baby boom.”
“Baby boom,” Draco repeated under his breath, tapping his fist against his forehead.
Hermione smirked and swapped the positions of their feet so hers was on top of his.
“That will be that Parkinson girl Ronald’s with,” Ann mused. “How nice for Cissa. She’s from one of their fellow traditional families of wizards. The ones with no ambitions for their daughters outside of running a splendid household.”
“You don’t know that, Mum,” Hermione said.
“Don’t I?” Ann intoned.
All at once, Draco was on his feet. “Doctors Granger, I am not asking permission,” he said. “Hermione won’t let me. But I am telling both of you, most respectfully, lovingly even, that I am going to ask your daughter to marry me. Soon.”
There was a beat of silence as Tim and Ann sat dumbfounded over their tea.
“And I’m going to say ‘yes.’” Hermione had stood up beside Draco and taken him by the hand, her eyes fixed on her parents. “Whenever he asks me, I’m going to agree to it. Happily, whole-heartedly.”
Draco let out a rough breath and closed his other hand over hers.
But the silence deepened, terrifying him. Draco panicked and started speaking again. “I want Hermione for a wife, not -- not for -- for babies. I mean -- someday yes, but -- I like that Hermione wants more than just a household. No -- no, not JUST a household, as if it’s not important because -- the babies will be our first priority -- once they come. I mean, of course. But for now it’s -- I -- it’s not that kind of boom -- “
Ann raised a hand. “Hermione, please. Tell your poor dear intended to stop.”
Tim was standing, one arm bending around Draco’s shoulders, his hand patting him hard on the chest. “No need to worry yourself, Draco. You’re alright. And thank you for not asking permission. It’s between the two of you alone.”
“Yes, kindly leave us out of it. Very mature of you,” Ann said, her arms raised to hug Hermione, her neck bending to kiss her. And for the first time, Ann boosted herself onto her toes to kiss Draco on the cheek as well.
“Right then,” Tim said, both eyebrows still raised. “That’s enough excitement for one night, don’t you think, Ann?”
“Yes, I do,” she said stepping toward the door. “We’re off to bed. Don’t stay up too late. Draco, you know your way to the guest room.”
“‘Night,” Hermione sang as they left. She knew her parents wanted to be alone to discuss what they'd just heard. They would deal with Draco and Hermione once they knew one another's minds, but not until morning.
In the meantime, Draco melted onto the sofa. “What did I do? Granger, what did I say? Something just came over me, and now -- ”
“Now you get to stay here,” she said, hopping onto the sofa, landing on her knees, facing him where he sat, draping her torso over his chest.
He raised his hand to caress her face. “I get to stay here in the guest room. You heard her.”
She laughed as she slumped against his neck.
He blew out a pouty breath. “It’s not funny.”
“It’s a little funny.”
He twisted toward her, pushing her onto her back and coming to lie on top of her on the sofa. She arched her back as his weight pushed her into the cushions. He threaded his arms through the space it created between her back and the sofa, holding her tightly and purring into her ear. “When did you take up giggling?”
“I am not giggling.”
“Yes, you are. And I like it. Immensely.”
He was telling the truth. She felt it, the excitement he used to try to hide from her warm and insistent between them now. She moved beneath him and he didn't bother to stifle a quiet moan as she raised her head to kiss him.
"You know," she began, "Mum told you to sleep in the guest room, but she hasn't told me NOT to sleep in the guest room with you."
His face broke into a massive smirk. "That's my girl." He set to kissing her again, and she answered hotly, letting herself climb toward what they'd been building to for years.
"Hermione," he said after a moment, as her fingernails clicked against his belt buckle. "We can't catch your mother in a technicality and sneak off to try to lose our virginity in the room next to her without waking her up. That's not how we want this."
She sighed and tried to catch her breath. "No, I don't suppose we can. Especially after they kept such cool heads during all that talk of proposals."
Draco hefted himself back to sitting, tugging her upwards with him. “I’ll go back to the manor for now. I’ll organize a few things, and see you tomorrow.”
She whimpered a protest and nuzzled at the flesh below his ear.
“I’ll be back, Granger,” he said, stroking her back, hearty affection coming in where lust had been a moment before, letting her know his mind wouldn’t be easily changed. “I’ll be back, and I’ll be ready.”
----------------------------------
The manor lit its lamps as Draco arrived, not brightly, as for a returning hero, but with a common warmth that spoke of the end of heroics for now. He stood at the foot of the stairs and wondered if his parents were still awake. There were heirloom rings that had been passed around the family at betrothals for hundreds of years, and he figured he’d have to work fast to beat Ronald to first crack at them.
Before he could begin to mount the stairs, there was a clatter of silverware, far away, in the kitchen at the back of the house. Draco moved toward it. There were more lights the closer he got, until at last, standing over the counter piling cold food onto a platter, like a picnic, stood Ronald. He was wearing pyjama bottoms and a dressing gown that had come untied as he worked, revealing his lean, undernourished chest and abdomen.
“Stars, Ronald,” Draco called to him. “Glad to see you're up all night eating. Look at you.”
“I know, right?” Ronald said, glancing down at himself, grinning in spite of what he saw. “Got to keep my strength up, don’t I.”
Draco caught him in a rough embrace, clapping him on the back. He stood back, his face half-grimace, half-smirk. “You smell like flowers.”
Ronald beamed. “Exactly. Pansy’s upstairs.”
Draco snickered. “More private chess lessons?"
"Definitely not."
Draco laughed loudly now. "I thought so. You brazen thing -- and Mum and Dad aren’t bothering you?”
Ronald whistled. “Oh, they’re bothered. Dad’s livid, in fact. On my way down here I stopped by their room to let them know I already had a go at Pansy without a contraception spell and we’d better get a wedding together soon.”
Draco choked out a laugh. “You idiot! You didn’t!”
“We did. How could I refuse after she washed my hair and scrubbed my back for me?”
“Ack! No details,” Draco winced.
Ronald rolled his eyes. “Oh, grow up, Draco. Starting a family is how Pansy wants to move on from all of this and -- what can I say, Prewett genetics must run deep. I’m all for it.”
Draco punched him hard on the bicep.
Ronald yelped and rubbed his arm, still smiling. “Dad’s so riled up about disgracing Malfoy babies by having them born out of wedlock he’s sworn to have us married by tomorrow evening, in the garden. It’ll be a small affair, of course. But no one cares about things like that right now. It’s perfect, really.”
Draco plucked an olive off the picnic platter. “It is,” he agreed. “You’re a lucky man.”
Ronald huffed. “No luck about it. We made this happen, Pansy and I.” He watched his brother picking the pimento out of the centre of the nicked olive. “What’s wrong, Draco? You look -- I don’t know, jealous isn’t the word. It’s more like -- “
“Wistful,” Draco finished. “Hermione -- she says she’ll marry me, if we ever get around to it, but if it’s not the right thing now, then when?”
Ronald grasped his forearm. “Bring her. Tomorrow. Bring Hermione and the Grangers and marry her here. We can make it two weddings in one, and then we can all get on with our lives, together.”
“We’re eighteen -- “
“Hang it,” Ronald said. “You don’t need a baby. It’s right for us, but that’s personal. It’s all personal. Figure out what’s right for the pair of you. I mean, you’ve been together nearly three years, weathered everything under the stars -- you’ve earned the right to not worry about other people’s ideas about waiting and aging. They’ve got nothing to do with you.”
Draco was nodding into his chest. “Thanks, mate. I’ll think about it.”
Ronald pulled him in for one more hug. Draco returned his embrace, and he stood still even as Ronald kept him longer than he expected. They stood quietly, Draco sensing that Ronald was gathering strength, preparing to say something more, something hard.
“I lost a brother today,” Ronald said. “It’s awful in all sorts of ways -- ones I hadn’t even imagined. But the worst part was seeing George left alone -- his Gemini pair hacked in two. And I’ll admit something now, but only to you. I’m sick with guilt at how relieved I was that it didn't have to be us.” Ronald’s voice cracked, his face pressed hard into Draco’s shoulder, and they clung to each other as he cried.
------------------------------------------
Hermione Jean Granger was nothing if not a practical young woman and it took no convincing at all for her to join in on the Malfoy wedding already scheduled for the next day. The Grangers themselves had grown accustomed to the flamboyant drama of wizarding life in general and of the Malfoys in particular, and even they came without much complaint to be part of the tiny group that watched their brilliant daughter settle into married life a few months before her nineteenth birthday.
Narcissa dressed her up like a witch princess, and Hermione was married in a garden of ancient topiaries and rose bushes just beginning to bud. There hadn’t been such a gathering, three Madam Malfoys all in one place, in generations.
For honeymoons, Ronald and Pansy left for a villa on the continent while Draco and Hermione chose a cottage the Malfoys kept in Wales, near the sea. It was uncharacteristically small for a Malfoy property, but the newlyweds didn’t need much space for what they wanted to accomplish while there.
“All I’m hoping for,” Hermione said as Draco ducked slightly to carry her through the doorway, “is a full and proper dose of your potion eleven, to restore me after my long ordeal and initiate me into a beautiful new life.”
“It would be my pleasure,” he murmured into her ear as he kicked the door closed and staggered into bed.
There’s nothing quite like a very young husband well-equipped for attempt after attempt at getting things right. By the time the time came to leave the cottage and return to life in England, the Granger-Malfoys, ever the eager researchers, believed they had this new phase of their lives down to a science and an art. They were comfortable, satisfied, starting to smell the same.
“Are you sad to be going back? Devastated this break is over?” Hermione asked him, her head on his bare chest in the moonlight streaming through their cottage window on their final night in Wales.
He pulled one of her curls straight and let it spring back. “Not really,” he confessed. “Frankly, it stopped being a break once we got serious about cataloguing all the novel fungi in the garden.”
She giggled and turned her head, her chin on the top of her hand, over his heart. From there, she studied his face in the silver-blue light, all angles and shadows. "My husband makes the most beautiful botanical sketches."
He gave a gentle scoff. "Yes, well. We can't stay in bed all the time. That's what you told me, anyway."
She thrummed her fingers against his ribcage and laid her cheek on his skin again. "Wherever we are, you and I aren't meant for relaxing,” she agreed. “Not when there’s so much to see and know and fix and -- feel.”
She heard the smile in his hummed reply, his fingers curling through her hair, sorting out any snags worked into it from all that time on her back.
“Have you made a decision about pursuing healing as a job yet?” she asked, one finger tracing the line from his ear, along his throat to his shoulder. “I don’t mean to push but -- “
“Pushy? You? No, of course not,” he laughed, untangling his hand from her hair to smooth the skin of her back with the firm pressure of his palms. It felt nice enough to make her sigh, and then he was sighing too. “Actually, I’ve been thinking about Hogwarts instead. About the new start you and McGonagall are planning.”
She sat up slightly as his hands settled into the curves of her waist. “You’d come work with me? As potions master at Hogwarts now Slughorn’s going back into retirement?”
He seemed shy about continuing. “No, actually. As a teacher of fine arts. Literature beyond ancient runes, architecture, drawing -- all the things Hogwarts has never offered, but which life, even a magical life, is a bit hollow without. It was the pure-blood families on the board of governors, people like my father, who kept it out of the curriculum. They wanted high culture for their children alone, to firm up the class divisions, keep people apart. I owe it to the school to help bring it back to everyone.”
She inched up the bed, along his body, to kiss his mouth. “Draco, that’s brilliant.”
“I hope your headmistress thinks so,” he said, pulling her close again, arranging her on top of himself. His stomach was filling with butterflies, the way it still did in the moments right before they joined themselves together.
She held onto him as he moved, one hand coming free to brush his hair from his forehead. “And if she doesn’t, we’ll find another way.”
“Yes, you and me,” he breathed into her face. “We’ll make it right.”