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May 2018
They’d both changed a lot, these two halves of a loaf. Well, not exactly halves of a loaf. More like…slices of an incomplete cake? Or maybe a couple layers of a cake. Ingredients? Oh for pity’s sake. She supposed the terrible food metaphors were an inevitable consequence as she stood, transfixed, as this man bought her coffee and her scone. They’d been dancing around one another for what, five? Seven? Twenty years now? Perhaps, she thought, they’d been coming toward this since they were eleven. Since he’d sneered at her, and she’d barked at him. Since he’d called her a slur and she’d smacked him across the face. Since his mother had saved her best friend’s life. Since she’d forgiven, though not forgotten.
May 1998
They’d first seen each other again in St. Mungo’s after the Battle of Hogwarts. She’d been waiting for news on…Merlin, she couldn’t remember now. She’d spent weeks…months just waiting. Waiting for news. Waiting to see if the healers could fix them. She’d wait for George while he saw his mind healer. She’d wait with Professor McGonagall as student after student were released from the care of the Mediwitches into the arms of waiting members of their families. She waited to hear if her parents’ memories could be recovered and restored.
One day in the interminable, mind-numbing waiting, she’d glimpsed that shock of white-blond hair coming out of the Spell Damage Ward. She’d snuck the casualty and injury reports from Andromeda’s scrolls and know his parents were alive. But his mother had been reported as “tremor—essential, Cruciatus; neurological—damage unknown”. She remembered every injury, no matter the side. She read Andy’s scrolls obsessively. Even knowing his mother was likely being treated in hospital there didn’t dampen the shock she felt when she saw that hair.
It was limp. Greasy, even. That was her first thought. “Gods above and below that hair needs washed.” He walked with a slight hunch, as if somehow shrinking himself would hide who he was, what he had done. He dragged his feet across the floor and his eyes stayed downcast as he leaned against the wall. His left arm braced against the stark white wall as his right moved behind his head to squeeze the base of his skull. She saw the glint of his monitoring manacle at his wrist when he brought his hand back to his side. She remembered thinking it was interesting that they’d put it on his right hand instead of his left. He shook himself and turned around; their eyes connected across the hall for just one moment.
It only took that moment for them to see something in each other’s faces. Hermione remembered they’d both exhaled, as if in unison and nodded, turning back to their places. She returned to her knitting while facing another one of her seemingly infinite afternoons playing dutiful supporter while her people were in hospital. He straightened, striding confidently back into his mother’s room.
They didn’t see one another again until the day of his trial.
November 1998
It was winter by then. He’d been on strict house arrest, though she’d no idea where since Malfoy Manor was no longer habitable, with only daily visits to his mother in the Spell Damage Ward. The papers had a field day with that. The Prophet headlines were always some variations of “Damaged Death Eater Wife and Mother” and some epithet about how her son shouldn’t get to visit her and how St. Mungo’s shouldn’t be wasting resources on a terrorist. “How can we spare the healers?” the articles would say. As if those writing had cared when people were being slaughtered in the streets. As if they’d cared when children were being tortured in in the hallways of Hogwarts. The by-lines were the same. Hermione had checked. Ron and Harry and every Weasley within reach had been on the receiving end of her tirades about the failures of the press and how everyone was entitled to medical care and how “It’s a human rights violation! The United Nations would have a bloody conniption if they knew about this!”
Well, now she’d get to say her piece and the whole Merlin-be-damned Wizarding World was going to listen.
Courtroom Ten
“The Honourable Member calls Ms. Hermione J. Granger to the stand to read a prepared statement. Ms. Granger, you have the floor.”
“Thank you, your honour,” she intoned shakily as she turned toward the assembled onlookers. Harry had tried desperately to have Malfoy’s trial moved to one of the lesser courtrooms, or to at least have a significantly reduced gallery presence, but it would not be borne. Kingsley couldn’t throw his weight around every time harry wanted something. He just couldn’t. So here she was, staring out at a sea of nearly two hundred people all hoping she would damn the man shackled and caged before them all.
She took a deep breath and began, “The first thing Draco Malfoy ever did to me was sneer. He didn’t really know I was a Muggleborn yet. He just knew I was most decidedly not a Pureblood, and certainly not an aristocrat, and thus I was beneath his dignity to acknowledge beyond condescension. The first name he ever called me to my face was ‘mudblood’.” The audience audibly gasped. “I’d never heard the term before then. I didn’t know it was a slur. I just knew that it hurt.
“Not many people get to look at the bully who made their life a daily hell and tell them so. Fewer still get to do so in a court of law.” She swallowed. “But whether or not Draco Malfoy was a bully is immaterial. Because he was a child. We were and are all still children. We are children who were drafted into a war not of our own making but of your.” She stared out into the crowd, willing them to understand. “We are what this world made of us.
“As soon as the Sorting Hat placed us into different houses, we were enemies. Not rivals. Enemies. I was good and he was evil, simply because he wore green, and I wore red. Because I was brave, and he was cunning. We were eleven years old. We weren’t anything at eleven other than children.” The tears had started welling in her eyes, but she was not going to—could not—stop.
“When Albus Dumbledore decided we would be on opposite sides of a war none of us wanted to truly fight in, we were doomed to hate one another. When blood prejudices ran so deep in the new society I was thrust into with no training and no warning—blood prejudices that would manifest in scars both physical and mental—we were doomed to repeat the sins of the past.” She held up her arm that was still showing the deep scars carved there by Bellatrix Lestrange. “When a sixteen-year-old boy is tasked with murdering his headmaster while another is tasked with killing a madman, they are bound to be against one another.
“But these boys also did other things. Draco Malfoy gave tours of Hogwarts to Slytherin first years so they wouldn’t get lost or assaulted by members of the others houses. Harry Potter nearly got other students killed when he tried to save Sirius Black in the Department of Mysteries. Both boys had little choice in their fates. None of us really had one, in the end.”
She took a breath, “Draco Malfoy did, however, make one very important choice. A choice that likely changed the tide of the war. He said the words ‘I can’t be sure’.” She finally allowed herself to look at him. He was shocked. Gob smacked. Mouth hanging open, no hint of his stiff upper lip, shocked. She’d never seen his mask slip so far. She didn’t continue for almost a full minute.
“When Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and myself,” she restarted, “were caught by Snatchers and t-t-taken to Malfoy M-m-manor, Draco Malfoy was asked point blank by his father, in the home occupied and ruined by a madman, to identify Harry Potter. When asked to so, the young man before you said he couldn’t be sure. His father asked this of him and even though the man he had revered as a young child pleaded with him to do so, Draco Malfoy did not identify Harry. It took remarkable courage.”
She paused, again, looking around at all the faces who assumed she’d be advocating for his imprisonment or for the Kiss. She’d practically placed them in a full-body bind.
“Without Draco Malfoy, none of us would be here today I do not presume to know the best course of legal action. But I believe in rehabilitation. I believe that people deserve a second chance, outside the world they once knew. Draco Malfoy was given one path in life, and he walked it. He excelled at it, in fact. Except. Except. He strayed but once when he saved Harry Potter’s life and thus saved us all.”
The silence in Courtroom Ten was deafening as Hermione made her way out. She couldn’t stop herself from glancing back at him, and for the first time since she’d known him, she saw the smallest glimmer in his grey eyes of hope.
The next time they saw one another she was completely pissed.
October 2001
She hated this day. Absolutely, no holds barred, hated this day. Halloween had so many of her worst memories. So she’d found herself a random field in Wiltshire of all places, plopped herself down and started drinking. There was a portkey stuffed in her pocket for her to get home and a bluebell flame bottle in her trusty beaded bag.
The others hadn’t understood why she didn’t want to celebrate this year. It had been three years since the end of the war. She and Ron were “on a break” at the moment, whatever that seemed to mean. She’d wanted to take some time. They’d been talking marriage and families and she’d, frankly, freaked the fuck out. So they were taking some time to sort it out. Or rather, she was. She didn’t know if she even wanted children, let alone now. She was only twenty-one! Her parents hadn’t even met each other…
The feeling of tightness crawled through her chest and lodged in her throat. It always happened at the worst possible moments—although she supposed a random field was the least bad option—that overwhelm at the thought of her parents. Their memories were not retrievable. She’d done too good a job. “Brilliant obliviation, Miss Granger, though tragic, of course,” the Healer in Brisbane had said. “Absolutely brilliant charms proficiency. You know, you could make a career out of it!” He’d backtracked at that moment, suddenly realizing the implications of what he’d said, but Hermione had borne it all with stoicism until that dratted Healer left the room. She’d even held it together until she made it back to her hotel. Then, she’d cried.
Tonight, she cried too. She cried for those she’d lost. She cried for the days they’d never get to have. She cried for the people who would never see another Halloween. She cried for the children who would never meet their parents and those, like her, for whom their parents were forever lost. She cried until the whiskey ran out and until her tears followed suit. She cried until she heard a faint crackling in the distance: the sound of apparition.
She stumbled to her feet, looking around her trying to get her bearings. Hermione didn’t know what compelled her to move toward the sound, but she did. Perhaps it was the alcohol or the cool, autumn night. Whatever it was, she stalked toward the sound, wand in one hand and bottle in the other. But nothing could have prepared her for what she saw.
It was pyre. And an altar. And…a Malfoy?! That hair. That bloody, nonsensical, nearly white hair! What was he doing out in a random field in…wait, where was she? Wiltshire! Wait…didn’t his family live here? Wasn’t the manor here? Holy gods. Had she come near Malfoy Manor on accident?
The panic started to hit her, then. She’d gotten good at controlling the attacks that plagued her after her stint under Bellatrix’s wand, but this time she couldn’t handle it. She started hyperventilating and shaking and…why couldn’t she just…
“Breathe!” A voice whispered across from her. She looked up and saw that halo of hair around the face of a man she once considered her enemy. “Bloody hell, Granger?” she heard him say. She could not speak. She shook and spluttered and failed to breathe.
“All right, then,” he said warily. “I need you to look at my eyes and I’m going to grab your hands.” She looked at him. “Good. Now, breathe with me.”
They breathed together under the Samhain moon. The night when the veil was thinnest between the living and the dead. Her dark warmth and his pale coldness starkly contrasted by the light of the pyre.
Her breath finally evened, and she blinked, shook herself, and extricated her hands from his. She looked to the pyre and altar on her left and simply said, “You celebrate?”
He seemed at first not to know what she asked, but then he replied, “Yes.” He took a breath. “I know many think that holding to the old ways is odd or superstitious or even dark.” He looked at her pleadingly, willing her to see beyond the stereotypes.
“I don’t think it’s dark at all,” she intoned quietly. “In fact, I think it’s quite beautiful.”
They looked directly at one another for a moment, then turned in unison to stare at the pyre. Hermione stared into the flames, pleading for the dead to stop haunting her. For the screams and night terrors to stop. They stared at the flames together, silently, until the horizon began to lighten the sky from inky black to dark azure as the sun emerged from its slumber.
Malfoy looked at her with quiet contemplation for a moment, and said, “They are dead but not forgotten,” and she grabbed her portkey and disappeared.
September 2005
Hermione didn’t know when she’d started referring to him as Draco in her head instead of Malfoy, but she imagined it was sometime after he’d started working as her underling in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. She’d never expected to have him work for her, but he’d shown up one morning with a résumé and a smile and asked her, very politely, if she knew of any departments looking to hire anyone. Her mouth agape, she’d stuttered saying she was hiring at the moment and would he be interested in interviewing right now. They’d somehow made it through an interview and he was now slogging through a creature rights case on house-elf welfare.
Whenever she asked him why he worked for the Ministry of all places, he commented, “I was bored counting my galleons,” or “I couldn’t let you be the only bleeding heart in the place.” He was ruthless and cold at times, looking at the situations from the Pureblood, traditional point of view without her personal biases that came from her own upbringing. But they somehow made each successive piece of legislation better by working with one another.
Ron had a bloody cow when he’d found out she’d hired him day of, on the spot. They’d argued for hours about how, “Bloody ferret would never lower himself! Why would he deign to associate with us mere mortals who work for a living?” and “What about people who need a job? Eh? Do they not deserve consideration?” She’d borne it all well, having become used to this particular type of tirade after three years of marriage. Any time Draco was in the papers with his wife Astoria or came up in conversation it was the same story.
At this point, though, they’d been working together for almost a year and she’d never had any issues with him, except professional disagreements. They worked exceedingly well together. Today was no exception. They’d finally gotten their first round of edits to the legislation past the committee and were working to present the bill before the full Wizengamot. While Wizarding Law allowed for conflicts of interest through the ancestral seats, they still had to win a significant number to their side for Draco’s vote to matter. So when in the middle of an impassioned argument over changing a definite article to an indefinite article, Malfoy took out his tuna sandwich, it came as a complete shock when she promptly vomited all over his dragonhide loafers.
“Granger,” he said, eerily calm. “You have vomited on my shoes.”
She stared back at him incredulously, “I’m bloody aware of that and I’m about to do it again!” She took off running to the nearest loo and emptied her stomach of all that could possibly exist in any universe ever, or so she would tell Ginny later.
She heard a knock at the door as she was wiping her mouth and gargling water. “Yes?” she choked out.
“Granger, I’ve brought you some saltines. Oh. And you should probably do the pregnancy charm.”
And that was how Draco Malfoy informed Hermione Granger-Weasley that she was, indeed, carrying her first child.
While they saw each other daily at work for the next five months, their relationship shifted. They were no longer simply colleagues, but expectant parents. Hermione had never really seen a magical pregnancy except Ginny’s first one with James, and she had no idea what to properly expect. Draco would subtly drop off saltines and ginger on her desk or he’d cast a quick charm when her magic was off, and she couldn’t hold her wand without it sparking. They became less colleagues and more, dare she think it, friends. Ron would have had a conniption had he known, but Hermione deeply valued the time she and Draco spent together and the frankness with which he treated her. No lowered expectations or belief that she should be on bedrest—Molly’s suggestion—or insinuation that real witches didn’t work so late in their pregnancies. He just treated her as a person.
But that changed when Astoria gave birth to Scorpius. According to Draco she was fragile after the birth, and he just needed some time off to support her. Then a few months turned into four and suddenly Hermione was the one giving birth. Their division—lacking them both—had to shut down for almost a year while Hermione took time with little Rosie and Draco juggled fatherhood and caring for his wife.
Hermione often thought it would be nice if their children could play together, but she could not set foot near Malfoy Manor. And Astoria couldn’t leave it. So, the children—and their parents—drifted away from one another.
December 2009
It was Hugo’s second Christmas and Hermione’s mood was anything but holly jolly. Hugo had been her secret hope. She hoped that having Hugo would repair the relationship she had with her husband. That the fighting and the tension, the nit-picking and the sniping would go by the wayside. And it had while she was pregnant. Just like the first time, Ron was wonderful to her when she was pregnant. He supported her while she was working—even though he said she should stop earlier than she agreed, “One month is quite enough time off my feet at the end of my pregnancy, Ronald!” But as soon as Hugo was born it was like the gulf in their marriage had doubled in size.
Ron brought up old grudges she thought long buried, and she supplemented with her own insecurities. They just…they didn’t work anymore. They couldn’t stay together for their children. They couldn’t just “make it alright”. They weren’t just fighting in private anymore. It was everywhere—even the Prophet had got wind of it. And not just the Prophet. Rosie had started to recognize when Mummy and Daddy weren’t happy with one another. It had only taken a year after Hugo’s birth for Rosie to start asking why her mummy and daddy didn’t kiss like the other mummies and daddies she knew. “Mummy why do you yell at Daddy instead of kissing him?” was the phrase that truly broke Hermione’s heart. It made her realize that her home was not a safe place for Rosie anymore. It just wasn’t. And that this would be their last Christmas as a traditional family.
She served Ron divorce papers on New Year’s Eve and he signed them on New Year’s Day. There was no fanfare or announcement in the Daily Prophet. They hadn’t had a bonding ceremony, so they didn’t have to break any enchantment. It was just a quiet mourning during the month of January before Hermione stepped into her new role as Head of the Department for the Support and Protection of Magical Creatures.
May 2013
She hadn’t seen him socially since her divorce until they’d asked her to serve on the planning commission for the anniversary ball. After he’d left her department back when their first children were born, she’d only seen him on the other side of the dais while she defended legislation and he sat stoically in his Wizengamot seat. They’d exchanged necessary pleasantries and seen each other at Ministry functions, but never for more than a few moments of small talk.
They worked well together on the committee. They bantered a bit back and forth, and one day, they didn’t stop talking as they walked out of the Ministry. They just kept going and ended up at a Muggle coffee shop of all places.
He looked out of his time, here, she realized. His clothes were closer to Muggle fashion of the Victorian era than the present, and she had to explain to the barista when she asked that they were part of a theatre troupe to make sure they didn’t get any extra strange looks. But he didn’t exactly look wrong here in her world. But when she looked at his face, she saw it. The discomfort. The unfamiliarity. She looked up at him, slipped her hand in his, and whispered, “It’s all right, Draco. You’ll be fine.”
The coffee shop became their place. Not just while they were working on the committee, but afterwards. They’d meet there once a week—Tuesdays, usually—and spend an hour or three discussing the latest legislation coming before the Wizengamot or their children and their respective parenting difficulties. She always bought since he didn’t have a Muggle credit card, and he always argued with her about paying her back.
Draco confided about Astoria’s slowly deteriorating health. She had continued to be frail, even with the best treatments gold could buy. He personally brewed her healing potions to make sure they were the freshest they could possibly be. Hermione talked about the difficulties of co-parenting, especially in the Wizarding World. She spoke about how she never felt like her children had enough of her, even though she’d reduced her working hours.
They barely brushed the past. When they did, it came and went quickly, never ending in an argument. He always held her cloak out for her each Tuesday like an old-fashioned gentleman, garnering adoring looks from the old biddies they shared their daily coffee with.
And so it went until their first-born children went off to Hogwarts, and everything changed.
November 2017
“I almost kept him home an extra year,” Draco said to Hermione as they spoke at the wake. “I almost kept him home so he could have a few more memories with her.”
“Oh, Draco,” Hermione intoned as she laid a hand on his shoulder, “you couldn’t possibly have known exactly when this would happen. You did everything you could.” She hesitated for a moment, and then, making her decision, she wrapped her arms around him in one of her patented, ‘You will get through this, I promise’ Hermione Granger hugs. He tensed, at first, and then relaxed, allowing her to comfort him, even as he stayed relatively restrained.
“Father?” a quiet voice interrupted.
“Yes, Scorpius?” Draco said, a strange look on his face. “What do you need, son?”
“Aunt Daphne said you’re needed elsewhere and sent me to come fetch you.”
“Go,” said Hermione, patting Draco on the back once more.
She watched him walk slowly away from her, but then he turned around, looking straight in her eyes, and his mouth quirked up just a hair. It was the closest to a smile she’d seen from him in months. Astoria’s deterioration had taken so much out of him. She hadn’t seen him so despondent, so desperate since their sixth year. Seeing his mouth quirk up in that smallest of grins, she knew that, eventually, all would be well.
May 2018
She couldn’t believe it. He bought their coffee and scones. With a Muggle credit card. He reached ahead of her that day, placing his hand over hers and stopped her before she could pay, slipping a hand in his inside breast pocket and pulling out a card.
“Granger,” he said, “I’m done allowing a lady to treat.”
She stood, open-mouthed, fully transfixed. Draco Malfoy was using a credit card in a Muggle coffee shop to buy them their sustenance. As usual, he led the way to their table and took her cloak to the ever present sighs of their contingent of older ladies.
Her shock slowly wore off and they talked normally, until out of the blue, Draco started talking about their past. He started apologising but she stopped him. “I’ve long since forgiven you all of that.”
“How have you forgiven me, Granger?” he asked her, tears welling in his eyes. She’d never seen him cry in public before.
“I don’t know, really. I just did. You showed me you were different. You didn’t tell me or apologize before now or anything. You just did better. You were better. You are better.” She grabbed his left hand, unbuttoned his cuff, and rolled up the sleeve. He flinched away, but she kept going, placing her hand directly over his now faded Dark Mark. “This doesn’t matter to me. You’ve shown me you’ve changed.”
She looked straight into his eyes and suddenly, the air became thick. He grasped her hand tightly, hauling her up out of her chair and dragging her out into the street.
“Draco. Draco? Draco!” she finally yanked her hand from his grasp. “Where are you taking me?’
“I…” he started. “I don’t…this is…gods, Hermione, how can you be so…so…” He ran his hand through his hair.
“So…?” she questioned, waiting for his answer.
“So bloody breath-taking,” he breathed as he grabbed both sides of her face in his large hands, peering down at her. “I want to kiss you right now.”
She blinked. “I…I…what?” She blushed.
“I said, Hermione Granger,” he smirked, “I want to kiss you right now and if you don’t stop me, I am going to in three, two…mmphf!”
She beat him to the punch, pressing her lips firmly against his as her arms slid around his middle. His hands found their way from her cheeks to entangle in her hair as they glued themselves together in the middle of a London sidewalk. When they broke away for breath, he leant his forehead against hers and they breathed together.
Finally, he spoke. “I hope you know, Hermione, that this isn’t a new thing for me. A new ‘fascination’ or fetish of some kind.” He paused. “I’ve wanted to do that for longer than I’d care to admit, especially given my only recently widowed status. I wanted to do this properly; ask you to dinner and then sweep you off your feet, deposit you at your door and steal a kiss. But, as usual, you’ve ruined all of my carefully thought-out plans.” He chuckled. “So, given that, would you care to join me for dinner this evening?”
She smiled so big her cheeks burned from the strain. “Yes, Draco. I would.”
November 2018
“Granger!” he shouted at her, across her study. He never stopped calling her that. Draco always used Granger when he was excited. She thought of it almost as a pet name, now. She hoped he never stopped.
Oh gods. Never? She hoped he never stopped?
They’d been together for a while now. A little over six months? Oh, who was she kidding. They’d been officially together for exactly six months, two days, and seven hours.
She walked over to him, listening as he rambled on about a potions ingredient he wanted to invest in.
“I love you,” she said simply, looking down at him adoringly as he sat poised at his desk.
Draco smirked. “I’ve been waiting for you to catch up.” He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her flush against him. “Now, how should we celebrate, my love?”
He threw her over his shoulder and ran across the house. Thus, they spent the whole of the rest of their day celebrating their new revelation, all without leaving Hermione’s bedroom.
August 2020
“Harry Potter you stop this right now!”
“What, Hermione?” Harry shouted. Then, he sighed. “I just don’t understand. I don’t know that I will ever understand. I’ve worked with him. I don’t think he’s completely evil. But why do you need to see him socially?”
Hermione seethed. “See him socially? You can’t even say it. I’m not ‘seeing him socially’, Harry. I’m in a relationship with him. I’ve been in a relationship with him for over a year now. You’ve known this for ages. All our children know. Scorpius and Rose have been our biggest supporters and Hugo’s coming around now. We go places as a family. We make decisions together. He’s. He’s permanent. He’s not going anywhere. We’re going to live together in Muggle London, of all places!”
Harry looked at her across the kitchen table, mouth open. Hermione looked back at him with the same defiance she’d shown to Umbridge and every person who she saw as treating others unfairly.
“Merlin that wasn’t how I planned to tell you, but I guess the cat’s out of the bag.” She paused, then continued softly, “I never expected this, Harry. I never expected my feelings for Draco to change. But he’s been a part of my life for years now as a friend and frankly we’ve been more than friends to each other for longer than either of us would care to properly admit.” Harry gasped. “We never did anything untoward, but the feelings. They’ve been there since…well since before the children went to Hogwarts, frankly. And I’m not going to apologise for who I love.” She stared at Harry defiantly, daring him to contradict her.
Harry looked down at the table pensively, ran his hand over the back of his neck, and sighed. “Ron’s going to have a bloody conniption when he finds out his children will be living with Malfoy. If you think I reacted badly…”
“You leave Ronald Weasley to me,” Ginny interjected. “I’ve never seen Hermione so happy, and Rosie and Hugo adore Scorpius and Draco.”
“And frankly, Harry,” Hermione said cautiously, “You might need to get more than used to Draco.”
“And why is that?” Harry asked.
Ginny stepped in to say, “Well, because earlier this week I caught Scorpius and Al kissing each other on that very couch.” She pointed to their sitting room. “And I think it’s high time we all had a talk about it.”
September 2020
“Why are you so interested in why Ron and I didn’t have a bonding ceremony all of a sudden? I mean I didn’t ever really think about it, and he never suggested we do it, so even though Harry and Ginny had done it we never really considered it…I mean I certainly researched it when I was deciding which rites I wanted included from the magical side of things but I never took it all that seriously. It wasn’t something I ever felt I needed with him, especially since we were already bonded in a way from our trials during the war and…”
“Will you shut up?” Draco bit out. Hermione immediately stopped, jaw hanging slightly open. “I’m trying to ask you to marry me!”
Hermione’s jaw continued to hang open and she started to stutter when Draco said, “No. My turn.” He grabbed her left hand with his right and placed his left hand on her cheek. “I never believed I’d marry again. Never. Even though Astoria and I weren’t a love match, we did come to love each other. We came to respect and find fulfilment with one another. But I yearned for more. We were bonded, yes, but only in the most perfunctory of ways. A simple bonding severable by death. I barely felt the breaking when she died. But do you remember when we met on Samhain?” She nodded. “You didn’t look at me repulsed by the old ways I followed. We just watched the fires burn and parted at the sunrise. Do you know that you’re the only one who’s ever wished me a blessed Samhain? Or Yule? No one else.” He stopped for a moment, breathing in. “Bloody hell, I’m not making any sense. We just…our lives never should have intersected the way they have. We should have just seen each other at the yearly ministry galas and charity events. We should have been sneering acquaintances. But somehow, magic decided to make us whole with one another.
“The reason I want to know how you feel about bonding is because I want to bond with you. I want to have a connection to magic between us. I want everyone from both of our worlds to understand and know how I feel about you and how you feel about me.” Tears were shining in her eyes now as he went down on one knee. “This is a muggle tradition, you know. The knee thing? I asked Potter and the Weaselette about this.” She laughed. “So, Hermione Jean Granger, I love you from the depths of my soul and with every drop of magic in me. Will you marry me? Will you bond with me?”
He opened a small box she hadn’t even realised he was holding. The most beautiful ring she’d ever seen lay on a velvet cushion. She lifted her hand, waiting for him to place the ring on her finger, and said, “Yes.”