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Hermione had never wanted a big family. She adored the Weasleys, all of them, but she’d always valued her quiet, orderly life. She wasn't opposed to children – she’d figured she would eventually get married and have one or two children when the time was right.
Then the war happened. Bellatrix happened. The trauma done to her body had left permanent marks, some more visible than others. The scar on her chest from Dolohov would never fade, and neither would the damage done to the rest of her. The words Bellatrix had carved into her arm were the least of the damage she had done.
Ron loved her but couldn't understand. Wouldn’t understand. He was grieving Fred and running high on their victory, and wanted to do something to make himself feel alive. So he’d proposed. And like an idiot, she’d said yes.
She’d regretted it almost immediately. They loved each other, of course, but they were so ill-suited to one another. They had such different life and career goals, such different temperaments, such different interests. He wanted to be a husband and a father, play Quidditch and be an Auror, and eat and laugh and make love. Repeat every day until he died.
She loved him, but could never give him that life.
Breaking his heart was the hardest thing she’d ever done. It was years before they’d managed to find their way back to friendship, to laughing with and confiding in one another. She’d missed her friend.
Which was why she couldn’t bear to tell him about Draco.
Draco was everything Ron wasn’t. When she’d become estranged from the Weasleys, Draco had filled that hole in her life.
Drinks after work as coworkers had turned into candlelit dinners and moonlit walks that ended at her apartment. Time spent hunched over their desks, drafting legislation to challenge at the Wizengamot, had turned into late afternoons reading on her couch and breakfast in bed while they took turns reading the Daily Prophet aloud.
A life with Draco was never something that she thought about more than a week at a time. He was quiet and introspective on those soft, early mornings; fierce and passionate when arguing cases before the Wizengamot; thorough and sinful when they were behind closed doors; loud and brash and carefree on those rare weekends when Theo and Blaise were in town and they spent the evening drinking and laughing at Nott Manor.
For all the time they spent together, Hermione couldn’t go back to Malfoy Manor. It held too many awful memories. If they were a serious couple, she supposed she’d have to face it eventually, but theirs wasn’t that kind of relationship.
At least, that’s what she’d always thought. Until the night he slid an engagement ring across the table at dinner.
“What is that?” she whispered, her voice panicked.
Draco smiled fondly at her, though there was a tightness there, like he was holding back. “Some ladies wear them on their left hand, Granger.” He was trying for his usual playful banter, but now was not the time.
“Malfoy, what is that? What are you doing?”
He shifted in his seat, clearing his throat before launching into a prepared speech. “Granger – Hermione – we’ve been together for a few years now. You’ve seen the best and the worst parts of me – sometimes in the same day if I haven’t had my coffee – and you’ve stuck around. People in my life don't tend to … well, I have few true friends. Few people I can really be myself with.”
Draco ran a hand through his hair, chuckling nervously. He couldn't quite meet her eyes so he focused on a spot just above her eyebrows, where that little wrinkle he enjoyed soothing was working overtime.
“You’re the most honest person I've ever met, Granger. You say what you feel and you do what’s right. I've always envied that about you, even when I couldn’t admit it to you or myself. You’re passionate and strong and beautiful, and every day with you has been the best day of my life. If you take that ring, and agree to be my wife – to share your life with me – I'll spend the rest of my life making every day the best day of your life.”
He swallowed nervously, finally meeting her eyes. “What do you say, Granger? Will you marry me?”
Hermione was frozen, ensnared in his gaze. How had she not seen this coming? She’d already broken one boy’s heart, and that took years to repair. She’d worked so hard to craft a life for herself, to build her career and establish herself in the Ministry. Now it would all come tumbling down again, and she didn’t know how she was going to start over again.
“Hermione?” Draco’s voice was thick with concern, his hand reaching across the table to clasp hers.
His hand was warm, achingly so, and she wished she could hold onto it – onto him – forever.
“You don’t want this,” she said, her voice hoarse.
Draco squeezed her hand, and for a moment, she thought he was going to let go.
“Of course I do,” he assured her. “You’re it for me, Granger.”
The words cut through her, killing her with their sweetness. “This is ridiculous, Draco. We’ve never talked about this, about marriage … about the future.”
Draco smirked a little, and if she wasn’t waging a thousand wars inside her mind, she might have found it endearing. “Of course we have. Maybe not with words, but –”
“Words are important, Draco. We have fun together, yes,” Hermione admitted. “And you’ve become very important to me, but –”
It was Draco’s turn to interrupt. “Fun? I like to think I’ve developed a thick skin over the years, Granger, but you wound me if you think that all we’ve shared together is fun .”
Hermione swallowed her emotions. He hadn’t thought this through. He was overcome with sentiment, or maybe Theo had put him up to it. This wasn’t him. He couldn’t actually want this. Not with her.
She slid her hand away from him, and he let her. She couldn’t meet his eyes, but could imagine the hurt there. “I’m sorry, Draco. I can’t do this.” She stood from the table, placed her napkin on her chair, grabbed her purse, and tried to walk away without making a scene. The last thing she wanted was to have a scandal etched across the front pages of the Daily Prophet.
She was three blocks away from the nearest Apparition point when she felt his hand close over her wrist again.
“Granger, talk to me. What’s this about?” His touch was like a beacon, calling her home. She hadn’t realised how much she wanted it, wanted him, until she was faced with losing him.
“Draco, please. I’m sorry that I’ve led you to believe that this was going somewhere … permanent. I should have been clearer with my intentions, and for that I apologise. I hope that we can still be …” She couldn’t finish.
“Friends?” Draco finished for her. “Is that really all I am to you, Granger? A friend? A coworker? A good shag?”
Hermione’s eyes flashed with pain, opening her mouth to chastise him, but he cut her off again.
“I know you’re not that kind of person, Granger. So tell me where this is coming from.”
She shook her head, walking towards the apparition point again. “This was never meant to last, Draco. This gesture is … romantic, but I can’t give you what you’re looking for. That’s not the life I want.”
“What life do you want, Hermione? Because I promise you: whatever it is, I can give it to you.”
Such pretty words. Hermione wanted to believe them. Wanted to give in.
“We’ve never talked about marriage, Malfoy. Merlin, we’ve never even said ‘I love you’. How can you think that we’re ready for marriage if –”
“I love you.”
The words were spoken with such sincerity that Hermione’s knees nearly buckled. Her body wobbled and he was there to catch her, steadying her with his hands.
Hermione turned to stare at him, struggling to think clearly. “You don’t love me.”
“Yes I do, Hermione.” His eyes were unwavering, staring into her very soul. “I love you. I always have.”
“No, you haven’t. You can’t say “always” like you didn’t spend 7 years hating me.” And he had. He’d hated her all throughout Hogwarts. Hated what she was, hated her “dirty blood”. The war had changed him … had changed them all. He was a good man, but that didn’t change the past. She tried to focus on that truth, clutching it desperately.
Draco would not be swayed. “Yes I can. Because “always” for me started the moment I fell in love for the first time. It was you, Granger. It’s always been you.”
Hermione’s breath caught in her throat. It was too much. “You can’t love me,” she whispered, shaking her head. “I can’t …”
Draco’s eyes flickered then, a chink in his armor at last. “But, if you don’t feel the same …”
She could let him believe it. It would be the easy way out of all this. The coward’s way …
“Draco, it’s not that simple.”
His eyes met hers again, alight with hope. “It can be, Granger. Just say the words.”
She shook her head, trying to step away from him, but he was everywhere. The scent of him, a heady mix of wood and leather from the hours he spent riding his broom to keep in shape, flooded through her. He permeated every part of her. What would it feel like to lose that scent forever?
“Draco, regardless of whether I love you or not, this can never be anymore than –”
He cut her off with a kiss, quick and searing, stealing her breath and words away.
“I love you, Hermione. I have always loved you. I’ve carried you in my heart for years, even when I thought I hated you. You have always been there, in my mind, driving me insane with your intelligence, your wit, your beauty. You’ve crawled under my skin and made a home there, and I don’t want to spend another moment of my life not lost in this madness with you. I’m sorry that I’ve been playing it cool, acting like I wasn’t completely in love with you, because I am. I am so thoroughly in love with you, and if you’ll have me, I will make you the happiest wife in the world. I will devote my life to you, to us, to the family that we build together. You as Lady Malfoy or me as Lord Granger, I don’t care, I just want you. However you’ll have me.”
To the family that we build together. The words were like ice rushing over her.
“Malfoy, I can’t give you the life you want,” she told him again, pulling away.
Draco argued, “You keep saying that, but you can. If it’s the Pureblood nonsense, I promise that doesn’t matter. It hasn’t mattered to me for a long time. And as far as my mother is concerned … well she can get on board, or she’ll never get to be called ‘Grandma Malfoy’.”
She couldn’t take it anymore. Couldn’t stand another moment of him laying out the future she’d never have with him. “Draco, I can’t give you that future. I can’t make Narcissa a grandmother and I can’t make you a father because I’m … I’m barren. I’m infertile. I can’t have children, Draco.”
He was silent, staring at her in shock.
“I’m never going to be able to give you an heir, Draco. If you marry me, the Malfoy line ends with you.” That, she knew Narcissa would never allow. “It doesn’t matter what I feel for you. You deserve to be with someone who can love you and give you a family. That’s not me.”
The words felt hollow, or maybe she just felt hollow now that her truth was finally out. Ron and Harry knew. She wouldn’t let them tell Molly or Arthur or any of the other Weasleys. She couldn’t stand their pity. She couldn’t stand to look at Draco, knowing he would pity her as well.
“I’m sorry,” she told him, stepping out of his grip fully and running to the Apparition point. She never looked back, simply turning with her eyes closed and landing in her apartment.
She stumbled towards her bedroom, not bothering to remove her shoes or her dress before collapsing onto the bed, her tears staining the blue satin pillowcase.
A soft mewing sound came from the doorway, and then Crookshanks was on the bed beside her, sliding under her arm.
“Oh, Crooks,” she whimpered, pressing her face into his soft, orange fur. He always knew when she needed him the most.
Crookshanks’s purring was a comfort, distracting her from the sound of her cries.
She didn’t hear the crack of the Apparition or the footsteps against the floor of her apartment. She didn’t know she’d been followed until she felt the dip in the mattress, and then Draco’s arms were sliding around her, pulling her to him. One hand cradled her belly, his palm spread softly against it. Mournfully, Hermione imagined.
“I’m sorry,” he spoke, his voice thick with emotion.
Hermione turned in his embrace, feeling Crookshanks sneak away. “It’s not your fault.”
He shook his head. “It was my aunt, right? Bellatrix? The Cruciatus …?”
Hermione closed her eyes against the flash of memory. Some nights, she still heard the madwoman’s cackle as though she were right beside her. She nodded, confirming his suspicions.
“Then I’m sorry, Hermione. I’d be sorry anyway … sorry that choice was taken from you.”
From me. Not you.
“You would be an amazing mother, Hermione. Any child would be lucky to have such a caring, compassionate, fierce, intelligent witch for a mother. I hate that she took that from you, and I hate that I couldn’t stop her.”
Hermione swallowed a fresh wave of emotion that threatened to drown her.
“I’ve been imagining marrying you for longer than I should probably admit, Hermione. Certainly longer than I’m going to tell you now,” he admitted, a trace of levity in his voice. “I’ve imagined what our wedding would be like, how you’d look in a white dress, standing across from me and promising to be mine. I’ve imagined travelling the world with you, inventing spells and potions and crafting new legislation with you. I’ve imagined living with you and working with you and making love to you for the rest of our lives. And yes … I’ve imagined having children with you, what they’d look like, what their names would be. Whether they’d take after you for temperament or me for looks, and not sure which of those would be better.”
Hermione smacked his arm at that, somehow managing a laugh despite everything. She’d imagined all those things too, in her deepest dreams. Every time she awoke, and those dreams drifted away, her heart broke again a little more.
“I’ve wanted to share every part of myself with you for some time, Hermione. I’ve wanted to make you my wife and give you my name and create a whole new branch of the Malfoy family tree that would make my father absolutely livid. And yes, selfishly, I’ve always wanted an heir; someone to pass on the Malfoy family legacy and inheritance to.”
Hermione heaved a deep sigh, knowing this was goodbye.
“Maybe it’s time to create a new legacy.”
She blinked in confusion. “What?”
Draco slid his hand away from her stomach, reaching up to tuck a stray hair behind her ear. “There’s more than one way to make a family, Hermione. Some people need children to be fulfilled, but everything I need is right in this room. I just need you, Hermione.” He glanced towards the open door, hearing a soft, indignant meow. “And Crookshanks, of course.”
Hermione couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. He couldn’t still want her? Not when she was damaged, not when she couldn’t give him the life he deserved …
“You’re my family, Hermione. If we never have kids, or if we figure out another way to have children, I promise that I meant it when I said that you’re it for me. You’re my future, exactly as you are.”
He reached down into his pocket before pulling his hand back up. In it, he held the ring he’d tried to give her at dinner. “Hermione Granger, there is nothing that you could say or do that would change the way I feel about you. There is nothing you could give me or take from me that would change the fact that your name is etched across my heart. The only family that I could ever need, you’ve already given to me. I’m yours, here and forever. Will you marry me?”
That voice inside her head, the one that had been telling her for years that she was broken and damaged and worthless – it tried rearing its ugly head again. It tried telling her all the reasons why this was a bad idea, why he would regret it, why she couldn’t do this to him.
For once, Hermione ignored that voice. She ignored the ache in her heart for a life that she’d never have, and allowed herself to dream of the life that could be. The family that she could make, right here and now.
“I love you, Draco. I love every part of you. And if you really want this, want me, exactly as I am … then yes. I’ll marry you.”
His lips were on hers before the last word left her mouth, and in the same movement he slid the ring onto her finger, sealing their promises to each other.