Chapter Text
August 1998
In the end, Pansy Parkinson and Augusta Longbottom had ended up agreeing on a shocking number of details about the wedding.
The Longbottom estate, despite having been raided at some point by Death Eaters looking for the elderly witch, had survived the war largely unscathed. When Neville had taken Pansy there for the first time, she had apparently declared it “suitable,” before promptly bursting into tears.
Both witches favored a formal, yet celebratory, and quite large wedding. They had also immediately decided that the luxury of having months to plan such an affair would be sacrificed in favor of the grounds of the family’s property getting to be the site of one of the first post-war celebratory events of the season.
The result was breathtaking. As Hermione strolled down the winding lane from the gardens where the ceremony had been held to the sprawling terrace where dinner had been laid out, pale red and white flowers bloomed over and over again in the hedges lining the path. Flickering balls of light winked ahead of the guests, illuminating the way.
“It really is beautiful,” she sighed happily, accepting a glass of champagne from a floating tray.
Warm breath tickled the shell of her ear and Hermione shivered. “Not as beautiful as you.”
“Not your most original line, Malfoy.” She pressed a quick kiss to his cheek in thanks anyway.
Malfoy snagged his own drink before they took their seats. “No need to mess with a classic, Granger.” His knuckles trailed suggestively down her spine, where there was decidedly more bare skin than was usually available to him in public. “Especially if it’s true.”
“Hermione!”
With a warm, if slightly belated, smile—distracted still by Malfoy’s wandering hand—she turned to greet the new arrivals at their table. “Luna, it’s so lovely to see you.”
The blonde witch was dressed in sunny robes, matched by her date’s golden silk tie. Hermione’s thoughts drifted to another bright yellow dress that Luna had worn, at a party when Pansy and Malfoy had fought about Neville and choices. Oddly, the memory felt light now. She knew how it would turn out.
Hermione brought her attention back to the conversation around her in time to hear Luna finish explaining the plans she and Blaise had for the fall.
“…and then we’re going to spend some time in Sweden so I can continue my father’s search for the Crumple-Horned Snorkacks,” Luna was saying to Malfoy, who was studiously looking at his champagne and, Hermione could tell, trying valiantly not to snicker into the flute.
“That sounds—erm—exciting, Luna,” she interjected before his self-restraint dissolved.
Malfoy’s eyes still sparkled with mirth as he arched an eyebrow and leveled his smirk on Blaise next. Feeling her own face heat, Hermione suppressed a sudden, ridiculous urge to pounce on him, which she blamed on the two glasses of champagne she had downed so far and the fact that they had spent the last two nights apart. At the bride’s request, Hermione had obligingly agreed to keep a nerve-wracked Pansy company at the Greengrass home and Malfoy had sulked back at Grimmauld Place with Theo about the temporary separation.
“And what will you do in Sweden, Blaise?”
A lazy smile stretched across the wizard’s face, softening its usual angles, and he tipped his own flute at Malfoy in a salute. “I shall ski, and drink brännvin, and follow the woman wherever she wishes to go.”
Laughing, Malfoy toasted him with his glass, and then there were others joining them and Hermione lost track of Luna’s itinerary for their hunt for elusive magical creatures across the continent. Susan drew her into a discussion about whether the rebuilding efforts at Hogwarts were going to finish on time for the first of September, and then in a blur of motion as she made her rounds, Molly was hugging Hermione tightly and asking how were her parents doing with their treatment and was she coming to the Burrow on Sunday because if she was bringing Malfoy then Molly would make that apple tart she knew they both liked.
Ron blushed furiously while Fred and George pestered him about whether it was really proper for him and Susan to be sitting quite so close together when he still hadn’t properly declared his intentions. The witch in question paused in telling Hermione about the library reconstruction progress and cut off this line of inquiry with an impressive lip-locking jinx. The feat earned her admiring and almost convincingly contrite looks from the twins before they scampered off to find their own dates again.
Theo and Daphne materialized at her shoulder, pressing glasses of champagne into both her and Malfoy’s hands. “It’s time for my speech,” Daphne said imperiously, and she took a heavy swig of her drink before setting it down by her plate and primly offering her cheek to Theo to kiss. He decided instead to slip his tongue into her mouth in a rather enthusiastic manner, and Hermione had to clear her throat loudly before Daphne finally remembered herself and got back to it.
“Pansy Parkinson is a witch who knows what she wants,” Daphne began after waiting for the rest of the wedding guests to quiet and casting a Sonorus on her own voice.
“No one can attest to that better than Neville, by now, I’m sure—”
There was a murmur of laughter, and Hermione relaxed further into Malfoy’s embrace as Daphne continued. His chair was pulled close, arms wrapped around her from behind, and her back pressed against solid chest and warm skin.
“This was a year of choices.” Hermione saw Theo reach up to entwine his fingers with Daphne’s where they rested on his shoulder. “But Pansy and Neville didn’t just give us hope for what we could have after, they showed us that it was possible to choose happiness along the way.”
The minutes slipped by.
A familiar hand on the back of her neck drew her attention away, slightly cool in the warmth of the summer evening.
“Granger,” came the accompanying murmur in her ear, “dance with me.”
Before she could answer, Malfoy stood and offered his hand, palm facing upward, toward her instead. It hovered in the air for a moment before she slipped her smaller one over it.
“I have somehow found it hard to resist you so far, Malfoy.”
The answering smirk made her roll her eyes, but there was no way to stop the smile that crept across her face as he led them toward the dance floor. There were already several other couples that had finished dinner and forgone dessert to twirl under the gossamer tent that covered the guests, the warm summer air making everything feel even more ethereal.
Malfoy’s hand slid around her ribcage, roaming dangerously low again. His index finger trailed for a moment under the silk hem of her dress where it skimmed her lower back before he wrapped his hand more securely around her waist. With the other, he brought their joined hands to his chest.
“I get you back tonight, right?”
His tone was teasing, but between his words and the way Malfoy had drawn her so close that she was nearly flush against him as he led her through vaguely familiar steps, Hermione felt her stomach twist pleasurably.
“I—”
“Hermione,” someone called lightly behind her, and she turned to look over her shoulder. Narcissa was there, arm-in-arm with Lupin, who winked at Hermione as he led the other witch nearer. “Would you mind terribly if I cut in to dance with my son?”
A small smile quirking his mouth, Malfoy squeezed her fingers where they were clasped between them, and then brushed a quick kiss over her lips. “Remus, I expect her back at the end of this number.”
With a graceful movement that Hermione might have envied if she hadn’t been the one on the receiving end, Malfoy smoothly handed her off to Lupin and took his mother by the hand.
“You look happy,” Lupin observed once they had moved a few paces. He was slightly less adept at leading than Malfoy, but Hermione felt a different sort of comfort from his large hand guiding hers.
“I think I am happy,” she said with a slightly rueful grin. “Isn’t it odd?”
His answering smile told her that he still found his own contentedness strange, too.
“You deserve every happiness that this world has to offer you, Hermione.”
“Remus—”
“No, please.” She was startled to find his gaze suddenly serious. “Hermione, you did something remarkable this year.”
There was a burst of laughter as they passed the table where she had left Ron, Susan, Luna, and Blaise.
Over Lupin’s shoulder, she saw that Seamus and Dean and some of her other classmates from Hogwarts had joined the group, slinging themselves into the seats that she and Malfoy had vacated and drawing up more chairs to crowd around the table. The low warmth of the evening made the scene seem to glow, the liquid in the drinks her friends held reflecting the hundreds of lights strewn under the canopy of the tent and the enchanted everlasting peonies on the center of the table almost shimmering as they continuously bloomed, again and again, as if the petals were absorbing the happiness radiating around them and then releasing it anew.
“I’m quite proud of you, you know.”
“Well, I—” The automatic protest died on her lips.
She saw Malfoy from the corner of her eye. He was smiling, leaning to whisper something in his mother’s ear. Narcissa looked up, her eyes brightening, making the deep lines that had formed around them seem to fade away as she laughed at whatever her son had said.
A sharp ache filled Hermione’s chest, and she let it fade before she tried again to answer.
“It worked out pretty well for me, Remus.”
Lupin’s eyes followed hers to where Narcissa spun in her son’s arms, that strikingly similar blonde hair making it easy to distinguish them among the crowd.
“It worked out pretty well for all of us, Hermione.”
…
The moments, and the days, after Voldemort’s death were a blur. But in all of the chaos, a single image was seared into Hermione’s memory. She suspected it had been similarly engrained for most of the others who had been there that day.
Narcissa Malfoy had fallen to her knees after her spell.
Face blank, she merely stared at the strange, not-quite-human body of the dead Dark Lord laid before her, wand hanging limp at her side.
There was a moment where he seemed rooted to the floor, raw relief visible on his face, and then Harry surged toward the woman.
But, before he could reach her, Malfoy and another appeared at her side.
Andromeda and her nephew each knelt and gently gripped one of Narcissa’s elbows. They pulled the witch to her feet and enveloped her in an embrace so tight that all she could make out was the protective curve of Malfoy’s back and a tangle of pale, clasped arms.
As she watched, the crack in Hermione’s chest split anew, and then filled again.
Dead, dead, dead.
Alive.
Before she could see where Malfoy and Andromeda were leading Narcissa, Hermione was caught up in an embrace of her own, red hair and freckles descending on her with blazing warmth.
Ron picked her up at the waist and spun her around in a half-circle, her legs jostling clumsily.
“We did it.”
She choked out a laugh. It was muffled against Ron’s shoulder where her face was smashed to the point where she almost couldn’t breathe.
“Yes,” Hermione rasped.
Ron let her go and stepped away, a grin splitting across his face as bright as the sun that was dawning over the horizon outside the Manor. She smiled back at him, and something like seven years passed between them in that moment.
They both turned toward Harry, like an unspoken agreement, and saw Ginny locked in his arms, a look of mingled joy and fury on her tear-streaked face. Ron squeezed her hand, and Hermione squeezed it back.
Then suddenly there were others, before she could decide if she wanted there to be, Neville and Luna and Theo and Pansy and Blaise and Fred and George and Lupin and Tonks and Hagrid and everyone who had fought and survived and won. The press of hands and bodies and voices in the immediate celebration was claustrophobic and too much and wonderful and it all made her feel like she was outside of time, somehow.
“Hermione!”
“Hermione!”
“Harry—”
“And Malfoy’s wand—”
“It was Narcissa, did you see?”
“Narcissa—”
“I know,” Hermione said shakily, and found that she was laughing through her tears, “I know.”
…
Lupin drew his focus back to Hermione.
“In any event…” His tone was thoughtful, conceding. “I think you should appreciate how much of that is due to you and not to chance.”
Hermione stilled for a moment, accidentally bringing them both to a stop. Then she nodded, blinking back tears, and he smiled gently, and they resumed their steps.
A few moments passed in companionable silence before the song ended and she drew back from Lupin’s arms. There was something in his face like fierce pride that made her want to find Tonks and tell her to ruthlessly tease him for being a huge sap, and also made another piece of her own heart knit back together.
“My mother has retired from dancing for the moment, but she’s told me to advise you that Andromeda expects a turn as well, Remus.”
Malfoy was by her side once more as he spoke amiably to the other man.
“I shouldn’t keep her waiting, then,” Lupin replied with a laugh, and he pressed Hermione’s hand into Malfoy’s before disappearing into the crowd.
Another song had picked up, and Malfoy wasted no time in resuming his efforts to lessen the space between him and Hermione as they started dancing.
“How’s your mother?” Hermione asked softly.
As he gazed back at her, it was hard to imagine a time when she had found anything but warmth in Malfoy’s eyes.
“She’s well,” he replied, and then smirked. “She says that a hangover is no excuse for either of us missing dinner tomorrow.”
Hermione threw her head back as she laughed, and at the same time, pulled Malfoy even closer with the hand that grasped his upper arm. “I will do my best,” she said in her most solemn tone, “but no promises.”
Snippets of conversation floated around her as they danced. Hermione reveled in the still-novel, still-fragile sensation of being safe and able to gather with so many people she loved.
“Severus stayed behind at the castle to prepare for the students’ arrival,” a very red-cheeked Pomona Sprout was informing the bride and groom. “He sends his regards.”
“Not really the reception attending type, Severus,” Minerva remarked dryly from beside the Herbology professor. “Despite his—ahem—newly discovered romantic side.”
Halfheartedly, Hermione tried to sympathize with the former Death Eater, who had been forced to listen to Harry defend him in his post-war hearing by revealing the real reason Snape had become Dumbledore’s spy. It had worked, but the two reluctant associates were currently in a very immature spat over the whole business that involved a lot of lengthy and passive-aggressive owls to one another, as far as she could understand. Hermione was absolutely not getting involved in no matter how much Harry complained to her, thank you very much. They could hash it out themselves.
“He also asked me to pass along that his wedding gift to the happy couple is that he won’t tell Minerva what he walked in on the two of you doing in Greenhouse Two last December whenever Mr. Longbottom returns to apply for his teaching apprenticeship.”
The headmistress gagged on her redcurrant rum, whose brilliant shade of red was suddenly replicated nearly perfectly on the groom’s face. Next to him, Pansy ducked her head, presumably to hide her own cackling.
Before Hermione could catch Neville’s response, Malfoy snickered and twirled her away.
“Think McGonagall would give us back our old dorm when we go back to school?”
Still breathless with laughter, it took a moment to answer. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of Harry and Ginny revolving across the dance floor with a giggling, turquoise-haired baby in the former’s arms.
“I’m not sure.”
Malfoy dipped her down suddenly, one large hand pressed into her lower back where she hung suspended in the air, the other clasping the fingers of her left. Hermione’s heart thudded in her chest.
“Well, perhaps she’ll bend the rules if the Brightest Witch of Her Age, one-third of the Golden Trio, our beloved War Heroine, asks,” Malfoy teased, leaning forward to brush his nose against hers, once.
They straightened and he drew her close again, skimming the silk of her golden bridesmaid dress where it covered her hip as he did so.
“Or a war hero,” she said softly. Hermione tilted her head up so she could meet his eyes.
Amusement faded from the grey, replaced with a contemplative seriousness that had become familiar over the last few months. Instead of responding, he bent and captured her lips with a gentle kiss.
…
Healing wasn’t linear: That was a difficult lesson that they were all learning, again and again, in the aftermath. But every day it seemed Malfoy got a little closer to some sort of peace with his complicated role in the events of the war.
The rest of wizarding society was, strangely enough, having no such trouble.
This was due in large part to the previously unforeseen development of Narcissa Malfoy and Harry Potter emerging as adored co-saviors of their world, an opportunity that Narcissa—with Pansy’s help—had wasted little time in seizing.
With a swiftness that had baffled Hermione, who observed her machinations in a sort of shell-shocked daze, Pansy orchestrated a series of calculated leaks about how exactly the Order had brought down Voldemort’s reign in the days following his defeat, mainly through the Quibbler.
These included carefully worded mentions of Malfoy’s defection, Theo’s rejection of his father, and Lupin’s steady leadership. Those who had been at the final battle spread their own stories by word of mouth: of Malfoy and Hermione killing the giant snake together with a giant sword, of Harry sacrificing himself to save the rest of them and then miraculously reappearing, of the final, split-second look of disbelief on Voldemort’s face right before Narcissa’s killing curse struck its mark. There was a Pansy-approved narrative running rampant through the wizarding world before Hermione had even processed the fact that it was safe to walk down Diagon Alley again.
Meanwhile, Narcissa spent two weeks at Andromeda’s, hidden from anyone but her sister and her son, before emerging as composed and intimidating as Hermione could ever remember.
In no short order, and quite predictably, Harry developed an enormous soft spot for the woman who had helped him bring down the Dark Lord who had ruined his childhood and nearly taken his own life.
Despite Harry’s own aversion to the press, this meant that he had a complete inability to say no when Narcissa asked him sweetly to co-host a ball with her, or do a joint interview in the Prophet, or make an appearance at some event or another in support of post-war reparations. Everyone found it amusing, though Ron, in particular, could barely hold it together every time that Harry came home late and muttered that he had been trapped at a luncheon or tea with the Malfoy matriarch again.
She never heard her say it out loud. But Hermione saw—perhaps clearer than anyone—that what Narcissa was doing, as always, was for her son.
Not long after the battle, Malfoy had been called to give a full statement in front of the newly formed post-war tribunal, despite Hermione’s absolute fit to Lupin and Kingsley when she found out. It had been a terrible day, even with the assurances from the former Order leaders that no one on the panel had any intention of charging Malfoy with anything, and that it was necessary for healing and transparency and other things Hermione knew she should care about but couldn’t after the sight of Malfoy’s face when he found out.
But Narcissa’s ongoing publicity tour—where she humbly and sympathetically described the horrors she (and, impliedly, Malfoy) had experienced at the hands of Voldemort and his followers in their home—served its purpose.
The Prophet ran a full feature about Malfoy’s hearing, effusively describing the way he had bravely defied his father and joined the Order, only to provide crucial information needed to bring down Voldemort multiple times, risking his own life at various turns. Wizards and witches began stopping him in the street to wring his hand gratefully almost as often as Harry. He received a few too many letters from random witches proclaiming their undying affection for Hermione’s taste, but she supposed she was just grateful the ‘War Heroine and Former Death Eater: Star-Crossed Romance’ angle hadn’t hit the papers (yet).
After the article ran, Malfoy emerged from his room at Grimmauld Place for the first time in days and agreed to go with Hermione to their newly established weekly dinner at Tonks Cottage. Hermione had turned toward Narcissa that night while Malfoy was distracted by Teddy’s enthused flinging of mashed potatoes at his face, unable to form the right words. The witch just smirked softly back, patted her hand, and poured her another glass of wine.
Some of her other interactions with Narcissa had been more fraught: only a few weeks after the war ended, Hermione had the unusual experience of accompanying her boyfriend and his mother to a criminal trial for his father, whose alleged crimes included several against her own person. Malfoy was gripping her hand so tightly the circulation had long disappeared, but she clung back as hard as she could manage. On her son’s other side, the wife of the disgraced Death Eater sat tall; only from their vantage point could Hermione and Malfoy see Narcissa’s own pale hands trembling in her lap.
The following weekend, the surviving Black sisters surprised her again.
“Now, will Lucius appeal his sentence?” Andromeda’s tone was carefully schooled. Hermione froze with a forkful of arugula salad halfway to her lips in the air, not sure if she wanted to hear the answer.
“Hmmm,” Narcissa mused, and she placed a small bite of her fish meunière in her mouth. She chewed thoroughly before continuing. “How long was that creature in our home, darling?”
Beside her, Malfoy sputtered on a sip of his wine in a very un-Malfoy-like fashion. He and Hermione exchanged slightly nervous looks. “Er—about two years, I suppose.”
Narcissa set her fork down on her plate, carefully crossing it with her knife in a precise gesture that Hermione remembered vaguely from etiquette lessons her parents had forced upon her as a child, and then picked up the cloth napkin resting on her lap.
“Well,” she replied, patting her mouth delicately, “as Draco and I are now the ones with the financial means to do so, I suppose we can discuss whether we should hire a solicitor to look into Lucius’ appeal in about two years.”
Andromeda’s soft grey eyes, so similar to Malfoy’s, lit up with barely-concealed satisfaction. Ted barely suppressed a snort.
“Mother,” Malfoy began, eyes narrowing, but then promptly stopped.
Narcissa smiled beatifically at him and then turned to Hermione. Ignoring Malfoy’s bewildered expression, she gestured to the bottle chilling next to her. “More wine, dear?”
Hermione had decided then and there that she could live with Narcissa Malfoy as a mother-in-law.
…
“So, if she doesn’t?”
“If she doesn’t what?”
Hermione almost missed Malfoy’s answer, distracted as she was by the dizzying sensation that came from some combination of his kiss, the swirling in her stomach as they revolved around the dance floor, and the champagne she had consumed.
“Give us back our old dorm.”
“Then… what?”
“Then,” Malfoy drawled, but Hermione heard the nervousness hidden there, “I’d still like to live with you.”
Her breath hitched as she puzzled through this response, and if there had been any question in Malfoy’s eyes, whatever her face had shown him seemed to resolve it.
“I asked McGonagall already if—don’t worry, I mean, I didn’t ask about you—not that I’m trying to hide it or anything, I just would never presume to—oh, Merlin.” Malfoy looked so flustered that she had to hide her own grin by pressing her cheek to his momentarily.
“Draco.”
“Yes, sorry.” He cleared his throat. “What I’m saying is, I’ve confirmed with McGonagall already, actually, that returning eighth-years can live off-campus, if they want. They prefer Hogsmeade, to be close to the school, but anywhere with a Floo is probably acceptable.”
“I thought you didn’t like how much I kick in my sleep,” Hermione blurted out, and she couldn’t help but grin reluctantly when Malfoy barked out a laugh.
“Actually, it’s the fact that you recite spells in your sleep sometimes as if you’re studying for N.E.W.T.s. It’s bloody creepy, makes me think you’re going to start casting them on me.”
“Well, you snore.”
“I do not.”
“I think it’s from when I punched you third year. Your nose is a bit crooked, still.”
She wanted to preserve the scandalized look on Malfoy’s face in a Pensieve.
“Malfoys have excellent bone structure, we’re practically known for it, so if you’re suggesting that your violent tendencies somehow—”
There was a muffled groan as Hermione cut off any further snarky comments from Malfoy in the most effective way she had figured out so far.
“I want to live with you, too.” A helpless sort of laugh came from her own lips before she could help it. “And I don’t care if it’s in Harry’s godfather’s townhouse, though I’m incredibly sick of it, to be perfectly honest, or some cramped flat in Hogsmeade, or even in a Hogwarts dormitory—”
“I do have some extremely fond memories of that dormitory, though.”
“—I just want to be with you.”
Malfoy’s steps faltered, the hand on her waist fluttering tighter, and then he drew in a shaky breath that sounded like wonder.
“It won’t be a cramped flat,” he informed her, resuming his pace. “I’m quite rich.”
Her soft snort of amusement was lost in the sound of clinking glass spreading through the crowd. As she and the other guests watched, a blushing Neville wrapped an arm around Pansy’s waist and snogged her thoroughly.
Turning forward again, Hermione looked at Malfoy very seriously, and he quirked an eyebrow.
“You know, I love you, Draco Malfoy.”
When he replied, it was in a tone just as serious. His eyes were bright.
“You know, I love you, Hermione Granger.”
She smiled.