Amicable breakup
“I think we’ve reached the point where we really have no other choice, Hermione. You and I both knew this was a long time coming.”
Despite his words, Draco kept a firm hold on her, grasping her fingertips and angling his body over and around her in a protective embrace. With his free hand, he gently tipped her chin up to face him, drinking in the honeyed notes of her warm gaze like a man dying of thirst.
Licking her lower lip before biting down on it as she was wont to do under pressure, she nodded in agreement. She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders, ever the Gryffindor in the face of the unknown.
Finally turning from one another to face the same direction, they raised their arms in sync, wands pointed at Hermione’s childhood home. Empty for the past decade with her parents’ refusal to return despite the successful reversal on their obliviation, the building only served as a constant reminder of a family now lost to her.
Their magic intertwined as they dismantled the complicated wards that had sheltered the home so completely. The reemergence of the modest Tudor-style building within the neighborhood wouldn’t draw any attention, but would allow them to finally put it on London’s muggle market where it would hopefully find a new family to fill its overlong emptiness.
Draco tugged her back into his arms once the spellwork was complete, ready to comfort the inconsolable witch, but, to his surprise, she pulled away only to turn and launch herself onto him with a laugh and cry of relief.
“I feel so much lighter now! We should have done this years ago.”
“Yes, well, a certain young lady apparently needed the push of unavoidable paperwork—”
“Who knew marriage required so many meetings over properties and inheritance?” She teased, waving her adorned hand and admiring the ruby sparkle of her engagement ring.
He hummed in feigned assent and pressed his forehead against hers. “Definitely unexpected with the Malfoy family’s only heir, as fallen from grace as we are.”
Glancing a final time back at the brick walls of her childhood, Hermione felt nothing more than relief and a readiness to move forward on the new path of their choosing.
“Let’s go home.”