Thirty-Eight
October 15th 1999:
“Draco! Draco, are you here?!” Draco ran out from the bedroom, slipping pants on as he ran to his living room.
“Daph? What’s wrong?”
“Is Hermione here?” She looked around, wiping her tears.
“No, she’s out with the she-weasel.” He pulled Daphne to the couch. “What happened?”
“Astoria, she sent me an owl. My parents, they are taking my disownment out on her. They told her she’ll be married by the time she graduates from Hogwarts. They want her to marry an older pureblood, someone who still believes in all the old beliefs. Draco, she can’t have kids. She can’t produce an heir. If she marries an older pureblood, and he finds out that she’s infertile, she’ll be-” Daphne had to stop. Draco knew how the older pureblood generation could be when it came to heirs. “Draco, I hate to ask you this, but I need you to marry her.” Draco froze. “You said you’d never be able to marry Hermione. You said your mother would already line up another girl for you to marry. Tell her you’ll marry Astoria.”
“You want me to marry your sister?”
“Draco, please. Her life is on the line. I need you to do this.”
“Does she know what you’re asking me to do? What does she want to do? Clearly your parents can’t force her to marry someone if she doesn’t want to. You got away.”
“Yes, and it is because of my selfish needs that this responsibility falls to her. They are doing this to punish me, Draco. They know she cannot produce heirs. This is all my fault.”
“She doesn’t blame you. She is your sister, she would want you to be happy.”
“I know that! But I have to protect her! She is my sister! She is my responsibility! You wouldn’t understand!”
“Because I don’t have siblings? Is that why? Well guess what Daphne, you are my sister! You are my family! It’s you, me, Theo, Pansy, and Blaise! It’s always been us! I care about Astoria because she is your sister. I love you like a sister, Daphne. If you need me to do this to protect your sister, I will do it. But I want to make sure she knows what she is getting into by marrying me.”
“She doesn’t know. I came to you first.” Daphne paused. “What about Hermione? What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know, Daphne. I love her so much. But,” Draco took a deep breath and looked around the living room of the flat he shared with Hermione. “I lived in the dark for my whole life. I thought I had the perfect life. The first time Hermione kissed me, the clouds cleared and I felt the sun on my skin. She is the best thing to happen to me and I am the worst thing to happen to her. I bullied her and I- Daphne, I am the first person who ever called her a Mudblood. How can she love me?”
“Draco,”
“She is going to be the next Minister. She can’t be the Minister of Magic with a Death Eater boyfriend or husband. I will ruin her.”
“Draco, she loves you.”
“It doesn’t matter. I will marry Astoria once she graduates from Hogwarts.”
“Thank you, Draco.”
“Like I said, we are family. I’ve done worse things for the people I love.” Daphne reached out and took Draco’s hand.
“You should talk to Hermione. This whole thing is fucked up. She deserves to know.”
“Add it to the list of why I am bad for her. I have been keeping this secret from her since the moment we started dating.”
“You are a protector. You want to fight for and protect the people you love, no matter the consequences. You aren’t keeping it from her to harm her, but the longer you keep it from her, the more you are harming her.”
“I’ll tell her. I will eventually.”
“Merlin, I thought that after the war, maybe our lives would have a resemblance of normalcy. That maybe we could live the life we wanted to live.”
“We all thought we were so privileged. Look at us all now.” The two laughed.
“How long will Hermione be out?”
“I don’t know. She was taking Ginny out to look at wedding dresses.”
“Can we call everyone over? Have a snake night?”
“That sounds like the exact thing I need.”
Within moments, Pansy, Blaise, Millie, and Theo were sitting in Draco’s living room with him and Daphne, drinking.
“So when do you think Draco will propose?” Ginny asked as she tried on her hundredth dress.
“I don’t know. He still hasn’t told his mother about us. We’ve been dating for over a year now. I was understanding at first, but I don’t know anymore. We live together, he claims to love me. I don’t know where his head is.”
“Have you talked to him about it?” Katie asked.
“No. I feel like I'm going to scare him off if I do. I don’t want to force him to tell his mother but I also want to know why he hasn’t yet. I mean, I know why he hasn’t but, if he is so concerned about what his mother thinks, then why is he with me?”
“I’m not saying this to defend him, but I get why he’s scared to tell his mother. I mean, the Blacks disowned Sirius because he was friends with people who didn’t believe in the pureblood ideals. The Malfoys are even worse than that. Draco isn’t just friends with someone who isn’t a pureblood, he is in love with one.”
“And I understand that. But we have been dating for a year. I feel like he is ashamed of me. We only go on dates in the wizarding world, we have never been photographed together, he won’t come to any events with me.”
“Hermione, talk to him. You both are intelligent people, you’ll work it out.”
“I hope so.” Hermione looked up at Ginny. “That’s not the one.” Ginny groaned and went back into the dressing room to change.
“I think I might be done for the day.” Ginny fell onto the couch and stole Hermione’s glass of Champagne. “My mum wants me to wear her gown. I might give in.”
“Ginny Weasley, your wedding is the equivalent of a Royal Wedding. You need to have your dream dress.” Hermione stole her glass back.
“I would marry Harry in my Hogwarts uniform. I don’t care about the details, I just want to marry him.”
“That is grossly romantic.” Katie commented.
“I know. He brings it out of me. I’ve loved him for as long as I’ve known him. I’m ready to be his forever.”
“That’s how I feel about Draco.”
“Do you want to marry him?”
“Yes. I really love him and I can see us being together for the rest of our lives.” Hermione finished off her glass of champagne. “He freaked out after I told him I might run for Minister.”
“We will be going back to why you didn’t tell me about being Minister, but what do you mean freaked out?”
“You cannot let him know that I told you this.” Hermione said sternly. “We were starting to be intimate, and he started saying things like ‘I'm not good enough for you’ or ‘I don't deserve you’. And he may or may not have started to cry a little bit. And that all happened before I even told him about my meeting with Kingsley about being Minister.”
“You should talk to him. He could just be feeling insecure. He knows that in the eye of the public, the Malfoy doesn’t have the same power that it used to. Yes, it still holds power and influence but not in the same way it did when we were kids. If you really want to stay with him, this is a conversation you need to have because if you do become Minister, your relationship with him won’t be private anymore.” Ginny agreed with Katie and Hermione knew she was right.
“I’ll talk to him about it all when I get home.”
“I really do think that I am done for the day. Why don’t we go get lunch?” Ginny suggested.
“The Leaky?” Katie suggested and they all agreed.
Hermione opened the door to their flat and was immediately met with the group of Slytherins sitting around her couch.
“Granger!” Theo was the first one to see her. The surrounding Slytherins all turned to look at her.
“Hermione! Love! Welcome Home!” Hermione giggled at Draco’s slurred words.
“Hello, my love.” She walked over and sat next to him.
“I am sorry.” Draco’s head fell into Hermione’s lap.
“Why are you sorry?” Hermione asked him.
“I invited my friends over without telling you.”
“It’s okay. This is your home too, Draco.” He sat up and kissed Hermione’s lips. The kiss was sloppy and it made Hermione laugh.
“Do you want a drink?” Draco asked her.
“What are you drinking?”
“Firewhiskey.” Blaise answered for Draco and he passed the bottle around to Hermione.
“Thank you.” Hermione summoned a glass from the kitchen. She poured two fingers worth of liquor and then set the bottle on the coffee table in front of her.
“I missed you.” Draco whispered into her ear.
“I was gone for a few hours.”
“Well it was too long.” Draco slurred.
“I’ll remember that next time.”
Draco started kissing Hermione’s neck and she blushed. Her eyes flickered to the other people in the room, none of them sober enough to notice Draco’s wandering hands.
“I love you.” Draco mumbled into her eye before kissing her lips.
“I love you.” She mumbled against his lips.
“I think it’s time for us to go.” Millicent commented as Draco started to pull Hermione into his lap.
“It was good to see you all!” Hermione pushed Draco away long enough to say goodbye to their friends.
“I really like to kiss you.” Draco said, pulling her back into him.
“I really like to kiss you, as well.”
“I wish I could kiss you forever.”
“You can kiss me forever.”
“No, I can’t.” Hermione pulled away from him. “One day, I'm gonna hurt you and you’re going to hate me.”
“I could never hate you.”
“Do you promise?”
“Yes, I promise.” Hermione kissed him gently. “Come on, I’m taking you to bed.”
Hermione pulled him up and into their room. He was drunker than she’d ever seen him before. She helped him out of his clothes and tucked him into their bed. She kissed his forehead and whispered; “I love you” to him. His eyes fell and he drifted to sleep.
Hermione slipped out of their bedroom and cleaned up the living room. She thought about his words. ‘One day, I'm gonna hurt you and you’re going to hate me.’ She wondered what he might have meant by that. Was there something more going on? Something she didn’t know about? She’d ask him about the next day. For now, she’s going to crawl into their bed and drift to sleep with his arms around her.