Epilogue
Eight months later...
Draco’s fingers dance along the back of her dress, pulling together the fabric and fastening the delicate buttons.
“All set,” he says, snaking his arms around her waist.
“We don’t have to go,” she reminds him.
He smiles.
“We have a reservation,” he answers. It isn’t an argument. He doesn’t want to go either. They'd just arrived in France that afternoon and had spent the last couple of hours playfully arguing about their agenda. She wanted to see the seven magical landmarks that were close by according to some book she read. Draco wanted to see her in her swimming costume.
“Reservations can be canceled,” she spins, smiling up at him, her eyes full of mischief.
“Reservations can be missed,” he leans down and kisses her. She looks beautiful. Hair freshly washed and tied into a thick braid at her nape. Her eyes lined in chaol and her cheeks rosy.
Hermione walks him back until he is leaning against the long wooden vanity. Grabbing her wand, she banishes her dress. She is wearing silver lingerie. Silver and gold, his favorite combination.
All those little buttons, he thinks. It had taken him forever to get them all fastened.
He is about to say so, but she makes it up to him immediately by banishing his dinner jacket and trousers. He's left in his white dress shirt and white boxers, her favorite.
“Five minutes,” she gnaws on her lower lip, pulling on the fabric of his button-down.
“Give me a bit more credit than that,” Draco picks her up, her legs wrapping around him.
The bungalow they are staying in is small but luxurious. With a canopy bed and Egyptian cotton sheets. When they'd arrived, she'd asked him how he'd pulled it off. He'd been working since graduation, at an apothecary in Diagon Alley. It wasn't great money, but he'd saved enough for this. He merely told her that he had his ways.
Draco carries his love over to the bed and lays her down gently. She reaches out for him and he lays his body over hers, languid.
“I don’t ever want to leave,” she arches against him, her hands cupping his face.
Draco smiles, in that full way that only she can elicit. As much as he is looking forward to showing her the lake and the village, he’d rather explore her right now.
Taking his time, he straddles her, ghosting his fingers over her skin, sometimes pressing into her soft flesh and other times barely making contact. The sounds she makes are like a melody, and he is the only one who can harmonize.
When his teasing becomes too much she pulls him down and kisses him, hungry.
He shifts so her leg is between his, propping himself up to kiss her back.
“Draco, I want to ride you,” she rasps. Draco shivers, inhaling her scent. Eucalyptus and coffee.
Salazar. He nods, pulling her against him and tumbling them to the side.
She straddles his waist and does her own teasing. Taking each button of his shirt with the same care he had shown. Her hands push back the fabric and her nails trace runes into his skin. He watches, mesmerized.
“You are so beautiful,” Hermione says, leaning forward to kiss the center of his chest.
Draco laughs, so grateful for the woman in front of him.
“I mean it,” she presses both of her palms to his chest. He lays his hands over them, knowing she can feel his heart pound in his chest.
“Thank you,” he says, heat flushing through him.
She giggles and reaches behind her, unhooking her bra and pulling it down her arms.
Moving back, her hands pull from his and slip below the waistband of his boxers, freeing his hard cock.
Then she lifts her hips pulling her underwear to the side. She moves her fingers through her folds, not yet lowering herself on top of him. He watches as her hands caress her body, amazed at the confident woman in front of him.
She closes her eyes and throws her head back, pinching her own nipple gently.
His patience evaporates and his hands come to her hips, pushing her down onto his hard cock.
She shrieks and shifts forward so he can slide inside of her.
“You’re so big,” she clenches around him, hissing in delicious pain.
He tries to let her ride him, to be in control but it is too much. Too perfect. So when his hips buck and he sinks fully inside of her, they both moan together.
She lifts and lowers herself in sync with his thrusts and it isn’t long before she has to brace herself against his chest, her nails digging in.
“Look at you, love. Merlin,” he grunts, bringing a hand to his mouth to stifle a grunt.
“Oh, I am so close,” she moves faster, grinding against him.
She grips around him like a vice and fingers her clit, moaning loudly while she cums all over his cock.
He bucks up again, relishing the feeling but she pushes down on him, removing herself from his stiff prick.
Draco watches in awe as she slithers down his body and takes his cock covered in her juices into her mouth. It only takes half a dozen strokes before he is coming in her mouth. She licks him clean and then crawls up until she can press her cum-coated lips against his. His tongue laps at the salty essence, so grateful for the woman in front of him.
“I think we can still make our reservation,” she sits up after a few moments of blissful quiet, looking behind her in the mirror. She presses her hands to her warm cheeks and then brushes loose hair behind her ears.
Draco wishes she wouldn’t tame her hair. He loves the way it frames her face after sex.
“Or we could just summon something,” he offers, pulling her against him.
“It’s still early. We should at least leave the bungalow,” she sits up again more determined, reaching for her wand. She spells their clothes back on and wipes her mouth on the back of her hand.
Draco sits up and nods. That he can do.
He checks his own reflection in the mirror and then finds Hermione’s shoes. Kneeling in front of her, he helps slide them on and then buckles them, his touch lingering on her thin ankles.
“Hand me my purse?” She asks.
He grabs it from the vanity and passes it to her. She opens it and he sees a familiar piece of paper. Malfoy stationary.
“What is that?” he asks, nodding towards it.
“It’s the letter you sent me. The first one,” she looks up at him.
“You keep it in your purse?”
“Actually, I usually keep it somewhere on my person. Close to my heart. It means a lot to me. Maybe even more now than it did when I first got it.”
“Why?”
She stands up and they stand face to face, him sitting casually at the edge of the vanity.
“Because you wrote that you wanted to be different. That you didn’t want to repeat the same mistakes. And you’ve proven to me that every word was true.”
They kiss and Draco thinks back to the man he was a little more than a year ago. Being able to admit to himself that he was wrong? Searching for a way to break himself from the patterns of his ancestors? It was all worth it.
She takes his hand and pulls him out of the door, onto the sandy beach of Lake Annecy.
It’s just as he remembers it. The sun is low in the sky and the water laps gently at the shore, setting a calming backdrop for their first trip. After graduation, they moved in together. The flat was small and nothing like the one he’d expected to live in, but it was perfect for them. He never had to search for her. He supposes that is what makes loving Granger different from loving his parents. How freely she gives her love back to him.
“What made you decide to start with this portkey?” he asks, walking hand in hand down the beach towards the small village where hopefully, food awaits.
“You were so excited to tell me about it at school, I knew how excited you’d be to truly show it to me.”
Draco spots a small round stone, like the ones he used to bring to his mother, and bends down. He holds it out and Hermione takes it, holding it up to the golden light of the sunset.
She hands it back to him and he closes his fist around it.
“Hermione,” he stops walking.
She turns to look at him, golden rays illuminating her hair.
With a swish of his wand, Draco transfigures the stone.
“Without trying to sound like a total prat,” he slips down onto one knee, losing his balance a little on the loose sand. “Would you be my wife?” He steadies himself and looks up at her, basking in her warm glow.
He holds out his hand, and where the stone had been sits a solid stone band.
“Yes,” she exhales, pulling him onto his feet, and pressing her lips to his passionately.
He slides the ring onto her finger and kisses her back, a smile breaking across his face. He's not sure he'll ever stop smiling now. He may very well be cursed to an existence of joy and love. And he is perfectly fine with such a curse.