The light streamed in from the small gap in the curtains and glared brightly in her eyes burning her eyelids with the blistering heat that could only be explained as the middle of August. She allowed her body to sync with her mind which felt miles away and as always after a heavy night of drinking she instantly regretted it, her mind told her body which parts hurt and which parts felt the need to throw up.
After a few deep breaths the feeling of nausea passed and she opened her eyes to let them adjust. But she wished she hasn't, she didn't recognise anything in the room as hers, she shot up ignoring the nauseous feeling her stomach screwed up into.
The room was for the most part dark but that could have been down to the fact that the curtains where drawn, she noticed that the floor was dark wood and the walls where a magnolia colour, the decoration was minimal and the it didn't really look like someone stayed there very often. As she scanned further through the room she came to see someone was laying next to her and instantly her stomach dropped.
'Platinum hair, Pale skin and...' she whispered as she moved herself to look at the wrist 'a dark mark' she then added in shock.
She was so shocked she jumped off the bed pulling the sheet with her, this action awake the sleeping form next to her. She could see his face come to register who was she was and where they where before he shot up eyeing her suspiciously.
'What the fuck' he muttered, looking like his head had finally caught up with him also.
'What the hell happened last night' she asked still stood up and still shook up by this whole situation.
'I hate to break it too you Granger but by the looks of it we got mortally wasted and got married' He said simply.
'Yeah alright, what really happened' she hissed in disbelief at his statement.
'Look at your left hand' he said plainly nodding at it as he moved to pull some pants on.
She looked down at her left hand and gasped, on it lay a white gold ring embedded into it where diamonds and the centre diamond was black. The second band was a thin silver band that had diamonds all the way around the front.
'They're Malfoy heirlooms' He sighed quickly as he stood up with his back to her .
'Is that a Malfoy heirloom too' she asked him calmly pointing at the black dragon that was spread across his back.
He ran to the mirror and glanced at his back before kicked a small table across the room before he turned towards her with his wand raised. He tapped her left wrist three times and a bright white string appeared momentarily before vanishing again. He then spun her around and saw her back was clean so he searched every other area of her body until he came to her ankle where a large dragon sprawled from just under her knee and it's tail wrapped around her ankle.
'We're aren't just married' he hissed to her as she stood looking at him blankly 'were bound by ancient magic'
'Well we can just go and get it annulled' she sighed as she moved across the room to pull in her underwear and black high waist skinny jeans 'Have you seen my bra anywhere?' She huffed as she let the sheet drop not bothered as to whether he saw anymore.
'Don't you understand' he yelled and she looked at him wide eyed for a moment until she spotted her bra and grabbed it clasping the strapless thing onto her and covering her modesty.
'Evidently not Malfoy' she spat pulling in her silver sequin tip that hung low at the front and was held in place by spaghetti straps, it floated around her slightly and made her feel amazing.
'This kind of marriage can only be annulled by death, you're either married or a widow' he sighed crumpling into the seat behind him and punching the bridge of his nose 'and because of the binding ceremony used we can never marry someone else' he added.
'Well fuck' she muttered as she rummaged the room to find her shoes and bag 'Look, we don't tell anyone you can have your rings back and we pretend it didn't happen until something has been found to break it' she said as she tried to pull the ring off but they wouldn't move.
'They won't come off, it's part of the bond we share now, they're stuck to you' He muttered too get 'Can you just leave, no doubt I'll see you around Hogwarts from now on, just don't tell anyone' he sighed and she smirked.
'Let me just strap my shoe in and I'll be gone' she said simply 'ill see you around school hubby' she sneered as she apperated with a pop.
When she landed she was in her bedroom at her parents house. She stripped of her clothes and grabbed her robes so she could grab a shower and change her clothes before they all set off for the train station.
The war had ended two years ago in victory for the chosen one but hogwarts had taken a lot linger to rebuild than was expected. Once it was completed the seventh year students were invited back to complete their final year in order to graduate and Hermione like most other people jumped at the chance to finish their education.
Hermione's parents waited downstairs for her. Once the war had ended she found her parents and worked hard to return their memories. She smiled as she walked down to meet them. She made sure to Wear tights to pass off the dragon as a tattoo when she comes home for half term.
They made their way to the train station and Hermione beamed as she say Harry and Ron waiting for her. Hermione and Ron had a past but it was a short romantic past, they soon realised that they were happier as friends and no more was thought about it. Hermione and her parents greeted the duo with hugs and handshakes before they said goodbye.
'Hermione, what in earth is that in your finger' Harry asked as he caught sight of rings that sat in her left finger. Hermione thought for a second before she could come up with a lie good enough.
'Oh they where my grandmothers rings' she started 'apparently she died after we left for our hunt and we only really became traceable over the last year it so, she left them in the will for me and they're just a little too small to fit in my right hand since my broken finger didn't heal properly' she smiled at him 'I never really payed much though to the fact they where in my left hand' she finished.
'They're very pretty' Harry said simple and didn't address the conversation anymore.
When the train left the station and the town started to flit by thinning out slowly Hermione started to feel trapped and she decide she needed some air so she stood and excused herself before leaving towards the back of the train.
Draco hated the idea of going back to hogwarts but he knew it was part of his probation from the war.
He sighed and rubbed his forehead as he looked around through his friends, non of them seemed to notice that something else was playing in his mind and non of them noticed that he was now sat with a ring in his left hand. Even if they did ask he knew he wanted to pass it off as a protection ring his mother had given him in case something happened. He sighed deeply once more before deciding that he needed to take a walk.
Slowly he found himself at the back of the train in the viewing deck as the protective barriers kept everything inside the platform free of wind as soon as something left that platform it was as good as gone.
He spotted his curly haired bride sat on a chair looking off into the distance with non other than a cigarette in her hand. He was taken aback slightly by how much she had changed and noted physically that she had changed her appearance since the war.
'Didn't Know you smoked' he said as he sat down opposite her.
They both knew they wouldn't be bothered out there. It made almost all the passengers sick to their stomach to see the outside flit by so quick in person rather than through a window.
'Didn't realise you cared' she retorted and offered him one which he graciously accepted and lit with the tip of his wand 'A lot has changed since the war, now I find myself comfortable enough to become who I always wanted to be, trying to escape who that girl was and part of it has stuck like the clothes and the looks but the insides don't seem too want to change' she said simple never looking at him.
'You're Escaping' he said simply.
'No, not escaping' she countered 'more adapting. I adapted who I used to be and I'm happy with who I am now' she finished as she flung her hair over her shoulder.
'We've all been there, you can change what you look like and act like but you can never really change who you are deep down' he sighed taking a deep puff of the cigarette 'why the smoking though?' He asked.
'Coping mechanism, been through a lot and I needed a vice.' She answered 'perhaps I could have picked something better but I could have also picked something worse' she added throwing her now finished cigarette off the train.
'I'm sorry for the way I was this morning' he said without looking at her 'it was a big shock but I feel there are somethings I need to explain about how we're bound' he added and looked at her.
'Alright'
'First of all if you close your eyes and call for me I can pretty much hear you and you hear me'
'Right'
'If you have an intense emotion I will be able to feel only half of what you feel and vice versa , any other normal feelings well both be non the wiser' he said taking a deep breath 'and if we're not close physically with each other in more than just the same classroom for too long then the bond will weaken us both, we're like each others chargers now' he finished.
'Physically?' she asked with a funny look.
'The longest we can go is two weeks without any physical contact like kissing or something else. Don't ask me why, it's was something built into the bond centuries ago to stop people marrying in order to get what was promised to them when they did and just leaving their partner.' He sighed so deeply he felt his stomach drop
'But the further into those two weeks we go the weaker we will feel' he explained 'and finally, we will need to produce an heir at some point, it was part of the binding contract we signed. If we don't we submit ourselves to breaking the binging contract and therefore the law and we submit ourselves for trial and Azkaban if need be, there is usually a time limit of pregnancy 5-6 months into the marriage' and with that last statement he left her there in the platform.
Hermione sighed and lit another cigarette, how did she manage to end a war and then throw herself out of the frying pan and into the fire by marrying a Malfoy. She knew that the boys would flip if she told them so she planned to keep it a secret, the less they knew the easier it would be.
Once that cigarette was finished she left the platform and headed towards the carriage that the boys where sat eating snacks from the trolly in. They both grinned when they say her and she smiled back as she took her seat and opened a chocolate frog Harry passed her.
The card inside broke her heart, as she looked at the paper she saw lavender brown staring back at her with a soft smile. She stood up and opened the window slightly to slip the card through the crack and let her float away. In a way it was an unwritten rule Hermione made herself abide by, she would let lavender free whenever she got her card because she couldn't do that during the war.
Hermione couldn't stop herself from feeling the intense pain of seeing Lavender die before her and before she knew it Ron had his hand on her leg holding it tightly acknowledging that she had let lavender go. Hermione now knew that Draco had experienced her pain too and probably saw why she was upset.
'You tell no one what you just saw, last thing I need is to appear weak' she addressed him internally and with that she moved forward into the conversation the two friends were having in front of her.
Once they had all settled back into the Gryffindor common room and unpacked their bags they decided to take a walk around the grounds. Hermione thought it was a terrible idea until Harry explained to her that it would be best to get majority of the bad memories out now before they got sidetracked On their way to classes.
Hermione agreed to it but under the circumstance that she went around in her own, she didn't want an audience of two watching her as bad memories flew through her mind. That was how she came to be walking into the great hall which had students littering the tables set out in neat rows. Most of the students there where young, unaware of the disaster that the older pupils fought, it was only August but the headmistress has decided to allow students to arrive throughout the month of August with a set date each year had to be there for. Today was the last day the older returning pupils could arrive.
Hermione looked around the room remembering the carnage that lay there years before, the bodies laid out in rows. On the floor she noticed that every name of a fallen student, adult or teacher was engraved into a stone slab in the walkway, no one lay under a table or bench. She sighed deeply as she walked past Remus and Nymphadora Lupin, she felt her eyes prick at Lavender Brown. But she completely fell apart at Fred Weasley, remembering the brother they lost. Because that's what he was to her, he was a brother and she knew that try as he might, George couldn't and wouldn't fill the boots for two of them.
Hermione left the great hall in a hurry and walked towards the open courtyard where at one point Dumbledore lay and where Voldemort was defeated by the very thing he tried to destroy. she felt her arms prickle when she say a placard with gold scrawl across it.
'Here lies the final resting place of
Tom Morvolo Riddle
An orphan boy taken in by an old professor, he took the wrong path away from the school and took the wrong path back.
Darkness may last longer than expected but the light will always shine after'
As touching a statement as it was she couldn't help but feel the urge to spit at it. He was immortalised unjustly in the grounds he worked so hard to destroy.
'If it bothers you so much stop looking at it Malfoy' she heard in her head.
This voice made her blood boil even more, the last thing she wanted was Voldemort's lacky in her head.
'I had one snake in my head once, I don't need another one.' She hissed internally 'Do it again and I will cut your brazen balls off and gladly go to Azkaban' she finished and smirked when she didn't get a reply.
Once she'd finished her tour of the school ground she went and sat by a fallen log next to the black lake, she pulled a carton of cigarettes out of her pocket and rested one between her lips, clicking her fingers to light it as she returned the carton back into her pocket.
'Bad habit to have Mrs Malfoy' she heard from next to her, as she looked to her left she saw McGonagall looking out at the lake with her half mood glasses resting in the bridge of her nose.
'Could be a worse habit I guess headmistress' Hermione answered looking back at the lake.
'The squid died during the battle, rubble too the poor thing out' she said simply 'Ironic thing is that it drowned to death, imagine dying the one way you lived' she added.
'We lost people for less Miss' Hermione said taking a deep drag of cigarette.
McGonagall moved and sat on the log next to Hermione in silence and looked out past the lake to the trees.
'How did you know I wasn't Granger anymore' Hermione asked with ease.
'I know a lot of things Hermione, some things I'm told and some I'm shown' she replied 'I was sent the bond certificate, it's my job to know' she finished before she stood up.
'I'm only Mrs Malfoy for legal reasons' Hermione said as the woman started to walk away 'please call me Granger' she yelled as she disappeared into the distance.
Once finished Hermione headed back to the common room but decided last moment to return to the Room or Requirement.
When she entered the blonde haired man who was now her husband was sat on the floor looking at the crumpled mess of charred rubbish left behind from the battle, she knew full well he was wallowing in his self pity and it made her blood boil.
'GET UP' she screamed as she kicked him hard.
'What the fuck Granger' he muttered as he stood up. Looking at the girl now he wouldn't have known she was the third piece of the Golden Trio, the wild murderous look in her eyes scared him to death.
'HOW DARE YOU' she spat 'How dare you sit and look at this room like it was the love of your life, you're the reason the room looks like this, you went searching for the one thing you knew this room would have to give you' she seethed to him.
'And what's that' he hissed back at her.
'Pain! And you Draco Malfoy do not deserve to feel anything, you try living with the heartache I feel whenever I see something and think 'oh Fred would love this' and then I remember that the man who is one million times better that you DIED for your mistakes' she roared as she squared up to his tall frame 'you couldn't decide what side you was on, you didn't stop to think about all the people that were killed by your death eater buddies actions'
'You're wrong'
'Oh yeah, do divulge into how you came to that conclusion' she growled as she killed him with her eyes.
'I lost people too, I lost my life to this war just as much as you did' he hissed as he began to circle her slowly 'I had to do unspeakable things, things that no 16 year old should have to do'
'Ha. You only lost the stupid people, I lost good people, people who would have made a difference in this world, a difference you wouldn't know how to make'
'I testified against all of them, I tried to redeem myself m but it wasn't enough and will never be enough for people like you'
'No Malfoy, you will never be enough for anyone' she screamed at him now her hands pushing his shoulders 'you think a few testimonies will save your soul? The moment I knew you were gone was when she did this to me' she yanked up her sleeve and flashed her mud blood at him 'when you watched as she crucified me repeatedly and you didn't step in, and you know that If this was the other way round we would have done it for you because that's who good people are' she breathed 'you Draco Malfoy are not worth saving' she spat and turned in her heels and left.
Leaving a broken man racked with guilt and anger stood in the middle of a room full of cinders.