Hullo everyone! I'm finally getting around to posting my first story, hope you enjoy! Review if you wanna, I'd love to hear from you!
Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognise, yo. It belongs to Jo, yo.
Summary:The Second Wizarding War is over, and in order to bring together the two sides, it is decided that Holy Matrimony be used to show the uniting of the two sides. When a certain Draco Malfoy from the Death Eater side of things and one Hermione Granger from the Order both agree to the merger in order to help the Wizarding World heal, will they be able to get over their pride and learn to love? Written in a slightly old-fashioned manner, and slightly AU. You can go ahead and ignore the epilogue in this case.
Love is often the fruit of marriage.
~Moliere
"I'll do it."
Her voice rang out into the prodigious, silent room like church bells after a funeral. Every head swivelled towards her lightning-fast, expressions of concern and surprise painted on their faces.
For the Wizarding World. For peace and peace of mind. But she gulped, knowing her heroism would just be a leap into a difficult plight.
"Who would do that? We don't know which one of them it will be."
There was a long pause, each of the men appraising one another. Who was willing to give up so much for so risky a reward?
"I will do it."
White faces and dark eyes bored into him as a hook on a grapnel. He glared right back, his own eyes slightly wide.
For prestige, was his mantra, as if saying it enough would make it true. But he knew it wasn't. It was all because there was a chance for reparation.
It rained buckets on the scheduled day, granite coloured clouds covered the sky like a blanket of foreshadowing upon the meeting house. At the first light of morning, it started as a small drizzle, but by noon, it was falling down in torrential sheets, destroying dirt roads and all vegetation.
The thunderous squall caused small lakes and rivers to gather in low places, eddying with the livid winds and soaking into the ground. The cinder sky raged and stormed with the deluge, sending torrents of water in an ocean of ebbing and flowing waves, never ceasing movement.
She sat next to a window and watched the tempest through the stained glass of the ancient church. She couldn't help but speculate over what primaeval form of misconduct had caused the skies to seek revenge so bellicosely.
She stared, entranced, for many minutes before several of her friends came to assist her with preparations for the ritual. It was now or never.
When the pair met, for the first time in years, she recoiled slightly, her brow knitted in a fine line. His ever cool face stayed blank, but panic ran rampant in his mind. Yet they both stayed placid, their anxious hands grasping the altar with white knuckles.
With their consternation slightly abated, they stared at one another fiercely in the eyes, as if daring the other to run. Neither complied and the nuptials started without a hitch. When it came time to say the vows, they murmured with soft voices and resigned acquiescence. If ever they had agreed before, no concurrence was as portentous as was conveyed through their woebegone stare. No matter how much they knew this merger would never work to bring both sides together, they had no choice.
"Do you, Draco Lucius Malfoy, take Hermione Jean Granger to be your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do you part?" The Minister's voice echoed through the church.
"I do." His voice was emotionless and he spoke quietly.
The Minister turned away from the groom and toward the bride. "Do you Hermione Jean Granger, take Draco Lucius Malfoy to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do you part?"
Her voice shook, but she stuck up her chin, thinking of what she was doing to unite the world in peace and unity. "I do."
When he palmed her fingers to slip the stone cold ring on, his hands shook and she almost jerked away out of instinct. But they followed through, effectively sealing the deal—and their fate.
It wasn't a real union; she knew this from the minute they walked into their house. It was not a marriage, it was not a home. It especially was not love.
And nothing would change that.
With an unceremonious shrug of a shoulder, he dropped her bags on the stoop. Moving to explore the back estate, he scrutinised the worn stucco walls of their new residence. The Manwaring house given to the pair by his parents, could at best be called a cottage. It lay in the countryside just outside his parent's estate, hidden in the valley between two green hills. Since the rain had quit falling by the time they got there, he had to trudge through thick mud to reach the yard. A small forest surrounded the back and set the boundaries, and the train station into the city lay no more than an hundred yards down the dirt road. Hermione's old jalopy sat in the driveway, their means of arriving at the chantey from their wedding. The chauffeur honked lightly as he rambled down to road and back to the city.
As they expected, there had been no honeymoon.
Just inside the quaint wooden door, there was small kitchen and a parlour, equipped with a bijou piano-forte and an ornate, yet ragged couch. Down the hall lay two separate bedrooms, the one on the left containing her partner's inventory, the one to the right, hers. There were a pair of glass doors that led to their minuscule grounds in the back corner of her chambers, and a set of giant bay windows in his. To her small delight, she found a bathroom of her own, suited with her toiletries. Her toothbrush lay forlornly in a dark blue holder on the counter.
Because of the parole that Draco was experiencing, the couple was forced to live like Muggles, even going so far as to confiscate his wand and urge Hermione not to use hers.
She never saw much of him in the months that followed. She made him breakfast in the early morning, just like the wife she was expected to be. It was common for him to have left for work without a single word shared between the two. On the weekends, she went calling to her friends in the city, and he stayed away from the house. She found she neither worried nor cared about what he did as she knew with some sadistic delight that he would never go after another woman for the rest of his life, not while his inheritance lay in the measure of his fidelity to his wife. The wife that he had never known well nor liked, and was too obstinate to become acquainted with.
After many weeks that followed the same pattern, she received a stocky vanilla coloured letter in the mail. With a sense of dread she tore the crimson seal open—the Ministry's seal. She glanced through the letter as her heart sank lower and lower in her chest. If it was a breaking of the merger, and thereby her marriage, she would have been happy, why wouldn't she be? But alas, it was not. She was to work at the office with her husband. The Minister said that "You have become aquatinted well enough with your new husband and life that it is time to start to work to support yourself. You will be working at Malfoy Industries on the marketing staff right now, but if you find a position you would rather hold, you may bring that up with your husband." The rubbish, she snorted sourly. I make one decision to save our society and suddenly they think they control me.
When he came home on the six-thirty train, supper waited for him at the kitchen table. He did not comment as he took his evening meal alone, though she was in the parlour, a thick, yellowing parchment envelope clutched in her fingers. She did not tell him of the new development, and he did not ask.
When she commenced her work at the office, he was thoroughly wroth. He proffered the words "surprised and agitated" to a curious coworker he decided to be polite with. The meeting house was his domain, and he was loath to find her presence in his territory. The Manwaring cottage is her enclave, why does she see fit to enter my kingdom?
He found her in most of his meetings, loitreing in the back with a notepad, taking down the minutes. He did not talk to her all that day, for the dirty looks that he slipped her in the hallways sufficed. She did not take it personally, as she was just as disgruntled to be there as he was to find her there.
She took the early train home that day, and every day following. By the time he came home, supper was on the table and she was on the sofa reading a novel. He questioned her presence at his office later in the evening, and after sharing a few sparse, albeit cross words with one another, she fetched the missive from the Ministry out of her bedroom. He skimmed through it with a frown and sighed dejectedly.
They said their artificial goodnights in a wretched mood, once again being forced to do something from which they had no circumvention.
When they passed one another in the hallways of the office, no recognition nor acknowledgement was exchanged between the two. Their co-workers did not find it odd that no greeting was passed between the husband and wife, for the whole of the Wizarding World knew the story of the man who married to save him from his fate and the woman who married to save anarchy from everyone else's.
They had their first heated spat as a married couple the week after she joined the office staff. It was as unimportant and useless as their union seemed to be. So much so that after a day and half, neither even remembered what it was about. But it was the longest conversation they had had with one another since their childhood squabbles; and it was refreshing.
After their row ended and they were back to civil conversation before supper and uncomfortable rides to work on the train, she could still remember her wonder at the sight of emotion in his eyes. The moment that their screaming and arguing had stopped, there was tangible silence in the room. With their shoulders heaving up and down, they looked into each other's eyes, probably for the first time since the wedding ceremony, almost five months ago. And instead of the deadness, the apathy and the feigned calmness that had resided there during their espousal, there was anger and vulnerability and a form of ragged beauty that neither had experienced before. It was no sudden rapport or fierce bonding, but a sort of tentative connection they shared within their mutual vexation of the other. There was fire and the relief of letting out bottled emotions. There was mystery and there was lucidity. She didn't know what it was and neither did he, but it was something.
She took her supper with him the next night. And the next.
He walked into the company building straight from the train-stop without greeting anybody, ignoring even the people who hailed him. He threw his briefcase down on the desk the moment he entered his office and collapsed in the wooden chair. Running his hands through his dark hair, he tried to calm himself. How did I get in so far over my head? He wondered, shaking his head at his own thickness. He had taken on an enormous tower of work, foolishly thinking that he would have enough time to do it. He didn't. It was only eight in the morning and he was already wanting to kick off his shoes and have a cold drink.
Steeling himself mentally—he was sure it was going to be a beastly day—he moaned and turned to the horde of paperwork he had to sort before the company meeting that afternoon. He would have to hurry like nothing else in order for it to be done by then. Opening the bottom drawer of his bureau, he pulled out the mound of papers only to find them neatly organised, first by date and then alphabetically. A catalogue written in unfamiliar penmanship sat innocently at the back of the stack. His work was already finished.
Somebody had done it for him.
What on earth?
As was usual, she ate her lunch on the bench by the pond in the central park, right next to the office. She consumed her meagre meal in silence, pensively watching the small flock of swans that floated around the stagnant water.
She did not hear his steps as he approached, but she felt the bench shift as he reclined himself upon it.
"Why did you do it?" His voice was gravelly and soft, with a hint of sociability she had never before heard directed towards her.
He sat next to her in his dapper suit, his smart shoes nimbly crossed at the ankles. She raised an eyebrow in question and with a slight exhale he rephrased his query. "Why did you decide to participate in the merger?"
She was shocked by his seemingly innocent question. Never before had they engaged in a conversation that consisted of more than "Would you please pass the salt?" and "What's in the news today?" Yet she answered at length, admitting that it was too long of a story not to bore him with.
His challenging "Try me," led her to put down her lunch and fold her hands in her lap, ready to delve into a story she had never thought to share with anyone before.
"I was going to marry Ron. After the end of the war, we had all but pledged ourselves to each other. But it wasn't really what I wanted." After an insignificant pause, she laughed faintly, with little mirth. "He is a pig."
His slightly impolite snort encouraged her to continue with more charisma. "He was! He was absolutely dreadful some of the time, and I guess I supposed that anything was better than him, even a man that was a former Death Eater. And then I found I did know you, and I surprised myself by not being upset. We have never gotten along, but I think I lucked out. You're much better than most of the other Death Eaters that we put in jail. And you didn't even do much wrong. Plus, by volunteering myself for the merger, my engagement to Ron was void. He had some very harsh words to say to me after the meeting closed and I made my final decision, but that just cemented the fact that I didn't want to marry him. A loveless marriage with a man I don't like is certainly better than a loveless marriage with a man that I was disgusted by." The word 'loveless' surprised them both, but it was not a slip of the tongue and they knew it. There was little congeniality between them, let alone love.
After a moment of watching the swans in uncomfortable silence, she reposed his question to him. "Why did you do it?"
He sighed and looked at her. Feeling his eyes on her, she met his grey orbs and surveyed him as he took a deep breath and began to speak. "I always was an awful child. I really was." She let out an unladylike chortle and a smile ghosted upon his lips. "And I really haven't turned into that great of a man either. I guess I wanted to be a part of the merger to make up for what I did to you and your side during the war."
She couldn't contain the question that parted her lips. "Not for the fame? I am a War Heroine, so marrying me would certainly clean up your image a bit." She ignored the arrogant way those words came out of her mouth and focused entirely on him.
"That's what I tried to convince myself I was doing it for. But it turns out I am doing it for forgiveness."
He looked at her with wretchedly hopeful eyes. His unspoken question hung like dense winter clouds in the air around the bench. He looked away from her as she stayed taciturn, but it was only for a moment. She laid a soft hand on his arm and their eyes met again. She nodded swiftly before standing from the bench, taking her lunch with her and disappearing back into the insipid building from whence she came. He sat on the bleacher for a moment more, wondering if that had been their first physical contact since he had put the ring on her finger six months prior.
He walked into the company the next sunny morning with a spring in his step. Once again, the mysterious assistant of his had helped him reach an important deadline. Whenever he felt stressed, it was as if an invisible hand was assisting him with whatever needed to be done. He found it rather amazing. When he sat down at his desk and opened the bottom drawer, he chuckled with glee. Instead of paperwork inside, he found a strawberry cruller.
He ate the small Danish a few hours later, wondering who it could be that not only helped him with his work, but gave him pastries as well. Whenever he brought it up with his coworkers, they simply looked at him oddly and walked away.
Not that he minded the aide, of course. Finding out the identity of his imperceptible deputy was merely a mission born of curiosity.
Three weeks later, the Saturday morning sun rose jauntily over the rolling hillside. The rays of brilliance airbrushed the sky with mellow golds, bright pinks and dazzling blues like a painter with bold brushstrokes. Their breakfast was filled with amiable chatter, though their conversation was still a little forced and strained. But he was happy as he left the little cottage and strolled down the road on his way to town to pick up his recently tailored suit. The steady chugging of the train lulled him into a trance as it sped through the green countryside and past the rambling houses and dull livestock. No more than a quarter of a hour later, he was wandering his way around the shops and small stores in Diagon Alley, his new suit in hand. As he passed through the corner bookshop, he noticed a rather thick, leather-bound tome resting in the bottom corner of a bookshelf in the back. Curious, he hoisted the book into his hands and glanced through the pages. It was a compilation of old Muggle classics, based on the year of their publication. On a spur of the moment decision, he purchased the book on his way out and returned to the locomotive with it under his arm. After all, he supposed, it was perfect for her.
She sat down in the parlour at the piano-forte that morning. Placing her petite fingers on the keys, she glided smoothly across them, remembering the many hours she had spent as a youth at the clavier in her own parlour back in her parent's house. She was surprised how quickly the music came back to her, and by the end of the night, she was as proficient as she could be without any books of score. Resolved to re-learn the old skill, she vowed to go to the bookshop to pick up new music the next opportunity she found.
As he walked into Manwaring cottage, a unexpected sound filled his ears. It was the sound of a piano. Having not heard such music in weeks, he dropped his parcels in his bedroom and followed the sound until he reached the parlour. There his little wife sat, picking out the notes one by one to a Muggle song he had secretly favoured as a child, "Moonlight Sonata" by Beethoven. Though it was a mean translation of the piece, he stood there, transfixed as he listened to her play. Had he ever known that she could play the piano-forte? No, he realised, he never had. There were a lot of things he supposed that he hadn't investigated.
Their evening finished in peace, with her poking obliviously at the clavier, and him standing enraptured in the doorway, wondering what more there was to his wife that he had never before possessed the desire to figure out.
He gathered his papers slowly as he left the Friday morning meeting, his mind tied down with numbers, figures and thoughts of his invisible assistant.
Walking slowly through the hallways, he paused unwittingly by a slightly ajar door. Two voices drifted through the aperture that caught his attention. An odd pull brought him to sneak up to the door and as quietly as possible and press his ear to the crack. He recognised one of the voices and moved closer to the framework of the opening. It was her voice.
"Why are you still doing it?" inquired the voice he didn't know. It was obviously a coworker of hers, but what were they talking about?
He heard her sigh dejectedly. "To be completely honest, I don't know."
"Do you think that it's doing anything?" her counterpart wondered.
"No." Came her answer; but then she changed her mind."Yes." A tense pause. "Oh, I don't know." A groan. "I can tell it makes him happy," she offered.
"That's enough reason to do it," replied her companion reassuringly. "Are you ever going to tell him that you sneak into his office after hours to help him with his work?"
"I don't think so," she answered. "He'll probably say I've gone mad and send me to an institution. Anyway—" He heard footsteps before the door opened, but it all came so quickly that he didn't have time to move away. She caught him eavesdropping easily, and they stared at each other in utter surprise. Her face flushed prettily and she opened her mouth, only to close it once more.
Before he could stammer out any plea for forgiveness, or say anything at all, she was gone. He was too shocked to speak anyway.
He took a deep breath as he tentatively sidled through the cottage, looking for his volatile wife. He was still surprised with her incognisant confession, but was oddly pleased as well. If she was willing to try, why shouldn't he be?
He found her on the quaint wooden bench in their backyard, her head in her hands and her eyes trained upon the ground. Brunette locks of curly hair fell as a curtain about her features. He took a moment to appreciate the way the setting sun reflected off her chocolatey tresses, giving them a slightly golden tinge, before taking a few quiet steps to the bench. He was hesitant to make his presence known, for he knew he was diving into a noteworthy conversation.
He sat next to her slowly, both of them listening to the sound of the evening crickets chirping, him watching the fading blues and violets of the dying sky.
After a moment, she hummed softly from the back of her throat and reclined on the bench. When she spoke, it was with such a hoarse voice, it sounded as if her power of speech had been sitting in a dusty corner of the attic and she was just pulling it out again after many years.
"When I was a young girl, I used to watch my parents wind down at the end of the day. I would stand in the doorway of our parlour and watch my parents dance to the radio in the middle of our living room. I was intrigued and awed by the love I saw between my parents. I decided then that a true love was what I wanted when I got married and had my 'happily ever after.' I decided that a healthy marital relationship was what I wanted for my children, because I had had such a beautiful one myself. And now that there isn't a chance for me to marry for love anymore, I can't help but want that silly, childish fantasy more."
He could see why she made it such a point to look away from him when she spoke; it was probably something she had held close to her heart and never told anyone before. He glanced at her quickly, in time to see her wipe angry tears from the corners of her eyes. When she opened her mouth again, it was with an irate vigour and an exasperated spark in her eyes he had never seen before. "I just get so frustrated because I don't know if I'll ever get it. I'm expected to be this perfect little wife of yours, and not to be my own person. And there's no way out unless I do something drastic and halfwitted. And the worst part is that I got myself into this bloody mess. I don't know what to do, so I've tried to make the best of it, that's why I did all that paperwork and such of yours. I just thought that if I…."
After she trailed off, it took him a minute to gather his thoughts. He hadn't realised that she was deeper than the pond in the park, and was even more surprised with the effort she put in to improve their marriage. "Listen," he whispered, "I can't promise you love. I can't. I won't. But I can promise that we can try. I believe in learning to love. Maybe I can learn to love you; I've learned to tolerate you thus far."
She caught his weak attempt at humour and granted him a small, modest smile.
He turned to look at her fully and casually brushed her hair out of her face. "Do you believe in learning to love?"
She thought for a moment, unconsciously leaning into his slight touch. "I don't know. I've never really thought about it before."
"Well think now," his replied, eyes twinkling softly. "I can't say that I'll be everything that you ever wanted in a spouse, and I won't be able to change who I am for you. But maybe if we give it a shot, it might work. We could at least be friends, partners maybe."
"Partners?" She questioned, sounding sceptical.
He shrugged noncommittally. "Well if we're already business partners, why can't we be partners in our personal life as well?"
"Partners. Friends." She decided that she like the way those words tasted in her mouth.
He slid a bit closer to her on the bench. "For now. Maybe we can be husband and wife later."
"Okay," she replied immediately and scooted a bit closer to him. Their knees were just barely touching. They listened to the quiet evening for a few minutes, each wrapped up their own thoughts. Contemplating if it would really work, thinking about their parents, smiling about the tiny pinpricks of heat they felt transferred between their knees. "I suppose it is not a lack of love but a lack of friendship that makes an unhappy marriage," she supplied as the sun dipped behind the green hills and the slim shadows elongated into pools of twilight.
He smiled softly, deciding that he liked the way she thought, as it was a lot like the way he did. She stood lithely and started towards the house. "Let's eat supper shall we? I bet it has gotten cold," she called from over her shoulder.
He admired the way she moved up the cobblestone path for a moment before following her. Maybe it won't be too hard to try this marriage thing out after all, he mused.
It was almost an entire year after their nuptials, and she was cleaning out the parlour before her friend Ginny came calling to Manwaring cottage that Saturday afternoon. As she was dusting the bookshelves, she came across an old book hiding in the bottom corner of the wooden ledge. She had never seen the tome before and it was with great curiosity that she opened the book to see what it contained. It was a collection of classic fairy tales, ones she recognised from her childhood, and the kind she vividly remembered pilfering from her family library to read during sleepless nights. She flipped through the pages with ardent glee until the sound of the front door opening caught her attention.
Puzzled but wary, she quietly replaced the book and continued on with her chores as he strolled into the cottage. She would inquire after it some other day.
They danced in the parlour one summer night. The radio sang softly; "Moonlight Sonata" floating through the bell. She turned slowly, and he smiled.
Maybe they would learn to love each other after all.
Maybe they were already on their way.
His bedroom had long since been turned into a reading room, the bed exchanged with formerly opulent armchairs and the hardwood covered with homely rugs. The aroma of the linens was replaced by the musty smell of well-loved books. The old compilation of classics purchased on a long past Saturday morn lay on the armchair closest to the bay windows, as it was enjoyed often by the husband and wife in the early evenings after their day was done.
There was more than enough space in her bedchamber for the belongings of the pair, and it was with ease that they moved through their morning routine. In the lavatory, next to the basin, two toothbrushes lay in the dark blue holder on the counter.
They fought fairly often as the days passed into years, but soft—albeit disinclined—apologies cleared the tension away, right as rain every time. They managed to work through their mutual stubbornness and accept one another for their disregarding nature, a development not lost on their friends and coworkers. Meetings during the day were no longer fraught and uncomfortable, but as amiable as could occur in the white-collar environment. His parole had long since ended and the restoration of his wand returned them to full Wizard status, but they rode the train to and from work together. Sometimes, when the day had been long, she would slumber on his shoulder, the undulations of the locomotive lulling her into cherubic sleep.
The baby cygnets swam lazy circles around their mothers in the pond outside their company. The pleasantness of early spring enveloped them underneath the span of the brilliant azure sky. Silver-haired husband and wife sat alone on the bench, watching them in companionable silence.
Just how they liked it.
And there it is. Did you like it? I hope you did! Drop me a line if have feedback or something to say. Thanks for reading.
Beanka Juarez