A/N: Hello Chickadees! Welcome to my first foray into Dramione fanfics. I've already posted this story on AO3 under the pen name 'Bees Pen' so don't be alarmed if this looks suspiciously similar, it's still me but under a different name for this site. I've suffered a little writer's block with this story but I'm getting over it and just thought I'd introduce it to a wider audience here.

Hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: I'm just a keen reader & writer living in JKR's world. The genius is all hers.

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Chapter One - Stupid Muggle Traditions

Hermione groaned in her sleep, attempting to turn onto her side before she felt a weight bearing down on her, clamping her into place. Her breath hitched in surprise, eyes flickered open and she saw… an arm. Pale, marble-like and sculpted. With a curl of black ink on the underside.

"Draco!" She gasped, sitting up quickly.

The mass beside her didn't move and simply made a semi-conscious 'mmm' sound in reply from beneath the duvet.

"Draco…," she said more softly (and much more calmly now that she was over the shock of his unexpected presence) and smoothed her hand up his arm affectionately, "What are you doing here? You're supposed to be at the hotel."

There was a heavy exhale and his blond head, the only other part of him visible at the moment, turned to her, eyes still shut. "Couldn't sleep," he said weakly. "I hadn't seen you for ages."

"Two days," she smiled.

"Too long."

She breathed a laugh, "It's only for a few more days. You know, so we don't see each other before the wedding – "

"Stupid muggle traditions." She jumped at his voice, suddenly sounding less sleepy, and noticed that she'd been so engrossed in watching her fingers trail up and down his arm that she hadn't seen him open his eyes to her.

Gosh. He really was gorgeous.

But no way was she going to show him how secretly happy she was that he'd come back to her, admit that two days felt like a long time to her as well. They had lived together for a year and half, so it was strange not to have him at home when she came back from work, or be able to get into silly debates with him about the news. And sleeping in their bed without him was lonely and cold. She missed how he would take her book from her hand and tuck her in when she fell asleep reading. She missed the feeling when he wrapped around her and how he kissed her temple every morning.

And she missed his body. Bed certainly wasn't as fun without him.

She pursed her lips, "You can't think all muggle wedding traditions are stupid. What about the white dress?"

"Which I haven't got to see…" He frowned.

"Not until the day, but – " She sighed and wracked her brain. "The bachelor party? Isn't that a fun tradition?"

He turned his body towards her. "I didn't really get what the fuss was all about," he rasped. That voice was entirely too sexy.

"I thought Blaise and everyone took you to a muggle strip club?" She giggled to herself. "Women dancing on poles, taking bits of clothing off – what's there not to understand about it?"

He propped himself up on one elbow and played idly with her fingers. "I don't know," he shrugged, "I don't see how it's fun to watch a scantily dressed woman – a complete stranger – dance in a room filled with loads of other men. It felt awkward and I didn't see the point, especially when I've got you to come home to..."

She melted looking back into his eyes and ran a hand through his ruffled hair. It didn't make much sense when he put it like that. She had felt much the same way during her own bachelorette party, spending most of the time imagining how Draco would look in the same gear as the stripper, then wondering where to buy it. She'd even asked him after the event and had a Post-it note floating around in her handbag with the shop details. Ginny had been unimpressed.

"It's supposed to be your last day of freedom," she finally explained, "So you're allowed to lust after someone else for one more night before you become mine."

He rolled his eyes in mock exasperation but squeezed her fingers sweetly. "It's silly, as is the whole sending your fiancé away – "

"I'm hardly banishing you from my life! I'm not enjoying this either, but it's bad luck to see the bride before the wedding and we're getting married in – " She looked at her clock for the time. 3:57am. "Goodness. 36 hours. This is dangerously close t – "

He smirked. "You don't honestly believe that stuff do you?"

"Well, no…"

"No, you don't," he said triumphantly and leaned in to place a kiss on her lips, feather light and teasing. Just as she thought to deepen it he had drawn back a little, enough to be able to look into her eyes, studying her. "You don't believe it… but you still care about it," he sighed.

"Yes." Although, looking into those stormy grey eyes of his she was quickly forgetting why.

"Because it's a muggle belief." He supplied.

"I just want to be safe," she whispered back.

He huffed a little and then pulled away completely, taking everything – his touch, his warmth, his smell – away from her. He started to gather up his pillow and some blankets from the cupboard.

"Granger... we're meant to be together. The number of hurdles we've overcome is testament of that," he turned back and smiled wryly, "I don't think a little bit of bad luck could do very much to us. But," he sighed, "If this matters to you then I'll go sleep in the lounge tonight and go back to the hotel early tomorrow morning so you won't see me when you get up."

"Thank you," she said quietly, throwing an impish grin in his direction.

"No, thank you. You owe me," he sauntered over to her side of the bed with a grin on his lips. "And I can think of a few ways for you to pay me back in about 37 hours."

Hermione narrowed her eyes at him. "You do realise there's a reception after the ceremony? We'll have to show our faces for more than an hour."

He shrugged and ignored her warning. "I'm thinking a pole…" He pressed a kiss to her temple, "And nipple tassels."

"Definitely not!" She tried to be serious but they were both sniggering. "Draco?" She called and caught his arm as he began to walk away. "Is there anything about muggle weddings that you actually like?"

"Yeh," he nodded, "The vows. I like how we can write them – make them about our past and our future. Wizard binding ceremonies are so impersonal."

She smiled weakly at him as they said their goodnights with a last kiss and she watched him and his perfect behind waltz off into her lounge, blankets in hand.

The vows.

Her heart suddenly clenched. It was his favourite part, the bit that was personal and intimate. Vows. As in the things she hadn't written yet.

He was doing this whole muggle style wedding, getting all his wizard guests (who would deign to come) to act muggle for a day so that she could have the wedding her family had wanted for her. He had fought his parents round to the idea of their marriage, battled for the muggle plans and ceremony, and she couldn't even write vows for him. Tell him how much she loved him.

Of course she had something. She had many things written down – that was the problem. She had so much she wanted to say.

She reached into the extension-charmed handbag by her bed and pulled out a wad of about thirty pieces of paper, all with writing scrawled across them. Some of them were receipts and ripped corners of newspapers where she had suddenly thought of something she wanted to add, others were entire pages of notepaper sprawled with writing on the front and back. None of it was a complete set of vows.

She had tried so hard for the last few months, ever since they decided not to go for traditional vows and write their own, but she'd never felt like they were good enough. Now it was 36 – no, more like 35 hours – before she was due to recite her vows and she had no clue. She'd never been in the habit of leaving things to the last moment like this.

She had asked others for help. Her mother and father had said traditional muggle vows which were nice but still impersonal. Ginny and Harry, her only married friends who had also written their vows, had given her a copy of theirs for inspiration.

Ginny, in typical Ginny-esque fashion, had unabashedly spoken about how she had probably been in love with Harry since she was ten and met him whilst dropping Ron off on Platform 9¾ for his first year. She could talk about how they had grown up as friends, how Harry risked his life for her in the Chamber of Secrets, tried to protect her when the War broke out and how she had fallen in love with him when he wasn't even around – when he was hunting horcruxes. In turn, Harry could talk about how she gave him the first real sense of family and how he got through the darkest moments of his life by thinking of his chance to be with her.

Their vows were sweet, just like them; just like their relationship. But they could hardly help Hermione.

Her relationship was not one that sparked from a young crush and grew on a foundation of friendship. It was a rougher, bumpier ride than Ginny and Harry's, full of scars and pain. It was unexpected, to say the very least. Hermione had spent the good part of her adolescence with her nose in her books, pining after Ron, and Draco was being groomed to be a mass murderer. Their relationship was one of forgiving and forgetting the past; relearning each other after the War.

Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy were the most unlikely match to grace the Announcements section of the Daily Prophet – Prince of the Death Eaters and the Order's Warrior Princess. The wizarding world was in uproar, many thought they (or more specifically, Hermione) had fallen victim to some curse. That was after she had to convince her friends that she was sane, and that was after she had spent the good part of a year battling herself over her feelings for him.

No one truly understood it. She barely understood how it all worked out, herself, but she knew that she loved him. She just couldn't do the fairytale thing as Ginny had done and say a part of her had always known that she was meant to end up with Draco.

Hermione sat with her pen poised over a new piece of paper, thinking about when she first seriously considered that they were meant to be something more to each other. The end of eighth year, probably. But she would be lying if she said there weren't some signs before that…

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A/N: So the journey begins! I have 7 chapters written and I'm posting the next chapter today, then the rest every few days until I run out. I hope you'll all enjoy it.

Now I'm shamelessly going to say that I love reviews, however long or short, so please feel free to leave one. It'll be much appreciated :)