A/N: This is AU and a meaningless fluffy oneshot. Just giving fair warning. Oh, and this was also written for the prompt 'birthday plans' and the character 'Hermione Granger', set by Slytherin Head, from the forum Hogwarts Online.

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters from Harry Potter.

Her Birthday

It was her birthday today. He knew that. He knew that his beautiful girl was turning twenty-one today, and yet he had no present or gift planned for her. He had agonized over the problem for a month, and yet here he was, the morning of Hermione's twenty-first, and with nothing to give her. He hadn't wanted to give her something meaningless, something she would smile at and put away on a dusty shelf. He wanted to give her something to remember him by, so that she wouldn't forget him when he left for Australia next week.

She'll probably dump me for this, he thought morbidly, and go back to that idiot redhead.

Pansy had suggested a reservation for a night in a fancy hotel, and Millicent had suggested an old-fashioned bouquet of roses, but Hermione hated artificial flowers and where was he going to find natural roses in December?

Draco still remembered when he had first fallen for her. She had been spending quite a bit of time at one of Draco's haunts, a small bookshop. They had talked, over coffee, first about their favourite books, then their lives since they had left school, which eventually led to weekly meetings at a café. Draco didn't ask her about what had happened between her and her famous boyfriend, Ron 'the King' Weasley, and in turn she didn't ask about the huge scandal last year in which Draco's father was convicted. Lucius Malfoy was now serving a life sentence back in England, and Draco had moved to the US to get away from all of that.

Their relationship had progressed from that of friendly friends to something more than friends, but this was Draco's first 'serious' relationship (serious being more than an one-night stand) and he didn't want to mess it up, and Hermione was still wary of letting someone into her heart and getting hurt. They were each other's anchor in the present, grounding them so that they didn't get lost in their pasts.

The doorbell rang, and he hurried to the front door of his tiny house. He opened the door, and there she was, standing there with a huge smile on her face and amber eyes that glowed. For a second his breath was taken away by her beauty. She noticed this and laughed, swatting him on the arm and pushing past him into the house.

'Come on, Draco!' she called, dancing into his bedroom and throwing a scarf and a jacket at him, which he caught. He looked at them, bewildered. She laughed again, a laugh that wasn't tinkling like a bell and didn't sound remotely like droplets of water pinging onto glass, but he realised that he loved the sound of her laugh and wanted to hear it again and again for the rest of his life.

'Put them on, Draco,' she said, rolling her eyes. And before he had even gotten his second arm through the sleeve of the jacket she had taken his arm and dragged him outside, into the swirling snow. Then she drove them to a snowy mountainside, where the sun glared and the snow shone a brilliant white. He looked at her askance, questioning, and by way of an explanation, she said, 'It's my birthday.'

As if I need a reminder, he thought, and he tentatively put an arm around her shoulders.

They spent a day out there, in the snow, Hermione attempting to teach Draco to ski, and Draco attempting to charm his skis without Hermione noticing. Hermione watched Draco carefully, her heart lifting as she saw him laughing, carefree and happier than she'd ever seen him. Silver sparkled in his eyes as he careered down the slope, arms windmilling frantically as he performed an impromptu somersault and stopped abruptly, face down in the snow. Hermione slid gracefully down the slope on her own skis, halting as she reached him.

Sitting up, he saw her as she skied towards him, laughing. How had such a beautiful woman become his? Her smile disappeared as she saw the wondering look in his grey eyes.

'Draco?'

'I love you,' he blurted out. It was the first time he had ever said it. Hermione's eyes widened, breathing in sharply. Draco realised what he had just said. Suddenly, he had the thought that he might have said the wrong thing. Maybe Hermione had thought they were just friends? Or maybe…

All similar thoughts fled from his mind as she flung her arms around him.

'Thank you,' she whispered. 'That was the best gift you could have given me.'

Draco smiled, content in her arms.

Then, 'Ow!'

'What?'

'…I think my leg's broken.'