A/N: Better late than never... was a bit demotivated to publish this final instalment on
So here it is. Feel the Light based on the Jenifer Lopez song.
Lyrics will be cut again, as with Sweet Dreams, to avoid negative reviewers.
Previous instalments: Wildest Dreams, Stay With Me, Faded, and Out of the Woods. I suggest reading them in sequence before this one.
XXX
I want to say a BIG thank you to my beta; she really helps me with my own blind-spots and those awful errors I seem to miss myself. So, thank you to Dyvcast!
DMHGDMHG
It was obvious. She would let it start where it started, as well as ended again, originally. The Remembrance Ball. The twenty-second one, to be exact.
It was where she and Draco first got together, where they had finally given in to the timeless attraction. It was also the place where they ended barely a year later… Hermione refused to let the old hurt take hold again and so instead she finished preparing for her lunch date.
It would be a new beginning.
"[Lyrics]Here I go.."
"Ron... I'm ready."
They were having lunch, without Harry this time. They had been discussing the holidays; children stay times with which parent, and so on. They had shared custody of the children, so they had to discuss the dates that the children would stay with the other. And as well as having the talk with the children about Ron and Astoria, who had been dating now for a few weeks.
They were completely mismatched, but somehow they both seemed...happy.
Ron was good for Astoria: casual, carefree, blundering and Astoria was good for Ron, as she was the type of woman not pursuing an active career, preferring to be a homemaker, in addition to which, she seemed to exert a calming influence over him. It was the early days still and much could change, but they were serious enough that they wanted to 'meet the children,' so to say.
And it was in light of the new changes for the kids they'd been discussing, that Hermione felt the caveat she needed. She steeled herself for his response but told him she had made her decision.
"Ah, finally letting the git off the hook, Mione?"
She chuckled at his teasing tone. It was as if she and Ron rediscovered their friendship more every day and it filled her heart with happiness. "Yes, but I want to make sure you are really fine with it. I mean, he'll now be part of Hugo's life in a very direct way after all."
She fiddled nervously with her napkin. Ron loved his little Hugo very much, and he did have a short fuse for Draco. Maybe Ron wouldn't like Draco involved in raising his son?
"Mione... To be honest, it is weird…I mean…I wouldn't have ever chosen him to be my son's stepfather..."
She bowed her head, waiting for the rejection. Instead, he chuckled and continued.
"But hey, I've been raising Draco's daughter. Effectively, he has been sharing her with me, so...I can share Hugo with him. He isn't so bad. Scorpius is a happy, decent kid, from what I hear, and Rose says he is ok, so Draco is obviously doing a better job at parenting than his parents did. Also, he'll be sharing his second kid with me as well if all goes well anyway. So really, I'm getting the better end of the deal here. I can say that a Weasley is parenting the Malfoy heirs!"
Hermione beamed at him. It was as if the sun had suddenly come up and shined right out of her. Ron realised at that moment he would always love her as his oldest friend along with Harry.
"Thank you, Ronald! And we're not getting married, necessarily! We're going to try again. And it will go where it goes."
She folded her arms primly, but the blush in her cheeks told Ron that she had every intention of holding onto him this time. He just laughed at her merrily and shook his head while muttering, "Sure you are, Mione. Sure you are."
"[Lyrics] Here I go..."
It was the night of the ball and Hermione stood once more on top of the landing, just like all those years ago. Slowly she walked down the staircase, searching the crowds below for those familiar liquid grey eyes, so reminiscent of that night they first got together.
She found them. They met and held hers as she continued down the stairs. Grey and brown. Dark and light.
"[Lyrics] Do you remember when we fell under..."
She met Ginny at the bottom of the stairs, but as they greeted and exchanged pleasantries, her eyes kept searching for his, meeting them each time. She sipped her wine as she mingled with the guests, her eyes never straying far from his.
Memories flooded her. She remembered how they used to tease each other across the room, not just tonight or that first ball, but long before. That was how it budded, that tension. The blatant daring. The constant baiting. It had always been there between them.
Even in school.
But then they had been children, trying to hurt each other rather with words because they didn't know any better and he had been riddled with prejudice.
Then after school, in the halls of the ministry, it became teasing instead of insults. Sly looks and covert glances. Finally, after she and Ron broke up, it became flirting, baiting, and teasing, then pulling back. It had always been there between them.
Her eyes found his again. They were on opposite sides of the room, just like that night. This time, instead of slowly circling, they languidly started toward each other, she sipping her wine, he his firewiskey.
"[Lyrics] Feel the light..."
This time, the guests were watching them, everyone knowing the past. Everyone had been waiting for this night to see if this year she would come and not merely leave immediately after her speech as had been her ritual for the last fourteen years.
Everyone wanted to see if now it would be different if she and Malfoy would face each other now. Finally, they reached each other, silence between them. Their eyes looking into each other, reading what was there. Both searching for the hint that would give away what was going to happen next.
"Malfoy."
He smirked at her, that smirk she loved so much but would never admit.
"Granger."
She grinned in return. She stepped to him and, encircling her fingers around his tumbler, she gently took and placed it with her wine on the tray of a passing waiter.
He held out his hand, a silent invitation to dance.
"Coming Granger?"
She accepted his hand leading him to the dance floor. No walking out this time. No hiding.
"[Lyrics] Here I go..."
He led her in a slow dance around the floor. They never spoke, but kept looking into each other's eyes. She didn't need to say anything. They understood each other perfectly. It was always there between them.
"[Lyrics]Here I go.."
As they moved slowly to the music, she rested her head against his shoulder, taking in his scent. His scent had always been familiar, a scent she saw as completely him, and only him. She breathed him in deeply and felt his hand pressing into the small of her back, pulling her closer.
"Hermione... Will you listen now?"
His whisper was so soft she almost missed it, but she only smiled and kept her head against his shoulder.
"No... "
She felt him stiffening and chuckled quietly.
"You don't have to say anything Draco... I know what I need to know."
Silently, he tightened his hold. She felt him resting his chin on her head, the motion so familiar that she relaxed completely against him.
"[Lyrics] I still remember when things were broken..."
The song ended and they stepped apart carefully, keeping their hands clasped as he led her from the dance floor out to the balcony. Stepping outside, the cool evening air enveloped her. They turned and faced each other, hands still clasped between them.
"Hermione... I'm sorry. That's all I can say."
She lifted her hand and placed her finger against his lips, silencing him with a small smile.
"Shh, Draco... I'm sorry, too. But I regret nothing. I wouldn't have had Hugo and you wouldn't have had Scorpius. Everything happened as it should have. I know that now."
They stood smiling at each other or, more accurately, grinning like idiots. With a slight tug on the hand still clasped between them, he pulled her against him and, grinning, their lips met in a soft kiss.
The kiss said everything their words couldn't. It told of a deep history between them, of secrets that only they would ever know, of a love so old that, surely, this wasn't their first lifetime together.
Eventually, Hermione pulled back slightly to smirk at him in a very Malfoy way. "Just promise me that next time you get cold feet, you tell me beforehand, Malfoy so that I can hex them warm again before you run off."
They both laughed softly. He gently brushed a lock of her hair behind her ear before lightly kissing her forehead. "I promise. Next time I'll tell you beforehand so that you can kick my rather sexy arse back into line."
Their lips met once again. This time there was nothing soft about it. The kiss was fiery and passionate, as only a kiss between Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger could be.
"[Lyrics] You and I can have it all tonight..
The End
(Might Post an epilogue one day when I'm bored)
