I had – foolishly, hopefully – brought up marriage before.
It had been morning, a typical Saturday morning. Hermione had spent the night – didn't she always? – at my apartment, gotten dressed from the alarmingly well-stocked drawer in my bureau I had cleared out for her things, and started on breakfast. I had risen to the scent of bacon and eggs, however clichéd, and made my way into the kitchen.
"Morning," I yawned. She was at the stove, waving her wand at the spoon stirring popping, hissing bacon around in a skillet.
"Morning," she answered, moving to the carton of eggs. With a swish of her wand, the eggs were cracking themselves against the side of the sink and emptying themselves into a bowl.
I didn't say anything, rather, leaned on the counter and watched her work. I noticed, smirking, that she was wearing her jeans and one of my white button-downs. Whether or not she knew how sexy she looked in it or how much I loved seeing her in my clothes was beyond me. So rarely did she look laid-back and casual.
She bustled around the kitchen until everything was cooking itself – literally – and then came to lean against the counter across from me.
"Well?" she asked, arching an eyebrow.
"Well, what?"
"You looked like you were about to say something."
"I was going to ask why you didn't just officially move in with me," I told her. "If you don't sleep here, you're here by the time I get off work, and you usually don't leave until you go to work the next day. You all but live here already." Hermione's apartment, tiny and dingy, wasn't in the best of neighborhoods, even as the Wizarding world went. She didn't like being there, and, frankly, I didn't like her being their either. Though she was by far the most capable witch I'd ever met, some idiot, chivalrous part of me worried for her safety. She was the last person to need protection, yet stupidly I wanted to protect her.
"That's why," she said. "I already practically live here. I eat your food, I use your electricity, your hot water. I don't want to be any more beholden to you than I already am."
"I'm not going to hold it against you!"
"I want to be able to be independent."
"Merlin, Hermione, anyone who didn't know us would think we're already married! What's the point in being independent? If you want, you can go in with me on the rent."
"I can't afford even half the rent here, Draco, you know that." There was a pause, and she seemed to process what I'd said. "Married? Excuse me? In what way do I appear to be Mrs. Malfoy?"
"Oh, Merlin, I didn't mean it badly! I just meant that you already practically live here; your clothes are here, for Pete's sake! We eat together, we take turns cooking, and hell, we even work together cleaning the place. All we're missing are some wedding photos and a white dress in a forgotten closet somewhere."
Her eyes narrowed and her jaw tightened, and I knew somewhere I had made a mistake. I racked my mind. Where in that conversation had there been anything offensive? She looked all the angrier at my silence. "I didn't know marrying me was such a horrifying prospect," I said icily. "As I've mentioned, we're already practically. I wasn't aware you were so miserable."
"It's not marrying you that's horrifying," she snapped. "I don't mind 'practically' living with you. I don't mind helping you cook or clean or eating with you. It's being married – to anyone at all – that's horrifying."
My look must have clued her in. I was thoroughly confused. She elaborated. "I will not cook three meals a day for you," she told me in a voice that allowed for no negotiation. "I will not quit my job to clean your house and greet you every day when you get home and take your coat or hat or briefcase. I will not stay home all day and raise your children. I will not sit on the couch while the baby is napping and read Witches' Home Journal and gossip with other housewives."
"I'm not asking you to," I assured her. This must tie in with all her blather about being independent and not being beholden to me.
"You're not asking," she agreed. "But you are expecting."
"Why on earth would anyone who knows you as well as I do expect you to do all that? I do sometimes listen to all your ranting about being independent."
Her eyes narrowed further and her tone became subarctic. "Did Narcissa Malfoy go to work?"
All of the sudden I knew where this was going. "No, but my parents were not what I-"
"Did Narcissa Malfoy cook and clean by herself while your father was at work?"
"We had house elves for that," I protested.
"Did Narcissa Malfoy, then, sit on the couch and read Witches' Home Journal and gossip with other housewives?"
I set my jaw and nodded. I knew what was coming next.
"Did Narcissa Malfoy stay home and raise you?"
"No," I snapped. "No, my mother went on extravagant shopping trips to Diagon Alley and left me at home with irritable, abused house elves. Hermione Granger, in no way do I expect you to act like my mother did. I hope you never, ever act like my mother did, because if you do you will find yourself dumped on your ass outside my apartment door. If you move in with me, it will be exactly the same as it is now. If you marry me, it will be exactly the same as it is now. We will go to work, and when we come home we will cook and clean together. If we have a child, we will figure something out, and it will not involve anything my mother did to me. In the meantime, I will listen to your blather about independence and you can keep that godforsaken apartment of yours while I worry for your safety every second of every night you spend there, for no rational reason. You can continue to pay rent for a place in which you live maybe one day out of every month. When you see reason, you can come live with me and pay whatever part of the rent you can, or I can go have a much-needed talk with your boss, who obviously does not appreciate the fact that he has working for him the brightest, most capable witch walking this earth. And before I do that, one of us ought to put out the fire that was once the bacon."
Hermione whirled around to face the stove and doused the skillet with a deluge of water from her wand tip. When the billow of steam and smoke dissipated, we were left looking at a few shriveled, blackened strips that might, by the most imaginative stretch of the mind, have once resembled bacon.
Hermione sighed and leaned against the counter again. "I'm sorry," she said.
"I wasn't in the mood for bacon anyway," I muttered.
"I meant about what I said," she clarified. "I didn't know you didn't expect me to cook and clean and give up my life in general."
"I thought you were smart. At any rate, I am. Because of that, and the fact that I value my life and the ability to have children, I'd never expect you to be a housewife."
"One other thing – you worry about me?"
I groaned. "I know it makes no sense."
"It doesn't, really. I can take care of myself, despite how bad the neighborhood is. But it's a nice gesture."
"So marrying me isn't such a bad scenario after all?" I asked, smirking. She rolled her eyes.
"Don't get your hopes up."
"Don't tell me you're afraid of commitment."
"I do your laundry, Draco Malfoy, once I can't stand the stench any longer. That's all the commitment you need."
Needless to say, it hadn't gone much according to plan. Fortunately, I hadn't been serious then.
Unfortunately, I was serious now.
I had a little red velvet box – red for Gryffindor, because she wore my old Slytherin T-shirts to bed and complained she felt like a traitor – containing a white-gold ring with a diamond half the size of a Snitch. Oddly enough, I wasn't nervous. We belonged together; she had to say yes. And if she didn't – there my mind terminated the thought rather than indulge the unbearable, unspeakable, unimaginable pain that surfaced whenever I considered life without Hermione.
So I called for her to come into the bedroom. She entered in dark skinny jeans and one of my Slytherin shirts. "Haven't you got your own clothes?" I asked, smirking.
"Yours are so much more comfortable," she purred, coming to sit beside me on the bed. We both knew she wore my clothes because both of us thought it was sexy.
I leaned back against the green pillows and pulled her to my chest. She sighed and snuggled into me. "Is this why you called me in here? To cuddle? If I didn't know you better, I'd swear you were going soft on me."
I growled playfully and nipped her ear. "Absolutely not. And I do have a reason for dragging you away from whatever it is you were doing."
"Paperwork," she groaned. "Damn it all."
"I sincerely hope this will improve your mood." And with no ceremony, no down-on-bent-knee, I put the little red box into her hands and closed them over it.
"This isn't what I think it is?" she whispered, suddenly sober.
"Marry me, Hermione?" I asked, my voice lower and rougher than I thought possible.
Our first disastrous conversation about marriage had been more than a year ago, but we both remembered. "I won't be a good housewife," she whispered. "I have to work…Draco, I can't stay home all the time. I can't cook and clean for you!" She didn't sound angry, but…sad.
"I don't want you to," I soothed, smoothing her hair. "You'll be the perfect wife. Things will be the same, I promise."
"Except with wedding pictures," she sniffed. I hadn't realized she'd teared up. "And a white dress in a forgotten closet somewhere."
I laughed. "Will you finally move in with me?"
"I'll think about it," she grinned softly.
"So, what's your answer?" Suddenly I was very afraid.
She opened the box and didn't even falter at the size of the diamond. I took the ring and held it in only slightly trembling hands above her fingers. "Well?"
The word was soft, almost a question. "Yes."
Sighing in relief, I slipped the ring onto her finger. "I don't say it much," I whispered in her ear. "But I love you."
She made a contented little noise and turned over to face me. "Love you, too," she sighed. My ring glittered on her finger.
"That's a Malfoy heirloom, you know," I told her, picking up that hand and kissing it.
"Did Narcissa wear it?" she asked.
"No, my mother didn't do much of the traditional stuff. She was actually the odd one out. Most of the Malfoy brides have been just like you: feisty, exceptional witches, smart as a whip…"
"But none of them have been Muggle-born," she said dryly.
I shrugged. "There's a first time for everything." I must have been a little too chipper, because she saw through it.
"Your family hates you for this," she said quietly. It wasn't a question.
"You're worth it," I said firmly. I twined my hands in her hair and pulled her lips to mine. After a moment we pulled apart. "You're worth it," I repeated. "You're so, so worth it."