The epilogue of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows has been hacked up and put to use for the making of this story for the prompt "naughty or nice". Originally written for D/Hr Advent 2011 on AO3/LiveJournal.
"What's this then?" Hermione asked her son, unfolding the sheet of parchment with carefully printed words spelled phonetically rather than precisely. As she read, lines appeared on her forehead and at the corners of her mouth. "Hugo, you wrote out your Christmas wish list three weeks ago. I've already sent copies around to your grandparents, uncles, and aunties." Both of her children had rushed to their rooms the moment their Auntie Ginny had brought them home from the party at their Uncle George's shop.
"But that was before, Mum! Now that I know Santa Claus is going to be bringing me a broom, I won't need anyone else to give me that. I know you won't let me use it unless I have pads and helmet, so I added those pro—er—um—proactively," Hugo beamed, certain that he'd used the right word. "This is my revised list. You always say that we should remember to cross things off our lists as they're sorted so we're not chasing ourselves, yeah?" Hugo puffed up his chest in pride.
It was rare that her son actually remembered to do something so fundamental to keeping himself organized. Hermione didn't wish to squash that. She did, however, wish to understand him. "Hugo, slow down. I'm very proud of you for keeping things updated. What I'm not clear on is why. What's this about Santa Claus?" At six-years-old, Hugo still believed Santa was an actual person.
"Here's mine, Mum!" Rose bounded into the kitchen. "Isn't it great? Santa said he's quite determined to see that we get only the best this Christmas." Tossing her list down on the table, Rose snatched up an orange from the dish and started peeling.
"Me, too?" Hugo asked his older sister.
"Ahem," Hermione cleared her throat out of habit, reminding her children of their manners.
"May I please have some of your orange, Rose?" Hugo corrected himself.
"Mum, if I share, can— may we have two?" Rose asked before agreeing to give up her prize.
"You may each have one." She set about peeling Hugo's orange. Her son hated getting orange peel under his fingernails and always tried to get someone to peel them for him. "Now, will one of you please tell me what all this is about Santa Claus?"
"George Weasley, a word, if you please," Hermione stamped up to the counter at Weasleys Wizarding Wheezes which was packed with holiday shoppers of all sizes.
"Eh, now? What's got your hair in a frizz?" George motioned Verity over to mind the till. "Help me check on the potions and you can tell Uncle George what's on your mind, sister mine."
"Draco Malfoy?" Hermione screeched. "You had Draco Malfoy in your shop dressed in a Santa Claus suit playing Father Christmas? No. No way. I don't believe you." Malfoy wasn't the same vile little cockroach he'd been at school, but he was still snooty. She couldn't imagine the man doing something so … so Muggle as playing Santa for a pack of children.
"True though. Every word. His idea even." George grinned, "Bloke even brought a house-elf dressed in a red and green striped tea towel as Santa's helper. I have photographic evidence. Or I will have once the photographer brings by the prints from the Winter Wheeze Bash," George chuckled and gave the neon pink potion a clockwise stir before reducing the flame. "We're—" The door to the potions lab in back of the storeroom slammed shut behind his sister-in-law.
"Draco Malfoy!" Hermione shouted into the Floo. "Malfoy!"
"Keep your hair on, Granger— Weasley. Granger-Weasley. Whatever you are calling yourself these days," he drawled. A pair of well-polished dragonhide boots and immaculately pressed trousers appeared in her vision. A moment later, Draco Malfoy hunkered down – how the man managed to squat elegantly, she had no earthly idea – to speak to her. "Now, what has those granny knickers in a twist?"
"Merlin and Morgana, woman! If you would close your mouth for ten seconds I might be able to answer just one of those two-and-a-half dozen questions," Draco barked.
Hermione huffed and sparks shot from the Malfoy fireplace, one landing on Draco's knee, scorching the wool and disrupting the perfect crease. "Bollocks," he grumbled, smacking the ember off and back into the hearth. "Move out of the way. I am coming through before you set the manor ablaze."
"So that's it?" Hermione cast a disbelieving eye his way. "You cook up this idea and George just goes along with it like that?"
"Look. Granger— Weas—"
"Hermione. Just call me Hermione." His constant switching and correcting himself was only serving to emphasize Ron's loss a year ago.
"Hermione," Draco drawled. Her reaction to the way the man verbally caressed her name as he tried it out had her thinking that perhaps she'd have done better to leave him tripping over what to call her. "Hermione," he repeated, "I might not have liked Weasley very much—" Hermione snorted and Draco scowled. "Very well. I might not have liked your husband at all but my son is alive today because of his sacrifice. A few extra pressies on Christmas Day won't give your son and daughter back their father, however it might give them something else to focus on other than the missing member of your family." He looked down at the ruined knee of his trousers and picked at it slightly with a frown. "This wasn't just about you and yours, you know. Weasley—George arranged for all the children who were at Fortescue's that day to be there."
The structural collapse of Fortescue's on a busy Saturday last December had killed two children and thirteen adults, Ron Weasley and Astoria Malfoy among them. It had been a miracle that so many of the children had got out and survived. "I know. George told me the Winter Wheeze Bash was for them. But, Malfoy—"
"Draco, Hermione," he said in a tone far more friendly than any he'd ever used speaking to her in the past. "If you're to be Hermione, I must be Draco."
"As I was saying, Draco, you don't owe us anything. Ron was only doing his job. He might not have been on duty but an Auror is obligated to provide aid to the public as necessary. As for the other families, if anything they owe you and Scorpius for the loss of your wife," Hermione said sincerely. Harry had got it all from the investigators from the Department of Magical Catastrophes and explained to Ron's family just how much of a difference his best friend and Draco's wife had made in rescue of all but two of the youngest children, Rose and Hugo included.
"It wasn't anyone's fault that Astoria was—wasn't rescued," he said, raking his hair back from his face.
"No, it wasn't anyone's fault. No one asked her to save so many," Hermione said kindly, "yet she did."
Draco looked at her in confusion. "What are you on about? Weasley—Ron got the kids out."
Hermione blinked. "Did no one tell you? Draco, your wife was valiant. Yes, Ron was the one supporting the bits to keep them from collapsing completely, but it was Astoria who freed the children and showed them where to crawl out through the rubble. Ron never would have managed to do so much without her." Tears glistened in her eyes. She owed Astoria Malfoy for the life of Rose and Hugo, far more than he owed Ron for the life of Scorpius.
"No one told me anything. I—" He took a deep breath but never finished his sentence. "St. Mungo's. I learnt she'd been lost from one of the Healers at St. Mungo's. I had thought she had been injured along with Scorpius. I had assumed she was being treated elsewhere. It was only after they had Scorpius on the mend and he was sleeping that I asked to see her and found out she—" Draco looked up and into her eyes.
Hermione could see the guilt. Her own eyes shone with understanding. She'd blamed herself for ages for not being there with her family. The idea that, if she'd been there to add her wand to the rescue, Ron might still be alive had eaten at her for months following the accident. It was only overhearing Rose and Hugo whispering together about how to make Mummy better that forced her to accept what was and move on.
"It was my fault really. If I hadn't been too busy—" Draco shook his head. "No, it wasn't that I was too busy, although I had used that as an excuse for not accompanying them. It was actually my damnable pride." Hermione looked at him in confusion. She could understand feeling guilty for not having been there but she couldn't make out what his pride had to do it. It was then that she realized that was what was missing from the Draco Malfoy who stepped through her fireplace into her sitting room. His superiority.
Draco might have called it pride but Hermione saw it for what it was. Losing his wife, and nearly losing his son, had ripped the haughtiness from him. The revelation had kept her from attending to the conversation and she forced her attention back to Draco's words. "—always bothered me. It had been years since someone had drawn a wand on me for it, but the whispers … The whispers never stopped and the filthy looks … Well, those did fade after time but they never went completely away."
Hermione nodded in sympathy. "It isn't easy to ignore the whispers or the looks. And it's tiring always trying to pretend that it doesn't matter." The looks she got these days were rarely filthy but there were still whispers. And there would always be a bit of that first year crying in the girl's toilet, and that second year hurting over being called a vile name, inside of her. Hermione Granger Weasley knew far too well that people could be cruel.
Draco pushed his hair back and squared his shoulders. "I am sorry, Hermione. I could give you a dozen excuses for my behavior in the past but the reasons why won't make up for the hurt I caused you. Will you accept my apology?"
"Of course, Draco." She'd forgiven him a long time ago. Draco Malfoy had redeemed himself in her eyes when he'd refused to identify Harry, Ron and herself to his Aunt Bellatrix at Malfoy Manor before the end of the war.
He offered his hand to her. Hermione took his hand in hers, prepared to shake, when a tingle of magic caused her to freeze. The look of shock on his face told her that he'd felt it as well. A lazy smile replaced his surprise and instead of shaking her hand, Draco turned her hand and brought it up to his lips to bestow a soft kiss. The tingle transformed into something far warmer. "Oh," she breathed and swallowed hard. That was…
"Unexpected," he said softly, as if finishing her thought. "Yet, not unwelcome, I think."
"No, not unwelcome." Perhaps too soon, definitely unexpected, but it was far from unwelcome.
"I have been far too naughty to expect something so nice," Draco said with a small smirk, kissing her knuckles once more before releasing her hand. "And yet, I am a Malfoy," he said in a superior tone that was softened by his obvious pleasure, a touch of teasing, and underlying mirth, "and Malfoys deserve nothing but the best."
"Well, even Santa Claus should be able to make a wish for Christmas, don't you think?" Hermione smiled softly. She wasn't sure they would work as a couple, but if anyone had a chance of understanding how the war had impacted her, how the loss of a spouse left a hole in her heart, how the love of her children could make her determined to live each day with as much joy as she could, it would be Draco Malfoy.
"Indeed, Hermione. Indeed."