Harry's lips were pursed so tightly that he was beginning to resemble a fish wearing glasses.
"I can't believe you're engaged," he said again, staring down at the large diamond ring on her finger.
Hermione cut into her treacle tart and tried not to look at him. "I think the wedding might need to happen in the next few months," she said airily. "Once Cormac starts his project in Egypt, there's no way he'll be able to take time off for a honeymoon."
"Hermione, are you sure—" Harry shook his head. "It's just that—it feels like it's too soon."
"What do you mean?" she asked, putting down her fork. "It's not like you and Ginny didn't jump into things—"
"Yeah, but Ginny and I had known each other forever. You and Cormac—"
"Ron and Lavender only went out for three months before they got engaged, and you didn't seem to have any problem with it when they got married."
"Is that what this is about? Ron?"
"What? No! What does Ron have to do with—"
"Look, it just seems like this is the exact same thing you did back at Hogwarts, when Ron started going out with Lavender and you used Cormac to get back at him."
"Harry, I'm not about to marry someone just to 'get back at Ron,' and it's insulting that you would even insinuate—"
"So then why are you marrying him?" Harry demanded. "I mean, it's bloody Cormac McLaggen. If it isn't to drive Ron crazy, what could possibly possess you to do this?"
"Look, Cormac might not be the suavest wizard in England, but he's really interesting once you start talking to him, and he's passionate about his work, and—"
"Name one thing the two of you have in common."
"Harry, don't be ridiculous."
"No, really. Name one thing the two of you have in common, and—"
"We were both in Gryffindor," Hermione snapped, and Harry rolled his eyes.
"So you're actually going to sit here and try to convince me that you've fallen in love with Cormac McLaggen?"
"You know, Harry," said Hermione angrily, throwing her napkin onto the table, "it's really starting to get offensive, the way you're reacting to what was supposed to be good news."
"I'm just saying, as your friend—"
"Exactly—you're supposed to be my friend. Shouldn't you be happy for me?"
"How can I be happy for you when you're clearly making an enormous mistake?" shouted Harry. "You know, I didn't want to think it when I first heard about what happened with S.P.E.W., but if this is about McLaggen's uncle and who he knows in the Ministry, then this has gone way too far!"
She stared at him, and he finished coldly, "And I didn't say anything about what happened with you and George, or your budding little friendship with Malfoy, but Merlin, Hermione, these days—it's like I can barely even recognize you anymore."
For a moment, Hermione said nothing. When she spoke again, her tone had an acidity that Harry had never heard from her before.
"I don't think you have the right to say that," she said icily, and her voice was quiet but razor-sharp. "We've been best friends—or we've claimed to be—for years. But when was the last time you were bothered to give a damn about my life, Harry?"
He opened his mouth to reply, but she cut him off.
"The two of us have barely spent any time together, ever since Ron and I had our falling out. Even though you knew how much it hurt me when he proposed to Lavender—you just turned a blind eye to the whole thing. You never once asked me how I felt about it, whether I was doing all right. And when S.P.E.W. almost got flushed down the toilet, you couldn't have cared less. You didn't even offer to try and help. And then you actually have the nerve to judge me for finding donations elsewhere? You can say what you like about Cormac, but he was there for me when I needed it."
Hermione rose from the table and gathered her things. "You haven't been there for me at all, Harry. So maybe the reason that you don't recognize me anymore is because we're no longer friends."
She saw the headline in the morning, on a co-worker's desk:
MALFOYS FOUND MURDERED IN THEIR PARIS HOME.
The article read that a Muggle-born wizard, whose sister (a witch) had been tortured and killed by Lucius Malfoy during the Second War, had finally gotten his revenge. The Malfoys had tried to hide from their crimes in France, but the vengeful murderer had managed to sneak into their residence in wizarding Paris and had used the Killing Curse on them both.
Hermione could think of nothing else the entire day.
By the time her lunch break arrived, she had already decided to use it to search for him. She thought about owling him, but she knew that he would not reply. So she put on her cloak and went out. On an impulse, she left her engagement ring behind in her desk before she went.
Following her instincts, Hermione went back to the pub where he had taken her the night of Ron's wedding. The bartender stared suspiciously at her as she entered, but she paid no heed—she had already spotted Malfoy at the same corner table where they had sat that night. His jaw was clenched as he stared down into a glass of Valens' Vipertooth.
"Malfoy," she said softly, and he looked up.
For a split second, his face was completely unguarded, in a way that Hermione had never seen before; and a vast and thrilling array of emotions flickered across it. All at once, he looked weary and furious and vulnerable and surprised and lonely and hopeful—and there was something tragically beautiful about that openness that was entirely unlike the Draco Malfoy with which she was acquainted. The moment felt almost too intimate, like an invasion; as though she were glimpsing inside his soul.
"Granger? What are you doing here?" he asked, as his face steeled itself into a pale ghost of a more typical expression.
"I saw the news about your parents. It was in the papers."
His eyes returned to the Firewhiskey, while his hand gripped the glass so tightly that his knuckles began to turn white. Hermione slid into the seat across from him. "I'm so sorry."
"Why?" he asked, without looking at her. "You were enemies. You probably think they got what they deserved."
Whatever response she had been expecting, it had not been that. Taken aback, she shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "Draco, they're your parents. I can only imagine what you're going through right now."
"You never even met my mother. And I know my father was never anything more than terrible to you."
"I did meet your mother, actually," she said, hesitantly.
He snorted. "Never mind then. Excellent, I'm sure that went swimmingly."
Hermione swallowed. "She was very beautiful."
"Yes," he said quietly. "Yes, she was."
There was nothing clever or arrogant about him—nothing to remind you of his usual self— and it was strange and flustering and yet oddly familiar, as though she had already met this person who was not Draco Malfoy.
His eyes rose to meet hers. "I hear you're engaged to Cormac McLaggen."
Hermione had not been prepared for that, either.
"Where's your ring?" he asked.
"I didn't wear it today."
"Is that how little it means to you?"
She opened her mouth but could not think of a response.
"Is there nothing you won't do?" he went on, his voice strangely hollow. "No limit to your ambition? No, of course there isn't." He gave a mirthless chuckle. "You value those sodding house elves so highly, and you have no idea what you're worth. Don't you value yourself at all?"
Hermione knew that she ought to argue with him, that she ought to defend herself somehow, but something in his words had tired her. She suddenly noticed how little Valens' Vipertooth was still left in the bottle on his table. "I just wanted to come and express my sympathy," she said. "But if you'd rather be alone—"
"I don't need your sympathy, Granger."
"I'll just be going, then."
She rose and had already started to walk away when Malfoy called after her. "Tell me something."
She turned around.
"If I'd still had access to my gold—would you have married me?"
He didn't look at her as he said it.
Hermione paused for a moment, then turned to leave without giving an answer.
She and Harry had not spoken since their fight, and she had not heard from Ron since her engagement. But, strangely enough, it was Malfoy's words that kept her up at night, not theirs. It was his reaction that bothered her most—his reaction that haunted as her as she lay awake in bed, reliving their conversation as it echoed in her ears. Is there nothing you won't do? he had asked. Is there no limit to your ambition? Even when she finally managed to fall asleep, his questions followed her relentlessly into her dreams.
Hermione and Cormac were married in a lavish wedding attended by hundreds of guests and neither of her two best friends. Lavender, however, was among those present, and she appeared to be mortified that her husband had not accompanied her.
"You look so beautiful, Hermione," she said repeatedly, smiling nervously. "I'm so happy for you and Cormac, and so is Ron—he would be here if he could, really—very busy with the shop, you see—he was so sorry that he couldn't make it…"
The reception was held at the McLaggens' mansion, which had been gorgeously decorated for the occasion. Cormac's mother had taken on most of the planning herself, but Hermione had added one small touch of her own: she had charmed small white marshmallow birds to flutter to and fro, carrying in their beaks little pink flowers made from sugar. More than one guest ran around the ballroom chasing the flying treats and popping them into their mouths with delight, while Hermione's Muggle relatives stared on in bewilderment and asked one another how they thought that flying trick was done.
Hermione loved wedding cake, and she ate no less than eight fat slices of hers that evening. When Cormac discovered that she had set them aside in advance, hiding them to ensure that no guests accidentally consumed them, he burst into laughter.
"I don't know whether to be impressed or disgusted," he joked loudly, as she tried in vain to hush him. "Look at this ruthless hoarding of cake. I thought you were supposed to be charitable!"
"Shh," she whispered urgently, "someone might hear you."
But he was undeterred, grinning and wrapping his arms around her. "You really are a paradox, aren't you?" he asked with amusement, and she was suddenly reminded of Draco Malfoy.
She shuddered and pulled away. Glancing around the room, she noticed that her aunt was speaking to one of Cormac's cousins and looking positively baffled. "Oh, dragon dung," she muttered under her breath. "Cormac, I think Cadmon and Aunt Abigail need to be separated."
With that, she hurried off in their direction.
"Aunt Abigail, of course Cadmon's only joking about having ridden a broomstick on his way here—don't be silly!"
Life was a little easier as Mrs. McLaggen, though not by much. Cormac did not disappoint: he had the status and connections that she'd sought; but he was not at all interested in her work or her goals, and he was often away on business as a curse-breaker. Tiberius McLaggen's public support of her organization had temporarily saved S.P.E.W. from certain doom; but it needed money to function, and as Cormac had no real gold of his own yet, Hermione still had to struggle to find donors.
Nonetheless, Cormac's parents were wealthy and generous—if apathetic toward S.P.E.W.'s existence—and Hermione lived more comfortably as a married woman than she ever had before. More importantly, with Tiberius' influence and Cormac's surname, she soon transferred to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement on Bertie Higgs' recommendation. The department, which Hermione had long aspired to join, was notoriously selective about its highly coveted top posts. Though it was still not easy to get her ideas and proposals noticed from within MLE, there was no comparison to how difficult it had been before, when she'd been fighting her way in from the outside.
The underground backlash had worsened and was now slowly entering the mainstream. Increasingly, it was the more pureblood-sympathetic officials at the Ministry who were moving into positions of power, and Hermione found it harder than ever to amass support for cracking down on hate crimes and other anti-Muggle-born behavior. She needed to launch a full-scale campaign for change, but the husband that she had hoped would back her cause could not have cared less about what she was doing at the Ministry.
Cormac was busy with his own project in Egypt, and he was less than pleased at how much time Hermione was spending at work. He was steadfastly traditional in his notions about marriage, and he disliked that his wife seemed to live in her own world, separate from his, never accompanying him on his frequent travels abroad or taking an active interest in his career.
The quintessential Gryffindor, Cormac was never afraid to let Hermione know exactly how he felt about something. "All the other curse-breakers' wives have visited the site already," he complained late one night, after returning home by Portkey. "Some are even staying there. I'm lucky if I see you twice in one week. And what's the point of marrying the biggest swot at Hogwarts if she's not even going to take a look and offer her insight?"
Hermione sighed and forced herself to smile indulgently at this latest airing of grievances. It ought to have been flattering, after all, that he wanted to see more of her—that he valued her input. "I know we haven't spent that much time together lately," she said, "but it'll pass. Work's just been keeping both of us busy, and once everything dies down a bit—"
"It's not going to die down for me."
"We'll get better at making time for ourselves."
"No one else on the team is having this problem. Their wives are—"
"Cormac, not everyone's wives work!"
"Well," he said huffily, "maybe that's something we should think about."
When she awoke the next morning to a half-empty bed, he had already left again for Egypt. Hermione pressed one hand against the cool sheets on his side of the bed and rubbed her eyes with the other. She was getting tired of his unsubtle suggestions that she quit her job, but she knew that nothing she could say would sway him on the matter. Cormac was simply the type of wizard who wanted his wife at home, raising his children and preparing his meals. She had known that going in.
He was not the most sensitive husband, and he was not as warm as Ron or as funny as George or—as much as she tried to suppress it, she could not help thinking—as clever as Draco Malfoy. But he was honest and well-meaning, and while she did not always appreciate his macho sensibilities, she was surprised to find that she rather liked his assertiveness: as it turned out, a fiercely protective attitude could be quite appealing in a man. And though he was known for being blunt, those close to Hermione knew that she could be exactly the same way, even tactlessly so. In fact, it made for easy, straightforward communication; and after years of tiptoeing around Ron's insecurities, Cormac's brash confidence was a welcome, refreshing change (Ron, for all his boorishness about others' feelings, had always been terribly sensitive when it came to his own).
So Hermione and Cormac were open and sincere with one another, and together they shared a marriage of genuine affection—if not ardent love. They saw each other less than most couples, but she almost preferred it that way: she would have been loath to have to prepare dinner for him every night, especially since she'd insisted on a strict no-house-elves policy in their home. It was not perfect, but for Hermione, it was more than enough.
She still thought of Ron—how could she not?—and of what it might have been like to marry him instead. If it had been Ron, she would not have given a second thought to surnames or status or connections; she would not have been secretly glad that he ate most of his dinners away from home. She often wondered whether he and Lavender were happy, but convinced herself that she did not care.
After all, she was finally in the department that she had so longed to join, and she was working towards the cause that meant more to her than anything else. Hermione could hardly complain.
As for Draco Malfoy, she no longer saw him everywhere she went. Their paths crossed only once, when Cormac was in Egypt and she went out to dinner on her own. She spotted him from across the restaurant, though he didn't seem to notice her. He appeared to be on a date with a dark, beautiful witch she recognized as Astoria Greengrass; and Hermione could not explain the odd prickling sensation that stirred her insides as she watched their meal from afar.