Chapter Ten

Eyes full of love

Notes- I just thought I'd let you know I know the medical knowledge behind the last chapter was awful I had an old friend who is now a medical student run over it. He told me it was rubbish medically but oh well I decided to go with it.

It was June before Hermione left the hospital wing. She only had three days left at school before the holidays and was rather mad at having to spend a significant part of her last week at Hogwarts in bed. She and Draco had decided to set up home in Swiss Cottage part of the Wizarding Quarter of London. They had bought a little flat that had once been a grand red brick Victorian house.

Due to the incarceration of both his parents the Malfoy fortune had passed directly to Draco. He siphoned a little off for himself and Hermione but he kept most the money in his family vault as Hermione wouldn't let him pay for everything. Hermione applied for several jobs in the ministry but the one she really wanted as an unpopular post in the Department of International Magical Co-Operation. Draco had surprised everyone by applying to a Muggle University to study medicine.

"Why don't you do healing?" Hermione had asked him curiously "you don't know anything about electricity or chemicals."

"Very supportive from my future wife," she said sarcastically then switched his voice to a more serious tone. "I want to heal those I hurt besides we're living in a flat with a telephone and that picture box thingy I'll pick up electricity. Plus Professor Snape says an O in potions is equivalent to the muggle top grade in something important to medicine."

"We haven't even got our results back get. How do you know you have an O?"

"Oh stop nitpicking woman. Let's face it I am brilliant at potions."

"My husband the doctor," she smiled "I like that."

Ron and Harry on the other hand surprised no one with their applications to the auror department. Lavender got a post as a junior reporter at the Daily Prophet.

"It's basically coffee runs and owls for a year but hopefully after that you'll see my name in print one day." Ginny, of course, was not graduating with the others and her face the others talking about jobs rather reminded Hermione of a determined girl on Platform 9 3/4 seven years ago.

Luna and Neville also decided to flat share but insisted it was just as friends.

"I bet you ten gaellons they're hooked up within a month." Ron said to the others.

"Ok," Harry shook his hand "you're on."

Harry lost, it took the pair less than a week. Neville had a position for himself in healing as a trainee healer working with dangerous plants. When he had explained the job everyone nodded that it suited him well. Neville might have been a whizz with herbology but as Lavender pointed out

"You wouldn't ask for a sleeping draught from him."

"To us," Harry proposed two months later as they all sat in a bar in North London.

"And the future," Ron added.

"The future," they all echoed.

Hermione felt the knot in her stomach tighten. "That had been a hell of a year." She thought. It was late October nearly eighteen months after they had all left Hogwarts and she was getting ready to walk down the aisle. A soft knock came on the door and stirred out of her daydream.

"Come in," she said quietly and it was her father's head that popped around the door.

"Ready?" He asked.

"Nearly," Hermione said as she took a deep breath in.

"Hermione darling it is ok to be nervous." He smiled at her "I was when I married your mother."

"But I love him Dad I want to spend every minute with him so why am I so nervous?"

"Because you are human. I know you love him I see it in your eyes you two met so may years ago you've grown up together and know you'll be together forever does that idea scare you?"

"No," she replied honestly. "I'm sacred about tripping over my dress or mixing up the words."

"Then you are meant to marry him." He smiled confidently at his only child and held out his arm. "By the way he asked me to give you this apparently the colour works on you." John Granger pulled out a necklace from his pocket it was a long pendant with a deep green emerald the exact same colour as the dress she had worn the night of the ball. As John Granger fixed the clasp around his daughter's neck he turned back to her and passed a note. "This was with it."

I love you forever R

Hermione smiled at took her father's arm. The room rose as the piano started as Hermione and her father entered.

"She looks beautiful," was Draco's first thought as he saw his fiancée for the first time in twenty-four hours. The second was "she's wearing the necklace."

When Hermione's father placed his daughter's hand on Draco's. He saw the sparkle in both her and his eyes of pure love and as he walked back to his chair he could not imagine leaving her with anyone else.

As the guests settled down Hermione leaned in to Draco.

"I never asked you, what does R stand for?"

"Romeo," he said surprised she hadn't worked it out.

"Better get married,' she smiled.

"Yes," he kissed her hand "lets get married."