All in all Hermione felt both far better and far worse than she had at the same time the previous day.

She tried to roll over, certain that if she didn't manage it then she was quite likely to become so stiff that she would freeze that way. Unfortunately there was something warm and heavy securing her quite handily in the exact position that she was in. She opened her eyes slowly, an unconscious smile curving her lips as she realized that the weight was Draco's arm, and that she was plastered to his side as if he intended her to take root there. His face was buried in her hair, and for once even his silky locks looked disheveled as he lay face down on the bed beside her, still deeply asleep.

Gods, he had certainly earned that rest, she thought with a delicious shiver. As she had expected, Draco had not been able to return her declaration of the night before, but he had taken great pains to show her in every other way that her feelings were returned. He had loved her with a tenderness and passion that made tears spring to her eyes, and that showed her more than simple words ever could that Malfoys could love, and feel, and did indeed do so, deeply.

She was under no delusion that being Mrs. Draco Malfoy was going to be easy, nothing worth having ever was. But she had stopped resisting. She would become the perfect political and society wife he needed. They would take the ministry by storm and change the world. And when they were at home and there were no reporters, no allies and enemies, no one but themselves, then they would simply be Hermione and Draco, a man and a woman who loved one another despite all the history and trauma of their childhood and the pain of a post war life that was what neither ever expected.

It was fitting, she thought, finally managing to lift his arm enough so she could get up and stretch gently. If they could find it within themselves to be what they were, how could the rest of the world fail to follow?

She drew a bath, adding healing and pepper up potions to the water in addition to drinking one of each. She noted that they seemed to be the same recipe that Severus had used, a different, far more effective brew than the one taught in the Hogwarts textbooks. Draco had been a talented potions student, almost as much as herself, though his true genius had always been in Charms. She remembered how viciously they had competed for marks in those days, she casting him smug looks when she would score a point or two above him in Potions for a brew completed slightly faster or with a miniscule difference in quality, then he would come back in Charms, developing new spells even as a student that had Flitwick begging him to accept an apprenticeship to become a Master instead of taking over the reigns of the family fortunes.

She settled in the water, sighing as the aches from her injuries, as well as the ones from their bout of unrestrained passion the night before, eased almost immediately. She let her mind roll back to a day one summer she had watched out the window as, brow furrowed in concentration, Draco had swished, flicked, and snapped his wand in an incredibly complex series of moves, his lips moving in a spell she couldn't hear. She had tensed, ready to flee, certain he was some how trying to sabotage the school, or pull a foul prank, or something equally horrid, when suddenly a pure white flash erupted form the tip of his wand, and suddenly the ground around him had erupted with lovely, pure white flowers. She had been shocked at the pure triumph and delight in his face when the spell worked, and had never said a word on how it came about, even when Professor Sprout noticed with a great deal of puzzlement that somehow an entire bed of Narcissus flowers had simply sprung up one day. The flowers had bloomed constantly in summer and winter for nearly seven years, she remembered. Right up until the day Draco had joined the Order of the Phoenix. The day his parents had told him they no longer had a son. She never remembered seeing the flowers after that, they had wilted and died, and no flower planted in that spot had ever survived.

There were too many such memories, she told herself sternly, ones that never needed reliving. She would remember the good ones: She and Harry and Ron camping in the woods hunting Horcruxes, terrified every day but still sure of their friendship and loyalty to one another above all…Dinners at the Burrow with the Weasley clan, Fred and George pranking everyone, Percy sniffing in disapproval, Ginny making eyes at Harry as he blushed…

Her first kiss with Viktor Krum at the Yule Ball, and how she had finally showed Harry and Ron that she really was a girl, not just the Griffyndor brain…Trips to Hogsmead; nights in the common room playing exploding Snap; her first time with Justin Finch-Fletchley though they were both clueless and terribly embarrassed afterwards, but he had said he loved her with such adolescent fervor, and she had wanted to love someone too, though she shortly realized that it was not him. They had parted amicably, though she knew that he had harbored a crush on her for some time afterward…Her time with Severus, when their feelings were the only sanity in a brutal and insane situation. And now Draco, his reserved façade that hid such emotion, and he was hers, only hers now. She was surprised at how possessive she was, but she accepted it. She could be greedy and jealous when it came to him; he would accept that from her. He knew almost every dark secret she carried, had seen her at her most debased and depraved. He had watched her kill and torture, and had even suffered at her hand, and yet he still loved her. She was muggleborn, and he accepted her. It was no less than her miracle.

"Not just your miracle," he said quietly, slipping into the tub beside her. She flowed into his arms, letting him cradle her. "You accepted my demons too, love, never forget that."

"And your bad habit of using legilimency whenever you feel like it," she scolded gently. He shrugged.

"You see? We all have our flaws. We are what we are, and I doubt we will change. I will continue to use my skills to come out ahead. You didn't really think that Malfoy Industries was all built by sound business acumen and a talent for negotiation, did you? We have a long tradition of talent, all right, talent for the magic of the mind. Legilimens, Occlumens, and some of the more esoteric disciplines that have been outlawed were our specialities. As ashamed as we are to admit it, we have even beget several seers, though we publicly denounce the whole discipline as utter tripe."

"You mean it's not?" she giggled as he ducked her under the bubbles.

"For the most part seers are simply talented Legilimens who say what they need to make galleons. However, sometimes…" he looked a little disturbed. "Well, there are exceptions. Trelawny was right even though she never knew she was the real thing. There are some books in the family library, no one ever admits that we take them seriously, but I know my father would read them to see what to do, of course then he would ignore them, and everything would come to pass anyway. Aunt Bella called them 'future history'. They scared her until she went so mad that nothing frightened her anymore. I locked them away after….well, I locked them away."

"After what?"

"It's all mad weird stuff anyway, you can always interpret this bunk seventeen ways to Sunday. The crazy bint that wrote them made Nostradamus look sane I tell you."

"Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you."

"What?" she shook her head.

"It's a muggle saying. It means that even if something is insane that doesn't mean that it isn't true. What did it say that made you lock it up?"

"It said some nonsense about how the Dark Lords death was only the beginning and the light would turn dark and the Ice Dragon and the Mother of Earth would unite the magics to part the veil and heal the wounded world. If you want a real prophecy then make one. I've yet to see a prophecy I like. Just once let it say "on april seventeeth, 2012 at eight in the evening a meteor is going to drop in the ocean and cause a tidal wave that will kill several hundred people and massively impact the fisheries trade for at least two years causing investments in shrimp futures to skyrocket.' That's a prophecy I would listen to."

"Shrimp futures? Seriously?" he scowled, but saw it was having no effect. As usual.

"You know precisely what I mean. If you thought Divination wasn't bunk why did you drop it at school?" She raised a hand in surrender.

"I agree, most of it is bunk, but there wouldn't be a Department of Magical Mysteries if it were all bunk, would there? Plus there is the whole timeline factor that you pointed out. A prophecy can mean several things and you never quite know if you have the one meant for when you think it is. But that one is a bit disturbing you have to admit. You took one look at it and saw that the Ice Dragon was you, didn't you?"

"Bunk and twaddle, that's all it is." She shook her head, chuckling.

"All right, you made your point. No prophecies, no weird magic diaries, I think we've all had enough of them anyway. Just us trying to take over the world. That's much more practical." He laughed, and pulled her back into his chest.

"Take over the world, hmm? I was thinking just Britain, and even then I was going to give it back once it was repaired. Who knew you were such a greedy Slytherin at heart?"

"What if we don't want to give it back?" she joked, smiling. He looked appalled.

"Sweet Merlins beard woman, I have enough to do owning half of Britains' wizarding economy and a fair chunk of Muggle Britains' now as well. What on earth would we do with the world? The administration alone would be a nightmare. No, I am afraid the world will simply have to soldier on without our tender leadership, though you are more than welcome to spend a few billion galleons or pounds or euros or what have you on whatever philanthropy catches your eye."

"I think you mean million, darling, I don't want to run the Malfoy vaults dry, you know. It would be a shame to have to share vacation homes or yachts with other aristocrats, what would the neighbors say?" He cast her an impatient glare for the sarcasm, and sat back in the water, shaking his head.

"Actually, when I said billion, that is exactly what I meant, and I hardly think you have to worry about bankrupting us to the point we would have to stoop to time shares. Are you really so clueless as to how widespread our interests are?" She shrugged and smiled.

"I spent a good portion of our youth ignoring most things about you, Draco, then once I was an adult there was no reason for me to know how the old pureblood families had divvied up the wizarding world between them several hundred years ago." He chuckled.

"It's amazing, really. I find the perfect woman, and in some respects she does want me for my money and power, yet she takes no time to learn exactly how much of either one there is. You make a terrible gold digger, Hermione Granger. Especially since you keep giving the money away every time I shower you with it."

"Well that's what it's for, after all," she said reasonably. "Give tons of it away; buy popularity and loyalty, it's the fastest way to do it."

l

"I have been trying to shower you with luxury as well, you know," he pointed out. "You just don't seem to notice."

"I noticed the jewels and the clothes, and the introductions to premier stylists and make up artists, but honestly I thought it was so I would keep up to the standard you were setting. I didn't want you ashamed to be seen with me, or to have to make up excuses for me."

"Ah love, you would look beautiful in a burlap sack, that was never the point. I wanted you to have the best of everything, to be the envy of everyone, to never have to worry about anything monetary again. Money is easy for me, Hermione, probably because I have so much of it. It's the other things that are more of a challenge. You will need to learn about the family holdings though, I am quite serious about that. I do not want you to be kept in the dark about it, and I want you to understand why sometimes there will be nights when I honestly am working and won't be able to come home. Sometimes I may be able to ask you to join me, sometimes I won't, but I do not want you believing that I'm off somewhere doing Merlin knows what like my father did to my mother."

"You father was unfaithful I suppose." He snorted.

"That's an understatement, I'm afraid. My father went through women like some men go through liquor. He was rarely without a mistress, and even when he had one he would sleep with random females, as long as they were purebloods. I've sometimes wondered if there are any attractive female purebloods between the ages of seventeen and a hundred that he didn't fuck at some point or other. And I'm somewhat sure he didn't draw the line at seventeen, though that is something I have never wanted to contemplate too closely." She saw the utter revulsion in his gaze and sighed.

"You hated what it did to your mother." He nodded.

"Whatever she was, whatever they were, they were my parents. Lucius I grew to hate, and I'm not ashamed of that, he deserved it, and I should have killed him myself in the final battle. My mother was different. She was the only one who ever even attempted to care about me, even though even she chose Voldemort over me in the end."

"I'm so sorry, I still don't understand it, I never have. How could anyone chose dark magic over their own family?" He smiled sadly.

"Why do you think I chose you, Hermione? It's exactly because you can never understand, because you never craved power above everything else and you never will. Regardless of everything you have seen and done somehow you kept your soul pure. I wish to Merlin I could say the same."