all characters belong to JKR
A/N: For those who wondered about the story of how Hermione's parents met from the last chapter, I used the same story in the first "An Unlikely Pair" story, and it is the true story of how my parents met and married, and they were married 35 years, until my mother died of cancer. Love at first sight is possible.
Chapter 21:
Draco didn't know why he was nervous. This was his wife, for goodness sakes. He had a date with his wife. But here he was, pacing outside the 'fake' St. Mungo's, waiting for Hermione to come out so they could go on their date, and he was nervous. And the reason he was nervous was because she was late.
It was thirty-five minutes after five. She got off work at five o'clock. She wasn't coming. He had always predicted that she might not show up the first time he asked her out, and he wasn't sure why he thought that, but he did, and now it was coming true. She stood him up. Actually, he knew her parents had raised her with a modicum of manners, so he always assumed she would at least have the courtesy to call and cancel, but that was another story.
Did this mean that if they had, had a traditional meeting that they might not have dated and fallen in love? Should he go to her cottage and see why she didn't show? He knew she lived at Red Rose Cottage during this time of her life, but if he just showed up there, it might scare her, because in reality, the Draco Malfoy of this time shouldn't know where she lived.
He had a boutique of white and yellow daisies in his hand. He felt stupid holding flowers, even if this wasn't real. There were still fake people staring at him. He would go back into the bedroom and think of another scenario. Perhaps he would imagine her coming to his office to see Potter. He would act as if he had forgotten about the date as well, and see what happened from there.
Perhaps this altered reality she created wasn't all it was cracked up to be, because it should give him what he wanted, not what he feared. They weren't going to make a lot of money after all. He threw the daisies on the ground and turned to walk away.
He had just started down the street when he heard, "Littering is a crime, Malfoy."
He turned around. She was there, with the daisies in her hand. She still had on her green Healer robes, and she looked tired and weary. He walked toward her and she said, "Did you think I stood you up?"
"Yes," he answered plainly.
"There was an emergency. A little boy had a very bad broom accident. It was touch and go for a moment, but he's going to be okay," she explained.
He had never really thought about what his wife did for a living before. She saved people's lives. She was a hero when they were young, and she still was. He smiled. He said, "I'm proud of you." He knew she wouldn't understand that statement, and it would sound odd, but he wanted to say it.
"Thank you, Malfoy." She looked confused but she accepted his statement without question. She looked down at her robes and said, "I look a sight. Listen, can we reschedule for another time, that is, if you still want to go out with me?" She said that last part…'if you still want to go out with me' so fast that it almost sounded like one word. She was also blushing, which he found incredibly endearing.
"To be truthful," he began, "I always assumed you would cancel the first time I asked you out."
"You thought about what would happen if you asked me out before?" she asked. "I thought asking me out was a spur of the moment type of thing."
"No, I've been planning it," he said, adding 'for years' in his head. "I can see you're tired. Really, if you'd rather, we can just go back to your cottage and have a bite to eat and watch a movie."
"How do you know I live in a cottage?" she asked.
She always picked up on the little things. He should have known that. He said, "Potter mentioned it. He said you inherited it from your aunt."
"Yes, I love it. I never want to leave it. I want to raise my family there and grow old and grey there, someday," she said, smiling.
That made him somewhat sad. They had only lived there a few short months after they married, and then he insisted that they move to a bigger house, since she didn't want to move to the Manor. She wanted to keep the cottage, but he goaded her into selling it. It was so secluded, far away from everything and everyone, that he told her it was stupid, (yes, he told her it was stupid) to keep it. Now he felt badly that she sold it, knowing that she wanted to live there forever. She really did make a lot of concessions for their marriage, more than he had.
He pointed toward the bench where they sat earlier. She sat, followed by him. She placed the daisies on the seat beside her. He said, "Tell me about your cottage, Hermione."
She smiled suddenly, and her eyes brightened, and the weariness seemed to fade away. She said, "My great-aunt Rose lived there, hence why I named it Red Rose Cottage, plus it has red rose bushes all around it. I inherited when I was only twenty, and I moved in right after the war. I needed some solitude. I spent so much time on the run, and with other people, that I needed something that was just mine. I needed something for me."
"It only has four main rooms, a living room, a large kitchen, two bedrooms, and a bath, but there's a basement, and it has one large room in it, which I use for books. There's a small detached shed, that isn't even large enough for one car, and it has a large porch that starts in the front, and goes all the way around the house on one side, to the back."
"It has red, clapboard shingle siding, and a grey, slate roof, and a large brick fireplace, and hardwood floors, and a wrought-iron fence all around it, and pine cupboards in the kitchen, and…" before she could say anymore he placed his index finger on her lips.
"Why don't you just take me there, and show it to me?" he asked.
She looked discomforted and said, "Oh, I don't know."
"Oh," he said quietly. Maybe she really didn't want to go out with him. He asked, "Is it that you don't want to go out with me? Just tell me. Are you not over Weasel?"
"No," she said sharply.
He looked taken aback.
"No, I mean, yes, I mean," she began to laugh. "Wait, it's not that I don't want to go out with you, because I actually do, as for the other part of the question, I don't know if I'm over Ron. We were together for many years, since we were kids. A love like that doesn't die easily." She looked down at her lap. "He moved into the cottage just last year, and I really thought that would finally lead to marriage, but it didn't. It only led to me having to hire a housekeeper because he was so messy." She looked up and smiled.
He laughed and asked hopefully, "That means you do want to go out with me?" He knew in reality, even if this Granger refused to date him, he could wake up tomorrow and she would still be his wife, but it was so very important to him to know that it would have happen anyway. There was always something about their hurried romance and marriage that bothered him. In a way, he always felt that she did it all under duress, and just because Ron married Pansy that day. He felt he rushed her into it…forced her…coerced her. He had to be one hundred percent certain that this was something she would have done on her own.
He didn't set out this evening with this agenda, but this was his agenda now. If their marriage was to continue, and if he was to be certain that they were meant to be, he had to know that she would have picked him, above all others, and above all things, on her own, and in her own time.
He had to be certain that she would have married him anyway.
"Listen," he said, because she still hadn't answered his question about whether of not she really wanted to go out with him, and because the silence between them was bordering or awkward, "I'll let you go home tonight, and let you think about things. If you decide you want to go out with me, you come see me tomorrow at work. We'll go out to lunch or something. I won't press you anymore. I want it to be something you want. I want it to be your decision."
She looked confused and she said, "Well, of course it would be my decision, and I really would like to go out with you." She looked down again, then back up and added, "But how bizarre is that? We're such an unlikely pair."
"Strange turn of a phrase," he said with the largest smile. He couldn't even recall which of them originally coined that phrase, but they mentioned it many times that first weekend, and again, many times throughout their first year of marriage.
"We are, Malfoy," she said. She turned on the bench so that she was facing him. She folded her legs underneath her. He folded his left leg over his right, and turned his upper body to face her, too.
"Do tell," he said, with a sardonic grin. His arm was on the back of the bench, and his thumb was touching her shoulder. He let it stay there, and he even rubbed it back and forth, and she didn't protest.
"You're a pureblood, I'm a Muggle born, and you're rich and so dashing and all, and I'm middle class and sort of plain and boring."
He laughed aloud, hard and long. "Plain? Boring? Hermione Granger? Have you ever met yourself?"
She hit his arm. "You know what I mean."
"No, I really don't," he said back. "So, we're different. We probably like different foods, different artwork, and different activities. We've come from different backgrounds, and I'm sure our parents are completely different. I grew up pampered and spoiled and a bigot and a pompous git, and you grew up with an over-inflated view of yourself," (she hit his arm again), "but so what?"
"You're right, but still, opposites don't always attract," she said. "Sometimes differences are hard to overcome."
"I'm just talking a date here, Granger. I'm not talking marriage or kids, or the rest of our lives," he said. And again, in his head, he added one word: 'yet'.
"I need to change."
"Oh, you're not that bad. I can tolerate the overbearing side of you," he joked.
"I meant my clothing, Malfoy!" she yelped.
"Oh, okay." He played dumb. "Does that mean I get to escort you back to your cottage after all?"
"Fine," she conceded. "We'll go back to my house, and I can cook for us there, okay? I might not have much food. We might have to go to the market, is that a plan?"
"I would go anywhere with you," he said. He stood up and offered her his arm. She stood up and hooked her arm through his.
"Anywhere?" she asked with a lilting voice.
"Anywhere," he confirmed. "If you asked me to go to an old, ugly, fishing cabin in the middle of nowhere, that only had one big room, one small bedroom, a tiny galley kitchen and a bathroom no bigger than me, I'd probably go, even if it rained the entire time we were there."
She laughed as she placed her other hand on his arm. "Red Rose Cottage is nicer than that, but I think you just described my dad's little cabin."
"Huh, how about that," he said.
Draco wasn't sure how his fantasy would change from the front of St. Mungo's to her little cottage, but he stopped at the curb, near the end of the block, and he turned to her, as he pondered that very thing. She looked up at him and asked, "What's wrong?"
"How will we get there?" he asked.
"We could apparate," she suggested. He didn't know if they could apparate in a fantasy, but he thought it was rather unnecessary. He knew if he thought of it hard enough, it would appear.
Therefore, he said, "You have something on your eyelid. Close your eyes." She closed her eyes, he closed his, he leaned forward, and brushed his lips next to hers softly, even as he thought clearly of her cottage, and imagined it exactly as it was the first day he saw it, right after their honeymoon.
When they both opened their eyes, they were on the large front porch of Red Rose Cottage. He looked all around and said, "Damn, we are going to make a fortune."
"Why, because we apparated to my cottage?" she asked, puzzled.
"Yes, that's it exactly," he said with a laugh. "That's it."
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