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Chapter 21 –

"I wouldn't mind hearing this dream either, Hermione," said a man behind her. She knew immediately who it was, and she cringed.

She turned around and said, "I didn't know you were back from your honeymoon, Ron."

"We got back just today. Pansy wanted to go visit her parents and they told her about this party. Even though we weren't invited, she insisted that we come. How are you, Hermione? Still happy?" he asked.

"Considering I've been married two weeks today, yes, I'm still finding marriage agreeable," she said.

"I can't believe you didn't annul this marriage by now. I can't believe you're here at Malfoy Manor. You know what happened here during the war! You can't have forgotten what happened to you here. What happened to us all here! How could you come here, Hermione? Are you blinded by Malfoy's money, or what?"

"Listen, Ron, I know you've never liked Draco, and there's always been bad blood between your families, but I won't have you dictating to me how you think I should feel and act," she said, pointing her finger toward him. Adrian was across the room, and he knew someone needed to come to her rescue, and it might as well be him.

"So, tell me this dream you had about Malfoy while you were still with me," he said with a sarcastic smile.

"I don't think so Ron," she spat.

Over at the bar, Draco was ordering two glasses of wine. He heard a voice beside him say, "Your wife looks uncomfortable with her present company." Draco turned and looked at Adrian Pucey, and then looked across the room and saw Ron Weasley talking with Hermione.

"What in the hell is Weasel doing at my party?" Draco asked.

"The bigger question, Draco, is what are you going to do about the fact that Pansy is heading toward them as we speak?" Adrian inquired.

Draco saw Pansy crossing the large ballroom, heading right toward Ron and Hermione. "Shite!" he exclaimed. "Listen, Adrian, you go rescue my wife, ask her to dance or something, I have to head off Pansy. I don't want a scene, and I can tell by her expression that is exactly what she has planned."

"You will owe me one, old man," Adrian said.

"Don't I always," Draco said, rolling his eyes. "Just be a mate and go over there now."

Adrian headed toward Ron and Hermione as Draco headed toward Pansy. Adrian caught Lucius by the arm, and said, "I think we might have trouble brewing, Malfoy. Hermione's ex and Draco's ex, also known as the current Mr. and Mrs. Ronald Weasley are here."

Lucius looked toward his son's blond head, and saw him heading toward Pansy. He nodded his thanks to Adrian and went toward the other pair.

"Mr. Weasley, I wasn't aware of inviting you to our little soiree tonight," Lucius said without pretense. "I invited your in-laws, but not you and your wife, for obvious reasons." He looked down at Hermione and said, "You still owe me a dance, my dear."

"Thank you, Lucius," she said, taking his hand. She looked toward Ron and said, "It would be best if you leave. I will see you soon." She started to dance with Lucius and she said, "Have you seen Draco?"

"He's taking out the trash, I think," Lucius said. "By the way, I love how you consent to dance with me only when it's advantageous to you. I would expect nothing else of a Malfoy. We are basically self-serving creatures, and self-centered by habit."

"Ah, well, I'm glad my self-serving, self-centerness, meets with your approval," she said acerbically. He looked down at her and she had a smirk on her face. A smirk! Yes, she might fit in well after all.

"What was with the little exchange between you and Draco earlier, before the guests arrived, at the bottom of the stairs?" he asked.

"Does nothing escape your notice?" she asked.

"Very little," he admitted.

She felt it would serve no purpose to lie to him, because Draco would tell him if asked, so she said, "Draco and I wondered if my dizziness was only due to my infected hand, or if there could be an underlying cause."

"Such as?"

"Well, we wondered, even though we had only been married two weeks, we wondered if I might be pregnant," she admitted.

Hermione looked up at him and could not read his features, since he had not changed expression in the least. He finally said, "And the outcome was as you wished it to be?"

"Hardly, I mean, they were unfounded, since I'm not, but I'm not sure the alternative would have been totally unwelcome. What do you think?" she asked.

He finally smiled. "I helped my wife pick out the furniture in the nursery next to your bedroom, what do you think I think?"

She didn't know what to say. She turned to look for Draco. Her father-in-law turned her so she could not see. "Don't worry about Draco. He will be fine. He will be more than fine." Lucius wasn't only talking about his son taking care of Pansy. He was talking about his new wife. Draco did a good job finding an acceptable wife. Hermione Granger would do just fine. Actually, the more he thought about things, the better this was. He had lost some respectability with the whole 'Death Eater' debacle, and having a war hero as a daughter-in-law could only help his social standing. Most of their guests tonight seemed almost envious of the match. The young woman impressed most of them. Not to mention, his son seemed happy and in love. That was a plus as well.

The song ended, and Hermione tried to walk away to find Draco. Lucius motioned for Adrian. Adrian came up, took Hermione's hand, and said, "May I have the next dance?"

"My hand is hurting again, and I'm worried for Draco. I don't see him, Ron or Pansy," she said. She turned back toward Lucius, to ask him to help her find them, but he was already gone. She looked up at Adrian and said, "I really don't feel like dancing again. Please, don't think I'm rude, but could you help me find Draco?"

"Draco is outside, in the back garden, and he's trying, to no avail, to get Pansy and Weasley the hell out of here," Adrian explained.

"Let's go," she said. She took his hand and weaved through the crowd. He smiled. It might be fun to watch a showdown occur. His money was on Granger, or Mrs. Malfoy, as she was now called.

Draco had rushed up to Pansy earlier, right after Adrian pointed her out to him and without a word to her, he grabbed her hand and pulled her outside. "What are you doing here, Pans? You weren't invited. Your vermin husband certainly wasn't invited. Go home before you make a scene, and we all do or say something we regret."

"No, I don't think I will go just yet," she said. "I wanted to come here and see if this farce of a marriage was still going on, and I see it is! I can't believe Lucius and Narcissa are accepting of this. Do you have them under the Imperius or something?"

"No Pansy, my parents love me and want me happy, as hard as that is for you to understand. Seriously, you need to leave now, or I will have you and Weasel thrown out!" He took her arm but she pulled it away. "Pansy, what is your problem?" he asked. "If I'm right, you were the other woman, the mistress. If anyone should play the part of a wounded party, it should be my wife! Furthermore, it's not as if you and I were still dating, and she stole me from you. We haven't dated for a very long time!"

"Maybe we haven't dated for a very long time, but we certainly had sex just five days before my wedding! I thought we would keep up that part of our relationship! Don't I mean anything to you?" Pansy screamed.

Ron and Hermione stood stock still, in shock, when they heard her statement, and heard they did, as they had both just exited the house for the patio. Adrian heard as well, but instead of rejoicing in Draco's predicament, he felt bad for the man, for Hermione, and even for Weasley.

"Pansy, what did you say?" Ron asked. Hermione rushed up to Draco's side. He turned to her, thinking she would be hurt, but she put her hand in his.

"Ron, I just, well, I didn't want you to hear that," she said.

"Then its true?" he asked.

"Yes, it is, but it was before we married!" she said.

Adrian leaned forward and said, "May I point out that you said it was just five days before you married."

"SHUT UP!" Draco and Hermione yelled at the man in unison.

Ron's face was red with embarrassment, and he said, "You said you had expected to keep having a sexual relationship with Malfoy after we married! Did you mean that?"

"Seriously, Ron, everyone has affairs. You aren't so above cheating. You cheated with me while with Granger!" Pansy said, pointing toward Hermione.

"Again," Adrian said, leaning forward, "I hate to point out the obvious, but Ron and Hermione weren't married."

"SHUT UP!" Draco and Hermione yelled again.

"Pansy, what does this all mean? Do you even love me at all?" Ron asked.

Pansy had a pained expression and she said, "Ron, I care for you, and I don't want to hurt you, I really don't. I started seeing you in the beginning to make Draco jealous. He made it clear that he didn't want a relationship with me that went beyond sex. And, he already had feelings for Granger. Sometimes he would say her name at night in his sleep. Once he said it while we made love. I wanted to hurt her, so I went about to steal you from her, hoping to break her like I was broken, and it would be a bonus if it made Draco sit up and notice me."

"But it didn't work, obviously," Adrian said. Draco and Hermione glared at him and he said, "WELL IT DIDN'T!"

"Why did you marry me? I love you, Pansy. I really do. When you saw it didn't make a difference to Malfoy, and after you got your revenge on Hermione, for something she didn't even do I might add, why go that extra step? Why marry me?" Ron looked so hurt that Hermione's heart was breaking for him. Even though he had hurt her so much, she still cared for him, and she didn't think he deserved what he was getting, even though it was pretty much the same pain he had inflicted on her.

Hermione walked over to Ron and put her hand on his arm. "Ron, come with me. Let's get out of here."

Ron started to walk away, Hermione holding his hand, when Pansy drew her wand. Before she could curse either one, Lucius Malfoy appeared out of nowhere and petrified the horrible woman. Hermione and Ron turned around quickly and Ron ran to Pansy' side.

Lucius looked down at the frozen pug face of Pansy, and said, "Bad form, woman, to try to curse another woman when her back is turned, and in her own house. Even I wouldn't do that."

"How long will she stay like this?" Ron asked Hermione.

She bent down to examine the woman, her wand arm still up in the air, and said, "It might be several hours. You should get her home."

"Let her parents take her home. I'm going to the Burrow, and on Monday morning, I'm going to see Percy about helping me get an annulment. If I need you to be my witness at her deceit, will you?" He looked at Hermione and grasped her shoulder.

Draco walked up to Ron and said, "We all will."

Ron said, "I am so sorry about this, everyone. Hermione, will you ever find it in your heart to forgive me?"

"Ron, I forgave you the moment I fell in love with Draco," she said. He smiled at her weakly and then he disapparated away.

Adrian had gone inside to get Pansy's mother and father. Pansy's mother screwed up her pug face and started to cry. Pansy's father took his daughter's frozen arm, and disapparated away, his wife following shortly after.

"Well, that was fun kids," Adrian said. He patted Draco on the back and said, "Your parties never fail to entertain." He walked back inside, followed by Lucius.

Draco took Hermione's hand and led her to a cement wall that went around a large topiary. He sat down and pulled her down beside him.

"I agree with Adrian, that was mildly entertaining," he said.

"And enlightening," she added. "You liked me for a while, I guess."

"I guess, but I think I told you that already," he said.

"When did you first like me?" she asked.

"I don't know, a long time ago, but seriously, I began to think about a 'you and me' about eight months ago." He took her good hand and traced the lines of her palm with his index finger as he spoke. "Ron was already cheating on you, but you didn't know it. You were still besotted with the big oaf, you came to the office one afternoon, and you sat at Harry's desk, and said that you didn't think Ron was ever going to marry you, and every time you brought up the subject, he changed the subject. You said that you didn't even know if you still loved him, but you felt you had so much vested into the relationship, you felt it would be the easy way out to just give up." He stopped talking for a moment, and looked in her eyes. He kept her right hand in his left hand, and put his right hand up to smooth down her hair.

"Potter told you that if you didn't love him anymore, not to waste your time. How I wish you had listened to him. Of course, he knew Ron was cheating. Everyone in the office knew about it."

"I don't remember seeing you that day. The last time I remember seeing you before Ron and Pansy's wedding was at Harry and Ginny's wedding, and that was almost three years ago," she admitted. "You heard mine and Harry's conversation almost verbatim, and yet, I don't recall you being there that day."

"Well, you wouldn't would you? You were too upset. You were behind Harry's stupid partition that he had put up, so his desk could be separated from the rest of ours, and I was eavesdropping, as I am apt to do," he said with a smile. He leaned over and kissed her cheek. "I used to stop by Harry's desk sometimes just to look at your picture. That doesn't make me a stalker by the way. I didn't act on anything," he explained.

"I almost wish you had," she said sadly. "Might have saved me some heartache, and we could have started our life together sooner."

"Nah," he said slyly, "everything happens for a reason, and everything happens when it's supposed to happen. There should be no second guessing things. Now you know my big dark secret, I had a crush on you for a while, and I used to dream about you apparently, which by the way, I don't remember and I really don't recall saying your name while having sex with the pug. I know that's insulting to you." He laughed and so did she.

She said, "I feel it is only fair since you told me another deep dark secret, which I hope turns out to be the truth, unlike your threesome story, that I now reveal another secret to you."

"Sex dream please. I want to know about my sex dream, and don't leave out one pornographic detail," he said.

They heard Narcissa call their names and Hermione said, "Oh, Draco, so sorry, your mother is calling for us. Over here, Narcissa!" Draco put his hand on Hermione's mouth. She struggled to stand up, and he fell backwards over the small cement wall, into the dirt area around the large topiary, pulling her down on top of him. He removed his hand for a second, and she tried to sit up and she managed to yell out, "Over here, Narcissa!"

Draco put his hand over her mouth again, and rolled over on top of her, to hide her from view. "Keep quiet, and no one gets hurt!" Draco whispered.

"Draco Malfoy, get off her this instant!" Narcissa said, standing over them. Draco rolled off his wife and removed his hand from her mouth.

Hermione said, "Oh, you are in trouble now, Mister."

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