~ After the Battle ~
Graduation felt anticlimactic. Hermione sat her N.E.W.T. exams, laughed with friends, avoided the accusing glares of Ginny Weasley and her compatriots, and let spring unfold. Flowers pushed their way through the cold, Scottish soil and the sun began to warm her skin and they all waited as one chapter of their lives came to an end.
"Are you ready?" Draco asked her one day, as they sat throwing rocks into the lake.
"For what?" she asked, watching with some annoyance as he skipped a rock seven times across the surface of the water.
"Marriage," he said. "Politics."
"It's been politics since he came back," she said. "We've lived years in the shadows of politics."
"Marriage, then?" Draco asked.
"Love," Hermione said. "Friendship."
"They do conquer everything," Draco agreed. "I have Ginny Weasley's word on that."
Hermione tried not to laugh and instead look very solemn. "Yes. I find relying on the Weasleys works out well."
"Did for Potter," Draco said with his snake-mean smile.
And so spring unfurled and soon they were lined up, ready to walk up to a stage and face parents and family members as they were pronounced fully fledged wizards and witches, ready to be pushed out of the nest of Hogwarts and loosed on the world.
A boy in Ravenclaw was the first in their class and stood in the line, reviewing note cards with his speech written out on them. "I'm surprised it's not you," Draco had teased Hermione when the standings had come out. "You slacker."
"I was a bit busy this last year," she'd said, shoving him.
The speech was predictable and Hermione ignored it as she looked out at the audience. Draco's parents were there. Snape sat to the side, waiting to hand her some symbolic piece of paper that pronounced her a graduate. Her own parents were absent. "Stay in Australia," Hermione had suggested. "Why come back to rainy Britain when you can enjoy the sun and the beach in retirement?"
A tiny bit of an imperius had convinced them that permanent emigration was a brilliant idea.
She didn't quite trust Riddle not to decide to sever her only real tie to the Muggle world if he thought she was too attached to her parents for his liking and she'd certainly much prefer him not to have a weapon to hand to hold against her throat. They wouldn't see her graduate. They wouldn't see her get married. They'd enjoy the beach and yearly Christmas letters and nothing else.
Well, Neville would have to take the Mark. They all made sacrifices.
She made sure to refer to Narcissa as 'Mum' in front of Riddle after the graduation ceremony, then correct herself with some embarrassment.
Tom Riddle just smiled as he sipped his wine.
. . . . . . . . . .
Narcissa Malfoy threw a ball for the Hogwarts graduates; whether to go became a hotly debated topic. "They're Death Eaters," Ginny Weasley hissed to anyone who would listen. "They're evil."
"You didn't get an invitation anyway," Lavender Brown said, fingering the heavy linen card stock that welcomed her to the Manor with a proprietary near-lust. "So unless you can get some boy from our year to take you – which seems unlikely – or one of the recent Slytherin alums who've also been invited, you're just out of luck anyway."
"I could go if I wanted to," Ginny said but Lavender snorted and muttered something about delusional little girls needing to go nibble on their candy quills and let the graduates plan for their adult lives.
The Slytherins were all going. That wasn't even a question. The boys had their Markings scheduled for the next day so they could enjoy their last day as children at a party before binding themselves to the Dark Lord. Neville Longbottom was going, of course. He'd shifted his allegiance publicly and, despite three Howlers from his grandmother and, in the last one, the assurance from her that she would never speak to him again along with the accusation that he was defiling his parents' memories and sacrifice, he hadn't backed off.
"I am capable of making my own decisions," he finally snapped to Ginny Weasley so loudly over breakfast everyone in the hall had heard him. "I'm not sure why you think I'm some idiot puppet whose strings you can yank with guilt but I'm not."
"Filthy traitor," she'd hissed and he'd thrown a glass of juice in her face.
She'd stopped speaking to him after that.
The Hufflepuffs followed Hannah Abbott's lead. She was going as Neville's date and, well, they all tended to think the best of everyone anyway. The Ravenclaw graduates kept to their neutral stance and, with a pragmatic attitude that would have impressed any Slytherin, all R.S.V. yes. This ball wasn't only a party; it would be a place to start forming connections.
It would be a place to announce one's loyalty to the new regime.
That was why the Gryffindors, as a group, weren't sure whether to go. It was one of theirs who had led the losing side. It was their friends, their Housemates, who had fought against Riddle, the Dark Lord, Lord Voldemort. To go to Narcissa Malfoy's house for a party seemed like a betrayal of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
To not go was to paint a target on your back.
They debated it at length: nobility versus survival versus a party with aristocrats.
If Hermione saw Hannah with her arms wrapped around a shaking Neville Longbottom she didn't say anything. She was sure enduring the loathing of people who had been his friends for years was difficult but it was only going to get harder and, while they were at school, her company wasn't going to help.
And so the spring ended and they all went home, proud graduates loosed upon the world.
. . . . . . . . . .
Graham Montague sent flowers and chocolates and candy and very formal written requests that Ginevra Weasley accompany him to the Malfoy Ball.
She sent back boxes with the ashes, or melted remains, of each thing.
"Merlin, I love her," Graham said to Theo. "I'm going to marry that girl someday."
. . . . . . . . . . .
Vincent's funeral was wrenching. Other than Astoria, who made a spectacle of herself as she sobbed and wailed, people with shuttered faces who held themselves with care surrounded the gravesite.
"I'll never put off mourning," Astoria promised as she was hauled away from flinging herself into the grave. "I'll wear black forever."
"And this would be a change how?" Daphne muttered, glaring at her sister.
They all stepped forward to toss a clump of dirt onto the empty casket; death by fire had left no body to bury. "Vincent was my friend," Hermione said when it was her turn. "He was loyal and kind and brave and he died fighting for a better world. I won't let his death be meaningless. I won't." She turned away and Draco his wrapped arms around her as she struggled to keep herself composed.
. . . . . . . . .
"Mum," Draco asked, "can you give me the key to Aunt Bella's Gringott's vault? I want to go root around some of the Black jewelry she stashed in there to see if I can find Hermione a good 'something old' for the wedding."
Of course she could, and did, and he went to Gringotts, kissing Hermione goodbye and teasing her with suggestions of the various hideous pieces he could bring back while Daphne rolled her eyes and Lucius smiled indulgently. The goblins let him into the vault and he looked at the disorganized piles of wealth in apparent dismay then asked if they could shut him in and come back when he called. "This might take a while," he said, plucking a hideous tiara from a pile of gold and making a face.
The goblin looked at the piece – quite obviously not goblin made – and shuddered. "If you prefer," he said and exited, shutting the door behind him.
It took Draco fifteen minutes to find Helga Hufflepuff's goblet. He cleared a spot on the stone floor with his foot, shoving a magic carpet aside as well as piles of gold and what looked to be a Faberge egg, and pulled a magically reinforced glass vial out of an inside pocket of his jacket. Removing the stopper he poured the basilisk venom Hermione had ordered using Professor Snape's potions account the last year of school into the goblet and stepped back as it began to smoke and ooze and whisper terrible things to him.
Terrible things.
Vincent died because of you, it whispered.
She doesn't love you, it whispered. She loves Riddle. She'll always love him more than you. He's more powerful. More compelling. You're just her little arm candy.
You can't trust Theo, it whispered.
He closed his eyes and waited for the basilisk venom to dissolve the cup and destroy the horcrux within, and then, hands shaking, he pulled out his wand and levitated piles of gold to hide the black stain that was all that remained of one more piece of Riddle's soul.
"Five down," he whispered and then, "accio necklace."
Dozens of necklaces pulled themselves out of the hoard and flung themselves at him. He sorted through them until he found one that, while perhaps a bit showy, was believably something he'd have fished through Black heirlooms to find rather than just using a piece his mother had around.
He waited for the goblin to return and tried to forget about the lies the cup had whispered.
. . . . . . . . . . .
The graduation ball was sumptuous. Hermione and Draco opened the dancing together and then Draco watched from the sidelines for much of the event as Hermione danced first with already Marked Death Eaters then with the boys in line to suffer next.
"Well," Neville said as he held her at a wholly appropriate distance. "This can go onto the growing list of things I never thought I'd do."
Hermione mingled with the girls, admiring dresses and jewelry and shoes even as she found out where everyone was going after graduation. Work. Internships. Charity events. She smiled and congratulated and finally Pansy laughed and hauled her off to the girl's lounge.
"You can't possible really care that that Ravenclaw girl with the mousy hair is doing a research internship on Dragon Pox," the girl said, "and Marcus and Draco are off talking about Wizengamot sub-committee hearings and I – " she brandished a small flask, "have Muggle chocolate liquor. Take a break before you go back and do your masterful politician's wife thing some more."
"We should share," Hermione said, kicking her shoes off and stretching her ankles.
"You turn into a Hufflepuff when I wasn't looking?" Pansy asked, pulling out two small glasses.
"Merlin forbid," Hermione muttered, taking a sip. "Damn, this is good." She sank down into a chair. "The mingling crap was not in the fine print," she admitted, taking another sip.
"Lots of things get skimmed over in that fine print," Pansy agreed.
"You happy with Marcus?" Hermione asked and Pansy fingered the jewelry at her wrist as she considered the question.
"He's a good man," she said finally. "I like him very much." She took a sip of her chocolate. "I worry that the sacrifice they've all made to be Marked won't matter in a bit."
Hermione paused. "Loyalty always matters," she said, watching Pansy's face. "Trust always matters."
"Well," Pansy said, draining the rest of her chocolate, "You can trust Marcus and you can trust me. We aren't schoolgirls fighting over a boy anymore and we're on the same side."
"The stakes are higher as adults," Hermione said.
"Indeed. But so are the rewards," Pansy said. "Let's get you back before someone comes looking for you."
Hermione sighed. "It does feel like someone is always watching me these days," she admitted.
Pansy held the door for her as they exited the lounge and returned to the party. "We've got your back."
. . . . . . . . . .
The chosen of the graduating class were Marked the next day.
Hermione sat with Luna, Millie, and Hannah and they watched her face as the screams shredded the air. Her eyes were unreadable but something about her posture made Luna murmur, "So this is why."
"It's terrible," was all Hermione said. "I hate that they all have to suffer this way."
. . . . . . . . . .
Draco handed Hermione some notes. "Where things are hidden," he said quietly.
"A cave?" Hermione asked, looking through the research. "I wouldn't have expected that."
"It's near the orphanage where he grew up," Draco explained and she nodded.
"Are you -?" she started but he shook his head.
"I'm being taken around the Ministry to meet various people and be slotted into my role as Minister. I can't disappear for any length of time. Theo'll do it."
. . . . . . . . . .
Neville, Blaise, and Greg sat by the pool at Malfoy Manor while Hermione poured juice into their cups.
"I'm going to be ill," Neville muttered, looking at the Mark on his arm. All of them were pale, all of them were weak. Riddle had disappeared once the deed was done, off organizing Draco's appointment as Minister she suspected. Narcissa had kept the engagement in the society pages and since graduation Hermione had smiled for countless reporters, laughed at their questions, and hung on Draco's arm. She was the pretty, Muggle-born fiancé, the Hogwarts graduate, the rising It girl, and nothing more.
"The Malfoys have always been lovely to me," she said over and over again. "People talk about blood prejudice but I've truly never seen it. They've been like a family to me since I was a child; I'd do anything for them."
"In for a knut," Hermione murmured now near Neville's ear as she poured. "Also, discretion and valor and all that."
He took the glass she handed to him. "It's just a bit of a strain," he said, apology in his voice. "I don't think any of us are quite feeling our best."
"I remember when Draco was Marked," Hermione said. "It changed everything."
Blaise took his glass of juice from her. "I suppose it did, principessa," he said. "I suppose it did."
. . . . . . . . . .
Lysander Yaxley walked Draco to the Wizengamot for his confirmation as the youngest Minister ever. Three people who had objected to his appointment had somewhat mysteriously disappeared and the vote to make a seventeen-year-old boy Minister was, after that, wholly unanimous.
Draco made a short speech expressing his gratitude and how humbled he was by their trust but that he hoped they would permit him to call upon their expertise. "The collected wisdom in this room," he said, "would, if it were a light, make the sun seem dim and I am not arrogant enough to consider myself more than a candle in comparison."
"At least he knows he's only a figurehead," one, perhaps somewhat shortsighted, wizard said, leaning over to whisper to another. "Imagine if that monster had decided to install one of his stupider followers?"
Hermione sat in the visitor's gallery and beamed at Draco; after he was keyed into his office they posed for pictures in the main Atrium. "I'm so proud of him," she said as she smiled for the cameras. "But then, Draco's my whole life."
. . . . . . . . . .
"Theo won't be joining us for a few days," Draco said apologetically over dinner. "I'm afraid he's, uh, fairly ill."
"What's the matter," Narcissa asked, sounding concerned.
Tom Riddle, spreading his napkin in his lap, looked irritated until Draco muttered, "I dared him to eat at a Muggle restaurant."
"Draco," Hermione hissed, seemingly embarrassed and angry at the same time. "Are you twelve? Why would you do that?"
"I didn't think the food would actually make him sick," Draco said sullenly. "How was I supposed to know that would happen?"
Tom Riddle and Narcissa Malfoy exchanged eye rolls. "Boys," Riddle said, obviously amused now. "I suppose you've both learned a lesson."
"I suppose," Draco said.
"Is he okay?" Lucius asked.
"He's fine," Draco said. "I mean, he's miserable and weak and will probably never trust me to recommend a restaurant again and he'll be in bed for a few days but he's at home and there's some elf who's adored him since childhood who's in charge of getting him well again." He smiled a bit. "He'll probably end up more upset I left him to the tender mercies of a house elf than that the curry was bad."
"What made you decide to recommend a Muggle restaurant, of all things? Had you ever even eaten there?" Hermione demanded.
Draco gave her a look of utter disgust. "I don't eat at Muggle restaurants," he said and Tom Riddle laughed as he passed the wine bottle down the table.
When Hermione returned to her bedroom there was an empty glass vial on her vanity table along with a sheet of parchment that read, simply, "6". She slipped the vial into a makeup case and crumpled the paper before incendioing it.
. . . . . . . . . .
"So, my dear, what would you like as a wedding present?" Riddle leaned back in his leather chair and smiled at his most favored follower.
"You'll think it's silly," she said, blushing a little.
"And what can a father be if not indulgent once in a while," Riddle said. "Tell me what your heart desires?"
Hermione licked her lips. "The Sword of Gryffindor," she said in a rush. "I want to hang it over a mantle the way some people hang, well, deer heads."
"Or lion heads?" he asked, amused.
She smirked at him "Or lion heads," she agreed. "I want their defeat on display in my home. Some day I want to make Ginny Weasley look at it and have to be courteous to me anyway." She muttered under her breath, "I'll show her 'death eater whore.'"
He laughed. "I'll have Snape send it down from the school," he said. "You have, after all, given me a quite lovely wand and taken care of my Dumbledore problem. I think I can spring for a good present."
"I also didn't kill Potter at school despite considerable provocation," she reminded him.
The Dark Lord laughed again with obvious, malicious delight. "If only all my followers were as loyal and controlled as you, my dear, not to mention as bloodthirsty. I do assume you want the real sword, not the clever copy Snape keeps out on display?"
She looked down, and then back up at the Dark Lord through her lashes. "Of course I do," she said.
"Minx," he said with something close to genuine affection.
. . . . . . . . . .
Narcissa Malfoy absolutely quashed any suggestion of a short wedding dress, no matter how many Muggle fashion magazines Daphne and Hermione hauled out to bolster their case. "Long and elegant," Narcissa ordered. "Something that speaks to both your Muggle heritage while hinting at traditional dress robes."
"How about something like what Princess Diana wore?" Hermione teased.
Narcissa snorted. "You want to look like a giant puff ball? Unlike you, I've seen the outrageously showy necklace Draco hauled out of Bella's vaults for your 'something old' and if you do not wear a very simple dress you will seem ridiculous and I am not having my daughter-in-law appear ridiculous on her wedding day, do you understand?"
Hermione knew which battles to concede; she let Narcissa pick the dress, she let Narcissa pick the venue, the back lawn of Malfoy Manor, she let Narcissa pick the caterers. Narcissa planned the whole event.
Except for one, minor, detail.
. . . . . . . . . .
"You don't have to take out the snake yourself," Hermione said for what seemed like the seventeenth time. "We need you to kill the man, using the term loosely; assuming that absurd prophecy can be trusted you're the only one left alive who can do it."
"And to think he considers you as a daughter," Neville said, hefting the sword as he looked at the woman standing in front of him in a very expensive, very elegant white dress.
"Mourning becomes Electra?" Hermione asked with a raised brow.
"He hasn't actually killed your father, has he?" Neville asked, looking suddenly worried.
"He let Lucius spend a year in Azkaban," Hermione said. "Tortured Draco – tortured all of you – with those Marks. And, as you know, he'd slaughter my actual father without a second thought if he thought it would get him something he wanted." She slipped a false bezoar into a pocket she'd painstakingly added to the dress. "No, patricide seems appropriate given the circumstances."
"Hermione Granger, the good witch after all," Neville said but she rolled her eyes and he sighed. "I still want to do the snake. It seems… poetic."
"Fine," Hermione turned back to mirror and adjusted the diamonds in her ears. "Kill the snake as he walks me down the aisle. You have the Polyjuice?"
Neville pulled a flask out of his pocket. "One catering drudge, unremarkable, just like all the others, at your service."
"Good. Fill his glass with the poisoned wine during the reception and then I'll do my act. Try not to kill any of the guests but, if you have to in order to get to him, do it."
Neville turned to go. "And, Neville," she added and he stopped at the door. "Thank you."
. . . . . . . . . .
"You look beautiful, my dear," Riddle said as she smiled nervously before walking down the aisle. She filled her thoughts with the wedding and how much she loved Draco and how nervous she was about this entire day, about becoming a wife. Riddle smiled down at her. "No need to be nervous, Miss Granger, everything will go smoothly and then you and Draco will run the world."
"I suppose we will," she dimpled up at him, still looking a little nervous, and he chucked her chin.
"At my behest, of course," he said.
"Well," she took a deep breath, "today is not about running the world. Today is about getting married."
"Well," Riddle said, "Dumbledore did always say love was the ultimate power, or some such."
Hermione looked at him with an incredulous expression that slowly devolved into giggles. "Yes, and I couldn't help but notice how much love helped him as he fell off the Astronomy Tower."
Riddle smiled. "There, see, you aren't nervous anymore."
. . . . . . . . .
As Hermione reached the robed Ministry official she looked over to her right and saw Blaise Zabini slip into a seat next to Luna. He smiled at her and made a slight nod. She turned to face Draco and slipped her hands into his. "I love you," he mouthed at her.
. . . . . . . . . .
The toasting began at the reception. To the Malfoys, people said. To the new generation of leaders. To Hermione. To Draco.
An unremarkable member of the catering staff filled Tom Riddle's wine glass.
Hermione stood at the head table and raised her glass to Tom Riddle. "To the man who makes all things possible," she said and he smiled at her and took a deep drink from his wine glass.
He started to choke almost at once and the people nearest him turned to him in mild concern that quickly escalated. "What's going on?" Hermione cried out as Tom Riddle's face began to turn blue and he clawed at his throat.
"Poison? Choking?" Draco yelped and Hermione flung herself forward and pulled Riddle onto her lap, struggling to get him to cough up whatever he'd swallowed.
"Does anyone have –" she screamed hysterically.
"Bezoar, in the house," Draco said, "I'll get it." He turned towards the house in his wedding finery, having to run because of the anti-apparation wards, and the guests turned from the sight of the groom racing towards the house to get an all-purpose antidote and the bride, sunk to the ground in her white dress with a man convulsing on her lap.
"Hurry," she begged, tears running down her face.
Draco was back quickly, so very quickly, but not quickly enough and the little lump they shoved down the Dark Lord's throat in an attempt to save him had no effect. Hermione sobbed, bending over the body as everyone looked on in horror and Draco quietly palmed the Elder Wand.
A photographer from the society pages snapped what would become the lead on the next day's paper: the brand new Minister of Magic and his brand new wife, sitting, bowed and helpless, over the cooling body of the apparently not-so-immortal Dark Lord, Tom Riddle.
Narcissa finally led her daughter-in-law away, back to the house, and gave her a mild sedative to drink. Lucius, face pale, ordered the staff to clear away the body and serve the meal. "I think," he said, "given the… circumstances… we'll skip dancing but please help yourselves to dinner."
. . . . . . . . . .
When Draco got back to his suite – their suite now – Hermione had changed out of her wedding dress into not the bridal negligee but a pair of ratty pajama bottoms and one of his t-shirts.
"You doing okay?" he asked.
"I loved him," she admitted. "I mean, he was... he hurt you. And I know he was as close to evil incarnate as I'm ever likely to meet, and, yet, I loved him and I wanted to please him so much." She was, Draco saw, crying. Had been for hours if the pile of tissues on the floor was any indication.
"I know," he said very softly. "When he would praise me I felt as if a god had smiled at me."
"Why am I so sad when I'm the one who did this?" she whispered. "Why do I feel so awful?"
Draco pulled her into his arms and they sat there are rocked on the floor as he murmured into her hair that he loved her, that she'd done the right thing, that the world was better off without Tom Riddle, that they'd still do everything good from his playbook. "We'll just leave out the recreational killing bit when we run the world," he said at last, "and the total indifference to human life bit."
"Can I?" Hermione said with a hiccup. "How many people did I kill? How soiled am I?"
"You're perfect," Draco said. "No one gets to kill the monster and not get blood on her hands." He paused. "What did you do with the false bezoar?"
"Destroyed," she said. "No one came forward with one to save him so I didn't need to do the sleight of hand trick."
"All that work learning to swap them unnoticed," he teased, "and all for nothing."
"I can do card tricks?" she asked with another hiccup but also the beginning of a smile.
Draco pulled out the Elder Wand. "I wonder who's actually this thing's master," he mused. "I took it, you orchestrated his defeat, Neville did the actual killing. It's a bit of a mystery."
"You keep it," Hermione suggested. "How's the Mark?"
"Already fading," he said with a faint smile as he held out his arm. "I wanted to take it but, I have to admit, I'm not sad to see it go."
"My figurehead Minister husband," she said, nuzzling into him.
"Youngest Minister of Magic in history," he agreed, "and my empty-headed society wife."
"All I do is run non-controversial charities," she said, "like feeding hungry children."
"Well, that," Draco said, "and taking down that pesky immortal sociopath." He set the Elder Wand down and wrapped both his arms around her, slipping his hands under the worn shirt to rest against her skin. "Does it bother you that you'll never get any credit, never be the hero who saved the Wizarding world? That history will say he just choked on bad wine at a wedding?"
"Sometimes," she admitted. "A little."
. . . . . . . . ..
When Draco and Hermione returned from their honeymoon to the lovely flat they'd selected, there was a bouquet of lilies waiting for them.
"What's the card say?" Draco asked as he tossed their bags down and joined Hermione at the table.
She silently handed it to him.
Thank you.
. . . . . . . . . .
"You look beautiful," Hermione said, admiring the vintage wedding dress Daphne had convinced her mother was classy because, despite being short, it was old. She'd really wanted a short dress and, based on the way Theo had admired her legs and her very high heels, he didn't object.
Not, of course, that that would have stopped her.
"Thank you," Daphne said, champagne flute in her hand. "Let's see if we can get through my reception without someone choking to death, shall we?"
Hermione rolled her eyes before asking where they were going on their honeymoon and enjoying a length, rapturous, description of the beaches Daphne and Theo would be exploring for the next two weeks. "And the best thing," the woman concluded, "is we don't have to bloody well hide that we've been shagging like rabbits in heat for over a year anymore."
"Planning on babies any time soon?" Hermione asked.
Daphne made a rude noise. "I'm planning on hitting up every lingerie shop in Paris and playing dress up for the next year," she said. "I understand babies interrupt your sleep and I like my sleep."
Hermione laughed and released Daphne back to her party guests with a kiss and a promise to find her when she got back from her honeymoon and shopping spree. "You have to help me navigate the Ministry," Hermione reminded her.
"At your service," Daphne said with a laugh and a curtsey. Hermione made a face and Daphne added, her voice very low, "We all are, you know, for the rest of our lives. What you did... there's no way to repay you."
Hermione swallowed hard and Daphne pulled her into a tight hug. "Not that that bitch will even know," she added, glaring at Ginny Weasley who stood near the bar with a very pleased looking Graham Montague. "How'd he convince her to come as his date, anyway?"
Hermione turned to look at the girl and shrugged. "Maybe he just camped out on her doorstop until she broke down and gave in? I don't get his weird thing for her."
"We'll have to go to their wedding," Daphne said glumly. "And she'll probably give their children awful names like 'Albus Ronald' or 'Harold Sirius' and they'll be at Hogwarts with our kids and then they'll end up dating and, shite, I need another drink just thinking about that." But she was grinning and Hermione smirked back as they watched Graham fetch and carry for their least favorite schoolmate. The poor, poor, besotted fool.
"Some day, Hermione" Narcissa said, walking up to the pair as Daphne smiled and escaped, "I am going to ask you why I found the rotting corpse of a very large snake in my basement."
Hermione gave her a bland look. "I really have no idea. I assume it died there."
"Given its head had been sliced clean off, I feel that's a safe assessment," Narcissa said, taking a sip from her champagne flute. She leaned in and kissed Hermione on first one cheek and then the other. "I see Andromeda and want to go say hello. Will I see you at the Board meeting tomorrow?"
"Of course," Hermione said. "I'm bringing Pansy Flint with me, if that's acceptable."
"Marcus' wife?" Narcissa asked. "Naturally."
Hermione watched Narcissa cross the room, stopping to smile and banter with Greg and Theo's fathers before she took her sister's arm. "That was well done of you," Theo came up behind her.
"You should be dancing with your new wife," Hermione said. "If Daphne thinks I'm monopolizing you she'll make me go to some fabric warehouse in Paris. She's already threatened."
"You're going with her whether I talk to you or not," Theo said with a grin and Hermione groaned but her look of mock dismay turned into an outright smirk that drove Theo to spin around and take a quick, panicked step backward when he saw Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks approaching them.
"Wotcher, Hermione, I never got a chance to thank you," Tonks said, adding, as she caught sight of Theo's white knuckles, "Are you okay? Marriage already got you that scared?"
"Why don't you go find Daphne?" Hermione suggested and Theo made excuses to leave so rapid they were nearly rude.
"Is he okay?" Lupin asked.
"Just nerves, I'm sure," Hermione said. "He can be a bit twitchy."
. . . . . . . . . .
Draco might have held Hermione a trifle closer than was technically socially appropriate but, other than Ginny Weasley who sniffed when she saw them, no one was likely to say anything. After all, they hadn't been able to dance at their own wedding. Daphne and Theo had hired an excellent ensemble; this was, after all, the society wedding of the year in a year with multiple outrageous events. The music was wonderful.
"Have I mentioned tonight how beautiful you look?" Draco asked.
Hermione dimpled up at him, a mischievous sparkle in her warm eyes. "I keep waiting for you to tell me I look like a tramp," she said and he groaned. Years later and she was still twitting him about that.
He ran a thumb over the jade bracelet she still insisted on wearing. "You are allowed to take it off now," he'd said when she kept wearing both it and the engagement ring but she'd shrugged and refused.
"You look beautiful," he said, "but maybe you'll opt to look trampy later?"
Her eyes widened and he leaned close to her ear. "I'd be your slave forever if you'd wear the green satin again."
"I'm wearing it now," she breathed into his own ear and smirked up at him as he responded quickly, albeit predictably, to the thought of her in his favorite bra and knickers set.
"You are an evil, evil woman," he said but his smile suggested that he was not complaining.
"She might be evil," Lucius Malfoy said, tapping his son on the shoulder, "but I'm pulling rank and cutting in."
"Rank?" Draco looked at his father. "I'm the Minister of Magic."
"And I changed your nappies. Go get a glass of punch."
Hermione stepped back and, with an awkward hunch to make his erection less obvious, Draco slouched off to the bar where he met up with Greg, presumably to commiserate about the way their fathers were monopolizing their wives as Greg's father was dancing with Millie.
Hermione and Lucius danced in silence until he said, "There are days I find myself rather grateful I was not an abusive parent."
Hermione blinked a few times and said, "Sir?"
"You are a dear girl," was all Lucius said. "How are your parents?"
"They're fine," she said. "Enjoying the sunshine and the beaches. I might have trouble convincing them to come back even to meet a grandchild."
Lucius' eyes widened and he began to say, "Are you –"
"No!" she gasped. "In theory. Theory. Theoretical grandchild. There's no… I think I can safely ignore the command to have an appealing tot as quickly as possible."
Lucius exhaled and, if he looked a tad disappointed, he quickly concealed that as he danced with his daughter-in-law. "Well, I quite liked your parents when I met them. If they do come back to Britain we'll have to have them over for dinner."
"I'm sure they'd enjoy that," Hermione said as the song ended and she made a graceful little curtsey. Lucius bowed over her hand and murmured appropriate and polite nonsense as they parted.
. . . . . . . . . .
"So… hey, Astoria," Greg said, trying to balance a plate with some of the passed starters in one hand, a drink in the other and still at least manage a partial bow over the girl's hand. He failed, but he did try.
"Greg," she said with a somewhat awkward nod. She wasn't dressed in black, for once, and Michael Corner, who thrust his hand out, accompanied her.
"Greg Goyle, right?" the man asked. "I don't think we've ever been officially introduced."
Greg shook the man's hand and introduced him to Millie. "Have you met my wife?" he asked. He still hadn't gotten tired of calling her that, and the book Luna had given Millie at her hen party? He would never get tired of that.
"Don't think I have," Michael said as he took Millie's hand and left an air kiss slightly above her skin. "I surely would have remembered a woman as beautiful as you," he added and Millie flushed.
"How did you two meet?" Millie asked Astoria, as much to change the subject as out of any real curiosity.
"I found her writing poetry," Michael said, giving Astoria a possessive look.
"He asked to read it," Astoria added.
"And she's good," Michael said. "Really good."
"Really?" Greg asked, then added as he realized how awful that sounded, "I'm no judge, of course."
"It's quite brilliant," Michael assured him. "She's got a wonderful simplicity in the way she approaches her subject matter that obscures the symbolism she's embedded in deliberately awkward, naïve metrical structures and rhyme choices. By using these primitive structures she overrides the sophisticated readers' trained ears and forces them to grapple with the compelling emotional tenor of her work."
Greg stared at Michael.
"That's wonderful," Millie said after a brief silence. "I'm so happy you've been able to… I was worried after…"
"It's still very hard," Astoria said stiffly. "Michael has been very understanding."
Greg glanced at the string of blue beads – sapphires he guessed – around the girl's neck but forbore to comment.
"I want to go congratulate Theo," Michael said, "It was nice meeting you, Greg. Millie."
After the couple walked off Greg turned to Millie and said in a hiss, "What the fuck was he saying about her poetry? Because I've read it and it's god-awful, even for poetry."
Millie snickered. "I think that could be translated as, 'I want to get laid.'"
"Oh," Greg said. "That I understand."
. . . . . . . . . .
"Where are Blaise and Luna?" Hermione asked Pansy as the pair of them took a moment to rest from dancing. Hermione had long ago shed her shoes and she stood, bracing herself against a wall as she rubbed one foot with her hands. Daphne, given a nearly unlimited budget, as well as the strict political order to throw a party to remember, had concocted a magnificent wedding reception.
"You don't want to know," Pansy muttered, making a sharp 'come here' gesture to Marcus, who had been talking heatedly to Draco about something, presumably something tedious and political.
Hermione looked at her.
"I found them doing something… complicated… in the upstairs lounge."
Hermione shuddered.
"She's really flexible," Pansy added.
. . . . . . . . . .
"What were you and Marcus conspiring about?" Hermione asked later as Draco helped her unhook her necklace. She set it into her jewelry box and, leaning over her shoulder, he reached in and touched her Dark Mark.
"You kept it," he murmured.
She shrugged, half embarrassed, half defensive. "I cherished it for a while," she said, "and it did keep me alive that last year."
"I still see the Mark," Draco said, running his hands along it, "but the magic is gone. No warning anymore."
Hermione batted his hand away and closed the lid of her jewelry box. "So," she prompted, "you and Marcus?"
"He's going to handle the hearings to release Order members from Azkaban and return wands. We want to make sure no one has any unpleasant plans for counter-revolution now that the big bad wolf is gone."
Hermione coughed.
"The obvious big bad wolf," Draco amended. "And you aren't a batshit crazy sociopath, so you aren't really in the same league."
"Fair enough," she admitted.
He bent down and began kissing along the back of her neck. One tendril of hair had escaped from her chignon and tickled his nose as he nuzzled her and he suddenly sneezed. Hermione laughed and turned in the chair of her vanity, put her hands on each side of his face, and kissed him. "I love you so much," she said.
He rested his forehead against hers. "Me too," he said. She snickered and he reached around to yank on that errant tendril of hair. "I mean I love you, have since I was eleven."
Hermione began fumbling with the zipper of her dress. "And now there's no pesky elves to interrupt us," she suggested and, with that thought in mind, she and Draco spent some time in perfect accord in their own, elf-free, flat.
. . . . . . . . . .
"As Blaise would say, 'principessa'," Theo said, raising his wine glass towards her across the simple table in her flat where they had gathered for dinner.
Daphne and Draco joined him while Hermione rolled her eyes.
"It's our world now," Draco said right before he drank.
. . . . . . . . . .
~ Some Time Later ~
Hermione ran her hands over the bark of one of the trees while Neville watched her. He'd just finished planting the seventh tree in the circle, a yew sapling, and had stood and was still brushing dirt off his hands. Hermione, with the almost infinite Malfoy budget at her disposal, had selected six much larger specimens and getting them planted in the perfect circle on the Hogwarts grounds had taken the work of a team of skilled arborists.
Some of the trees, like the small elderberry, also required complicated weather charms to keep their environment amenable.
"Couldn't just do a circle of local trees," Neville said, "you had to make it complicated."
Hermione laughed at that as she admired their plantings: yew; elderberry; a pair of trees that twined about one another; another tree that twined around something that wasn't even there. That one had given the arborist fits and she'd had to bring in a tree shaper; an ash tree; a beautiful, mature walnut.
"Hannah and I want to name our first daughter after you," Neville said, watching her trace her fingers over first one tree and then another.
"Don't," she said quietly. "What I did… it's not worth celebrating. It should be forgotten."
"And the trees?" he asked.
"Penance, maybe," she said. "Remorse."
Neville pulled out his wand and carved 'FL + AB' in the bark of the walnut, then added a heart around the initials.
"Neville," Hermione watched him, somewhat agog. "You – you – just defaced a tree."
"I think, for this one, it's perfect," he said. "Let this be a tree that gets covered in messages about love."
Hermione traced her fingers over the heart. "Love and friendship and loyalty," she said quietly.
. . . . . . . . . .
~ Still Later ~
"This is all your fault," Hermione screamed at Draco as he pushed the sweat-soaked hair away from her forehead and wiped her face with a cool cloth. "I hate you!"
"Push, Mrs. Malfoy," the Healer instructed.
"Tell me to push one more time, you bitch, and I'll push you out the window," Hermione snapped.
"That's my girl," Draco coaxed. "You can kill her just as soon as you deliver the baby, I promise."
"Liar," Hermione said as she took his hand and squeezed it as hard as she could and he whimpered. "Let's see you push a watermelon out your arse and then you won't lie to me like this."
"People do frown on the Minister's wife killing off the medical staff," Draco admitted. "How about a little push, sweetheart?"
"Don't sweetheart me you arrghhhhhh," Hermione gasped. "I'll kill you, you bastard."
"No you won't," he said as he wiped her face again. "You won't let anyone hurt so much as a hair on my head."
"Fair enough," she admitted, then added with a pain filled hiss, "I might make an exception for myself, however."
"No exceptions," Draco said. "Plus, if you kill me you'll upset my parents, who are out pacing in the lobby, and you might even make Snape frown."
"Severus is here?" Hermione asked, loosening her grip on his hand.
"Did you think he would miss the chance to see his godchild as soon as possible after the birth? He's here. He's been interrogating your parents about Muggle pain control methods and scolding the staff for the sloppiness of their potions cabinets."
"Of course he is," Hermione muttered, panting and then howling again. Draco yelped as she squeezed his hand quite hard.
"See, the baby's crowning. You're doing great, Mrs. Malfoy," the Healer said.
"I hate these society wives," one of the nurses said under her breath to another as they stood waiting to clean off and weigh the baby. "Too posh to push, all of them. I bet she's never had to make a single decision more taxing than whether to have chicken or fish at a gala."
"Nothing but a housewife with no real responsibilities," the other nurse agreed, "no matter who her husband is. None of these women ever get their hands dirty with real work."
~ FINIS ~
. . . . . . . . . .
A/N – Well, it's over. From a random 'that hat really had a lot of power' what if, to Shealone's tremendous encouragement and support and punctuation hunting as I wrote with nearly compulsive fervor, to the wonder of all your feedback and comments, this has been quite a ride.
As the wonderful Glitter (of Bespoke Witch fame, which, if you are an adult, you should read because it's hilarious and wonderful as well as jaw-droppingly smutty) says, reviews are a fanfic writer's paycheck; now that this is over, I would love it if you could send love and happiness my way with your thoughts, even if those thoughts are just a happy face.
Thank you for everything!