A/N – As always, thanks for the brilliant support for The Dark Lady. Now Harry is out of the picture for a while it's time to concentrate on Draco and Hermione and their relationship. The next handful of chapters are purely about their relationship, but Harry will be back and with him he'll bring more trouble. Until then enjoy the fluff as the happy couple prepare to tie the knot.
In the few months following her engagement to Draco, Hermione was busier than ever as she expanded her influence across the globe. Luckily while Hermione was so busy, things had calmed down with the Order. In fact Hermione was fairly confident that they were no more and would be causing no more trouble.
A few days after Molly's death, Hermione was surprised to discover that Harry had upped and left. He'd quit his quidditch career, left Ginny and disappeared. Initially Hermione wondered if it was all part of a trick on Harry's part, but Charlie confirmed he'd genuinely left. According to Charlie there'd been a bit of bad feeling following Molly's death, and Harry had gone off because he blamed himself for helping to cause her death.
As for the rest of the Order, without Harry they just seemed not to want to cause problems, leading Hermione to believe he was the ringleader and if it wasn't for him they would never had fought her at all. All the Professors who had been in the Order had long since ceased to be problematic to Hermione, and they were all happily carrying on teaching at Hogwarts. McGonagall had even reclaimed her position as Deputy Headmistress, and according to Severus once the staff got used to the changes he and Lucius had implemented they were no bother.
The only other people Hermione had been worried about was Tonks and Lupin. After Kingsley's arrest, Tonks had been making a fuss, but Lucius had been right and once she calmed down she was no problem. These days she was happy to carry on as an Auror, while Lupin did whatever he did these days. Blaise and Theo had confirmed that since Kingsley's arrest, Tonks hadn't bothered them in the slightest, in fact according to them she was starting to become friendlier towards them. Hermione herself had witnessed Tonks' lack of attitude when she'd visited the Ministry to speak to Lucius and ended up sharing a lift with the other witch. Tonks had politely said hello, and never once looked at Hermione as though she hated her all the time they were in the lift together.
Without the Order to worry about, Hermione had been fully focused on expanding her empire. She started making plans for her museum and library, as well as taking several overseas trips to start her schools across the globe. As well as schools she'd also agreed to open shopping centres in a few countries. With the schools she made a deal with the government, she would build the school and she would own it for five years, after that she would sell it to the Ministry on the strict understanding that it remained a school for young witches and wizards.
However she made it clear she would only work in countries that followed Britain's example and had a muggleborn registration. A batch of countries were hesitant to put the registration into effect, but so far they were slowly relenting as they saw how profitable it was to be working with The Dark Lady. Initially Portugal had been one of the countries not willing to introduce a muggleborn registration. But when a few senior officials from their Ministry put in for transfers to a country which either had one of Hermione's schools, or were going to get one, they hastily rethought the idea and once it was in place Hermione made a deal with their government to build a school in Portugal.
Hermione knew it would take years before every country was on board with the plans, but with each passing month there was becoming less and less places in the wizarding world where muggles were welcomed without restrictions. Even in those countries that had restrictions, Hermione had assigned a Death Eater to do what Draco was doing in Britain and slowly ensure the muggleborn population dwindled to nothing.
For nearly three months, all Hermione did was travel. With Draco having his own business to run he wasn't often available to accompany her, and when he wasn't at her side, Hermione missed him terribly. Lavender accompanied her on all of her trips as her P.A. and Hermione found herself grateful that she'd told the other witch of her true identity. It made things so much easier and it also meant they were able to spend a bit of time together socially, which was handy when they were in a foreign country and didn't know anyone else. Hermione often found it amusing how much she liked Lavender these days, when she'd spent years at school being annoyed by her. However, it was very clear that there was more to Lavender than the gossipy girl she'd often appeared to be in school, and Hermione liked the real Lavender very much.
Greg also accompanied Hermione and Lavender on a few of their trips. Whenever Hermione had a building in another country, she brought Greg along so he could draw up the plans for the building and ensure the workers she hired knew what they were doing. Technically Greg was actually the boss on any of her buildings, but they always hired wizards and managerial staff from the country they were building in. Once the buildings were fully functional the staff were also hired from whatever country the building was in. Hermione was trying to give something useful to the wizarding world, and staffing her schools and other businesses with her own people wouldn't work. Her schools were designed for each individual country, and it was people from those countries that needed to be working in them and running them.
On the trips where Greg would be with them, Hermione did try and arrange it so Draco could be with her for at least part of the trip. Greg and Lavender's relationship was blossoming nicely and Hermione often felt like a gooseberry when the couple got all starry eyed about each other. As happy as Hermione was that the couple had found happiness together, she preferred it when Draco was around. At least that way the two couples could go their separate ways in their free time, without anyone feeling abandoned.
With all her work, Hermione had barely had time to even think about her wedding but nearly three months after Draco proposed that was about to change. She'd just come back from a trip to New Zealand, and after she'd checked out her businesses, she was going home so she and Draco could finally talk about their wedding. Hermione had already let Lavender get off home, so once she'd checked everything was running smoothly at the office she left for a tour of her empire.
The first place Hermione visited was the museum and library that was still being built. She already had contracts in place for artefacts to be housed from around the world and she was starting to build a substantial rare and unique book collection. The building itself wouldn't be finished for another couple of months, but it truly was amazing and Hermione hoped it would be her biggest success to date.
After leaving the museum, Hermione checked on her charity project. She still held regular fundraisers and money for the charity was pouring in. Research however was moving much slower, but the wizard in charge of the project, Daniel Dillon, reassured her that they were making progress. As Daniel explained, it was a long job looking for a cure to the squib gene and they just had to be patient.
From her charity, Hermione headed to the shopping centre. As always the place was buzzing with activity, and she spent nearly five minutes chatting with Fred Weasley. She'd ran into Fred wandering around the shopping centre, handing colourful balloons and treats to children to encourage them to visit the joke shop. Despite not having much contact with the twins in her Dark Lady persona, Hermione found they were both as friendly as ever and seemed perfectly okay with her.
Hermione's visits to both the school and the animal sanctuary were short and sweet. As usual the school was running perfectly, and a quick chat with Narcissa revealed no problems. Classes for every year were full, and the parents were thrilled with the education their children were receiving. After promising Narcissa, she and Draco would be over for dinner sometime soon, Hermione left the school and headed to the animal sanctuary. There she encountered a hung-over Charlie, who was complaining that he wasn't going out on the pull with Blaise ever again. In between Charlie's complaints about what Blaise had talked him into, Hermione found that the sanctuary was running smoothly. The animal count was rising nicely and the educational visits from Hogwarts and her school were a big hit with the youngsters.
Finally Hermione's tour reached its end and she headed home. When she arrived home, she was thrilled to see Draco had finished work early and was waiting for her. She was even more thrilled when he said he'd arranged dinner, with the help from an elf from the Manor, and had a nice bath already ran for her.
"You are the perfect fiancé." Hermione told Draco, before she headed off for a soak.
By the time Hermione had removed her glamour's, bathed and dressed, Draco had dinner waiting for her on the dining room table. Sliding into her seat she thanked her fiancé as they settled down to enjoy a meal together for the first time in over a week.
"So where's your next trip to?" Draco asked.
"I don't know." Hermione shrugged. "I've got nothing planned for a while, I don't want to overstretch myself. I've got all the time in the world to spread my wings across the globe. Right now, I thought I could stay at home more. The museum still needs work, and I thought we could begin to plan our wedding."
"I like the sound of that." Draco smiled.
"I'm telling you now it won't be the easiest thing to sort." Hermione warned. "There's a few things I want which might prove tricky to organise."
"Why don't we finish dinner, then we can settle in the front room with a glass of wine and you can tell me what you want." Draco suggested.
Hermione agreed to Draco's suggestion and the rest of the meal was spent discussing their respective work. Once dinner was finished the pair cleaned up and headed into the front room with a glass of wine. Curling up together on the sofa, they headed back to the conversation regarding their wedding.
"Firstly, I'm not getting married as The Dark Lady." Hermione began.
"I didn't expect you to." Draco told his fiancée. "And personally, I wouldn't want you to. I want to marry you, not your public persona."
"That means the wedding has to be small and intimate." Hermione pointed out. "Only the Death Eaters, and a select couple, know who I really am, and I'm not changing that now. I want no-one at the wedding that doesn't already know who I am."
"We'll need to think about the Minister." Draco said thoughtfully, running over the logistics in his head. "We can find someone we can pay for their silence, or we could even just hire someone and make sure their memories are wiped afterwards."
"Both are possibilities." Hermione said. "I guess we'll make that decision once we've decided about the wedding itself."
"We can have a quiet ceremony for our close friends and most trusted Death Eaters, where you're not wearing your glamour charms. We can then have a large party to celebrate our wedding and you can attend that as The Dark Lady." Draco said. "That will also be a great place to deal with the press. There's such a big thing surrounding you, we'll either have to invite a select few or release some sort of picture and statement. The last thing we want is to shy away from the media and have the press sniffing around."
Hermione nodded as she thought about Draco's suggestions. "I like that. We have the ceremony where we get married and that's small and intimate, then we throw a big party. Again the press can be something we can decide on later. As you say we can invite a select few, or release something ourselves, or we could even do both."
"That's that then, all we need now is a date so we can do some serious organising." Draco grinned happily as he finished his glass of wine and topped both his and Hermione's up from the bottle he'd brought in from the kitchen.
"Not quite." Hermione corrected. "We're actually going to get married twice. The second time will be the small, intimate ceremony for our friends."
"What about the first time?" Draco asked.
"That will be purely family, with four guests." Hermione answered. "I want my father there when I get married. I know it will take a lot of organising, but I thought we could get married in front of my parents and yours a few hours before the second ceremony. Us six will be the only ones who know we're already married, everyone else will think the second ceremony is when we get married."
"That is most definitely going to take some organising." Draco said, letting out a low whistle as he thought about how complicated it would be to arrange it so Voldemort was at the wedding. "But, together I'm sure we can do it."
Hermione smiled at Draco as she leant over and wrapped her arms round him. "Thank you for being so understanding."
She knew it wouldn't be easy accommodating her father, given that he was supposed to be dead, but there was no way she was getting married without him. However she knew any difficulties they faced could be overcome by her and Draco working together. Hermione knew that if she wanted her father at her wedding then Draco would do everything in his power to ensure it happened. That was one of his best qualities, he would do anything to ensure she was happy, and what would make her happy was to have her father at her wedding.