Created for Hermione's Haven Bingo 2020 Fest! This is for my O1 square which was the prompt: Eiffel Tower.

No beta, just Grammarly. If you love this (or hate it) please let me know about in a review! I made a collage for each of these, find it on my Tumblr at crochetawayhpff, and search HHBingo2020.

The ley lines are inspired by Kim Harrison's The Hollows series. French is courtesy of Google Translate (if someone who speaks French wants to correct me, I'm happy to make changes!)

Pairing: Hermione Granger/Abraxas Malfoy

Warnings: N/A

Summary: Hermione is disillusioned with her life in wizarding Britain post-war. She decides to take her future in her own hands.

Rating: T

Perfection

Dear Miss Granger,

We are pleased to inform you that we can accommodate your request in approximately three years, seven months, and 21 days. At exactly 2:54 PM for six minutes on May 21, 2011. We hope your ritual will be successful!

Respectfully yours,

Salisbury Plain Stonehenge Standing Stones Planning Committee

Hermione growled at the missive in her hand and crumpled it in her fist. Why did Stonehenge have to be the only anchor over the largest ley line convergence in wizarding Britain? It was a place of incredible power, but it was also an incredibly busy place. Not only that, but it had also taken the damned committee six-months to get back to her. A six-minute slot in three and a half years? Ridiculous. Part of her wondered if this was due to her heritage, but she pushed it out of her mind. She already knew the answer anyway and there wasn't a damned thing she could do about it.

Life in wizarding Britain wasn't the roses and sunshine she had hoped it would be after the war. Sure, Voldemort was gone, most of his Death Eaters were locked up or dead. But there were still plenty of old, entrenched witches and wizards at the Ministry of Magic. Plenty of people were happy to discriminate against her because of her birth, despite helping to take down the evilest wizard in two generations.

That was her biggest motivation for using this spell. If she couldn't progress anywhere in her career due to her blood status, well perhaps she could improve her personal life. She was sick of dating, and she was sick of wizards only interested in dating her because she was friends with Harry. Truly, she and Harry had grown apart over the last few years. He had settled down with Ginny and gotten married. While Hermione had stagnated in her job at the Ministry, growing angrier and more bitter as the years went on.

Stonehenge was out, but there were other anchors she could use. Maybe not in wizarding Britain, but she did have that in with the French Ministry. She pursed her lips as she considered her options. France first and if that turned into a bust, she'd look further abroad. Decided, Hermione tossed the parchment from the Stonehenge committee into the fire and whirled to her desk. She quickly penned a missive to Jean-Luc, an old friend who worked in the Ministère des Affaires Magiques de la France.

A short two weeks later, she received a missive from the Ministère des Affaires Magiques de la France. Her French was rusty, so a quick tap of her wand had the parchment translated into English.

Dear Miss Granger,

The Ministry of Magical Affairs of France would be happy to accommodate you at our anchor in Paris. We have secured you a spot at the Eiffel Tower on January 1, 2009, at 3:00 AM. You'll have approximately an hour and a half to complete your ritual. We hope this is enough time, but please let us know if it isn't and we'll do our best to accommodate your needs. We are excited to have a witch of your caliber perform whatever ritual you need.

Always at your service,

Eiffel Tower Anchor Committee

A slow smile curved onto her face as she read the parchment through once more. Two weeks. She had two weeks to prepare the ritual and she'd finally know. She'd finally have him. The relief that washed over her barely outweighed the sudden case of nerves. She had a lot to do in the next few weeks if she were going to be ready on time.

Luckily, with the holidays coming up, Hermione had already secured the following two weeks off of work, but she put in for an additional two weeks after the ritual, just in case. She hummed happily to herself as she began making a list of everything she needed to procure between now and then.

The cold winter air felt good in her lungs as Hermione took a deep breath. Snow was falling softly over Paris and Hermione loved the effect it had. The entire city was blanketed and quieter than she had ever heard it. The tower was dark above her, it's lights out for the evening, which made Hermione's work both easier and harder. Easier in that she didn't have to set up elaborate wards to hide what she was doing from the Muggles, harder in that she didn't have any light with which to see by, except what bounced back from the snow clouds above.

It wasn't quite enough, but she didn't want to bring the Muggle authorities down on her, so she made do. First a circle. The snow made it easy, she dropped sand in her wake as she traced a circle around the tower. Once it was made, she could begin a few wards, just to keep an unlikely Muggle from wandering onto her ritual space. She assumed witches and wizards knew better, but just in case, she added another subtle ward keeping them well away from the base of the tower.

That done, she stepped into the circle. Taking a deep breath, she kneeled in the snow and closed her eyes. It took a moment to center herself, but once she was there, she was able to feel the two deep, wide ley lines that converged beneath the tower. Their power hummed through her and she reeled for a moment, catching her bearings as the magic pulsed and swirled with hers. Ley lines were playful and she smiled as they tickled against her magic. Once she had stabilized the power inside herself, she opened her eyes. Now that she was tapped into the ley lines, she could actually look at them.

They were gorgeous, as ley lines tended to be. One a deep, brilliant blue, like a calm ocean, it gave Hermione a sense of peace and power. The other was a pale green that spoke of spring and growing things. She could almost smell the loamy scent that spring always brought with it.

The ley lines firmly in her sight, she began her ritual. Rituals could be done with any ley line, but Hermione wanted absolute success. Which meant she needed to do the ritual with a powerful ley line. It was much easier to harness the power of a ley line if there was an anchor. Unluckily for her, Britons weren't great at making anchors for their ley lines. It could be because there were so few of them on the island, but Hermione also secretly suspected that it was partial laziness.

Europeans were better at it, but Americans were masters. They anchored every line at least twice and more if necessary. Every convergence of ley lines had its own anchor as well. Even the smaller ones. It was a holdover from the Native Americans that modern witches and wizards had kept up with. Hermione was almost jealous of them. America had been her next step, had Jean-Luc and the French Ministry not come through for her.

Chanting under her breath, Hermione kept her focus on the ley lines, willing the ritual to work. At its heart, it was a simple one: one witch, a circle, a powerful ley line, and some chanting to induce the right state of mind. Once she felt sufficiently drawn into the spell, she began unspooling the tight hold she had on the power of the ley lines. Letting the magic bloom from her body, it butted against the circle, trapped with her the words she chanted added to the power. Her hair stood on end, all over her body as she unleashed more and more of the ley lines mixed with her own magic.

The magic burned as it swept through her, but it was a good burn, not a painful one. It almost felt like… arousal.

She gasped the moment he popped into existence in front of her. She stopped chanting, the ritual was over and the magic settled toward the ground of the circle, swirling about his feet and her knees.

He was beautiful like a guardian angel with his shoulder-length blonde hair. A jaw square, sharp enough she could cut cheese on, and eyes so blue, they were piercing. He blinked a few times, turning a slow circle to take in his surroundings. He was in all black, his heavy cloak swept the snow around him.

All the while, Hermione couldn't keep her eyes off of him. He was bloody gorgeous, and if he had a look of the Malfoys about him? Well, who was she to complain? They may have been entrenched in terrible politics, but that didn't stop them from being lovely to look at.

"I have always loved Paris in the winter," the man said approaching her. Hermione took his offered hand and stood.

"Me too," she admitted.

"Soulmate ritual?" he asked, tucking a wayward curl behind her ear.

"I hope you don't mind," Hermione said. "It's been a rough few years and—"

"Any wizard with a brain would be honored to be pulled into a soulmate ritual. And I am a wizard with a brain," he assured her, his hand cupped her cheek and she leaned into it. Her eyes fluttered a moment at the peace it brought her. She shivered at the intense look in his eyes, already feeling half in love with him and she didn't even know his name yet.

He smirked at her and suddenly looked so much like Lucius Malfoy, she took a step back. She didn't groan out loud at the loss of contact, but it was a near thing.

"Who are you?" she asked, her cheeks flushed at the blunt question. But she had to know.

"Abraxas Malfoy, at your service," he said, with a slight bow.

Hermione gasped. She should have known, he looked so much like Lucius, less like Draco, but Merlin. It hit her then, this was Draco Malfoy's grandfather.

"But you're dead," she said, confused. Soulmate rituals weren't supposed to pull dead people into them.

"Indeed," he hummed, looking at his hands. "I died an old man with many regrets. And without ever having met my soulmate," he added.

"Your regrets," Hermione replied. It made sense. A wizard who died with regrets could turn them into remorse. Asking the gods for forgiveness could give him a second chance. If he was properly remorseful and the gods judged him worthy.

"Hermione Granger," she said, sticking out her hand. "And, well I'm Muggle-born. And well aware of your—"

"I had many regrets, Miss Granger," he said, cutting her off. He took her hand and placed a soft kiss on the back of it. "My beliefs in blood purity are one of them," he added, turning her hand over and placing a kiss on her palm.

Hermione's heart raced at his actions and melted at his words.

"We're soulmates, Miss Granger. Ordained by the gods, brought here by a ritual conducted at one of the most powerful sites in Europe, by a single witch. One with enough power to harness not one large ley line, but two. Whatever our differences may have been in the past, we cannot ignore all that." His gaze pierced her as he spoke and he stepped closer to her, sliding an arm around her waist.

"And I, for one, am very interested in getting to know you better," he breathed, his head tilting down. Hermione's eyes fluttered closed as he pressed his lips to hers.

If she had any doubts, that kiss swept them away. It was like no other kiss she had received. As a little girl, she had loved the kiss at the end of Disney movies. It had signaled that all was right in the world and that you could live happily ever after. As she grew, she became more cynical about the world and the ability for anyone to live happily ever after. This kiss was like those kisses at the end of the Disney movies. It was everything right and perfect in the world. It filled her with hope and longing and the knowledge that this man, the one holding her, the one she had her arms wrapped around, was the only man in the world for her.

Their magic clashed and danced together as they kissed beneath the Eiffel Tower. The ley line magic swirling slowing at their feet, licking against them. Snow still fell quietly around them, creating a bubble where Hermione could believe that it was only them in the world. That they were the only two people who inhabited this beautiful city, this gorgeous world. Abraxas was life and he breathed life into her.

"That was…" Hermione trailed off as Abraxas pulled away. He had a soft look in his eyes and a small smile on his full lips.

"Perfection," he finished for her.

~Fin~