A/N Hi, readers! I hope you're well and that your family and friends are well, too. However, if you have lost someone close to you due to the pandemic, you have my sympathy and sincerest condolences.
Before you get started, this chapter needs a few explanations:
In terms of timeline, you may be (rightly) wondering how much time has passed up until now, since Hermione does not have a surfeit of it. I wanted certain things to happen at certain places, but not necessarily at certain times, so I didn't commit to ironclad timeframes. But I acknowledge that's rather confusing for readers, so I can tell you that they're eight months in.
As for this chapter, La Tomatina happens in August in reality (although possibly not this year, sadly). But because I'm not keeping to ironclad times, it's possible that the festival may happen in the story at another time. I know that sounds weird, and it may not matter in the long run. Oh dear, that sounds even weirder.
And finally, all my thanks to Sam Wallflower for helping me with this chapter.
Please enjoy.
Buñol, Valencia province
Spain
"Good grief!" Hermione exclaimed as she and Draco narrowly avoided yet another raucous knot of excitable youths on the narrow streets of Buñol. "This place is heaving with people! What are they all here for?"
A raucous youth in shorts and a khaki-coloured t-shirt that said OUT ON BAIL overheard them and slowed down to laugh (raucously). "Tomorrow's La Tomatina! Have you been living on the moon, or what?"
"We both just escaped a strict cult where any information about the outside world was forbidden," Hermione said sadly.
"Awesome!" the youth declared, who may have been imbibing a substance that provides a rosy outlook over any situation. "Well, La Tomatina is a festival where you get to throw millions of tomatoes at each other! How cool is that?"
"Uh, why?" Draco asked, not playing a cult escapee. He was genuinely at a loss as to why people would willingly throw tomatoes at each other.
"Search me!" the youth laughed. "We don't ask why, we just throw tomatoes! See ya tomorrow, former cult dudes!" He ran off down the street to catch up with his raucous mates.
Hermione and Draco looked at each other, then at the phenomenal crowds. "Guess we'd better find some accommodation pretty quickly," Draco said.
"Good idea."
But of course, this was easier said than done. From motel to guesthouse, serviced apartment to hostel, every place was heaving with loud, excitable, beautiful youths and yobbos, all champing at the bit to fling vegetables at random strangers – and have vegetables flung at them in turn.
Eventually, our footsore pair found themselves pushing aside the beaded curtains of a narrow, three-storied guesthouse located in one of the slightly quieter avenues off-off-off the main thoroughfare, called Casa de Santa María. At the nook-like reception area, an enormous plaster statue of the Virgin Mary looked down reproachfully from her exalted position in a cornered recess. Fresh flowers lay at her bare feet. Beneath her, a large woman in a stern black dress and even sterner expression glared at them in seething silence.
Hermione gulped. "Accommodation for two, please?" she asked in her best but stumbling Spanish, gleaned from a phrasebook she picked up at a train station.
The woman looked hideously affronted. Then she replied, in English with an accent so strong you could have grated it and served it with sushi, "Only one room. One bed."
Hermione looked at Draco. "That would be lovely! May we book it, please?"
"NO!" the scary woman shouted, causing Hermione and even Draco to step back. She shook a stubby finger at them both. "You no married!"
With raised eyebrows, the couple looked at each other, then at the lady. "I'm sorry, what you do you mean?" Hermione asked as politely as was able.
The lady nodded at their hands. "No wedding rings! No married! No unmarried hanky-panky happen in house of Santa Maria!" Piously, she crossed herself and nodded respectfully to the plaster statue.
The Blessed Virgin regarded the pair sadly. Clearly, she wasn't going to be of any help.
Hermione's lips thinned. "I think you'll find it's illegal to discriminate" –
Draco, envisioning Hermione's statement ending with them sleeping under a bridge, stepped up to the desk wearing his best Malfoy come-hither smile. "Señora," he schmoozed, "there has been a misunderstanding. If you would be so kind to hold the room for the afternoon, we can obtain the evidence you require in order to let us stay in your beautiful – um – guesthouse."
There hasn't been a woman yet that Draco wasn't able to charm; and this stalwart representative of the accommodation industry was no exception. Although it was jolly hard. She glared at him for a full minute before barking "Until 6pm! No later!" And with that, she sailed off through a doorway behind her (bedecked by another beaded curtain).
Hermione stared at the beads as they clacked together. Then she turned to Draco. "I'm all ears!" she whispered (in case the Virgin Mary was listening). "What are we going to do to get that old bat to let us stay?"
"No sodding idea," Draco shrugged. "But I've bought us some time to think."
Outside, Draco and Hermione sat at the edge of a water fountain taking up residence in a nearby cobblestoned plaza. Some pigeons, cooling down after a hard morning's grovelling for crumbs, refused to leave their appropriated birdbath for the human interlopers, so both species made the most of the situation.
The cool water must have improved Draco's problem-solving skills. "I think I might have an idea," he said slowly, "but I need to do some research first. Let's meet back here in an hour." He hopped up and held out a hand to help Hermione up.
"What are you going to research? Can I help?" Hermione asked.
He kissed the tip of her nose. "I think I can handle it. Meanwhile, have a look around the shops! There might be a bookstore nearby."
Damn. He knew her Achilles heel. "Okay," she said, with some misgiving.
Draco brushed her warm cheek with his fingers. "It'll be okay," he promised. "Trust me."
There weren't any bookshops, but Hermione found a boutique that sold cute summer clothes. She was finding the heat a bit much, as she was in jeans and a black t-shirt. Something nice and floaty would do the trick.
The shop was heaving with young, beautiful, skinny tourists, congregating in groups and exclaiming loudly over this and that. Hermione trailed in their wake, putting the items they discarded back on the hangers as she looked for something light and airy.
One of the tops the horde had left on the floor turned out to be exactly what Hermione wanted – a dark blue, flower-patterned, floaty tank top with shoestring straps that crossed over at the back. It went very well with a pair of denim shorts lying nearby and looking lonely. She held up the shorts and looked at them with a critical eye. They were bloody short. Would the legs even cover her arse cheeks? She glanced at the changing area – a corner covered by a curtain – and shuddered. The horde was making full use of it, and it probably wouldn't be free for at least four hours, by her best guess.
Taking a chance, albeit a small one for most people, she headed to the counter without trying the items on.
The young lady at the counter tossed back her long, heavy braid and wiped her brow. "Is so busy!" she exclaimed with a smile. Her pretty face lit up even more when she saw the items in Hermione's hands. "Oh, such beautiful top, yes? I have the same in red! Very eye-catching! Have you tried these on?"
Hermione glanced at the conga line outside the changing room. "I don't have a lot of time," she said apologetically.
The young lady followed her line of sight and grimaced. "I should not say, but those girls are very trying," she confessed in a low voice. "Usually only one buys something! And they leave a mess..." she trailed off when she looked behind Hermione to find the floor and displays looking neat and tidy.
"Oh. I tidied up," Hermione explained. "Force of habit."
The lady's eyes grew round. "Oh, Señorita! You have saved me much work!" She leaned forward. "If these clothes, they do not fit when you try them on, bring them back for exchange. Will be quicker, eh?"
"Thanks," Hermione smiled, and handed over the required money.
As the lady found a carrier bag to put the new clothes in, Hermione's attention was diverted by a dress that was displayed on a headless mannequin near the counter. It was a white, halter-neck dress with drawstring straps that rouched the dress's bodice. The skirt was asymmetric, just about the knee at the front and reaching to the ankles at the back. A floral stencil cut-out decorated the edges of the skirt. It looked like something you could both wear at the beach or on a date with a certain someone.
The lady smiled knowingly. "Beautiful dress, yes? Good for summer wedding. In your size, too."
"Yes, it would be," Hermione replied regretfully. "But I have no weddings to go to."
"You sure? Would look lovely against your tanned skin and lovely hair."
Hermione grinned. "I'll think about it. But I have to meet a friend shortly, so I really must go."
"The lady beamed and handed over the bag. Until then!" she said, then rolled her eyes as one of the horde by the changing room shouted "Oi! Shop girl! You got this in a size 10, or what?"
Hermione headed out of the shop before she and her wand did something to the horde the Ministry of Magic would regret.
When Hermione reached the fountain, Draco was already there. He looked a bit pensive.
"Hello!" She took his hand and swung it to try and jolly him out of whatever funk he was in. "Did your research yield results?"
"It did, uh, yeah." He shuffled his feet and rubbed the back of his neck.
"You all right?" Hermione asked, worried. She had never seen him look so disoriented. She sincerely hoped he wasn't in the stages of heat exhaustion. He shouldn't be, though. In his light, baggy knee-length sand-coloured shorts and white short-sleeved shirt, he seemed okay, but...
"What are you doing?" Draco snapped.
Hermione removed her hand from his forehead. "I was checking to see if you're running a temperature," she said primly.
Draco relaxed and smiled. "I'm fine. I was just trying to figure something out... but I think I'll go with instinct instead."
Hermione was mystified. "Go with instinct on what?"
Draco took a breath, reached into his pocket and pulled out a small box. Then he knelt on the ground on one knee.
"Hermione Granger," he said solemnly, opening the box, "will you marry me?"
Well!
You could have knocked Hermione over with a feather. And there were plenty to choose from, since the pigeons in the fountain could have happily donated one of their own. As it was, they seemed to have stopped their frolicking and were staring at the couple in bird-like awe.
Passers-by, who easily recognised the time-honoured and mostly universal tradition of proposing on one knee, stopped and watched the scene with eager, hopeful eyes.
"This is your solution?" Hermione said in a low voice. "We get married just so we can stay at that horrible woman's guesthouse for a few days?"
"Best idea I can come up with," Draco shrugged. "If you have any better ones, speak now or forever hold your peach."
"'Peace,'" Hermione murmured absent-mindedly. Then she quickly set to thinking. Draco wouldn't be committing himself to her forever, therefore engaging the ire of his socially-climbing parents by marrying a poor Muggle. They might not even find out, given the time she had left.
As for her – what did she have to lose?
They get on with each other, mostly.
The sex is out of this world.
Why not?
Hermione found herself blushing. "Yeah, all right," she smiled.
The crowd cheered as Draco got to his feet and slid a ring onto Hermione's left finger with a smile.
"Bucket list," he whispered in her ear.
Hermione took a good look at her ring, her heart and tummy fluttering in a strange way for some odd reason. She never thought she'd ever get engaged, for real or for fraud. The rose gold ring held a pink solitaire oval-cut jewel, flanked by four small sparkling white gems. It was simple, unique and perfect, and it looked like it belonged on her finger.
"It's not a Malfoy piece," Draco murmured. "In case you were worried."
Yeah, she kind of was.
"It's second-hand," he continued. "I found it in an antique store and thought it would suit you. All paste jewels and plate. The best I could do in the time we have."
"I love it," Hermione said and kissed him, much to the delight of passers-by. And possibly the pigeons.
She took the ring off to look at it in detail, and noticed that the underside of the ring was engraved. She squinted at it. "What's the inscription say?"
"It says 'Habla bajito si hablas del amor.'"
"Which means?"
"Can't help you there," Draco remarked. "Must have been engraved by the previous owner's intended."
Hermione slid the ring on her finger. "I'd feel like I was intruding if I found out what it meant in English," she said thoughtfully. "The message is for them, and them alone."
Draco said nothing, looking at her with a glint in his eye. "If you like," he said simply.
"So," Hermione asked her affianced, "what's next?"
"We find a registry office and get married."
"Sounds good. Except for one problem."
"What's that?"
"I've got nothing to wear!"
A/N: More next chapter! Let me know if you want the clothes and ring up on my Tumblr.
PS: the inscription will be revealed later, and it has a significant meaning, so if you can hold off putting the phrase through Google Translate, I'd be grateful x