Chapter 11: His eyes and words
May quickly turned to June and June quickly came and went. And before Hermione knew it, it was the end of July.
Dinner with Narcissa and Andromeda had gone well, better than both Hermione and Draco expected. Narcissa had apologised over and over again over Lucius behaviour upon her arrival, and once she laid eyes on her grandson, Draco realised Hermione had made the right decision. Hermione and Narcissa exchanged owls a few times a week from then on, meeting in cafes during the week so that Narcissa could see Leo.
Business for Diamond Apothecary was another thing going well. Hermione worked Tuesday to Friday, being able to spend three days straight with Leo being the centre of attention, not that he wasn't always.
Hermione, Draco and Blaise had converted one of the larger rooms upstairs into an office and play room so that Hermione could keep an eye on Leo while she worked. Not that either of them spent much time in the office, she mostly hid in one of the back rooms making potions and organising all the stock. Well, reorganising it; because the boys didn't have a good enough system according to her.
The two men had to admit that making Hermione a shareholder had been the best decision they'd ever made. After Blaise learned Draco had been planning to split his shares with Hermione, they retracted her contract of a quarter of the business to a third, making it an equal split between the three.
Blaise pretended to be sour about the fact that the couple had a bigger share in the business, but Hermione had retorted with the fact that he'd been the one to offer her half of his shares and then to increase those shares a week later.
Family was still a sore subject between the couple but they were working through that. Draco was more tolerant of spending time with his mother now that he knew she accepted Hermione as a long-term partner.
Narcissa had been trying her best to get Lucius to accept the fact that Hermione and Leo were a part of their family now and that he needed to get over it however I didn't seem to be working. Draco had told her not to bother, that you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Hermione had avoided the topic with both of them. The truth was that she wanted Lucius to accept Leo she wanted them to be close. Her parents were out of the picture, the Weasleys were her family, Molly and Arthur were Leo's grandparents but she wanted him to have that from his father's side as well.
Hermione still hadn't told Draco about her parents but he knew better than to stick his nose in places it didn't belong. Harry, Ginny and Ron were the only ones who knew and as much as she wanted to tell Draco, but it panicked her.
There had been evenings where she'd planned on telling him and then they'd ended up falling asleep on the sofa while watching a film and talking about random topics because she couldn't tell him the truth about her parents. Draco's birthday had been one of those nights. Not the telling him about her parents' part, but falling asleep on the sofa during a film.
Hermione convinced Blaise to work that Sunday so that Draco could spend his birthday at home with Hermione and Leo. Hermione had spent countless hours on the lead up to his birthday trying to figure out what to get him and, in the end, she'd thought of the perfect thing.
"Go on little lion," Draco opened his eyes to find Leo stood by the bedside table, a scroll tight in his grip. Rolling on to his back, Draco sat up and tapped the space between himself and Hermione. Leo quickly clambered on to the bed, settling himself between his parents he turned to look at his mum who gave him a nod of encouragement. "Say happy birthday."
"'Appy birthday daddy," The little boy said nervously as he passed the scroll over to Draco.
Draco smiled and ruffled Leo's hair as he accepted the parchment, "Thank you kiddo." Hermione watched as Draco pulled apart the official wax seal and unrolled the scroll. Hermione watched as the grin fell from Draco's face to be replaced with an open mouth. He looked up at her, eyes watering as he gulped, his mouth finally closing. "Is this..."
"Yes," Hermione laughed as she burst into tears. Leo looked up at her in worry, "It's okay baby, they're happy tears." She scooped Leo up in her arms before once again looking at Draco. "So?"
"Hand me a quill." He smiled as he also began to cry. Hermione turned and reached out for the quill on her bedside table, Draco grabbed it from her with in an instant and signed on the dotted line. The writing on the scroll shone a bright gold before rerolling itself and disappearing in a puff of smoke, but not before announcing that the documentation was official.
"Leo Orion Granger-Malfoy. Has a nice ring to it don't you think?" Draco asked with a smirk as he wrapped his arms around Hermione's waist, his chin resting on her shoulder as she chopped the veg for that night's dinner. "Only thing left to do is make you my wife."
His words had stuck in Hermione's head for weeks after, to be honest she still couldn't shake his words from her mind. He hadn't mentioned it again in the nine weeks since. But that didn't mean it wasn't still nibbling away in her consciousness.
Even as she sat at her desk checking the account documents that had been sent over earlier that morning. Leo was kneeling over his toy kitchen in the corner of the room and merlin forgive she knew where Blaise and Draco were, probably down stairs in their office or the brewing rooms.
A knocked sounded at the door, happily, Hermione dropped the parchment and made her way towards the door. She pulled it open to find a rather weary looking Skie on the other side. Skie was Blaise second cousin, and one of the girls that the two men trusted enough to work with, the other being her girlfriend, Lucinda.
"Sorry to bother you Miss Granger," Skie said with a shaky voice, her dark brown eyes deep with worry.
"Don't worry about it, I should be thanking you for saving me from the paper work." Hermione smiled brightly but upon not receiving the same response from the other witch, her features quickly formed a frown as her brows knitted together. "What's wrong?"
Skie looked over Hermione's shoulder at the little boy who was oblivious to the two witches in the door way. Hermione glanced over her shoulder before stepping towards the witch into the hall way and quietly closing the office door.
"I'm sure it's nothing," The younger witch whispered as she stared at the floor, "But we had the radio on downstairs and well..." She stopped and glanced up at the brunette, taking a deep breath she looked at her with an apologetic expression. "They said Harry Potter had been taken to St Mungo's after being seriously injured on a call out."
Hermione raced through the halls of the hospital, her heart beating out of her chest in a state of worry. And suddenly as she came round a corner, she caught sight of Ginny's vibrant red hair. "Ginny!" The red head turned her head at the familiar voice, slowly rising to her feet the Weasley began to waddle towards Hermione as quickly as she could. "What happened?" Hermione questioned as she wrapped her arms around Ginny.
Ginny shook her head in response before stepping backwards towards the seat she'd just risen from. "I don't know, I received a Patronus from Kingsley about 2 hours ago saying their call out had gone bad and that he was in hospital."
The two witched sat side by side, their hands joined in silence as the waited on the cold metal bench outside the room they'd been told Harry was in. As Hermione waited, Draco's statement disappeared from her thoughts, instead they were replaced with memories of her and Harry, the good and the bad.
Holding back tears, Hermione watched as a young Harry and Ron stood from their seats in the great hall, the grin that spread across all three of their faces as Hermione ran into the open arms of the raven-haired boy. A tear began to roll down her cheek as she tried blinked away the flashbacks of the war.
Hermione's hand tightened in Ginny's as the brunette watched spells flying all around her. She was in the great hall; Ron was knelt on the floor over Fred's frozen body. They were in the tent, Harry and Ron were arguing. Then Ron was leaving, Hermione chasing after him. They were in the ministry of magic, sat next to Umbridge as she questioned the status of witches and wizards.
Crashing into the cold lake water after flying from London on the back of a dragon. Searching through the vault for a horcrux. Bellatrix. Hermione was in the manor, laying on the floor, screaming her heart out while Bellatrix dragged her blade through Hermione's arm.
Her head rolled back as she screamed out once last time, Hermione's eyes lading on Draco as she become motionless. Hermione had never thought back on this memory and she'd never noticed it at the time but she could see the pain and sorrow in his eyes.
Hermione turned to look at Ginny, "I have to go." she whispered as she stood. "Let me know... Send me a Patronus." Ginny nodded in understanding before squeezing Hermione's hand and letting her best friend leave the hospital.
The witch ducked into an abandoned alcove outside the hospital, checking her cover was clear she aparated to Diagon Alley. Pushing open the door to Diamond Apothecary, all heads turned towards her door as the bell above rung out. "What are you doing here? You should be with Ginny at the -"
"Blaise was right." Draco gave her a confused expression as he took a few steps towards her. Blaise, Skie and Lucinda were watching from around the counter. They'd obviously all been stood around waiting for some news on Harry but that didn't matter at this moment in time. All that matters was that Blaise was right. "They weren't telling Ginny anything and well, I was worried, I still am that I'm never going to see my best friend again. I was lost in my memories and I got lost in the war and then I was laying on the drawing room floor, I was screaming and I saw you. I saw your eyes."
Draco ran a hand through his hair as he stared at Hermione in total confusion. "I'm not sure where this is heading Granger."
"Blaise always says you fell in love with me before you fell in love with Leo." The witch couldn't miss the gulp that Draco took as she explained, the shimmer in his eyes giving an answer to her statement. "I love you Draco."
A silence fell over the room as Hermione and Draco locked their eyes, Blaise awkwardly coughed before scurrying into his and Draco's joined office towards the back of the building. Skie and Lucinda quickly followed him but cut off towards the stairs.
Hermione held her breath as with wizard charged towards her, his arms wrapping around her waist as he gracefully lifted her from the ground. Their lips quickly met as Hermione twined her arms around his neck, her fingers quickly getting lost in his soft locks.
Draco pulled away, letting Hermione rest her feet on the ground once again. He cupped her cheek as he pressed his forehead against hers. "I love you Hermione, more than you'll ever know."
A/N: Okay so I know the last two chapters have been short but I didn't really have a way of linking 10, 11 and 12. I reckon that there will be around 15-20 chapters and I'm planning on posting the last one on new years because that's when the last chapter is set so I would say I'll be updating once a week. Um with the last chapter, I'm not really sure what happened but it took about three days to actually post so sorry about that. Until next time xo