Disclaimer: I own no part of the HP franchise. All rights belong to JK Rowling, Scholastic, and WB. I make no money off this work.
AN: I've had this chapter sitting around a while. Still world building, character building. Hold on, folks. I believe this is going to be what they call a "slow burn."
"You're sure you don't want someone to go with you?" Fleur asked for the fourth time that afternoon.
Hermione nodded slightly, one shoulder hitching up in a shrug. The witch beside her, Bill's wife and former Beauxbatons Champion, was ordinarily not so solicitous. It was one of the things Hermione liked about her. She could prattle on about politics, or patisseries, or people with equal parts ennui and derision; and she hardly ever gave a thought to voicing her concern for a person. No, instead of asking how someone was, she assumed they were fine until they said so – which had suited Hermione just fine, thank you very much…especially when the Weasley family had unofficially adopted her in the wake of their youngest son's death. Fleur had been the only person who hadn't made a large fuss over Hermione. Instead, she and Bill had offered their cottage to her, if she needed to get away, and their friendship and conversation in lieu of a shoulder to cry on.
That wasn't to say Fleur wasn't the mothering type, or hadn't seen her fair share of Hermione's tears. A flair for the emotional and sometimes melodramatic ran through her the same as anybody; but it was the way she treated Hermione in particular – without the fireworks and nervous glances and multiple cups of tea – that distinguished her fortitude as a friend.
"Well, Bill will be right around ze corner if you change your mind. Ze office is just down ze street from Gringotts. I have an appointment, myself, across London, so it would be difficult to adjust my schedule, but I could do it, if you really need me."
Hermione smiled at her: the same tired smile everyone saw from her these days. "No, Fleur, thank you. It's just another chore to be done at this point in time."
Fleur snorted delicately. "A chore, indeed. Romance is all well and good, Hermione, but ze ministry has ze right of it on zat point, at least! Marriage is hard work."
"But worth it?" Hermione asked, teasing Fleur and not bothering to take offense. Fleur and Bill had been old enough before the war to make their choices before the ministry was making decisions for witches and wizards. She couldn't hold it against them.
Fleur gave a small, secret smile. "It is, little one," she replied. Bill chose that moment to walk into the cottage and he leaned over to give his bride a small peck on the lips. Hermione attempted to hide her smile behind a cough, but Fleur let out a bright peal of laughter.
"What? Did I do something?" he asked and Fleur waved a hand, her laugh dying down to a soft giggle.
"Oh, in that case." Bill leaned down again and planted a longer, more loving kiss upon Fleur, who was smiling at him as if he were the only person in the room. Hermione blushed and glanced out a window, not bothering to hide her smile that time, though it fell flat a moment later.
She wondered if she would ever have what these two had: love, companionship, understanding. Perhaps if I'm very lucky, she thought, those things will grow over time, at the least.
Her lips remained pressed into a thin, sad line and her gaze remained on the horizon, even as Bill and Fleur began to bustle around her, preparing for an early dinner. When little Victoire burst into the room, however, it was very difficult not to smile again. Before she knew it, Hermione was up, out of her seat, and chasing the little girl about the drawing room while her parents chattered quietly to one another in the background.
Hermione felt strongly just then that life was moving too quickly for more sorrow. Perhaps her visit to the matchmakers wouldn't be so painful, after all. Not when chubby hands and bouncing curls were sometimes the result. There would be things to look forward to, things to have out of it all that were worthwhile.
At least, that was what she would keep telling herself.
Draco allowed several friendly jostles and well-meaning slaps on the back before he pushed past his teammates and set about the business of removing his Quidditch gear. It had been a hard practice, but well worth it. The team was poised for greatness this season, if only...if only…
If only he weren't so tense over his recent decision. If only he could be sure how it would ultimately affect his life, his family, his work…
Someone called his name and he turned slightly to see Walt standing uncertainly in the doorway of the locker room.
"Don't just stand there, for Merlin's sake," he tossed over his shoulder. "Come in. You've been in here before; you're not a blushing bride -" He broke off and shoved some of his gear into the locker with an unnecessary ferocity.
"That was an unfortunate choice of words," Walt said, voice droll. Draco rolled his eyes.
"It's not like it's the end of my life," he retorted. Muttering several scourgifies and a few additional spells for upkeep, he finally slammed the locker door shut. Then he turned to his bag and began rooting about for his shampoo.
"Only the beginning," Walt agreed. Another player shuffled past and Walt moved out of his way smoothly. He noticed Draco pulling out his shower things and pressed his lips together in a thin line.
"Have you forgotten why I'm here so soon after practice, Sir?"
Draco shrugged and glanced up at him. "You're always here after practice. You're my personal assistant -" He broke off again and dropped the hygiene items back into his bag. "The appointment's been moved up," he stated, voice stilted and suddenly pitched higher than usual.
"Right. You asked me to pick you up. The car is outside."
"Hell."
A passing teammate heard the expletive and cast a wry glance in Draco's direction. "S'wrong?"
Draco shrugged and ran a hand through his sweaty hair, made a face, and cast a charm over himself. "Nothing. Just running late for an appointment."
"With a witch?" the other man grunted questioningly.
"Not exactly, no," Draco replied, and began peeling off his practice clothes.
Unfortunately, one teammate's curiosity led to the curiosity of three others, all of whom decided to crowd around the bench Draco had been using. He suddenly worried they might all burst into song, like some cliched Muggle musical, and said as much. They laughed uproariously at that and Walt rolled his eyes this time. He huffed slightly and inserted himself closer to Draco.
"Sir...the time?"
One of the other men's brows shot up. "You know, fellas, there's only one sort of appointment that made my P.A. that nervous, and it wasn't your average date."
"What, was she afraid of being replaced?" another player joked, setting off a stream of relatively good-natured ribbing.
Amidst assorted catcalls and other hollering, Draco raised his voice as he straightened a new, clean shirt down his hips and belted his slacks over it.
"Always so astute, Falstaff. Yes, I'm off to the matchmakers. Happy? You've sussed out my big secret." Sarcasm dripped from his honeyed tones and the men laughed even more. "Besides," he added, "the rest of us can't be as lucky as you and marry our P.A.s"
"God forbid," Walt muttered to a continued flurry of laughter, even as the men began to disperse. Assorted well wishes of "good luck" and "about time" filtered through the room; then Walt was stomping ahead of Draco, opening the door, and ushering him through the building and out to the waiting car.
Hermione Granger had been nervous about many things in her life, at many different moments of her life, and with a naturally anxious, rule-abiding sort of personality, she was a little astonished at herself on this particular day.
She was astonished because she wasn't nervous.
She had been nervous the day before, when she was talking to Fleur, and she had been nervous months before that, when she'd gradually begun to realize that no amount of protests, or lobbying, or money would make her problem go away. She'd fretted over this particular day, this moment, coming to pass, more times in the last year than she could count, but now that it was here...she just wasn't.
Her caring had all been spent and now she sat in a minimally comfortable chair in a drably stylish waiting room outside the hellmouth that was the Ministry of Magic's Matchmaking Office: Lead Matchmaker, Parvati Patil.
That alone, given all she knew of her former classmate, should have been enough to warrant at least a hint of alarm, but Hermione Granger instead was feeling quite calm. Her legs were crossed at the ankles, her hands were folded demurely over her pocketbook, and her eyes, while a little dull from lack of sleep, surveyed her surroundings with their usual critical, astute gaze.
She was almost feeling proud of herself, to be honest. With a self-satisfied smile, she took a look at the magazines and periodicals on the end table next to her, rifled through them with one slender hand, plucked one up, and began to read to pass the time.
Her calm remained through her longer-than-expected wait. It lasted through the yelling match that filtered through the office door. It lasted through the harried looking single father who wandered in, a toddler in tow. It lasted through a pair of witches practically canoodling in the chairs opposite her.
It lasted even as her own name was called and she went back for preliminaries, but then her steely courage slowly abandoned her.
It began to fade as the questioning brought up memories of red hair, warm afternoons, and the smell of freshly mown grass. It attempted to linger at the thought of strong arms and hands holding her tight during the most terrifying moments of her life, but the realities of how those moments ultimately ended chased it off for good. She did her best to hold tight to it despite the bittersweet nostalgia that fueled her answers, but she could feel energy suffusing her fingertips, making her lightheaded, causing her stomach to feel like a lead weight.
By the time she was ushered back out to the sitting room, her hands were shaking as she picked up the previously discarded magazine and flipped to the last article she'd been reading. Her eyes scanned the words meaninglessly, reading the same two pages over and over until something distracted her. The single father, toddler now riding high in his arms, his face a little less drawn from the promise of a helpmate, of a mother, a wife. The two witches, faces a little more serious, hands held firm between one another as they promised in quiet tones to make it work anyway. The tearstained face of a witch as she flipped through a magazine, her posture mirroring Hermione's, but the promise of hope bright in her still-wet eyes. Promises, all around her, but they were far from comforting.
Hermione could only think of one promise, running over and over in her mind. Ron, coming back; Ron, so sorry, so tender; Ron, so brave, so fearful, so real; Ron, so stupid, so silly, so...Ron. Ron. Ron.
That's how fate found her, minutes later: her heartbreak fresh in her mind, on her tongue, like it was yesterday. Her name was called, the magazine slipping from her hands, useless, unprocessed, and she was standing, and walking, and the door closed behind her with a finality she hadn't felt in years.
Even then, she wasn't sure she felt it - if she'd ever feel it. Grief is a hollow thing, after all: long-lived, sharp-toothed, and unpredictable. She forced a smile at Parvati as their session began, officially, and she was almost certain the edges of her teeth were like razors, filling her mouth, making it hard to think, let alone speak.
But of course, it was all in her mind. Her grief curled back on itself under the onslaught of her pragmatism and little by little, her fingers came back under her control, the slender digits still and sure as they smoothed her skirt and folded her coat in her lap. Hermione cleared her throat slightly and Parvati smiled kindly, pouring them both glasses of water.
"Let's begin, Hermione."
Hermione nodded, blinking once, twice, against the image of windswept red hair and sunny days.
"Please," she replied sure footedly. "I've been waiting long enough, I think."
Unlike Hermione, Draco was nervous and he didn't bother trying to hide it - much. If Walt was being honest, it wasn't the kind of nervous that made his boss say or do stupid things. It wasn't even the level of nervous that might make him back out of the appointment. No, Draco seemed determined to see this through, just like he saw everything else through these days: with style and a carefully coifed disdain that hid his real motives. Or at least, Walt assumed Draco thought his motives were hidden. They were typically plain as day to anyone else, and it hadn't taken being a squib in a family of Slytherins to figure out the young master Malfoy. Still, Walt was oddly optimistic as he whistled away while steering the car around the streets of London.
Even if the witch Draco was eventually matched with knew that he'd only agreed to marry for the tax breaks; even if she was dowdy and a complete harpy; even if she turned out to be a step away from Bellatrix Lestrange level crazy; Walt knew that this was probably going to be one of the best things to happen to him in a long time...and he made six figures working for a narcissistic-come-intellectual jock who let him have the weekends off, and major holidays.
He figured, though, that Draco needed a distraction. All he did was play Quidditch, work, and train. Oh, and he went to therapy. And sometimes he went to clubs and danced for hours until he was dehydrated and would pass out instantly in the car that Walt would quietly wait in, hoping to God his boss wasn't taking any recreational muggle drugs.
Walt thought, he hoped, that maybe getting married would provide that distraction; even if Draco ended up with the quiet, dainty, cuttingly brilliant, and yet devastatingly aloof pureblood he'd overheard Draco's mother describing in detail the other night; as her son continued to throw back fingers of scotch and ignore most of the conversation. It was far easier for Draco to ignore a phone call than a floo-call, Walt had learned, which he figured was exactly why he insisted on a closed floo.
Draco seemed to trace the direction of Walt's thoughts by the unusual, cheerful noise emitting from his pursed lips.
"You think I'm making the right decision?" he asked, his voice quiet - thoughtful - with no hint of the bite it always seemed to carry. Walt wondered briefly if Draco was almost hoping for the same thing for himself - a distraction. Something to live for besides survival, besides not wanting to disappoint a mother who had risked everything to keep him alive.
"Yes," Walt replied without hesitation. He caught a flash of a smile before training his eyes back on the road. "Either way, it's what's right for your bank account. Wasn't that your reasoning?"
Draco snorted softly and ignored him for the rest of the ride. When they arrived, Draco's hesitation at exiting the vehicle was so brief that Walt wasn't sure it had happened. His boss turned and leaned down to talk to him through the open door.
"I don't know how long this will take," he said, and his tone was almost apologetic. Walt smiled back perfunctorily.
"I'm used to waiting for you, Sir," he replied. "Just text me when you're finished. Unless you want me to come in?"
Draco frowned. "Not necessary. Just...take a break, if you want it."
Walt nodded. "Whatever you say, Sir."
Draco gave him a grateful look and closed the door. Walt watched him walk away, then disappear into a building. He wondered, not for the first time, how anyone could stand to flush themselves down a toilet. Then he shrugged, put the car back in drive, and swept along down the street, headed for the nearest parking garage.