"So I take it by that smile you have on you're face you have some good news?"
Harry looked up just in time to see Draco and Anne run in. They made it in time. Hermione would live. He had a chance at love and happiness. Of course he would be smiling. He wanted to explode.
"We don't even have to make the potion." He dug into his pocket and brought out a potion bottle. "Where is she?"
"She's in the bedroom. Ron and Harry found the rest of the ingredients. Hermione seems to be doing relatively good for a someone who was just hit by an Unforgiven."
Anne held Hermione's head up as Draco poured out the potion into her mouth. Within minutes, there were visible signs of recovery. Her then sickly white skin was going back to her normal pale, some warmth was going back into her cheeks. She was going to be all right, as Draco let out a breath he didn't even know he was holding.
"Now that you know all that, what do you think is going to happen?" questioned Anne.
"What are you talking about?" Ron asked.
"Nothing, she's not talking about anything." Draco interrupted.
Anne rolled her eyes. "You might as well tell them. They are her best friends and are bound to find out about it when you…"
Draco silenced her by putting his hand over her mouth. "Fine."
"I think I might be able to tell them…" came a small voice from the bed. Draco sprang into action first, rushing over to her, gently caressing her face.
"Are you ok?"
She smiled up at him as she lightly placed her hand on his. "Thank you."
They shared a moment, holding each other's eyes for a while. Finally, she smiled gently and looked at her two best friends and their girlfriends. Draco climbed next to her, holding her hand and lightly caressing it. "Are you sure you have enough energy to…"
She quickly pecked him on the lips and gave him the sweetest smile in the world, as though she was oblivious to the surprised looks Harry and Ron were sending her. "I am positive."
"OK, you both need to tell me what is going on. I mean, a few months ago, you two were at each other's necks. Now it's like if you two have been dating or something… wait…" Ron thought for a while and then he exploded. "YOU TWO WERE DATING AND DIDN'T EVEN TELL US?!"
"Ron, you know that I would tell both of you if that ever happened." She said gently. "But there is a great chance we will be in the very near future so I might as well tell you something Anne already knows."
"You see while I was in Hogwarts, during the extra time I spent on the library, I checked out a few things about Merlin. I mean he was the only wizard that was correctly acknowledged even in the muggle world. I wanted to see why he was so special. I found that in his later years, Malfoy's family was mentioned to have been bestowed a somewhat curse by him. I was said that every Malfoy male that has knowledge of this curse would be able to break it only if they went against their family."
"What was the curse?" Harry inquired.
"That the Malfoy in question would love a muggleborn, and love her until his last breathe. The problem was, if they had knowledge of the curse, they usually tended to become even more stubborn to the idea of being bound to anything. But the loophole was that if this Malfoy had already left behind that name for a different reason than love, he wouldn't be bound to that same type of stubbornness. Instead, he would be stubborn upon getting his love every means necessary."
"So your…"
"I only found out I was the muggleborn for Draco when I was in the dungeons. While I was there, I knew that he would save me like it wasn't something to question it was a fact. That he loved me. I don't know how that thought dawned in my head but I just strangely knew and the story I read about popped in my head. Everything made absolute sense."
Harry was processing everything turned to Anne. "Is that…"
"Yeah, that's pretty much it. Now that Draco broke it, his children won't have to suffer those same standards. You would think that someone centuries before would have broken it but you know how stubborn the Malfoys are."
Draco nodded his head in agreement. "Even I have to admit that. But now that I know all this, I think…" He looked at Hermione and she looked at him. They shared a chaste kiss and decided to save the passionate ones later, while they had some sort of privacy. "I think that I will be with Hermione for quite some time. Of course, only if she agrees."
She smiled and hugged him. "I thought Malfoys get what they want."
"Yes." He said thoughtfully. "But your not an object but a human and I can't possess you unless you allow it.
In a week, he had grown up so much, matured more than he did in the last seven years. He was now a man. A full-grown wizard that was highly desirable to Hermione. The moment he refused to include her in the fight he had with his father, she knew. She felt a warming in her heart. And when she reached the dungeon, and when all the circumstances told her otherwise, she knew he would come. No matter what, nothing would stop him. Because he loved her. She didn't quiet understand how he could have but she knew he did. And though only the month before did she hate him but at that moment, she knew she loved him. That was when she knew it was the curse bestowed on him. She was to be his other half, his muggle-born lover. And he was going to save her.
"So does this mean Herm will be back to normal by tomorrow?"
Everyone turned to see Rory with Tristan's armed entwined around her waist.
Hermione smiled up at her cousin. "It would seem that we both have something everyone wants."
No one knew what the future held for all of them. But none of that mattered. All that mattered was that at that specific time, were all four of these couples stood was there a rift in destiny. Nothing was ever going to be the same again. But that didn't necessarily mean it was a bad thing.