Sweethearts Remember
Chapter 5
When Hermione awoke, she found Malfoy shaking her, obviously trying to wake her up. Stretching her arms, she rose up in bed and stared angrily at him. "What do you want? I thought after yesterday you would leave me alone!"
He reached in to her closet and pulled out an outfit for her. "Get dressed. We have things to do today."
"Like what?" she asked, making no attempt to even get out of bed.
"You need a gown for you birthday party. When we left yesterday, they went ahead and figured all the details out. You parents went ahead and got special permission from Dumbledore so that we could come home the weekend of your birthday. The party'll be held here, in the ball room."
"I have a ball room?" she wondered in disbelief. "Oh wait, I knew that. Never mind. Please, continue telling me my birthday plans."
"Anyway," he continued with an annoyed inflection. "We'll come home the weekend of the nineteenth. The party will be at nine in the evening. Your birthday present will be presented to you at midnight."
Part of her wondered what the gift was and the other part didn't want to know. What would Death Eaters give their daughter for a birthday present? 'The Dark Mark?' she thought sarcastically to herself with a slightly bitter laugh.
"Now let's go, Granger. I haven't got all day. I wouldn't even be here doing this if it weren't for my mum and dad making me." After last night, he had decided it would be best to not try to shake her whole world up, let alone his own. He had figured that the best way to make everyone happy was to pretend as though nothing was different. He would treat her as he did Hermione Granger, even with the knowledge that she was, by technicality, Mia Reins.
When Draco noticed her silence, he left, giving her time to get changed. He walked down the stairs and took a seat on the couch, muttering to himself about how long it took girls to get ready to go anywhere.
Hermione began to change up in her room. She pulled her top over her head and as she brought her arm back down, she noticed the scar she had on her hand. She had always had the scar but now it was a bright red, as if it had just been reopened. The scar was on her right hand, on the palm of the hand and it was right below her ring finger. She never remembered how it got there but for all she knew, it had been there since birth. It was a small cut, shaped in a wave pattern resembling a snake. She kept dressing though, remembering Draco's impatience.
As he sat on the couch impatiently waiting, the four adults entered the room. "Where's Hermione?" Harold asked. "We have something to announce to you both!"
"Arghh...do you have any idea how long it takes a woman to get dressed? She's up there getting ready, probably doing all her makeup and everything the old fashioned muggle way! She'll most likely be up there for another hour, and that's if we're lucky!"
In the middle of his ranting, Hermione ran down the stairs and into the family room, catching the last sentence.
"I'm ready," she reported with a smile, happy to be able to prove him wrong. "What was that you were saying again?"
He was dumbfounded. All the women he had ever known took at least twenty minutes, but not her. No. She was ready within five.
"Nothing. I wasn't saying anything at all. But THEY were. They want to announce something to us."
"What is it?" she foolishly asked Draco, assuming that they had already told him in her absence.
"Well I wouldn't know because we were waiting for you to arrive. Now that she's here," he said, facing the parents, "could you please tell us whatever surprise you have?"
The six took their seats in the room and each adult had a huge grin plastered across their face. "Well..." Patrice began. "We've decided..."
"Since you two have been getting along so well," Narcissa offered.
"And since it was an arrangement set long ago," Lucius added.
"Well we think that you two should get married," Harold finished. "The wedding is in two weeks."
Hermione and Draco stared at each other in horror, wanting nothing more than to gag. "WHAT?" Hermione shouted out her new favorite word. "You can't honestly expect me to marry that...that...that THING!" she screamed in fright. "He's nothing but a lousy no-good wimp who runs home to his daddy when anything gets a little hard. How could you expect me to start a relationship with that imbecile let alone raise children together?"
"Same here!" Draco piped up. "I don't want to start a marriage with a know-it-all who thinks she's too good for everyone. I can just see it now. Three years from now, Draco junior is sitting in his high chair and I'm feeding him his baby food and then in comes Granger telling me that I'm using the wrong kind of spoon!"
The parents just chuckled at their children.
"We all had those fears before we got married," Patrice told them. "In time, it gets easier. You'll see. But we're making you go through with it because I guarantee it will be the best thing that ever happened to you in the long run."
Hermione stormed out of the room in a huff with Draco chasing after her. "GRANGER WAIT! HOLD UP! WILL YOU SLOW DOWN FOR A SECOND?"
"WHY? In two weeks I'll have all the time in the world to spend with you! Why should I waste EXTRA time with you before I have no choice?"
He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to him. "Listen up now, because we're about to get married and the only way to make a marriage work is communication. That's when one person talks and another listens, and then when the first person is done talking, it becomes the second persons turn to talk. I know you probably haven't experienced communication that much. You're probably used to yapping away all the time. Sometimes I swear you talk just to hear the sound of your own voice."
"You wanted my attention. Fine. You've got it. What's so important then?"
"We need to discuss this. We can't just run away from it and ignore it because whether we like it or not, it's going to happen. We ARE going to get married and we have no choice."
"We're sixteen, Malfoy! Sixteen! In fact, I'm not even sixteen yet. My birthday is in September. I'm still fifteen! No one gets married when they're fifteen."
"They do when their pureblooded servants of the Dark Lord."
"Damn my parents for being who they truly are. What if I just run away, leave? I could live with Ron and Harry and then I never have to worry. The two of them will protect me..."
"You can't run from it, love," he told her despite his conscience telling him not to. "You can never escape your destiny. It was set out for you long before you were even born. It's the Reins curse. You're part of it. And the curse will never end. You can't stop it and you can't hide from it because on your sixteenth birthday, it will find you wherever you are and it will take you, consume you completely and I promise you that it won't matter how hard you fight and how hard Potter or the Weasel fight. It will still get you."
"What kind of curse? What on Earth are you talking about? A Reins family curse?"
He sighed, knowing there was no more that he could say. It was a confidential matter, a secret to be shared with her only by her parents when they were ready to tell her. But in Hermione's mind, she felt something tugging at her, something telling her that she needed to know more. Her eyes glistened over with tears but it was more than that. The salty water droplets stung her eyes more than they should have and as they spilled over her eyelids, they floated to the floor as opposed to falling straight down. They seemed to be as light as a feather.
Hermione's sapphire eyes shone bright with confusion and anger. Her auburn hair was flying in her face as the wind around them began to gain speed, whipping around and around, creating a funnel around her. The tips of her sandals were lifted off the floor and she began to hover in mid air.
But with all this happening around her, all she saw was Draco. She didn't even realize that she had been lifted from the floor or that she was in the center of a tornado.
"Granger, what on Earth are you doing?" he asked her in complete disbelief.
The tips of her feet touched back down to the ground, the winds slowed, and her head snapped up, looking him straight in the eye. "What are you talking about?" she asked, ignorant to her previous surroundings, speaking as if nothing had just happened.
"You...tor-tornado...eyes...tears...you...fly...agh...forget it! Never mind! Let's just go get you that dress and then get back as soon as possible. Waste as little time together as we can!"
They got to Diagon Alley and began to walk around, looking for a beautiful dress shop. When they finally found one, Draco recognized it as his mothers favorite store. It was a small store from the looks of it. Nothing too fancy about it. "Come on," he said. "I know the owner." He grabbed her hand and led her inside.
Once they got through the door, Hermione was shocked to find that it was seemingly endless. The store was huge. The walls were a off white cream color with a gold trim around it. There was a spiral staircase in the middle of the store with red carpeting.
Draco led Hermione to the front desk in a rush, not stopping to look around. "Hello," he said to the woman that was working the cashier. "Do you know where Michele is?"
"She's in the back," the woman said shyly, wondering why he wanted her boss.
"Can you please inform her that Draco Malfoy is here and that I'd love to see her? She happens to be a close personal friend of my family's."
The girl had short red hair that was pushed back behind her ears. She wore big framed glasses that took up half of her overly pudgy face.
Slowly, she walked away into the back. Hermione leaned against the counter in boredom, finding the whole day rather pointless. She wished so greatly that everything could just go back to normal. How she longed to go to the Burrow and stay with Harry and Ron.
After a few minutes of waiting, the back door swung open and out came a very tall woman, probably about 5'11", maybe even six foot if Hermione had to guess. She was thin too, like one of those super models you would see in a fashion magazine.
She had very short black hair and bright blue eyes. Around her eyes, you could see wrinkles forming, giving away her age. She was in her forties by now but obviously tried to keep her figure. Hermione figured she was probably a model or something in her youth.
"Draco," the woman greeted with a smile. "What brings you here? I haven't seen you since you were but a boy. Your mother told me how much you've grown but I never imagined this. You're taller than me!" The two embraced and began catching up on everything and Hermione was about to use this as her exit to leave but then she got brought into the conversation. "And who is this young lady?" Michele asked. "Judging by her long brown hair and dark brown eyes and of course her dainty little nose, she must be...a REINS! Am I right?"
"You guessed it," Draco confirmed.
"Actually, I prefer to be called Hermione if you don't mind," I informed her. "I'm still adjusting to certain things."
Michele looked confused at first, not sure what was going on but then she realized. "So you're Hermione Granger AND Mia Reins? Well that certainly is something. You're famous no matter what name you go by. But it seems your two names are conflicting with one another. One is known for being one of the few people to ever stand up to the Dark Lord and come out alive and the other is known for being the daughter of the Dark Lords favorite Death Eaters and engaged to Draco Malfoy, next in line to the Dark Lords throne. It seems that pretty soon, you'll have to choose exactly which personality you're going to stick with. But not now though, I guess. Now is the summer holiday."
"Michele, Hermione and I didn't come here to chat, as tempting as it is," Draco interrupted. "We don't really want to spend all day here, together."
"Ahh...I see..." Michele said, comprehension dawning on her face. "Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy don't get along. Well then, what can I do for you?"
"We're looking for a dress, a birthday dress. She's having a sixteenth birthday ball. I'm sure you're invitation will be sent out soon. Anyway, I have no idea what type of dress she would like but I'll let her tell you that. Also, we're having our wedding in two weeks. We just planned it today. Another invitation that is sure to be sent out soon enough. So basically, we need two dresses. I'm going to step aside so she can tell you what she wants now."
He stepped to the right, leaving Hermione to finish out what any plans she had for the big events.
Hermione knew the wedding would happen and it was unavoidable. There was no way out. But despite the obvious inevitability of the dreaded day, she still resisted. "I have no clue what Draco's talking about. Me and him? Married? That's a ludicrous idea. But I do need a birthday gown, thank you very much."
"If you want just one gown for both the wedding and your party, that's all well and good," Draco said. "But you and I both know that you are the soon to be Mrs. Draco Malfoy and there's no way around that. In fact, I think this whole being married thing will work out lovely. I always did think you had some sort of sex appeal in that whole, little school girl way. I'll block out that frizz ball on your head that you call hair and pretend it doesn't exist. That'll make the marriage go a hell of a lot smoother. You do have a great body though, perfect for childbearing. I'll bet you make a great mum." He continued on and on, saying things intentionally to spit her and her face turned a bright red, her temper boiling.
"Why you little..."
"And of course, seeing as I'll be the man of the house, I'll be in charge so one of the first things that goes when we're married is your two friends, Pothead and Weasel. They're gone."
"The most certainly are NOT! How dare..."
"And also it would be a huge plus to the marriage if we had separate rooms. I'll need my privacy when bringing home my secretaries."
"Marriage is exclusi..."
"Of course, I shan't be home most of the time. I'll spend most of my days at work. I'm taking over the family business."
"I have a say..."
"We'll have our first child within the first two years of marriage and then, well we'll go from there. I'd like about five children. We never want our children to be lonely."
"STOP!" Michele screamed. "Will you please just bloody STOP? The both of you are going to have one tough time if you can't even go for thirty minutes without arguing."
"Five."
"Excuse me, Hermione?"
"We can't go FIVE minutes without arguing. Thirty minutes is torture."
"Can we please just get back to the point at hand. Your dresses. Let's get some designs down."
With a heavy sigh of grief and defeat, Michele and Hermione sat down to plan out two lovely dress ideas.
A/N...I'm so sorry it took me this long. School started up again last week and I rarely have time to write. I promise more will be coming soon. Hope you enjoyed. Please review! It helps me get inspired!!!
