A/N: this was suggested after I posted Diamonds and I couldn't help myself.

Diamonds - Part Two

Prompt: could we get a shot at Draco and Hermione's proposal story in this universe?
for MadeupMeeple

"It's preposterous," Hermione muttered while shaking her head and Draco's hesitant, hopeful smile faltered.

"Preposterous?" he asked in a strangled voice, and Hermione's head changed direction. It was no longer absently toing and froing from side to side. Now it was nodding, violently.

"Yes. It's ridiculous, insane, and not to mention almost mind-blowingly excessive."

"Excessive?" Draco asked, shouting now. Who did the bloody witch think she was? He pulled himself up off his knee with a cursory wipe of his freshly laundered trousers and glared down at her. "And what exactly, my dear sweet love, is excessive about me wanting to marry you?"

Hermione looked startled for a moment and then she blinked several times. She looked up from the ring box into Draco's eyes and then back down again.

"Nothing," she admitted softly, moving to step towards him. "There is nothing excessive about that at all. Though, a little unexpected maybe. I wasn't sure that you would… that you would want to-"

Hermione looked awkward, and Draco got the sense she was reverting into that insecure place she disappeared into sometimes, where he was the boy that had shouted at her, and she was the girl that wouldn't have tempted him if he was on fire, and she was in possession of the last water on earth.

Draco felt his temper deflate, which conversely, made it reignite again. She didn't deserve him calming down. He had every right to be as angry as he wanted.

He had planned it all perfectly to be just what Hermione would want. A lovely but not overly expensive dinner, at a beautiful but not flashy restaurant. A walk to her favourite used book store after desert to 'walk off their meal' where he had brought her a book that came from the money he would have liked to spend earlier in the evening, but he knew how to pick his battles. At least he thought he had. Then he'd come back to her flat and opened a nice bottle of wine - one he had hidden there the week before - then got down on one knee.

No showiness, no audiences, no dramatic overtures and no flowery language. And she'd called it excessive.

"The ring Draco," Hermione finally said when it looked as if Draco might never speak again. "The ring is excessive."

Draco looked down at the jewellery he had chosen and could concede that it was a little on the large side, but what had she expected? Hermione had spent enough painful lunches with his mother to know what was regarded as 'everyday wear' in the Malfoy household, and it wasn't as if he would have brought her trash.

"The ring is perfectly in keeping with what would be expected of me," he replied rather crisply, trying his best not to sneer.

"But what about for me?"

Draco snorted. "If I had brought you anything less people would have said-"

Hermione sighed. "They would have said you were not bothering because I'm a Muggle-born, or that you gave me a trinket to keep getting into my knickers, but you had no interest in actually marrying me."

"Something like that," Draco agreed, beginning to feel slightly sick.

Hermione eyed the ring more speculatively for a moment and then her fingers reached out, coming close to retrieving it before Draco pressed the lid shut.

"Hermione," he implored softly, "you realise you haven't answered me yet, don't you?"

"Oh," Hermione replied, and Draco could see in seconds how the situation flashed before her eyes and then she looked guilty. "I'm so sorry, Draco. I was going to say yes immediately when I saw you kneeling there, and then you opened the box and nearly took my eye out with a diamond."

Draco tried to roll his eyes, he even attempted a smug look but he couldn't press his lips closed enough. He grinned, so full it was almost painful. Immediately, she said immediately. Logically he knew Hermione loved him; she wasn't exactly adept at hiding her emotions but still, immediately. Not 'after I've thought about it', not 'I have to consult my worthless friends', immediately.

He pulled the witch into his grasp and held her against his chest. Once she had settled Draco deftly pulled the ring out of the box and carefully placed it on her appropriate finger. Then he let out a sigh that had been building for the two years since she had walked out of a Hogwarts reunion to get some air, and he had followed her.

"I love you, you know?" Hermione said into his thick jumper, her words coming out muffled against the heavy knit. He'd worn it mainly because she'd said she liked it once. Draco wondered if she remembered that.

"I know. I love you too."

Hermione pulled away from him as much as Draco's greedy hands would allow and twisted her hand back and forth, so her new accessory caught the light. "I might learn to love it."

"You'd better," Draco said, rubbing her back. "I brought matching earrings."

She hit him in the chest and began a rant about his spending habits, but Draco barely listened. She had said yes. The evening has surpassed all of his excessive expectations.