All mistakes are my own, but this has been lovingly read by mcal, who I adore.

It didn't take long for his mother to pop in unexpectedly. In fact, Pansy and Weasley had only been gone for two days—out of a four day trip—when Narcissa Malfoy swept into the flat like she owned it. With her robes fluttering at her heels, she glided into the kitchen from the sitting room, magazines upon magazines bundled up in her arms.

He could hardly see his mother's face from behind it all, and where he sat perfectly confused, Granger didn't seem to be surprised in the least.

"Let me help you." Hermione levitated all of it at once, stacking neatly on the table with each dip of her wand. "This is an awful lot to carry."

Narcissa righted her robes, smoothing out any wrinkle that was there and sighed. "Normally I wouldn't have carried it, but the muggle shop I visited didn't have a bag to give me. Since I knew I'd be coming straight here, I thought I would just—"

Draco's mouth dropped open. His father had mentioned how his mother was trying her absolute best to be tolerant, but a muggle shop? "I didn't realize you would be here today."

"It slipped my mind," Granger said. "Your mother insisted I let her start planning a.." There was a slight furrow to her brows, but he knew exactly where the conversation was going without her needing to say an extra word.

"There isn't very long to plan a wedding." Narcissa recovered from the awkward silence that dropped over them, and sat at the end of the table. "With all of the weddings there are about to be, I think the two of you might like to wait for the ceremony."

Sliding his fingers against the slightly warm surface of his cup, Draco wasn't sure what to make of that. "Mother, we only have five weeks." With each passing day, it seemed less and less likely the decision would be reversed, however. The Ministry had already made a statement on the matter, and it was that they would need at least eighteen months—a bare minimum, the spokesperson had said—so the facts of it were rather clear.

For all her joking, she really would have to decide if she wanted to hyphenate her last name soon.

On some purely territorial level, Draco found himself wishing she didn't, but that was absurd and he never lingered on the thought.

"You have to be bound to one another in five weeks, yes." His mother laced her fingers together over the table. "There's going to be a public ceremony though, of course, for those closest to you."

Granger looked ill. "I see."

"For now though, it won't be difficult to arrange a small binding ceremony with immediate family. An intimate gathering, however you wish."

He watched her, and Hermione's fingers tightened on the edge of the table at the word intimate. "Mother, I'm not sure that's what Granger wants."

Narcissa apologized. "My apologies, Hermione."

"No, it's fine." She swallowed. "You must be excited to plan your son's wedding, and with how this has turned out—"

It was a bit awkward, but Draco squeezed her knee under the table. "Don't."

"I just mean," she carried on anyway. "You had already planned an entire wedding, and I imagine it was perfect in your eyes, and she—" Granger squeezed her eyes shut, and he knew she hadn't meant to mention Astoria at all.

But she'd been thinking about it.

"It wasn't perfect." His mother's face softened. "My son wasn't happy, and now he is."

He went rigid as Hermione looked at him, but Draco didn't deny it, and she would notice that.

"What would you like?"

Granger's knee bounced under his hand when his mother asked, and he rubbed circles through the fabric of her jeans.

"I assumed we would get married at the Ministry if we—"

His mother's outburst sounded more like a screech, and Granger's knee slammed into the underside of the table, his hand tragically trapped.

He hadn't been interested in the process of planning a wedding with Astoria, and he knew that it made him terrible. It shouldn't have been different now, but where he previously would have rather sunk into the floor, he could barely pull his eyes away from the witch sitting across from his mother.

Stubborn curls dropped into her face until she tucked it behind her ear with thinly veiled irritation. She bit her lower lip, trapping it between her teeth when she pointed something out.

Mother noticed, with those eyes that seemed to drink in every detail. He could tell by the subtle twitch of her lips, and when she looked at him, tilting her head toward the witch in question while she wasn't paying attention.

It seemed that everyone knew just what he was thinking, save for her, and really, he wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

It was his mother who steered the conversation away from wedding plans—as content as she was to make them—when she commented that he'd been home more often recently.

"What do you mean?" Granger looked at him.

He would admit to her, privately, that he'd been avoiding Astoria for far longer than he'd admitted, but not his mother. "Yes, Mother. Neither Potter, or myself have wanted to take extended missions right now. He's still searching for a witch himself, in case you've forgotten the deadline looming over all of us."

The ploy worked to distract one of them, but it didn't distract Granger for nearly long enough.

Fortunately, his mother took pity on him and let it go. "Draco mentioned that you weren't planning to return to work for some time, and I thought you might like something to fill your spare time."

Please don't talk about heirs. Please for the love of fuck, don't talk about kids.

"Lucius and I started funding for an orphanage after the war," His mother continued, her voice breezy. "We both spend a bulk of our time there, and perhaps you would like to visit?"

Granger's hesitation flickered across her face, and he knew it was due to the sudden presence of both of his parents that would come with a visit. But then it was gone just as quickly as it had come, and she smiled. "I'd like that very much."

He truly meant to go with her to the orphanage, even if only to serve as a buffer between Granger and his father. Lucius meant well, but there were unsavory parts of the past embedded in Granger's mind, and some things weren't forgiven so easily.

Potter reassured him that it would be fine. "Or it won't be," he commented as they both took hold of the portkey. "And Hermione will hex him, but I doubt that. He's been polite enough, hasn't he?"

"That's what I'm worried about." Wind ripped past them, and while he didn't actually want to carry on a conversation while traveling, he did anyway. "Father's nosy."

Wire framed glasses slipped down the bridge of Potter's nose, and his eyes widened behind the scratched lenses. "What do you mean?"

"I'm worried he's going to tell her something she's not supposed to know." It wasn't an unfounded concern. His father had an awfully nasty habit—one he'd never even tried to curb—of making things worse while trying to make them better.

"Like?"

"He might bloody tell her the reason I broke up with her in Hogwarts." He snapped, and they landed in a mostly empty room inside the British Ministry. At least the words had been out of his mouth before they landed. "He'll think he's helping me."

Pushing his glasses up his nose, and flattening his hair even though it wouldn't stay that way, Potter sighed. "It would be bad for her to hear it from him, but don't you think she deserves to hear it from you?"

She did. He knew she did.

That she'd deserved it since the thought crossed his mind after she broke the record for the most NEWTs, and job offers had begun to pour in.

"I'm working on it." Draco said quietly. "I don't want her to try fleeing the country again. The Ministry won't be so lax if she does."

"If you tell her on your own, she'll think you're an idiot." Potter shrugged. "That'll be nothing new."

The conversation was hushed as they reached the lift, stepped inside, and began the ride toward the atrium. "Is this your way of making me feel better? If so, you're doing a bang up job of it."

Harry snorted. "All I'm saying is that if you tell her now, she'll just think you've fucked up. If she finds out any other way, she's only going to be angrier. More important than that, it'll crush her. I don't want to admit it because your head is already big enough, but she's happy."

Silence.

"Draco, she's so fucking happy that I don't understand it. She told me how you tried to use her mixer, that you threw yourself on the floor so it didn't break."

He hadn't considered anything beyond her being angry, and leaving.

He hadn't considered the fact that it would hurt her for a second time.

They reached the bottom floor and the lift dinged. "She's happy with you, for whatever reason, and if you hurt her, it's going to end before it gets started."

Potter left him with that.

He went straight to her.

Covered in sweat still, and grime from a trek in the Forest of Dean, Draco went straight to her.

She met him at the edge of the grounds, spotting him as the crack of apparition vibrated the air, and he spotted grass stains on her jeans before she made it to him. Her hair was tied back loosely, strands escaping as they always were, and Granger came to stand in front of him.

"Are you alright?"

One of them was always asking that.

Draco swallowed, and cupped the back of his neck. "Just exhausted." It was true—even if only half of it—because he was tired.

Just not in the way she thought.

"You should go home, and get some sleep. It looks like you haven't slept since you left."

"I haven't. It was a long two days." He wanted to tell her that she'd been all he could think about while he'd been there.

He didn't, of course.

There was dirt all over both of her hands, but there was the ring he'd placed on her finger utterly free of it. She followed his gaze, and he wondered if the red that rose in her face was a figment of his imagination. "It's a charm," Granger told him. "To keep in clean. I was gardening, actually, with some of the children. I didn't want to take it off," silence followed and she quickly added, "in case I lost it."

Draco nodded, nearly saying he didn't want her to take it off at all, but it would have been silly. He'd come here to say something else entirely.

"What were you doing? If you're able to tell me."

Technically, he shouldn't, but she was his fiance—and the thought made his stomach twist—and he wanted to tell her anything she asked. "There were reports of dark magic being cast inside the Forest of Dean."

"Did you catch them?"

He nodded.

"Were you hurt?"

"Stray hex," he breathed. "It wasn't a major injury. Nothing a potion won't fix."

"That's good."

Someone called her name from just outside the building, and he could recognize his father.

Hermione wrapped her arms around her middle. "It's going to storm. If you'd like to join us, it's about to be story time."

As if he could have told her no. "Granger, wait," Draco's fingers curled around her wrist and he tugged her backward. "We dated, and when I left you, I never told you why."

Her face fell, but only slightly. "No, you didn't."

"It wasn't a good reason."

Granger tucked her hand into his. "Oh, I know that." She laughed lightly. "Come on, don't talk about it right now. It will come out when it needs to."

"Don't leave when it does."

Her back was to him, and she froze.

"I don't want you to leave." He said and found his voice was stronger that time.

She looked at him, at the very least, but it didn't escape him that Granger made no such promise, and he regretted that he'd ever tried to ask her to do so.

The uneasiness that followed was chipped away bit by bit as he watched her read a children's book aloud, after following her inside, to a cluster of children at her feet.

Granger used different voices, different facial expressions, and there wasn't a single child who could look away from her.

"They love her." Draco murmured to his father.

Lucius nodded. "From the looks of it, she's quite easy to love."

It had been, without a doubt, the easiest thing he'd ever done.

The day had started easily.

Potter hadn't come in that day, apparently nauseous and vomiting—which was more information that Draco cared to know.

He'd patrolled Diagon Alley with Weasley early that morning, as the sun was just beginning to rise and the world began to whir to life as it opened. Draco had returned to his ministry office alone when Ron said he was going to drop by the flat to see Hermione.

After all, he'd barely been back for a couple of days, and work alone had kept him busy. He'd probably take her to breakfast, Weasley said.

"As long as you're back in time to help me deal with patrols this afternoon." Draco had said.

Easy.

There hadn't been a single thing to tell him it was all about to go to shit. Unless, of course, you counted the owl from Pansy that he had stupidly thrown into his desk drawer, content to open it after sorting through the paperwork he had, and Potter's.

The paperwork his partner had promised to do tomorrow.

And now he was sick. Typical.

Nearly exactly thirty-three minutes after the owl had arrived, his door slammed open.

Pansy's eyes narrowed on him, her face red and her fists clenched at her side. "Have you forgotten how to respond to an owl?"

He laid his quill down, and ink smudged under his sleeve. "I'm fairly certain you've never fully grasped the concept, but some of us do have to work during the day."

Her brows lifted nearly to her hair line, and Pansy exhaled while pinching the bridge of her nose. "Well, typically when someone has urgent news, they send an owl." Each word was accented with another step forward until she braced her hands against the edge of his desk and leaned toward him. "For your sake, I hope you've already told her about the article."

Quite suddenly, Draco could feel the color drain from his face, and she took that as an answer. It didn't help that his mouth dropped open, giving him away entirely. "I hadn't heard anything—" he managed, but only barely. Days had passed without the other shoe dropping, and he'd, well, he'd assumed that the universe might have thrown him a bone.

But with Pansy glaring at him, irritation hardly contained as she tapped her fingers against the edge of his desk, he knew that had been a completely foolish thing to hope for.

"I thought Vane had decided against running the article."

"She did, and I think that has more to do with a visit from your father than you—" he hadn't heard anything about that "but it doesn't fucking matter! Tori went to Rita Skeeter, and she didn't waste any time publishing it."

The taste in his mouth unmistakably vile, Draco croaked, "When?"

"This morning. It's already run. With any luck, she'll still be at home—"

He shook his head. "Ron went to see her and take her to breakfast an hour ago. She's not home." Draco shot out of his seat, and threw the door open when he reached it, Pansy close on his heels. "Bloody buggering fuck—I'm an idiot."

She chimed in agreement, which wasn't helpful in the slightest.

If his quick departure had drawn the attention of fellow aurors, Draco hadn't stopped to notice, but the lift door sliding open, however, wasn't something he could miss.

Weasley's wand was gripped in his right hand, his knuckles white, and his jaw was clenched so tightly it had to ache. With one arm wrapped around the shorter witch at his side, Ron's eyes connected with Draco's, and his scowl deepened.

She lifted her head out of her hand—and Draco saw her fingers were shaking—and Pansy hissed a curse.

While he realized it was only a thin cut above her eyebrow, and those wounds bleed more than others, Draco felt the sickening lurch of his stomach. He'd closed the gap between them before Granger noticed him, and when she did, it didn't make her mood any better.

"I'm so sorry," he blurted. Draco bent his legs, crouching down to frame her face in his hands as he tilted her head up. She could take care of herself, but he hoped she'd allow him this. "Who did this to you?"

Granger ignored the question. "You're sorry? This isn't your fault."

"Either you'll tell her, or I will." Weasley snarled. "I told you," he looked to his wife "that we couldn't expect him to bloody tell her."

She took a unintentional step away from him, or maybe it was intentional. Draco didn't move. Didn't step forward.

Definitely didn't wrap her up in his arms like he wanted to.

Sharp as ever, Granger pieced it together on the spot, but it wasn't as if there had been many pieces to work with. "Did you know?"

"I was trying to stop it." That didn't make it better. "I didn't want to upset you." Neither did that.

Her nostrils flared. "We are engaged!" An outburst was not her normal reaction, but it wasn't outside the realm of possibility for her either, and he hadn't expected for the entire floor to hear it. "I don't need you to protect me."

"I know."

Granger leaned forward, eyes watering, and the sight cut through him. "When you asked me if we could get back to how we were, I thought you realized I have never wanted someone who tries to protect me," she spat. "I wanted my best friend, maybe even a partner some day."

Pansy stepped in front of him. "Can I take you to ours? You'll be able to clear your head if you like."

He didn't expect Granger to say yes, but she did, and he was left with Ron Weasley's withering glare.

An hour later, Robards called for training instead of their typical rounds, and Draco suspected Weasley had everything to do with it while dodging his offensive spells.

She was sitting on the sofa, her cat curled in her lap, when he arrived. Granger didn't look at him when he entered the room, content to stroke the top of Crooks' head and read the book cracked open on the armrest.

For ten minutes, he pretended not to watch her, his voice trapped in his throat, and she didn't turn a single page.

"I'm sorry."

She nodded and when she did finally choose to say something—which felt like it had taken forever—Granger still didn't look up at him. "I know you are, but aren't you really just sorry I found out at all?"

He had nothing worth saying.

"Pansy explained to me that she'd told you just before she apologized to me for not telling me herself. She thought it wouldn't be right if it came from a stranger." Granger smoothed her hand down Crooks' back. "I realize you must have believed you were doing me a favor after I spent most of the month holed up in this flat, hiding away."

Draco admitted he was wrong, which he was often, but he didn't voice the second part.

"It was inevitable that the truth came out, Draco. It always does. I don't care that the world knows about us, or the article about me."

The things Skeeter had said—the quotes directly from Astoria—all painted Granger as a vindictive witch.

"None of them are true."

She nodded, and lifted her head, resting her cheek in her hand. "Of course they're not, and that will come out too. I waited because I want to make absolutely sure that you know why I'm angry. It's not because Astoria called me a home-wrecking whore, or that a stranger called me a Mudblood in the street today, or even that another man hurled a fork at me in Diagon Alley. You hurt me."

He curled his hands into fists.

"I'm sorry if I gave you the impression that I was too unstable for you to be honest with me, but you lied to me. Maybe it's against my better judgment, but I've trusted you."

"I'll find some way to make this up to you."

Hermione patted Crooks, nudging him off of her, and she stood. "All you have to do is not lie to me. It's all I'm asking." She pulled a slip of parchment from the counter and crossed the room, holding it out to him. "I've scheduled my health screening at the Ministry."

Her eyes were watering again. God, he'd fucked up.

"Since we'll be bound at the end of the month, it's mandatory for both of us. You ought to contact them soon. They asked me if I wanted to schedule yours, but I didn't want to overstep."

He nodded. "Do I need to be there for yours?"

Granger's expression didn't change. "If you'd like to be." She left the card with her appointment date scribbled on it, and her bedroom door opened and closed.

Draco sat there for a long time, turning the card over in his hands.

Hope you're all doing well out there! Thanks for reading this little story and leaving your thoughts. I have up to chapter seventeen pre-written, and am taking some time to develop some other hobbies while working away at this. (Midnight Valkyrie and I are starting a true crime podcast and I've started serious work on an original novel!) So for now, we will stay at weekly uploads, likely on Sundays.

Interact with me on tumblr at mrsren, AO3 or message me on FFN! Stay safe, friends.