394 days later—
Hermione paced across the entryway of the suburban home where her parents had lived as Monica and Wendell Wilkins. She glanced out the open front door at the For Sale sign posted at the edge of the lawn.
"Don't pace, dear," her mother said in a tone that shot straight through Hermione's heart. It was the exact tone she used when scolding Hermione as a young girl. Patient, stern, disappointed.
She did not stop pacing.
Her father, at last, came down the stairs. "Okay, the books are all alphabetized and categorized in their boxes. Let's go!" He was far too cheerful. He should be furious, like her mother.
Hermione picked up her purse and the houseplant she had been assigned to carry.
"She can't be packed!" her father had insisted.
"Dad, it's a plant."
"She's delicate, and you would understand if you knew her."
"You sound like Neville."
"Well, that's quite the compliment then. As I recall, he was rather good at— at—"
"Herbology," Hermione had supplied.
Times like those had been more and more frequent. Her father was more vocal, relishing in his returning memory and excited to talk through the images in his mind.
Her mother was less vocal.
They made their way to the Australian Ministry in cars supplied by the Department of Automation and Magical Transportation. Her father flinched when he entered the magically enlarged back seat, but her mother did not.
They rode in silence.
"I'm sorry," Hermione whispered into the space between them.
Her father took her hand in his own.
In less than an hour, the three Grangers were standing with their carried belongings all in a row. The Australian Ministry worker thanked Hermione profusely for all of the work she had offered them. It took her less than two weeks after arriving in Australia to realize that too much time alone at her Ministry-provided flat was much worse for her than simple idleness. If there was one thing Hermione detested, it was remaining idle. What good is a mind without thoughts and plans? What use are hands without occupation? None, if you asked Hermione. So, she had picked up part-time work with the D.A.M.T. to fill the time she was meant to be away from her parents. She applied for the position in hopes of opening doors to securing more frequent portkeys back to the U.K. As not even she found surprising, Hermione approached this job with the same logic and efficiency she applied everywhere, thus she completed her entire assigned project in remarkably short time. After, she reorganized the filing structure in the department, then she continued on to documenting and revitalizing a variety of procedures, developing curricula for Muggle-born magical transportation introduction, and defining protocols for Muggle transportation as it related to magical relatives, like her own situation.
"If you're every in Australia again, you have a place with us, Miss Granger." Madge, the Ministry worker, had said. She shook Hermione's hand, then held out a meter stick. "Mr. Granger, Mrs. Granger, we wish you the very best luck with your transition home."
"Thank you," her mother replied through terse lips.
Her father beamed at her, at the Ministry witch, and at the room in general.
"Magical transportation. This will be fun."
"Actually, it's quite nauseating," Hermione grinned. "You'll want to hold on tight."
The portkey shone blue, and the three of them vanished with a yelp.
I shouldn't have come.
Draco paced across the hallway alongside the international portkey arrival points. Hermione and her parents would be here any minute now. Their portkey was not expected to arrive until nearly ten o'clock at night, and he was supposed to meet Hermione at the Manor the following day. Instead, he—like a moron—had rushed to the Ministry to sit alongside other members of the wizarding general public waiting for their own families.
He dragged his fingers through his hair.
I'm an idiot.
An elderly couple popped into existence, and a family seated in one of the many benches along the wall squealed and jumped up.
"Grandma! Grandpa!"
Draco groaned as they embraced and began talking animatedly. The older couple spoke with thick Italian accents. He pointedly ignored them as they meandered down the hallway, arms linked and hands clasped.
His pacing did not stop.
He checked his watch. Any second now, his wait would be over. He paused in his pacing as he approached the opposite wall and thumped his forehead against it. She won't want me here.
Clarity washed over Draco. She won't want me here. She'll be anxious to get her parents home, worried about getting them settled, and worried about everything else.
I shouldn't be here.
He turned with resolution down the hallway as the latest family popped into existence behind him.
"Draco?"
Fuck.
He turned around just in time to have his vision obscured by curls as Hermione barreled into him. She gripped him tightly around the middle. He was frozen. Barely visible through the mess of curls, he saw a middle-aged couple peering at him with open curiosity splashed across their faces. He felt his cheeks flush with heat, then his sense of smell returned. Jasmine and honeysuckle and pure, sparkling magic.
"Hermione," he breathed, and his arms clamped around her, crushing her even closer to him.
After longer than he should have let pass, she pulled away from him. Her smile was dazzling. And it was for him.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, and the words tumbled out. "I shouldn't have come. I should have let you—"
She kissed him mid-sentence, in front of her parents, in the middle of the Ministry of Magic. And Salazar help him, he kissed her back as if his life depended on it.
A throat cleared.
Hermione flushed prettily as they broke apart.
"Dad, sorry, this is Draco, my boyfriend."
He shook Mr. Granger's hand and mumbled through pleasantries, but he was hardly able to keep his eyes or his thoughts off of Hermione. His girlfriend.
"Draco," Mrs. Granger said. "Draco Malfoy." It was not a question.
"Y-yes. I— We were at school together."
"Yes, I know."
"Mum?" Hermione asked.
Mrs. Granger appraised her daughter with a sharp look. A look Draco had seen in his own mother's eyes countless times, meaning, we'll talk about this later.
He swallowed the lump in his throat.
"I'll let you get settled. I just…"
"Couldn't wait to see your girlfriend, eh?" Mr. Granger let out a throaty laugh and clapped Draco on the back. "Come along with us, lad. The more the merrier!"
Thus, Hermione found herself in a large and well-decorated suburban home seated in the living room with both of her parents and Draco at her side. She caught his eye, and he smiled at her—his true smile, not a smirk. She smiled back.
"Well, tell us how you met!" Mr. Granger exclaimed, when they all had taken a few appreciative sips of their tea.
Draco turned to her, and that time he smirked. "We met at school. It's a funny story, actually. We didn't get on until our last year. We were both Head Students, and we had to start spending a lot more time together—"
"And something just clicked." Hermione finished with a grin. Of course she remembered. She half expected to see floating hearts and tiny cherubs if she looked up.
"Well said, and prettily painted," Mrs. Granger commented with a frown. "But I remember a prejudiced boy whose sharp tongue relished throwing slurs at my daughter."
Hermione choked on her tea, at both the accuracy of her mother's memory and the current implications.
"Mum, please—"
"That's true," Draco said. "I can't hide from it."
"Nor should you," added Mr. Granger. "Excellent, we've all said our piece. Hermione, love, let's make some dinner."
"Now?" she hissed.
NOW!? The last thing in the world Hermione wanted to do was leave Draco alone with her mother. Her father had warmed to her fairly well over the past year. He was hurt that he had lost being a part of two years of her life, but he seemed to understand her actions better than her mother. He was fiercely protective of "his girls," and it led to his forgiveness coming out more easily than her mother's. In fact, she was not sure she had her mother's forgiveness at all yet.
"Come, come," he said softly. "I've got a hankering for mushroom risotto, and that Ministry fellow told me the cupboard would be stocked with everything I could ever want. We shall see!"
She looked to Draco as she rose. He squeezed her hand, then kissed her fingers. His smile was carefree, and his eyes danced with silver. He jerked his head ever so slightly towards her father. It said, Go. He was okay.
She smirked as she left him to fend for himself.
"Why are you here, Draco?"
Draco had watched Hermione leave, and as always, could not tear his eyes away from her until forced to by the swinging kitchen door. Mrs. Granger had wasted no time in getting to the point. He knew where Hermione got her directness from.
"My apologies for my presence. I can leave whenever you like."
"That was no answer to my question. Why are you here?"
Draco swallowed hard. Why was he here? Because he was desperate to see Hermione, and his idiot brain could not wait twelve extra hours to see her. His betraying body could not bear an extra moment away from her.
He settled on: "I'm here for Hermione."
Mrs. Granger's eyes narrowed. "Do you think my own daughter incapable of spending an evening with her parents? We may have had a family trauma, but we are not unstable people."
Draco stared at her, stunned. He expected many things from Hermione's mother, but not that sort of vitriol. It was oddly comforting—familiar. He laughed out loud. "Merlin, no. Even if you were, Hermione wouldn't need my help. I'm not here as backup."
"Then why?"
He opened his mouth to reply, then clamped it shut. Why am I here?
"Draco, I shouldn't need to ask a question four times to get an answer."
He sighed. "I miss her."
One of Mrs. Granger's eyebrows raised, and again he was reminded of his mother.
"Because I'm an idiot." He rubbed his hands over his face. "I've only seen her twenty-six days in the past year."
"And one more would break you?"
"Yes." He had not meant to blurt it out, but he did.
Mrs. Granger leaned forward, and this time he saw Hermione in her: the eagerness to crack a new puzzle and the scrutiny analyzing the pieces before her.
Draco held his breath.
"Are you in love with my daughter?"
"Yes," he breathed out.
"Why?"
"Why?"
"Yes. Why do you love her? What is it about her that you love?"
What the fuck kind of a question is that? Draco was no poet, and he was not about to wax on about Hermione's many wonderful characteristics. Even if she had them. Even if he loved every single one. What the actual fuck?
"Come now, there must be a reason," she continued. "The way she makes you feel, or the many talents she has, or her beauty."
Draco laughed, but even to him it felt hollow. "That's not why you love someone."
"It isn't?"
"No."
She allowed the silence to stretch, waiting for him to expound.
And, damn it all, he filled it. "I love her because she's perfect. To me, at least. When she's in the room, she's all I can see. She's the most radiant thing in this entire fucked up world, and somehow, she's willing to spend some of her time with me. I'd take any of it. Anything she would give me. Of course, I love her. Who wouldn't?"
"I know very little about Hermione in the magical world. What is she like?"
"What's she like?" Draco could not believe his ears. "She's a bloody war heroine, to start. She literally saved our life as we know it. Muggles and wizards aline. And she's brilliant. Absolutely genius-level brilliant. Do you know about N.E.W.T.s?"
Mrs. Granger nodded.
"Hermione took hers months early over four days. Eight tests in four days. That's bound to be a record."
"Hermione's always excelled academically."
"Excelled? She was top of every class all seven years. And, she didn't come from a magical home. That means she learned it all on her own after turning eleven. Excelled doesn't cover it." He knew he was rambling, but it was late, and the time for censoring his thoughts has passed. "She fights for good causes—has she told you about her activism for elfish welfare? That's just the start of it. You should hear her talk about werewolves and centaurs and, come to think of it, pretty much everything but goblins. They can handle themselves. Speaking of which, did you know that she broke into an impenetrable goblin bank? The even more incredible part is that they actually made it out. They broke free by flying out on a dragon. Apparently that was a key part of how they defeated the Dark—that psychopath." Even now he could not say his name.
"No. We haven't talked much about the past two years yet. We—" She cut off.
Draco looked up and came back to himself. For the first time, he saw her with open eyes. The tension in her shoulders, the clench of her jaw, and the way her fingernails bit into the leather arm of her chair told him all he needed to know.
"Mrs. Granger," he began, and his voice trembled, "he— they killed people all the time. But Muggles they tortured and killed just for sport." He swallowed the bile that rose in his throat. "When he wanted something from them, mostly information, it started with torture, sometimes rape, and rarely ever a swift death. Potter's family was long dead, but you two and the Weasleys… they were after you." He squeezed his eyes shut against the memories. They were always there, behind his eyelids, ready to consume him. When he spoke again, his voice was hoarse. "I can't tell you the horrors he did to Muggles. You should know that she saved more than just your lives. Countless families have been destroyed. Even the Weasleys, with all the protections their side could muster, lost a son. She— we owe her everything."
Silence fell over them, and when Draco glanced up, he saw Mrs. Granger wore a deep frown and glistening eyes.
"I'd say we have a lot to talk about," she said at last.
And talk they did. All through dinner, they talked about Draco and Hermione's last year at Hogwarts. After dinner, they settled down with a bottle of wine, and Hermione and Draco took turns talking about the year previous, taking over when the other could not. Eventually, they progressed on to sixth year, and then fifth, and then—mostly for Draco—fourth. Mr. and Mrs. Granger both cried many times. In fairness, Hermione and Draco did too.
When the past was well spent, they talked about the future. Hermione squeezed his hand when he admitted he was still lost, not sure how to help his own mother nor what to do with himself. Hermione spoke of the myriad things she wanted to do to better the wizarding world. As she spoke, Draco grinned, and Mrs. Granger flashed him a devious smirk.
A smirk that fell off her face when he asked them about the past two years in Australia.
Mr. Granger spoke first, sharing what they did, the friends that they met, and the hole they felt in their lives that grew stronger with each passing day. When Mrs. Granger spoke, it was evident that the loss she felt during the time away from Hermione was far more acute than her husband's, though she never understood why.
"I just thought it was depression," she admitted with a sheepish glance to Mr. Granger.
"My brilliant girls," was all he mumbled.
The Grangers all talked as if staying up through the night was the easiest thing in the world, and only as the sun rose did Draco realize they were used to a different time zone.
"This lad needs to get to bed," Mr. Granger said after Draco had yawned three times in as many minutes.
"We have a guest room you're welcome to, Draco," Mrs. Granger said warmly.
"I'm sorry, Draco, the fireplace isn't connected to the floo network yet," Hermione added.
"The guest room would be great. Mother wasn't expecting me home tonight anyway."
Hermione's eyes bugged out.
"I have a flat," he clarified. "Near Diagon Alley. I stay there fairly often."
"Of course," Mrs. Granger said, and she smiled at him. A sincere, broad lipped smile. A smile he had seen before on a different set of lips. "Let me show you the guest room we have set up for Hermione." She looked to her daughter as she said this, and her eyes twinkled.
But, as they all rose, the air around them began to swirl. The fire flickered in the hearth, and the breath was sucked from Draco's lungs. He looked from Hermione to her mother as the space between them crackled with magic, thick and heavy. When they inevitably fell into each other's arms, everything stilled. The two women hugged and cried and clung together. They whispered words that were not for Draco's ears, but he was enraptured nonetheless.
Mr. Granger rested a hand on his shoulder. "I can show you," he said in a hushed voice. "Just this way."
As the sun crept over the hills and climbed into the sky, Hermione slept in Draco's arms. They both had nightmares, but when they woke in the late afternoon, their eyes met. They smiled. They moved as one, stripping away pajamas and touching and teasing until their want for each other grew beyond control, and Draco entered Hermione with a gasp from two pairs of lips. Their climax was quick and intense though their movements were slow and sensual. When they stilled, they stayed together, gripping each other as if that could stop the turning of the world itself.
"Coffee, my love!" Her mother called to them from downstairs.
Hermione's tinkling giggle echoed against Draco's rumbling chuckle. The silence in the house was slipping away.
They dressed and went downstairs with two matching, ear splitting grins.
"Sleep well?" her father asked, the picture of innocence.
Mrs. Granger handed a cup and a secret smile to Hermione and Draco in turn.
Mr. Granger set a dish of saksuka and a pile of lemon crepes in the center of the table as Hermione levitated plates and silverware to their respective place settings.
"All right," Mrs. Granger said with a familiar tone of business, when plates and mugs were empty and bellies were full. "It's time to make plans. Darling," she said, turning to Mr. Granger, "you start."
"We reopen the practice," he began without hesitation. "We make a list of the things we need to reopen the business, to ensure our licenses are still active in the U.K., to reacquire space, hire staff, and so on. We've done it before. We do it again."
"Well said," replied Mrs. Granger. "Hermione, your turn."
Hermione flushed. "I'm going to inquire about jobs at the Ministry of Magic. I'll ask Kingsley to help me meet with as many of the department heads as I can to gather information and see if there is a place there where I might do some good."
"Excellent start, my dear." Mrs. Granger paused, and perhaps it was meant as a kindness, but as all eyes turned to Draco, he began to sweat. The moment stretched on until Draco was ready to bolt from the room and out the front door. "Draco, what subjects did you like most in school?"
He blinked. That was not the question he expected. "Er, I suppose Charms and Potions."
She nodded. "Anything else?"
He shook his head as Hermione spoke up for him with, "Quidditch."
"Ah! The wizard sport! I remember this." Mr. Granger looked very proud of himself. "So, you like detailed plans from Potions. You like to think quickly from Charms. You enjoy a bit of adventure and physical activity from Quidditch. Excellent, excellent. Lad, you begin by making a list of professions you can think of that require good planning, an active body, and an active mind."
"I don't want to be an Auror," he blurted out. He should have said that he did not need a profession, or that plans for him were unimportant. Instead, he stared back dumbly after his unintended revelation.
Mr. and Mrs. Granger exchanged looks.
"Magical law enforcement," Hermione offered.
"It's good that you know what you don't want, as well. Go on, make a list."
Hermione summoned four notepads and pens from the den, and the three Grangers and Draco spent the evening making notes on their future. As they worked, Hermione kept sneaking glances at Draco's paper, which he covered with his arm and scooted out of her view each time he noticed. When she leaned over, he poked her ribs.
"Cheating witches always get their comeuppance," Draco said with a sharp grin.
"Fine, keep your secrets," she retorted with a light slap against his chest.
But, he did let her see his ideas. And she, in turn, shared hers. They talked them over together in hushed tones, neither wanting to startle their future selves waiting in the wings. When Hermione flipped over to a fresh page, they took turns adding ideas together. Ideas for a new future—a joint future. The room grew blissfully warm in the late afternoon sun.
As the sun set just below the view out the dining room windows, Mr. and Mrs. Granger withdrew to prepare dinner. Hermione threw her arms around Draco and kissed him soundly. He laced his fingers into her hair as he slipped his tongue into her mouth.
"Can we do this forever?" he murmured against her lips.
"Kiss?" she asked, then she kissed him again.
Draco shook his head. "Make plans together."
A tear pricked Hermione's eye. Three little words, asked with all sincerity. Asked with no ulterior motives or agendas or pressure. She found in those three words everything she had ever wanted.
"Yes," Hermione whispered.
Draco smiled.
"Always."
A/N: Then you for reading all the way through! I love you all so much, and I am so honored that you stuck with me until the end!
While this story is over, this work was always intended to be two parts. The second part takes place five years after Hogwarts, where we follow Hermione and Draco on an entirely different adventure. The next work is mostly from Draco's POV with little bits of Hermione (so the opposite of this work). I hope to start posting it sometime next year.
