Did you do it yet?
-G
I think you'd know if I did.
-D
It's October. Are you seriously going to wait for snow?
-G
You said it was a good idea!
-D
Hell, you've never listened to me in your life. You're going to start now?
-G
You annoy the hell out of me. You know that?
-D
Likewise, ferret-face.
-G
You're killing me.
-G
And you're torturing me. Don't you have a wedding to plan?
-D
Yes, and it's a little hard to do it when you keep thinking about how you'll help your friend plan her own.
-G
I took the ring out of my vault. I have it hidden at home.
-D
You idiot! You can't hide the ring at her house!
-G
How'd you know I meant there and not the Manor?
-D
Oh please, you spend eighty percent of your time with Hermione. As far as I'm concerned you don't live at Malfoy Manor anymore.
-G
Regardless… I want to do it this weekend.
-D
No snow?
-G
I'll take her Chamonix and do it there. Plenty of snow.
-D
Each time Draco wrote a note to Ginny Weasley, soon to be Potter, or he got a note from her, he was still in denial. Next thing he knew he'd be taking walks with Weasley. It made him shiver just at the thought of it. However, he couldn't deny how instrumental she had been in helping him with this proposal. Her advice was often sound and her insults reminded him not to like her too much. He still had some parts of his dignity to keep after all.
It was two days shy of November. Draco had managed to convince Hermione to take Friday off after she had thoroughly scolded him for asking for days off himself. So he had been told, he'd only been an Auror for two full months and to at least wait a while. Although he agreed, he considered a marriage proposal to win over work any day. Not to mention that the person he had to request time from was not the Department Head (Thank Merlin), but rather from his division. He'd been right when he concluded that Auror Juno liked him.
And so he and Hermione walked around her bedroom, going through drawers and packing their respective trunks. He couldn't help but think about Ginny's words and him living here. Hermione had selflessly sacrificed three of her drawers and a quarter of her closet space to accommodate some of his belongings. And it was true, he was rarely at the Manor anymore except for lunches with his mother so she didn't think that he'd forgotten her.
"Hermione, have you seen my cufflinks?"
"Um, coffee table I think. Or on the floor." She replied as she made space in her own trunk. Draco stared at her with a slight tilt of his head.
"Why on earth would they be on the floor? I treasure those things like currency."
Hermione smiled as she walked over and wrapped her arms around his waist. "It might have something to do with me undoing them with my teeth last night."
Draco grinned like a fool. How could he possibly forget? Although alcohol was never necessary to initiate their sexual endeavors, it never hurt. Hermione had been quite amorous then, and she processed in her attempt to undress him with solely her lips and teeth. Granted it took longer than using hands, but he was not one to complain. Especially her attempts at his belt buckle.
Hermione laughed at his expression. He was clearly remembering their romantic events after dinner last night and she roused him from his daydreams to go search for said cufflinks where she'd told him. Draco sheepishly left the bedroom while she continued to pack.
"They're not here!" Draco called to her.
"I'll check your drawers again!" Hermione called back. "Maybe you missed them!"
Draco had parted his lips to concede when he paused. His drawers. The ring. The ring! He hurried himself out of the living room and to the bedroom with the hopes of keeping the witch away. He'd lie. He'd say he found the cufflinks and there was no need to search anymore. Easy. But by the time he had made it there Hermione already had the small black box in her hands. It was opened, and her usually small eyes were expanded and her mouth had fallen open.
"Draco?" She said as she looked up at him. She showed him the box she was holding and swallowed. "Draco, is this-?"
"It, um…" He hastily answered as he walked up to her and slipped the box out of her hand. "It's nothing, I-"
"Nothing?"
"Well, no, not nothing. I just… You…" Draco sighed deeply and briefly closed his eyes. "Bleeding hell. Hermione, I'm sorry. I should've moved it. I had this whole thing planned and now I've screwed it up. I was going to wait for a snow day you see. Like the night of the masquerade ball? But it's October, almost November, and Merlin knows how much patience I have, but I figured, what the hell? I'll wait. It would've been nice. We would've gone to the park and I would've kicked your arse in snowball fight or something. But then I said to myself that this is ridiculous-"
"Yes."
"-and I can't wait. I'll take you to Chamonix. You had liked it there. That's what this weekend was for. And I would've-"
"Draco," Hermione smiled, trying her hardest not to cry. "I said yes."
"Yeah, I know. I heard you. I just-" Draco faltered and stared her dead in the eyes. "I'm sorry, but…did you just say yes?"
Hermione nodded eagerly as she drew closer to him. "I did."
Draco felt like he was on the verge of a heart attack –but a good one. His hand was holding the ring box was shaking and he'd never felt so nervous in his life.
"Let me get this straight." He said with possibly the driest throat he'd ever had. "You, right now, are actually agreeing to marry me?"
Hermione couldn't help it and let the happy tears flow. "Yes."
"Even though we've only been together less than a year?"
"Yes."
"And it's not too fast?"
"Everything about us is fast, Draco. I wouldn't take back any of it."
"So, you're sure-?"
Hermione laughed and pulled him by the collar so that she could kiss him. It was wet and filled with salty tears, but she didn't care. She pulled back from him and held his face in her hands. "If you ask me if I'm sure one more time I swear to Merlin that I'll curse you."
"Curse me, hex me. You can do whatever you want to me." Draco laughed with her as he finally took out the ring that had been waiting idly in his possession to finally be worn. "Just wear this."
Hermione's cheeks were absolutely drenched. Her eyes were so blurry that she could barely make out Draco slipping the diamond ring onto her finger. Rather she felt it, and it felt unreal. Engaged. They were engaged.
"We're engaged." Hermione said in disbelief. She wiped her eyes messily so that she could see the ring clearly. Silver band. One large diamond in the middle and a smaller one on either side. She looked up at Draco before throwing her arms around him. "We're engaged!"
"Yes, we're engaged." Draco repeated as he lightly swung her around.
Engaged. Here's to a new chapter in his life.
Draco had booked the same suite he had back in June, and he found it even better to have gone there after "proposing." No, it hadn't gone the way that he had expected, but did it matter? Hermione wore her engagement ring proudly and he could see her tear up ever so slightly when she looked at it. The word "engaged" kept swimming around his head and on his tongue and he was still in disbelief about it. It was one thing to think about, but when it was actually done? He felt happy, relieved, excited, and scared all at once. Luckily that last one was at a bare minimum.
The moment they got to the room Draco didn't let Hermione go much further into it. He pulled her by the waist, her back pressed against him and his lips at her ear.
"I have one request for this weekend." He whispered to her, and Hermione closed her eyes at the tickle of it that travelled down her spine.
"What is it?"
"I want you naked for the entirety of it."
Well, if that wasn't enough to arouse the witch then nothing would. Over her short time with him, Hermione consistently added words to what she now, embarrassingly, called her "sextionary." Any and every word or phrase that set her on edge was in there. "Naked" was one of them. Not simply because her mind immediately flashed to images of her fiancé without clothes, but because he'd always somehow be in close range whenever he said it. And now the back-end of that word had released his warm and seductive breath alongside her neck and it made her melt.
"Alright," Hermione agreed and raised her hands to her blouse, but Draco gently smacked them away.
"You don't get to undress yourself." He scolded, and Hermione let out a soft moan when Draco's lips found her neck. She was stuck between the sensation of his mouth and tongue on her skin and his hands smoothing across her hips, thighs, lingering between thighs, before finally reaching to her pants and flicking the button open and the zipper down. Hermione made the mistake of attempting to slip her pants down, but a swift swat of Draco's hand stopped her. That and a bite of his that made her snap down on her own lips.
"What did I say?" Draco teased as he tugged her pants downwards. He let her go enough so that he could kneel down and lift her feet out of it. On his way back up he let his hands glide up her legs and Hermione did very little to hide her satisfaction from it. She squealed some when he suddenly turned her around in his arms. He grinned wickedly and then picked her up over his shoulder. Hermione laughed as he carried her from the doorway and into the bedroom where she was placed.
Hermione sat back on her elbows, watching him with delight as he stripped himself of everything. From his shirt, to his pants, right down to his underwear. She felt her voice hitch and she licked her lips once.
"I don't get to undress you?"
"No." Draco said simply as he climbed onto the bed. He hooked his pinky fingers into the sides of her underwear and slowly slipped them down. "I owe you for last night."
Hermione was fully prepared to feel him enter her, but instead she was laughing again as he tackled the buttons on her blouse with his teeth. She heard each one pop and then she smirked.
"I don't believe I broke yours."
"Perks of magic, love." Draco said before popping another one. "It can be fixed."
Hermione half-heartedly rolled her eyes at him and then she gasped and let her eyes roll back for real when his tongue dipped between her. He could break as many things of hers he wished if this would be the result. Hell, he could burn down a library. She was lost in every stroke, her lips parted to make room for every moan and call of Draco's name. Moments later she was silenced by his lips –for all of three seconds. As he slipped himself inside her, moans had been replaced with delectable, ear-shattering cries along with Draco's guttural groans with every thrust he gave and every time she clenched.
And to think, it was only half-an-hour or so into their trip with an entire weekend ahead of them. Draco hoped that they could break a record.
Author's note: ENGAGED! THEY'RE ENGAGED! I think that's a lovely way to start the New Year, don't you lol?
Cheers to a good start to 2017 everyone :)
-WP