Author's Note: I own no person, no place, no thing – except the plot! If you recognize it, it probably belongs to Ms. Rowling or some other awesome super-human.
Chapter 22 Puppy Love
Draco Malfoy was standing on a ladder when his mobile pinged in his pocket. He'd just been re-shelving a handful of King books from the series that Hermione loved in the "K" section in fiction. The patron who had just returned them, a funny and friendly little woman named Bella that always made him sneeze when she came by at least once a month with fresh-baked cookies and a bag full of books to exchange, mentioned that a new edition in the series would be coming early in the new year. He'd have to swing by the local book shop on the way home from the Library and put one on pre-order so that he could bring it home for Hermione the day it came out -
Draco sighed and put his hand over his eyes. When did he become such a sap for a woman? But it was the damned truth. He'd walk across town barefooted in the snow to pick a crocus if Hermione so much as wished for one. But the thing was, she'd do the same damned thing for him – not that he would ever wish for a flower, of course. But the intensity of their devotion to each other's needs and wants just bound them more tightly and permanently to each other.
Sometimes Draco wondered if he and Hermione were living in a fantasy world of their own creation, and worried that the bubble would burst one day and they'd go back to hating each other as they'd done as children. But then his mind rolled through images of her wild-haired and sweaty as they made love, or relaxed and sleepy as they drank tea and talked on the couch, or lost in her singular focus as she devoured a new book or a new musical piece…
Draco shuffled down the ladder and pulled his mobile out of his pocket.
To: bibliophile1
From: bibliophile2
Subject: Popular!
Good morning darling,
I found it highly amusing that Sue called me a few minutes ago to beg that she be allowed to bring the fairy girls over to see the puppies. Apparently they barely slept last night after their introduction to Uncle Draco's baby dogs – their words, not mine - and woke this morning demanding to see them again. So, whilst you're slaving away at the Library on Boxing Day, yours truly is enjoying a morning of puppies and princesses and coffee in your living room. Jealous? If you weren't already, I should inform you that even your boyfriend Radagast is coming over. There art thou jealous?
Thought so!
Your, LG
Draco narrowed his eyes. Damn that woman. He was bloody jealous. The puppies were so unbelievably funny and dopey and helpless that he'd fallen head over heels in love before Christmas Day had ended. Having never spent any time in his life around domestic pets until he'd met Radagast, he was curious about the bonds between owner and familiar, but the love he felt for the puppies was more parental than he'd been expecting. Coming into this windfall of unconditional love so unexpectedly had knocked him a little sideways, but Draco suspected that was why Hermione had gotten him the puppies. He'd spent his whole life thinking of love as a thing one had to strive and seek to earn or coerce from others. Three months with Hermione and he was awash in a sea of love that he hadn't done anything to earn.
No, this wasn't some fantasy world they'd created. It was overwhelmingly, breath-takingly real. He and Hermione were utterly compatible in every way. And despite what he'd said to Michael and the others a few weeks ago, Draco didn't think he'd be able to wait much longer before he threw himself at Hermione's feet and begged her to marry him.
Draco growled in frustration at his own pitiful mental meanderings. Malfoy's did not beg. No, to secure the hand of Miss Granger, he would put some actual thought, effort, and creativity into his proposal, but he certainly wouldn't beg. He feared that his biggest obstacle would be Hermione's infinitely sensible brain. When it came down to it, Draco wasn't sure Hermione would be interested in actually marrying him, since it came with the unbelievably large burden of his infamous surname. Thus, Hermione's brain would need to be so over-stimulated that it would allow her heart to respond when he did ask her.
Piece of cake.
/…../
"Oh look, the dog star! We could name him Sirius! It would be a good homage, don't you think? Or what about Regulus or Arcturus?" Hermione nudged one of the still sleeping puppies that was passed out next to her in the bed so that she could make room for the book of constellations that she was perusing for names. It had been a few days since Christmas, and they hadn't been able to come up with any reasonable compromises for the puppies' names. Draco walked into the room from the kitchen, holding two mugs of hot tea. He handed one to her as he replied to her shouted commentary.
"No, we can't use Regulus, Arcturus or Sirius. No names that have already been used by my human family members, especially ones that we've actually met, Love."
"Well, how about Denebola for the girl?" Hermione asked as she dragged her fingers along the Leo constellation.
"You want to name her after the arse end of a lion? Come on my little Gryffindor, please give up the lion names."
Okay… Etamin and Grumium…"
"Absolutely not. No discussion."
"But Draco…"
"No way. Get out of my constellation and stay out."
Hermione's eyes flicked to the left of the Draco constellation to the delicate form of Lyra. A secret hope flared inside her, and she immediately tucked it deep inside her heart. She'd save the name Lyra for later. Just in case…
"These names are all just too much for dogs, Draco. I mean, honestly, we can't name her Vulpecula and him Hercules. Are you sure we can't just come up with regular names?" Hermione asked as she hopefully pushed a book of baby names that she'd borrowed from Winnie towards her boyfriend.
Draco shoved the baby name book to the side and flipped a page in the star chart book he'd been perusing before he'd gotten up to make tea.
"Look at Gemini, Love. How about Pollux and Castor?" he asked as he tapped the page to show Hermione.
"But those are both boy names. Look at Canis Minor. How about Gomeisa and Procyon?" she asked.
Draco wrinkled his nose. "Kind of a mouthful, but I suppose it is clever enough that we should leave them on the list of possibilities. You know, I'm not against planets. How about Jupiter and Venus? They were brother and sister."
"Hmm, what about the Greek aspect? Zeus and Aphrodite?"
Draco shook his head. "No, not those. They sound outrageously pretentious."
Hermione choked on her tea. Draco's eyebrow lifted in query, but she shook her head. When she'd finally gotten her breathing under control, she asked, "Since when is a Malfoy opposed to pretention?"
Draco rolled his eyes as he tucked his feet back under the comforter. It was bloody freezing this morning, and he had no intention of leaving the bed again until the sun was well up in the sky.
"Pretentiousness is for the nouveau riche, Little Girl. We can hardly be called that."
"Au contraire, Lord Malfoy. My net worth a year ago was approximately thirty-five thousand Pounds. Now that my net worth has increased by one thousand times, wouldn't that qualify me as such?"
"I could hardly qualify you as a vicious social climber when we live completely outside of society. Besides," Draco gestured towards the dogs, and then their room in general, "Granger-Malfoy dogs, Granger-Malfoy household. It all falls under the distinguished protection of my surname now, my dear, including yourself." He watched her carefully out of the corner of his eye as he said those last words, and his heart squeezed in nearly painful happiness when he saw Hermione flush bright pink as she bit her lip to keep a huge smile from overtaking her face. If he had a ring, he'd have turned to her right then and asked. But Draco didn't have a ring yet, so he let the moment pass.
Hermione collected her scattered mind, and carefully sat her tea mug on her bedside table. She shifted her legs under the blankets as she said, "Well, as long as Granger comes in first, and Malfoy is second, it sounds perfectly natural to me. Don't you agree?" She grinned wickedly at Draco as the puppies between them shifted and rolled onto their backs. The male snuffled against the female and sought out her ear to chew on, and the female rolled over and started gnawing on the male's foot.
Draco leaned in and kissed the top of Hermione's head, and said, "Cute, Granger, really. Hey, you want to see something else that's cute?" He shifted his foot under the blanket and nudged the female puppy, who immediately whipped her little head around and looked for her attacker. The moving bump under the blanket suddenly nudged her again, and just over one half-stone of tiny white hunter suddenly pounced. She bit and yipped at the moving bump under the blanket as her tail wagged furiously.
Suddenly the bump disappeared. She snuffled around, searching.
Draco chuckled and shifted so that his right hand slid under the blanket to make another bump for the puppy to attack. She saw the movement, and sprang straight up in the air to try to land on the bump. Draco and the female puppy tussled around with their little blanket game for a few minutes as Hermione pulled the lazy male into her lap for a cuddle and a belly tickle. She absently flipped through the pages of constellations until she came to a representation of the solar system. The sun sat in the center, bisected by its position in the center of the book, surrounded by its Roman-named planets and a variety of the larger star and constellation configurations.
Mercury, Venus, Mars. They just didn't seem like dog names! Cassiopeia, Orion, Pisces… No, no, no. Pluto? Ugh, no, Disney already ruined that one for the rest of the dog world.
"Oh, my little huntress, where did it go?" Draco teased the female as she prowled the bed.
Hermione froze. Huntress? Jupiter, Zeus… Her eyes landed on the Sun in the center of the open pages of her book. The Sun… and the Huntress.
"Artemis," she gasped in surprise. Draco lifted his head and looked at his girlfriend. Hermione was grinning from ear to ear.
"What did you say?" he asked.
Hermione pointed at Draco's bed buddy. "Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt. And her twin brother, Apollo, God of healing and music, Lord of the Sun. What do you think?"
But Hermione already knew what Draco would think, as the smug look on her face told him. Draco picked up the wiggling female and inspected her happy little doggy face. "Well," he began. The female wagged her tail and tried to lick his face. "Yuck! Hold still Artemis! Oh, you like that, do you?" Draco plopped the puppy into his lap and tickled her belly, and tried the name again. "So, Artemis is the name your adoptive, two-legged, Pseudo-Mother over there wants to saddle you with, little one. What do you think, Artemis? Is that your name? Artemis Malfoy?"
"Artemis Granger-Malfoy," came the voice of Artemis's adoptive, two-legged Pseudo-Mother.
Draco yelped as the newly named female suddenly bent like a pretzel and attacked his hand, clamping down it with her needle-sharp puppy teeth. "Ah, the mighty Huntress has finally caught her prey. Good show, Artemis Granger-Malfoy. All right now, let go of my hand. That bloody hurts."
Hermione giggled and shut the book so that she could shift the still sleeping male into a patch of sunlight that had finally made it through the morning clouds to land on the foot of their bed. "We might consider naming him Hypnos, but I do like the name Apollo. Apollo Granger-Malfoy, here's a bit of sunlight for you."
/…../
Draco and Renny spent the late afternoon of the day before New Year's Eve at the local Driver's licensing office so that Draco could get certified to legally drive a motorbike. Mission accomplished, they planned to meet up at the Library as soon as it closed in the afternoon on New Year's Eve. Renny's trailer would once again come in handy to Draco when they rode to the nearest Yamaha dealer to pick up the lovely and outrageously sexy black motorbike that he'd ordered a few weeks before. Draco wanted to drive the bike directly, but the weather had been too awful lately to even consider it. Just driving to work and back in Hermione's car was hair-raising with the ice slicking the streets. Renny was a far more experienced driver, and his old Rover was far more well-suited for towing than Hermione's Lexus anyway.
It was nearly closing time at the Library on New Year's Eve when Draco heard his name being called. He walked out of the break room, where he'd been making himself a cup of coffee, at the sound of Wanda's voice, expecting to see her with Renny. But instead he saw that she was talking to Bella, the strange little woman who always made him sneeze.
"Hello Bella- aaah!" Draco pinched his nose and squeezed his eyes shut as he clamped his teeth down on the sneeze that threatened. Once the feeling passed, he opened his watering eyes and smiled at the women before him.
"Oh, good afternoon Draco! When you told me the other day about your new little puppies I just knew I had to do something nice for the little darlings, to welcome them to your family, you see. So I just popped in to drop off some homemade puppy-biscuits. I make something similar for my kitties, you know, and they just love it."
The woman held out a little tin, and Draco popped it open cautiously and saw several dozen small discs of russet brown dog snacks.
Well. That was… odd. And thoughtful.
Draco's eyes watered, and he clapped his hand over his nose and mouth as he sneezed.
Then he sneezed again, and again. He accepted the handful of tissues from Wanda as he backed away from the women and tried to get his sneezing under control.
Wanda watched her assistant with concern when something suddenly dawned on her. "Oh dear, Draco, that sounds like an allergy attack. Aren't you allergic to cats?"
Bella's eyes widened in dismay as Draco nodded his head. "Oh, Draco I'm sorry I wasn't aware of that! I knew I should have picked a different coat to wear, as my Helga and Rowena had spent the morning lying on this one, but with the weather just so terrible outside… Oh bother. I'm so sorry!" She made to turn and go, but Draco held out his hands, wordlessly asking her to wait.
Wanda opened the small medical kit she kept under her information desk and handed Draco two allergy pills, which he gratefully popped and washed down with his coffee.
"Don't run off on account of my ridiculous cat allergy, at least not before I can thank you. And after all, Wanda and I have learned through painful experience to keep allergy medicine on hand." Draco smirked at his boss, who laughed at his joke.
"Yes indeed we have! You see Bella, I'm quite allergic to dogs, and Draco here has been making me sneeze like the dickens for the past few days. So we're quite prepared now." Wanda said happily as she patted the distraught woman's hand.
"Oh, I'm so glad! I mean, not that you're allergic to dogs, but that you have medicine for Draco – I mean – I'd hate to be the cause of making someone else sick!" Bella stammered in relief.
Draco took a large drink of his coffee, swallowed, blinked a few times, and felt his inflamed immune system quiet down. He nodded at Bella, who was really a very kind and gentle little thing. She was obviously alone, with no wedding band or mention of a husband at home. Draco estimated the woman to be roughly his Mother's age, or possibly a few years older. He wondered absently if she had any children that she missed, as that may explain the deliveries of baked goods that she regularly left with Draco and Wanda.
"Oh Draco, you must tell Bella the names you came up with for the puppies!" Wanda said.
He nodded and smiled. "Hermione came up with them, of course, but they're perfect. We've named them Artemis and Apollo."
"Oh that is darling! Artemis and Apollo, what perfect little names. And how is your Hermione? Are you two going out tonight for the New Year?" Bella asked kindly.
Draco nodded at her just as he saw Renny walk through the front doors. He lifted his chin in greeting to his friend as he responded to Bella's questioning. "Yes, Hermione is well. She's spent the past few days house-breaking the puppies and puppy-proofing the flat. I can't believe the amount of things a puppy is willing to chew on. Artemis ruined one of Hermione's new running shoes the other night, and Apollo, unfortunately, keeps trying to chew the corners off of our bookcases. But, my friend Renny here has graciously offered to pet-sit this evening. We're going out dancing somewhere in London tonight with a few of our friends. Hello, Ren." Draco shook the hand of his friend, who greeted him in return.
"Oi, Draco, ready to go pick up that bike?" Renny asked, then turned to greet the two ladies that Draco had been conversing with. "Hello Ms. Wanda, and he-" Renny stuttered, and choked, then cleared his throat as he held his hand out to the small woman standing next to his young friend.
Draco and Wanda watched with wide, incredulous, and amused eyes as Renny's cheeks flushed a dull red as he shook the hand of a pink and blushing Bella.
"Hullo, Madam. Mordecai Renton, at your service," Renny said politely.
Wanda elbowed Draco, and, realizing what was necessary, Draco hurriedly piped up. "Bella, this is Renny, a good friend of mine. He and Hermione play in the same band with our church. Renny, this is a patron of our Library, Ms. Bella – Oh, Bella, I'm sorry. I don't actually know your last name!" Draco said awkwardly.
"Oh, that's all right Draco," Bella whispered. Wanda elbowed Draco again, and he elbowed her in return as they watched Bella gaze dreamily up at Renny as she continued to shake his hand. "Hullo, Mordecai Renton, I'm pleased to meet you. I'm Arabella Figg."
/…../
Hermione, Sue and Lindy had devoted an entire morning several days before Christmas to shopping for the perfect dancing dresses for their big New Year's Eve out in London with their men. Hermione was delighted by the emerald green, beaded 1920's era flapper dress that she'd found at the shop on the high street in town, and had spent a large part of the afternoon on New Year's Eve sculpting perfect waves into the length of her hair to compliment her vintage look. By the time Draco made it home from the Library and bike retrieval expedition, she'd gotten herself party-ready, gotten the flat cleaned up after a day of puppy-play, and packed a bag of the puppies' accoutrements for an overnight stay at Renny's.
Hermione was dancing in the living room to a loud and lively Pete Yorn song as the puppies yipped and wagged their tails while they bounced around her feet when Draco walked in the front door. She waved merrily at him, and was surprised when he grinned widely and swooped over to pull her into his arms, then swung her in a circle around the room. Hermione laughed as he spun her in his arms, and gladly followed his lead as Draco danced with her.
"What's got you so happy, Mr. Malfoy? New motorbike?" Hermione asked as he twirled her around to the beat of the song. She was further surprised when he shook his head in the negative.
"Nope. I did something today that I've never done before. Sue would be so proud of me. You look smashing, by the way," Draco said with a grin.
"Why thank you, Mr. Malfoy. I thought you might appreciate the color. So what is it that you did today that would have Sue so proud of you?"
"I do indeed like the color of your dress, Ms. Granger, and I eagerly look forward to the opportunity to remove it with my teeth later this evening. In answer to your question, this afternoon I played matchmaker for Renny. That's actually why we didn't go pick up the bike, I made an excuse about the bad weather so he'd have more time to visit."
"No! Oh my goodness, that's so funny! Who did you introduce him to?" Hermione asked in surprise as Draco dipped her backwards, then pulled her back up into his arms.
"That funny little woman that brings us cookies at the Library. Ms. Arabella Figg."
Hermione's feet stumbled as she mentally stuttered over the familiar name. She gaped in shock at Draco. "What did you say?" she asked.
"What? You mean the bit about the odd woman that brings cookies? She's a perfectly nice little thing, a bit funny, but harmless. You should have seen Renny though, he barely even noticed Wanda and I when we left him outside the Library. I think he was trying to ask Bella to the coffee shop next door, but I couldn't be sure over all of the blushing and stuttering," Draco mused happily as he pulled Hermione back into the rhythm of the song.
"That's all well and good Draco, but what did you say her name was?" Hermione asked.
"Oh, Bella. Arabella Figg," he replied, then watched in confusion as Hermione's face scrunched up and then broke apart as she burst into loud laughter.
"Oh my Gosh, Draco! Do you know who Arabella Figg is?!" Hermione crowed.
Draco shook his head. "No, but I presume by your reaction that you do."
"She's… oh my gosh this is so crazy! She's a squib, Draco! She's Harry's old neighbor, and she's a member of the Order! You just set Renny up with a tattoo-bearing, twenty-five year veteran member of the Order of the Phoenix!"
To Be Continued.
Author's Note: Draco and Hermione are dancing to the tune of Pete Yorn's Life on a Chain from the 2001 album: Musicforthemorningafter. Great Dramione song within this tale, and definitely a huge part of my playlist as I write for you all.
P.S. How are we doing? My reviews have been tapering off, so I'm not sure. Are you all just content to read along blissfully, and have nothing to say either way, or is it just blah, or…? I know that some of you have had worries about all the 'happy-ever-after' B.S. that Draco and Hermione have been rolling around in, but I assure you, that was just the honeymoon phase. I needed to get their relationship well and solidified before I started throwing curve-balls at them – because in the end, this isn't going to be an angsty story – it's a happy story where our two heroes work together against the odds that will inevitably start to stack up against them. Again, I wanted this story to reflect the two living as regular people, not like over-egotized super-neurotic CHARACTERS. Does that make any sense?
In my mind, it does! So thus, I continue to write. But seriously, do tell me how I'm doing. I find it disconcerting to see that thousands of people are reading it, but no one is saying anything.
Acro