Apologies for the delay, my lovelies! No. I'm not calling you that. It's been done too many times. How about I call you my Dramio-lovelies? Ah well. I'll think of a better title later. Again, apologies for the delay in writing. Cousins are visiting... Yuck. Anyway. They're leaving tomorrow, so hopefully a new chapter soon! P.S. Don't own anything Harry Potter. Just throwin' that out there.

It was half past seven o'clock in the morning and for the first time in history, Draco was actually happy before the sun rose. Normally, he stayed in until late on the weekends and hated getting up early for his job, despite how much he loved it. But today was special. Today Draco was happy. Today he had something that made the world perfect.

Today, he had waffles.

And Hermione Granger.

Waffles made, topped with whipped cream and strawberries (his favorite), he grabbed a cup of coffee and sat down at the kitchen table. The table was higher than average, but Draco liked it because his feet just barely touched the floor from the high chair, making him feel like a little kid again.

His mother's favorite house elf, Winkle, used to make them just like this, but his mother always put extra strawberries on top for him. He smiled at the memory and dug in, his lips curving further upward with every mouthful he consumed. And then he heard footsteps.

Coming down the stairs and walking into the other room. Draco stopped eating and turned around slowly, not bothering to remove the fork from his mouth.

As if in a daze, Hermione shuffled into the kitchen, rubbed her eyes. Draco relaxed a little, remembering that she had spent the night with him. Her hair was messed up from the wind last night and on top of that, she had been tossing and turning a lot before he covered her.

Hermione vaguely remembered her recurring dream of Bellatrix carving "mudblood" into her arm, but in her dreams, when she did it, she bit Hermione's arm off. She cackled when she saw what she had done to the "disgusting little wizard filth!" and all the Malfoy's laughed behind her.

But last night was different. When Draco and Lucius were about to summon Harry to finish the job under a Cruciatus influence of the Dark Lord, she woke up to a strong arm being wrapped around her.

She opened her eyes and turned over to face Draco, who had unknowingly comforted and stopped her writhing in her sleep.

She was stunned. She rolled back over and just lay there, wide-eyed, for a moment. And then closed her eyes again. She just breathed in his scent and, careful not to wake him, caressed his arm gently.

He was warm and smelled like petrichor. She smiled as she remembered her and her dad dancing around in the rain.

"Do you like being spun around, 'Mione?"

"Aaaah! Yes, daddy!" she giggled as he spun her around in the air, raindrops falling down her face.

"You know what this is called, 'Mione?"

"What?" she giggled as he rested her on his hip. She threw her arms around his neck and giggled, as they were both wet from the rain.

"The smell of dust after rain," he looked up at her with a face that said, "I know something you don't!"

She stared blankly back at him. "No. What's it called!"

He picked her back up and swung her around one more time before putting her down and whispering in her ear.

"Petrichor"

Draco fidgeted slightly beside her. His grip around her waist tightened just enough to make Hermione sigh with pleasure. She snuggled further into his grasp and fell back into a peaceful sleep.

But now here she stood, some eight hours later, and she still flinched slightly when she saw him, despite his goofy, utterly un-Malfoy-esque demeanor.

She stifled a laugh as he turned around with wide grey eyes and a fork hanging out of his mouth. His lips were lightly coated with a whipped cream lip-gloss, and a smear of red from the strawberries.

She saw him relax and he turned back around and pulled the fork out of his mouth, licking his lips, and standing up to greet her with a ridiculously un-Malfoy grin on his face. She smiled faintly in return.

"Good Morning, Sunshine." Draco walked up to her and brushed her messy hair out of her face to kiss her cheek gently. She smiled and wiped her cheek where he had kissed her. Draco took a step back, slightly offended, before Hermione returned his kiss and whispered, "Whipped cream, love," in his ear.

Hermione took a step back and pushed a lock of tangled hair behind her ear as Draco grinned stupidly at her, and blushed, just enough to add a little bit of color to his complexion, which Hermione had no problem telling him a little bit later, to which her responded in blushing even more.

He walked back over to the table to finish his waffles and Hermione got a cup of coffee, filled with vanilla creamer. She then proceeded to take the seat next to him and stole one of his whipped cream-covered strawberries. Draco protested with a muffled cry and a puppy-dog face, which was literally all he could manage with a mouth full of waffle.

Hermione giggled at this sight. It was the most adorable thing Draco had ever heard. It was faint, like the tinkling of bells only sweeter. Like sprinkles. Draco loved sprinkles. It sounded like when you dropped them on the table after decorating cookies. James loved decorating cookies with him.

Every Christmas eve, Draco would go over to the Burrow with Harry, Ginny, Albus, and James. They did everything Draco never got as a child. They decorated the tree and cookies, Arthur read "The Night Before Christmas", a muggle fairy tale about Christmas, Fred and Bill would play jokes on Ron and Fleur, and once, they even went caroling... Terribly.

It was Draco's favorite holiday, because it made him feel like he still had a family. Lucius died during the war, and Narcissa, utterly devastated with the betrayal of her only son going back to the good side, and the death of her beloved husband, disappeared from the wizarding world, and no one has seen her since.

Draco was reminded of this every holiday he ever celebrated; Christmas, Easter, thanksgiving, his birthday, etc. He was reminded that he no longer had a biological family, but Harry and Ginny gladly took over that role. But Draco had yet to tell this to Hermione.

Every time there was a holiday, Hermione and Ginny would, on the day before, have there own little girls day, and then Hermione would lock herself up in the house when Ron came to visit the Burrow. He never stayed long, though, so as he could get back to his distraught wife who always cried on holidays, remembering her parents who had died in the aftermath of the second Wizarding War.

They were both sort of dreading the upcoming holidays. Hermione because it would mean facing Ron, or at least Ginny, and Draco because he knew that if he spent time at the Burrow with Harry and the Weasley's, he would run the risk of an angry Ron ambushing him.

This thought crossing his mind, Draco broke their comfortable silence. "Hey, Granger?"

Hermione sighed. "Draco, won't you please call me Hermione?"

Draco smiled, filling his mouth with another forkful of waffle. "Well, then, Hermione," he liked the way her name felt on his lips.

"Does your husband know you're here?"

Hermione swallowed hard. "Not... Necessarily. Why?"

Draco shook his head and smiled. "Well, you know. Seeing how it's now late November and normally, I spend Thanksgiving with the Weasels.. I was wondering if your Weasel hubby knew you would be joining me instead."

Hermione froze. "Draco was a friend of the Weasley's? Wait... Does he spend all holidays with them? Why had Ron never told me this before?"

As if reading her thoughts, Draco responded. "Ron never said anything about me because... I asked him not to." Draco smiled meekly and winced, waiting for Hermione to slap him, but she simply sat there and gawked at him.

She couldn't believe it. All this time, every single goddamn year, at every goddamn holiday Ron went over there to wish them a happy one and he never once mentioned Malfoy. So what if he had said not to, she was his wife!

She was his wife. She was married. Married to Ron. Married to Ron who had cheated on her, and so she had spent the night with Draco Malfoy. In his flat, in his bed.

Hermione finally pieced everything together.

Ron had lied.

Lied about a number of things. Lied abut being faithful to her by cheating on her with Pansy, lied about everything being normal at the Burrow, because Hermione certainly didn't think Draco Malfoy becoming a family friend was normal.

And he had lied to her. To his wife. To her, Hermione Granger, Ronald Weasley's wife. "Thank Merlin I didn't change my name..." she thought to herself, suddenly realizing that Draco was staring at her with a worried expression on his face.

She had begun to cry.

He had no idea what to do.

Draco had never really been good at consoling women, but with Hermione, he felt like he should be the one helping her. He should be the one helping her with her parents' death, the one helping her with the upcoming holiday stress, the one helping her with Ron...

And then he remembered Ron. He remembered the freckled, arrogant, red-headed boy from his own year who had grown up to marry the woman standing in his kitchen who was wearing one of his larger T-shirts, and pajama pants with polar bears on them. He smiled at the thought of what she would look like without the polar bear pants...

And immediately shook the idea away when the tears started flowing. He had been studying her expression, which had been blank and then loving, then slowly started to fall to utterly distraught. And then the tears. They streamed down her face like there was no tomorrow.

And Hermione lost it. She fell, well, more like crumpled, onto the table and just started sobbing. Draco, startled by this, leapt out of his chair, causing Hermione to look up and whimper slightly.

Draco walked over to her and put his arm around her. He squeezed her to his chest and Hermione gratefully leaned into it. They sat there like that for what seemed like ages as Hermione cried her troubles away into Draco's nice white shirt.

That he was wearing for work. Which he had to get to in an hour.

This sudden realization hitting him, he swayed Hermione off his body and was backing away slowly when Hermione tugged at his shirt.

She had grabbed a handful of it, and was looking up at him with wet, pleading eyes. He understood that she didn't want him to leave, but he gently took her hand in his, removing its grasp on his shirt, and kissed it before helping her up to look at him eye-to-eye.

"I have to leave soon." Draco murmured softly to Hermione, resting his forehead on hers. That was apparently the wrong thing to say.

She crashed into him and buried her face in his shirt, which was damp from her tears. "Don't go. Please, take me with you...," Hermione looked up at him with desperation in he eyes. So Draco reluctantly agreed, and once she was clothed with the proper attire of his job, they drove to Diagon Alley, Hermione, silently baffled by Draco's amazing handle on his car.

"Welcome to my shop!" Draco exclaimed, dramatically flinging the door open to a small, ancient-looking shop, filled with pots and kettles and strange wizard trinkets, as well as some old furniture.

Hermione began to laugh. Draco Malfoy, the Draco Malfoy, the Draco Malfoy that had so mercilessly teased her at Hogwarts, was now the proud owner of a pawnshop for wizards.

And Hermione thought it was downright hilarious that this is what he had become. But he didn't care that she laughed. Everybody did. But this is what he loves most. And she sounded like sprinkles. And he loved sprinkles.

I'm tempted to rename this Fic "Sprinkles" but I wany all of your opinions on it first! Message me or review with your opinion. I'd love to hear!

Love,

The Guitar Girl