Edited 10/13/15

The Just World Fallacy

[The cognitive bias that a person's actions always bring morally fair and fitting consequences to that person, so that all noble actions are eventually rewarded and all evil actions are eventually punished.]

Omake: I'll Make It Better

If you were falling, then I would catch you

You need a light, I'd find a match

'Cause I love the way you say good morning

And you take me the way I am

'Cause I love you more than I could ever promise

And you take me the way I am

[The Way I Am, Ingrid Michaelson]

We begin, with an ending…

They spend two weeks in a tiny, dark, dank cell being given food and water through a slot at the bottom of the iron door once a day. No one comes to speak to them, although sometimes they can hear Death Eaters talking in muffled, worried voices in the hallway, through the tiny barred window at the top of the door. They wait on tenterhooks, expecting any minute for Death Eaters to come bursting in and drag one of them away for interrogation.

Hermione is constantly scared, and Draco has to force her to eat, because between the pain from her wounds and the fear, she has no appetite. The third week, she is glad he convinced her to eat, because the food and water just…stops coming.

At first they are convinced it is just a tactic, to try to get them to break, and they refuse to give the Death Eaters the satisfaction. They collect the water of the dank walls, taking to licking the walls like dogs to get the moisture, but in the end, they break. Finally, they scream in weak, cracked voices for someone to come, to please bring them water, food, anything, please; but the hallway outside their cell stands silent and empty, and no one comes.

They are listless and close to death, curled up together in a huddle of pain when they hear a door slam, which rouses them from their stupor. Footsteps, and shouts approach, and they listen silently, too dehydrated to cry out, and too frightened this approach means their torture or death, anyway, Draco's arms wrap around Hermione as if he can protect her, and her face buries against his chest.

And then Harry's voice rings out through their cell door and everything changes. It's over; he tells them in a high, excited voice once they've been disapparated to St Mungo's for treatment. It's over - Voldemort is dead, and the war is over. Hermione spends three days crying, and she doesn't know why, and Draco is strangely grief-stricken and silent for just as long when he finds out his father died in the final battle.

They don't even get a chance to enjoy peacetime before Draco is charged as a Death Eater, and goes on trial for war crimes. He is carted off to Azkaban while he awaits trial, and Hermione spends weeks crying herself to sleep in the cellar in his old bed, while Harry and Ginny - who have stayed on in the Godric's Hollow house - watch over her with quiet concern.

And then they came up before the Wizengamot, Hermione standing by Draco's side, the senior Order members at their backs, and the judgement is made. What is left of the Malfoy family fortune is taken from Draco and his mother - to be put to use to restore the damages of war. He is banned from using magic for the next six months, except for whilst under Ministry supervision, and a trace is placed upon him, and he is sentenced to five years community service. Hermione is overjoyed, and he is quietly stunned by the outcome. She tells him there is no way he can get out of marrying her now, and for once he has nothing snarky to say to that.

They are married three months after the end of the war. Hermione has Harry and Ginny as her witnesses. She would have had Harry and Ron, but Draco asks Ron first, and has him and Pansy as his witnesses, and no one is more stunned by that than Hermione. It is hard, to try to find some new form of normal, when everything is new and different.

They accept Harry and Ginny's offer to take over the Godric's Hollow cellar while they finish their NEWTS, apparating to Hogsmeade each day and walking up to Hogwarts together, with the other students their age who had wanted to complete their studies. It is awkward, and Draco is not welcomed, but they find it surprisingly easy to ignore the childish taunts and pranks. It is nothing compared to what they went through in the war.

When they graduate, Professor McGonagall tells Draco that Professor Slughorn is retiring - he is confused as to why she would inform him of this, until she tells him that she is offering him the job. Hermione makes him accept. Minerva, as she says they must call her now, also offers Hermione the job of Muggle Studies teacher - she says she knows no one better suited to the job, and with a smirk Draco says he is inclined to agree, and Hermione doesn't know whether that is a compliment or not.

So they live at the school, and spend their days teaching, and Draco spends his evenings working off his community service by repairing the damage done to the school during the final battle, and his nights marking papers.

They spend very little time together as a result of his busyness, which is why it is such a surprise when Hermione finds out she is pregnant. She is immediately ecstatic and reading every book on the topics of pregnancy, childbirth, and childrearing that she can get her hands on, and Draco is, by turns, terrified, reluctant, excited and smug.

As her belly blooms bigger and bigger, the smugness takes over nearly completely, as if he enjoys everyone seeing physical evidence that he screws the living daylights out of her. The primitiveness of that reaction amuses her, and the way he rests his cheek against her belly at night and whispers to their child makes her heart melt. She takes maternity leave at eight months, and enjoys irritating the hell out of Draco by lounging around and complaining of boredom, until he sets her to work marking the potions papers for him.

They have a daughter, who arrives promptly on her due date, and everyone says she looks like Hermione, although she has her father's eyes. They name her Cassiopeia June Granger-Malfoy, because Draco insists on carrying on his family tradition of star-related names, because his mother would like it, and Hermione insists she needs an ordinary name too, and as she was born in June, June it is. They all end up calling her Pea, thanks to Ron's coining of the nickname when she was six days old, so in the end it doesn't matter what they named her anyway.

Not long after Pea is born, they move out of Hogwarts, buying a small slightly rundown cottage on the outskirts of Hogsmeade, and Draco discovers exactly how much he hates house maintenance; with a passion. He gets in Harry and Ron to help him fix it up, and Hermione thinks they end up spending more time sitting on the roof drinking beer and talking shit than actually fixing things.

When Pea is two, Hermione gets a job at the Ministry, under Arthur Weasley, and works there happily for three years until she gets pregnant again, at the same time as Ginny, and Cho. They had all attended the same memorial service on the anniversary of the war and gotten proper drunk at an informal party at the Longbottoms' house afterwards, before all going to their separate homes to…well.

So it isn't exactly a surprise so many people got pregnant. This time around, Draco goes straight into smug mode, and stays that way Hermione's entire pregnancy. Scorpius John Granger-Malfoy is born two days before Albus Severus Potter, and nine days before Hugo Jun Weasley, and Hermione calls for an end to the 'baby' part of their baby-making activities, and Draco agrees with a sigh of relief; two children are enough for both of them.

The years go by, and eventually Draco takes over as Head of Slytherin house, and Hermione shifts around in the Ministry until she ends up in the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, in charge of the entire Muggle Liaison Office. Pea decides she wants to be called Cassie the year that she goes off to Hogwarts with James Sirius Potter, and Rose Xiang Weasley, and Scorpius is extremely jealous of his older sister. But he joins her there eventually, although Cassie is sorted into Slytherin - much to her mother's surprise and her father's delight - and Scorpius into Ravenclaw. Draco and Hermione have more time to just the two of them once the children are both at Hogwarts, and they enjoy it. They go on vacations with the Potters and Weasleys in the school holidays, and they spend long evening arguing with each other, and long nights in bed making up.

In Cassie's fifth year, Professor Longbottom catches her and James going at it in an empty classroom, and when they are called into the school and informed Hermione and Harry are apoplectic, Ginny goes as red as her hair, and Draco doesn't stop laughing hysterically until Hermione throws Neville's inkwell at him.

It's even more awkward when the year after they've graduated from Hogwarts, Scorpius and Hugo admit to their parents that they are in love. Draco is stunned into uncharacteristic speechlessness and Hermione is supportive, and later on in the privacy of their bedroom it is Hermione who can't stop laughing this time, at Draco's shock, until Draco swallows her laughter with his mouth and then shags her 'til she screams instead.

Eventually Draco's hair starts to thin a bit, although he denies it vigorously, and Hermione gets thicker around the waist, although Draco wisely denies that vigorously too. They have their fair share of ups and downs, and life is always changing, and nothing is ever constant, not even their happiness, but they always get through the hard times, and relish the good, and they are together, and that's what counts, in the end.

One afternoon, when the Potters and Weasleys are visiting, along with James and Cassie - who is pregnant with their first child - Hermione finds herself staring into the bubbles frothed up in the kitchen sink as she does the dishes. She has the strangest feeling that something is wrong, and she can't seem to shake it off - she thinks perhaps she drank too much wine at lunch, because everything seems a little off-kilter.

When Harry wanders into the kitchen to get fresh beers for him, Draco, and Ron, he notices her standing there like a statue, and she tells him vaguely that she can't get rid of the feeling that something is wrong.

All is well, Harry tells her, with a lopsided smile and a quick, squeezing hug about her shoulders, and Hermione stares out the kitchen window at Draco, sitting in the garden with Ron and all the others, smirking at something Ron had said, and she believes Harry.

All is well.