"What's wrong?" Even Ron notices Harry's disheveled, unraveled state. He is a textbook beta, unobservant, uninterested, and most importantly unmotivated.
Hermione is the opposite. She makes up for her husband's lack of ambition by trying twice as hard at everything. She notices everything. "You found her?" She recognizes that look on Harry's face. It's the same dumb look Ron had when he proposed to her.
"What?" Ron sits up straight, abandoning his appetizer, for the moment at least. "Found who?"
"My mate," Harry answers, nervous. "It's Malfoy."
"Jesus," Hermoine abandons her inner Catholic and says the Lord's name in vain.
"Yeah." Harry winces as Ron starts cackling.
"What's so funny?" Hermione gives her husband a withering look.
"It's Malfoy." Ron grabs his fork again. "Fuck him." He laughs some more. "I hope he dies slowly and painfully."
"I am marrying him." Harry rips the bandaid off.
Hermione doesn't look surprised at all. She knows Harry too well at this point. He is far too kind-hearted to let someone die over an alpha-omega bond. Even if it is sodding Malfoy.
"Wait," Ron's features contort into an expression of disgust. "You are marrying him? As in bonding with him?"
"Ron," Harry understands the look of hate and confusion. He gave himself that same look in the mirror this morning. "Please…" He may not have cleared his exams yet but he is a surgeon even if a student, and he planned for this catastrophic meeting with a precise speech, one which Ron doesn't let him deliver.
"He treated us like shit." Ron is so angry, his face is red, and he seems a little lost for words. "He tortured us, he is fucking evil. This is your chance to get back at him."
"He is an omega." Harry's speech is forgotten. He has never seen Ron this angry before, not at him at least. "He will die, and I will be in chronic pain. At least this way we can both live."
"What about my sister?" Ron whispers. "You proposed to her. You bastard!" He stands up, livid. "You got one chance to join the fucking elite and you took it didn't you? Marrying the rich, you made it Harry, congratulations."
"I am so sorry for him," Hermione starts to apologize after Ron storms out but Harry holds up a hand.
"He is right," Harry removes his glasses, his face red with embarrassment, and blotchy with tears. The restaurant patrons stare at him curiously, his alpha pride begging him to go after Ron and pick a fight because he has been disrespected damn it. "Not about the wanting to be rich part, but he is right about the rest of it. Malfoy was horrible to us."
"Still doesn't deserve to die," Hermione says without hesitation.
"No," Harry winces when he realizes he actually has to live with Draco, spend his life with him, sleep with him. "How am I going to do this?" He asks Hermione, who gives him a sympathetic look. She is so kind and understanding. Harry is convinced she is a reincarnation of his mother. Remus gave him actual maternal love, however, Hermione is the closest he is ever going to get to his mother's likeness, may God rest her soul. "Why couldn't it be someone nicer, my actual soul mate? My parents found each other. Sirius and Remus found each other. Why did I have to get Draco Malfoy?"
"I am not going to give you a fate or kismet speech," Hermione pushes her food around, "You are too smart for that shit."
Hermione is swearing. It truly is the end of time.
"If I was smart, I wouldn't be doing this." Harry feels tears coming on again. All the alphas in the room can smell his weakness and look at him with unabashed, interested attention.
"You are smart." Hermione reaffirms. "You know you cannot live with the guilt should something happen to your mate."
"Don't call him my mate." Harry takes his head in his hands. Draco will always be the menace who made Harry's life hell, personally, and as a teaching assistant. Hopefully, the years have tamed Draco a little. Harry knows he has been humbled by life, maybe life managed to break the barriers of Malfoy Manor and taught Draco that there is more to life than being pretty and rich.
"And you don't want to live in intense pain forever," Hermione pulls Ron's abandoned plate toward herself. "I mean, how are you supposed to pursue surgery with a broken bond, Harry. The surgical profession requires intense concentration. You cannot accomplish that with a defeated body and mind."
Harry looks up at her. She is right. He followed in his late father's footsteps and decided to enter the noble field of medicine. He cannot pursue such a difficult profession with a broken bond and a dead mate. He wouldn't wish that on anyone.
"That's better," Hermione would prefer that Harry smile but he is wiping his tears, and composing himself. "It's not all bad, maybe he is good in bed."
"Mione!" Harry chokes on his own spit. "Language."
"What?" Hermione giggles a little. "He had sex with every girl on campus."
"And then some." Harry knows what Draco was capable of back in the day. It's what drew him to Ginny, besides Hermione, she was the only girl who didn't fall for Draco's pretty face. In retrospect, Harry should have known Malfoy was an omega, even before he presented. No beta or alpha is that pretty.
"Do you think he slept with all the alphas?" Hermione passes Harry some water when he continues to choke.
"Not this alpha," Harry doesn't like the idea of his mate sleeping with dominants, something he wouldn't have given a fuck about just a week ago but now he knows Draco is his, and... He doesn't delve into those thoughts too much for his own sanity. He tries to hide his jealousy but Hermione is intellectually his superior and sees right through his feigned neutral expression.
"I bet he looks good on his back." Hermione shrugs, smirking when Harry has another coughing fit. The stares have only magnified. Harry's face burns with humiliation. "What?" Hermione says, unashamed. Draco is intensely pretty, and Harry will be lucky enough to see what that face looks like when Draco is orgasming or giving oral pleasure.
Hermione is almost jealous of Harry. Every beta has inherent jealousy when it comes to alphas because they get to own, possess, and mate with omegas, the most desirable gender. Even when omegas agree to date betas before they settle down with an alpha, they cannot submit to betas the way they give themselves to alphas.
Draco hit on her back in the day, before he presented. She rejected him, being engaged to Ron. She didn't want to be a notch on that notorious Malfoy bedpost, but she often wondered what it would be like, to have that steely gray gaze focused on her. Now she wonders what it would be like to dominate him. The thought of Harry dominating Draco is even more alluring and she will be thinking about that mental image forever.
"His looks have nothing to do with anything." Harry shakes his head at his best friend's audacity. He will never admit it out loud but Draco's hideous personality doesn't take away from his physical beauty, and that will probably making mating with him easier, physically at least. The mental part is going to be torture. Malfoy can be a git.
"Look," Hermione says after getting Ron's food to go. "Marriage is about compromise, Harry. Whether it is our beta mess or your alpha omega mess and whatever it is you people do to each other."
She is a genius and knows everything about alpha omega mating from an academic point of view, but some things are hidden, and known only to bonded pairs. She is looking forward to hearing some intimate details about the dominant-submissive unions from her best friend, should he decide to share that information with her. Harry and Hermione are brother and sister, but Draco is now to be Harry's most precious possession, something beyond the platonic intimacy which she enjoyed with Harry. She fears she may just lose her best friend to this insanity.
Harry is unaware of Hermione's fears and nods, knowing she understands marriage better than him. "I know, Mione."
"Ron is my everything, but God knows it's a compromise, and now you must too," Hermione advises Harry.
"I will." Harry wipes his glasses with his napkin before he puts them on again. "Will you talk to Ron?"
"No," Hermione scoffs sarcastically, "He will come to the rational conclusion all by himself because that's what he is known for, being rational."
"Thanks, Mione," Harry takes her hand and kisses it, forever grateful for her unwavering support.