With the Weasley drama that had accompanied Daniel and Victoire's engagement, Draco had forgotten all about his trip to Grimmauld Place with Daniel. It wasn't until a couple of weeks later while Draco and Hermione were having lunch in his office and talking about Daniel's upcoming marriage that he recalled their sons idea of looking for a family home for himself and Victoire, and mentioned it to his wife.
"He seriously thought about Grimmauld Place?" Hermione questioned with a slight frown.
"I think he rather liked the idea of having a connection with his father," Draco admitted. "Although he did make it clear he would be keeping the penthouse father gave him. I think he was thinking about using it for an escape for him and Vic when they needed a break from the kids."
"Kids?" Hermione gasped in surprise. "Is there something Daniel hasn't told me?"
"No, I think he's just planning for the future," Draco chuckled. "You do tend to think about children when you propose to a witch."
"Did you?" Hermione asked, tilting her head to the side and looking at her husband. "Surely it was different for you as I already had Daniel, and you were his Dad from day one."
"I guess it was different as we were already a family," Draco conceded. "But I did think about our future, and other children we might have. So it's perfectly understandable that Daniel is looking to the future."
"It is, I just hope he's not thinking of the immediate future. I'm too young to be a grandmother," Hermione joked, even though she knew that when the time came she would be overjoyed when any of her children had children of their own.
"I second that," Draco said with a mock shudder. "I am far too young and handsome to be called grandpa."
"Weren't you planning your retirement only a few weeks ago," Hermione laughed.
"I was obviously talking about early retirement," Draco said with a slight tut. "It's going to be a hell of a long time before I'm too old to work, and I don't intend to wait that long before I retire. I plan on us enjoying our retirement, and for the sort of enjoyment I have in mind, we need to still be young and virile."
"If your father is anything to go by, you don't need to worry about losing your youth," Hermione said. "He's got the energy and vibrancy of a man half his age."
"Let's hope that runs in the family, then," Draco chuckled.
"I'm sure it will," Hermione assured her husband. He and Lucius were alike in so many ways, so she had every faith that her husband would age as well as his father. "But enough about your mid-life crisis, we were talking about Daniel. What did he decide when he saw Grimmauld Place?"
"He decided to wait until after the wedding to make any decisions," Draco answered. "But I was wondering if we could do something. He brushed it off as though it was no big deal, but I could see how much it would mean to him to be living in a home he'd inherited from his father."
"You mean you want us to sort Grimmauld Place for him?" Hermione asked with a low whistle. "That's a hell of a job," she said when her husband confirmed it was exactly what he was thinking. "Even when we used it as headquarters during the war, it was never in tip top condition. And it's had another twenty odd years of neglect on top of that."
"It's not going to be easy, but I'm sure we can manage," Draco said, confident that they could make a better job of cleaning up Grimmauld Place than Molly Weasley had done. "And we can always rope in the troops. If we ask everyone who loves Daniel and Victoire to help, we might well get the place finished for when they return from honeymoon."
"I suppose that will depend on how soon they decide to get married," Hermione mused. "But I can certainly rally the troops. I'm sure your parents would help, as would Bill and Fleur. And I wonder if Neville could do something with the back yard as it was always a barren place."
"If anyone can bring some life to a dull garden it's Neville," Draco agreed.
"I'm having lunch with Fleur later in the week, so I'll ask her about helping," Hermione said. "And we might also be able to get a wedding date soon as well, so we'll know if we can do this as a wedding present, or if it's going to be later. Fleur's being helping Victoire find some wedding venue's, and I think they've got a few appointments to view a couple of them."
"Do they know what sort of place they're looking for?" Draco asked. When he'd last spoken to Daniel about the wedding, he didn't seem to know what sort of venue he and Victoire would be looking at as they hadn't decided what sort of wedding they wanted.
"They didn't the last time I spoke to Daniel," Hermione said. "I think looking at some different venues might help them make some decisions. But I'm sure we'll find out once they make any decision."
"I'm sure we will," Draco agreed, knowing that their son would keep them fully up to date with the wedding plans. And in the meantime, he and Hermione could focus on rallying their family and friends to hopefully deliver a memorable wedding present in the form of a habitable Grimmauld Place.
A few days after her lunch with Draco, Hermione was having lunch with Fleur, Narcissa and Victoire. Narcissa and Victoire were late additions to the lunch date, but they were very welcome and unsurprisingly most of the talk revolved around Victoire's upcoming wedding. It turned out that no decisions had been made on what sort of wedding she and Daniel wanted, but they had appointments to look at a couple of wedding venues. In fact, the one they liked the look of the most was a large hotel in the country, and Victoire asked Hermione if she and Draco wanted to accompany them to the viewing along with Bill and Fleur on Sunday.
"If we liked it, I was thinking we could grab some lunch as well," Victoire said. "We might as well check out some of what they have to offer."
"It sounds good to me, and I'm sure Draco wouldn't say no," Hermione said.
"He certainly won't say no if dessert is on offer," Narcissa remarked. "How he stays so slender with that sweet tooth of his is a miracle."
"He gets plenty of exercise to burn off all those calories," Hermione said with a wicked smirk.
"Pleasurable exercise, I hope," Fleur purred with a laugh.
"Very," Hermione confirmed.
"If you're viewing a wedding venue on Sunday, Lucius and I would be delighted to have Scorpius and Lyra for lunch," Narcissa said to her daughter-in-law, swiftly changing the topic away from her son's sex life. Narcissa was no prude, but she didn't want to dwell on Draco and Hermione's love life over lunch. "Loius and Dominique could even join us," she said, smiling at Fleur. "I'm sure they'd all have a grand time at the manor."
"That's very kind of you, Narcissa," Fleur replied. "I'll have to ask them, but I'm sure they'd be delighted to visit the manor. And of course, they always love to spend time with Scorpius and Lyra."
With arrangements provisionally made for Sunday, Victoire had to get back to work, and she left the older witches to enjoy another drink together. Once she was gone, Hermione told Narcissa and Fleur about Grimmauld Place, and she produced they key to the house, which she had picked up from Gringotts that morning as even though the Potter vault belonged to Daniel, he'd made it clear that Hermione still had access as he believed it was what Harry would want.
"If it's what Daniel wants, let's go and check it out," Narcissa decided.
"I'm warning you, it might not be doable," Hermione cautioned. "The house was in a state twenty years ago, and according to Draco it's far worse now. It might be too much for us to handle."
"I very much doubt that," Narcissa scoffed. "We've all faced challenges on our life, and I doubt one house is going to prove too much for us."
"I'm with Narcissa, we'll be able to handle it," Fleur agreed.
"I would wait until you see it," Hermione warned, even though she hoped that Narcissa and Fleur was right and they could turn Grimmauld Place into Daniel and Victorie's dream home.
With determination in the air, the three witches headed to Grimmauld Place. Since Daniel had given Hermione access to the Potter vault, she also had the power to remove the spell hiding the house from muggles, or anyone who didn't know it existed. With the house in plain sight, the three witches entered into the musty front hallway, only to be greeted by the outraged shrieking of Sirius's mother, Walburga.
"What is that?" Fleur asked, spinning around as she tried to work out where the angry voice was coming from.
"That is one of the biggest problems facing us," Hermione said with a sigh, pulling back the curtains hiding Walburga's portrait. "Meet Sirius's mother, Walburga Black."
"Mudbloods! Mudbloods in the house. Get out, mudblood," Walburga yelled.
"It's nice to see you again, Walburga," Hermione said with a roll of her eyes.
"Why is she still hanging there?" Fleur asked in horror as Walburga continued to insult Hermione.
"She can't be removed," Hermione explained. "Back during the war, everyone tried, and no-one could remove it. She made sure she was here to stay."
"We'll see about that," Narcissa muttered, stepping forward to face the portrait of her aunt. "Aunt Walberga, shut up," she snapped coldly. "If you issue one more insult towards my daughter-in-law, I will personally shred your portrait to ribbons."
"Wow, I've never seen that before," Hermione remarked with a whistle as the portrait stopped screaming. "Even Sirius couldn't get her to shut up."
"Even Aunt Walberga is smart enough to know that you don't mess with a Malfoy," Narcissa snorted, pulling the heavy curtains over her aunt's portrait. "We will have to do something about her, though. She cannot stay where she is."
"I don't know how we're going to get her down," Hermione said. "As I said, everyone tried during the war and it seems she's attached the portrait with some sort of permanent sticking charm."
"Then we'll have to get creative," Narcissa mused, studying the portrait on the wall. "If we can't remove the portrait, maybe we can remove the wall."
"Isn't that dangerous?" Fleur gasped. "We don't want to bring the entire house down."
"We shouldn't need to remove the entire wall, just part of it," Narcissa chuckled. "I'm sure Lucius could handle it."
"And what about the portrait?" Fleur asked. "What would you do with it? Would you keep it?"
"Merlin no," Narcissa replied with a vigorous shake of her head. "Aunt Walberga may be family, but I don't want her poison at the manor. I think I'll place her in the Black vault at Gringotts. There's other family portraits stored there, and I'm sure she'll be in her element joining in with their bemoaning of us Blacks, and how we've all let the family down in some way or another."
With the big issue of Walberga's portrait hopefully solved, the witches turned their attention to the rest of the house. Fleur was rather put off by the large, unattractive family tree tapestry that dominated one of the ground floor rooms, but Narcissa was confident she could restore it to its once former glory.
"I can restore the pictures that have been burnt off the tapestry," Narcissa said, gently running her fingers over the place where her sister Andromeda's picture had once sat. "I can also re-do the charm that adds to the family, to ensure it updates all members of the family, even if they're not pure bloods."
"Would that put Daniel on the family tree?" Hermione asked, finding Draco's picture on the tapestry and noting that neither she nor their children were on the tapestry.
"It would," Narcissa confirmed. "If I'm going to restore this family tree, I'm going to do it right. And everyone will be on it, even if my Aunt Walberga would hate it. In fact, that's all the more reason to do it."
"Would you also be able to brighten it up a little?" Fleur questioned. "It's rather dull and quite depressing."
"Don't worry, I'll make it look a lot better, and it will certainly be brighter," Narcissa vowed as they headed off to check out the rest of the house.
By the time they're toured the house they all agreed it would take a lot of hard work, and quite a bit of time, to make the place habitable, let alone turn it into the beautiful family home they wanted it to become. However, they were confident that if they all worked together, with the help of their husbands, they could turn the house into something special for Daniel and Victoire. The only question that remained was if they could do it in time for the newlyweds returning from their honeymoon, or if it would end up being a belated present.