Team Name: Those Who Wander

AO3 username: StarrAngelofNarnia

Prompt: Newly Weds (relationship type)

Rating: T

Warning: marital angst, non-canon compliant

WC: 2069

Author's Note: This is an established relationship between Hermione and Draco where both are on good terms with their in-laws. I don't own the Scrubs quote and I don't own the Taylor Swift lyrics (in italics in the final paragraph). My apologies for not splitting up scenes; the website is not allowing me to mark shifts with punctuation.

"Bottom line is, the couples who are truly right for each other wade through the same crap as everybody else, but the big difference is they don't let it take them down." Dr. Cox (Scrubs)

Draco apparated into the yard of his new home, which he now shared with his recently wed wife. It had been a long day of work and he was anxious to sit down with her and just rest. He unlocked the door (with a key; he'd been taught the benefits of keys as security rather than locking charms) and entered the small house.

Most of the lights were off except a small lamp on the side table in the living room. Hermione was lying on the couch covered up with a navy blue blanket.

Hearing him approach, she sat up and turned to see him. Her face lit up in recognition, so she turned completely, standing on her knees to meet him.

Taking that as a sort of cue, Draco approached the back of the sofa and leaned over, placing a gentle kiss on her lips. "How's my wife?" he asked with a smile.

Reaching up, she wrapped her hands around the back of his neck, pulling his face close to hers resting her forehead against his. "I'm okay. How was work?"

"Busy. Always is when Harry Potter finds himself in the emergency room," he smirked.

Hermione groaned. "What did he do this time?!" she asked with exasperation. "Is he trying to kill himself?"

Draco chuckled. "I can't tell you that. Healer's oath."

He stood back up and gently pulled away. "Let me change out of my robes, and I'll come join you."

He left her alone again, leaving for the master bedroom to get out of his hospital clothes.

In the bathroom, he stripped off his clothes, putting them into a sanitizing bin. Hermione insisted on doing the household chores themselves rather than having elves do it, but he didn't want her touching his work clothes without them being sanitized in some way. Hospitals were petri dishes, and he never wanted to bring home anything that could make them sick.

His shower was short, with water as hot as he could tolerate. Once he was clean, he dressed in lounge clothes and banished the sanitized but still dirty clothes into the hamper.

He found Hermione on the couch right where he'd left her. "How was your day, my beautiful wife?"

She smiled, but he could tell from her eyes it was half-hearted.

"You know, a month ago, you had a much longer list of pet names for me."

"I know. But there's something so exciting about calling you my wife. Girlfriend is nice, fiancée is hopeful, but wife…it just makes everything feel more real, more permanent."

He pulled her in closer to him. "But, what's wrong, love?"

She sighed, "It just sucks that you've spent so much time at work lately. We had the wedding, had a few days to ourselves on the boat ride home, and then you immediately jumped back into work like nothing happened."

He rubbed her arm, trying to soothe her. "I understand. I had a bit of emotional whiplash myself. But the work I do is important, and there are a lot of other Healers who rely on me."

She tensed. "So the work I do isn't important?"

His tone hardened now. "You're putting words in my mouth I never said. The work you do for our home is very important, but it's of a different nature than mine."

She sat up. "But, I get tired of being home all the time. I feel so useless and I'm a witch for God's sake! I have magic, and I'm doing housework like a muggle maid."

Draco was honestly quite fed up with this conversation at this point. He loved Hermione, but sometimes he believed her stubbornness would truly be the death of him. Taking some time out of work to "find herself", as she had put it, had been her choice. He had and still did fully support her on that. Since leaving school, she had struggled to find jobs that gave her the challenge, philanthropy, and satisfaction she needed. And like him, she was above average intelligence and therefore hated working for people who were less intellectually gifted.

However, in agreeing to the time off, Draco had only asked that Hermione take on more of the domestic tasks. She had her magic to do them; she wasn't living like a muggle maid, as she had so dramatically expressed. And the arrangement relieved some of the pressure from him while he was the only one with a financial income.

"You know if you were working full time as well, I'd be more than happy to split the chores with you. But as long as you're taking time off work, it puts a lot of pressure on me to work full time and then come home to work some more."

"It's just hard to focus on myself when I'm constantly housekeeping. And I'm not the type of person who will ever be happy living as a trophy wife." She pulled out of his embrace, turning to face him.

"We could hire an elf," he suggested, knowing exactly what her reaction to such a suggestion would be.

"Hire an elf? Absolutely not! The wages they've managed to earn are so pathetic they might as well not even be wages at all."

Draco considered what he wanted to say before opening his mouth. "How can we solve your grievances then? You feel upset that you're doing all the housework by yourself. When you're ready to go back to work, of course we'll divide them up fairly again. You've already told me an elf is out of the question, and I can tell you right now, quitting my job is out of the question. So how do we solve this?"

Hermione groaned, "It's not just about homemaking. You just don't get it."

She threw the blanket off her lap and stood abruptly from the couch, storming off to the bedroom and slamming the door.

He ran his fingers through his hair, tugging hard enough that it hurt. Why was she acting like this? It felt like almost every day now they were arguing over something. Sometimes, the arguments were about significant things, like the one now. Other times, they were trivial, like what color scheme they'd use to decorate their new home and how closely everything would stick to that palette. But ever since the wedding—or actually, since the planning for the wedding had started—there was always something to argue over.

After a few moments, from down the hall, he could hear Hermione speaking softly. She was more than likely on the phone with her mother Helen.

With a groan, he contemplated how he could do the same. He went down the hall to the office, grabbed a notebook and a quill, and went back to the living room.

Opening the book to a clean page, he quickly penned a short note:

Mother, Do you have a few moments to talk? Draco

With a flick of his wand he lit the fireplace. Then he tossed in a pinch of floo powder before stating his address, Malfoy Manor, and tossing the note in. He watched as the green flames licked it to ash before turning a warm orange once more.

He flopped back onto the couch, throwing an arm over his face. He had been looking forward to coming home and being with Hermione all day long and now this. He just didn't understand why this was an issue. To work or not was her choice; it wasn't like he expected her to be a stay at home wife. Nor did he demand that she do housework, only that she take on the work if she refused to let him hire an elf. She was turning nothing into a big deal. And truthfully, she should have considered herself lucky that his ideals had changed. A lot of old wixen families still had old fashioned views and didn't stray from them. She had the benefits of his wealth without the hindrance of an old fashioned lifestyle.

Draco heard the fireplace crackle to life and the green flames lit up his peripherals. He had expected a reply on a piece of parchment, not his mother in the flesh.

He sat up abruptly, fixing his posture so that he looked like the gentleman he had been trained to be rather than the sniveling slob he had just been.

Narcissa smiled. "Come give your mother a hug," she ordered softly, opening up her arms to him.

Draco met her and embraced. "And don't worry so much about how you present yourself to me in your own home."

He chuckled at the friendly admonishment. "My apologies, mother."

She seated herself in the chair, so he resumed his spot on the sofa.

"What's on your mind, darling?" Narcissa asked, folding her hands in her lap.

He ran his fingers through his hair. "Just Hermione. She's so sensitive about everything recently and I just don't understand why. But it's starting to get annoying." He continued on, recounting the numerous arguments they'd had over the past few days and months.

"We were together for years before getting married; so why are we suddenly having fights?"

Narcissa sighed, leaning over to offer Draco her hand. "Marriage isn't easy, love. And I know it doesn't seem like it should change all that much when you've had a healthy relationship for so long, but it does."

She sat back again, pausing to think. "You're in a new home together that you two make the rules for. You're blending two different ways of living, two different cultures essentially. You're blending middle class and inherently wealthy. You have an established career, she's trying to find hers.

"All of those things will cause unique challenges, but you have to communicate with each other. And at the end of the day, only one thing matters: do you love her?"

Draco smiled. "Of course I love her. Every stubborn hair on her head. She means the world to me and I don't know what I'd be without her. Probably a stubborn, grumpy miser. Cliché as it may seem, she makes me a better person."

"Marriages that last sift through the same struggles as marriages that don't. The difference is love. Being there for one another through the good and the bad."

When Draco entered the bedroom a little while later, Hermione sat up immediately.

"Mother stopped by. Dinner is on Malfoy Manor," he explained as he climbed into the bed next to her. This was a good way to gauge her mood.

"Oh! I'll write her and tell her thanks."

"She'd like that. She always loves to hear from us."

He cautiously changed the subject. "How are you?"

She sighed, leaning in to rest her head on his shoulder as she spoke. "I hate arguing. And I feel like we do it so much recently."

"I understand. And I'm trying to be open with you and keep communication open, but at times it feels difficult. And if you're trying to tell me something and it doesn't seem like I'm listening, I'm sorry. I don't mean to make you feel like I don't care about your feelings. Sometimes, I believe I let my brain do the talking in interactions while you let your heart do the talking. And brains and hearts are rarely on the same page."

"I know. I think I'm getting bored with being home. And I hate that you're fully supporting me financially and I'm not contributing anything. But I just don't know what I'm good at doing outside of being a student."

"Teaching? Research?" he suggested. "St. Mungo's is always looking for competent researchers. And I might be able to put in a good word for you in that division."

She sighed. "Maybe. I've just never seen healing or medicine as my thing. But I guess it's worth trying."

"Another research heavy career is with the Department of Mysteries within the Ministry."

He gently pulled away and sat up, turning to face her. With a tug (and a squeal from her), he'd pulled her up and onto his lap, her legs crossing behind his back. He touched a hand to her chin.

"But whatever you do, I'm here for you. I'll be there if you're the toast of the town, or if you strike out and you're crawling home. Because I love you for who you are, my beautiful, talented, compassionate wife."