Chapter Text
Lady Malfoy embraced her for a long time when Draco told her she had accepted. They left shortly afterwards, to the Longbottoms, but promised they would be back the next morning so that they could spend the day together. Hermione took great pleasure in telling Mrs McGonagall that she would no longer need the cottage. The prospect of her bleak, lonely life was gone now, replaced with a future with a husband who loved her and a mother-in-law who doted on her.
She was to become a wife, to Draco Malfoy. Just a year ago, that news would have been baffling to her. Even now it seemed strange. When accepting him, she had thought only of spending the rest of her life with him. The reality sank in as she got ready for bed that night. She was to be a wife to one of the richest men in the country. She was to be a lady. She would be able to leave the cottage and Norfolk forever, to live in a large house in the country, never again thinking of the shame of her old dresses, or her worn out shoes. She would be of higher rank than either Harry or Ron. She would be able to see them whenever she pleased, would be able to be the one to invite them over, instead of waiting for an invitation they always forgot to extend.
The Malfoys returned for her the next morning. Draco took her hand and pressed a kiss to it in greeting, which made her cheeks flare red. Lady Malfoy politely pretended not to notice and they took a walk through the village. Lady Malfoy walked next to her, telling her all about Malfoy Manor, about the land and its tenants. Hermione was only half paying attention; she was far too distracted by the presence at her side of Draco, who walked purposefully close to her, shoulder touching hers, his hand accidentally grazing the side of hers over and over again. He watched her the whole time, half a smile on his face and Hermione felt as though she was in a daze, smiling stupidly back at him.
"I am so happy that this has all worked itself out," Lady Malfoy said privately to Hermione, whilst Draco was engaged in conversation with someone he vaguely knew who'd stopped him in the street. "I did worry, when we saw your engagement announcement in the paper when we first got into town last year. Poor Draco, I knew he'd be devastated. And then when that man offended you at the opera, I took him home and told him how much better he would be for you. But he was insistent that you would be heartbroken, and it would be in poor taste to announce his intentions."
She took a breath, which was when Hermione managed to recover herself enough to butt in. "Do you mean to say that he has...for over a year?"
Lady Malfoy raised an imperious eyebrow and looked at her as though she was stupid. "My dear, it has been many years. When we came to Bath the year before last. He could speak of little else to me. Not to his father, of course, although when he passed I made certain to mention to Draco that he was allowed to marry anyone he pleased. His father loved him, but he was a strict man.”
Hermione felt herself floundering. For so long? How had she never noticed?
“I admit, when that Riddle boy left you for my sister, I was furious,” Lady Malfoy continued. “But also relieved. Not only because I knew he did not deserve you. But because I knew my son had designs towards you, and was finally free to follow his feelings. I know without a doubt that Draco will treat you better than that other man ever could. He truly loves you, and would do anything to make you happy.”
Mollified, Hermione found that she couldn’t say anything, only watch Draco as he walked back towards them in a new light. He had liked her for so long, and she hadn’t had a clue. She felt monumentally blind. He smiled at her and she felt herself beam back. There was certainly something in knowing that your future husband loved you earnestly, and had for many years.
Some months later, Hermione agreed to stand as witness at Harry’s wedding to Daphne Greengrass. She stood with Malfoy in the church as Mr Lupin declared them man and wife. Malfoy caught her eye from across the church and smirked at her. She resisted the urge to grin back, fiddling with the plain wedding band on her finger. They’d been married for a few weeks already. Malfoy hadn’t wanted to wait so that she could move into Malfoy Manor immediately; Hermione, who saw no point in lingering in Hogsmeade, had agreed and they’d gotten special permission to have a quick marriage. Lady Malfoy and a blubbering Hagrid had acted as their witnesses, and there had been a small wedding breakfast afterwards for Harry and the Greengrass sisters, who had been the only ones available at such short notice.
Ginny had been furious that she couldn’t come, but Hermione had pointed out that she hadn’t been invited to her wedding either and that had shut her up.
The only person she was really sad to see to see the back of from Hogsmeade was Hannah Longbottom. Hannah had been so elated when Hermione had announced her engagement to Draco that she had almost fainted. She had been unavailable for the wedding but had invited them for a stay at their home as soon as they were able. Hermione had found that she was happy to accept, and glad that they would continue to be friends.
Harry and Daphne had a slightly bigger wedding party planned for after the ceremony, with the Weasleys, Sirius, the Lupins, the Malfoys and a whole host of other people invited. There was even a rumour that the King was going to turn up, although how true that was no one – not even Harry – was quite sure. Hermione and Draco were staying at Godric’s Hollow for a time, and then in a few days Hermione was to go to the Burrow with the Weasleys for the final few weeks of Ginny’s confinement.
“I hope the baby comes quickly,” Draco said to her as they milled in the churchyard after the ceremony. Harry and Daphne had stopped to speak to Mrs Lupin, who was carrying a hefty young baby in her arms. “I hate to be parted from my wife for so long.”
Hermione beamed at him. Marriage to Draco had been the sweetest few weeks of her life. To see his face every day, gazing fondly at her in everything that she did, holding her hand through every difficult day when she remembered her parents. Just to have him nearby, to speak to whenever she wished. Malfoy Manor had taken some getting used to as her home, but Lady Malfoy had helped her significantly. She was someone else that Hermione appreciated in her life, offering calm encouragement and instruction. She had taken it upon herself to personally be in charge of Hermione’s clothing and had stocked her wardrobe full of gowns and clothes that were much finer than she was used to. Hermione of old might have cringed at the expense, but Hermione now was too appreciative of more than one dress to wear to care. And she found that, as the future Lady Malfoy, she had so many functions and things to look forward to that a bounteous wardrobe was a weight off her mind.
Although she suspected – catching Draco’s knowing eye and blushing at the memory of him last night, and every night since they’d married (and some mornings, too), above her and all around her – that there would have to be some alterations made to her clothing soon. Draco seemed a little too impassioned at the idea of getting an heir on her. She thought that it wasn’t the heir that drove him, but rather the making of one.
“It won’t be long,” Hermione assured him, slipping off her gloves so that she could twine her fingers through his. “Mrs Weasley told me all of hers were early. I shall be back with you soon enough.”
“Not soon enough for my liking,” Draco said, flicking his eyes to the party of five still chatting away. Assured that they were sufficiently distracted, he ducked his head quickly to press a lingering, hot kiss to her cheek, too close to the mouth to be proper. He remained there, a breath away from her ear, as he whispered, “I will await your return eagerly.”
They had plans to return to Bath. They would go in the early new year, unfashionably late, when most people would have been there for months. They would go with Lady Malfoy and the Greengrasses, intent only on acquiring wedding clothes for Astoria (and on catching an opera or two while there, Lady Malfoy was quite partial). Draco said that if they had the misfortune of meeting his aunt or her new husband while in town, he would finally get the opportunity to say everything he had been thinking about Tom Riddle for over a year now, and to prove how much better he loved Hermione than Tom ever did. Part of Hermione dreaded such an altercation. Part of her yearned for it.