December

On Wednesday, the thirtieth of November, Draco Malfoy officially completed all required processes for his disinheritance. On Friday, the second of December, he and Hermione arrived at Nott Manor for what had quickly become a standing gathering with their friends.

Draco brushed a sparkling green cinder from Hermione's cloak, dipping in close to kiss her cheek. It was a stolen moment of solidarity he had no shame indulging in.

"Ready?" he asked against her skin.

"Don't ask me that as if I'm the one who's nervous." She smiled, leaning into him, probably in part to push him away, and subsequently, forward. They had several items on the agenda for their evening, and Nott Manor only represented the first stop.

They found Theo, Pansy, and Blaise in what had become their usual spot on Friday evenings.

"Hello," Hermione said, announcing them. Her voice wobbled just a bit. She put on a good show, but Draco saw her hovering nerves. Better concealed than his, but present all the same. He draped an arm over her shoulder; she was such a convenient height for such things. He hoped the action looked casual and didn't give away the small swarm of nerves fluttering between the two of them.

"We can't stay long," he said.

Pansy's head snapped up from her wine glass. "What? Why?" Sharp, stinging questions. "Fridays are our thing."

"We just came by to ask Theo something, actually. Depending on how that goes, we have something to ask you and Blaise, too."

At the large bar on the far side of the room, Draco watched as Blaise set a whisky bottle on the counter. He picked up a shot glass, holding eye contact with Draco. He smiled, winked, and drank. Blaise knew. Of course he knew.

Theo was right: Blaise could be a bit annoying with that maybe I Saw it air about him. Despite that, Draco smiled. He turned to Theo.

"You did end up learning bonding magic, didn't you? Got that certificate from the Ministry?"

Theo shot up from his seat, chair dragging against antique carpets. At the same time, Pansy let out a confused sort of shriek, not unlike a banshee. Draco presumed she meant it to convey both excitement and a demand for more information.

Before Draco could blink, Theo closed the space between them.

Hermione pulled a cardstock invitation from her bag: handwritten instructions on her nicest stationary. She handed it to Theo.

"Sunday," she said. "The information is all there. That Floo address is my parents' house, so it's in a muggle area. But they know about magic, of course. They have a really lovely garden."

Pansy ripped the cardstock from Theo's grip, having abandoned her seat and her wine. To Draco's right, Blaise appeared, handing him a small glass of whisky. When Draco looked again at Hermione, she held a champagne flute in her left hand.

Draco supposed Blaise had his uses and was worth keeping around despite his all-knowing annoyances.

Pansy made several unintelligible noises as she read the invitation. Hermione did an excellent—truly stellar—job of ignoring her.

"So, Theo. You will marry us, then? Won't you?" Hermione asked, probably noticing that he hadn't actually said anything yet.

Theo's grin hadn't dropped since the moment Draco said the word certificate. Impossibly, it grew wider. He almost—almost—looked a touch teary-eyed.

"We're hugging now, Granger," Theo said. Pansy had to step back, making an offended noise as he pulled Hermione into a hug. "Of course I will," he said. "I've been waiting for you to ask."

"What are you wearing?" Pansy interrupted, launching into an interrogation just as Draco expected she would. "Are you pregnant? Why are you—what are you—" She conjured a measuring tape, setting it to Hermione in an effort to catalogue her measurements.

"Pansy, I'm not pregnant. We're just—I don't want a big wedding."

Pansy made several shocked, scoff-adjacent noises, eyes darting between them all, as if seeking some kind of sanity in what she clearly deemed insane.

Hermione yanked at the measuring tape presently measuring her bust, pulling it away and vanishing it.

"We only want the people we care about the most with us," she said, crossing her arms and lifting her brows.

Pansy froze as if Hermione's words had physically halted her, as if she couldn't fathom that she'd been included in that list of people. With a blink and a shake of her head, Pansy came to her senses.

"I'll be over early to do your makeup."

Hermione tried not to smile. Draco could see the effort she put into pressing her lips together, rolling them between her teeth, smothering her amusement.

Finally she said, "You'll have to fight Ginny for the honor. I'm sure she'll be wanting to do it."

Pansy straightened immediately, as if an actual challenge had been issued, and not something mostly in the territory of a teasing joke.

"That's fine," Pansy said without a shred of concern. She uncrossed her arms and stepped forward, expression broadcasting a preemptive distaste for whatever she planned to say. "I think we're having a hug now, too, Granger."

Theo roped them into staying to finish the drinks Blaise had already delivered. And even if Theo hadn't insisted, all wide smiles and proud thumps on Draco's back, Pansy's pouting about fabric swatches and periodic hugging would have convinced them.

When Pansy began muttering her distaste over conjuring flowers instead of cutting them fresh, Hermione's graciousness tipped over the edge, a peculiar teetering between exasperated amusement and genuine annoyance. They bid their friends farewell and Floo'd back to their flat, only to turn right back around and Floo to Grimmauld Place.

Hermione popped her head through first. She called to the Weaslette, who ushered them through, confusion pulling her ginger brows together.

"I thought you had plans tonight?" Ginny said, hand pressed to her barely rounding stomach. "I can set a couple more places at the table, I—"

"Oh, no, no, Gin. Don't worry about us. I'm sorry we've just dropped by. We wanted to tell you something, actually. Are Harry, Ron, and Lavender here?"

Draco trailed behind Hermione obediently, fingers hovering at the base of her spine as they followed the Weaslette through the dark and narrow corridors that lead to the dining room. He braced himself, preparing, yet again, for a face-to-face encounter with Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley. He longed for simpler times when hating them had been easy, as inextricable from the fabric of his person as his family name.

As it turned out, not all inextricable things were truly inextricable. Most days, he didn't mind Potter at all, not that he would admit to such a thing, even to Hermione. A man had to have his pride. And if Weasley kept his mouth shut, Draco could easily pretend he didn't even exist.

"Hi everyone," Hermione said as they entered the dining room.

Potter stood from his chair. "Mione, I thought you couldn't make it." He pulled her into a hug as Draco resisted the urge to cringe at the gods-awful abbreviation of her name that Potter and Weasley liked to slip into.

"We can't," Hermione said, a repeat of her conversation with Ginny. A strange loop. Perhaps Weasley would announce that he, too, had been under the impression that Hermione and Draco were otherwise occupied this evening. And they were; they'd declined their invitation to this dinner the week before, expecting to be at Theo's. The sudden and thrilling decision to wed had shifted things a bit.

Hermione reached into her bag and procured another cardstock invitation.

"Sunday," she said, handing the card to Potter. "I know it's short notice; I hope you can make it, of course." Her words went quiet, almost bashful. Was she embarrassed to spring this on them so suddenly?

Draco refused to let the subsequent, self-doubting question in the back of his mind of whether or not she was embarrassed of him, too, carry any weight.

"We're getting married, Potter," Draco clarified, as Hermione hadn't actually said the words and the invitation still sat in his hand, unread.

Potter's eyes widened, snapping to Hermione, before dropping to the cardstock.

Ginny sprang into action, a half-shouted what? escaping her as she yanked Hermione into a forceful hug. Weasley stood from his chair, peering at the invitation over Potter's shoulder.

Ginny started crying. Hermione did, too.

And for a moment, Draco was reminded so strongly of sitting at Grimmauld Place and feeling like a voyeur, watching these people's joy over announcing a pregnancy. But now, he was a part of the announcement, a wedding this time. It was his joy, his circumstances, that these infuriatingly close friends cried over.

Draco glanced at Lavender, still sitting at the table, but smiling at the scene. She'd been an outsider then, too.

"Hey Brown," Draco started. "Do you know anything about conjuring out of season flowers? We might need some."

Her smile brightened. Evidently, she did.

"I can bake a cake," Ginny offered, pulling back from her vice-like embrace on Hermione. "I have all sorts of recipes from mum. But—wait, this Sunday? As in, two days from now, Sunday?"

Hermione nodded, wiped a path of tears from her cheeks, and then smacked Ginny on the bicep the moment her eyes darted southward.

"I'm not pregnant. Don't you dare ask me." Hermione retaliated with her own pointed look at Ginny's stomach.

The Weaslette laughed while Potter made a kind of choking noise. Hermione stepped back, creating space out of the glob of hugs and tears and general sentimentality Draco found decidedly distasteful in these quantities.

She stopped when her heel tapped the toe of his loafer. She leaned into him, her back to his front, slightly staggered in their stance. Draco let his left hand rest casually, not-so-inconspicuously, at her hip.

"We—I—we don't really see the point in waiting, anymore. Draco's disinheritance has been finalized; it feels like the right time," Hermione said, head leaning black, glancing up at him.

He supposed there were worse places to be than standing in Harry Potter's dining room with some of his reluctant acquaintances. Having her with him, saying such things, soothed the irritation that red hair, freckles, and lightning-shaped scars generally caused him.

Potter blinked, pushed up his glasses—Draco vowed then and there to never ever do such a thing with his own—and released a breath. "Oh, well. Okay," Harry said. Apparently all he needed was Hermione's word. "We'll be there."

"Course we'll be there, 'Mione," Weasley added. The kindness in his confidence suffered under his use of that blasted nickname.

It had an effect on Hermione, though. The pressure leaning against him increased, as if she'd sagged under the weight of knowing they would attend. As if there had ever been any doubt.

"Well we—we just want to come tell you—invite you—in person, but we should go, let you get back to your meal."

"You can stay if you want," Ginny offered.

Hermione shook her head. "Thank you, but we have plans. Oh—before we go, though. Pansy wants to do my makeup. Might even try running the whole thing on Sunday. You should probably come early if you want to beat her to it."

A serious, deadly competitive look crossed the Weaslette's face. She frowned, eyes narrowed.

"I'll be there."

Potter groaned; Hermione laughed; and Weasley bit into a roll he'd nicked from the tabletop.

Hermione hadn't been lying when she told Ginny they had plans for their evening. Draco had many plans involving her. They'd negotiated heavily over how they'd spend that Friday night: cutting their night with his friends short, adding in a visit to hers.

Negotiations had been intense, with tough bargaining on both sides. In the end, they came to the conclusion that they would take that Friday night for themselves.

For reading together on their sofa, sharing the warmth of a single, atrocious afghan blanket. For enjoying their fireplace, used for a crackling fire and not the Floo. For their Christmas tree, decorated mostly with magic, but including a few small ornaments gifted to Hermione by her parents: twenty one of them, one given to her each Christmas, with a few notable years missing that she put on an excellent show of pretending not to mind so much.

For lazy kissing and wandering, meandering hands. A warm winter night spent inside, together. A few blinks from a wedding, from forever, from their future. Hazy evenings like this, backdropped by fairy lights and the smell of spiced cider and mulled wine, had an unreal quality to them. It was a delicious kind of sinking, slipping beneath the surface of something that posed no thread, but that enveloped and held close instead.

He kissed her in an unhurried way, tasting cinnamon and cloves on her tongue, feeling the languid, lazy way she let him hold her when she'd had a bit to drink.

He memorized the lines of her body by touch, such that if he ever lost his sight, he'd know her skin by feel alone.

He watched the shape of her mouth when she whimpered under his touch, such that if he ever lost his hearing, he'd know the way those sounds looked when wrenched from her throat.

He catalogued every breathy sigh, every swallow, every whispered word of affirmation. He tasted every inch of skin he could find, exposing more as his trailing hands pushed her blouse up and out of the way. He drowned in vanilla, in cinnamon, in allspice, in bourbon, in clove. In warm, winter scents, anchored in the things that made her so uniquely her.

He'd had but two glasses of wine that evening and had never felt more intoxicated in his entire life, nor so deliriously happy. He thought it might find a limit, putter out, that contented delirium, but it didn't.

Not as he led her to their bedroom. Not as he pulled back burgundy sheets and dropped the last of his clothes to the floor. Not as he kissed her again—for the millionth time, at least—still so unhurried. He had nowhere to be except with her.

Not as he pushed into her, swallowing her gusting breath with another kiss. Not as she clung to him, fingertips digging into the flesh beneath his shoulder-blades. Not as he tasted salt on her skin, nor as she chanted, breathless and whining, into his ear broken utterances of please, yes, gods, Draco over and over and over again: a bespoke incantation that set him on fire.

Not as her spine arched, neck exposed, head thrown back against the pillows, short nails scraping his back. Not as she gasped, panted, stopped thinking, just for that moment, and trusted him to carry her through it.

And not as he came, face buried in her curls, brain ignited, soul settled.

Friday passed. Saturday happened. What did one do the day before one's last-minute wedding?

Draco began by brewing, taking his tea in their guest room, hair still disheveled from the night before. Hermione joined him a few minutes later, anxiety crawling across her face as she settled onto a stool nearby, watching him work.

"There's nothing to plan," he said. "It's an unplanned wedding for a reason. And whatever you think you might plan, Pansy's going to have something infinitely more complex already figured out. I doubt she's slept since we told her." Draco watched as Hermione frowned, rolled her eyes, then reached for her tea, sipping with what looked suspiciously like resignation.

"You're very nonchalant for a man raised in an environment obsessed with grand, over-the-top weddings."

Draco's smile came easily as he stirred his cauldron.

"Want to know a secret?" Her brows lifted. "They're deadly boring. Astoria's was the most pleasant society wedding I've attended—probably ever. You're the only thing I need at my wedding; I could take or leave the rest. Therefore, we will not be spending our Saturday fretting. It is my day, after all."

Hermione dipped her finger in her tea and flicked it at him, hitting him with a few tepid drops.

"Careful now. Let's not contaminate my potions, please."

She laughed. "Saturdays aren't your day anymore, you know."

"Do I?"

"Of course you do. They're all yours now."

He stopped stirring. Too long. Potion ruined.

Worth it, though, to hear her say such an outstanding thing.

"Is that so?" He set his stirring rod aside, leaned against the bench, folded his arms across his chest.

"If you goad me, I'll stop saying nice things."

He crossed to her, coming to a halt just in front of her stool. Perhaps instinctively, her knees widened, letting him step between them. He planted his arms on the hard countertop behind her, bracketing her.

"Please never stop saying such nice things," he said with every drop of sincerity in his bones.

She smiled as she set her tea aside, looping one of her hands on his forearm, leaning her head against it.

"Am I supposed to be nervous?" she asked, eyes closed.

"I don't know. Am I?"

"I'm not."

"Neither am I."

She opened her eyes, lifted her head, and grinned at him. "Maybe I'd feel nervous if it didn't feel like we've earned this but we've—gods, we've earned it, don't you think?"

He lifted a hand from the workbench, fingers winding through her hair instead. "It's taken enough work, that's for certain." He dipped, bent to kiss her, and paused, eyes caught on an unfamiliar crate sitting on the bench behind her. "What's that?"

Hermione tilted her head, following his gaze. She huffed dramatically, a level of exasperation that told Draco the answer before she'd even said it.

"I thought working at Theo's would be easier than Malfoy Manor."

Draco nearly, almost, but most certainly did not, snort.

Hermione's head shook from side to side, curls bouncing. "It's as if he wants to get himself sent to Azkaban."

"Is that right?" A deadpan voice. Draco knew very well what kinds of illegal things Theo liked to play with.

"That box"—she tilted her head towards it in reference—"that has six of his illegal portkeys in it. I can't just leave them at the Estate. If anyone else were to search the manor with our diagnostic runes they'd turn up immediately but—well, their magical history is post-war. Theo would get into so much trouble—"

Draco kissed her, hand at back of her head holding her steady as he poured every ounce of his exploding affection into stealing her words—her very breath—with a kiss. She made a surprised noise, probably startled by the rough intensity that took him unaware, too. But how could he not kiss her this way?

She relaxed against him, melting for him, nipping at his lips and dragging her nails through his hair in that fucking divine way she did. She slowed. Pulled them apart. Kissed his jaw.

"What was—wow, what was that for?"

"You. Bending the rules for Theo."

"Well—I don't want him to get arrested. And I know his portkeys are harmless—revolutionary, actually. But—the Ministry wouldn't."

"You offered to break those rules for me once; do you remember? Over a bottle of wine."

"Well, you looked terribly surprised that I needed to take it. It was a bit of an in-between time and I really, really wanted to be able to kiss you again, you see."

"You're breaking the rules for Theo now, too."

"I don't need you to rub my flexible morality in my face. I realize I have a tendency to twist things to my preferences. I am not unaware of this character flaw. I just—well, I don't really care."

"But you care enough to protect Theo."

"Of course I do. He's my friend. He's marrying us tomorrow, for Merlin's sake."

Draco couldn't help the grin that overtook him. So wide. So happy.

"And that's what the kiss was for," he said.

Hermione pursed her lips, descending into a thoughtful, almost wicked expression. It sent Draco's blood pumping, simmering, anticipating.

"So, if I do nice things for your friends you'll kiss me like that?"

Draco smirked, leaned closer, caging her in, desperate to keep her right where he wanted her as she followed that deliciously sly train of thought.

"Absolutely," he breathed, fingers in her curls again.

"You know, I was thinking of sending Pansy a gift basket for being such a good friend and trying to help me plan a wedding."

He wound his other arm around her waist, bringing her to the edge of her stool, hips pressed to his. "Am I being extorted for affections?"

"Absolutely," she said, a perfect repetition of his earlier response.

He supposed she'd earned it.

He kissed her. Her lips. Her jaw. Her neck.

He kissed just behind her ear, suckling.

He kissed the column of her throat, laving.

He kissed her clavicle. Her shoulder.

He unbuttoned her blouse and kissed the swell of her breasts.

And when he had her thoroughly breathless, he lifted her from her seat and kissed her more, lost in an oxygen-deprived haze as her fingers pulled his shirttails from his trousers.

Unbuttoned. Unfastened. Unzipped.

Leading to the bedroom.

Undone.

"Blaise already tried to give me a shot. I really don't need one," Draco said, pushing away the glass in Theo's hand and they stood together in the Grangers' garden. Theo simply arched a brow. The waiting was rather anxiety-inducing, if he admitted it to himself. For this not being a big to-do, Hermione had certainly been inside getting ready, whatever that entailed, for a very, very long time.

Draco's gaze wandered to Mr. and Mrs. Granger as they chatted with Potter. Draco blinked. For a moment, he had genuinely forgotten that Potter grew up with muggles, that he'd known the Grangers much longer than Draco had. Of all people, Potter probably had the most comfort to offer a pair of muggles who had kindly, graciously, opened their home to a small gathering of magical folk for the afternoon.

It wasn't as if they could ignore the magic today. From the spells charming the outdoor garden a tolerable temperature to the conjured flowers, tables, and chairs, magic surrounded them.

Draco fidgeted with his ring, not used to wearing one. Not on that hand, not on that finger. They'd purchased him a simple gold band the day after they decided they would simply get married without a real wedding. Hermione already had a ring, obviously. But Draco needed one, too, for the ceremony, for the bonding magic. Choosing one with her right there, simple and easy and so full of hope, had been a most surreal experience.

Pansy walked up to where Draco stood waiting with Theo and Blaise, murder lingering behind her eyes as she crossed her arms and huffed.

"I've been kicked out." Not exactly a greeting.

"I'm impressed you made it this long, honestly," Draco said.

"I have too many opinions, apparently. Are you aware she's not even wearing a gown? Just a dress. I wanted to make it floor length. Add some lace, or appliqués, or anything. She wouldn't let me. The ginger threatened me with a bat-bogey. Draco, your wedding is an absolute failure, I hope you know."

"Thank you, Pans. But as we've elected to marry in her parents' back garden, I had zero hope of meeting your expectations in the first place. Afterwards, the food's going to be takeaway, too."

Pansy's mouth dropped open; she made a strangled, disgusted noise. She blinked several times as if waiting for something.

"You're serious?"

Draco smiled. Perhaps this was part of why Pansy and Hermione had forged an inexplicable almost-friendship; they were similarly fun to rile up. Although, with Hermione he tended to prefer for that riling to end with her naked, writhing beneath him.

"You might not have noticed, Pans. But I'm also wearing the same robes I wore to Astoria's wedding."

She snapped her mouth shut, grimaced, and then: "No, you aren't. Draco, you—are you really?"

"Yes, I am. We're keeping this very simple. And Hermione said she was going to pick her favorite dress and charm it white for the day. That's all we need."

"It's not even an actual wedding dress—albeit an offensive one? Good gods, Draco."

"No, it's not. I think she picked one that's normally purple."

Pansy looked a little like she might be sick, if nothing else, from the force of indignation she kept swallowing back. She gaped like she wanted to say something else, but Draco imagined she now feared learning any new information about how they'd decided to have a wedding straight out of her nightmares. Instead of demanding more answers she likely didn't want to know, she simply took one of the many conjured chairs in the garden and sat with a glass of wine and a frown.

"You sure you don't need this?" Theo asked, holding the shot glass out to him again.

"No, Theo, I'm quite alright."

"Right. That's good. I might, though. Lots of pressure, you see, being responsible for your bonding magic."

Draco angled himself more towards Theo, trying to wrangle the lift of his brows so as not to project too much of the concern that just took flight beneath his skin, pushing against the surface.

"You can do it, can't you? I didn't think too much about it because you're, you know"—a vague gesture—"you. And you can do—anything. But you can perform our marriage magic, right?"

"Yes, yes, yes, of course. I just"—he knocked back the shot and vanished the glass—"that's the only one I'm having, I swear. Just to help with the nerves a bit."

"You don't have to be nervous. I'm not nervous," Draco said, trying to offer support in what felt like a strange reversal of what ought to be happening in that moment.

The back door to the house opened and Ginny stepped out. She made a beeline for Mr. and Mrs. Granger, whispered something to Mr. Granger, then met Draco's eye. She winked, gave him a thumbs up, and suddenly, people were moving. Arranging themselves into chairs set up on one side of the garden as Mr. Granger slipped away, inside the house.

For as much as Pansy complained, and for being thrown together at the last minute and with zero expectations, the garden almost looked like a real wedding. Lavender actually knew a few things about floral spells, charming the garden to bloom beautifully out of season. And the climate spell holding back the chill had formed a beautiful protective bubble, catching the cautious beginnings of a snow flurry overhead. The sky was grey, which he imagined most people might have found foreboding on their wedding day. But when Draco commented on it shortly after arriving at the Grangers', Hermione just shrugged, looked him straight in the eye, and said, "I like grey."

And that was that.

It was everything he needed in a wedding, really. Especially after having been threatened with so many wine lists and seating charts and fabric swatches in the past.

He felt comfortable. He smelled roses blooming nearby, gardenias, too. And somewhere else in the garden, a hint of rosemary with the herbs. He had a good history in gardens with Hermione.

Blaise took his seat, leaving Draco alone with Theo, standing in wait.

His skin prickled: tight, tingling with anticipation. Not with nerves or fear, but with genuine excitement thrumming across his skin, skittering through sinew, pumping through veins.

Mr. Granger opened the garden door again, and Hermione stepped through.

They didn't have music, this wasn't meant to be a real ceremony after all, but Draco heard familiar notes ringing in his ears all the same, almost deafening. In a blink, she reached him, her father finding his seat amongst the others.

She carried no bouquet, but she had flowers tucked into the braid that framed her face, that ended in a loose, wild bun at the nape of her neck. A few errant curls spiraled out of the braid, out of the bun, and Draco wondered if Pansy or Ginny had tried to tame them, if they'd realized how perfect she looked with them escaping.

His eyes caught on the flower tucked behind her ear, heart slamming to a near-stop behind his ribs. A knot formed in the back of his throat, tight, as he struggled to swallow over it.

A white daffodil. Latin name: the narcissus.

His mother's namesake flower.

His heart rate slowed again, recovering from the surprise; he swallowed past the lump. An empty space inside his chest filled. He couldn't decipher his own emotions, couldn't discern if seeing the flower made him happy or sad. But he needn't figure that out, not now.

Hermione reached for his hands, squeezing them in hers.

"It felt appropriate," she said in a whisper. Because of course she knew what he'd noticed, watched him react to it. Even after the hatred she'd endured, the things Draco had given up, Hermione Granger still chose to wear his mother's namesake flower on their wedding day. She gave him permission to miss and love and mourn not having her present, even if it was only the idea of her he missed. After all of it, his mother wouldn't be entirely absent, after all.

He simply could not possibly love this beautiful, forgiving woman any more.

Could their audience see it? How he'd unravelled already? It felt so obvious, so apparent. For how calm and collected he'd been just minutes before, chatting with Theo, now he'd started to unspool, unwind. He could barely think, hardly breathed, heard almost nothing as Theo began his incantations. He could see nothing but the warm, rich brown in Hermione's eyes, earth tones rooting him in reality.

Theo continued casting, and Draco realized that the entire bonding ceremony had started without him even realizing it, lost as he was in a disorienting sense of something indeterminable.

Draco inhaled, warmth flooding him, lungs oxygenating blood, pumped from his heart to his fingertips, where he held Hermione's hands.

Theo instructed them to let their right hands drop, holding left hand to left hand, a sort of handshake grip. Of all the ways he'd touched Hermione, held her, ran his hands over her, this grip felt the most foreign, much less intimate than such an event seemed like it would require. But when Theo began the incantations again, their rings began to glow. Golden filaments, glinting with magic, sprang from each of their rings, winding around joined hands.

Draco stared at the golden magic until his eyes couldn't bear the strain any longer, filaments glowing so brightly it stained the back of his eyelids orange with each blink. He looked up at Hermione instead, finding that she had several tears tracking silently down her face. Draco reached to wipe them, only to have his right hand smacked away by Theo, still mid-incantation.

A bubble of laughter escaped Hermione's throat. Even Draco smiled, not quite so overwhelmed anymore. The golden light from the bonding spell illuminated Hermione's face, just like candlelight at a dinner table, like the first time he really noticed just how lovely she was, how he saw constellations in her face, saw a future with her in it.

The glow faded, magic settling into skin as Theo cleared his throat. A beat passed, heavy and anticipatory, as Draco waited, not knowing what came next.

"If you have any affirmations or declarations you'd like to exchange, please do."

Hermione smiled, left hands still held together, and took a small step forward, right hand finding Draco's jaw. She still had tears on her face: quiet, happy things. He wound his right arm around her waist. From this distance, he knew her words were for him, and him alone.

"I'm so proud of you, Draco Malfoy. Proud of this extraordinary man you've become. Proud I get to call you mine. That I get to spend the rest of my life growing with you, loving you." Her hand shifted from his jaw to the back of his neck, a familiar anchor for them both. "Thank you for choosing me."

He dropped his head to hers, eyes stinging, vision swimming, utterly lost. "Gods, I love you. More than my name. More than my money. More than all of it. If I had millions of choices, millions of chances, I'd pick you every time. I count myself wildly lucky that you've picked me even once."

He kissed her. It felt like neither the first time, nor the last time, but all the glorious in-betweens they would have with each other.

Theo cleared his throat. "Alright kids, let's break it up. I've heard there's cake. You're married now, let's celebrate."

Hermione laughed against his lips, and Draco did the same, sharing that joy. Another beat passed before they finally came apart.

Theo clapped Draco on the back. "Congratulations. Looks like you've gotten a happy ending, after all."

Hermione's smile grew, leaning back from their kiss. "I think it's more of a beginning," she said.

A beginning.

Draco had so much time ahead of him. Time with her. To live a life he could be proud of. He meant what he'd said. If he had a million lives, a million choices, a million chances. He'd pick her every time. And they had so much of that. Years and years and years.

Years. Broken into months into weeks into days—into hours, minutes, seconds—into moments. Simple at one end, complex at the other. In Draco's experience, moments, even when simple, had a habit of becoming irretrievable. Moments grew, stretched, multiplied into ages and eras that defined whole stretches of measurable time. Draco regretted several moments in his life, some within his control, some without: all of them irretrievable in nature. At a certain point, wedged between 'what-ifs' of his own devising, he'd stopped trying to keep track of those regrettable moments: now and then, pushing and pulling, coming and going, beginning and end. Moments were only moments for just as long. After that, he had no control.

Instead, he let himself live.

fin