Chapter Text
MONDAY JUNE 30, 2003
The Daily Prophet: RECONCILIATION ACT PASSES: MINISTRY-MANDATED MARRIAGES TO BE ANNOUNCED
The floo flashed green and Pansy Parkinson stepped into Draco Malfoy’s dimly lit study to the familiar sight of Draco behind his desk, a lanky Theo Nott lounging on the settee nearest the fireplace, tumbler in hand. Theo’s collar was unbuttoned, his wavy hair mussed. Draco’s shirt was as crisp as his features.
“I got the plant man,” said Pansy, brushing soot off the pointelle knit of her Givenchy with a half-hearted sneer.
“Longbottom?” Theo looked to Draco as they both sat up straighter. Draco’s quill hovered over an open ledger.
Pansy caught the movement, her eyes darting between them. “What? What’d I miss?”
“A lot,” said Theo, settling back onto dark green velvet, “if you think you can push him around the way you do us.”
“When have I ever—”
Theo burst out laughing. Draco raised one eyebrow.
“All right, fine.” Pansy wrinkled her nose. “And of course I can. I know he has that little plant empire—”
“An extensive inventory of the rarest and most dangerous plants known to the wizarding world,” said Draco dryly, returning to his ledger.
“And who else,” said Theo, his legs crossed, foot bouncing, “do you think knows about that little empire? Only every dark potionmaster, illicit apothecary, creature smuggler, socialite looking to be rid of a husband—”
Pansy’s eyes lit up, her hand moving to her cocked hip.
“—and at least two muggle pharmaceutical companies.”
“And yet,” said Draco, “he remains alive and unmolested, his company still independently owned.”
“One of you two hasn’t bought him out? Wasn’t it reparation money—”
Draco waved her off. “I don’t fuck with Longbottom. I conduct what business of my own I need to with him and stay out of his.”
“But, Pans,” said Theo, uncrossing his legs to lean forward on the settee, “if you’re about to be the woman inside the little plant empire—”
“If you are,” said Draco, turning to Theo, “then don’t underestimate him.”
Pansy glared at Draco. “You’re acting like he’s going to chop me up and feed me to his little darlings.”
“Well . . .” said Theo.
“Well, what?” said Pansy, canting her head.
“He does have an industrial greenhouse of carnivorous plants he doesn’t bother to ward.” Theo’s tone turned speculative: “I suppose it’s free fertilizer. They say the last person to wander too close lost an arm before he got out.”
Pansy snorted, but Draco’s gaze was level. “Flint was permanently blinded—”
“He got back sight in one eye.” Theo scoffed. “He should have known better than to drink tea Longbottom served him during an extortion attempt.”
“But that’s the point, Pans,” said Draco, leaning forward onto his elbows. “Know better. He came out of the war different. You won’t get a rise out of him, but you will get a reaction.”
Pansy hummed, her eyes narrowing.
“Why do I get the feeling,” drawled Theo, flopping back onto the settee, “that this little talk has not had its intended effect?”
“But enough about me,” said Pansy, turning to him with a vulpine smile. “Who’s your intended, Theo?”
“Oh, me?” Theo took a slow sip of his drink. “No one. Got an exemption. The Ministry agreed it just wouldn’t be fair, making some poor innocent witch shackle herself to me for life when I’m criminally insane.”
“What?” snapped Draco, and suddenly he was twelve again, whingeing about Dumbledore’s obvious favoritism toward Gryffindor. “But they’re making someone marry me?”
“Theo!” Pansy smacked his shoulder. “Since when are you insane?”
“Since I was subjected to a whole battery of tests when they were deciding whether I was to stand trial or just hang around the house for a couple years. It went down on my permanent record. No sense of right and wrong. Tenuous grasp on reality. Zero ability to empathize.” He flashed a wide smile. “Poor breeding stock.”
“But Theo,” said Pansy, “you’re perfectly normal.”
Draco shot her a dubious look.
“What can I say, love?” His head lolled against the back of the settee. “I’m just very good at taking tests.”
“So Longbottom is fine but they think you’re going to chop up any Lady Nott they give you?” Pansy scoffed.
“Well, my father did,” said Theo, slapping his glass onto the end table with a sharp crack.
Pansy didn’t flinch, but her whole face tightened before she tossed her hair and plucked the firewhisky bottle from the bar cart. “Yes, dear, I know. Draco, your manners are atrocious. I hope you get a muggleborn who doesn’t know any better.”
“Of course I will,” said Draco, unconsciously tensing his shoulders so that the runes and numbers on the right side of his neck, already angled toward the shadowed corners of the room, dipped below the collar of his shirt. “The Wizengamot has never forgiven itself for not ending the Malfoy line when it had the chance.”
“So they’re hoping you do chop up your Lady Malfoy.” Pansy smiled as she poured a generous measure into her conjured glass.
“Oh, Pans,” said Draco fondly. “The Black betrothal rings will never allow it. But the Ministry would love it if I’d try.”
TUESDAY JULY 1, 2003
WAR HEROINE PROMISED TO WAR CRIMINAL screamed the front page of the Daily Prophet.
“How is this the publicity they want for this asinine law?” muttered Harry, tossing the paper onto his cluttered desk with a look of disgust.
“How is that your focus here?” snapped Ron, snatching the Prophet up, the veins in his thickly muscled forearm jumping as his hand flexed on the wrinkled pages. Above the fold, a five-year-old photo of a bedraggled Hermione wiped away tears in a loop on the left, while on the right a gaunt, hollow-eyed Malfoy sneered from the cage in his trial before the Wizengamot.
“You know what I mean,” said Harry, dropping into his chair with a groan. “This proves true everything we said in opposition to the bill! Even if they were telling the truth about the matches being magically determined, you’d think they’d step in to break this one. It’s the worst possible outcome—for everyone involved!”
“Is it, though?” asked Ron, tilting his head toward Harry with eyebrows raised. “I can think of—”
“Those prats really do hate me,” snarled Hermione as she flung open the door to Harry’s office, her hair frizzed to new heights around her head, and stepped into Ron.
She collapsed against his broad chest as he closed his arms around her, holding her tightly and resting his chin on the crown of her head. “I’m sorry, Mione,” he murmured into her hair.
“Have you heard from him yet?” asked Harry, rising and walking around his desk.
“Yes,” said Hermione, disentangling herself from Ron and turning to Harry to give him a quick, hard hug. “Owled me at an obscene hour this morning, right after I got the Ministry letter.”
She stepped back, her expression darkening. “He wants to enter into contract negotiations.”
Ron snorted while Harry stared at Hermione, his hands on his hips. “He’s not going to appeal the match?”
Ron quickly shook his head. “They’ve already leaked it to the Prophet. They can’t back down now, not for Malfoy—they’ve already spent years claiming Lucius isn’t still blackmailing them from Azkaban.”
“Ron’s right,” said Hermione. “Malfoy and I are both appealing, but it’s a toss-up which one of us the Wizengamot wants to be seen appeasing less.” She impatiently pulled back her hair, just to let it fall loose over her shoulders again. “Godric, how am I in the same boat with the Wizengamot as fucking Malfoy? How am I in the same boat at all as fucking Malfoy? How am I about to be fucking Malfoy?”
Harry reflexively cast a muffliato as Ron yelled “Hermione!” and Hermione primal screamed.
“No one is fucking Malfoy!” yelled Harry.
“I know, I know,” said Hermione. “But you know that’s the whole point of this law—”
“Yes, I know,” snapped Harry. “So how many years without an heir before Malfoy gives up and fucks off to France? He has a vineyard and a chateau. Why is he even here? No one wants him here and he knows it. Why doesn’t he just leave?”
“That’s just it—he won’t.” Hermione dug through her beaded bag and produced a wrinkled piece of parchment that had clearly been crumpled into a tight ball before being flattened out again. “He included a draft of the marital contract with his opening terms. He’s insisting on maintaining residence at the Manor, ostensibly to enjoy full use of the blood wards and other protective enchantments since his marriage to me—” Hermione stopped to close her eyes and breath out sharply through her nose before continuing with rolled eyes. “His marriage to me will place him under increased threat from both ‘my fans’ and the death-to-blood-traitors contingent.”
Harry and Ron exchanged wary, contemplative looks.
“And the threat to you . . .” began Harry.
“Will also be kept out by hundreds of years’ worth of wards at Malfoy Manor,” said Ron, “unless the bigger threat to you is what’s inside the Manor.”
“Malfoy can’t kill you, Hermione,” said Harry. “He knows it’ll be a death sentence.”
“He doesn’t have to kill me to hurt me, Harry! What if he doesn’t care? What if he loses control?” Hermione took a deep breath and her face unclenched, the wrinkles between her eyebrows smoothing out. “What if I kill him first?”
MONDAY JULY 7, 2003
Hermione stepped from the floo into the same atrium of the Ministry of Magic that she crossed five—all right, six—days a week. There was a brief moment of silence, a collective intake of breath, and then the reporters rushed her.
“Miss Granger, what’s your response to the Wizengamot denying your appeal of the Ministry-mandated match?”
“Are you accusing the Wizengamot of retaliation after your controversial creature rights bill?”
Hermione set her jaw and began pushing her way through the scrum, toward the lifts. Normally she would be on her way to her office on level four, Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures.
“Miss Granger, will you be returning to the muggle world?”
Hermione glared but didn’t slow her pace.
“Do you believe Draco Malfoy should still be in Azkaban?”
“Hermione! Did Draco Malfoy torture you during the war?”
Hermione flinched but stared straight ahead as she plowed steadfastly toward the lift.
“Is it true you’re madly in love with Draco Malfoy?”
“Love?” Hermione blurted as, against her will, her head snapped toward the—of course it was Witch Weekly!—reporter. “This is a forced marriage!”
Hermione threw herself into the lift and the doors slammed shut, cutting off the cacophony of reporters’ voices. She hit the button for level two, Wizengamot Administrative Services and the Office of the Chief Warlock.
Hermione had imagined negotiating with Narcissa Malfoy—a scene from a soap opera about purebloods’ arranged marriages—but Malfoy had sent lawyers. They were fast and aggressive in their negotiations, and Hermione had decidedly mixed emotions about the results. They had been absolute sods about Malfoy’s dealbreakers. (How could they be dealbreakers? Malfoy couldn’t walk away from this deal!) They simply refused to budge. The Ministry insisted they cohabitate, and Malfoy insisted they live in the Manor. He also insisted on Black betrothal jewelry. (Hermione imagined hundreds of years of his Black ancestors rolling over in their graves, but that made her want to melt the rings down, not wear them.) Hermione had tried to counter with demands and stipulations (Maybe Malfoy would walk away? All the way to another country?) but the lawyers agreed to them easily—too easily.
“I won’t give up my job. I’ll continue to work during the marriage.”
“Mr. Malfoy insists on it.”
“Because I won’t have access to the Malfoy vaults?”
“You will be given vault access and access to Malfoy holdings upon completion of the marriage bond.”
“But, let me guess, it’s all warded against muggleborns.”
“All wards and curses based on blood status were broken by Ministry cursebreakers as part of Mr. Malfoy’s sentencing terms.”
Hermione sniffed. As good as they were, there was no way the Ministry’s cursebreakers were up to the task when it came to the dark magic woven throughout the Black and Malfoy ancestral lines, and she strongly suspected the Malfoys had successfully hidden dark artefacts from the Auror Department despite several months-long Ministry raids of their properties. (Harry had once admitted to whispers that Nott Manor was still absolutely riddled with them.)
The lawyer continued without acknowledging the skepticism Hermione knew was written across her face. “Mr. Malfoy has engaged Bill Weasley’s team to sweep all Malfoy holdings for anti-muggleborn magic. The cursebreaking process may take up to a year in the case of older, rarer, and more complicated spellwork. During this time, with reasonable notice, Mr. Malfoy will accompany you to any uncleared property, his compliance upon request not to be unreasonably delayed or withheld.”
“I—”
“You will have the right to engage additional cursebreakers of your sole choosing, at Mr. Malfoy’s expense, to audit and/or augment the work of Mr. Malfoy’s cursebreakers.”
“The house elves—”
“Have been freed, clothed, and retained on salary per the terms of Narcissa Malfoy’s probation.”
Hermione closed her mouth with a clack of her teeth. She tried again: “I will have access to the entirety of the Manor.”
“Agreed.”
“I will have my own rooms in the Manor.”
“Agreed.”
“I will be allowed visitors in the Manor.”
“Agreed.”
“My cat’s coming with me.”
“Agreed.” (The lawyer picked a piece of lint off his sleeve with evident distaste.)
“Any terms tied to Reconciliation Act requirements will be void should the Act be repealed or the match revoked.”
“Agreed.”
“I require a vow preventing Malfoy from causing me physical harm.”
“The Black betrothal jewelry ensures that.”
“I require a vow preventing Malfoy from using the imperius curse on me.”
“The Black betrothal jewelry ensures that.”
“I require a vow preventing Malfoy from using anti-contraceptive charms on me.”
“The Black betrothal jewelry ensures that.”
Hermione paused, her grudging appreciation for the Black line’s protective magic warring with her revulsion at their participation in arranged marriages in the first place. Why was Malfoy insisting on these protections? Surely he would prefer . . . Well. Hermione didn’t want to think too hard about what he would prefer.
“I will not be compelled to consummate the marriage.”
“Agreed.”
“I will not be compelled to produce children.”
The lawyer paused. “Agreed.”
Hermione sat back, filled with a strange disquiet. Somehow, Malfoy’s concessions didn’t feel like victories. He gave in so easily, it felt like she was asking for the wrong things. What was she missing? Why was he in such a hurry to wrap things up? Shouldn’t they be prolonging this fight, proving to the Ministry and the Wizengamot that this pairing would never work? Maybe Malfoy anticipated that a stalemate would result in the Ministry stepping in, forcing a bond without a contract. Hermione’s focus drifted across the table as she considered whether this would be preferable. No, definitely not. Marriage bonds were lifelong. She did not want to be bound to Draco Malfoy for life with no rules or protections.
The lawyer cleared his throat. “You should know that the Black betrothal jewelry ensures fidelity.”
Hermione’s head snapped up as she inadvertently locked eyes with the attorney.
The lawyer’s face was a blank page. “Given the possibility of offspring.”
Hermione sneered. So this was it. Malfoy didn’t give a fuck whether she worked or where she lived in the Manor. The only point of the pureblood lines was their continued existence, and he was afraid she’d cuckold him and pollute the Malfoy line with a lovechild. She’d be forced into fidelity and meanwhile—
“I suppose he expects me to adopt his bastards so he’ll have pureblood heirs.”
The lawyer looked offended. “Fidelity of both parties.”
Hermione was nonplussed. Why would Malfoy prevent himself from cheating? He never had in school, if Pansy Parkinson’s hexes were any indication.
“Regardless, I will not be producing children with Mr. Malfoy,” she said firmly.
“Be that as it may,” said the attorney skeptically, “should a child be produced, Mr. Malfoy has several stipulations.”
“Of course he does,” said Hermione.
The attorney laid them out: Any and all progeny she had by Malfoy would be recognized as full heirs to the Black and Malfoy lines. They would bear the Malfoy surname. They would be named after constellations. (Hermione rolled her eyes.) They would attend Hogwarts or Durmstrang Institute.
Hermione frowned, forced to imagine these theoretical heirs as actual children who would grow into adults, the terms of their existence predetermined by these arbitrary traditions. She shook it off. There would be no children. She didn’t plan to get close enough to the slimy git for naming conventions to be a concern.
But had Malfoy’s legal representation failed to realize that by agreeing not to compel consummation while enforcing fidelity, they had doomed Malfoy to the life of a monk? Because she wasn’t sleeping with him. Was there a loophole she was missing? Was he asexual? (Certainly not—by a longshot—if the rumors at Hogwarts were to be believed.) Well, who cared. She could live like a nun until Malfoy caved and found a way out—out of the marriage, out of the country, out of the wizarding world. She didn’t care. Spite and her hand would get her through.
“Fine,” she ground out.
So, in theory, she and Malfoy had agreed to the terms of their Ministry-mandated marriage. (Ministry-mandated marriage. Godric.) But, even after receiving the Ministry letter denying her appeal in record time and requesting her appearance before Chief Warlock Warrington, Hermione went into the meeting resolute that this travesty was not happening.
She had heard rumors of couples hurrying to make it official before they could be matched with other partners, but nothing about mandated matches having been bonded. So many of her cohort had married young—the purebloods anxious to avoid babies born out of wedlock, others eager to find stability after the war. Harry and Ginny had married immediately. Ron had married Susan Bones last year after fucking his way through his fan base—he had been easily the most accessible of the Golden Trio and had enjoyed it in a way he had not enjoyed playing second fiddle to either Harry or Hermione. The Reconciliation Act would hit those just graduating Hogwarts hardest. And Hermione was realizing with sickening clarity that she and Malfoy were meant to be the vanguard—proof that anyone (war heroine or Death Eater, Ministry employee or pureblood heir) could be made to comply.
And what an added bonus that the Wizengamot had reason to want to see them each personally brought to heel. Hermione did not think Malfoy should still be in Azkaban, no matter what the press might think. (The Boy Without a Choice—Hermione snorted at the tabloid appellation. She thought Malfoy well and truly had somechoice. Merlin, he liked to play the victim. But she agreed he’d been a child, forced to become a soldier by the very adults meant to protect him. And he’d lowered his wand in the end. So, no, she didn’t think he should be serving a life sentence alongside his father. She and Harry had both testified to as much.)
But she couldn’t entirely disagree with those who grumbled that the two years of house arrest following his two years in Azkaban hardly seemed like a hardship when he had, by all accounts, spent them aggressively steering the Malfoy estate back into business. And now, as reclusive and elusive as Draco Malfoy was—Hermione had not laid eyes on him personally since his Wizengamot trial and he was rarely pictured in the press—it was increasingly impossible to ignore the fact that, only a handful of years after a war in which he’d played a key and contemptible role, he was back to living in enormous comfort and wealth. And while he might still be a social pariah—shunned by those on the right side of the war as well as those very much on the wrongside, a Death Eater who waited until the very last moment to fail Voldemort—with wealth always came influence. Just look at Narcissa. As soon as the Ministry had unfrozen the Malfoy vaults, she had begun buying her way back into society’s good graces, one tastefully large charitable donation at a time.
And Hermione had to admit she’d been a recipient. S.P.E.W. Muggle Studies. Outreach to Fenrir Greyback’s victims. Narcissa had donated to every cause Hermione had ever championed, and Hermione had felt a strange twist in her stomach when she’d seen the numbers, but she’d never told the organizations to return the funds. She and Harry had testified on Narcissa’s behalf too. And though she had complicated feelings about Narcissa Black Malfoy, Hermione had been greedy for good deeds after the war, impatient to make changes, whatever it took. Which was why, currently, the Wizengamot hated her. She was supposed to be Harry Potter’s swotty muggleborn sidekick. She was supposed to pose by his side, and receive her Order of Merlin: First Class, and then go away. Like Ron.
Well, no, not like Ron—that wasn’t fair. Ron was an amazing auror. Brave, good with strategy, hard-working—but not too hard-working. He would work a case as long as it took, as hard as it took—but then he knew how to knock off, let it go, go out to the pub. He didn’t lecture everyone all night long about what they could have done differently. He didn’t pepper the Wizengamot with reform bills.
Hermione made people crazy—she knew it, all right, she knew. But, Merlin, she was just doing her job. It wasn’t that hard for people to do theirs. Just basic competence, was that too much to ask? Maybe a little drive, a little ambition, just a little effort to look around and make some connections and do something with them. Why wouldn’t you want to do that? It wasn’t that hard. It didn’t take a genius to see what she saw—this stuff was pretty obvious, wasn’t it? Was it too obvious, and everyone else saw it, they were just too jaded to care? Hermione knew she sometimes came across as a little naïve, a little goody goody. (She really wasn’t.) And, yes, having been late to the wizarding world, she did sometimes worry, just a little, that no one else cared for some startlingly mundane reason she was missing. Was she being obtuse? But, Godric, it really did seem like everyone else was. Like it was all so obvious, and why didn’t anyone ever want to talk about it? Why did everyone act like she was so hard-driving when she just wanted to get things done?
Anyway.
Anyway. That’s why they didn’t like her. And now they had to chance to show her—though this law that was supposedly about everyone, for the good of all of wizarding society, that had nothing to do with her personally, and wasn’t she just a prat if she wanted special treatment now—that they could put her in her place. Yes, she was a war heroine. Yes, she was a Ministry employee. Yes, she was (ugh) the Golden Girl of the Golden Trio. And that was precisely why they didn’t want to make an exception for her. Merlin forbid she start to think she could get what she wanted from them.
Still. Still. She walked into the meeting thinking this was all so obviously a bad idea that she’d just point that out and, somehow, for once—for once—everyone would agree. Somehow.
She nodded to the Chief Warlock’s secretary. She was on time. She was expected.
She yanked open the door, her head held high.
She stepped into the office in her sensible heels, her robes swaying around her.
Shit.
There was Malfoy. Sat to her left.
Of course he was here. Why was she surprised? Why?
He looked over immediately.
“Granger.” His voice was calm, pitched low, almost confidential. His face utterly neutral.
His gray eyes flicked all the way down, all the way back up. He looked away, face back to front—back to Warrington, behind his desk. He didn’t curl his lip. He didn’t wrinkle his nose. He didn’t insult her. He just looked her up and down and looked away.
Somehow Hermione knew right then that she wasn’t going to win. But she didn’t want to admit it to herself, not yet.
The meeting went just as Hermione should have expected. Malfoy sat, impassive. (Coward. She’d thought he would be angry. She’d thought he would have something to say.) Warrington baited her until she screamed at him. He told her she could go back to the muggle world if she didn’t appreciate the Wizengamot’s good faith efforts to heal the post-war wizarding world, counteract pureblood inbreeding, let magic lead the way instead of prejudice and ideological divide. She tuned him out when he started mixing metaphors about mending fences and building bridges, biting back a comment that forced marriage wasn’t what anyone had had in mind when they suggested the Ministry go all-in on Infrastructure Week.
It was all so predictable. Hermione stole a glance at Malfoy. He was sitting just slightly slouched, his face just shy of sullen, balefully watching the Chief Warlock’s performance. No longer emaciated, he was still pointy—an aristocratic nose balanced by a jaw that could cut glass, narrowing to a sharp chin. Long fingers. Prominent knuckles. The Malfoy signet ring Hermione recognized from Hogwarts joined by what she guessed was a signet ring from the Noble House of Black. His hair was perfect. Of course it was.
“So I offer you a choice, and you will be choosing one of these options in the next five minutes,” growled Warrington.
Hermione snapped to. What was he saying?
“You can execute the marriage bond here, in this office, right now. Or I can snap your wands.”
Hermione inhaled harshly through her nose, her mouth pressing into a hard line. I am going to fucking hex you until—
Her head twitched to the left, drawn by a sharp movement caught in the corner of her eye. Malfoy’s chin had dropped down, his eyes never leaving the Chief Warlock. He no longer looked like a sixteen-year-old sulking in the headmaster’s office. He looked dangerous.
This was the man she was about to marry?
Because she was about to marry him. She wasn’t snapping her godsdamned wand.
“Let’s get this over with,” she snarled.
Malfoy’s head whipped around, his eyes narrowing. “Yes, let’s, darling.”
Twenty minutes later, Hermione was in shock. Malfoy had produced the marriage contract with a precise fillip of his wand. She had signed. In blood. The Chief Warlock had performed the marriage bond, his secretary acting as witness. (Was Malfoy upset that Narcissa wasn’t there? He hadn’t shown it.) She hadn’t even had a chance to call Harry and Ron to her, and they were in the building. (They knew she had this meeting today—she was supposed to tell them how it went after.) Malfoy’s hand on her wrist was light but unwavering, his House of Malfoy signet ring still bloodied from the contract; her hand on his was trembling.
Immediately afterward, to her surprise, he had drawn a ring box from the pocket of his robes. He was dressed in black, the robes tailored tightly across the hard line of his shoulders. He was taller than she remembered but still lean. “Events have proceeded out of order,” he said dryly, “but it’s now appropriate you have this, Mrs. Malfoy.”
Hermione flinched as he opened the box to reveal an enormous diamond flanked by sapphires. Her birthstone, she thought stupidly. A strange coincidence in heirloom jewelry.
He removed the ring with long, bony fingers, his large left hand palming the box while also reaching for her hand.
Hermione balked, shifting back onto her heels. “That’s not necessary.”
She had agreed to the ring in theory—in contract language—but she hadn’t expected to put it on so soon. All she could think about was the deep, dark magic thrumming through the Black bloodline. She hadn’t had a chance to research this ring properly. She hadn’t had her own cursebreaker examine it. (Who would she hire but Bill?) What was Malfoy trapping her into?
“It is,” he said calmly.
“I don’t need it,” she said, shaking her head.
“You do,” he said, his voice suddenly low and menacing. “You are now a member of my house, and this idiotic law has made you an even bigger target than your own idiotic actions have done. I will not have you harmed while under my protection, and I will not have you saying I harmed you. You are putting on this ring.”
“I am not,” Hermione ground out, twisting away—too late—as Malfoy, his touch no longer light, snatched her left hand and crammed the ring onto her finger, the band instantly resizing to a tight fit. Magic, warm and dark, surged through her, feeling for her edges. The scar on her left forearm lit up with pain.
“Malfoy!” gasped Hermione, wrenching her hand out of his grasp.
“And now,” he said, grabbing her right hand, the bones grinding in his grip as he flipped up the top of the ring box with his left thumb, “you are putting this ring on me.”
Inside, a corresponding band of diamonds, surprisingly delicate, surprisingly bright.
The magic invading her crackled in acknowledgment.
“I thought this thing,” grunted Hermione as she fought him with tense, jerky movements, “prevented you from hurting me.”
“Believe me,” he hissed, a barely perceptible shudder moving through him, “I can feel the magic’s displeasure.”
Hermione stopped struggling—she plucked out the ring and grabbed his hand, her grip awkward against the box still tucked against his palm. Then she dug her nails into his flesh and shoved the ring onto his finger. She hoped it electrocuted him. This close, she could feel the heat radiating off him, waves of citrus and cloves filling her nose—the scents of once-rare and valuable imports. House Malfoy had long been involved in shipping and trade.
“There,” she said, staring him down. “Happy?”
“Yes, sweetheart, you make me the happiest man in the world,” he said, monotone, his pale gray eyes boring into hers.
Abruptly, he dropped her hand and turned to the Chief Warlock, his face now a mask of polite indifference. “Well, if our business here is concluded, we’ll take our leave.”
“Yes, yes!” Warrington sprang into action, herding them with his bulk toward the door, his secretary darting out ahead of them.
Merlin, Hermione had forgotten she was there. The woman had seen her physically fighting with Malfoy like Hogwarts first years over these cursed rings.
Hermione found herself, face flushed, her left forearm aching, trapped between the Chief Warlock and Malfoy—his godsdamned hand at the small of her back—as they all pushed toward the door.
“Many happy returns,” said Warrington, stopped just inside the door, his hand held out as though to usher them back into the world, “Mr. Malfoy. Mrs. Malfoy.”
Just for one second, Hermione felt herself united in spirit with Malfoy, as they both stared daggers at the man, their mouths twisted into identical sneers.
Hermione lunged out of the Chief Warlock’s office and directly into Ron, promptly—and to her surprise—bursting into tears when his arms wrapped around her, his smell comfortingly familiar.
“Weasley. Potter,” a newly and uncomfortably familiar voice drawled behind her. “Already making my wife cry?”
Hermione jerked back as Ron and Harry growled “Malfoy!” nearly in unison.
“Sorry, Weasel, did I steal your girl?” The words were taunting but Malfoy’s voice was emotionless. “I’m lying. I’m not actually sorry.”
“Godsdammit, Malfoy—”
“Ron and I stopped dating ages ago,” Hermione said, turning to Malfoy with an icy smile. “But you wouldn’t know that because—oh, that’s right—you were in prison.”
“Well, darling—”
“What just happened here?” demanded Harry, running a hand through his already disheveled hair.
“It was marry this git on the spot,” Hermione jerked her chin toward Malfoy, “or snap my wand. I chose poorly.”
“Oh, Hermione, I’m so sorry.” Harry clapped a warm hand on her shoulder, his face pained.
“Thanks, Potter,” drawled Malfoy. “Now get your hand off my wife.”
“Malfoy!” snapped Hermione.
“Yes, Mrs. Malfoy?” He stepped closer, crowding her.
“Stop calling me that,” she ground out.
“I won’t,” he said, voice low as he leaned over her. He wasn’t as tall as Ron, was leaner than either Ron or Harry, but there was a coiled power in the stillness of his body.
Hermione softened her features and peered up at him through her lashes. “Do these rings prevent me from causing physical harm to you?”
“No,” he whispered.
Hermione immediately punched him in the chest.
Malfoy rocked back onto his heels and caught himself with a step back. His hand went to his torso, the diamond band flashing, as a wide smile broke across his face. Godsdammit, he was laughing.
The first genuine laugh she’d heard out of him since—Merlin—third year?
Surely his friends had heard his real laugh since then. Did Malfoy have friends anymore? Fuck, she might be about to find out.
Ron was shaking his head, trying to decide whether he was angry or amused. Harry had his head thrown back, sighing as loudly as he could. “Merlin, fuck, godsdammit.”
He dropped his chin, leveling a dead-eyed glower on them. “C’mon, you two. We have to get you past the press.”
Malfoy’s laughter cut off as the smile dropped from his face.
“Hermione! Hermione! Why have you been crying?”
“Hermione! Has Draco Malfoy hurt you?”
“Did Draco Malfoy torture you during the war?”
“Miss Granger, how do you feel about marrying a Death Eater?”
“Flash the ring, hon! We want to see it!”
Hermione kept her head down as Ron and Harry pushed roughly through the crowd of reporters, wands holstered but forearms raised to eye-level like shields, their faces grim. Malfoy, his face blank when she looked over, ushered her just in front of him, his godsdamned hand at the small of her back.
How were there so many reporters here? The wizarding world wasn’t that big! Was this international news? How did they already know? Were they blocking the fucking floos?
Hermione found herself boxed in by the press as quick-quotes quills hovered nearby, Ron and Harry lost in the crowd but Malfoy glued to her side.
“Hermione! Are you afraid for your life?”
“Hermione! Blink if Draco Malfoy is holding you captive!”
Beside her, Malfoy drew himself up to his full height and Hermione looked up to see him transformed. His impassive face now looked hard and cruel, the hollows of his cheeks shadowed under his sharp cheekbones, his upper lip just beginning to curl. His white-blond hair caught the light, striking in its contrast to his black—his all black clothing. How had Hermione not noticed until now? Black robes, black shirt, black waistcoat, black dragonskin boots. He almost looked—was he trying to look like a Death Eater?
He straightened and his collar slid down, revealing the runes and numbers of his Azkaban prisoner tattoo, still starkly black against his snow-white skin. Hermione’s breath caught as every flashbulb went off.
The tattoos were impossible to glamour, Hermione knew—the whole point was to prevent prisoners from obscuring their identities and escaped convicts from going unnoticed, and conservative wizarding society didn’t care if one’s debt had been paid. Once a convict, always identifiable as such. And the Wizengamot had made sure that young Draco Malfoy did just enough time to earn the tattoo, even if those two years would be a tiny portion of his time alive. (Well, when he was seventeen, no one thought Draco Malfoy would spend much time alive.)
Hermione knew he had the tattoo. She knew he couldn’t glamour it. But it was still somehow shocking to see it here, in broad daylight, on his otherwise perfectly aristocratic form. Draco Malfoy, forever marked a war criminal.
Malfoy raised his chin, standing tall in his black robes, his Azkaban runes uncovered, looking every inch the disreputable former Death Eater the press claimed him to be. (Not just claimed. He was. He was.) His hand was gripping her elbow, his fingers too tight.
“Hermione! Will you be staying at Malfoy Manor after being tortured there?”
“Hermione! Did Draco Malfoy crucio you during the war?”
“Mr. Malfoy! Mr. Malfoy! Where will you and Mrs. Malfoy be living?”
Malfoy turned lazily to the reporter, his eyes half-lidded. “I’ll be keeping her in the dungeons, of course,” he drawled.
“Malfoy!” she hissed under her breath. She violently elbowed him in the ribs. He was too close. His fingers were digging in. Everyone was too close.
He ignored her.
“Apologies,” he said to the reporter, his tone egregiously insincere. “I meant she’ll be chained to my bed.”
“Malfoy!” Hermione howled, preparing to rip her arm from his grasp.
“Yes, love?” Malfoy looked down, smiling nastily at her as he roughly jerked her to him and spun on his heel, disapparating them without warning.