To Those Who Wait

Despite the fact that Hermione's parents were living blissfully unaware of her in Australia, Hermione had kept their house. Harry was the Secret-Keeper of her address, and although the house didn't disappear like his did, it was effectively hidden from magical folk instead of Muggle. Harry paid someone to keep it up on the outside and had come himself to check on the inside a few times since she'd gone away.

When Hermione appeared in her old bedroom, it smelled the same...dusty, but basically the same. She set Acara down on her bed and curled up with her. It was quite a snug fit, but snuggling was what was needed at that point.

Although Hermione's heart felt like weeping, she fell asleep almost instantly. When she woke up, it was dark. She cast a spell to light the candles she'd left around the room, the electricity having been off for years. Rubbing her eyes, she adjusted herself in her bed. She'd left her Galleon at her cottage, and she didn't have an owl. She hadn't cast a Patronus for years and never without a wand. She'd have to try, though, seeing as she figured Draco was probably going nuts over her disappearance. If she quieted her mind enough, it was almost as though she could feel his anxiety.

What was her happiest thought these days? It used to be the memory of Professor Sinistra's voice after she'd explained about Hogwarts.

Her parents were in the other room talking quietly while preparing tea, and Hermione had quietly asked, "So, I'm not a freak?"

Professor Sinistra had smiled brightly and said, 'No, darling, you are not a freak. You are a witch, and from what I can see, you will be an extraordinary witch, indeed."

But that was seemingly a lifetime ago. What was her happiest thought now? Stroking Acara absentmindedly, her mind zeroed in on the temple and the ornamental plate over the volcano. Hermione could almost see herself there, fire radiating through and around her. She whispered the spell and was thrilled when the room filled with a silver light. However, instead of her usual gamboling otter, a chimera solidified. It trotted around the room once, and Acara even got up and batted a paw at it. Her paw struck the corporeal beast, and they began to play in earnest.

Hermione smiled, almost giggling in delight. But she had to let someone know where she was. Once she got the beasts to stop playing, she turned to the chimera and cast the spell so it could carry her message. Watching it squeeze through the window, Hermione made her way to the loo. The water was still on, and after letting it run for a few minutes, she filled the tub, heating it with her own fire. Hermione sunk into the water, hoping to wash as much of the day away as possible.

At number twelve, Grimmauld Place:

Harry Potter was surprised to come home to Draco Malfoy sitting on his doorstep. His hand was inside a satchel, and Harry could see Draco's arm twitch in gentle rhythm.

Stepping past the blond, who looked a little battle-worn at this point, Harry unlocked his door. "You might as well come in," Harry offered without turning around.

Draco got up, following Harry into the house. Draco made his way into the parlor, sitting in the middle of the couch. Harry came back with a plate of sandwiches and set them on the table. He looked the other man over. Draco was sitting with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.

"What'd you do?" Harry said before picking up a sandwich and collapsing gracelessly on another couch, putting his feet up after toeing off his shoes.

Draco unlatched the satchel, and the small head of his little white and blue dragon popped out almost immediately. "You don't mind?" Draco wanted to let Lodus out; he'd been trapped in the satchel for hours. Harry's eyes lit up at the sight, and he nodded.

Once Lodus was winging gently from bookshelf to bookshelf, Draco looked up and sighed. "Everything was fine. We were out shopping. The third store she comes out looking..." Draco trailed off, and seeing Harry's skeptical face, stopped to consider his next words, "She looked bloody brilliant, Potter. We started snogging, and got carried away, and she had a very nice time, if I do say so myself. Anyway, after, we're having a bit of a cuddle..." Draco stopped to see what, if any, reaction Potter might have to this before continuing. "Then she started to cry, and it was all high-pitched nonsense from there. She took the cat and Disapparated. I was too shocked to follow her. She is not at the Manor, the Burrow, or back at the colony, so I have to assume she's here."

"You would be assuming wrong," Harry said as he popped the last bite of sandwich into his mouth.

"Where else could she be?" Draco ground out through his teeth. How he hated asking Harry Sodding Potter for anything!

"I have an idea. Why don't you have a sandwich, Malfoy? Kreacher makes excellent sandwiches."

Draco narrowed his eyes, but took a sandwich nonetheless. It was excellent, not that he'd ever say anything of the sort to Potter.

"So, Potter, what is your idea?"

"Oh, she's probably at her parents' place."

"In Australia?"

"No."

"So her parents aren't in Australia?"

"Oh, no, they are."

"Talk bloody straight, Potter, where the fuck is she?"

"I could tell you, but I'm not sure she'd want me to. It may, in fact, be the one place on the whole planet she's safe from you. Ironic that it's on this little isle we call home, yeah?"

"Potter, we are to marry in three days; I have to find her." Draco scrubbed his face with his hands, trying to hold back the burgeoning fury his frustration was building into.

"She'll get in touch when she's ready. For someone who has been allegedly studying her for nine years, you sure miss some major things about Hermione."

"I'm staying here until something happens," Draco said, sitting back on the couch and scowling at the doorway, as if any second Hermione might appear in it.

"Have it your way, but be a sport and shower first. You look like hell." Harry stood and took the now empty plate into the kitchen.

Draco did take a shower. He also poked about in the room that Hermione had been in the night before. He noticed a bookshelf, which was full of advanced books. Clearly Hermione's.

He and Lodus wandered around the old Black house, thinking about his family. Draco found himself on the old family tree. The Malfoy branch was gilded in bronze, and he gently traced his family's names with his finger.

"If I understand it correctly, yours and Hermione's kids will magically appear on that," Harry, who had been leaning in the doorway watching Draco for a long moment, finally said to announce himself.

"That is correct," Draco confirmed without turning. All he wanted was to get to Hermione, and it was slowly gnawing at him.

Harry walked into the room and set a bottle of Muggle tequila on the little table between the two chairs. Then he put two shot glasses, two limes, and a salt shaker down.

"Hot date?" Draco said as he turned to watch the Boy Who Lived.

"I have heard that you might be considered an attractive chap, Malfoy, but I don't swing that way. You ever had tequila before?"

"Indeed, I have."

And so, the two young men sat down to drink and wait for Hermione to surface.

"Harry, It's Hermione. This is my Patronus now, apparently. Cool, eh? Anyway, I fought with Draco, and I'm at my parents' place, and I'm gonna order in, and I'll let you know."

The two men, both five shots in, stared blearily at the chimera before it dissolved into the air.

Harry turned to Draco, whose body visibly relaxed upon hearing the message.

"Fuck, you were really worried, weren't you?" Harry said, splashing liquid into their glasses.

"Obviously, Potter, or I wouldn't have sat at your door for hours." Draco stood, looking like he was about to leave.

"You going someplace?"

"Yeah, I'm bloody going someplace! I have to talk to her." Draco tripped as he kicked a chair.

"You don't even know where it is." Harry leaned back in his chair, salting his hand in preparation for the next shot.

"Right, where is it?" Draco turned to Harry, clapping his hand onto the other man's shoulder.

"I'm not telling." Harry handed Draco the salt shaker.

"Fine, I'll find it myself." Draco turned to leave.

"No, you won't," Harry called after him.

"Why not?" Draco yelled from the doorway.

"It's Secret-Kept."

"Who's the Keeper?" Draco turned back into the room.

"Me." Harry smiled beatifically and offered Draco his shot glass.

"Merlin's balls, Potter! Haven't I waited long enough?"

"Mmmmaybe." Harry looked at the floor waiting for his pickled thoughts to fuse together. "I could send my owl, she knows, too."

"Yes! Brilliant." Draco moved to pull Harry out of his seat. They lumbered up the stairs to where Harry's owl was. Harry pulled a parchment and quill out of the writing table he kept outside the owl's roost in the attic and scribbled a note to Hermione. He sent the owl and flopped on an old couch that was up in the attic. Draco followed suit, and the two sat to wait for its return.

Hermione had just folded the outdated cell phone she kept in the house when Harry's owl tapped on the kitchen window. Hermione was relieved that her Patronus had worked. She was not so pleased by his return message.

Malfoy's here, dying to talk to you.

She pulled a pen out of the kitchen drawer, and, turning the parchment over, scribbled:

No. No. NO.

The owl had been waiting patiently for her response, and stroking it softly, she attached her reply. As soon as bird flew away, Hermione sat down at the kitchen table, releasing a cloud of dust. She could hear Acara coming across the linoleum floor and met her halfway, leaving the dusty kitchen for the dusty sitting room.

"Shite!" Malfoy crumpled the parchment and punched the wall, plaster crumbling below.

Harry thought he should say something, but as he was well and truly pissed, he just sat back and tried to keep the attic from spinning around him.

Draco looked down at his hands to inspect for damage, and seeing the ring his godfather had given him, he was struck with brilliance. Retrieving another piece of parchment from the table, he cast a spell to make it fold into a little box. He sealed the box with the ring inside and sent it with the owl.

"That's an ugly ring to send to a bird, Malfoy."

"It's not just any ring, Potter."

"Oh, really? How so?"

"It's got the last worldly remains of Severus Snape in it."

Hermione stared at the little paper box for a long time. Written on the outside was 'Please?' in Draco's now familiar handwriting. Sighing, she scrubbed her nails through her scalp and began to pace the kitchen once more.

She had been able to ignore the box long enough to finish her delivered dinner. Now, it just stood there taunting her like a beacon of... Malfoy-ness.

What could he have sent that was so small that he thought could help him now? Help her now. Help him now! Hermione didn't need help; she needed her loathing of Ferret Face back. She stopped pacing and stared at the little parchment box on the table until she was shoved forward by Acara's head on her bum.

"Is that what you think? Really? Fine, but you'll be accountable when it all goes to pot." Hermione scowled at the beast. Acara's mouth dropped open a little bit, and Hermione could imagine she was smiling. Or about to eat a small dog for supper. It was thrilling and creepy in turn.

Hermione unfolded the parchment, dropping the contents into her palm. What an ugly ring. And then it struck her; it was Severus! Draco had sent her Severus! It was just the right thing right now, and as much as Hermione hated to admit it, Draco had known. Pushing those thoughts aside, she smacked Acara's ribs affectionately and ran to her room.

Hermione found herself and Acara in a library with a roaring fire blazing.

"Hermione?" Severus asked from the couch, his book dropping softly from his hands into his lap. "Where's Draco? What's happened?" Severus' immediate concern for Draco was touching, and Hermione began to feel foolish.

"He's fine. I mean, I think he's fine. We had a bit of a tiff. Well, really, I yelled at him, and I was crying, and then I took Acara to my parents' house, and apparently Draco camped out at Harry's place, and then he sent me the ring, and now I don't know what to do, because he's turning out to be not only not bad but kind of good, and I hate him, Severus, I hate him!"

Hermione crumpled into a pile on the floor, her legs twisting awkwardly underneath her. She tried to wipe the tears off of her face but they were falling too fast, and she was further humiliated by feeling like such a ninny in front of Severus.

Severus had marked his page in the book at the beginning of her little speech and began to glide his way over to her. With the grace she had become accustomed to, he picked her up and carried her to the couch where Acara was already sitting and placed Hermione over his lap.

He wiped the tears away from her face and looked her over. Sighing, Severus asked, "Why don't we begin again and breathe this time?"

"Today we went shopping," Hermione began, swallowing loudly as she curled up in Severus' familiar body. "And he was snogging and... stimulating me all day, and finally I just cracked. I ended up in his lap, Severus, in a shop! And I had the best orgasm I've had since you died." Hermione explained, tucking her head under his chin when she finished.

"Consequently, you feel that you've betrayed your promise not to let Malfoy 'get' you."

Hermione nodded, enjoying the feel of his button-down shirt on her cheek. "Draco has a way of doing that; something about him just slinks into your heart." Severus' fingers stroked up and down her arm, his arm rubbing her back soothingly. "That is why I made the ring."

"Hmmm?" Hermione sniffled and rubbed her eyes, looking like an over-large child.

"Albus and I were researching Horcruxes. We had many discussions about magic and motive and what makes dark and what makes light. The Dark Lord always split his soul to serve his own purposes, and the homicidal part of him was such that there was never any ambiguity in the magic.

"I, however, killed Albus possibly out of pity, but mostly out of love. Additionally, I cast the spells to put myself in this ring for Draco's benefit. When his mother charged me with his care, I took it to mean something so much further beyond completing his task for him. I did so because I feel that, despite, or perhaps because of, his failings, Draco Malfoy has the capacity for good, if someone can provide him the opportunity to prove himself."

"It was so much easier when I could just hate him, Severus," Hermione muttered into his shoulder.

"Your own issues are what makes it so difficult now, Hermione," Severus pointed out, and seeing Hermione's indignation flare, he quickly added, "For just reason, of course.

"You must marry him, Hermione. The brand and the contract require it. However, I also believe you require it. All things considered, I can think of very few people who are worthy of you, and while my opinion may be biased, I do feel confident that Draco is one of those few."

"What is it you suggest I do, exactly?"

"Simply make yourself open to the possibility that he might delight you. I'm sure you can think of at least one instance right now."

"He did send the ring when I wouldn't let him come for me," Hermione reluctantly admitted.

"Always the show-off, Miss Granger. That will be ten points."

"No detention?" Hermione looked up, batting her eyelashes at him and squirming a little on his lap.

"You, mademoiselle, are a saucy wench who needs a man who can keep you in line."

"I wish it were you, Severus."

"No, you don't; I'm dead and necrophilia is not en vogue these days." Severus sneered down at her.

Hermione giggled and sighed. "We still could have made a good show of it."

"You are too supple for an old bastard like me, Miss Granger. Now, stop teasing the dead and go find your fiancé."

With those words Hermione woke up, sitting perfectly upright in her little bed. Indeed, she had to find Draco, and she knew where to look first. Shaking Acara awake, she picked up the beast and was off to number twelve, Grimmauld Place.

Hermione Apparated directly to the kitchen of Harry's house, holding Acara tightly to her chest. When she got there, Kreacher was waiting with a pot of tea.

"Master said I is to be expecting you. Master and Mister Malfoy is in the study."

"Thank you, Kreacher," Hermione said after taking a long swallow of a decidedly excellent cup of tea and scratching Acara's head absentmindedly. Feeling slightly revived, she began the longest walk to the Black family study of her entire life. With every step her chest tightened and her breathing became shallow. Her hands became clammy, and by the top of the stairs, Hermione was beginning to question her decision.

Unfortunately for Hermione, Acara had sniffed out Draco and Harry, and she moved quickly through the door. The light in the hallway poured in, and both boys let out pained groans. Now that the door was open, Hermione could smell the tequila they'd imbibed earlier, and once she appeared in the room, she found the bottle tipped over on the floor. Harry was sprawled across a couch that was decidedly too small for him. Draco was face down on the floor by the Black family tree, Lodus spread out across his back.

"'Mione, turn off the light!" Harry moaned piteously.

"Harry James Potter, why do you insist on drinking tequila? You know what it does to you!" Hermione chastised quietly, righting the bottle and vanishing the mess.

"Get us a potion, love?" Harry said, mindless of the drool running over the cushion under his head.

"One day, Harry James Potter, I'm not going to get you potions. Then what will you do?" Hermione said, mostly to herself, as she walked to the loo down the hall. She grabbed a phial for each of the men and began to shake them. This was so not how she planned to be spending her pre-dawn hours.

As she walked into the room, she lit a fire in the hearth and passed Harry the first phial. Then she transfigured the couch into a bed, making the mattress soft and warm, even if it was still a little on the small side.

Harry burrowed himself under the blankets Hermione had put on the bed and thanked her sleepily. Then she moved to the side of the room and knelt beside Draco.

"Up, Lodus," Hermione began, stroking the dragon down his spine before turning to her fiancé. "Drink this, and I'll put you to bed," Hermione offered shyly. Without opening his eyes, Draco put the phial to his lips. He tipped the phial up and drank it all in one go. He stifled a loud belch and pushed himself off the floor. From the way he was moving, it was clear that he was not enjoying the results of the potion yet. Hermione had given him a dose of her special midnight blend; it would hydrate and cleanse the body without forcing him to stay up. It was perfect for passing out after a long night of drinking.

Leaning over, Hermione took Draco's arm and helped him stand up. She even put his arm around her shoulder, which he leaned on at first, until he could really feel the potion take effect. By then they were in the hallway, and Draco stopped her. He easily turned her to face him, his arms hanging nervously by his sides.

"What are you doing?" Hermione whispered.

"What are you doing?" Draco responded incredulously.

"Putting you to bed, of course. You need to sleep tequila off." Hermione took his hand and turned to lead him down the hall to a guest room.

"I want to talk to you, Princess." Draco's voice managed to be surprisingly authoritarian although he still let her lead him. He wasn't about to draw attention to the fact that she was voluntarily holding his hand.

"Draco, it's half four in the morning; we need to sleep. We'll talk tomorrow." Hermione said, opening the door and walking into the room.

"We'll talk now," Draco said once he, Lodus, and Acara were inside. He locked and warded the door, feeling the tingle he knew to be familial blood magic working. Finally he turned and faced Hermione, smirking as Acara found her spot in the middle of the large, soft bed. Lodus perched on the bookshelf in the corner. "Why did you run?"

Hermione looked away from him. She wasn't in the right state of mind to do this anymore. She wished she had stayed at her parents' house and gotten a good night's sleep instead.

Draco took a few steps and stood over her. Tilting her face up to his, he insisted, "Answer. Me."

"You ruined my life for years, Draco. I promised myself that I wouldn't let you..." Hermione stomped her foot as the tears began to fall again. Bloody Malfoy, always making her cry.

She was extremely shocked to find his arms come up around her, holding her close to him. He didn't try to soothe her with words, only held her firmly while she wept. Finally, when she seemed to have emptied herself completely, he looked down and said, "You won't regret this, Hermione; I swear it."

The room was lit grey with pre-dawn light when Draco lifted Hermione on the bed. As a force of habit, she curled up around Acara. Then Draco climbed into the bed behind her, moving to spoon her from behind. Hermione had already fallen asleep by then, but Draco lay awake a long time, savoring their first night together.