Work Text:
Hermione Granger blinked across the table at the familiar face of the blond-haired man who stood there, balancing a child on each hip. How could it be that her life had turned out this way? Fifteen years ago, she most certainly would not have ever expected that her life would turn out this way. That she would fall in love with Draco Malfoy and marry him. That they would build a family together. She never imagined that he could be so different from the cruel, spiteful boy he’d been in their early years at Hogwarts and that he could turn out to be the most wonderful and loving man she’d ever known. She’d certainly never imagined that even after being married for almost twelve years and having five children with the man, he would still be able to make her heart flutter and make her feel like she’d missed a step coming down the stairs every time she looked at him. That with just a look he would still be able to make her feel all quivery and jittery the way he’d done when she was just a teenager, and make her want to forget everything else and simply go to him and let him make her feel things she’d never felt with anyone else.
As she stared at her husband, she felt that familiar swell of love and admiration for him and was unable to restrain the delighted smile that crept slowly across her face. He was entirely too handsome for his own good, especially when he’d just come home from work and so looked just the right amount of sophisticated, yet ruffled from his day. She imagined that in comparison, she must look a frightful mess with her hair tied up in a messy knot on the top of her head, yoga pants that had I small hole in one knee and several stains of various substances on them, paired with an oversized house shirt that hung off one shoulder and probably smelled like baby vomit thanks to the baby son she’d finally managed to get down for his nap not twenty minutes prior.
In spite of her happiness to see him, Hermione’s mind was still running a mile a minute. She needed to make sure the kids all got their homework done, and she had a pile of laundry that she needed to get to if they were to have clean uniforms for tomorrow’s school and various extra-curricular activities. They still needed to be fed and all of them needed to be bathed, not to mention that Scorpius’s birthday was coming up, and she simply had no idea when she was going to find the time to duck out and grab him something because even when he and his siblings were at school, she still had Volantis and Fornax at home to care for and run after.
She felt like she hadn’t had a spare minute all day and she simply couldn’t describe how happy she was to see her husband finally home, even if only so that he could entertain the kids long enough for her to get everything done that she’d not managed to get to yet. She stared at Draco in relief, unable to take her eyes off the sight he made and feeling her heart give a painful squeeze of love and happiness.
On his left hip, a five-year-old girl babbled about the cartwheel she’d learned to do at her gymnastics lesson earlier that afternoon, still dressed in her pretty pink leotard and black tights. Her platinum blonde hair, identical in colour to that of her father’s, was pulled up, the unruly, waist-length curls had been tamed into a single plait that hung down her back and bounced as she chattered animatedly.
On his right hip, the three-year-old boy, also as blond as his father, was repeatedly whacking at the side of Draco’s head with a stuffed toy dragon while making roaring sounds amid a confusing dribble of toddler gibberish. The boy wore blue denim overalls with no shirt underneath it because he’d wriggled around in it earlier until he got out of the shirt while Hermione had been fighting with their one-year-old to eat his lunch, and she’d not been able to get hold of him for long enough to get the shirt back on the little rascal.
Said one-year-old was currently asleep in his cot upstairs.
The seven-year-old hadn’t bothered to get up to greet her father yet, still sitting at the kitchen table with her nose buried in a book about monsters. Her curly brown hair was filled with unnatural looking platinum highlights that she’d had since birth – her hair a strange combination of both her parents’ that hung down her back and across the table, cocooning her face around her novel.
Hermione sighed, wondering where her nine-year-old son had run off to. Most likely he was out in the garden again, tormenting the gnomes and sneaking up on the bunnies that called their overgrown, sprawling mess off a garden home. He liked to try and catch the bunnies in increasingly inventive ways. Last week he’d waited until the rabbits were nibbling at the lawn before sneaking over to the entrance to their burrow and lining it with a bait net he’d absconded with after the last fishing trip he’d been on with his maternal grandfather.
Draco shot her a wink when she met his gaze again, clearly pleased to be home, even if it meant he had to tolerate the bashing of a rambunctious three-year-old and the chatter of their five-year-old daughter. In spite of the long day she’d had fighting with her children to do their homework from the muggle primary school they attended alongside Harry and Ginny’s children, and Ron and Lavender’s brood, not to mention Luna and Neville’s two daughters, Hermione found a smile tugging at her lips at the sight of her handsome husband smirking at her knowingly.
She ought not to encourage him. He had that twinkle in his eye again. The one he got when he’d done some thinking and decided that another child was just what they needed.
As if they needed any more than the five they already had.
Hermione loved them to pieces, but some days – like today – she couldn’t wait until they were all shipped off the Hogwarts simply so she could have a moment’s peace.
“And how’s my beautiful wife this evening?” Draco asked her, rounding the table, still carrying their three-year-old son, Volantis, since the boy had clearly decided that his father’s hair was the perfect nest for a toy dragon.
“I’m alright,” Hermione admitted, smiling up at him tiredly. “Happy to see you. How was your day?”
“Fantastic,” he replied, looking entirely too delighted to be home and making Hermione melt for him all over again. “Business is booming, and I get to come home to the most beautiful woman in the world and all our charming children. Well, most of them…. Where’s Scorpius and Fornax?”
“Scorpius is in the garden,” Hermione told him, trying to wrestle Volantis off Draco even as Lobelia – the five-year-old - began tugging on the front of Hermione’s shirt, wanting her attention. Hermione already knew the girl was going to ask how long it would be until dinner. She was always hungry, that one. Hermione ignored her long enough to finish answering Draco. “Fornax is asleep upstairs.”
“Scorp chasing those rabbits again?” Draco asked, grinning over the heads of their children and waving his hand to tell her not to bother trying to fight Volantis off him, clearly not minding at all the way their son was tugging on his hair as he clomped the toy dragon around on Draco’s head, his roaring growing louder the more he fought against Hermione’s attempts to pry him off his father. The little bugger was too strong for her already and Hermione dreaded to coming years as he grew, because he was so impossibly naughty all the time that she had no idea how she was going to convince him to do as he was told without having to scold him and shout at him all the time. She really didn’t want to end up like Mrs Weasley, needing to shout at her children all the time when they got into mischief, but Volantis was truly a little terror. He had all the charm and adorableness of his father, and already he used it shamelessly to his advantage to get away with all manner of naughtiness.
“As always. He’s been after the gnomes as well. I’ve been doctoring gnome bites all day because when he was over at Molly and Arthur’s with Ginny and Harry’s kids last week Molly had the kids help her de-gnome the garden. Rather than flinging them away when he pulls them up, he’s been penning them. I caught him dragging Lobelia’s doll house out there earlier with the intention of giving them somewhere to live.” Hermione sighed, giving up on prying him loose and feeling the need to tear her hair out. All she wanted was to kiss Draco hello, but she knew that wasn’t going to happen with Volantis hanging off him because that was a sure-fire way to get that annoying little toy tangled up in her own hair, which was far less pliant than Draco’s and so often resulted in Hermione losing precious strands to the snagging feet and legs of various toys. For all that he liked to make Draco’s hair a nest for his dragon, Volantis absolutely loved getting the toy tangled in her hair and informed her just last week that her hair made the best dragon nest because it was already so much like a nest that he didn’t even have to swirl his toy about to make it nesty.
“Rascal,” Draco laughed, clearly more amused than annoyed that Scorpius had been causing mayhem all bloody day.
“Dinner will be ready in twenty minutes, Lobelia. I want you to go upstairs and have a shower so I can wash that uniform for tomorrow before then, alright?” Hermione told the girl tugging on the front of her jumper insistently as she tried to get her attention, growing impatient with the constant tugging and having to bite her lip to keep from snapping at the girl, who’d already asked about dinner seven times in the past twenty minutes because she could smell it cooking on the stove and hadn’t liked being told that she couldn’t help cook it because she always liked to throw in whatever she could find in the cupboard and especially the spice rack, even when they were things that most certainly should not be going in spaghetti and meatballs. The last time Hermione had let Lobeila cook, the girl had upended a jar of nutmeg into Vegetable chowder and destroyed the meal, though she had proceeded to insist that she wanted to taste what she’d made and had enjoyed it so much that she’d had three bowls of a meal she usually fought with her mother about having to eat at all.
Hermione feared the days when Lobelia would go off to Hogwarts and no doubt wreak havoc in a Potions classroom. She could already imagine the letters she would be sent about it!
“Yes, Mummy!” the little girl cried, delighted at the idea of being allowed to shower. She was a complete scallywag and would stay in there playing with her dolls in the bottom of the shower all night if Hermione would let her.
“Turn around so I can untie your hair, please,” Hermione told the girl, knowing she wouldn’t be able to get her hello kiss from her husband until she and the three-year-old had been dealt with. While Hermione untied Lobelia’s long hair, she watched Draco move over to stand beside their seven-year-old daughter, Cassiopeia, where she was still seated at the table reading her book. Hermione tried not to notice the sinewy grace of Draco’s movements but found herself biting her lip just the same and she admired the smooth lines of his body.
“What are you reading this time, Cassie?” Draco asked the seven-year-old girl sitting at the table.
“Monsters,” she replied. It was her favourite and Draco turned to Hermione, rolling his eyes over the head of their eldest daughter even as he bent down to kiss the top of Cassie’s head in greeting.
“Alright, sweetheart, your hair’s fixed. Make sure you put the timer on for ten minutes while you shower. If I have to come up there and get you out for dinner again, you’re not going to Gymnastics for the rest of the week,” Hermione warned Lobelia even as the girl dashed out of the room, giggling gleefully at the idea of getting to shower. Hermione rolled her eyes at the child. Anyone would think she’d been deprived of bathing, when more often than not Hermione had to make sure she was bathed two or three times a day because she had a habit of spilling paint or food, or just about anything else likely to make a mess and stain her clothes.
“Volantis, what on earth are you doing with that dragon?” Hermione groused when she turned to find the boy trying to stuff the tail of the toy into Draco’s ear while he stirred the pasta she had cooking on the stove. The little boy froze beneath his mother’s sharp tone and Hermione watched him turn to her slowly, his grey eyes huge and wide with imagined innocence, even as he continued trying to fit as much of the tail into Draco’s ear as possible. She narrowed her eyes on the boy, and on Draco, who was clearly in too much of a good mood to mind the intrusion. Then again, after being repeatedly bashed in the head with the toy, it was probably a welcome change.
“What have I told you about sticking things in people’s ears?” She demanded of the three-year-old, who had the decency to look contrite for all of twenty seconds before his father’s signature smirk arranged itself on his adorable features and he wriggled for Draco to let him down. The minute Draco put him down, he dashed off, waving the toy about and making the types of whooshing, roaring sounds she expected he believed a dragon would make whilst flying, though he sounded more like a very unhappy aeroplane
“You’re stressed tonight,” Draco commented casually, turning to her in the kitchen and reaching for her, pulling her against his chest. Hermione pressed her face into him, breathing in the zesty lemon and mint scent of him that she loved so much. She never felt happier and more comfortable and safe and at home than when she was pressed into his chest like that, cuddled up in his arms, knowing that in spite of her bad mood and her no doubt disgusting and tired appearance, he loved her wholeheartedly.
“They’ve been a handful today, and I had the worst time trying to get Fornax fed and down for his nap with Scorpius crashing about and yelling in the backyard,” Hermione told him quietly, her cheek pillowed against his hard chest comfortably as she absorbed the comfort he offered. She began to relax immediately, already feeling better simply to have him holding her. His presence was like a balm to her bad mood, and she felt it melting away the longer he held her, his hands sweeping up and down her back lovingly.
“Sometimes you wish they were all as behaved as Cassie, don’t you?” he teased lightly, while the girl at the table was sneaking glances at them over the pages of her book. Hermione didn’t even have to look at him to know he was probably smirking and looking entirely amused by the way she clung to him almost desperately. He was her life raft every evening after a day of drowning in the constant chaos of having five children under the age of ten, all of whom were entirely too mature for their age, and yet entirely prone to fighting, shouting, screaming, and getting into as much mischief as possible.
She hadn’t really understood before having them, not only how difficult and tiring it was to have children, but how stressful it was to have magical children. Her muggle friends didn’t have anywhere near as much trouble with their children as Hermione did, simply because they didn’t accidentally make things explode with their minds, and didn’t shatter glass when they screamed in a temper-tantrum.
She’d never been so grateful than when Susan Bones, a girl from their year at Hogwarts, had opened up a primary school for magical children in their neighbourhood. It was a relief to have her children attending school alongside the kids of her friends, not to mention to have them under the supervision of a teacher who didn’t panic if one of them accidentally levitated themselves on top of the building or made flowers bloom simply by smiling at them.
“Then I’d have to worry about what sneaky plot they were getting into while I wasn’t looking, rather than just dealing with the chaos,” Hermione chuckled in response to Draco’s question about all of the kids being more like Cassie, who was very mature and behaved, but also prone to scheming and playing elaborate pranks on her siblings, her friends, and occasionally, her parents. Hermione and Draco had no doubt that Cassie would be sorted into Slytherin the minute she attended Hogwarts. She was clever and cunning and her impossibly high-level logic and intelligence meant she had no qualms about rules because she was able to logically rationalise her way into reasons that the rules were restrictive and incorrect and therefore ought not to be followed.
“Where’s my hello kiss?” Draco asked her, smirking into her face when she lifted her head to peer at him. “I haven’t seen you all day and I come home to be attacked by the horde. I need my kisses, woman!”
Hermione thought about scolding him, but she kind of liked the way he sounded so exasperated every time he called her ‘woman’. Instead, she wrapped her arms around his neck and went up on her toes, pecking him lightly on the lips. It took a monumental amount of effort to pull back after such a brief, chaste kiss, but Hermione managed it, feeling a little thrill run through her when he tried to pull her in for more.
“That’s all I get?” he asked, sounding just like her indignant nine-year-old when he’d asked for chocolate earlier.
“Have you earned anymore?” Hermione teased him, enjoying the feel of being in his arms and exalting in the thrill of pleasure and desire at knowing how much he wanted her, even when she looked like hell. The cunning expression that slipped across his handsome face in response to her challenge made her quiver with excitement and she giggled like she was still sixteen when he suddenly dipped her right there in the kitchen, planting a toe-curling kiss on her lips.
Hermione sank into the feel of his lips moving over hers, sighing against him when he slipped his tongue into her mouth cheekily and made her forget all about her stressful day with the kids. Her hands knotted in his silky hair and Hermione heard the little whimper he elicited from her, liking the way he swallowed the sound as he snogged her hungrily. His hands on her lower back kneaded at the knotted muscles, turning her to putty instantly and Hermione wondered if there would ever come a day when she would tire of the way he could make her heart race with just a hot look.
When he slowly pulled away, lingering to steal several close-mouthed pecks from her as he slowly stood her straight again, Hermione sighed blissfully.
“I missed you today,” he murmured to her softly, cuddling her close again, his forehead pressed intimately against her as he peered into her eyes.
“I missed you, too. Tell me you don’t have to go in for the rest of the week,” she replied, always dreading every morning when he left for work, knowing how much she’d miss having him around all day, even after all this time.
“I don’t have to go in for the rest of the week,” he grinned at her and Hermione rolled her eyes. Of course, he didn’t. He owned the company. That meant he could do whatever he wanted and none of his employees would bat an eye – especially when so many of them knew how many kids their boss had. In spite of her mild irritation at the idea that he was so in control of his company that he could easily give himself the rest of the week off, Hermione felt the thrill to know he would spend the rest of the week with her. She knew the kids would love it, they always loved having him around all day because he invented wild games to play with them, displaying a wild imagination and knack for amusing himself and others that Hermione had been surprised to learn he had the first time he’d done so.
She knew it stemmed from the fact that he had grown up an only child with little interest in books outside of his studies. He much preferred to invent a wild game with Scorpius and Cassie in the backyard treehouse he and Hermione had built, shouting and laughing about invading pirates. He was particularly gifted at the charms and magic needed to completely immerse them all in the world he invented too, so by the end, it truly did feel as though rather than a game, they’d actually been on a wild adventure across the high seas chasing pirates, or trekking through an Amazon jungle searching for lost treasure.
She looked forward to simply having him home too for her own selfish reason because she adored his company and knew that when he wasn’t playing with the kids, he would putter about the house helping her with whatever jobs she’d missed, shooing her away if she tried to do it and telling her to go and read a book and put her feet up. He had a knack for tiring the kids out too, and when that happened, he would always come in and sit with her wherever she was, tucking her up against him while she read, before he would inevitably grow bored of sitting still. Then he would start to play with her hair, and begin peppering kisses against her neck tantalisingly. Soon, he’d slip his hand under her shirt and trace ticklish patterns over her skin and work her into a right tizzy, until Hermione knew she’d wind up begging him to have his way with her. And he would smirk like a Cheshire cat at the very idea before he’d snog her until her toes curled.
“What are you smirking at?” Draco asked and Hermione blinked in confusion, a blush creeping up her cheeks at the idea of being caught fantasising about being seduced by her husband, before realising he wasn’t talking to her.
Across the room, still sitting at the table with her book, Cassie was smirking at them happily. She watched them with a look on her intelligent young face that suggested she was examining her parents and approved of their behaviour, finding it entirely fascinating and intriguing.
“One day, when I’m older, my husband will come home from work and kiss me like that. And just like Mummy does, I’ll forget all about my rubbish day and that the baby puked on me and that I stubbed my toes on the table every time I walked through the kitchen. I like it when you come home, Daddy,” Cassie told them matter-of-factly, sounding far more like a teenager than like the seven-year-old she was. “You make Mummy happy the minute you walk in the door.”
“She kicked her toes again, eh?” Draco asked his daughter, grinning knowingly at Hermione.
She kicked her toes every single time she crossed the kitchen chasing the unruly toddler and running for the door to get them all off to school and their various extra-curricular activities. And every single time she did it, Hermione would hop on one foot and curse and grumble to herself about Draco sodding Malfoy and all of his unruly children. She’d curse about letting him knock her up in the first place, and about him not being home, even if he was home at the time, and then she’d curse some more about the children and their running and naughtiness and exuberance and about how it was entirely unnatural for them to be so lively when they should all be calm and well behaved and mature like Cassie.
“Twelve times today, so far,” Cassie confirmed on her behalf while Hermione blushed some more and thought about the fact that she’d actually broken her toe earlier that day chasing Scorpius while he carried two gnomes about even as they kept biting him. The girl would know how many times it had been. She’d been sitting there most of the day with her book.
“You sure it was only twelve?” Draco asked, chuckling now.
“Yes, whenever she does it, she starts cursing, so I hear her even if I’m out of the room.”
Hermione blushed while Draco laughed.
“You need me to kiss you better, love?” he asked her, stepping around behind her and cuddling her close.
“Don’t you dare even think about getting anywhere near my toes!” Hermione warned, knowing how he loved to hold her down and tickle her feet whenever he pretended he was going to help her.
“You know you enjoy having your feet tickled, love,” he reminded her, grinning broadly when Hermione elbowed him in the ribs before he added in a husky whisper. “You love what happens after I pin you down like that too.”
“Draco!” Hermione warned, even though her heart began to beat rapidly inside her chest at the mention of the activities that always stemmed from the two of them rolling around in bed together. The very idea made her insides clench with excitement and nervousness as though they were still silly, inexperienced teenagers rather than married adults with five children.
“You know, I was thinking as I walked in here, with you looking like such a delightful, hot mess,” Draco began, murmuring in her ear now, his lips teasing the sensitive shell. “And how much fun it might be if later after the kids are all in bed….”
“I know what you were thinking,” Hermione interrupted before he could start whispering sinful scenarios in her ear about all the things that he’d like to do to her. “I saw that twinkle in your eyes and you can just forget it. We have five children as it is. Any more and I’m going to tear my hair out.”
“Who said anything about more kids?” he asked, chuckling wickedly. “I was talking about all the fun stuff that comes before the next kid shows up.”
Hermione shivered in his hold, trying to fight the sensations whirling through her at his whispered words and simply knowing that later after the kids were in bed and the house was some semblance of being clean, he was going to climb into the shower with her and make her forget all about anything but how he could make her feel.
She was fighting a losing battle too, she knew, because when she looked over her shoulder into those stormy, lustful grey eyes, she just knew that come the morning she’d probably be pregnant again. That twinkle in his eyes was more than the usual hot look he got that told her he wanted to strip her naked and have his wicked way with her.
That twinkle was the one he got when he came home to a houseful of rowdy children, loving every minute of the chaos and the mess, and decided he never wanted it to end. Just last week he’d hinted at that in just fourteen short months Scorpius would be going off the Hogwarts for the first time, grousing about how much quieter and less chaotic the house would be without the energetic boy around.
Hermione had a terrible fear she was going to wind up with kids coming out her ears if Draco got his way. More than once he’d told her about how lonely childhood had been being an only child, not that he’d needed to, given that she’d been an only child herself. Hermione knew all about what it was like to grow up with no siblings to play with and fight with. She knew about the loneliness that had been all too poignant before she’d gone off to Hogwarts and made friends with Harry and Ron and Ginny. She’d known when she’d married Draco that they would have a few children, though she hadn’t expected she’d wind up with five under the age of ten. She knew too, that with every child they had, she felt her heart swell with such an overpowering love for them that she wanted another and another and another, simply because of the joy it was to have so many wonderful children to love. That was one of the reasons they already had five!
“You’re lucky I love you more than anything, Draco Malfoy” Hermione told him in a whisper, feeling excitement pooling within her at the idea of letting him slowly peel off her clothes, knowing the way he always tried to make their love-making romantic and extra special whenever they began trying for another child. She could distinctly remember the romantic acts and passionate slow way he’d made love to her before the conception of their five children, and she couldn’t wait to find out what he might have in store for trying for their sixth.
“Is that a yes to having more?” he asked hopefully even though he’d just denied wanting them, looking like a kid whose Christmases have all come at once at the very idea of being allowed to try for more.
“Fornax is almost two,” Hermione said softly, musing about the idea as though she hadn’t already made up her mind that another child would be okay with her. “If we want to keep to our pattern I’d say we’re due for another one about now.”
“Maybe we’ll get lucky and have twins,” Draco suggested brightly, positively bouncing with glee at the prospect of more children. A huge grin had spread across his handsome pointed face, and he was cuddling her even closer now, nuzzling his face into her neck and tormenting her sensitive skin with feather-light kisses and little nips that cause goose-pimples of desire to race across her flesh in a tell-tale sign that she was enjoying his ministrations.
Hermione couldn’t help but laugh even as Scorpius suddenly appeared in the kitchen, traipsing mud through the house. He was tall for his age, and as Hermione glanced at him, she noticed that he son needed a haircut. His blond hair hung into his eyes in a way that would one day make all the girls swoon. He looked like an exact copy of Draco, tall with pale skin, silvery blonde hair and sharp grey eyes. He almost always wore a mischievous smirk on his handsome young face, too.
“Dad, look!” He cried out excitedly, holding up that old bait net he’d pinched from Arthur Weasley by the sinkers and showing off what looked like an entire sackful of rabbits, all packed in tightly and wriggling around as they tried to escape the confines of their newest prison, courtesy of Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy.
“How did you catch so many?” Hermione asked, aghast even as Draco began congratulating their son on his catch. The poor things looked like they were terrified and were no doubt far from comfortable in that ridiculous net.
“I didn’t. I only caught one, but I was sitting there wishing I’d caught more when all of a sudden, more appeared in my net!” Scorpius explained, looking stoked and entirely too proud of himself.
“You conjured all those rabbits?” Cassie demanded, sounding positively livid at the magical feat as she lowered her book to glare at her elder brother at the idea of him achieving something of such a high skill level entirely by accident.
“Sure did,” Scorpius smirked. “Jealous?”
Draco looked at her over their heads as the children began to bicker about who was better at magic and whether or not it counted as a skill given that Scorpius had done it by accident. He beamed at her as he delightedly announced, “We’re so having more!”
~O~
Hermione jerked awake when she heard someone saying her name, startled and entirely confused.
“Oi, Granger?” the voice asked again and Hermione blinked blearily, trying to get her bearings. Where was she? Why did her cheek hurt? Was someone touching her? It felt like there was someone shaking her shoulder none too gently
“Granger, you awake?” the voice asked again, sounding just like the one belonging to the husband she’d just been talking to.
“Draco?” Hermione asked sleepily, squinting around before coming face to face with a much younger looking Draco Malfoy. He was standing beside her and she had to squint at him in confusion, trying to understand why he was shaking her, and why he looked different. Was it dark? She felt like it was a little difficult to see him, as though they were in a gloomy library.
“Are you done with that book?” he asked, completely unconcerned about having woken her or by the fact that she looked completely bewildered by where she was and why he looked different and why she could no longer hear the sounds of her children arguing.
“What book?” Hermione asked in confusion. “Where am I? Why are you shaking me?”
“The library,” Malfoy said slowly. “At Hogwarts… Did you hit your head on something? I’ve never seen you look this confused. You’re supposed to be the know-it-all and right now you look like you might drool on me… You already did drool on the book I need. The one you were just using as a pillow.”
He eyed her as though she’d lost her mind.
“Hogwarts?” she asked, baffled by the information and wondering how she’d gotten there before being hit by an unsettling and entirely devastating realisation. “But I….. Oh my god, it was a dream!?”
How could it have been a dream? It had been so vivid. So real. How could it be that she’d woken up in the library at Hogwarts, back in her seventh year; eighteen all over again?
“Are you all right?” he asked, looking mildly concerned and mostly like he wanted to flee the madwoman. He was eyeing her strangely, and Hermione squinted at him harder, wondering why on Earth she’d been dreaming about being married to and in love with this boy currently staring down at her as though she might have been replaced by a pod-person. His blond hair hung in casual disarray around his face, longer than she remembered it being in her dream. His face was younger too, with less noticeable stubble dusting his sharp, pointed jaw. His grey eyes were narrowed slightly, watching her carefully as though he expected her to spontaneously combust, or perhaps as though he thought she might lose her temper and start shouting at him again, which seemed mildly more likely.
Hermione realised for the first time as she looked at him, her dream of their life together still lingering in the forefront of her mind, that Draco Malfoy was incredibly handsome. She’d never thought him to be so in the past. Even when the other girls at Hogwarts whispered that he was, she’d always thought that they were delusional and simply hadn’t been able to see past his previously unattractive personality to even really notice any of his features. In fact, before she’d had her dream; before she’d returned to Hogwarts to complete her final year and been forced into smaller, combined classes with him every day, Hermione hadn’t thought all that much about Draco Malfoy at all, beyond noticing where he was before the war in order to avoid being confronted by him whenever possible.
She knew now, of course, that he had drastically changed from the racist, cruel, vile boy he’d been before the war. His part in it, and the effects it had wreaked upon him had been profound, Hermione knew. She could see it just by looking at him. Rather than curling his lip in disgust or poised with a cruel insult on the tip of his tongue as he once would’ve been, now he watched her warily as though he was mildly concerned for her wellbeing and the fact that she seemed so disoriented.
“I was dreaming….” She murmured, staring into the younger version of the face she recalled from her dreams and wondering if it had simply been a strange dream or if there was a little more to it than that. Not that she liked acknowledging that Divination in any form could possibly have any validity, or that she considered herself to have suddenly been cursed with the ability to foresee and predict the future. Although she supposed that if it was the case, the one she had imagined had at least been a happy and bright future.
She’d been dreaming about being married to Draco Malfoy and having an entire brood of children with him. For just a moment Hermione felt a strange hollow emptiness in the pit of her stomach to realise that life she’d dreamed up was nothing but some strange fantasy.
She narrowed her eyes on Malfoy as she dismissed the idea as simply being a dream since she had certainly never experienced any kind of premonitions before.
“Why did you wake me?” she demanded, cranky and feeling a little like she’d just lost a part of herself. It was a strange feeling to be missing something she’d never had, nor even realised she might want, but as she stared at him, Hermione realised she did have a strange yearning deep within her psyche to have children and a family. To get married. They weren’t things she’d really taken the time to ponder before, simply because the war had caused so much uncertainty as to whether she would even live long enough to see such things. Yet, as she sat staring into the eyes of Draco Malfoy, Hermione knew she did want those things, and her dream suggested that having those things with him might be a fine idea indeed.
“You were drooling on a book I need to get my homework done,” he shrugged unapologetically, pointing indicatively at the book she’d clearly been resting her cheek against, even as Hermione got slowly to her feet. She was only vaguely conscious of the ideas forming in her head, and yet as she moved Hermione found herself thinking not of the children she’d dreamed about, but instead of the kiss she recalled from the dream. The kiss he’d given her. The one that had made her toes curl with delight.
Draco continued to stare at her with that familiar smirk on his face, clearly thinking up the best way to torment her about having fallen asleep in the library, but before he could get a single word out about it, Hermione stepped into him and closed the distance between them, wrapping her arms around his neck in a way that felt entirely too familiar before going up on her toes as she planted her lips on his, snogging him soundly.
He made a strange sound of shocked protest for a moment, clearly surprised by the suddenness and uncharacteristic overtones of the action. His hands clamped down on her shoulders as he tried to push her away, but Hermione clung to him, her lips moving against his hungrily, demandingly. Her tongue swept out to press against the seam of his lips and Hermione smiled a little when he automatically flicked his tongue out to tangle with hers. She could feel his resistance weakening as the shock of being so suddenly snogged wore off and sensation took its place instead. His hands loosened slowly on her shoulders before he wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her tight against his chest as he began to snog her back just as much passion and intensity as she was giving to him.
He tasted like mint and Hermione sighed against his lips when she realised that the zesty lemon scent of his skin was tormenting her senses. Her heart began to race inside her chest as she tangled her fingers into his hair, overcome with desire for him. With a desire to kiss him for as long as he would let her, entirely enthralled by the feel of his fingers digging firmly into the flesh of her lower back, his thumbs circling in a way that made her turn to putty in his grip and simply made her melt against his hard body, moulding her own soft curves to his hard lines and enjoying the feel of having him so close.
“What was that for?” he asked when she finally pulled away several minutes later, his voice husky and breathless with yearning, his hands still holding her close as he peered into her eyes looking curious and mildly amused. Hermione was pleased by the fact that he looked considerably rattled by her kiss as well, indicating to her that much like she felt, he was feeling off-kilter and perhaps giddy over the kiss they had shared.
“You kiss even better in real life,” Hermione murmured, her forehead resting against his intimately, revelling in the feel of having him so close, a strange sense of rightness settling over her to be in his arms. It wasn’t something she’d expected, but as she peered up at him, Hermione realised that she felt liked she belonged in his arms, pressed against him so intimately. She felt like his touch had electrified her, sparking her body to life and making her feel needy and giddy and hot under the collar, while simultaneously feeling as though his mere presence made her feel calmer, more settled, and as though she could lean peer into his stormy grey eyes forever.
“You were dreaming about snogging me?” he asked sounding smug now, his arms still tight around her waist, holding her captive and not letting her go. Hermione liked the way his grip felt mildly possessive, as though the idea of her even trying to pull away from him was one he did not like and would not tolerate.
“Mhmm,” Hermione hummed, eyeing his lips hungrily. “You can’t imagine what else might’ve happened in there if you’d let me sleep just a minute longer…..”
His familiar smirk quirked upwards cheekily.
“Oh, I think I can imagine,” he purred at her suggestively.
With that, Hermione leaned into him again, snogging him wildly, even as his hands swept down her back, wrapping around the backs of her thighs until he could lift her up so she had her legs wrapped around his waist. Her arms around his neck were tight, and his lips on hers made Hermione want to kiss him for the rest of her life until she couldn’t stand the pleasure of his touch a moment longer, and then she wanted to kiss him some more.
When he elicited a little moan from her, showing her just what might’ve happened if he’d let her dream a minute longer, Hermione found herself kind of hoping her dream had been some kind of premonition.