RP: Manor-born and Muggle-born

[pb_draco]

Characters: Draco Malfoy, Hermione Granger
Location: Malfoy Manor
Date: 14 March 2000, after their appointment
Status: Private
Summary: Draco takes Hermione for a tour and some reassurance after Meeting The Parents
Completion: Complete

Comments

[pb_draco]

He'd popped one of the mints he'd started carrying habitually since he'd started dating her, and Draco nearly choked on it when she spoke. Coughing, he spat the mint into a hedge and wiped his mouth with the edge of his cloak. "No." He laid one hand on her shoulder, then slid it up to cup her cheek, staring into her eyes. "No, Hermione, that's not it. That is absolutely not it. I am not the least bit unsure about you. Not in the slightest."

He stepped in closer to her, bending his head and lowering his voice. He opened up to her from time to time, told her how he was feeling, but even so, there were plenty of things he kept to himself. Now was not the time to keep hidden. "Hermione, I love you. I'm nervous about our relationship, yes. Except for my family's problems, it's gone far more smoothly than I could have ever expected, and that scares me. I'm waiting for something horrible to happen, practically waiting for Aunt Bella or my master to come back from the dead just to punish me for daring to even speak to you, much less for the sheer audacity of falling in love with you. Every day, I wake up expecting to see the letter telling me I've been disowned, permanently. Every day I wonder if I'm going to be arrested because someone's decided I've put you under Imperius or stuffed you full of Amortentia."

He bent to kiss her forehead before resting his own against hers. "I'm terrified of what could happen, and even so, I can't imagine going on without you. Every time I have another nightmare, I'm losing you in it. Not my parents, not my own life, you. You are the most important person in the world to me. I love you. I am positive about you, about us. Even scared, I'm happy with you. Nothing will change that, and if I thought it could prove to you how certain I am about you, I would hit my knees right now and ask you to marry me."

[pb_hermione]

"Draco, you do understand that the primary reason our relationship has gone more smoothly than either of us expected is because we talk to each other, don't you? Not only that, we listen to what the other has to say even when we disagree," often only to pick the other's argument apart but still, it was listening. "You might try that with your father." He mentioned waiting for something horrible to happen and the possibility of being disowned. "So what are you doing? Trying to force your father into disowning you so that you can get it over with? Trust me, all either of us would have to do to convince anyone I've not been potioned or Imperioed would be to have them view a memory of us bickering," she said wryly, but much softer than she would have had she not been so tense all day.

And then he was pressing his lips to her forehead and leaning his head against hers. Hermione was pleased her shoes raised her up enough that it wasn't an uncomfortable position. She looped her arms around him and felt truly comfortable for the first time today. "If you're not doing what you're doing because you're uncertain about me," Hermione took a deep breath, "you need to stop using me to punish your father. Before you tell me that's not what's going on, I want you to stop and think about it. I don't think you're doing it deliberately, nor do I think it means you don't love me, but you said yourself that you're the one who's not trying to get along. I think that's why you're having trouble. You can be really resentful sometimes, you know."

Hermione sighed, "One thing that would prove how certain you are about us is for you to do everything in your power to make sure that both sets of our parents have no reason to resent us or our children. I don't want to feel as if you're using me to get back at your father. You can't change the fact that there's a Dark Mark on your arm or that you lost part of your childhood, Draco. All you can do is move on. I can't stop you from being feeling bitter, but I can ask that you not use our love as weapon. It's worth more than that," she told him holding back the tears that were threatening to bubble up.

[pb_draco]

Draco twitched the edges of his cloak out from between them and pulled it around her, wrapping her up with it. He held it closed with one hand and smoothed the other over her back. He didn't want to think about what she was saying, but he couldn't stop. Every word dug into him, latched onto his spine and twisted until it felt like his knees were going to buckle from the pressure. She knew where to get past his shields, had learned too well how to sting him, and it was worse when everything she said was true. Draco shut his eyes and took a slow breath, then dropped his head to her shoulder, the position less awkward than usual with her choice of shoes. "I'm sorry," he murmured, his arms tightening around her when her voice thickened up with emotion. "I'm sorry. Hermione, I'm not meaning to treat you like that. Treat us like that. I don't mean to, I don't, I swear. I love you. You're worth the world to me."

[pb_hermione]

Hermione soothed his back with her hands. "Oh, Draco. I don't think for a moment you meant to. When people are hurt they sometimes do things without really thinking them through. I know I have."

"I know I may never fit in but I want so much for our children to know they belong and that they have family. A few short months with me isn't going to erase what you went through but you need to try letting the past go." Hermione knew that wouldn't be easy for him but perhaps if he understood what he was doing, he'd be capable of controlling himself better around his father.

[pb_draco]

Draco turned his face to her neck, inhaling the scent of almonds off her skin. "I don't know if I can," he mumbled. "Let the past go. I want to forget about it. Hell, love, I want to pretend it all never happened. But I can't. It's quite literally a part of me. Burned into my flesh." He tensed his left arm against her side, then forced the muscles to relax as much as he could.

"I can't forget what I had to do to save my family. The things I had to do for his sake. Murder? Torture? everything I had to do to try and save him." Draco shut his eyes against the side of her neck, his voice going unexpectedly raw. "And he wasn't even there."

[pb_hermione]

'And he wasn't even there.'

Hermione's heart went out to him. "Draco, don't you think he'd have spared you that if he'd had a choice? I don't believe for a moment that the man I saw searching frantically for you while a battle was going on all around him is the sort of man who would've abandoned you given a choice." She closed her eyes and leaned against his shoulder in turn. "I know he didn't take the news of us dating well, Draco. I know he'd rather I had magical parents. I know he isn't blameless and I'm not even sure he's a good person. I don't really know him at all. But I know what I've seen and I know you. You would not have done the things you did for your family if you didn't love your parents. Both of your parents."

"Lucius Malfoy is never going to learn to do more than tolerate me if he thinks I'm the wedge between the two of you. Whatever your issues are with your father, you should try to work them out for everyone's sake," she told him honestly.

[pb_draco]

"Little tough for him to protest since he was in prison at the time. He didn't even know." Draco squeezed Hermione without realizing it, then exhaled slowly, trying to keep himself calm. He was talking too much. It was one of his failings, and he knew it, and it got him into trouble far too often. He was treading on the edge of a conversation he didn't want to have, moving too close to the memory of a night he didn't want to remember. He took several steady breaths, forcing the images and the anger down, locking them up where he kept all the things he didn't want to think about.

"He's not a good person," Draco said, lifting his head off her shoulder to lean his cheek against her hair. "But he was a good father. I know he's trying, he's doing the best he's capable of. I just wish it wasn't so much of an effort. I wish this was easier. It's never going to be, but...." His voice caught and he swallowed hard to clear his throat. "Wish I could have brought you in with everyone looking forward to adding your name to the tapestry, rather than put blood traitor next to mine."

[pb_hermione]

"It was hard for you too and look where we are now," she kissed his jaw gently.

"While I can't say I wouldn't rather they simply accept me and get to know me, I don't need my name on a tapestry to validate our relationship. I am sorry I'm not able to give you a lofty bloodline and the Pure-blood children that are apparently required in order for your line to continue." Hermione didn't need to be reminded she was inadequate for the future production of heirs.

[pb_draco]

Draco chuckled quietly, not especially amused, but it was laugh or let the anger come back. "I couldn't protest either. Considering my alternatives were a hell of a lot worse than accepting the Mark, it would not have been a good idea to try and refuse."

He didn't much like the emphasis she put on 'required', and Draco leaned back to look at her face, trying to read her feelings in her eyes. "That's ... far less important to me now than it is to them, Hermione. I'm not going to-to resent you. Or them. I'm looking forward to children, with you. Half-blood means nothing next to having them with you."