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The afternoon sun sat high in the sky.
Blinding, it cast splotches of deep reds and oranges behind her closed eyelids.
Warm, it soothed away the cold anxiety that had webbed itself into her body.
A breeze glided across her bare arms and legs, dragging the sun’s heat along her skin, gently kissing life and hope back into her very soul. It blew a few loose curls into her face; she faintly tilted her chin up with calculated precision, just enough to encourage the windswept tendrils to drift and flutter harmoniously with the gust instead of rebelliously against it. With a deep sigh of contentment, she let her palms sink into the soft sand below her, let her fingers listlessly grasp at the small, rough grains, let them fall through her grip back to the ground with a soft, calming whoosh. A small smile curved up on her pink lips as the majestic sound of the ocean waves crashed in the background, a predictable rhythm to match the steady beat of her heart.
Her hands ventured up to the soft, gentle swell of her belly. Almost mindlessly, her fingers swayed and curled into the familiar patterns of her favourite spells, delicately swishing and flicking with her fingertips over the new life that flourished beneath her touch.
His warm hand joined hers, gently following the easy glide of her movements, knowing them as well as she did. Her smile curved higher at the feel of his larger, calloused hand over hers, floating in tandem, her heart swelling as he waited for the first hint of the next spell movement before effortlessly finishing its dance with her.
“If I didn’t know any better,” his deep voice drawled lazily into her ear, “I’d think you’re trying to embed magic into our unborn daughter.”
Her smile blossomed into a grin, her eyes still closed against the bright sunlight.
“Something wrong with that?”
She could hear his own amused, arrogant smirk in his tone as he responded.
“Just unnecessary. With parents like us, that little girl in there has no choice but to be born a stubbornly powerful witchling.”
His hand moved, fingertips trailing up her belly, up her sternum, up the hollow of her throat to cup her cheek.
“You’ll see,” he murmured confidently, the vow nothing but a breath against the shell of her ear.
She turned her head and opened her eyes, wishing she could dive headfirst into the stormy melancholy of his dove grey irises. “Will I?”
Her question was hushed. Uncertain.
His soft caress on her face stilled.
They stared at one another for several seconds before he nodded faintly.
“You will, Granger. I swear it, you will.”
She swallowed hard. “And will you?”
His fingers moved lower, gripping at her chin, his thumb brushing across her bottom lip.
“Nothing will stop me,” he vowed. “I swear. I’ll see her, too. See her. Hold her. Love her. Both of us.”
Silence fell over them like a security blanket, wrapping around them with his fierce words that were both a sworn oath and a desperate wish.
Today was the only promise they could keep resolutely.
And so there they lay, in the sand beneath the sun’s rays, as if hanging in a suspended timeline of gold and shimmering devotion where nothing existed but them and their solemn hope for tomorrow.
They obstinately remained on the sandy shore, ignoring the bustling activity around them. Several Order members hesitantly stepped into their space; they reluctantly attempted to convince him to practice duelling, to go over the plans for the next day for the umpteenth time, to strategise standby recourses with them back inside Shell Cottage, but he wouldn’t hear of it.
She gripped his hand, quietly begging for the day.
She needed this day. He needed this day.
Just this day.
Just in case.
“I’ve led every duelling session for the last four days,” he responded quietly to Kingsley’s latest plea. “I came up with tomorrow’s blueprint alongside Potter and Remus. I strategised the hell out of backup plans with Sirius and Tonks; we had a regular Black family reunion, believe me,” he added sarcastically. “Today is off limits. Today belongs to her.”
“Draco –”
“You will not convince me to leave her side,” he interrupted Kingsley’s final attempt at reason. “Today is ours. With all due respect, leave us, Kings. The answer is no.”
She exhaled with quiet relief when Kingsley acquiesced. And when Draco’s cheek snugly found a resting place against her small bump, she lovingly carded her fingers through his pale blonde hair, watching as his eyelids fluttered with serene bliss, watching as the platinum strands fell endearingly across his forehead, watching them sweep the bridge of his nose, watching them dust in silver glitter across his closed eyes.
Languidly, they lay splayed in the sand for the rest of the afternoon.
He carefully lifted the hem of her cotton t-shirt over her midriff. Then, with his fingers entwined with hers, he turned his face and spoke to their daughter.
Lips pressed near her navel, he let the smooth, deep timbre of his voice seep into her soft, sun-kissed skin, hoping to impress the slightest hint of his memory into his child.
Just in case. Just in case.
He started with the trivial: he recited the recipe for Felix Felicis. He recited the recipe for Polyjuice Potion. He recited the recipe for Calming Draught. He told her his favourite stories from Tales of Beedle the Bard.
Just in case. Just in case.
He told her about his childhood in Wiltshire, about his boyhood spent in the shadows of trees and the rural sunlight of his estate; he told her about running through the apple orchard with Theo Nott when they were knee-high, filling their bellies with Granny Smiths. He told her about the hedge maze and playing tag with Pansy Parkinson and Blaise Zabini every Boxing Day while their parents shared tea in the dining room. He told her about his summer days spent in the lake, lazily floating on his back alongside his father. He told her about his arrival at Hogwarts, about his Sorting, about how the Hat had barely skimmed the air above his head before it shouted “SLYTHERIN!”
“It’ll be the same for you, Witchling,” he murmured confidently, “just you wait.”
Just in case. Just in case.
He told her about how he fell in love with her mother: messily, like a boorish, uncivilised barbarian. Hesitantly, like a trembling coward. Awkwardly, gracelessly, like a blithering idiot, putting up a savage fight until the very day he’d all but screamed it at her when he’d rescued her from the dungeons of Malfoy Manor, sobbing in fury and frustration because he’d known the truth in that moment, known what his all-encompassing, intoxicating love for her meant; he’d known because he’d seen the same look of unadulterated adoration on his father’s face his entire life, had seen the devout lengths his father had gone to simply to protect his mother.
He reverently told his baby girl he’d known in that very moment that he was switching sides for her mother; he’d known in that moment that he would carry her to the apparition point outside the manor’s gates with shaking limbs and a racing heart, had known he would apparate to Grimmauld Place with nothing but a pledge of fealty to the Order and a prayer of worship to the girl in his arms.
“And I regret not one second of that decision,” he whispered. “Because then we made you, and you are the second-best thing to ever happen to me.”
Just in case. Just in case.
Time seemed to stand still even as the sun began its slumbering descent. They sat up, opening the basket she’d made earlier to feast on fruit, cheese, and sandwiches. They left the basket behind when she carefully stood, his hand firmly steadying her lower back before pulling her to his side, and made their way down the shore for a leisurely walk along the water.
He watched, admiring as her hair lightened beneath the sunbeams, watched it fluff and curl with the saltwater spray and the humid air. He watched, admiring as the smattering of freckles along the apples of her cheeks and the bridge of her nose darkened into sprinkles of cinnamon. He watched, admiring as her dark eyes sparkled every time she looked at him, watched as her hand always found his.
And, gods, he hoped his tiny Witchling looked just like her.
Together, they found two matching seashells half-buried in the sand near the surf. And when they sat to rest her feet, he took his wand and, with delicate precision, cast a transfiguration spell. Hermione watched with bated breath as the seashells floated and spun, faster and faster in midair until they became nothing but a whirling blur. Draco concentrated diligently, eyes narrowed, focused on the task until the spinning slowed, and the blurry lines cleared as he held out his free hand. Two iridescently white, smooth rings with caramel swirls and a glossy, pearly lustre fell neatly into his palm.
Her eyes widened in awe, gazing up at him intently as her cheeks pinkened.
His eyes met hers.
“For tonight,” he whispered.
Her finger lightly skimmed the smooth, round shape of the rings as they glinted in the fading light. “They’re perfect.”
“Perfect,” he echoed, voice rough and unguarded. He captured her fingers with his own, the rings protectively cocooned between them, before he turned his hand to firmly press her knuckles against his chest, allowing her to feel the steady, dependable thump of his heartbeat. The sea wind seemed to insistently tug them together, wrapping around them joyfully as he leaned in closer, close enough for their noses to touch and nuzzle together.
“You are perfect,” he lilted, the declaration intimately breathed against her mouth.
And at midnight, the magically created rings were in his pocket as he and Hermione silently snuck out of Shell Cottage, running barefoot across the sand, clutching hands, their ecstatic laughs swept up in the breeze, carried down the length of the shore.
They raced to the water’s edge, where Arthur Weasley stood waiting beneath the navy night sky, the full moon shining its pure white path along the ripples of the ocean, as if leading the way and pointing to the answer Draco and Hermione had been waiting for their entire lives.
Her. Standing before him in a simple, short-sleeved, cream-coloured, cotton dress skimming her calves, her long dark curls pulled half-back with a hair clip bedazzled with pearls, a few loose tendrils whipping around her flushed face, gazing up at him in excitement.
Him. Standing before her in his black trousers and untucked white dress shirt, the top few buttons open. His hair was still loosely tousled after their day outside by the water, and a besotted smile adorned the sharp lines of his face.
“Ready, kids?” Arthur asked quietly. “Still sure about this?”
They both nodded eagerly, eyes only on one another.
“We can’t leave things to chance. Not with this never-ending war,” she responded quietly, fingers tightening in Draco’s grasp.
“I want to spend the rest of my life with this girl,” Draco affirmed, “whether I live a hundred more years or just one more day.” His gaze flitted to Arthur.
“I know you’re determined,” Arthur continued, “but I would be remiss not to suggest you wait until after the war and do it properly. With a wedding. With your family and friends. Not in a shroud of secrecy.”
Draco shook his head. “No. This war has been going on for nearly four years. It is no closer to being over than it was when we were 16. The outcome is not promised. This needs to happen now. Before tomorrow. Before I leave on the mission with the others. Before –” his voice faltered, and he swallowed hard, his throat working to push past the lump of emotion that had settled there as he gazed at Hermione. “If something happens to me tomorrow, I want to know you were mine in every way possible, Hermione Granger. The thought of leaving this undone is unbearable. I can’t go otherwise. Please, Mr Weasley. I love her. In life and in death, that won’t ever change. Please do this. Let us do this. Let us have this. Please let us have tonight.”
Arthur’s eyes searched Draco’s, gauging his sincerity, finding nothing there but an unfulfilled desire to quiet the longing that wouldn’t stay hidden. He exhaled deeply with compassionate acceptance and nodded once. “As you wish. Please grasp each other’s wrists with your right hands.”
They kept their eyes on one another as a long, gold thread emerged from Arthur’s wand and settled over their joined hands, notching itself below their thumbs.
“Remember,” he began solemnly, “these ties are not meant to constrain, but to weave together two lives into one.”
“Do you vow to honour one another, as moonlight touches water – gentle, constant, and true?”
“We will,” they responded in unison, voiced clear and determined as the night breeze continued to whip around them, as if the gods themselves had descended to witness their clandestine, coveted union.
The gold thread that had draped around their hands tightened and tied off near their wrists.
“And so the first binding is made,” Arthur declared. “Do you vow to share each other’s pain, to bear what the other cannot, and to stand unshaken when the world asks more of you than it should?”
Hermione’s face crumpled a bit at his bittersweet choice of words, her eyes brimming with a heavyhearted ache as they responded together. “We will.”
A second gold thread erupted from Arthur’s wand and wrapped around their hands, following a similar path to the first.
“And so the next binding is made.”
Arthur’s gaze rose to the faces of the two brave, enamoured young adults before him, faces he’d watched grow and change with time; children he’d seen laughing in shops, bickering in school corridors, and he found himself overcome with emotion at the sight before him.
“Do you vow to share what fate lays upon you, to carry each other’s burdens as if they were bound to your own bones, and to walk together though tomorrow is not promised?”
Draco gritted his teeth, determined to hold steady, to assure the beautiful witch before him that he had every intention of promising her every tomorrow he could.
“We will,” they replied.
A third gold thread floated from Arthur’s wand to their hands, cradling them together before tying with finality.
“And so the next binding is made,” Arthur confirmed.
“Do you vow to seek the light within one another, even when the sea runs dark, and to guard each spark of joy as if it were the last before dawn?”
The last spark of joy before dawn.
Draco’s heart thundered in his chest, heavy with both fear and hope.
“We will,” he answered hoarsely, riding a fine line at being almost too overwhelmed for his voice to be more than a whisper.
“And so the last binding is made,” Arthur finished as a fourth gold thread hung over their wrists and hands like a mantle before tying off with a bow.
“As your hands are bound, so your spirits are twined – woven as tide and moon, each answering the other’s pull. The stars above bear witness; the earth below gives steadiness. Let your love be as the stars: enduring when all else is darkness and shadows. Let your love be as the earth beneath you: the ground that steadies when the world tilts towards storm. What dawn may bring is hidden from us, but this bond stands against it – stronger than fear, truer than fate, held fast in this night and in all nights yet to come.”
The four gold threads, still binding and fastening their hands together, lit up then to a bright yellow. With intricate swirls and flicks of his wand and hushed words, Arthur cast the ancient hand-fasting spell with the grace of a conductor leading a symphony. The four gold threads sank into Hermione and Draco’s skin, their handfasting vows forever carved into their bones below, forever swimming in their veins beside their life’s blood.
With a shaking hand, Draco reached into his pocket, holding out the seashell rings he’d made earlier by the light of the sun. With her own fingers trembling, Hermione reached forward, selecting the bigger one to hold onto as she held out her left hand.
With the silver of his eyes reflecting the starlight above and the crash of the waves playing a calm, percussive melody, Draco slipped the ring onto her finger, watching as it magically fitted itself to its rightful place.
“Bone of the earth, breath of the sea – this ring is my vow. I am yours, and you are mine. I walk with you into whatever fate waits for us.”
Hermione’s breath hitched, her lip quivering at his words. She licked her lips as she pushed his ring onto his finger, then squeezed his hands with hers, raising her eyes back to his.
“Bone of the earth, breath of the sea – this ring is my vow. I am yours, and you are mine. I hold you in my heart in this life and the next.”
With a hushed sob, Draco reverently lifted Hermione’s hand to his mouth, depositing a chaste kiss to her ring, sealing it with a gentle brush of his thumb.
Arthur’s eyes softened impossibly as he watched the emotion play across their youthful, overjoyed faces.
“Congratulations. Draco, you may kiss your wife,” he confirmed graciously, a cheery, pleased smile forming before his gaze discreetly dropped to the sand.
Hermione let out a soft laugh of disbelief, tears stinging as she stepped forward into Draco’s embrace.
“We did it.” Her incredulous murmur was a faint, warm breath fanning across his mouth, eliciting a noticeable shudder down his body.
He looked down at her tenderly, his fingers hooking a loose curl behind her ear. “Wife. Gods, are you actually mine?”
His voice rough with emotion, he tilted his face down to hers.
“Mine,” he murmured again, dipping his head further to brush his lips against hers so gently it could have been a rustling caress from the sea breeze. “Forever,” he whispered, his lips trailing feather-light kisses from her cheek to the corners of her mouth before moving in a slow, worshipful trail down her neck. His arms snaked tighter around her waist to hold her closer – as close as physically possible.
“I’ll take my leave of you both,” Arthur told them quietly.
Draco cast a glance up at the older man as he turned and disappeared into the darkness. “Thank you, Mr Weasley, for everything. Truly,” he offered sincerely before his eyes moved back down to her.
To his wife.
“We had the most perfect day,” Hermione whispered, wrapping her arms around his neck, her fingers lightly scratching the hair at the nape of his neck. “It was everything.”
His lips found hers. Then again. And again. And again, with kisses far too soft for how much he wanted them, until he was sure he could drink her down in one obsessive swallow, inhale her and drown in her and die happily, a man fully sated without having to face the unease that would come with the dawn.
“And we had the most perfect night,” he whispered back, “which I am determined to continue back in the quiet of our bedroom.” His lips moved tenderly across her jawline.
“Let me love you, wife.”
With a quiet, intimate sigh that grazed the sensitive skin of his throat, her eyes fluttered dazedly and sank into half-lidded lashes. Her pulse quickened beneath his warm touch, her breaths short and ragged.
“Don’t you dare stop loving me,” she insisted, “don’t you dare quit loving me, husband.”
Another shiver slithered down his spine as her plaintive voice curled against his ear. He shook his head, eyes glittering.
“I couldn’t. I won’t. Never. I swear it. I’ll love you so well that when the morning sun splinters across the sky, we’ll have seared the memory of this night into our hearts. I’ll hold onto that memory for the rest of my life, Hermione, no matter how many dawns I have left on this earth.” He swallowed hard, trying to speak over the sudden lump in his throat. “Even if it’s just one.”
The ocean crested and crashed at their feet, scooping up his plea in its inky black swirls, carrying his sworn declaration back out to sea as an offering to the Fates for their merciful intervention.
Because even though the tides keep their own counsel, beseeching destiny and even the stars themselves for a miracle couldn’t hurt.
Not if there was a chance it would buy him more time, no matter how little.
Surely, if he begged hard enough, Selene and Poseidon themselves would not allow his wedding night to be his only promised night as Hermione Granger’s husband.
And so, with his eyes closed in silent supplication, Draco Malfoy offered a wistful, humble, fervent appeal to the gods themselves.
Just in case.
Just in case.