An Indefinite Amount of Forever (A Harry Potter Fanfiction--Dramione)

Running Interference

Draco cringed as an abrupt brightness assaulted his slumber. He instinctively grabbed a pillow and covered his face, muffling the series of grumbles and grunts that he made in protest of the morning light.

"Wake up, sleepyhead," a bright, energetic Hermione said, pulling the covers back.

Draco glared bloody murder at his perky fiancée. "After we're married, we're going to set some ground rules regarding your sleeping habits."

"Woof. You're in a right snit this morning," she said, teasingly.

"Come back to beeed," he whined. "We're on holiday. There is no need for you to be up so early."

"You never complain when I wake you for sex."

He raised an eyebrow. "Is that why you're waking me now?"

"No."

"Then sidle your pretty arse back over here and let's sleep for another hour."

She rolled her eyes. "If you want to doze this beautiful weekend away, that's your prerogative. I, on the other hand, am going into town to find a signal for my mobile. Mum will be ecstatic when I tell her the news. She's probably been waiting by the phone since yesterday."

Draco blinked rapidly and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. "Yeah, um...funny thing," he said, clearing his throat. "Your mum doesn't know because...I didn't ask them."

Hermione raised her eyebrows. "You didn't?"

"No. Is that a problem?"

She released a surprised laugh. "Well, I don't care. But it seems rather out of character for a proper little pure-blood prince such as yourself not to follow protocol in matters such as this."

He sighed. "I know. And normally, I absolutely would have spoken to your father first. But extenuating circumstances made that an impossibility."

She narrowed her eyes. "What 'extenuating circumstances'?"

"The fact that your father utterly abhors me."

Hermione laughed loudly. "He does not."

Draco sighed. "Hermione. I know you're 'Daddy's Little Girl' and you can't possibly imagine that your father is anything other than a harmless, oversized teddy bear, but believe me when I say that he does not come across that way to the rest of us. To me, he's just a regular bear. A really big, scary, growling, mean, famished bear that would love nothing more than to rip my throat out if I so much as put my hand on your knee in his presence. That man has had it out for me from the first moment we met."

She rolled her eyes. "You're being dramatic."

"Oh yeah? I can assure you, Hermione, if my father were alive, he wouldn't want to cross your dad."

She put her hands on her hips and shot him a look. "You know he's going to be even worse now that you didn't ask him first? He's a traditionalist, my father."

"I'm aware, but I'd rather tell him that we're getting married when you're there so I can use you as a buffer, than ask his permission when we're alone with no witnesses."

"He wouldn't have said no. Honestly, you can be such a baby," she teased.

"Hermione, I know just how that conversation would have gone. 'Dr. Granger,'" he paused and looked at Hermione, "you know, because he won't let me call him 'Edward'. 'Dr. Granger, I very much would like to marry your daughter.' Then he'd pull out his sword from his days in the Royal Navy, which he loves reminding me about by the way, slice my bollocks off and tell me that he'd use my guts as garters before he ever gave me his blessing to marry his sweet little girl."