Lost Image | dramione

30 | the news

Hermione was in pretty high spirits, despite finding her parents walking to their car by the time she returned to the restaurant. Apparently, they hadn't decided to stay and eat. Go figure.

She should never have lied to them- she knew that. But nothing they said could make her flinch this time around. He loved her. He had told her that. She never would have thought those words could come out of that mouth, but it was true. It didn't matter that they started off bad, and it didn't matter that they were too young to be married. It didn't matter that they had had no choice but to marry each other. Because in the end, they loved each other, and how they got to that point was meaningless- just memories.

Now she had to make her parents stop worrying about her. Of course, they were probably still in shock... it might take time. They had good reason to be upset, afterall.

"Hermione, baby!" her mother said, scooping her into a hug the moment she noticed her. "I'm sorry- we didn't mean to scare you off. We were just-"

"You didn't scare me off, mom. You were just saying things that were true."

"Oh, hun... there must be something we can do?"

"Can we file a complaint with this Ministry of yours?" her father asked, hugging her in turn.

Hermione shook her head. "Trust me- plenty of people have tried. And the point is moot anyways- I told you that I'm happy. I wasn't being misleadingly optimistic, because I really am in a good place right now- I still have my friends, I still have my internship, and now I have Draco.... I didn't choose him on my own, but if given a choice right now I would. I'm okay. Don't worry about me."

"Well..." her mother said, crossing her arms and looking down at the toes of her pointy high-heels. "We would have been worried at the proper time, when all this started, if you had told us."

"You're right. I'm sorry... things were hard..."

"What he said is true, huh? You don't tell us things because you don't want other people to worry about you... but sometimes we need to worry. You're our little girl." her father said, and Hermione was instantly filled with shame at the breaking sound of his voice. She had hurt them by keeping this a secret, and she had known she would.

"Let's go home to eat- I'm starved," her mother added, leading Hermione to the car. "We can talk more... and maybe you can tell us if you have any more little secrets."

This could be a long day.

...

After waiting for what felt like forever, Draco finally made his way from the library to the dining room. Dinner was always at the same time, seven sharp, so if she was coming home at any time that would be it. He had been killing time looking through some new potions books Hermione had added to their library- really, she spent more money on books than anything else. And though she had been building Malfoy Manor's collection, she had still not used any money from their vault. She was stubborn to a point where it was ridiculous.

When Draco arrived at the dining room, he was surprised to see that it wasn't empty.

He hadn't seen much of his mother lately. She was always busy with one charity or another, trying to rebuild their family name, but more importantly she was in charge of their finances. There were many investments to be made and looked after, and Narcissa had been taking care of things while Lucius was gone. Draco himself had always expected his father to teach him what was required of managing the Malfoy estate, but obviously there had never been time.

If the work was tiring, his mother never let it show. She played the part of the carefree socialite well at parties- no one would guess she was actually the one holding the family up. It was unusual, in old families like theirs, for her to be placed in such a position. Draco wondered if she liked it or was counting the days for things to go back to normal.